Fragments

Preface

This book is one which Father himself was planning to publish in response to the urgent request of many of his friends. It was to sup¬ plement his book “Meditations.” But owing to the conditions of the war the idea of publication was abandoned for the time. Now, after his death, we publish it in the hope that it will be a comfort to many who knew him and loved him. It consists of his autobiography fol¬ lowed by selections from articles published in the “Signs of the Times” since 1897.

In the autobiography as Father left it, there is no mention of his visits to Winnipeg, Canada. The first time he was there was in 1898 in response to an urgent invitation from his friend, Mr. Ebenezer Mc J Coll. Finding that he entirely escaped the annual attack of hay fever from which he suffered, he repeated his visit in 1900. Mr. McColl and his wife were the only Old School Baptists in the city at that time and Father’s visits were a source of great enjoyment and comfort to them and their family.

After Mother’s death in 1912, he visited Winnipeg again, and there¬ after each year as long as his strength permitted. In 1917 and 1918 he deemed the journey too arduous, even for the relief he derived from his malady while there. During each of these later visits regular meet¬ ings were held at the home of his son-in-law, Gilbert B. McColl, there being by this time quite a number of members and friends of the Bap¬ tists in the city. Before his last visit a church there was organized.

During the year after he wrote the last of the autobiography, his heart was very weak. His doctor watched him carefully. Often when Father was starting to keep an appointment the doctor would say, “Mr. Durand, you ought not to go,” but he would just smile and go on. He continued keeping his appointments here and elsewhere, though some one always accompanied him on his trips. He often walked a mile or two to see some one who was ill. During all this year his character shone more and more beautifully, as the path of the just “which shineth more and more unto the perfect day.”

In 1918 he missed the June meeting in Ekfrid, Canada, for the first time in fifty years. In Salisbury, Maryland, on June 30, 1918, he performed his last ordinance of baptism. It was a solemn time. To all who stood by the water it seemed a miracle how the strength was given him.

His last public speaking was at the funeral of a dear young friend on November 1st. He spoke from the words “For if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the Heavens.” On the following Thursday a few friends were gathered together in the little covenant meeting that was always held by this church the first Thursday in each'

month. This meeting will always be a precious memory to those who were there. His last prayer was as if he were almost face to face with the Lord whom he addressed.

That night he had the fall, from the shock of which, in his weak condition, he did not recover. During those days his talk was all upon the theme which was the nearest to him all his life. He was repeating scriptures and expounding them. He talked with his breth¬ ren of Jesus as the only way of salvation. He kept dwelling on that. “You must see,” he would say, “the necessity for the blood of Jesus. There is no other way.” He seemed to feel himself surrounded by the church of the First Born and an innumerable company of angels. Many a time he had said that Death, though it was the king of terrors, when it came, would be but as the drawing aside of a curtain which hides from us the entrance into Life. And so it seemed to be with him as he passed quietly from us on the morning of Tuesday, November 12th. There are no words to express what it means to have such lives to look back upon as those of our Father and Mother—lives spent in the service of the Lord. It is a priceless heritage.

Edith Durand McColl,

Mildred Durand Gordy.

From Daguerreotype taken at the age of 21 f

f,

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Chapter I MY EARLY LIFE

I think one of the hardest things I ever had to do was (or is) to get the consent of my own mind to write and publish this book. There is a constant desire to stay back out of sight. That I cannot now do, for I have written of my daily life and experience concerning spiritual things and published it among the brethren for more than forty years. Yet how little of my outward history and of my inner life I have told. How little can be told. Considering that, and also considering my natural backwardness from early childhood, the most diffident child I ever saw, I just now felt like giving up the task of writing any more, when the thought of the wonderful goodness and mercy of the Lord to me filled my soul with a desire to tell it to all that fear the Lord. I cannot recite it all; I cannot tell it. To give even a glimpse of it I must tell of all my vileness, my wickedness, my transgression in heart and lip and life, and that I cannot do. I can tell of times when the revelation of his grace and goodness to me, in an experience of his delivering power, has caused my soul to cry out and shout because of the greatness of the Holy One of Israel in the midst of Zion, and to say, “0 Lord, I will praise thee: though thou wast angry with me, thine anger is turned away, and thou comfortest me.” But I cannot tell of the awful depths of sin and the terrible waters of affliction out of which he has saved me. I can only say that my praise is continually due to the Lord for this great mercy that has kept me a place in the fellowship of his church and people.

I was born January 5, 1833, the eleventh of fourteen children. My father, Daniel Durand, was born November 7, 1793, in Middletown, Orange County, New York, when there were only two houses there. The ancestor of the Durand family in America was Dr. John Durand, who came from Rochell, France, during the time of the Huguenot persecution in 1685, and settled in Milford, Conn. My father saw the house where he lived.

My mother was born in Bellvale, Orange County, New York. She was a granddaughter of Elder James Benedict, who was said to be the first Baptist preacher who was ever west of the Hudson River. He organized the church at Warwick, and built the meeting house which is still standing in the center of the beautiful village of Warwick, and in which the church meets every Sunday.

My father and mother were married in April, 1815, in Bellvale, and lived there perhaps two years. They moved to Minnisink, where he worked at his trade, making wagons, for a few years. They both were baptized by Elder Ball in the fellowship of the church at Brook¬ field, of which there was a branch at Minnisink. At one time there was a membership of over 300.

In 1824 my father and mother, with four children, moved to Brad¬ ford County, Pennsylvania, 160 miles. One child had died. Whatever worldly goods they possessed were carried in a two-horse wagon. They lived two years at Camptown, where he attended a “grist mill. He went to the different churches within reach, but could find none to suit him. After some time he heard of a meeting nine miles distant by direct line through the woods, where a peculiar man preached in a school house. He went on a Sunday morning by “marked trees” through the woods to that place, which was called South Hill, and found the people whom he was seeking. Elder Hezekiah West was preaching for them. His name occurs often in the early volumes of the “Signs,” and refer¬ ence to his articles published there will show what a profitable and re¬ liable gift he was to the church. At the next meeting day father and mother drove to the meeting, having to go a distance of twenty miles. They put in their letters there, where they remained until that church became extinct, about 1845, when they united with the Asylum Church at Vaughan Hill.

In December, 1828, they moved four miles into the woods, in the direction of South Hill, and went into a very substantial loghouse which father had built. It was yet without doors or windows, but not long before they were supplied. A heavy forest of hemlock, beech and maple was all around them, but the winter was mild, the cow and pigs could get their living in the woods, and a comfortable winter was passed. There seven children were born, making fourteen, ten of whom grew to manhood and womanhood. There the usual trials of frontier life were experienced, and there many comforts, both spiritual and natural, were enjoyed. There hard and faithful work was done, and such hardships endured as can only be known by those who have begun in the woods with nothing but good health, strong arms and invincible determination. There an irreproachable character was maintained by parents and children. Father worked at his trade, and cleared up the farm, and his reputation for absolute honesty was so noted as to be peculiar. As far as he was known that absolute honesty was known, and the only word of disparagement ever uttered concerning him was on account of his peculiar religion. Even this, however, we noticed with wonder, rather added to the respect and confidence which even those who opposed his religious views had for him, for they, in time of great personal straits and danger, would call upon him for advice and prayer. One of the members of a distant branch of our family, who has traced the genealogy back to Dr. John Durand, the Huguenot emigrant, says, “As far as I can learn, the name has never fallen into disrepute; always like the forefather (the Huguenot), reputable peo¬ ple and worthy of preserving the name and lineage for coming genera¬ tions.”

And it is right to prize that inheritance of a good character and reputation, and to be thankful for a father and mother whose lives were an example and an inspiration. And yet, when one is brought to the bar of divine justice, how little all the best reputations among men avail. Then the best of men sinks into the depths and shrinks to nothing in the light of God, and is forced to cry out unto him, “Behold, I am vile; I abhor myself.” Surely every man in his best state is altogether vanity.

