Story of my life

Dedication

To

My Wife Mary,

WHO HAS SHARED MY JOTS AKD SORROWS FWL MORE THAN HALF A CENTURY, AND

Preface

YIELDING with reluctance to frequent solicitations, I have endeavored to write the story of my life, which is herewith offered to the public.

My refusal hitherto to undertake such a work was based on the conviction that my life was not of sufficient importance to merit or even justify the undertaking, which, except to the friends whose love magnifies my work, might seem an effort to lift into eminence a life of service, whose fidelity and devotion is not greater than that of many brethren with whom it was my pleasure to labor together. I was well aware, moreover, that autobiographies, even when the subject is worthy of the distinction thus accorded, are difficult to write with profit to the reader. More than ordinary grace is requisite to be perfectly impartial where self is concerned. When men are urged to write their own biography with a view of getting a complete insight into the secret workings of their souls and the hidden motives of their actions, the result is usually disappointing. Even a thoroughly honest man, though he will conscientiously misrepresent nothing, will, if

Preface

he is a man of good judgment, prefer not unnecessarily to incriminate himself before the public, where no opportunity would be afforded for a fair trial, and where there is little prospect of eliciting the interest to make it fair. It, therefore, always seemed to me both right and wise to resist the appeals made to me to write the story of my life.

Now when there are manifold indications of Providence that my life's work is done, I yield to the solicitations of my friends and offer this book to the public. Some would account for this by assuming that my faculties are failing. As respects my memory they are right, and as memory is the faculty upon which all reminiscences must depend, it would seem that now especially I should refrain from telling my story. As against this I can truthfully say that some things are as clear and distinct in my memory as they can be in the human mind, and that in the goodness of God still sufficient judgment is left me, in my diseased and suffering condition, to know what is distinct in my remembrance and what is hazy and unreliable, and therefore to refrain from saying what I am not sure of being the truth, or to say it with such modifications as will guard against misleading the reader. On the other hand, I recognize that some things in the

Preface

history of the Church in the Ohio Synod in which I was concerned, may be told with advantage to many, not because of myself, who was concerned in them, but of the events in which I was concerned.

Columbus, Ohio, March 17, 1905.

Chapter I. Childhood

MY father was an immigrant from Germany, who came to America in 1817. He was poor, and by an unhappy arrangement which was made in those days for poor emigrants, he was sold into servitude, and suffered much before his passage was paid and he was released to seek his fortune as best he could in a strange land. As he had learned the trade of cabinet maker, he soon found work in Harrisburg, Pa., whither Providence directed his steps. There he met and married my mother, Christina Reaver, and set up his humble home. Both were poor, and their home was lowly in the extreme; but from all indications and reports they were contented with their meager means. So far as I can remember all moved smoothly in their household, and father and mother, and children with which God blessed the marriage, all lived peacefully together.

But there was an element foreboding no good in the marriage. My father was a Roman Catholic from Baden; my mother was a Lutheran from Wuerttem-

&torp ot 9$v Sltfe berg. In that which is of the highest import for the wedding of soul with soul and for the education of children in accordance with the will of Him who gives them for His purposes and for His glory, they were not united. My father was an honorable man and always respected righteousness ; my mother was a pious woman who loved the Saviour. They did not clash, because my mother, in her comforting apprehension of justification by faith alone, loved righteousness even more ardently than my father, and therefore always agreed with him in his determinations to do right at every cost. There was thus a superficial harmony without a fundamental agreement. Nothing uncommon is thus presented in the life of my parents. Every day shows us the same situation, in which there is agreement in appearance notwithstanding the disagreement in principles. In my estimation there was much lacking for the right education in my father's house, not because of a lack of good will, but because of unfavorable conditions. My father's Romanism was not pronounced and never led to family feuds. So far as my knowledge extends he never was a communicant in the Roman Church after his arrival in this country, and never even attended its services, although

he made a profession of the Lutheran faith only a short

8,

&toz% Qi 9®V %\U time before his death. The religious training in the household was left to my mother, without much help but with no interference on his part.

