CHAPTER XVI.
PURSUING ONE'S IDEAL.
The letters presented in the present chapter are not only interesting in themselves, but are valuable as illustrating the threefold bent of Mrs. Carr's mind, as outlined in the preceding pages. They cover her University experiences. Here is a manuscript revealing Mrs. Carr's struggles with the Greek language. She has evidently just taken up this study; her exercises show the same thoroughness she exhibited in her German commonplace-book.
Here is a receipt from the Christian Woman's Board of Missions for $50 which Mrs. Carr has sent on subscriptions to the Tidings. And Mrs. S. F. D. Eastin writes from St. Joseph, 1880, requesting Mrs. Carr to read her essay before the Moberly convention. "I know it will be worthy the attention of that erudite body," says Mrs. Eastin. Worthy any erudite body it should have been; the subject is "John Stuart Mill and C. W. B. M."
Mr. Carr to Mrs. Carr, October 23, 1880, from the Louisville convention: "Your letter was handed me in church just before Brother McGarvey's excellent address. Your words rang through my soul all the time he was preaching. The devotion to the Cause expressed in your letter is an echo of my heart, and I second your motion to go to Paris next summer, but I fear you will exhaust yourself in such abundant labors. Your spirit is too strong, and too active, for your body. I gave Sister Eastin your message and she says it is the very thing. This has been a glorious convention, most orderly and deeply pious. I delivered to the convention the messages of Brother and Sister Rogers and Brother and Sister Wilkes. To-day the convention closed in tears and in high hopes, for the future. Brother Magarey" (our "Alex." of Melbourne association) "went to Bethany yesterday. He looks a little older, but is the same blessed man. I love him. We had long talks. Brother Gore will visit home before long. All well at Brother Santo's. I got this sheet of paper from Jimmie Fox's desk. He is doing well—Adjunct Professor in the Male High School. I am writing at the office of the Old Path Guide. Brothers Hardin, Allen, Cline, et al., are talking all around me. Hardin goes to St. Louis tonight; I send this by him, that you may get it soon. Collis and Thurgood asked of you especially. I told Brother McGarvey of your work, of Brother Wilkes' estimation of you, of your position in the University, of the high praise President Laws gives you, etc., and Brother McGarvey says he wishes you could have a work directly in the interests of Christianity; but all he can advise is, to stay in the University until such a position opens up."
W. W. Dowling to Mr. and Mrs. Carr: "I am publishing in the Sunday School Teacher, biographical sketches of some of our prominent Sunday-school workers. I want a sketch of both of you—a synopsis of your lives and labors."
J. W. McGarvey to Mr. Carr, June 30, 1883: "I am glad you have the heart and ability to care for your aged parents as you do. In regard to educational affairs, I doubt the possibility of legally removing the Canton Institution. If you need an institution for the education of preachers, you cannot do better than to build a house, and endow two chairs in connection with the University. But I do not see that you need it for many years to come. Our College at Lexington can receive all your young men, and do a better part by them, at less expense. An attempt to have a Bible College in every State where we have a strong membership, will result in a large number of weaklings. The Baptists in all the South aim at but one; the Presbyterians, the same. We are now aiming at six or seven, and ours, the largest, has only 94. Since Geo. Bryant has gone home, I hear they are expecting 250 guests at Independence. I am surprised so many are expected. I have not heard whether Brother Oldham made a good reputation at first, or not. I am sure, however, that he will establish a reputation and secure success. I hope the preachers will help him." (Oldham was Bryant's successor at Christian College, Columbia. The institution referred to, at Independence, was Woodland College.)
November 4, 1883, O. A. Carr issued a circular addressed to the Alumnæ of Christian College, urging them to send matter for the forthcoming book, "Biography of President J. K. Rogers, and History of Christian College." This was a book Mr. Carr had undertaken at the request of President Rogers's widow. The work was attended with much difficulty and many delays, on account of the alumnæ pursuing the usual course of alumnæ, by refusing, as a whole, to answer request or entreaty.
Mrs. S. E. Shortridge, from Indianapolis, to Mrs. Carr, February 20: "I have been working all day steadily on the Tidings, and tonight, being too nervous to sleep, I take advantage of this halt to write to you, though the midnight hour is not far away." (Mrs. Shortridge was the Cor. Sec. of the C. W. B. M.) "Accept my thanks for the kindness and patience with which you have gone over the whole ground. I quite agree with you in the main; the only difference between us is, I believe, in the exceptions to the rule. I must assure you that we are of one mind here at Indianapolis. Perfect harmony and confidence prevail. This is particularly true of Sister Jameson and myself." (Mrs. Jameson was the president of the C. W. B. M.)
"From her I have no secret. We are very near neighbors; I see her almost daily; yet I am continually finding new beauties of character to love and admire. I find the Tidings cannot be enlarged this year: I wish it could." (At this time the Tidings was a small four-page sheet, four columns to the page.) "We are not able to rent a room, or office, and we work at great disadvantage. I never look at the paper that my conscience does not stir uneasily, it reminds me so much of a motherless child. And yet—I am doing the best I can. I have no journalistic genius, Mrs. Goodwin always insisted that I had, but she was blinded by love. If I have talent, it is still dormant. I do believe in you, and trust you fully, my dear Sister Carr. I think of you as a lovely Christian woman, incapable of consciously doing an unjust thing."