The first religious meeting in the township of Herrick was held in that loghouse, our home, and I have heard that all the people in the township were present except an old man and a child, twenty-nine in number. Elder Hezekiah West was the preacher. He is the first preacher I remember. He was quite often at our house, living only five miles away, and always, when he came, preached a fireside sermon, on which occasions all the children were present and seated orderly, and sometimes neighbors would be present. Once, when I was probably six years old, he said, “Now I will preach a sermon for the children, and will preach just an hour.” He repeated the text, “And the street of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass.” The old loud-sound¬ ing clock had struck just before he began. And as he closed it began to strike again. I do not remember anything he said, but I well remem¬ ber the text, and that I liked to hear him talk. How glad I would be to have the privilege of hearing that dear old elder preach from that text now, and tell of Jesus as the one street in all that great city, the one glorious way of salvation for all that great company which no man can number, and of that faith which is more precious than the finest gold, by which alone Jesus is seen.

I worked on the farm in the summer and attended school in the winter. My father hired the first teachers, and built a schoolhouse. At the age of 16 I attended an academy seven miles from home one fall term, and the following fall taught a school two and a half months. When 18 I went to the Whitestown Seminary one term and taught a school four months near there. The next fall I went to the Wyoming Seminary one term in the fall and taught during the winter, and at¬ tended the spring term. In October, 1853, I went to New Orleans, where my brother James then was, and where he and others of my brothers had been for many years. I taught as principal of an acad¬ emy there for seven months. Returning home the following July, I taught school in Wayne County, Pennsylvania, for about a year, and in the fall of 1856 went again to New Orleans, where my brothers James and Warren then were, and where I engaged in bookkeeping. I returned again in the summer of 1857 to our home, and taught school about ten miles from home. In the spring of 1858 I visited New York City for the first time, trying to find a situation that would suit me. While there I heard Elder Goble preach several times, little thinking then that I would ever be a member of that church, much less a preacher. After a few weeks, I went to Middletown, N. Y., and stopped with a cousin, Judson Horton, who was merchant, postmaster and railroad agent at Howells, where I helped him for a few weeks, and frequently heard Elder Gilbert Beebe preach. I returned home, and in October went to Wilkes-Barre, Pa., and entered the office of Hon. Hendrick B. Wright, as a student of law, and taught a school in that town during that winter. In 1860 I was admitted to the practice of the law.

During the last part of the time I was studying law I taught an academy four months with my youngest sister Rosina. That ended my teaching, and I felt that now I had found the occupation which suited me and which I would follow all my life. I entered upon the work with a determination to reach the highest place in my profession. I worked four years with fair success, seeking during those first years to prepare myself for the best work rather than to engage in what would bring me money the soonest.

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BIRTHPLACE OF SILAS H. DURAND, HERICK, PA.

CHURCH WHERE SILAS H. DURAND WAS ORDAINED, HERICK, PA.

Chapter II MY EARLY EXPERIENCE

I will insert here a letter that I wrote to Elder Gilbert Beebe just after my baptism, which tells the spiritual exercises which brought me to the church.

Herrick, Pa., June, 1861.

To Elder Gilbert Beebe:

Dear Brother: In the sweet peace and joy that are mine now it seems as though I can hardly take the time to write. I am continually looking back to consider the wonderful way in which I have been led from darkness to light. It is a way which I cannot yet fully under¬ stand, but what I do see of the Lord’s marvelous dealings with me would require volumes, if I could write them. In the last few days I have learned more, and more peace and happiness have been mine than in all my life before. I have dwelt in a place of broad rivers and streams. I have been kept in almost perfect peace, and have been made to drink of the river of God’s pleasures. There seems to have been a kind of light thrown back from this present, which has shown me much in my past life as I never saw it before; and I must note down some of these memories while my mind is dwelling upon them.

I remember that in my childhood my mind was often engaged in thinking of the immensity of space, and of what was before time began. Once I particularly remember, after an absorbing effort to reach with my imagination the boundary of space and the beginning of duration, lasting I do not know how long, I started back with a gasp as for breath, from the awful verge which my thoughts had reached, with a clear sense of an infinity beyond the utmost reach and compre¬ hension of my mind. I think that one baffled effort, and the awful sense of infinity I then had, has followed me to the present.

