The life of Rev. William Goff Caples of the Missouri Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South

Preface

I must have my little prefatory chat with the reader.

The writing of the Life of Caples was not undertaken upon my own suggestion, but in compliance with the request of the Missouri Conference, made by formal resolution at the session of 1867, at Macon City.

I had no time to devote to it until after my return from the Pacific coast last fall. As I felt unable for hard service in the pulpit at the time, I proposed to devote the winter to the preparation of this Biography, preaching only on Sundays near home. But before the work was more than fairly begun I was drawn into a series of revival meetings that kept me from home nearly all the while. Away from home inevitable engrossments of time prevented all writing, and at home a heavy correspondence, with other claims upon me, demanded attention. The greater part of this book has, therefore, been written by snatches, as a few hours could be commanded now and th$n. I feel per-

IV PREFACE.

suaded that, as a literary production, I could improve it greatly, if I had leisure.

Perhaps the friends of Brother Oaples will be disappointed to find so little of narrative in the book. But I had not the facts, nor could I procure them, unless I had taken time to go and see hundreds of people, and interest them in conversation about him until their memories might have yielded me their store of hid treasures. In response to letters, with but two or three exceptions, I got only generalities. It seemed impossible to get incidents, to any great extent, by correspondence, and I gave it up at last in despair. I had to depend largely on my own memory, which, when I put it to the test, served me better than I expected. I found that I could recall the substance of many conversations I had had with him much more fully than I supposed.

That there may be inaccuracies in the book, I can not doubt, but I have taken every pains to get the exact truth, and trust that I have generally succeeded. Of the general accuracy of it I feel fully assured.

The plan of the work is somewhat peculiar. I had not the material to make a book of much size as a mere biography, and so determined to make the narrative the vehicle of other matter, which seemed to me of great importance. This matter is pertinent, and always suggested by the facts.

PREFACE V

My object has been to make this biography a means of doing good, and not simply a memorial of one so highly honored amongst us.

If, in some parts of the book, the style should appear too familiar or offensively egotistical, I have but one apology to make : It was written with the consciousness of a Missourian talking to Missourians about Caples. Was it possible that, with this feeling, the author should avoid the free use of the personal pronoun ? I am sure the immediate friends of my honored brother will accept this feature of the work with generous allowance, at least.

It has been written with prayer and an earnest desire to glorify Grod. If it shall lead any soul to Christ, encourage any young minister or console any of the older ones ; if it shall contribute to more wholesome views of truth and obligation in the Church, or bring any to a more perfect consecration, the labor of preparing it, which has been considerable, will find ample reward. .

E. M.'MARVIK

St Louts, April 28,1870

Chapter I. Bieth, And The New Bieth

William Goff Caples, son of R. F and Charlotte Caples, was born April 23, 1819, in Jeromeville, Wayne county, Ohio.

Of his parents and his early life I know nothing beyond the fact that his educational. advantages were limited, and that he was converted and joined the Methodist Episcopal Church in his seventeenth year. It is, therefore, to be inferred that he had enjoyed Christian training, and I should judge that his parents were of the better class of that adventurous multitude that have been ever pushing into the West. But whether his father was farmer, merchant, mechanic or professional man I know not. Nor do I care to know. I feel quite certain that good ancestral influences were upon the man. He was possessed of that sort of deep, unassailable principle that is apt to be hereditary. Whether it be in the blood or in a species of traditional family honor, I shall not undertake to say, bat my observation is that where there is very high moral tone it may be traced to an honorable line of ancestry- There are exceptions, no doubt, but this is the rule.

There are two vital facts in human life, and individual character is the result of their combined action. The first is personal liberty, and the second reciprocal influence. Character comes of the action and reaction of the individual will upon all the multiform moral influences that come upon the man.

All observation compels us to admit that much depends on early influences. It is a rare thing that the character of a man is the reverse of the character of the external agencies brought to bear upon him in the formative period. So fully is this true that the declaration comes with divine authority, " Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it." This is literally true. It is the declaration of God. Yet many who accept the Bible as the book of God either disbelieve the affirmation or explain it until the meaning is all gone.

True, many children of Christian parents turn

LIFE OP CAP1ES 9

out wicked. But who can affirm that they were trained up in the way they should go ?

