New Campaigns: Work Among Freedmen and Miners

“Where our Captain bids us go,
‘Tis not ours to murmur No;
He that gives the sword and shield
Chooses too the battle field.”

The armies of the nation vanished as suddenly as they emerged, leaving but “the blessed memory of the rights they vindicated, and the honorable scars of the wrongs which they redressed.” Chaplains who had been granted leave of absence from their flocks went back to lead them as aforetime through the green pastures and beside the still waters of Gospel peace. Uncle John did not follow the disbanding regiments northward. He saw a new field for operations opening in the States which war had stripped and torn and gashed. To enter it would require great tact and grace. Sectional animosities could hardly fail to be engendered during a four years* struggle, costing the lives of half a million men — animosities lasting and bitter and deep. This incident, given by Rev. G. S. Mott, D.D., of Flemington, N. J., would probably be a fair illustration of the temper of those times:

Soon after hostilities ceased, Uncle John was sent by the Tract Society into a certain section of Virginia to ascertain what the public feeling was with reference to the Society and its work. Among those called upon was a prominent Presbyterian clergy, man, whom he met on entering the yard, or at the gate. On making known his errand the minister replied, ‘Do you know what is in my heart? ’ ‘Of course not,’ said Uncle John, ’ but I hope it is good.’ * Not at all,’ was the reply. * My feeling is to kill you. I hope God gives me grace to prevent me from carrying that feeling out, but now you know just how I feel toward the North.’

“Before the interview ended the angry preacher was thoroughly melted down, but the wrathful and vindictive spirit with which he greeted a brother Christian was a sample of the disposition dominant in those days.” To overcome it would require calmness, readiness, self-control, and in a sevenfold degree that charity which suffereth long and is kind.

Those who did not know the man whom we are tracing may think it almost incredible that he should have possessed these qualities. To them he has been represented as an excitable, impulsive, emotional enthusiast, rushing hither and thither all aflame; and they cannot understand how such a character could ever have been a peacemaker, how such a zealot could have poured oil on troubled waters, how one so positive and even turbulent could have dealt effectively with fractious tempers and stubborn wills. We may not pause here to harmonize these apparent incompatibilities. The two sides of an arch toward the base seem opposing columns, but up above they lock together, forming one perfect whole. Human nature often wraps up what looks like incongruities, but symmetry is the outcome still. Certain it is that John Vassar was the very incarnation of fervor; it is just as certain that under the sorest provocations he with perfect patience possessed his soul.

As was intimated in the last chapter, the Tract Society opened a depot for its publications in Richmond in May of 1865. Rev. Geo. L. Shearer, as District Secretary, was put in charge. Uncle John was to push out as opportunity might offer, organizing Sunday-schools, establishing meetings, and circulating religious reading matter to such an extent as the Society might be able to provide.

Secretary Shearer gives this idea of the demand:

“All the churches are exceedingly destitute of any thing like religious literature. Their denominational publishing houses were consumed in the late fire. Sabbath-schools shared their libraries with the soldiers, and the usual wear for four years leaves little stock on hand. Seventy thousand dollars’ worth of publications could be judiciously distributed on this field, and the need of colporteur labor from house to house is great.”

Dr. J. M. Stevenson, who had been instructed by the Committee of the Society to make an exploring tour of the South in the early summer, gives these impressions through the columns of the Messenger, “There are yet difficulties in the way of a cordial intercourse with the people, and many still refuse fraternal greetings, but the better minds and hearts are flowing together. There are more than a million of whites and blacks in Eastern Virginia living on plantations, and these, if reached at all by the Gospel, must be reached by colportage for some time to come. In many places they have no money. One man said to me, ‘I have not had half a dollar for two months.* An able and honored professor in college has sold his furniture piecemeal to get bread. Many once wealthy are pensioners upon the Government. Three thousand colored children are in the freedmen’s schools at Richmond, and perhaps four thousand in Sabbath-schools.”

These glim.pses of the condition of things will show us what was now to be Uncle John’s work for a season; what was to be the character of his new campaigns.

