CHAPTER XXIV.
VINCENT, REV. JOHN H., D.D.
I have written down the name of the "great man" which I have chosen to stand in this Alphabet, and here I pause as I reflect that to many of you his face and form and speech are familiar. You have seen him upon the platform and upon the avenues of Chautauqua and Framingham, and in other places. Some of you have welcomed him at your own homes; his smiles and his talks are among the things which will be always, so long as you live, a pleasant memory. What can I tell you about him that you do not already know? Yet I am not willing that another name should take the place of this, and therefore we will talk a little together of this friend of the young people, and idol of the older people.
Dr. Vincent's early home was in the Sunny South. "In the land of orange blossoms and
magnolia groves," he first saw the light. Six years of his life were spent in the home of the flowers; then the family came North and settled in Pennsylvania.
Like the mothers of many of our great men, John H. Vincent's mother might fill a place in the book called "Some Remarkable Women."
She is described as "patient, amiable, living as though she belonged to heaven rather than earth. Often at the twilight hour, especially on Sundays, she would take her children to her own room, and there sweetly and tenderly tell them about the life to come, and point out their faults and spiritual needs."
Mrs. Bolton in her sketch of Dr. Vincent, in "How Success is Won," gives some amusing incidents of the childhood of our Great Man. I quote from memory, but I think it is she who tells the story of the boy of six years gathering the children of the neighborhood, and after getting them quiet by threatening them with the lash of a whip, he would preach to them. And so far did his zeal carry him, that upon one occasion he tore into several parts a small red-covered hymn book, which he valued as the gift of his pastor, and distributed the
pieces through his audience, doubtless thinking it highly important that all should be supplied with hymn books. Whether they all sang together from the different parts of the book given them, we are not informed.
Very early in life the boy seems to have decided that he would do something with his life worth while; that he would do that which should help others, and realizing that there is a world to be saved, he grew up with the hope of one day becoming a minister. His studies were carried on for a time at home, afterwards at a neighboring academy. Later he engaged in teaching, continuing his studies by himself, and finally he had fitted himself for college. Not every boy would have the will and perseverance to carry on a course of study while teaching six hours or more each day. However, he did not finish his college course. Not for any want of persistence, neither did he consider such a course unimportant. But he was anxious to be about his Master's work, and thus it was that before he was twenty-one years old he set out to preach "on a thirty-mile circuit, over the mountains and through the valleys of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania."