Rev. J. E. A. Wilson, Pastor Rising Star Baptist Church, Pratt City, Ala.
Smith, Rev. G. S., is pastor of the Red Mountain Church Bessemer.
Steinback, Rev. L. S., ex-pastor African Baptist Church, Tuscaloosa, was born in Marengo county, Ala., March 12, 1852. He was set free at 12 years of age.
He says: “One year, all the wages I received above my scanty meals and rough clothes, was one dozen apples. Often I was glad to obtain a good meal of parched corn. At 19 I worked in Uniontown for 50 cents a day.”
It was at this time that he learned his alphabet, studying at night school. He says that as he went to his meals and to his work, his spelling book was ever with him. He attended school after he had married—using such time as he could spare after crops were “laid by.”
He was ordained to the ministry in October, 1883, Revs. John Scott, F. Gilbert and A. Wright officiating as presbytery. By industry and perseverance, he has been able to teach in the free public schools of the State, has been missionary in his association, and is now pastor of one of our largest churches. He lives, he says, on his own plantation, for which he has paid three thousand dollars.
This is an example which is well calculated to encourage poor, struggling young men to overcome difficulties and rise anyhow—rise in spite of difficulties. Brother Steinback has served the pastorate of the Tuscaloosa Church and also edits a newspaper, The Christian Hope.
Stevens, Rev. Henry, of Uniontown, son of Harry and Agnes Stevens, was born near Port Royal, Va., May 5, 1820. At the age of 21 he was baptized into Flat Run Church, Orange county, Va., by the Rev. B. Hodge. He came to Alabama in 1843, at which time he began to speak concerning the grace of God in the redemption of sinners. In 1845 he began for the first time to read the sacred Scriptures, and in the same year he married Miss Clarissa Clay, by whom ten children were born to him.
Mr. Stevens was one of nature’s noblemen. He was an honest, outspoken man, an orderly citizen, and a very forcible preacher of the plain old gospel.