His first communication opens thus:” Reached Richmond Saturday, and the next day went into Dr. Jeter’s Sabbath-school, where the reception was warm and kind. Afternoon went among the colored people, and had a cordial welcome. Evening had a good meeting among the soldiers yet remaining here. The next Sabbath went down to Petersburg, and there heaven was brought nearer to me than for weeks before. The remembrance of the days when we lay in the trenches here, and of the prayers that went up from lips now still in death, stirred me up to magnify the Lord. I spoke to a large gathering of colored people, and many hearts seemed touched. Eight asked prayers, and I felt that a work of grace had begun with many more.

“In the First African Church, Richmond, we had another precious and powerful meeting. More than thirty were greatly troubled, and some wept aloud. A great awakening, I believe, is near. Oh, for youthful strength and heavenly grace to labor for my dearest Lord.”

The prediction was quickly verified. This First African Church, which had been for years the rendezvous or headquarters of the colored Baptistsof the city, and had a membership of over three thousand, was visited by a most remarkable outpouring of saving grace. At its height the body of the house was mainly filled with inquiring souls, and frequently its nearly twenty-five hundred sittings were all occupied before the exercises of the hour began. While the interest prevailed Uncle John met the members for prayer at daybreak. Till noon he visited and prayed in their families. At twelve he went into the colored schools and spent an hour with those who were specially concerned. At four o’clock he met inquirers along with the pastor. At seven o’clock he addressed the crowds that assembled from night to night. Nearly five hundred were added to this single church.

From Richm.ond he pushed out into the country around, Danville, Lynchburg, and other large places engaging him for a few days each. Li the midsummer of 1865 he was travelling southward in the State, and stopping at a station on the railroad, learned that in some coal mines near there were large companies of freedmen who had no school, and for whom no one seemed to care. Such a statement was enough to in* “a log house for the school”

terest him in their behalf. He found a planter three miles away who agreed to superintend a Sabbath-school. A little further searching, and a building was obtained in which to meet. Notice was circulated as widely as possible, and the next Lord’s Day a hundred came together to be taught. He scattered among these spellers and primers, and put up a card large enough for all to see, from which he gave them their first lesson. So eagerly did the people avail themselves of the help thus proffered that the school proved a marked success at once. Inspired by it, they even started a day-school, taught by one of their own race. Out of that soon came a church; out of the teacher came a pastor, and on a subsequent visit Uncle John found a hundred converts ready to confess Christ. Is it surprising that he wrote,” I feel thankful that I was ever permitted to visit this place. I wish the friend that gave fifteen dollars to purchase the books that started that school could see it now, and into what it has grown. Surely he would praise God as we did yesterday.

Hear him again report: “Last Sabbath I visited the country near Powhatan Court-House, and established a Sunday-school in the woods. A hundred of the young and old attended, some of whom came five miles. A number of planters were present, who admitted they had never seen persons more anxious to learn. A log-house for the school will at once be built. I can get up such schools every week if you can give the cards and books. We cannot ask the colored folks to pay for them. They have all they can do to get bread. At Dover, where I established a school a few weeks ago, I stopped on my return. Some of the scholars ran to meet me, shouting, * Uncle John, I have learned to read a heap since you were here.* Better still, more than fifty have turned to Christ.”

As a slight rest from these exhausting labors. Uncle John several times came North, and in the larger towns of the Eastern and Middle States sought to raise funds for the Society wherewith to prosecute its Southern work. This was never, however, the service which he preferred, and perhaps it would be but the simple truth to say that it was not the service in which he specially excelled. He could sell books, and he ^<?2//<^/ collect money. He did both. But he was not a great salesmian, nor a remarkable financier. He had royal gifts, but they were of quite another sort. Sometimes one of his Vvarm-hearted statements of Southern destitution would move many and secure a large contribution. This incident of the kind seem.s authentic: “In Northern Nev, York a country Sunday-school, after listening to his portrayal of the state of things in Virginia, and the demands of the hour, poured all their available funds into his handkerchief, class after class contributing till more than eighty dollars had been given.”

