Weapons in the Fight: Personal Characteristics

“His was the saint’s high faith,
And quenchless Hope’s pure glow.
And perfect Charity, which 2aid
The world’s fell tyrant low.
In him the Father shone;
In him the Son o’ercame;
In him the Holy Spirit wrought,
And filled his heart with flame.”

It is exceedingly difficult to analyze what men call personal power. It is easily recognized and readily confessed, but its elements are not easily discovered or described. John Vassar struck blows that fell heavy and cut deep. What were the weapons used? Dropping the figure, what made him the man he was?

Certain constitutional peculiarities probably helped: natural ardor, vivacity, persistency, sympathy, had something to do with the work. We will not leave them altogether out of the account. But the real springs of character were not in these. The palm of the desert, fruitful and beautiful, does not find its supplies in itself. Nor does it find them in the burning, blistering sand out of which it grows. The sources of its life lie deeper down. Far underneath are veins of water at which its rootlets drink and from which they draw up nourishment which keeps the uppermost and outmost leaves fresh and fair when sultry suns are smiting. A consecrated life depends on unseen and eternal sources for what it is and what it gives. Some of Uncle John’s characteristics have of necessity been brought in sight, and the secret sources of their strength have been glimpsed as we have gone along. They need, however, to be set in a stronger light, and all eyes turned on them; for the practical effect of this book will be short-lived and superficial unless Christian men can be made to see what are, and must ever be, the elements as well as the sources of personal spiritual power.

Though it may involve more or less repetition, then let the strong points of the man be stated and emphasized, and further illustrated.

UnflincJiing loyalty to the Lord Jesus Christy based on an adoring love, was the mainspring to all he was and all lie did.

Somebody has said of Arnold of Rugby that “the central fact of his experience was his close, conscious, and ever-realized union and friendship with the Lord Jesus; and that in the ever-flowing fulness of his heart every expression of affection that might pass between earthly friends passed between him and the Divine Man whom as a friend he had in heaven, and to whom with an exhaustless enjoyment he clung.” A picture in words this of Uncle John. An irreverent mention of the Saviour’s name would cause him keen distress. While we were residing in Lynn, Mass., he made us several flying visits, on one of which a Unitarian gentleman of the city said to him, in a flash of irritation, “Sir, to pay divine honor to this Jesus of Nazareth of whom you talk so much is in my opinion insulting to the Almighty.” It was hours before Uncle John got over that. It pained him more than if child or brother had received a cruel thrust.

And he was just as sensitive if there was no recognition of that Name where he thought it ought to have

a place. One day he came out of W Street church,

where a noted minister had preached, and with a grieved, disappointed look and a quivering voice he

said, “Oh, T, he never mentioned the name of

Jesus once.”

And in all this there was not a particle of pretence or cant. This love of Christ was not a fancy or a sentiment. It was a principle, a passion, an abiding motive. It was the antidote against worldliness. It was the incentive to action which this world could not understand, and for which it sometimes had nothing more than scorn. Heavy loads and hard toils grew light when with this affection the heart glowed. Poverty, reproach, death even — what were they but the passing flurries of an April day? Who that was intimate but has heard him say:

“One smile, one blissful smile of Thine,
My dearest Lord, outweighs them all.”

When they were probing among his shattered ribs for the fatal bullet, the French veteran exclaimed, “A little deeper, and you will find the emperor.” In Uncle John’s heart the deepest emotion was love for his Saviour. Deeper than the love of home, deeper than the love of kindred, deeper than the love of country, aye deeper than the love of life, was his affection for that Redeemer who had first loved him and given Himself for him. He did not talk so much of heaven as many Christians do. He talked of being with the Lord and like Him. That was his ideal of the coming blessedness.

Out of this attachment grew what was probably the next most prominent feature of his life, and one of the mightiest forces in his work — his habitual and almost unbroken intercourse with God in prayer.

A man who came so near a literal compliance with the apostolic charge, “Pray without ceasing,” few Christians in these latter days have known. One long his pastor, and longer still his friend, bears testimony on this point that a stranger might think too strong, but every word of which hundreds would indorse.

