“Yes, I was admitted to preach in that body, but it was not long before I had an attack of transcendentalism, and fell out with the Methodist elder of my district. The elder was wholly justified. He was a dry old gentleman, with a fund of common sense. After one of my flights, in which I advocated perfection far above the range of humankind, he came to me and said: ‘My dear young man, don’t you know that people have to live on this planet?’ The rebuke struck me as earthly then, but it has grown in humor and common sense since.
“I left voluntarily. I knew I was not satisfactory, and so I went away. I married when I was twenty. I preached in several places, and obtained a charge at Columbus, Ohio.”
A MINISTER’S TRUE IDEAL.
“When did you begin to have a visible influence on affairs, such as you have since exercised?”
“Just as soon as I began to formulate and follow what I considered to be the true ideal of the minister.”
“And that ideal was?”
“That the question to be handled by a preacher must not be theological, but sociological.”
“How did this conviction work out at Columbus?”
“The church became too small for the congregation, and so we had to move to the opera house.