Well, we sat there for half an hour, he asking about his brother and Missouri, and the war, and I telling what I knew. Finally his wife said, "John, don't you know that boy?" I arose and he arose and said, looking at his wife, "Know that man?" "Why, should I know him?" I extended my hand and said you ought to know me. He hesitatingly took my hand and said, "Who are you?" I said, "I am you brother, Z. S." He said, "Impossible, this cannot be Simp." (When I was a child at home, they called me Simp.) I replied, "Yes I am Simp." We could hardly make him believe.
How wonderful is life. How little we know. How much of the little we seem to forget. Yet someone says we never forget anything. I expect to know more, and know it better, in the life to come. This brother John was a grand old man, but he has been sleeping in the grave ever since Nov. 3, 1891. His good wife also sleeps. But they left one daughter and three sons, who are, at this writing, noble citizens in Daviers County, Indiana.
I was chosen President of the County Teachers Association and elected as first assistant principal to teach in Washington, the county seat of Daviers County, Ind. This town was a little city of about four thousand. It is now a beautiful city of ten or twelve thousand. While there I preached in the court house and organized a small congregation which met to hear me preach and worship in observing the Lord's Supper, on each first day of the week. Now we have a large congregation with a great church building costing many thousand dollars.
While teaching here a very sad accident occurred one Saturday. One of my pupils and a boy pupil from the room adjoining my room, taught by a lady teacher, were playing in an old barn with the barrel of an old army musket which had neither lock nor stock. The boys had the gun barrel lying horizontally across the top of a barrel, and in their play they would place percussion caps upon the nipple of the gun and strike them with a piece of iron to hear the explosion. It was my boy's time to strike the cap and just as he struck the other boy was passing in front of the muzzle of the gun, and the gun fired, tearing the poor boy in front almost in two parts, killing him instantly. It was very said indeed!
The foregoing was an accident. The following was in incident. One cold, snowy, stormy, wintry morning while we were at breakfast at my boarding house in Washington, at once we heard a wonderful crashing noise of many things fall upon the porch floor and then rush through an open door of a little room that stood at the end of the porch. My host ran out and closed the door and what do you think was caught? Not less than nine quails. We had pot-pie for dinner. The remnants of that pot-pie left over, served for dinner more or less for nearly a week until I became very tired of pot-pie. And so changed my boarding place and boarded with an old, well-to-do retired Hoosier farmer and his wife. The wife was a most excellent cook. Elder Howe, who had traveled over nearly all the states as an evangelist, says no people excel the Hoosiers for their hospitality and god things to eat.
It was about this period of my life that I attended school at the
Northwestern Christian University at Indianapolis, Indiana, and later
at Hiram, Ohio, 1865-1866. My teachers in Indianapolis were
President Benton and Prof. Nushour, and Dr. Brown. At Hiram, Errett,
Burnett, Milligan, Anderson and Atwater. It was here I saw and heard
General Garfield deliver an address. He was a great and good man.
The most scholarly, pure minded and devout man I ever saw were
Milligan and Anderson.
Prior to my attendance to the schools mentioned above I had seen but few of our great teachers and preachers. I had supposed the differences between what they knew and what the ordinary teacher and what the ordinary preacher knew was almost infinite in their favor and that their ability to tell it was very superior but, on becoming acquainted with them, I found they knew nothing more about the unseen world, heaven or hell, or sin and its forgiveness, or death and salvation, than the simple scholar and devout student of the Bible. Now do not think, Boys, for a moment that I am opposed to higher education, and University training. All these things are a great help and blessing to any person, provided, he or she accepts that wisdom that comes from God through His Bible. No man knows anything beyond the horizon of the present, except what God's Bible reveals. And faith here becomes the only means by which this knowledge is obtained. But this is not to be wondered at, for is it not a fact that we are dependent on faith for nearly all knowledge. Faith is the greatest principle in the world, unless it is love. And faith is simply belief. Happy is the man who believes all things and proves all things, and holds fast to all that is good.
—-0—-
C H A P T E R E L E V E N
A meeting. Go to Kansas, 1967. Nine Mile House. Do Stones grow? On the shelf. The Spencers. The Johnsons. Brother Rufus. March 15, 1868.