This was for her a heavy task. Seven children were born within a period of about fifteen years, means were wanting to secure help in the growing cares and labors of the household, sickness sapped her strength, and her duties were performed with difficulty. Poor mother, she did what she could. With the deep Lutheran piety characteristic of her Suabian home across the sea, she suffered patiently and labored lovingly to keep the wolf from the door and to lead the children to the Saviour and through Him to the Father in heaven who loves us all and cares for us all. It was thus that all the children with one exception were brought to Holy Baptism and planted into Christ. The one exception was that of an older brother, whom the minister requested to administer the sacrament declined to baptize because he had become an Anabaptist and was planning to establish a new Baptist sect. My brother was thus left unbaptized until he was old enough to be confirmed in the Lutheran Church of which he has been a life-long member. Only her first child became old enough during my mother's life-time to receive the Holy Sacrament of the Lord's Body and fetors of 9®v %itt

Blood, and no inconveniences were shunned to accomplish her purpose of having my sister at the age of fourteen confirmed as a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Under many disadvantages my good mother trained her family for Christ and the Church and in all respects led the way by her own devotion to the Saviour, adorning the doctrine which she taught by the life which she led.

Of the seven children born to my parents I was the fourth. Their stay in Harrisburg, where they had established their humble home, was not of long duration. Rapid strides toward securing a competence were not usual in those days, when what is now regarded as necessary for comfortable living was esteemed to be wealth. Nor was my father gifted with the talents to make the best use of the conditions which formed his environment. He was not only modest, but exceedingly timid in asserting his rights and claiming his just dues, doing much of his work on credit and afraid to approach the creditor when the time for redeeming promises had come, and thus his business did not prosper. It was a daily question of daily bread although enough was due for his work to secure it.

How it came about I do not know, but it came 10

^tor? ot 9$v Qitt about that a few years after the establishment of my father's home in Harrisburg he was induced to remove to a lonely place on the Blue Mountains, where the nearest neighbor was a mile away. Eastward was the solitary abode of a recluse, whose name was Casper Wick. Southward, at the foot of the mountain, lived a family by the name of Navinger, whose tender interest I often experienced, and whose kindness we all appreciated. Westward I remember only a family who took little interest in us as new-comers and with whom we never had any particular dealings. Northward there seem to have been settlements of some importance, for from that source the medical attendance of our household in its isolated condition came. Our family was pretty well secluded from the outside world.

There, on the 17th of March, 1828, I was born. It was on the Blue Mountains in the County of Cumberland, Pa. The place is said to be visible from the capitol at Harrisburg, and I have often from that position viewed the house which was pointed out to me as the place of my birth. Since my sixth year I have never visited the old home, not because when I became older all interest in the home of my childhood was

lost, but because, though efforts were made to reach it, btoiy of 9®v %iit it always proved to me practically inaccessible. My recollections of the mountain farm are mostly of hardships endured on the stony fields in summer and among the snow drifts in winter. But my childhood was not without its enjoyments. There was ample opportunity to build play-houses of the stones and branches which lay around in profusion, and to exercise our childish skill in the manufacture of utensils and ornaments out of the clay that was always ready to be had in the summer time and to pile the snow into varied shapes to gratify our artistic cravings. There was an abundance of whortleberries and chestnuts to lure the children down the mountain sides, and slips and footbruises and snake frights enough to furnish excitement. Once in a long while there was the novelty and delight of a visit to neighbors, especially to the family living at the foot of the mountains. This always made for us a grand holiday, on the remembrance of which we feasted for many a month. Once or twice a year my father went to Harrisburg, fourteen miles away by the wagon road, although little more than half that distance as the crow flies. This, too, was a notable event in our lives because of the wonders which he had to tell of the town and its busy life, and because of the

toys which he would bring and the sight of which fetorg oi 9£g %itz filled us with amazement. As my father had no money to squander these gifts were usually inexpensive, but to us children they were great and precious beyond our little power of language to tell. Once he brought a toy that even astonished my mother for its beauty and ingenuity, and which had cost the sum of ten cents. I remember how I sought a hiding place when my father pulled the string and a cock leaped from the box. It was amazing. Some will no doubt smile at the simple joys of the poor, but it is only an illustration of the truth which all close observers of life have recognized that, so far as money can contribute to human happiness at all, large sums are not necessary. My observations, in a long life that afforded ample opportunities for seeing and judging, confirm the conviction formed by searching the Scriptures, that wealth never brings contentment and is attended by sorrows and griefs rather than comfort and enjoyment. I have often seen that a dime can contribute to human happiness what a million never can.