With the closing days of 1866 he gets over the line into North Carolina, where black and white alike give him the kindest of welcomes. On Christmas day he thus reports: “I have just returned from the Moravian set’ tlement at Salem. I made the journey of sixty miles on horseback, through more than fifty of which I did not see a single school-house. Bishop Bahnson and his brethren were very cordial. They are a grand missionary church. Their mark can be seen in all that region. Numbers are coming to Jesus. Hundreds within a few weeks have made their peace with God.”

South Carolina, Tennessee, and Kentucky he reconnoitres to see what prospects offer for educational and evangelistic work. He reports prejudices softening everywhere, but sore poverty amounting often to absolute distress. In the latter State he makes the acquaintance of an earnest Christian woman, concerning whom he tells this story: “In 1863 one of Morgan’s raiders was thrown from his horse near Lexington and mortally injured. He was taken to the house of this lady, who, while doing all she could to relieve his bodily suffering, labored assiduously for the salvation of his soul. After several days of keen distress Christ was revealed, and peace came. Before he died his kind hostess promised that his body should be taken for burial to his Georgia home. At the close of the war she fulfilled her pledge, and laid him in a grave by his father’s side. While on this errand she was touched by the extreme destitution prevailing in that portion of the State. Many were going literally hungry, and of the means of grace there was an utter lack. She sent back to her own neighborhood an appeal for food, and vast quantities of corn were gathered up and forwarded to her for the relief of their more pressing wants. While superintending the distribution of these supplies she organized among whites and blacks ?imetecn Sunday-schools, and secured books and papers for their use. She now proposes to go into the miountain regions of her own State, where it is said that there are twelve thousand families without the Word of God, and make a similar effort. Who will help this self-sacrificing, heroic woman?”

What large results may be realized from small beginnings another letter of his, written about this time, tells. “In a neighborhood of Stafford County, Virginia, where there was no Sabbath-school when I first visited it, and where I could at that time get no one to engage in the enterprise, a lady tells me how God led her husband into the work. When he went home from our meeting he told her that he had lived fifty years without Jesus, but could do so no longer. He sent for a minister to come to his house and preach. The truth was blessed to his own salvation. Fifty others soon followed in his steps. A church was organized. A meeting-house holding two hundred has been built, and I remained and organized a Sunday-school in it, which will have a hundred children enrolled before the summer ends.”

And a little later:

“By the help of God, I would plead for the poor white and colored people of this desolated part of our country, until every Christian and friend of his country shall feel the responsibility God has rolled upon us to help them in

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this hour of need. What shall be the character of this population? How may we labor to stamp the image of Christ on the hearts of thousands? These are weighty questions with me.

‘’ I am busy every day and night among the colored people. Quite a number of our scholars in our Sunday-school have found Christ, and it is blessed to see their happy faces on Sunday morning as they make their way in haste to school. A large number are under conviction and need constant instruction. Hundreds know me, and cry, ‘Uncle John, how do you do.?’ I am getting more and more interested in the children. I have thousands of nephews and nieces, and feel no shame as they recognize me as ‘Uncle John.’ All I want is to meet these thousands in the house of many mansions. Jesus will have many jewels set in dark caskets to stud his crown.

“A little beyond Oregon Hill, I passed over a large field of graves, where lay so many of the men of both armies. I thought of the many hopes buried with the bodies of the poor boys sleeping away from friends and home. My heart was touched with the remembrance of the past; but another feeling filled my bosom as I saw crowds of living forms, small and great, passing before me as I entered the city, and I looked upon the thousands I have been mingling with, I felt impelled to lift my heart to heaven for their salvation. Oh, that the church of Christ were awake to the interests of these unnumbered souls that are ready to perish in the midst of poverty.

“Such a field as we find in Virginia is seldom looked upon by Christian men. There are thousands of colored people who need to be taught to read and to be led to look to Jesus for salvation. In their unsettled state they need God-fearing men to encourage them religiously, and teach them in temporal matters what is for their good. Thousands of the colored people thank us for our labors and our prayers, and the poorer class of whites receive us gladly when they know our object in coming among them. Could we only have the books and men to reach the different counties of this great state, God only knows the good that might be done.”