“He absolutely prayed day and night. Prayed about every thing. Prayed over every thing. Prayed for almost everybody, and prayed with almost everybody whom he met. He prayed when he went out, and when he came in. He prayed before every religious service, and then prayed all the way through it. I have roomed with him night after night, and rarely went to sleep without hearing him at prayer, or awoke without finding him at prayer. He seldom, if ever, came into my house or study that he did not propose a season of prayer, no matter how brief might be the call, or what the errand that brought him there.”

IV£AP0A’S IN THE FIGHT. lis

His gift in prayer was very remarkable — more remarkable, we think, than his gift of speech, though that was sometimes wonderful, and always of a more than ordinary kind. Several special supplications of his have already been referred to, and prayers very like them others will recall.

William N. Sage, Esq., of Rochester, N. Y., speaks of one such which he offered in that city a dozen years ago. The First Baptist Church had just finished a “memorial chapel” on Lake Avenue, and before its formal dedication Uncle John and the late Deacon Oren Sage — a kindred spirit — went into it alone, and there on bended knees wrestled with God that His awakening and converting Spirit might so fill those courts that of many of the finally redeemed it might be said, “This man and that were born there.” He further adds that most signally and graciously God answered that request, and by displays of His salvation made the place of His feet glorious.

In a prayer-meeting he was a host. If a spirit of dulness or heaviness pervaded it, somehow it seemed, as he began to wrestle, to be lifted off. One of the members of his own church who has already been quoted tells what animation his simple presence gave to the little company that met there in the usual devotional meetings of the week.

“He was often sent home to rest by the Tract Society, but before he would go home even he would stop into the prayer-meeting of his church if it happened to be going on. If we did not see him enter we would quickly know that he was there. Oh, how he would wrestle for the dear old church in which he was born again! Then how he would recount recent wonders of redeeming grace, keeping himself all the time in the background and giving God the glory. No matter how truthfully we might have been singing

“Hosannas languish on our tongues,
And our devotion dies,”

it seemed as we listened to him as good to be there as it was to the apostles to be on the mount of transfiguration, and the Lord granted us such revelations of Himself as m.ade our place of prayer something like that hilltop for radiance.”

Few phrases are more common among Christian men than this, “the privilege of prayer;” but it is greatly to be feared that many who use it would more correctly represent their own personal feeling if they were to ‘spdiy ‘’ yiQ drudgery oi prayer.” At least an honest conscience would compel them to say that it was a dull duty; uninviting often, and sometimes positively irksome, and engaged in as much to keep a sense of obligation quiet as for any thing else. Now to John Vassar prayer was a privilege, a blessed privilege, and a real deep delight. It was a lament of the prophet over the degeneracy of God’s people, “None stirreth Jiiinself up to take hold of Thee.” That is, devotion was a droning, drawling thing. There was no holy energy about the exercise. This was not true of Uncle John. He seemed to know the meaning of those mysterious expressions,” Praying in the Holy

Ghost.” “With all prayer in the Spirit;” and so his supplications were intense. There was a specific object to attain. Coming to the throne of grace was not a romance or a pious farce. Me could not approach it “with easiness of desire.” He could not tamely beg. There were “deep-swelling sensibilities,” as Dr. Phelps calls them, to be relieved. It was deep calling unto deep.

Whether the repeated instances given us of his praying along the roads, and in stores and shops, are to be commended and held up for our example, is a question concerning which good men may disagree. Circumstances would have to decide the case. In many instances it might be a perfectly proper thing to do; at least a perfectly proper thing for him. We should not feel warranted to urge such a course on all. A brother pastor near us voices about our own opinion in the case: “It seemiS to me that it would be a fatal mistake for many to venture on the ground which Uncle John trod with so much success. Very few could say or do what he did without making * a mess ’ of it. There must be the mail, the character; so much depends on that. The tone, the manner, the evident sincerity, may command respect in one case where it would be very offensive in another. What is heroic boldness in one man might be insolent rudeness in another, and do vastly more harm than good.”