At the age of twelve years I had read the Bible through twice; but I could not think my reading of it was from a love of it as the Word of God, though much of it was very interesting to me. I think, with ambition, which seemed to me to be my principal motive, there was some feeling. Very early I began to study the distinguishing doctrines of grace, and especially the doctrine of election, not only in the Bible, but by reading whatever I could find on the subject. My principal object seemed to me to be able to argue with Arminians; and I never could comfort myself with the thought that I loved or understood the doctrine in any other way than intellectually, and because my parents believed it. Indeed I sometimes thought I was more an Arminian at heart than those I would argue with, and that I had far less ground for hope than they. Although I knew the doctrine was true, I had many troublesome thoughts about it, and sometimes my mind would rise up against it in spite of myself.

In childhood I was very fearful. Thunder and lightning were a terror to me. I was afraid to be alone in the dark. This fear left me, I cannot tell when or how. There was one period when I had a great apprehension of dying. How long it lasted I cannot remember. I have never before looked at those exercises of mind as I do now. I recall one instance, out of many similar, when I feared to go to bed, lest I should surely die before morning. I took the Testament and went out, wishing it were morning. I think I felt that the Lord was angry with me; what other particular reason I had for that fear I cannot recall. It was terrible, a feeling of great blankness in the future, an indefinable dread of something from which there was no help.

I cannot now remember any time after the age of about ten years when I suffered so acutely from a fear of dying. But there was often that great blankness in the future, and an indescribable melancholy without a recognized cause, when I would feel like one of those dark No¬ vember days, a dull leaden cloud over all the sky, and a dreariness over all the earth. It was not the absence of any particular enjoyment that I could name, but the impossibility of anything I could enjoy or delight in. My mood was not always so dark. I have had much cheer¬ fulness in my life, and some hours of peace and joy, but my cheerful¬ ness seems to have been circumscribed by this leaden cloud. My social and intellectual enjoyments were often keen, but the ultimate of all was this gloom. Those joys were not satisfying; they did not reach far enough. When I was at home,* happiness seemed waiting for me some¬ where else, and when away I wanted to get home again. And so I have wandered much, always busy, trying to do what I thought my duty, but finding no true rest or abiding joy. Thanks be to the dear Sav¬ iour, this cloud of gloom has gone, and I have found rest in his blessed name. How and why is a wonder to me. This new enjoyment I con¬ template with increasing delight. It is perfectly satisfying. There seems no end to it, and no possibility of satiety.

I now go back to my childhood. I cannot remember when I first saw myself a sinner, but it was very early. I had an inner conscious¬ ness that a more vain, selfish, deceitful boy never lived. Even in par¬ ticular instances, when I knew that I appeared to be better than others, I felt that I was worse. I never used profane language, nor did any one at our home, and there was a solemnity about sacred things there which gave us all a kind of reverence for them. But I could not feel that I was any better on that account. The same words or actions which appeared good in others, in me appeared to spring from motives which made them bad. When my conscience prevented me from doing or saying any particular wrong to which I was tempted, I felt about as guilty at seeing the capability of doing it in my heart as though I had done it. How I envied others who, I thought, never could think such wickedness, but who were honest enough to act out whatever they thought, and whose worst actions were good in comparison with my thoughts.

The oppression of this feeling of wickedness has at times been very great. The consciousness of the utter depravity of my nature has followed me all my life, but I think there was a peculiar and aching sense of guilt in my childhood which did not follow me, though when it left me I cannot tell. Heretofore I have regarded it as one of those things that pass away with childhood. I have always felt that I must get better in order to obtain the favor of God, no matter how much I was convinced that it was impossible for one to do so. I have made many resolutions to think and act according to the strictest rules of right, but have failed to keep them. My utter inability to change myself seems to have been forced upon me, item by item, slowly but surely. After the performance of an action in which it has seemed I might take most pride, and which others would approve, windows have been opened into the depths of my soul, and motives shown to me which have dissipated my pride in a moment. There have been times when my whole past life has risen up before me, a continuous train of evil, without one good thought or action to relieve the dreary monotony. I think that of late I have ceased to regard with any real complacency anything I might do, however laudable it might appear. I have always thought much of the fleeting nature of earthly things, and have realized very clearly the certainty of death, and the vanity of all pleasures that belong only to earth.

These thoughts have, I know, controlled my ambition and my desire for earthly fame, and have mitigated the bitterness of regret for the loss of earthly hopes. I have been conscious of a kind of satisfaction when suffering the keenest stings of humbled pride, as though it were well deserved and appropriate. It has seemed to me that earthly sorrow and misfortune were necessary in order to prepare me to receive and enjoy true happiness.