“His labors here, and in his frequent visits to other parts of his field, were very arduous; but his heart was greatly cheered by the anxiety of the people to learn, and by the constant evidences of the Holy Spirit. “Two things,” he says, “keep me from fainting by the way: the children learn so fast, and many are coming to Christ. Sometimes as many as fifty have united with the colored churches on a Sunday. They organize churches in the woods, and build log-houses to worship God in, and teach their children to read. Every visit to the country convinces me that we have the grandest mission field in America. In the widespread influences of the religion of Christ, I see the only great and permanent prosperity of the South.”

Toward the autumn of 1868 he starts for Florida, and, while stopping at Savannah, he goes out to Bethesda, where under the grand old oaks Whitefield so often preached, and where he established his Orphan’s Home. We can easily imagine how his heart could

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be thrilled on such ground, and what prayers there burst from his lips.

In Florida his good friend Dr. Bronson, of St. Augustine, formerly of New York, gives him a warm support. Uncle John here finds experiences rather rougher in some respects than any encountered heretofore. Let him describe some of the difficulties met.” I have concluded that I was led here to learn the apostolic mode of evangelization. I cannot say with the apostle that * a day and a night I have been in the deep,’ but I can say that I have waded through the water for miles, and often knee-deep, to reach the scattered settlements.

*’ Last week, with James Middleton, an old pioneer Methodist preacher, as guide, I attempted to reach St. John’s County to establish a few schools. Sometimes for two miles at a stretch we went through water in the swamps and on the savannas from six inches to two feet deep. We kept up our courage, however, by sing in

‘No foot of land do I possess,
No cottage in the wilderness.’

We made ten miles in five hours, and reached the end of our journey well soaked. How delightful is this work for Jcstis I As I layout all night last week I felt like praising Him aloud. Who would not gladly spare a few years out of heaven’s bliss to gather jewels for the precious Saviour’s crown? * If we suffer we shall also reign with Him.’ Oh, that we all might know the meaning of these words.”

Stopping for a few hours with Dr. Bronson in his pleasant Southern home in the spring of 1870, we heard his testimony to the wonderful labors performed by Uncle John all up and down the St. John’s, the heartiness with which the humbler classes welcomed him, and the blessings which everywhere crowned his toil. And at Green Cove Springs and Magnolia and Pilatka and Jacksonville black and white alike remembered him, and warmed up at the mention of his name.

In 1868 he spent some time in Central and Western New York, of which we get glimpses such as these:

“There was a revival in the Brick Presbyterian Church of Rochester, and Uncle John, accompanied by one of the elders, went from house to house.

“The elder felt quite nervous at the first for fear that something might be said or done which would be out of place or in bad taste. He was afraid that Uncle John, who was a plain man and fresh from army and freedmen’s work, might be out of his element in mixing with a higher social class. But after the first two or three calls every fear of this sort was dissipated. He found Uncle John was equal to any place or class. He made no blunders, and was above and beyond criticism. To him it was a wonder that this man, untutored in social etiquette or conventionalities, struck so nearly right every time. Two or three things accounted for it. He had naturally the instincts of a true gentleman. He was quick to read human nature, and

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he had a large amount of sanctified common-sense which never forsook him.

I once saw him ask a man if he loved Jesus. The man was a German, and could not understand a word said. Uncle John was not to be baffled by such a fact as this. He pointed with his finger upward, and with an expression on his face that spoke more than words, he caused his German friend to comprehend his meaning.

“One day while in Rochester he happened to be in the store of one of our leading business men, and, as was his wont, took the opportunity to speak a word on the subject of religion with those who came in. Some were evidently surprised, but none seemed offended. After Uncle John went out, a railroad conductor came in, who was rough and sometimes violent, especially if his prejudices happened to be crossed. What had been going on in the store was causally mentioned, whereupon this conductor exclaimed, * Well, neither he nor any other man would dare try that on me. If he did he would get a piece of my mind.

