Jane was greatly excited. Mr. Surber took her back to the day of Pentecost, and had her sit under the preaching of Peter. Her question was the very one Peter had been asked. The answer on that day was the answer now. Jane confessed her faith, and was baptized.
It was best for George Smith to leave Melbourne, that he might make a home for himself and his betrothed. Dear as both were to the Carrs, they urged the young man to accept the position, and Jane, to wait till he could send for her. After they were married, they faded for a time from the lives of Mr. and Mrs. Carr; but, as we shall presently see, they were again to enter their history in a way more pronounced.
In the meantime J. C. Keith writes from Louisville, and gives us a melancholy bit of news as regards that Australian student whom we had seen dropping potatoes, to hurry along his education; Keith writes to Mrs. Carr: "I have read with interest all your articles to our different papers. You are doing a noble work for the Master. Few women in this fashion and money-loving age would endure so much for the Savior. Oh, that woman would rise to the dignity of her position! * * * My letter has been interrupted. The life of a city preacher is a checkered, yet a glorious one. One day he exhorts the brethren to be faithful, the next he faces a bridal pair, the next he stands beside the dead; then he visits the poor and bereaved and goes reading, and singing, and praying, on his way. I met Brother Earl and Magarey" (our Alex.) "Earl is working hard to raise the $20,000 for your Bible College in Australia. I saw Mr. Cowley yesterday. He is in this city, working for some Boston book house." (This is our enthusiastic Australian pupil. Note his sequel.) "Don't think the Cause lost much." (Ah, yes, let us solace ourselves as best we may.)
J. W. McGarvey writes encouraging words, not about young Cowley, who, alas! is no longer ours, but regarding another Australian student who is destined to remain in the fold: "Our Bible College is moving on with steady growth. We have 107 matriculates and expect 20 more. The Apostolic Times is growing in favor, but not so rapidly as we would like. The tendency among us is strongly in favor of latitudinarianism; our opposition to this rouses counter opposition. The Standard, under its free and easy policy, has almost caught up with the Review. The Christian has at last possession of the Pioneer, and has a clear field in Missouri. We have recently had a runaway match of a rather unusual character. A young son of Brother G. W. Longan of Missouri, who was a student at the Bible College, got a dismissal to go home, and slipped off with Emma Lard, Brother Lard's third daughter. Bad for the children of two preachers! All the special friends of the parties are very much mortified. The young couple are poor and inexperienced; they have a poor prospect before them. "Brother Capp" (our young man from Australia) "is making a good student. He is industrious, popular, and recites very well for a new pupil. Much love to Sister Carr, and many thanks for her good letters in the Times."
John Augustus Williams is very doubtful about that Australian University scheme; he writes to Mrs. Carr: "I know the Lord, by his tender providence, is guiding you to do a good and noble work. I hardly know what to say in reference to your proposed trip to the United States with a view to raise funds for a College in Australia. No doubt you could succeed better than Brother Earl" (whose efforts for $20,000 came to nothing). "But you would assume a great undertaking. While I would give you all the help I could, you would have to depend mainly on your own personal appeals. It is impossible to excite any general interest in an enterprise that lies so far away. Though Charity may extend a liberal hand, she does not reach far."
Mrs. Carr, in a letter, gives a sidelight on her busy life: "If you could follow me one day through No. 4 Barclay Terrace, and then through the streets of Melbourne, you would lay your finger upon my lips, should I seek to apologize for not writing oftener. I am discharging some duty every waking hour, and I rarely retire till after twelve. Yet with all my humble efforts, a host of duties unfulfilled is daily pressing upon my conscience. Often in the storm, it is a perplexity to know what should be done first. But I rejoice that I had the strength to cut the cord binding me to the vanities of life. No, I do not complain, for I never lived until I came to Australia. When I read, two years ago, Mrs. Browning's line, 'Where we live, we suffer and toil,' I thought it a golden bar of poetry; now I know it to be a diamond of truth. Then, it moved my girl's spirit with the murmur of the outer world; now, it pushes my woman's nature toward the inner significance of all things. Yes, to suffer and toil, is to live!
"So I enjoy this life; but I should enjoy it intensely, if I had but three hours every day to devote to self-improvement. It may be a selfish desire; not having a single hour to cultivate my mind, is a sore trial. I try to smother this longing, fearing it may be wrong; but my every effort seems to give it a brighter glow. It is a part of my life, a part of the life that hungers after the beautiful, the wise, the infinite. If I were with you, I would bore you from morning to night with poetry; for during my summer vacations in girlhood, my store of poetry grew painfully immense. Have you read 'Gold Foil,' and 'Bitter Sweet,' or 'Dream Life,' and 'Reveries of a Bachelor'? If not, a rich feast awaits you. There is a deep, strong poetry in all that dropped from 'Ike Marvel's pen, though he wrote nothing but prose. I thought of comparing that brilliant writer to Washington Irving, but remembered the grave of buried love, and Friendship weeping there, and my hand refused to commit the sacrilege."
In October, 1871, we find that one of our "Trio"—the graduating class of '67—has been attacked by a foe from whom there is to be no escape. The letter is from Albert Myles: "Yes, the notice in the Times by Brother Brooks was correct. I am disabled from preaching—my last sermon was delivered April 26th, six months ago. I may never be well enough to preach again, though I try to keep a brave heart and hope on. It was at first a cold, of which I thought little, but instead of getting better, I finally had a cough—the doctors said it was bronchitis. By their advice, I resigned my position and went to St. Louis, as the doctors said a rest would restore me. But shortly after I came to the city, the 8th and Mound Street congregation earnestly solicited my services. They are poor, and only about 200. I consented to preach twice on Lord's day, if they would not ask me to visit; but it was a mistake; the work did not seem heavy, but I grew worse, and worse. I still thought my lungs were sound, and being called to the church at Columbia, Mo., I thought I would go there for the country air. I had been but a week or two, when I was compelled to quit and return to St. Louis. I had the doctors examine me again, and, to my utter astonishment, they said with great unanimity that I had old fashioned tubercular consumption, and that my life depended upon quitting preaching immediately, and that, for a good while. I have not dared even to exhort in prayer meeting, since then. As to my coming to Australia, the dangers of the voyage have never been considered by me. But if I come—for I cannot even yet decide not to do so—could the trip improve me sufficiently to labor there? And suppose I came, and could do no more than I do here!
"My headquarters are still in St. Louis; but I am not living anywhere in particular. I am at Mt. Sterling, Ky., now, where I see your brothers nearly every day. They do not look strong, but you can't tell anything about the Carr tribe by their looks, they are such a bony set! I must go to church now—will finish this letter after church if strong enough." The next day he takes up the pen again. "You have doubtless seen an account of the death of my brother James. No man in the ministry did so much work as he, in the same length of time. He was literally the victim of overwork! We have also lost our darling little Allene; she was 20 months old. Not only we, but every one thought her remarkably beautiful. Dear Ol., you have never been blessed with one of these little heavenly messengers; but neither have your hopes, once kindled, been turned to ashes. May the Heavenly Father give us the strength to endure."
So cries out our young Christian soldier, almost fallen in the last trench of the hard battle; a cry for help, but a cry, too, of fealty, to his great Captain. One by one his arms have been stripped from his feeble grasp—he cannot even exhort in prayer meeting!—and how fondly he remembers the date of his last sermon!—and no little Allene ("I shall never love another child so well," he says)—no fighting brother James to carry on the standard. But he still hopes he may get to Australia for missionary service. We, who cannot share his hopes, can at least rejoice that he began duty so young; for consider this; in the few years of his ministry, he has done more for Christ, than many a man of sixty.