Obviously enough, the besetting sin of good men to-day is not to “violate the proprieties” in their efforts to save souls; so v»4iile not insisting that Uncle

John’s example is a model in every particular for all who would win the wandering to Christ, the question may well be asked, and seriously pondered, whether we are not in danger, by our over-nice notions concerning means and methods, of letting men perish whom we have been commanded to pull out of the fire.

Interwoven with these other qualities there was in Uncle John a mighty faith.

No place and no case seemed too hard or too hopeless for him to grapple with. Forbidding circumstances and a gloomy outlook never shook his trust nor tied his tongue. Indeed, he saw no gloomy outlook, for he did not look out so much as tip. If asked what the prospect was in any direction, he would have said, with Adoniram Judson, “As bright as the promises of God.” He did not believe simply in the God of ages ago. He believed in the God of to-day. He could not be persuaded that the wonder-working Spirit finished His operations at Pentecost. He could not be convinced that the supernatural was no longer to be looked for. He could see no reason why the modern Saul of Tarsus should not be as sharply called and as suddenly turned as the ancient persecuting zealot was. When going on what others regarded as “a forlorn hope,” he would go into the closet and beg for a special anointing, an enduement of power from on high, and then with a deepened confidence start out. “One day he went to call on a lady whose husband was a skeptic and a bitter opposer of religion. The man saw him entering the gate, and stepping to the ooor, said, * You are coming here to pray with my uite, I presume. Now let me tell you I don’t allow any prayer in this house. Leave at once, and never show your face here again.’ Uncle John hesitated a moment, then left, and going to his stopping-place plead long and earnestly for help to reach that case. Rising from his knees, and * nothing doubting,’ he went strLight back to the house from which he had been less than an hour before repulsed. The man again met him, and after a moment’s parleying told him that if he would not pray he might come in. Uncle John refused to make any such promise, but nevertheless got in. An urgent message from God was soon ringing in the unbeliever’s ears, and before the interview ended, humbled and subdued he was bowing by the side of Uncle John listening to supplications for his own salvation.”

Again and again, when assured that a contemplated effort would be fruitless, that it would be the sinking of a bucket in a dry well, and the bringing of nothing up, he would beg the privilege of trying. He would get a church or a school-house open, and then explore the region to invite the people out. Almost invariably a revival would commence. Often God would triumph gloriously. Converts would be multiplied. Dull churches or dull Christians would get aglow. There would be apostolic work because it was underlaid and pushed with apostolic faith.

It would be foolish, and even false, to say that religiously there are no hard fields and no hard souls.

There are both. When Christ appointed the Seventy, the record is that He sent them” into every city and place whither He himself would come.’’ It sometimes looks now as if there were places where He did not come. They seem as dry, spiritually, as those mountains of Gilboa would have been, literally, had David’s desire been granted and neither rain nor dew had dropped upon their slopes. There are hearts that do appear almost unimpressible. Warnings and appeals, no matter how faithful or how pungent, seem to glide off like hail from a slated roof, and leave traces as faint and few behind.

In such circumstances one needs the faith Elijah had when, with the brazen skies hanging over Carmel, he bade Ahab hurry homeward before the rain should overtake. Uncle John had it in an eminent degree. He never forgot what grace had done for him. He believed it could do as much for any other m.an.

His acquaintance with the Bible was ve7’y intimate and thorough, every promise and penalty and precept and prophecy being apparently at his command.

To him Scripture was the one standard of Christian truth. To its teachings nothing was to be added; from its decisions there could be no appeal. In dealing with errorists, the only question he would allow himself to look at was. What has God said? The moment any thing like quibbling or cavilling was heard, out would come his well-worn Testament, and text after text would be turned to till captious lips were closed. The inspired Word was the book he studied most. It was to him exactly what it claims to be — “the sword of the Spirit;” and what was the hilt, and what the blade, and how to get hold of the one and smite with the other, was what he sought to know. The authenticity of Scripture he never stopped to argue. He boldly assumed that, and then by its utterances every opinion must be hewed and squared.