“The very next day the two men chanced to meet there. Uncle John, all ignorant of what had been said, edged around to the conductor, and presently out came the inevitable question, * My friend, may I ask if you love Jesus? ‘The proprietor of the store now expected a scene. Instead of that the man only stammered out a few words of explanation or apology over the, fact that he did not. When Uncle John left, the conductor asked, * Who was that man? ‘The storekeeper replied, ‘Uncle John Vassar, the man I told you of yesterday.” Is it, indeed? ’ he said. ‘Well, he is a good fellow any way.

Now he goes to minister to still another class. In the summer of 1869 the Tract Society determined to put its system of colportage in operation along the Pacific Railroad, among the mining regions of the Rocky Mountains, and up and down the country’s sunset slopes. Mr. Shearer, so long in charge of the Richmond agency, was intrusted with the work, and to his assistance he called the man who had shared with him other trusts and toils.

In the cabins of Colorado miners we next find Uncle John. It’s hard material that he here comes in contact with and seeks to mould for holiness and heaven. He takes in the situation at a glance, and says, “No man of weak faith and little love can succeed here. It will take a soul of the John Knox stamp to get hold of the men who venture here for silver and gold.” But undaunted by what is unpromising, he strikes right in. Before he leaves, these adventurers and fortune-seekers are melted under the truth of God, as voiced by loving lips and energized by the Spirit’s might. Hear him tell again the old story: “We had four meetings on Sunday, and I have not seen more tears shed for a long time. Strong men broke down as they were plead with, or while prayer was being offered in their behalf. A few very devout souls are to be found here, and I have enjoyed a rich feast of love with them.”

He finds a little English lad in the boarding house who has recently given his heart to Christ, and he sets him to work distributing religious reading, and begs the brethren at the rooms on Nassau Street to send the young disciple longing to be useful twenty copies of the Messenger monthly to circulate.

At Virginia City, Sacramento, and at Stockton he labors for a few days with different pastors, and Mr. Shearer reports that this wayside sowing everywhere bears fruit.

In the first-named town on Sunday afternoon he exhorted in front of a noted gambling saloon. “The attendance was large and the attention good. Some at the close returned to their games disappointed that w ith such a crowd there could not have been so much as a dog fight; others wondered where the margin for profit could be, inasmuch as both the talking and the tracts were free; but in many ears the familiar, yet long-forgotten, words of entreaty, invitation, and warning came with an almost melting power.”

In San Francisco an agency of the Society is established, and some stirring meetings held there, as well as at Oakland and other towns in the interior, or up and down the coast. The Chinese, that now vexing factor in the national problem, were then beginning to crowd over to our Pacific slope, and they greatly interested Uncle John. With one or two who had recently been converted he had protracted and pleasant interviews, for every redeemed soul his heart went out to as a brother’s, whatever the nationality or name.

An influential pastor of the city, in communicating wilh the ‘* Rooms,” says: “The people are greatly in love with Uncle John, and I do not wonder. Wherever he goes the Lord is sure to be with him. He is now among Dr. Scudder’s people, and the elders are going from house to house with him with tears.”

While in San Francisco friends plan for him a little trip for rest. They arrange that he shall visit the Yosemite Valley, and see God’s wonders in nature there. Always thinking of toil, and not of sight-seeing or ease, he doubts at first whether it will be right for him to go; whether it will not be misappropriating time — time which should be given to saving souls. His scruples finally are overcome, and with congenial companions he spends a week surrounded by what is stupendous and sublime. Mere recreation, however, by no means engrosses his time or thought. All the grandeur and beauty that meet his eyes are a mirror glassing the perfections of their Author, and his Father and Friend. All the while he is breaking forth in praise. W’hen the Sabbath comes he and his brethren worship with a group of Digger Indians gathered around and looking curiously on. Oh, how Uncle John yearns for the ability to tell these degraded specimens of human kind of Jesus and His love! If he could have seen one of these stupid imbruted savages accepting Christ it would have delighted him more than the glories of towering cliffs and plunging cataracts. All he could do toward reaching them, however, was to pray God to speak to them by a tongue that they could understand.

On this Western trip he makes a brief halt at Salt Lake City, of which we have no record, but another Christian laborer subsequently appointed to that hard field found traces of his fidelity, evidences that he vigorously tilled a bit of that stubborn soil, and that the effort was not altogether vain.

