1. The best thing in this life.

          2. The most convenient thing in this life.
                  Answer: 1. Good weather and good health.
                           2. Money

     What, from any stand-point, do you think is the best
             thing in this life?
                  Answer: Christianity.

     What, from any stand-point, do you think is the worst
             thing?
                  Answer: Sin.

Now, in my old age I do not wish to live my life over again, but I can see where I might have done better especially as it relates to the questions above. I might have taken more advantage of the good weather and avoided the bad. I might have taken better care of my health. I might have secured a little more money for the rainy days. I might have wedded myself more closely to Christianity, and have divorced myself more fully from sin.

But I am now in my old age content—am ready, and resting in the hope of the glory that shall be revealed. God is good. My counsel to my children and to all young people for many years has been, briefly stated:

     Take care of your health.
     Take care of your money.
     Take care of your religion.

But, to return to Lindley, Missouri and to the 19th year of my age, I find myself, Dr. Elmore, wife and boy, stopping with my brother Henry and his young family. Brother Henry is nine yeas my senior. He lives to this day. He had, a year or two before, moved to that place.

The next morning after we arrived in Lindley, Dr. Elmore was fixing the shaft of his buggy when his revolver fell from his pocket, was discharged and shot him in the breast, the ball ranging upwards and lodged in his shoulder. He soon got well, but the ball is with him to this day.

I never owned a gun, a dog, a fiddle, a pocket knife, a razor, a pipe, a cigar or cigarette, a plug of tobacco, or a hug of whiskey. I never had any use for these things. I do not wholly condemn all these, but I do think the world would be better and safer without guns, dirk knives, dogs, tobacco, and strong drink.

During my stay of almost five years in Grundy and Sullivan counties, Mo., I spent the time in teaching and attending school. The principal events of my life were my second birth, my first sermon, my first convert, my first funeral, my first marriage, (I mean the first marriage I ever solemnized), my first religious debate and my first vote.

I taught in both Sullivan and Grundy counties. I soon gained the same popularity as a teacher that I had in Indiana. I never sought schools. They always sought me. I attended the Baptist College in Trenton one year. It was a very pleasant and profitable year of my early life. It was before the war when the general talk was about slavery and a probable war.

One day I and a young friend, chum and class-mate, a son of a Baptist preacher, were studying our lessons under a large beech tree in the college campus. My mate said to me, "Hastings, aren't you an abolitionist?" I said, "Yes, I am." "I believe all men ought to be free." He answered, "I thought so, and so am I and my father too." "But I want to admonish you not to talk it so much." The admonition was well given, and well taken, for the forebodings of the day were that not talk but action would be the right step. And so it was, for it was not long before the whole country was in an awful fratricidal war. The like of which, I hope our country will never see again.

It was during this year the great migration took place to Pike's Peak for gold. Nearly every day the streets would be full of covered wagons bound for Pike's Peak. I noticed on one wagon written in great red letters, "Hastings, bound for Pike's Peak or Hell." It was the noon hour, and I said to the other boys, "There is a Hastings in this crowd, and I am going to find him." I went into a grocery store where many of them were buying provisions. I soon picked him out, a tall good looking fellow, then besides he swore a great deal which tallied with what I saw on the wagon, so I stepped up to him and said, "Is your name Hastings?" He answered with an oath that it was. I said to him, "I see from what is written on your wagon that you are bound for Pike's Peak or Hell." Without waiting for him to reply, I further said, "I think from the way you are going, and the way you talk, you will probably get to both places." At first he looked like he was going to hit me, and then he smiled and said, "You don't swear?" I said, "No, nor do I think you ought to swear." He said, "Probably I ought not."

Then I told him my name was Hastings too. He shook hands with me and we had quite a visit. But he swore no more in my presence. We could trace no kinship, and I was a little glad of it. I do not think any man is totally depraved, but some are very nearly so. There is less excuse for swearing than almost any other sin.

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C H A P T E R S I X

Conversion. First sermon. Funerals and Weddings.

From my earliest childhood I have attended Sunday Schools and church services. I have believed that God is, that Jesus Christ is the son, and that the Bible is true. Years before I became a Christian I had desired to be such and worship God with other Christians. But I did not know which church to join. Mother said, read the Bible and learn. One leader said do this, another said do that. No two agreed. I did not know what to do to become one among the Christians. I prayed to God but if God spake to me in an audible voice I did not know it. But these thoughts ran through my mind. I believe and that far is all right, because the Bible so teaches and so do all the churches. It ran through my mind that I ought to tell somebody else besides God that I believe, so one day I went down town, where there were quite a number of people worshipping God, and they said they were Christians. I said I believe too, and publicly confessed and told all the men that I believed in God and that Jesus Christ was God's son. They all, both men and women seem glad and I was told that all the churches, as well as the Bible, taught that that was right.

Then again, in my mind, I realized that is was a shame and was sorry that I had sinned against God and neglected to turn to him. So, I determined to sin no more but from henceforth to obey God and follow the Lord Jesus always if possible until death. The Bible approved of that procedure, all the churches preached that was right.

Then it ran in my mind that I ought to be baptized and in order to be safe and right, I asked that I might in my baptism be submerged in water and raised up, for the Bible seemed to talk that way, and all the churches said that that way would do. So, I asked a man whom the good people of all the churches so far as I knew, call the Bishop B. H. Smith (no kin to Joe Smith), to baptize me. He did so my immersing me in Medicine Creek in Grundy County, Mo., and raising me up, I came walking up out of the water calling on the name of God. This occurred on the 18th day of September 1858. Ever since then, a half century and more I have been serving, God, keeping his commandments, following his Son, my Load and Master, and praying always. Now all this the Bible teaches, and so do all the churches. Now what church do I belong to? You tell. Will I be saved? You say. Why cannot we all, Christians, take the Bible at what it says, and what all churches approve and be one church? You answer. You know we need not worry about the God side. He