I have thought much about heaven, but could never feel that I could be happy with the holy beings who must inhabit that world of glory unless I was greatly changed myself. I think I have most earnestly desired and longed for that change, whatever it might be, and have had some hope that it might be given me, or that it might be mine at death. I have not thought much about hell, especially since my* early youth, but the thought of banishment from the glory of his power has made me tremble. I cannot say that I have prayed, but I have tried to pray that the Lord would forgive my sins.

Thank God, the change has come in this life, but how different from what I looked for. My nature is not changed, nor my natural pro¬ pensities eradicated, but it seems that a new love, and new desires have been given me, which are separate and diverse from all others. I am still conscious of being unfit by nature for the society of holy beings, but I long for it. I am happy with the saints here, and I know I shall be happy with them in heaven, if such should be my happy lot. What a happiness, to be blessed with the fulness of love, to be forever with the Lord, and to be free from everything unholy.

It is impossible to give more than a hint at the various exercises of mind and conflicts which I had as I went on thinking of these things day after day, trying to think of some way in which I could bring the doctrine of grace to apply to my own case and condition. I think that I have seen “men as trees walking,” since I was about ten years of age.

When about the age of 20 I joined awhile in Methodist prayer meetings with the students at the seminary where I was attending. I was told that I ought to join the church, but this I could not do. They urged me to get religion, but I did not know how. The good works by which they told me I could get it I thought would be very evil works in me. About this time my sister Bessie joined the Old School Baptist Church at Vaughan Hill. I was very glad. I had always loved to hear the old Baptists preach, and did so whenever I could. For six years I have lived where there are none since I have been engaged in practicing law. In April, 1863, I united with the Presbyterian Church in Wilkes-Barre, where I live. I can hardly tell why I did so. I thought if I made a public profession of my desire to be a Christian it might help me. The preacher was one who had advocated sound doctrine, but he soon showed he could also advocate error and I became tired of that. I was called upon to speak in prayer in public. That I could not continue to do,—I, who had seldom lifted my voice above a whisper when alone, and that only in broken exclamations for help. It was too much. My sufferings in many ways cannot be told. There were times when I seemed to be on the border of despair. One severe trial was when I visited my father’s home; he said to me, “You have professed to be a follower of Jesus. Do you feel like speaking in prayer ?”

I sometimes felt that I had been left to my own evil heart in uniting with that church, both to break down my pride, and to show me more decidedly that I was helpless and worthless, and to have all shadow of doubt removed as to where the true church of God on earth was. It was not long before I saw clearly where it was not. I looked in vain for brotherly love, for union and fellowship among the members, and for all that should characterize those who are members of a gospel church, as I saw it in the New Testament. But I felt that they were all better than I, although my standing in the community, and in the church was good. They could talk of temporal things, but seemed to have no inclination to speak of spiritual things, which I was more in¬ terested in. The preaching, which I had thought sound in doctrine, seemed to grow less and less so, until I could not listen to it with any satisfaction.

At last I became very hungry to hear true preaching of the gospel. Last summer Elder Gilbert Beebe came to my father’s house to preach the funeral sermon of my oldest brother, who had been killed in Mis¬ souri in the war. Many things he said tended to comfort me some, and to strengthen my hope that I might sometime be a subject of grace. During the past winter there were heavy troubles at home on account of sickness. I was there much of the time and think I felt some trust in the Lord for myself and others, which he only can give. I talked some, especially with my sister Bessie, but could not feel as I wanted to. My brother Warren, who was not expected to live, experienced a bright hope, and I could rejoice with him. In March I was in Wash¬ ington with my brother James, and while there I met Elder Wm. J. Purington, and talked very freely with him. I told him I had not taken communion with the Presbyterian Church in some time. He afterward, in a letter, advised me not to do so any more, but to take the first opportunity to talk with some gospel church, intimating that he hoped I had been exercised by the Spirit. I felt certain he was deceived in me, and it seemed that I ought not to talk any more with Christians in regard to my own case, for my troubled state of mind, and what I knew and felt of the truth led them to have a hope for me for which there was no foundation.