So far as I can remember, my parents never went to church during our residence at the mountain home, and I never saw a church until my sixth year, when the family moved away from the place of my birth. But that does not mean that religion was banished fetatp of 9®v %itt from our home. It was not ignored, though its cultivation was not favored by the circumstances. My mother taught us children the way of righteousness according to the ability which God had given her, and showed us the way to heaven according to all the light which she possessed. We were all impressed with our accountability to our Maker for all our words and ways, and prayers were taught us, and the duty of saying them daily when we retired for the night was carefully enforced. In consequence of such conscientious concern for our spiritual welfare as Christians who by baptism had put on Christ, we were a Codfearing family. In my recollections of the early days in my mountain home some pangs of conscience on account of childish wrong-doing present themselves, which indicate that my mother had not failed to instil into my soul a horror of sin and a desire to escape its condemnations. That is not all that should be taught children, but the little of revealed truth that was given me continued to exert its power in my after life and prepared me for the fuller instruction which in the good providence of God I then obtained. What I received from my good mother, who had only the elementary education of a parochial school among the vine-clad hills of Wuerttemberg, protected me against fetorp ot Q@v %\it the virulent assaults of Deists and Atheists to which I was subjected in later times. As I remember these things the thought compels expression, that many an evil would be averted if mothers would, according to the grace that is given them and the ability thus in them, impress the truth of the gospel, though much might be lacking in its completeness. My mother was no theologian, and for her office of motherhood she had no need to be ; but she was a Christian woman who sincerely regarded the Church as well as the temporal welfare of her children. She was not learned, but I owe more to her for my Christian character and conscientious devotion to duty than to all the schools which I have attended and to all the books which I have read since she entered into the rest which remains for the people of God. Oh! that Christian mothers would more adequately realize the high position and gracious opportunity which God has given them in the kingdom of grace! It would be a potent protection against many a fad about women's rights and a beneficent factor in securing the performance of women's duties. My mother never had the opportunity to array herself in gorgeous dress and sparkling jewels and appear as a queen in the splendors of society, though

she was worthy of the highest honors that society can

U fetotg of 9p» %itt give, but she had the opportunity of training her children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and she embraced it. All honor to her memory; she did what she could, and I, after a long experience of the world's ways, must testify that she could do much and conscientiously did it. At least in my family let her memory be honored !

In 1834, when I was in my sixth year, our sojourn on the mountain ceased. The family's residence there of seven or eight years was not unprosperous. Much was idyllic in that mountain home, but much was real hardship and self-denial. I do not think that my father and mother ever fully enjoyed the delights of that mountain home, and of course, we children were not capable of comparing it with other homes and passing a judgment as regards their worth. Nor were we children asked in this regard. It was really not a question of taste, but of subsistence. My parents decided that it would be better, now that some little pecuniary means had by strict economy been saved, to move to another place. There was a village, half way between Harrisburg and Carlisle, which attracted my father's attention. It was on the line of traffic between Philadelphia and Pittsburg. The name of the village

was Hogestown. Its location indicated that it would

&totp of 9£g %itt be a place of some activity and business. There my father determined to locate. He had saved something more than a hundred dollars from his labors on the mountain, and thought that it would be a good investment to buy a little house in Hogestown. He accordingly bought it. The house was a tumble-down affair, though the lot on which it stood was not objectionable. The place suited the family and we removed to the new home. Though I remember almost nothing of the removal, I remember almost everything of the place and its surroundings. It was a desolate hamlet, but my father thought that he could make a living there. The stage-coach, which was the means of business communication between Philadelphia and Pittsburg and all intervening towns and villages, passed through it with its passengers, and large six-horse teams hauling merchandise passed through every day. It was thus on a small scale a busy place, although the contribution which it furnished to the business was very small. There my father, with the little savings that were made from the farm on the mountains, purchased a log house. It was the first and only homestead that he ever owned.