We shall make a great mistake, however, if we get the impression that he studied the Bible chiefly as a controversialist. It was not so much an armory whence to draw weapons as a well whence to draw, waters for a thirsty soul. The daily draught was a refreshing and delight. Out of the divine testimonies he drew help and comfort in every case. If he found himself after a day of hard labor with half an hour of spare time before an evening meal or meeting, he would seize the inspired volume as eagerly as he would a letter from home, and some sweet promise, read perhaps for the thousandth time, would bring a smile to his face, and put audible praise upon his tongue.

Nor was it only the doctrinal and devotional portions of Scripture that he pored over and enjoyed. The prophecies were a mine of wealth that he dug into as a treasure-seeker might dig into beds of precious ore. Along their dimmest passages, and in their obscurest recesses, he traced the footprints of his Lord. Christ coming or Christ to come again, and the fortunes of His cause between the first and second advents, he saw promised and presaged at every step. And it is but just to say that while all might not accept his inter pretations of prophecy, or the views to which they led, none could doubt that his knowledge of their letter was extensive and exact.

This exhaustive acquaintance with God’s word could not fail to make itself felt. Men saw that he was not dogmatically insisting on his own notions or impressions or conceits. They were asked not to listen to him or to believe him, but the message which God had sent. The very reverence with which he treated the message showed that he regarded it as God-sent. And when he came with comfort, though the manner might be human, the matter was divine. It was not the weak, uncertain words of earth he spoke; it was the strong, infallible words of heaven. Such utterances must carry weight. What man may think or feel is perhaps of little consequence; what God says is of vital importance to a thoughtful soul.

Perhaps the quality that would be noticed soonest and most deeply felt was the man’s burning zeal. It glowed in the awful earnestness with which he pressed his personal appeals. We use the word “awful” ad. visedly and deliberately, for no other would be as exact.

A writer in the Watchjiariy of Boston, refers to it in this story — a story so characteristic that any one who knew Uncle John would have inferred that he was the man referred to had no name been given.

“While laboring with me a few years since in Boston, he wished to call on a Christian gentleman who was living at one of our fashionable boarding-houses.

A young friend of mine who went with him to show him the place reported what occurred. While waiting ii the parlor to be shown to the gentleman s room, he opened conversation with a very fashionable and proud-looking lady who was sitting in the room. With great concern he began to urge the necessity of the new birth and immediate acceptance of Christ upon her. She was thunderstruck, and protested that she did not believe in any of those things. Then followed a most fervent appeal, texts of Scripture, warnings against rejecting Christ, the certainty of a wrath to come for any found in impenitence, till at last my friend said he was fairly alarmed at the boldness of the assault. Suddenly the gentleman came in for whom he was waiting and called him out. The friend sat watching from behind his newspaper for the effect of the interview. In a moment the lady’s husband came in. * There has been an old man here talking with me about religion,’ she said. ‘Why did you not shut him up? ’ he asked gruffly. ‘He is one of those persons you carit shut up, ’ was her reply. * If I had been here,’ he said, * I would have told him very quickly to go about his business.’ ‘If you had seen him you would have ihoitgJit he was about his business, ’ was her answer. No truer tribute could be paid to him than that. Never did I see one who could * close in with a soul,* as the old Puritans used to phrase it, like him.” See the same trait shine out in such an incident as Rev. S. B. Almy, of Mattewan, one of Uncle John’s dear friends in the younger ministry, relates.

*’ In the vv inter of 1872, while at home on a brief visit from Florida, he spent a few days with the pastor of a Presbyterian Church in his native county. Some began to be concerned about their salvation, and special meetings were appointed at the church. One day the minister was taken ill. There was an appointment out for preaching that very night. Nine miles Uncle John walked through snow and slush to get some one to fill the gap, and then kept on with his calls from house to house to get the people out to hear the Word.