Training means much more than mere instruction. Even this part of it is sadly neglected by many parents who are in the Church. But even where there is thorough instruction in the things of Gfod, still the training may "be very imperfect, or positively bad. Let it be remembered that training goes on as actively (often more so) in the street as by the fireside. It is 'imperative on parents to secure their children, as far as possible, against such associations as will lead to an evil life. Let their surroundings, as far as may be, tend to salvation. After the utmost care and vigilance the precious soul of the child will be sufficiently exposed. The carelessness that lets them run at large, the parent knows not where, and the weakness or pride that sends them to the mouth of the pit that they may enjoy themselves, or that they may establish a footing in " fashionable society," betrays either a thoughtlessness or a degree of carnality on the part of the parent that quite unfits him for his great responsibilities. It is safe to affirm that where the children of religious parents turn out irreligious — permanently so — they have not been trained " in the nurture and admonition of the Lord."

A child baptized in infancy and properly trained is almost sure to desire a place among the peopfe

10 LIEEOECAPLES.

of God when it is from eight to twelve years old. After that there will be many temptations, much "backsliding of heart, in many cases, and much mere formality; but with the due exercise of parental influence and authority mingled, aided by proper pastoral fidelity, in a living Church, with the stated means of grace regularly enjoyed, and the revival seasons — those "seasons of refreshing from the presence of the Lord " that are sure to come in every vital Church — the child is certain to come, sooner or later, to a sound experience of grace, and a stable, consistent, Christian character.

Even as it is, with the very imperfect training realized amongst us, it is the children of religious people that constitute the staple of the Church. Christian families are the salt of the earth.

An important factor in the problem of character as it results from training, is the actual character of the parent. A man's influence proceeds out of himself, and is, in the long run, just the out-going of his inner life. He may greatly desire to exert on his children an influence above his own standard. He gives the best: possible advice, and now and then goads himself up to a measure of piety on their account that is not habitual with him. The motive is a good one ; the only trouble is that he falls back again to the old level of nominal religion, and the force of his influence comes from his whole life, and not from the better and exceptional part of it. I have no doubt that there is a great deal of true piety in the Church, and in proportion to this our religion will reproduce itself in our children.

The great work of Mr. Wesley was to bring personal religion in experience and practice up to the scriptural standard. The experience of the love of G-od, felt and known, the new birth taught so distinctly and with such emphasis by our Lord and by all the apostles, was the key note of the Methodist movement. No less vital was the averment, that where this is found in truth it will be seen in the fruit of it — that is, in holy living. This heavenly birth realized in the soul and bodied forth in a life of habitual devotion to God, with proper instruction and training of children, and the prayer of faith earnestly, constantly offered to Gfod in their behalf, will reappear from generation to generation, and in this manner, chiefly, will heaven become populous with redeemed spirits from the earth.

From what I know of the man, Caples, I doubt not that the hoy was very wide awake and full of fun. If I might venture to make a little history, after the manner of the rationalists,. I should say that this boy was a recognized chief among the youth of his neighborhood. Both from intellectual superiority and force of will he was a leader, even amongst boys older than himself. Then there was such boldness and activity, so much dash and enterprise, and withal such an unceasing flow of wit, combined with the most genial humor, that he would inevitably attract every thing to himself.

An inborn hatred of everything little and mean, and a sense of justice that was little less than a passion, often no doubt called him to a noble championship in instances of insolent tyranny such as are constantly recurring amongst boys, while at the same time the impulses of a master spirit probably made him overbearing himself, at times. But the genuine nobility of his spirit would always appear in the end.

The casual observer would see in him only a very bright and a very irrepressible boy, running over with vitality and fun. But his mother would discover something much deeper. She would see the young spirit opening itself to everything divine in nature and in the Bible. I can not doubt that the awe of God was often upon the child, that the voice of a conscience wonderfully authoritative made itself articulate in his soul, and that the check of these often brought him to pause in the midst of wayward adventures, when none but himself was aware of it. As he grew into youth there was an ever-deepening sense of God.

I know not what the fact was, but can scarcely doubt that it was in a revival that he was con verted and joined the Church. He lived in a comparatively new country It was not at a camp-meeting that he was brought into the fold, for it was in the winter. Perhaps it was in a rude schoolhouse. Many of the princes of Israel in the West have been born into the Kingdom where all was in a very crude state. But it matters not whether amid the grandeurs of some costly Gothic structure, or the still more imposing grandeurs of "God's first temples," a soul first comes to the knowledge of its Creator. The supreme fact of our life is independent of all that is accidental. He that is once an actual partaker of the divine nature will feel it to be a matter of no consequence whether the consummation was reached at a camp-meeting or in a cathedral. Every thing else becomes insignificant in the presence of the love of God. All other beauty is lost in the beauty of Him who is " chiefest among ten thousand and altogether lovely." All else is nothing compared with " Christ crucified." Worldly adjuncts are forgotten in the " knowledge of sins forgiven."