In the Hogestown home my school education, such as it was, began. Schools were then established by fetetp ot S$? %itt private enterprise and maintained by individual subscription. Hogestown and vicinity had a sufficient population to invite teachers, and every year for several months, at least, an opportunity was afforded the children to obtain an elementary education. When there was no school in the village, sometimes country districts offered the desired benefit to the town children, which some gladly embraced notwithstanding the inconveniences. It was to such a country school, two miles away, that I was sent to learn the English alphabet and form some acquaintance with English words. This was attended with a difficulty that placed me at a disadvantage. The two miles walk to school in the morning, and home again in the evening was not the trouble. Though I was but six years old the daily trip was an enjoyment. There were other children who went there from the village and our journeys were full of fun and sometimes presented incidents which rendered them full of adventure. Many a time we had the pleasure which comes of heroic achievement when we killed a snake, and especially when we came off conquerors over a swarm of bumble-bees, whose honey we were determined to have at every cost. Our victory was as sweet as the honey which was our immediate

reward, and the numerous stings inflicted by the in-

&totg ot 9ps Eife sects in the defence of their nests and their hoards counted for nothing in our exultation. It was an example of the follies and attending cruelties which we later found illustrated in a thousand forms, indicating the vanity of human glory and human pleasures. But it was not the journey and its incidents that caused me trouble. The language spoken at home was German, and all the English I knew was a phrase which my father repeated on various occasions, but the meaning of which was not clear to me. So I had to learn not only the letters and how to combine them into syllables and words, but had the task also of finding out what the words meant. As far as I remember the mortifications to which I was subjected on this account were borne without much detriment to my standing among my associates, and as I had some aptitude for learning language, the difficulty was soon overcome and my progress w T as satisfactory to all concerned. It required but a few months to render me equal to my schoolmates in the knowledge imparted, and my little knowledge of the German gave me a point in excess of the demands made on pupils.

While it seems to me of little profit to detail the experiences of my life in those early days, there are two observations which I think worthy of mention.

fetorg of 9pg %xit

The circumstances appeared to require that not only

both sexes, but children of widely different ages should

be together in the same school. Even at the early age

when I first attended school, I saw and heard things

which never occurred in the innocence of our home

life and which I looked upon with astonishment if not

with horror. Our teacher was not indifferent about the

morals of his pupils, and much occurred between the

older boys and girls that he probably would not have

endured for a moment if he had known it. But he

did not know it and had little chance of knowing it.

While children of both sexes may be profitably placed

in the same school, the co-education of older pupils

is always a menace to morals. My observation in early

years has made me an opponent of co-education on this

ground, while the opposition became fixed in later

years by a better insight into the ways of God in the

government of the world and the difference in callings

assigned to the sexes, and the consequent difference to

be observed in their education as to matter and manner.

This remark, too, I deem it best not to suppress, that

people are very unwise who suppose that children do

not notice words and actions which pertain to matters

beyond their years. When their moral instincts are

affected they may not understand the import of what htoty of S$# Eife they hear and see, but they will notice it and understand it later, and not so easily forget it.

For the first time I received at Hogestown some public religious instruction. There was no church there of any denomination, but there were Christian people there and congregations with churches in the vicinity. Mechanicsburg was but three miles distant, where several denominations had houses of worship. Not quite as far away was a Presbyterian church at Silver Spring, and a Lutheran church existed near Kingston. To the latter our family occasionally went for worship, and there my oldest sister was confirmed when she reached the age of fourteen. As it was fully three miles to this church I could receive little benefit from my instruction that was given there. Neither was ministering to the religious wants of the children any part of the purpose for which the subscription schools to which I had access were established. But several active Presbyterians, with the co-operation of members of some other churches conducted a Sunday School in our village. This, in addition to my mother's teaching, supplied some of the most urgent needs of my soul. In after years I often felt the lack of a more thorough knowledge of Biblical history and especially