*’ This is the way he spent the vacation given him to rest in! Well might his pastor say on the day of his burial, ‘More truthfully than any other man I ever knew he might have said, *’ the zeal of Thine house hath eaten me up. “*”

“In Uncle John a mind of natural strength and fervency had received a powerful impulse from on high. To him, religious things were not invisible and distant, they were seen and present. His awakened soul accepted Bible truths as living and wonderful realities. Christ’s cross and judgment-seat seemed very near, radiant with tender attractions and with awful glories. The curtain concealing futurity had fallen; and from beholding the endless destinies of the righteous and the wicked, he turned to his fellow-men, and earnestly besought them to seek the divine favor and preparation for heaven.

“His practical zeal for God and souls, arising from a vivid realization of the truths of religion, was no temporary flame. Burning with wonderful brightness, and with marvellous fervor, it was the immediate cause of his ceaseless activity,”

“His intellect and emotions were stirred. The wisdom of perception was united to the vitalizing gloss of ardent feeling. A man of ordinary capacity, hurled ever forward by burning zeal, will perform more than he of tenfold ability cold and passionless. The most sluggish are moved by the magnetic power of a master-mind stirred to its depths by a mighty purpose. It was zeal that possessed David Livingstone, and drove him into the unknown regions of Africa — that held him in Africa until he died on bended knee, hugging Africa to his heart in dying prayer. It is not when man has zeal, but when zeal has the man, filling, controlling, inspiring him, that success is sure.”

More than this. Uncle John possessed remarkable persistency of purpose.

Zeal is sometimes flashy and fitful. It is good for a dash, but not for a siege. It takes hold well, but it does not keep hold. In the heathery turf of Scotland there is a plant whose roots run but a little distance and then terminate as squarely as if they had been chopped off. The superstitious country folks around assert that great medicinal virtue originally dwelt in these roots, and that to destroy it the great enemy of man once bit them off. A quaint fancy, of course, but something very like it is the fact in many a life. Good plans are frustrated; praiseworthy schemes issue in nothing; pious activities result in failure, because an inconstant will is allowed to bite them off.

aoo UNCLE JOHN VASSAR.

Uncle John’s tenacity was wonderful. It was hard to shake him off. We entered a house of our congregation with him one day where we met a young man from Virginia who had come North to attend school. The others present being Christians, Uncle John soon fastened all the conversation upon him. We never saw him so press and push a soul. He had found a lost sheep, and seemed determined, “shepherd’s dog” that he was, to keep at it till he had worried it home. Again and again we feared that he was crowding too hard and too far. But he had been out on many such a service before, and what he was about he knew very well. Before the house was left, a sincere penitent was on his knees pleading for mercy, and was soon rejoicing in Christ as his portion. Three or four years have gone since then, and the one so wrestled with, a useful and earnest Christian now, has many a time blessed the Lord that he was not given up that day.

His tact was a characteristic that should not be underestimated or left unnamed.

*’ He seldom made a blunder. His knowledge of human nature seemed almost intuitive. He read men at a glance, and pierced the surface of things as by magic. He knew how to approach men, what to say to them, and when to have done with them. He adapted himself to all classes and conditions when talking of Christ. The school-girl or the college professor, the millionaire or the hard-handed son of toil, a sailor or a soldier — with equal readiness and skill he met them all. His mind was a perfect storehouse of

Scripture, and he had a verse on his tongue’s end to serve him at every time.” It must be a very dull man whom he could not make to see, a very hard man whom he could not make to feel, a very stubborn man whom he could not to some extent bend, and a very sharp one whom he could not match. When any one attempted to foil him he would head him off by a move that might be called a piece of strategy. * On one occasion” (this from Dr. G. M. Stone) “he went to visit a young lady for religious conversation. She saw him approaching, and went up stairs to avoid him. Uncle John, upon coming in, comprehended the situation at a glance, and requested that the door of the stairway might be opened. He then knelt at the foot of the stairs and sent up a melting petition to God in behalf of the person named.”