The experience of our departed brother was clear and positive. I think he never doubted his conversion. Always after I knew him he was at rest on that point. There was nothing equivocal either in his views of the doctrine of the new birth or in his experience of the fact. It was a great reality to him.

"What we have felt and seen "With confidence we tell."

He was never concerned to bring within the terms of a vain philosophy this chief of all the affirmations of revelation and of the experience of the people of God. With him it stood on its own everlasting foundations — the testimony of God and the responsive testimony of the saints of all ages. His own experience was a divine preparation for the work God had for him to do in the world. It was so full, so distinctly and deeply a fact of consciousness with him that "the trumpet never gave an uncertain sound." He delivered the fact of the spiritual birth not only out of the Holy Scriptures, "opening and alleging " that it is so, but also out of the depths of his own soul.

This great epoch in his life dates from December, 1835. Thenceforward he was a " new creature in Christ Jesus." " Old things passed away, all things became new." ]STot that the essential personal traits that constituted his identity and differenced him from other men were destroyed ; but the spiritual nature was raised to a new life, which was thenceforth to give complexion to the whole man. The views and hopes of his life now sprang from this new fountain. The uneonquerable energies of his soul came under control of motives thence arising. His whole being adjusted itself to God, to his law, to Christ and eternity That wonderful emotional nature of his, which was, for volume, like the tides of the ocean, swelled and subsided under the attraction of the Son of God.

"The Spirit itself bore witness with his spirit that he was a child of God." I have heard him dilate upon that passage in private conversation until I would

"Taste unutterable bliss And everlasting rest."

None but a man who had felt its truth could talk about it as he did. Once when we were alone together he dwelt upon it until, when he passed to the latter clause of the text, " if children then heirs — heirs or God and joint heies with Christ," his very recitation of the language opened its unfathomable depths to me. His own experience taught him the import of all the richest passages of the Word of God.

His conversion determined the course of his after life. He had other views, indeed, ambitious views, which sprang out of conscious intellectual power, and prompted him strongly to a career in which he might win fame and gold. He studied law, and had an intuitive foresight of the illustrious career that his peculiar mental endowments would have secured Mm in that profession. He had none of that contemptible sort of vanity which makes small men ridiculous, but he did have that quiet consciousness of power which is the prophesy of success in minds of the highest order. But " the law of the spirit of life " was in him, and an awakened and dominant conscience curbed what would otherwise have been an indomitable ambition. It opened his ear to another voice — a voice felt to be from God — a voice articulate within, summoning him to the ministry of the word. It offered no emoluments and no gold. He knew that it involved much toil and poverty. There was no charm in it then for a carnal heart, for Methodist preachers in those days saw no well furnished parsonages nor "fat salaries" in the perspective of the future. For such a man as Caples it was a sacrifice, and a great one ; such a sacrifice as a man may bear for himself very well, but to involve his wife and children in it touches to the quick.

I get hints of a period of conflict. There was a time when temptation was strong, and when the flesh warred against the spirit with such force that the issue was doubtful. He was in poise between contending motives. There was agony in the struggle. But, as we shall see, in the end the spirit triumphed. He " was not disobedient to the heavenly vision." The spiritual momentum already received became the determining force of his life.

A man is not, therefore, yet perfect when he is born of God. He will soon find himself in the midet of a great warfare, the flesh lusting against the spirit. Like his Lord, he will find that, in his measure, he must be made perfect through suffering. The cross is to be borne. The flesh is to be mortified. Doubtless, some attain to a full consecration much sooner and with less pain than others, for " faith the conquest more than gains." And those of us who linger in a protracted struggle triumph at last only through Christ — -only by faith. And how self-abased we must be that, with the victory always in our grasp, through Christ, we have maintained an impotent warfare in our own strength so long.

I have not the data from which to give an account in detail of the agonism through which Brother Caples passed. I only know that he struggled and that he triumphed.