Florida now claims him again for the winter. And the next summer Kansas is stirred by him as he pushes from city to city, and from town to town, seeking to interest Christian women especially and get them to organize local societies for the visitation of families and the distribution of tracts and books. A regular system is in many places introduced. The larger centi-es of population are districted, and delegates found for each section or street. Stated meetings are arranged for, with reports.

These in brief were the engagements and undertakings of what we have called his new campaigns. The frcedmen, the poor whites of the South, the miners of Nevada and Colorado and California, the Mormons of Utah, the new settlers on the plains of Kansas and along her streams, the hardy mountaineers of Kentucky and East Tennessee — all were plied with whatsoever Gospel truth could awe or win, attract or alarm, and upborne on the strong arms of wrestling prayer.

The variety of incident entering into years of such service eventually becomes thin and dreamy. It fades out of sight as the shore does to the receding voyager. Standing on the vessel’s deck as it leaves port, the passenger sees object after object disappear, till finally even high-topped hills and the light-house on the roc]^ are no longer visible. Time and its experiences so sink

‘away. Occurrences which impressed us deeply at the first cease to be remembered as we travel on and they are left further off. If a tithe of what Uncle John haa told us about the days just reviewed could be recalled and repeated here it would be of thrilling interest. Much of it would make the eye moisten and the heart glow. If forgotten by us, however, all these details and circumstances God remembers, and keeps them working in the wide scheme of an unsleeping providence toward the foreseen and foretold dominion of His Son. How vast may be the range of a blessing dropping first in a negro hut or a prairie cabin! Who can calculate the final issues of an influence for good starting on its line of march with a tract left at a door, or a prayer offered within? Who can limit the effect of an interview like this which we have heard Uncle John describe? We think it happened during his earlier labors in the West.

In one house that was entered the praying wife of an infidel husband begged that a Bible might be given her, as there had been none in the home during all their married life. One was furnished her, and the missionary

, went his way. Plardly had he gone out of sight when the husband came in, and instantly his eye lit upon the book. One glance aroused all his rage. Seizing the volume with one hand, and his axe with the other, he hurried out to the wood-pile, and laying it on the chopping-block, he cut it through and through. Coming

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back to the cabin with the two pieces, he hurled one toward the wife, saying in a mocking tone, “As you claim a part of all the property around here, there is your share of this.” The other half was pitched up into a niche where tools were sometimes kept. Months passed. The timid wife could only pray. One wet or wintry day, when the man was indoors, with little to do, finding the time hang heavy, he looked around for something to read. Reading matter in that home was scarce. While rummaging around in this nook in search of some old newspaper, what should turn up but his half of the mutilated book. To while away the monotony of the hour he took it up. Was it by accident that he opened at the parable of the prodigal? He did not remember having seen it before. By its simplicity he was charmed. Presently the narrative was broken off. To finish it he must have the missing piece. Unwilling to ask for it, and so acknowledge that even his curiosity was stirred, he cast stealthy glances here and there to see if it would not appear. But its wary owner had safely hidden her fragment of Scripture, and his hunt was vain. Pretty soon inquisitiveness conquered pride, and at his request the wife produced her piece. The story was finished. It was read over again and again. Need the outcome of the whole be told? Another wanderer fell at the Father’s feet. Another penitent was folded in the Father’s arms. Another bitter opposer became the champion of a faith which all his life he had labored to destroy.

Had Uncle John emptied out that day on the cabinfloor bags of gold, that had been a smaller gift. Money might have wrought the godless settler’s ruin. It might have helped perpetuate unbelief in his own and other souls. It might have blotted his name out of every promise and put it into every curse of heaven. The Book of God put into that home, with its blood of redemption, sealed his title to a celestial inheritance, and made the man the pioneer of other scoffers back to God.

Again we ask where the influence of one such occurrence is to end. Surely “the shock of the archangel’s trumpet will not break it, nor the gulf of eternity swallow it up.”

A friend sends the following narrative as related to him by Uncle John, which illustrates his habit as well as his success in following up a case.