He was equal to any emergency that might arise. If any imagined that, because his heart was so tender, he could be easily outgeneralled that, because he was guileless and unsuspecting, he could be taken at a disadvantage and put in an awkward place or plight, they would quickly find out their mistake. The Christain Intelligencer must be held responsible for this story — a story which illustrates this feature in his character, and is too good to be lost:

“While laboring in the Army of the Potomac he was called out of bed one night by a messenger, who represented that a soldier in a certain tent was in great distress of mind. On reaching the tent indicated he found several officers seated around a keg of beer which had been brought from Washington, and he was invited to join them and take a drink. Taking in the situation at a glance, he told them he could not do it without first asking the blessing of God. So, grasping the arm of the principal man, he fell on his knees and poured out an ardent prayer for the company, after which they were glad to let him go. The story got out, and for months afterward one of those men could hardly show his face without being asked about the prayer-meeting they had set up. Uncle John was too much for them.”

Another who tells the story says that there were two prayers, and singing and exhortation beside.

Any number of illustrations might be given, as showing forth this characteristic, but we will add only this.

“Shortly after the evacuation of Richmond the American Tract Society sent a District Secretary with Uncle John into that city to establish a depository of its publications and a centre of colportage. As was right these brethren sought the cooperation, at least the approval, of the pastors of the churches, a company of whom had assembled to consider their duty in the new emergency. The Secretary being allowed to speak, expressed the wish of his Society to cooperate with the brethren in rebuilding the wastes of the war, in reorganizing their Sabbath-schools and granting them libraries in lieu of those scattered. A prominent and honored divine, still smarting under the inflictions of the Union army, repelled the proffered help, rejected the extended

WEAPONS IiV THE EIGHT. 203

hand of Christian friendship, and said somewhat warmly his people would prefer publications with the imprint of London to that of New York. Others spoke, and a storm was evidently rising when Uncle John in his quick and gentle way said, ‘Let us pray,’ and without a moment’s hesitation was upon his knees, and poured out such a prayer as melted and harmonized all hearts, and as they rose the venerable pastor with tears and a warm handshake, said, * Brethren, I cannot stand any longer in opposition to your Christian offer. My heart is with you.’ Soon thereafter a colporteur was appointed in his locality, and has ever since continued his labors in that and adjoining places.”

This other trait was most remarkably manifest in the man: Under all inequalities of circumstance or condition he sazu a soul to be saved, and realized its worth. When he went to call on the President of the United States he paid him the respect due to his high office, but did not let go of his hand till he had spoken to him of the Lord Jesus and put to him most courteously the question that was ever on his lips.

When he was introduced to Brigham Young in his Salt Lake City home he made the same appeal, and pressed the same searching inquiry on his soul. A distinguished Liberal Religionist of our day has tauntingly said that “evangelicals” had shown a remarkable indifference about his “salvation.” Once only had anybody ever exhorted him to repentance, and then he himself drew the exhortation out. He never could have met John Vassar and afterward have truthfully said that

Rut Uncle John was just as solicitous for a private m the army, a negro in his cabin, a child in the Sunday-school. There was no difference between them in his eyes.

This is the story which his friend Rev. Mr. Hazard tells: “Uncle John and myself occupied adjoining rooms in a boarding-house near the Capitol at Washington in the winter of 1867. On going down stairs to breakfast one morning I found him standing there in earnest conversation with one of the colored servants, and it needed but a hasty glance to see that he was urging a most tender and affecting appeal for immediate attention to the concerns of the soul. Class or color was of little consequence to him. He was a * winner of souls,’ and I doubt if he left one his equal in this land when he passed away.”

He was a man of deep and tender sympatJiy.

No matter what indifference, ingratitude, or even imposition he encountered, nothing could freeze over, nay, even chill, the generous sensibilities of his soul. Suffering of any sort would touch him to the quick. Nor would he show it only by words and tears. A sympathy that had nothing but sentiment in it he rated cheap. He was emotional, but he was practical as well. Pity did not glisten in his eye and drop from his tongue only. It sent his feet running on errands, and his hand helping wherever there was need. When Dr. Tyng had him at the Gospel Tent work in New York City he carried not only the Bread of Life to starving souls, but many a literal loaf to hungry mouths.

