The fact is, many a successful preacher to-day would be out of the work but for his devoted wife. When ready to quit, and turn aside to some other occupation more lucrative, she put her womanly heart up against his, and urged him on to duty.
Said one of these noble helpers: “Husband, I know we are poor. Our carpets are old and faded, and our furniture is scant and plain. I know our dear children are barefooted, and can’t go to school; but I want you to keep on preaching.” With a faith unfaltering, and a courage invincible, she was willing to stay in the field—ready to serve, ready to sacrifice, ready to die, and, thank God, ready for heaven.
Her interest in her husband, God’s servant, knows no abatement. Day and night she is before the throne in his behalf; and are not her petitions heard? If not, whose will be? We must not deceive ourselves. She has a divinely-appointed place in the work of redemption, and one of tremendous significance—a helper in soul-saving. Her reward is sure. As she stands by her husband’s side on coronation morning, she, too, will hear heaven’s “well done” for the loyal, royal part she has taken, and the service she has rendered in the “ministry of reconciliation.”
In the earlier days of the conference, district work was exceedingly laborious, because of the vast mountainous territory to be traversed. If some of the circuits embraced from ten to twenty appointments, extending over portions of three or four counties, it is evident that the presiding elder had his hands full in superintending twelve or fifteen of these fields. The journeys on horseback were long and fatiguing; it was no uncommon thing to change horses at the end of a twenty-five mile ride through the mud, or over the frozen roads. In the midst of one of these long trips, Dr. Warner once stopped a few minutes in Pennsboro, at the home of Mrs. Caroline Sigler, one of God’s jewels, and after putting his tired animal away, mounted a fresh one and started on toward his appointment, eating a piece of cold corn-bread. As the good woman looked after him she could not keep the tears back. She knew something of the hardships which had fallen to his lot; yet those hardships were borne with a martyr’s courage for the sake of the Church he loved, and in which he died.
On a certain Friday morning I was to leave for my second quarterly on Littles Mills charge, a circuit with which the reader is already familiar because of the happenings I have related in connection with it. The distance was some thirty-five miles. The day brought with it a fearful snow-storm, which seemed to make it unwise for me to attempt the trip on horseback; but I meant to hold the meeting. Wife and children said, “Don’t go this time.” Others interjected: “You are foolish. Nobody will expect you.” But they were mistaken. The people did look for me. Taking the train in the evening I went to Parkersburg, forty miles, and the next day to New Martinsville, fifty-seven miles, and then walked sixteen miles, partly Saturday evening, and the balance of the way the next morning, arriving in time for the 10:30 services. I was glad I went The pastor needed me, and anxiously awaited my coming. I should never have felt right over the matter if I had disappointed him.
CHAPTER VII.
In the days of which I write, a quarterly meeting was a great event, and to many it was a rare privilege to see and hear the “elder.” During the summer and fall, especially, the attendance in many instances would be immense. Not unfrequently the women and children present would more than fill the house, which made it necessary to seek a “shady bower,” if one could be found. If convenient, the seats were removed from the church and used in the grove, but often this could not be done. More than once I have backed up against a tree, or mounted a log, and preached to a crowd scattered over a quarter acre of ground. On one of these occasions a young girl, of fifteen summers, perhaps, but large for her age, went to a house nearby and got a bucket of fresh water, and bringing it to me in the midst of my discourse, asked me if I would have a drink. I paused long enough to accept the courtesy, and, after thanking her for her thoughtfulness and kindness, continued my talk. Such an infraction of the rules governing divine worship to-day in many sections would greatly amuse the people, no doubt, and perhaps greatly annoy the preacher; but it was seldom noticed by speaker or congregation a third of a century ago among the mountains. When there was no grove near, or the atmosphere was too chilly, or the ground too damp to hold out-door services, we were sometimes sorely defeated by the crowds that came. I here give in full an article which I furnished the Telescope on the peculiar provocations of the elder:
“To be a presiding elder in the Parkersburg Conference means to travel over a large territory, and to do a vast amount of hard work on small pay; but all this is nothing compared with some other things that we have to endure. It is no uncommon thing in this country for a presiding elder to make a failure in the pulpit because of some circumstance, or a combination of circumstances over which he can have but little or no control.
“Many of the houses in which we worship are by far too small to accommodate the congregations that generally gather on quarterly meeting occasion. Indeed, many of our meetings are held in schoolhouses, only intended to seat fifty or seventy-five scholars. Now put two hundred persons, or more, into such a space, standing the most of them around the wall, and in the aisles, and then distribute from fifty to one hundred around the house on the outside, each striving to get his head in at a window, and any one, though he be unused to such things, can see the difficulty of preaching under such circumstances. If the people listen with interest they must be comfortably situated.