of a better knowledge of the way of salvation, such as fetotg of #g ftiit is given in Luther's Small Catechism. This little book was not among my mother's very limited store of religious treasures, or if it was contained among the appendices to her old Bible, she never used it to impart instruction and I never knew it ; and of course, such a book could have no place in our village Sunday School. Indeed, little could be expected there for the enlightenment of the understanding, and little was done. Notwithstanding this I have grateful recollections of the school, and profited by what it furnished. Encouragement was given to the memorizing of Scripture passages and church hymns, and I committed many to memory and have retained a goodly number to this day. The selection of texts and hymns was left to the children and therefore was not always the best, and no effort was made to explain or impress the meaning. So little did I then understand of these things that I once asked my father if I should not add to the prayers which mother had taught me, and the "I lay me down to sleep," which had been added from another source, a stanza or two from Pope's "Universal Prayer," of whose heathenism I had not even a suspicion. But God is merciful and blesses us above all we can ask or think, and I learned some things in

the Sunday School whose import dawned upon me htoty oi 9$g %iit when I grew older, and exerted a beneficial influence when mother was gone and I needed it most. No doubt this influence was largely dependent on the foundation which she laid in my soul and the constant care which she exercised to have me walk in the ways of the Lord. My conduct, I am glad to note, was generally satisfactory to her and was frequently commended. One instance that brought this to my knowledge is inerasably fixed in my memory. She asked me one day to do something which was very distasteful to me. Instead of immediately obeying I used an insolent expression which I had learned from my associates. She looked at me with an expression of pain, simply saying, "And this from you, who had always been my good boy." She then quit her work and sat down and wept. Did it break her heart? If she had known the grief which I endured on account of it, she would surely have forgotten her own in pity for mine. After seventy years its remembrance is still a pang, while she for nearly that time has had fulness of joy in her heavenly home, where our meeting shall carry with it no pangs of earth. Evil communications were beginning to corrupt the good manners which she had instilled, and the wonders of God's grace

never seem to me greater than when I view my early fetotg ot S@g Etfe life after our Father in Heaven had taken her to the mansions of bliss, and left me without her guidance in the perils which beset me.

The disease which was gradually destroying my mother's vitality increased and my father with her concurrence concluded to return to Harrisburg, where her brother and his family were living and might be a comfort to her in her protracted sickness. After months of suffering, which was endured with patience and in the blessed hope of glory through the Saviour of sinners, she departed this life of sorrow to enter into the joys of our Lord. Dr. Sprecher, who is still living as I write, and who was then pastor of the Lutheran church, was called to minister to her, but only when it was apparent that she was dying. I was sent to call him, and he came without much delay. How it was all brought about was never clear to me. I was a stranger in the town and merely a child, but somehow I found the residence of the Lutheran pastor. Our family were strangers in the city, but somehow he found the house in which my mother was dying. It all seems to me the more inexplicable because I remember that it was with sobs that I tried to make my errand known to the lady who answered the knock at

the door, and the pastor himself did not appear to ask fetotg of 9®v %itt any questions. At any rate the object of my mission was accomplished, and God supplied what was lacking in the messenger's words to make his message clear. Mother died and was buried in the churchyard belonging to Zion Lutheran Congregation. Dr. Sprecher officiated. The services were comforting, and mother's body was laid away to await the resurrection of the just, when it should share the blessedness of the purified spirit.

My father was left with four children. We were seven ; but an older sister and a younger brother died on the mountain and the youngest of the family was taken away at Hogestown. His secular affairs were not prosperous. The expenses entailed by the sickness and death of my mother left him nothing for the support of his children. My sister, then almost fifteen, was needed at home to keep house ; an older brother, about eleven, secured a situation in which he could support himself. I was then about nine years old, and my father with the three children endeavored to keep house. It was housekeeping under many difficulties. The income from my father's work was small, and the management of receipts and expenditures was not the wisest. Poverty pinched us and comforts were few.

My father paid but little attention to the wants of the

&tttg of 9$V %Ht household, but so far as this was concerned made me a kind of partner in his business, in which I was required to render such assistance as my strength permitted, and access was given me to all the proceeds. In this way I could, after a fashion, provide for the necessaries of life ; but as I had thus in some measure the support of the family without the management of the business under my care, we did not get along well. I could use the money I thought necessary for our livelihood, but sometimes when business bills were due there was no money on hand. It was a loose and haphazard life that could not bring prosperity and make us even comfortable. In respect to our religious and moral training nothing of any moment was done, or could under such circumstances be expected. To remedy the evil my father married again, as it was in every way best that he should.