His faith is as simple as it is broad and deep. The essentials of religion are few and easily comprehended. The simplicity of gospel truth when properly presented is one of its strongest attractive elements. In many instances the simple gospel has been complicated and obscured by a mass of theological rubbish heaped up by men more interested in a creed than in the ultimate truth. If the rubbish is cleared away, the truth will shine forth clear and distinct in its beauty, and men will accept it. To remove the rubbish and give a clear setting to the simple, vital elements of Christian faith seems to have been a large part of his appointed task. This is among his chief contributions to the cause of pure and undefiled religion.
To the simplicity of his faith should be added another quality, perhaps best described by the word “practical.” With him faith is an intensely practical thing. The faith that expresses itself merely in stock phrases, articles of a creed or church membership is, to say the least, a base counterfeit, a useless commodity. Nothing seems to him more irreligious than the religion that begins and ends in noise. Genuine faith has a personal, spiritual, and commercial value. Its highest expression is in doing something that ought to be done. It crystallizes into character, and contributes to human welfare. It places its possessor upon the broad highway of the world’s need, bringing him into sympathetic touch with the throbbing heart-life of humanity. Thus he maintains the sound Scriptural philosophy that faith is to be tested by works.
The church has profited largely from his beneficence. A habit which he has followed throughout his ministry is, as he says, “to live like a poor man and give like a rich man”—that is, like a rich man ought to give. He never turns down a worthy call for help. Even should there be a question as to the merit of the call, he usually gives it the benefit of the doubt. “His house is known to all the vagrant train,” and, to borrow another quaint phrase from Goldsmith, “even his faults lean to virtue’s side.” The tramp that comes to his door gets with his dinner a genial smile and wholesome words of admonition, even though the dinner, the smile, and the admonition are lost upon a worthless subject.
In dedicating churches he has made it a general rule to give his own subscription for an amount equal to the largest on the list. On a number of occasions, under pressure of a great need, he has pledged more than he was worth, in the faith that God would open the way for meeting the obligation. And his faith in every such case has been vindicated. His life illustrates the Bible doctrine of increasing by scattering. He surely has scattered with a lavish hand. He has not only observed the Lord’s tithe in his benevolence, but has gone quite beyond it, even to the giving, in some instances, of the greater part of his income to the Lord’s cause. Yet with it all, he has increased in temporal possessions. He has honored God with his substance, and God has smiled graciously upon him, so that with David he can well say, “I once was young, but now am old, yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.”
Chapter Sixteen.
“Lights Out”—A Dirge of the War.
A marked characteristic of Uncle Jack, as these pages have shown, is his peculiar ability to establish and maintain strong ties of personal friendship. This has been evident even from his youth. He has gathered friends from all walks of life, and their name is legion. The list has always been characterized by names that were written large in the annals of Church and State. Conspicuous among these is the late Lieutenant-Colonel James T. Johnson, of Rockville, Indiana, a man distinguished for talent and achievement in various fields. The twain were boys together, and the friendship thus early formed continued until severed by the death of Johnston in 1904. When Newgent was first winning laurels as a boy preacher, Johnston often walked five miles to attend his services. They were young men, mere youths, when the Civil War broke out. Both heard and responded to their country’s call at that dark time when not only the country’s honor, but her very existence was at stake. Both served under General Burnsides, and both held official positions in the army, Newgent as chaplain of his regiment, and Johnston as lieutenant, later lieutenant-colonel. After the war was over, each won honors and served well his generation in his chosen profession, the one as a minister of the gospel, the other as a lawyer and politician. Johnston found room near the top in the legal profession, and at the same time represented his district three successive terms in Congress. He ranked high as an orator, and, like his clerical friend, was much in demand at reunions and other gatherings of the soldiers, the two men frequently dividing time upon such occasions. Had Newgent chosen politics as a career, he would doubtless have become a political leader. Had Johnston turned his attention to the ministry, he would have taken rank in all probability among the leading preachers of his day.