Thirty Years in the Itinerancy.
CHAPTER I.
Providential Intervention.--Nature and Providence alike Mysterious.--An Unseen Hand shaping Human Events.--The Author urged to enter the Ministry.--Shrinks from the Responsibility.--Flies to Modern Tarshish.--Heads for Iowa.--Gets Stuck in the Mud.--Smitten by a Northern Gale.--Turns Aside to see the Eldorado.--Finds Himself Face to Face with the Itinerancy.
The ways of Providence are mysterious. And how, to men, could they be otherwise? With their limited faculties it could not be expected that they would be able to obtain more than partial glimpses of the "goings forth of the Almighty." The Astronomer can determine the orbit of the planets that belong to our system, since they lie within the range of his vision; but not so the comets. These strange visitors locate their habitations mainly in regions so remote from the plane of human existence that his eye cannot reach them. And when they do condescend to pay us a visit, they traverse so wide a circuit that the curve they describe is too slight to furnish a basis for reliable mathematical calculations. Hence the orbit of a comet is a mystery, and the return not unfrequently a surprise. If this be true of what seem to be the unfinished or exploded worlds, that swing like airy nothings in the heavens and fringe the imperial realm of physical being, then what may not be predicated of the profounder mysteries that lie bosomed in those unexplored depths of the Universe, where the fixed stars hold high court? When our feet trip at every step of our advance to know the mysteries of nature, why need we affect surprise when the profounder domain of providence refuses to yield up its secrets? That the ways of God are mysterious is a logical necessity. The Infinite disparity between the human and the Divine intelligence involves it. Insignificant as a lady's finger ring may seem when compared to one of the mighty rings of Saturn, the human mind, in the presence of the Divine, is infinitely more so. Well hath the Scriptures said, "Far as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts."
The mysterious ways of Providence are, however, not unfrequently so interwoven with human events as that average intelligence may be able to understand portions of them, though much of mystery must always remain. And in no one particular do these understandable portions find a clearer illustration than in those interventions which assign individual men to given pursuits and responsibilities in life. Truly, "There is a Providence that shapes our ends, rough hew them as we will."
Nor may these special interventions be wholly appropriated by the great men of the world. On the contrary, they not unfrequently condescend to bless the very humblest. The same great thought, the same skilled hand and the same infinite power that were necessary to pile up the grandest mountain ranges and hollow the ocean's bed, were also required to create a single grain of sand and assign it its place as a part of the grand whole. So, while great and honorable men pass into the world's history as the proteges of a special providence, let it also be remembered that the humbler ones, though their names may never be chronicled, are not forgotten by the All Father. If willing to be led, they shall not want a kind hand to lead them. And even though rebellious at times, and at others shrinking from the proffered responsibilities, yet a loving Father cares for the trembling and feeble ones, as well as the brave and the strong, and kindly leads them into the paths of peace.
I have not written thus, good reader, in these opening pages, to find a starting place for the record that is to follow. On the contrary, these utterances hold a special relation to the writer and the labors of the last thirty years.
Soon after my conversion, and before I was eighteen years of age, I received an Exhorter's license. I was then engaged in teaching and found my time largely occupied by my profession. Yet, I occasionally held services on the Sabbath. During the ensuing four years I retained the same relation. I was often urged to accept a Local Preacher's license, but declined, thinking I was too much occupied in the other field to make the necessary preparation for this. And, besides, I had now reached a point of great perplexity and trial with reference to the ministerial calling as a profession. Not that I entertained a serious thought of accepting it, but, on the contrary, was wholly averse to it. But, strangely enough, while I was thus, both in feeling and convictions, opposed to the measure, every one else seemed to accept it as a matter already settled that I would enter the Itinerant field. From the good Rev. John B. Stratton, the Presiding Elder of the Prattsville District, New York Conference, within the bounds of which I then resided, and his immediate successor, Rev. Samuel D. Ferguson, down through all the ministry and laiety of my acquaintance, I was made the special subject of attack. But from what all others thought to be my duty, I shrank with a persistence that admitted of no compromise. The plan I had marked out for myself contemplated, ultimately, the position of a Local Preacher, and a life devoted largely to literature and business. On this plan I fully relied, and thought myself settled in my convictions and fixed in my purpose. Yet I am not able to say, that at times it did not require some effort of the will to keep my conscience quiet and my thought steady. A young man, from eighteen to twenty-two years of age, who was subject to so many attacks, especially in high places, and who constantly felt himself preached to and prayed at in almost every religious assembly, must be more than human, not to say less than a Christian, to bear up under such a pressure. I clearly saw that one of two things must be done, and that speedily. Either I must yield to the manifest demand of the church or "go west." I chose the latter. Nor was this decision mere obstinacy. There were several things to be considered and carefully weighed and determined before entering upon a work of such grave responsibilities as the Itinerant ministry. First of all, the question must be settled in a man's conviction of duty; then the question of one's fitness for the work; and, finally, the financial question could not be ignored. To enter the Itinerancy involved responsibilities that could only be sustained under the deepest convictions that can possibly penetrate a human soul. The minister is God's ambassador to lost men. He can only enter upon this work under the sanction of Divine authority. Having entered he is charged with the care of souls, and if these shall suffer harm, through his inefficiency or want of fidelity, he must answer in the Divine assizes for the breach of trust. Well may the best of men say, "who is sufficient for these things?" Then add to this grave responsibility, the certain and manifold trials which must come to every man who enters the Itinerancy. His very calling makes him a spectacle to men, and necessarily the subject of adverse criticism. He is the messenger of God and yet the servant of man. On the one hand, clothed with the authority of heaven, and on the other reduced to the condition of a servant. Expected to deliver the high message of the King of Kings, and yet receives his pulpit under the suffrages of man. Before he receives his appointment, he is not unfrequently the subject of a sharp canvass from one end of the Conference to the other, and after he receives it he is liable to find himself among a people, who had rejected him in the canvass, and now only acquiesce in the decision from sheer necessity. But if he escape Scylla in this particular, he is certain to drive upon Charybdis in another. Granting that his relations and labors may be acceptable, he falls upon the inevitable necessity of devoting his time and labor, during the vigor and strength of his days, for a meager compensation, and then pass into old age, and its attendant infirmities, as a dependancy, if not a pauper. And now let me submit; with such a picture hung upon the canopy of the future, and who shall say it is overdrawn? is it a matter of surprise that a young man should hesitate before accepting the position of an Itinerant?
But it will be said: "There is another side to the picture." True, and thanks to the Great Head of the church that there is. But the other side can only be seen when the beholder occupies the proper stand-point, and this position I certainly had not attained at the time of which I write. In this matter, as in most others, our mistakes arise from partial views and limited observation.