Since this chapter was written I have received the following in a letter from John F. Caples, Esq., a lawyer of high standing v at Portland, Oregon, and a brother of Rev. "W Gr. Caples. It contains some information I did not before possess, and confirms other facts already given. I feel quite sure, however, that Brother Caples came to Missouri an exhorter only, and received license to preach soon after he arrived. The letter of Rev B. R. Baxter, in another chapter, confirms the information I had before, and which I had always understood to be the fact. This is not a material point, however, and the letter from Portland will be read with interest. To me it was of great interest in giving an insight into the home influences under which the character of Mr. Caples was formed. The father and mother were the manner of people I had supposed them to be:

"Portland, Oregon, December 10, J 869,

"Brother William was born at Jeromeville, Wayne county, Ohio, April 23, 1819; was the son of Robert F and Charlotte Caples ; emigrated, with his parents, to Seneca county, Ohio, in 1831 ; experienced religion and joined the Church in 1835. I presume you do not wish to go back very far as to parentage. His father, in his early life, had studied and been admitted to practice law ; served as judge of the Common Pleas Court in Wayne county, Ohio, for four years, but devoted the balance of his life to farming.

"William, as a boy, was of studious habits, but his literary opportunities (outside of his father's early instruction) were only those of a common school in a new country He was accustomed to labor upon a farm until about eighteen years of age, when he engaged as a clerk in a store at.Findlay, Ohio, and was most of the time thereafter engaged in mercantile pursuits, until he left Ohio for Missouri, which, we believe, was in the spring of 1839. He studied law at Findlay during the years 1836 and 1837, but never practiced the profession that we know of.

" His parents were religious from early youth, members of the M. E. Church, and their house in Seneca county was for many years a home for Methodist preachers, and served as a preaching place, class rooms, and other religious services of the Church.

" For some years before leaving Ohio "William served the Church as an exhorter and local preacher. In his younger days he was distinguished for his energy, cheerful and hopeful disposition, and extreme kindness of heart."

Chapter II. Apprentice Work In The Gospel

Young Caples was appointed Class Leader within a year after his conversion. My data simply says this appointment was made in 1836. At what time in the year this occurred I have no means of knowing; but as his conversion took place at the very close of the preceding year it is likely that very soon after the close of his probationary term, possibly even before the close of it (for such a thing would not be without precedent), he became the Leader of a class. He was not only young in religion, but also young in years, for in April of this year he attained his seventeenth year.

Not only must his religious life have been very decided, but, for one so young, his personal character for intelligence and stability of purpose must have commanded great. respect, or he would not have been placed in so responsible a relation to the Church. One can imagine how warmly the sympathies of the Church clustered about the young disciple, so sprightly was he, so intelligent, and so fully trusted. No doubt the simple-hearted members already predicted that he would be a preacher, and felt all that generous interest in him so near akin to family pride, which constituted one of the most beautiful traits of the old-time Methodist piety And I am thankful to believe that this trait is not obsolete now. Every truly pious heart must feel a devout interest in a young man who is " called of Gfod to preach the gospel." In the eye of faith there is in him somewhat that is not in other young men of the Church. He seems nearer to Christ, and in one sense actually is so. He is a chosen vessel, to whom God has committed a dispensation of the gospel. The freshness and ardor of his young manhood have the air of consecration upon them. If he be more deeply pious than is common with those of his age, there is a recognized spirituality and selfabnegation in him the odor of which is a " sweet smelling sacrifice." No genuine Christian can fail to be touched by all this. Accordingly, there has ever been in the Church a rich sentiment of prayerful regard toward the youth who 'are looked upon as being destined, by the call of Gfod, to the ministry. In the local Church where he resides, and where he was converted — the Church that was in travail when he was born — the Church that was

22 LIPEOPOAPLES.

in sympathy with his penitential anguish, and heard his first shout of praise, and thrilled under the sunburst of immortal joy when it blazed out of the thick darkness, changing, it may be, in one moment, his midnight into day — there is a sort of proprietary interest in him. Much note is taken of every hopeful fact, and many a sage prediction of the coming greatness of the young worker for God is delivered.

