A Circuit Rider's Wife

by Corra Harris

I used to wonder a great deal in those days about "the witness of the Spirit." Before my marriage I had heard little of it. I wanted to know what it was, but I never prayed for it myself. The thought occurred to me that what William called the witness of the Spirit might be the shoulder tap of his own spirit approving him now and then. But then came the deeper question, How did William come by his own spirit, that part of him which was neither flesh, nor bone, nor blood, but which had the power to make him sit up in the middle of the night to pray, and to make him fast maybe all the next day? At last I reached a comforting conclusion. That is one peculiarity of the human, he never rests upon any other kind of conclusion. What he thinks may be so, but if it is not comforting he thinks further on into the daybreak of Eternity till he gets something better, more satisfactory for his needs. This is why we shall always keep on finding God. There is something lacking in us to which God only answers. The conclusion I came to was this, that we are not all called to do the same things, that William was called to preach and pray, and the witness of his Spirit approved when he did it right. And I was called to look after William, to see that he did not pray too much or preach too long. And I always had that sweet inward glow which he called his witness when I attended most carefully to his needs. It may be a narrow way to look at it, but you couldn't live with William in any peace of mind without this witness of the Spirit. It would have made him unhappy to live with a person who couldn't claim it, and I've had mine these thirty years without having to pray or to fast to get it—a tender eye in me that regarded him and a heart that prayed for him.

CHAPTER VI

WILLIAM ENTERS HIS WORLDLY MIND

This is the wonderful thing about the pure in heart—they do see God. And that was William's distinction. In spite of his own faults and of ethical errors in some of his preaching, he outstripped all these and did actually see God; and it made him different from other men who, however wise, do not see God. On this account I have no doubt that he fumbled more souls into the Kingdom of Heaven than some of the most popular tabernacle preachers of modern times.

Nevertheless, William had his worldly mind. There was an ancient Antaeus in him whose heel occasionally touched the strengthening earth, and he was as unconscious of it as a baby is of its expression. But, once he entered his worldly mind, he became as naïvely unscrupulous as any other man of the world. Never, in all the years we lived together, did he repent of these particular deeds done in the body. He could be brought to the very sackcloth and ashes for a supposititious sin that he had not really committed; but no man could make him repent of a horse trade, and I never knew but one who had the best of him in one. In common with all circuit riders he had a passion for horses, and a knowledge of them that would have made his fortune on the race track. This brings me to relate an incident which will serve to indicate the shrewdness and unscrupulousness of William once he took the spiritual bit in his teeth.

We were on the Beaverdam Circuit, and he had bought a new horse—a horse gifted with ungodly speed in the legs and a mettlesome, race-track temperament. On a certain Saturday, after services at Beaverdam Church, we were returning home in a light buggy drawn by the big, rawboned bay. When we came to a long stretch of good road William tightened the reins, took on a scandalous expression of Coliseum delight and let the horse out. Instantly the thin flanks of the creature tautened, he laid his tail over the dashboard, stretched his neck, flattened his ears and settled himself close to the ground in action that showed sinful training. William's expression developed into one of ecstasy that was far from spiritual, and I had much ado to keep my hat on. Presently we heard the clatter of another horse's feet behind us, and the next moment the bay was neck and neck with Charlie Weaver's black mare. Charlie was one of the younger goats in the Beaverdam congregation, whose chief distinction was that he was an outbreaking sinner and owned the fastest horse in the county. Instantly William's whole nature changed; he was no more a minister than the florid young man in the buggy that was whirling giddily beside us. He tightened his reins and touched the bay with his whip. The effect was miraculous; the horse leaped forward in a splendid burst of speed, the mare showed signs of irritation and broke her gait, and the two jockeys exchanged challenging glances. At that moment we rounded a curve in the road, and in the hot dust ahead there came to view a heavy, old-fashioned rockaway drawn slowly by a pair of sunburned plow-horses.

"Oh, William," I gasped, "do stop! That is the Brock carriage and this is a horse race!"

Brother Brock was a rich Methodist steward who not only owned most of the property in Beaverdam neighborhood, but the church as well. He was a sharp-faced man who gave you the impression that his immortal soul had cat whiskers. He fattened his tyrannical faculties upon the meekness of the preacher and the helplessness of a congregation largely dependent upon him to pay the pastor's salary and the church assessments. Any preacher who offended him was destined to be deprived of his subscriptions. Knowing this I took an anxious, economical view of the old rockaway heaving forward in the road ahead and vainly implored William to slacken his speed to a moral, ministerial gait.

In another moment it was over. The mare crashed into the rockaway on one side and the bay shattered the swingletree on the other with the forewheel of our buggy. The old plow-horses plunged feebly, then lowered their heads in native dejection, while the Brocks shrieked, root and branch. Never have I seen such a look of feline ferocity upon the human countenance as when Brother Brock scrambled down from his seat into the road and, with his mouse-catching eyes, added William Asbury Thompson, preacher, to Charles Jason Weaver, loafer, drunkard and horse racer, and placed the sum of them on the blackboard of his outer darkness. I sat in the buggy, holding the reins over the trembling, wild-eyed bay, while William descended and, with great dignity, tied up the disabled swingletree. There was not the slightest evidence of moral repentance in his manner, although he expressed a polite, man-of-the-world regret at the accident.