*’ It was a great thing — one of the richest treats, to hear him relate the history of cases out of the journal of his experiences. No tale of adventure was ever more fascinating than these accounts as he gave them. I have known a tent-full of army officers, most of them ungodly men, listen to him a whole evening with the most absorbed attention while he described conversions that took place going on twenty years before. It is hardly necessary to say that under such circumstances his story-telling was always preaching in disguise. His style was all his own; he was an exceedingly rapid talker, full of life and action, and it would be impossible to reproduce his narrations of this sort. But one that I remember ran somewhat thus:

There was a man in county, a Mr. R,

who lived away from everybody in a log-house; I never shall forget the time I had with him. Oh, how he did hate to repent! But he had to at last. Grace was too much for him. And then he had an excellent Christian wife, as so many men have. That helped a good deal. He was fond of his wife, and sometimes he overheard her praying. He knew how she felt about it. I suppose I saw that man twenty times. Sometimes he was good-natured and sometimes he was not. How mad he would be once in a while, just because I said a friendly word to him about his soul! You see, he was not at ease in his sins. Men never are. They try to be and pretend to be, but they are not. They cannot be. The impenitent sinner is not happy. This man used to be very angry sometimes. But he never struck me. He came pretty near it once or twice, and I thought he was going to, but he did not. It was after I had known him a good while, that one day when I had gone out into the lot where he was at work to find him, he dropped his hoe and came at me fierce as a lion, cursing and swearing I stood still and he stopped, and we stood and looked

at each other. Finally I said, ‘O Mr. K, you will

never have any peace till you give your heart to God!’ and I know that I spoke kindly, for I felt just like crying, I was so sorry for him. But it seemed to make him only angrier still. He fairly foamed at the mouth, and, shouting at the top of his voice, he told me to leave and never let him see my face again, or he would kill me. I did not answer a word, and walked quietly away; but I felt pretty sure that the end was near, and that he could not hold out much longer. The next time I came that way, as I approached his house, I thought I saw him slip around the corner of the house and make for the barn, like a person trying to get out of sight. I went to the door and asked his wife where he was. * Oh, my poor husband!’ she said, and the tears came into her eyes. ‘Have courage,’ I said; * I believe the Lord will find him this day. Where is he V * He told me not to tell you where he was,’ she replied. ‘He saw you coming and went out to get away from you, but — but — 1 think he went toward the barn.’

“‘Now, dear sister,’ said I, ‘you stay here and pray, and I will go and try to find him.’ I went out to the barn. I knew that his proud heart must be giving way, else he would not have avoided me so. I tried one of the barn doors. It was fastened. I knocked. No answer. It

was as still as the grave inside. ‘O Mr. R,’ I cried,

let me in, do let me in! I ‘m nobody but a poor smner saved by grace, and the same grace will save you, if you will only let it! Let me in for Christ’s sake; please do!’ Then I passed around to another door and found that fastened, too, and knocked there, and again I begged him to let me in.

“At last, when I began to be afraid I must give him up for that time, as I listened, I heard a sigh and a step; then more steps coming toward me. I heard him unlocking the door. I did not know what was going to happen next. The door opened slowly, and there he stood. You needed to look but once to see that the

Lord had won the fight. His face was pale, but there was no anger in it. He tried to speak but he could not. I went right up to him and took him by the hand, and

said, ‘O my dear Mr. R, let us kneel down and

thank God together;’ and so we did. There were a good many more tears in that prayer than words. ‘Now,’ said he, as soon as he could control his voice, * let us go in and see my wife.’ I tell you the two minutes it took us to go from the barn to the house were the happiest two minutes he had ever seen. And you ought to have seen that woman’s face when she saw us coming in together! She knew what it meant. Besides, a single glance at him was enough. It seems to me I never saw so happy a woman in my life.”

“Uncle John accepted fully Rutherford’s exhortation: “Take as many with you to heaven as you are able to draw; the more you draw with you, you shall be the welcomer yourself.” ’

We are brought now down to 1871. Uncle John has seven years remaining in which to war the good warfare. It will be carried on in what might be called “the Department of the East.”