The Story of a Life

by J. Breckenridge Ellis

"How so!" the other inquired.

"It was reading your book—'The Gospel Restored,'" was the answer.

That is how this movement appeared to those who came under its influence,—the Gospel must be restored. The preachers proclaimed and debated from the rostrum, and pulpit, and on horseback. The laymen talked about it on the street, and in the field, ready at any moment to draw the Bible from their pockets to show just what the "Old Jerusalem Gospel" had to say for itself. The women discussed regeneration and baptism over their sewing and knitting. The children taunted each other at school and at play, and the swaggering bully might say to the despised "Campbellite," "We believe in a change of heart!" or "You believe water will save you!"

Such taunts, however, did not assail the young Carrs, for their parents belonged to no church, and their grandparents and numerous relations were Presbyterians and Methodists. Oliver's teacher, L. P. Streator, was a disciple of Christ; his life, as well as that of Walter Scott, were arguments, in their way, for the "new religion"; but after all, Oliver had thought little of religion during his first years at the Academy. Martin Streator, his teacher's son, persuaded him to attend the Sunday-school at the Christian church; he went once or twice, and then tried the Baptist Sunday-school to find out what "they did over there". The teacher of the Baptist class devoted his hour to an explanation of the Holy Ghost, which proved so baffling to the young mathematician, that for some time thereafter he discharged no religious duties.

Across the street from Carr's Hotel, was a blacksmith shop. The smith was an Englishman, Eneas Myall. Fifteen years before William Carr drove from Lewis County in the old barouche, Myall had come over from England, and had stood on dry dock with only twenty-five cents in his pocket. He walked twelve miles to find work; needless to say, he found it. He earned the passage-money from England for his father, two brothers, and cousin. All worked together; the cousin was a wagon-maker, and under the newly made wagon-wheels, as they rested upon their trestles, were the shavings that had curled up at the making. In the cold dark mornings, when young Oliver came down stairs to make his fires, the flames leaped up from these very shavings, which he had carried over the evening before. They liked him at the shop, and Eneas, in particular, believed he read an expression in the thin face of the ambitious student, that promised something better than a hotel life.

Eneas was a Christian; [3]he and his two brothers and his cousin had all heard the Gospel preached by R. C. Ricketts, as they had never heard it in the old country. Over there, to escape the formalism of the Church of England, they had listened to the Dissenters; they had watched sinners hovering on the Anxious-seat of the Presbyterians, and the Mourning-bench of the Methodists. Such ante-rooms to Grace were held indispensable. As the eminent Congregationalist, Dr. Finney explained, so nearly all believed: "The church has always felt it necessary to have something of this kind. In the days of the apostles baptism answered this purpose. The Gospel was preached to the people and all who were willing to be on Christ's side were called on to be baptized. It held the precise place that the anxious seat does now, as a public manifestation of their determination to be Christians."

But Eneas and his relatives had been called upon by the preacher, not to come to something which served the same purpose as an institution of old, but to the institution itself. "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit!" This was the trumpet call of R. C. Ricketts. To the simple blacksmith, it sounded like a voice long silent, issuing from the sacred past. He had never heard it proclaimed before. He and his obeyed the call. Having entered upon the Christian life, this blacksmith felt an inexhaustible enthusiasm for the cause. He had been made so happy by his acceptance of what opponents called the "new religion" that he wanted all his friends to partake of his happiness. When W. T. Moore came to May's Lick to raise funds for Bethany College, the first college of the disciples,—Eneas took his old rusty pen and wrote "$100."

Moore, in surprise, looked at the stalwart form in its rude garb, and then at the homely scene in which it seemed in keeping. "This is more than you ought to give!" he exclaimed. "How do you make it?"

"Oh," said the blacksmith, casting the pen aside, and lifting his hammer, "I beat it out of this iron! It is such a good cause, I'm sure I can give $100.00."

That was when Oliver was fifteen. W. T. Moore was holding a meeting at the church, working up the college endowment during the day. One evening, when Oliver entered the shop, as he did daily, seeking his kindling, Ed Myall looked up from his work, and said, "Ollie, isn't it time for you to be a Christian?" He would have said more, but his voice failed him. The boy, without a word, turned and went away. It was the first time anyone had ever spoken to him about being a Christian. He had dropped out of the Sunday school; he rarely attended church.