Having access to our lines in war time to an extent which few enjoyed, he would fairly load himself down as he returned from Washington or Alexandria with parcels for the men. More than once he went from “the front” to the national capital when they were fifty miles apart to get some delicacies for suffering men, walking both ways, nor counted it a hardship as he trudged along.

In a time of affliction his heart went right out toward the smitten and sorrowing. He had gone through sore straits of anguish himself, and when others were in them he went to their sides to weep with those that wept and whisper of the Comforter.

While the body of Dr. Babcock lay in the house awaiting burial, Uncle John called, and was taken by the family into the room where the dear old pastor rested as if asleep. Approaching the casket, and looking down upon the face which death had so little changed, he exclaimed, “My Father, my Father, the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof.” Then recalling the time of his conversion and the guiding counsels given by these now still lips, he said, “Under God I owe all that I am to this man.” The prayer that followed we can imagine, not describe. The household group, bowed with him, say that while it was being offered they had such glimpses of the coming glory as lifted them on eagle’s wings, and brought the deep peace of paradise very near.

Many a reader of this book will remember some similar scene. When the shadow of bereavement hung heavily over the heart and home, when the coffin or the new grave seemed somehow to have come between their souls and heaven, he carried them up to his Lord so lovingly, and laid them so feelingly in the Everlasting Arms, that the sorrow was half lifted and the shadows more than half swept away.

He was a man of marked humility.

We are quite sure that no one ever heard him utter a boastful word. “Unto me, who am less than the least of all saijiis, is this grace given;” this was the spirit in which he lived his life and did his work. He never sought to put himself forward or take the lead. No chaplain, preacher, pastor whom he was aiding ever felt that Uncle John was seeking to take the command or put the properly commissioned leader back. He was particularly careful to magnify the office of the Christian minister. In the agencies for bringing a lost world back to God he always put the living preacher first. Nor did he parade his personal piety, nor trumpet his attainments in the Christian life. Judged by all the standards that we know any thing about, the mark he reached was very high; but no one would have learned that from his lips.

Dr. Stone says, “I once asked him what bethought of the doctrine of perfect sanctification in this life. His answer was, * I do not doubt we may have high experiences of Christ’s love, and great degrees of submission and joy, but the difficulty is to keep there.’ Many times since I have felt the wisdom and spiritual insight of his words.”

So anxious was he to avoid even the appearance of egotism that it was difficult to get him to speak of details and results of work which many, when he was talking publicly and privately, would have been pleased to hear.

And there was no affectation in this. There is an assumed humility which is more disgusting and unbearable than outspoken, arrogant conceit. Any thing but a sanctimionious, abject air put on for effect’s sake; a depreciation of self for the purpose of getting higher compliments. You can laugh at overweening vanity; the other thing excites contempt and scorn. Men saw that Uncle John’s humility was genuine. Sincerity shone out in every word. He had no selfish ends to accomplish. He had no ambitious projects to carry out. The test he had to stand was searching. When a man emerges from obscurity to be recognized as a positive force in the religious movements of his age, the retaining of an unmagnified self-estimate is difficult indeed. But here was a man who bore the test. Let others say what they might, he knew that he was just John Vassar, nothing more and nothing less. Self-seeking of every sort he scorned; nay, more, he abhorred it from his very heart. All who came in contact with him saw that he was not striving for honor or grasping for money; he had just one object, and that was to save their souls.

This enumeration of characteristics would be incomplete if we failed to mention the broad and catholic spirit of the man.

2oS UNCLE JOHN VASSAR.

Denominationally he was a Baptist. The peculiai views and practices of that branch of the Saviour’s church he intelligently and conscientiously held. In the proper place he would maintain and defend them He refused, however, again and again, to leave the seu vice of the Tract Society to engage in purely denominational work. He felt he could reach more men on its union basis than he could if laboring in the interests of a particular sect. And to turn men to righteousness was more important in hie estimation than the gathering of them around this peculiar standard or that. He rendered a loyal allegiance to the ensign of his own particular corps, but the one flag on which the cross was blazoned he would lift over all. Around that first he would rally men, and then afterward have them go into such church relations as each might choose.