But while this is always so, it was eminently the case among the Methodists of forty years ago and less. At that period, when there was so much energy in the administration of the itinerant plan, a heroic character invested the preachers, in addition to the sacred interest always felt in their office. A young man caught up by this whirlwind might be let down almost anywhere. Wherever he might be he would have a circuit large enough for a principality, with all the incidents of bridgeless streams and pathless forests and consuming labors. There was a sort of railroad activity in the itinerancy, while all else was in the heavy jog of the sober old time. Friends and neighbors, therefore, followed the young Evangelist with a romantic interest as he disappeared in impossible distances, with no railroad, nor telegraph wire, nor scarcely an old-fashioned stage line to disenchant the scene. He was out swimming rivers on horseback, wandering of tern-

LlJB 01 0APIE8, 23

pestuous nights in morasses, with the howl of the wolf and the scream of the panther making chorus in the song of the wind and thunder, attacked by robbers or, " mayhap " (as Hugh Miller would say), by savage Indians. All this on an errand of love, with nothing that could be called pay as the world goes, moved by the self same motive that brought the Master down from heaven to suffer and to die. He was out on the Master's business— to seek and to save the lost. This gave the early preachers a commanding place in the affections of the Church.

The tie was strengthened by the fact that the preachers lived among the people of the Church. No preacher on a circuit thought of hoarding anywhere. He had no time to board. He was never in the same neighborhood more than a day or two in three or four, or maybe six, weeks. He lived with his people. Many of the preachers were unmarried, and if one had a family he was at home but little. They were almost always on the hospitality of the brethren, and the brethren loved to have it so. It was a bright day when the preacher came, especially if he came to stay all night. The children looked on him almost as an angel of God. The faces of the servants (where there were any) glowed, and the preacher and the preacher's Tiorse (always a notable animal) were at home.

These old Methodist people were not miserly, as they have been slanderously reported. True, they had no idea of paying the preacher much money They had not been so taught by the fathers. The preachers did not want much money, did not need much, ought not to have much. They were not hirelings. Their reward was on high. And this was all very well while the preachers followed Asbury and the fathers, and, remained unmarried. But when they began to have many mouths to fill with bread — mouths that relished butter, too, if they could only get it — wives and children to "buy calico and shoe leather for — poor fellows, it operated hard on them. No wonder if, in the bitterness of their souls, they said the Methodist people were stingy But they were not stingy They had only been trained not to give much money to the preachers. Yet, when was it ever known that a dozen of these same preachers came up at nightfall, on their way to Conference, before the cottage gate of a Methodist brother of the old time — a poor, hard-working man, with a large family to support, it may be — that they were not cheerfully hailed as the servants of the Lord, and man and beast welcomed to the very best the place afforded, in the most cordial manner? Many a brother who felt it a hardship to pay twenty-five cents a quarter would cheerfully open his house for preaching every two weeks, and feed e^ery one who would stay for dinner. And how many would he not feed at the camp-meeting ?

The fact is he did not get much money, but of that which he had in abundance, the product of his labor, he gave freely- Such was the relation between preacher and people when Caples, in the flush of youth, became a class leader and began to be looked upon as one devoted to the work of the Lord. There must have been an exalted sympathy between the young leader and his class very much after the model of apostolic times. His own nature was generous and responsive in the highest degree, and it could not have been otherwise than that their social meetings were seasons of the richest spiritual communion — occasions that must ever more glow in the firmament of memory with a lustre all the brighter as it recedes.

The simplicity of early Methodism appears in the appointment of such a mere youth as class leader. The case was not so very uncommon then Gifted young men — especially if they were thought of for 'the ministry— were often put in charge of classes — young men who would scarcely be tolerated in such a relation anywhere now- They had not much knowledge, nor any maturity of experience. Many members of their classes would be in advance of them in both of these respects. But if the young brother was truly pious, "fervent in spirit serving the Lord," and had the "gift of utterance," he was welcomed joyfully as the leader of their meetings. True, he could not instruct them much, but there was that glow of spiritual sympathy which furnishes a species of nutrition for the soul scarcely less important than instruction itself. The worshipers were very devout and child-like in their religious life, and went to the meeting to enjoy communion with God and with His people, and were not disposed to criticise each other's performances. It was not felt to be a performance — in fact, it was a meeting of the children of God to build each other up on their most holy faith. The rhetoric might be very poor, and, for the matter of that, the grammar barbarous and the matter crude, but they did indeed grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the earnest, gifted, unconscious young leader, though a very inexperienced and incompetent instructor in the things of God, was greatly loved, and was sure to find many an Aquila and Priscilla to teach him the way of God more perfectly Meantime this spiritual athlete was being trained for a wider field, where his prowess would be called' into play in a more important contest. In the course of a few years, with hardened and practiced muscle, he would wield the sword of the Spirit in the very