This being his great aim, he went among all churches holding an evangelical faith, little caring what the name might be. And we doubt whether the sharpest-eared or the keenest-eyed critic would have detected the slightest difference in the testimony which he bore. One message he everywhere voiced. One need he emphasized. One Helper he pointed out. And it might be added that the style of working and the results witnessed were everywhere much the same — the same in kind at least if not in measure. We have in this volume statements from representative men in the Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Congregational, Episcopal, and Reformed churches, touching this man and his labors, and so much alike are the opinions which they pass, and the affection they express, that all of them might have been written by any single hand.

The strongest points In the man’s character have now been sketched. It will seem like a poor, dull picture to those who knew the original when he was at his best. It may help, however, to show what made him such a power. Give to any man such qualifications in any such degree, and he will make himself felt. Nothing so gets hold upon the world, nothing so keeps hold, as an unselfish, consecrated life.

One who has furnished some of the incidents mentioned here in a private note says: “You and I, and all who knew the man, have before us an evidence of the truth of the Gospel and a proof of its power. Whatever else may be quibbled about or argued away, the power which kept that man going, doing, praying, that cannot be disposed of either by logic or a sneer.”

Mrs. John H. Ketcham, who was familiar with his army work, as well as many other labors, writing from Washington and speaking for herself and the General, says:

“Wherever his name was known It was the synonym for godliness — that is, Christlikeness; and ’ greater honor hath no man than this. ’

“He will always live in the hearts of those who knew him, and who beheld in him one without guile or thought of self, who gave his life to men and to the Master.

“Our recollections of him are of the pleasantest, and we are glad that the loveliness of his character and the grandeur of a life so full of toil and sacrifice are to be set forth.”

It is very evident that men of this stamp are the gieat need in all our Christian work. The age is positive, active, driving, and its wickedness is of a similar type. Men of God who are going to meet it must match it in resoluteness and aggressiveness. The question once asked by the Master must be the question of those who follow in his train, ‘* Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?” The motto for the hour is, “At it, and ever at it, till He comes.” The prevalent piety is not of such a tone. Most of it is of a lower grade. It is decent, moderate, quiet. Spiritual indolence is in these times the worst foe our holy religion has to encounter. It is not that men openly reject and make war upon it, but that they drowsily sleep around its altars. It is that they are content with such paltry satisfactions and tinsel comforts as the senses can bribe them with, heedless of what bids them claim communion with the skies. It is that eternity has no awfulness to them, life no depth of meaning, enjoyment no obligations, bereavement no solemnity, suffering and sorrow no prophetic suggestions of an hereafter, conscience no echo of God, Christ no enrapturing beauty, holiness no pledge of heaven.” Next to the Holy Spirit in its sevenfold energies the great want of the church is godly men: men girded with awful zeal; men who beg no favors of worldly policy; men who have the staunch, uncompromising sincerity of old confessors, and yet whose speech Is the benediction of charity. Men who will thrust in the unwilling face of darkness all the light of God, and whom no disappointments can palsy, no opposition embitter, and no misgivings keep back. Given such men, and they will have influence. Skeptics, moralists, easy-going religionists, will feel it. They may not understand it, they may not like it, but there will be something real about it; and, after all, reality is what this world wants. When it sees a man who acts as if this earth were a show and a dream, and his home over in “the blue eternities,” somehow it will feel that he has something which it lacks. Uneasiness begins to stir. There is a disposition to say, “After all, this is what we want. We are not satisfied. We are not happy. We are not at peace. It’s all a make-believe, a cheat, a lie. Tell us how we can be made better, holier; how we can front God, and look the splendors of His judgment in the face.”

We have plenty of machinery for the doing of evangelistic work, but machinery will accomplish no more toward bringing in Christ’s kingdom than draining sand-deserts would do toward making them fruitful. Men of the right stamp — this is the crying want. These multiplied, and the cause of the Master might speedily move on to those victories which in Scripture are prophesied and pledged.