Life and times of Rev. Allen Wiley, A. M.

Front matter

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Preface

Since the death of Eev. Allen Wiley, a desire has been repeatedly expressed by many of his numerous friends, that some more extended account of his life and labors should be given to the public than has yet appeared. The conference of which he was a member, at its first session subsequent to his death, appointed a committee to report on the practicability of publishing a biography of "Wiley. But, owing to the paucity of materials for such a work, the committee reported unfavorably. Many of his friends, still believing that such an account of his life and labors could be given to the public as would prove both acceptable and useful, urged the author to undertake the task of its preparation. Yielding to the judgment of those whose opinions he has long been accustomed to respect, he has endeavored to furnish, under the convenient title of "The Life and Times of Eev. Allen Wiley," such an account of his life and labors as the facts at his command would enable him to do, and to furnish brief sketches of a number of his coadjutors who have " ceased from their labors," and such notices of the progress of the Church in Indi-

* PREFACE.

ana as will serve to show what, under God, has been accomplished by the Methodist ministry. The work also contains outlines of ten sermons of Eev. Allen Wiley, and his original letters to ministers, entitled, " A help to the performance of ministerial duties in the Methodist Episcopal Church."

The author trusts that the work will not be subjected to the ordeal of rigid criticism. The recorded materials for the historical part of the work are very slight ; for, brief as is the period since the introduction of Methodism into the west, it is difficult to procure well-authenticated accounts of the formation of many of its first societies, as well as of the labor and peril of many of its first ministers.

Anxious to save from utter loss many evanishing reminiscences, the author has recorded some things . which the reader may regard as irrelevant. But it should be borne in mind that this work is neither strictly historical nor biographical, and rather a compilation of data than a continuous narrative arranged according to the rigid rules of historical composition. The author is indebted to the published Minutes of the Conferences, to conference documents, and to Wiley's account of the introduction of Methodism into south-eastern Indiana, for much of his data. Others have been received by correspondence from sources which will soon be inaccessible.

We are accustomed to honor the hardy pioneers who first settled the great west — who, in defiance of the dangers of savage warfare, the terrors of the wilderness, and the privations and hardships incident to a frontier life, dotted these broad val-

PREFACE. O

leys all over with their cabin homes. They had faith in human progress, and the lapse of one gen eration has sufficed to realize more than their brightest visions of future prosperity and competence. The biographer and historian have recorded their perils, their virtues, and their deeds of noble daring; but, as yet, little has been recorded of that noble class of pioneers^ equally chivalrous and more self-sacrificing, who visited our fathers in their cabin homes, bringing with them the message of salvation. Their position, though one of toil and privation, was one of moral sublimity. They were laboring for posterity. Spurning the luxuries of life, the refinements of taste and elegance, the comforts of ease and affluence, and the allurements of the world, actuated by that spirit which brought the Savior from heaven to earth, they heeded not the dangers of the wilderness, and often exposed themselves to the deadly rifle and scalping-knife of the savage, that they might light up the logcabin and the fort with the lamp of truth, and cause the voice of prayer and praise to arise from the deepest solitudes of the wilderness. Some of them descended to the tomb in the meridian of life, leaving scarcely a memorial of their resting-place or a stone to tell where they lie. But they have left a monument more enduring than marble, in the glorious fruit of their labors. Society owes them a debt of gratitude lasting as time. Hoping that the present work may stimulate other and abler pens to rescue from oblivion the memory of those moral heroes who, as "spiritual leaders of the forlorn liope, under the command of the great ' Cap-

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PREFACE tain of our salvation,' guided the Church to battle and to victory," the author submits it to the public, praying that the Divine blessing may accompany it, without which all our labor is vain.

Contents

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Chapter I

Moral heroism should command our highest esteem — Character of the early Methodist preachers in Indiana — Advantages of studying Christian biography — Rev. Allen Wiley — Place of his birth — Emigrates to Kentucky—State of the country — Removes to the vicinity of Lexington — • School privileges — Removes to Indiana — Prevailing disease of the climate — Reflections on the state of society — Wiley's marriage — Influence of family religion Page 15

Chapter II

Death of Mrs. Wiley's father — Wiley begins to read the Bible and pray in his family — Distress of mind on the subject of religion — Unhappy effects of the doctrine of predestination — Becomes acquainted with Rev. Moses Crume — Obtains a copy of the small Scriptural Catechism, and a copy of the Methodist Discipline, containing Coke's and Asbury's Explanatory Notes — Joins the Methodist Episcopal Church — Perplexed on the subject of baptism— Is baptized by pouring — Experiences religion during a love-feast 23

Chapter III

Wiley's Call to the ministry — Is employed to travel with Bigelow on Lawrenceburg circuit — Is admitted on trial into the traveling connection and appointed to Lawrenceburg circuit — An extraordinary meeting at Wiley's house under the ministry of Bigelow — Remarkable conversion of an infidel lady — Revival of religion in Switzerland county — A backslidden local preacher reclaimed. 27

CHAPTER IV. Early camp meetings — Camp meeting in the White Water country in

1808 — Camp meeting near Madison in 1817 — Camp meeting on Hogan

creek, between Wilmington and Aurora, in 1817— A plea for camp

meetings 32

Chapter V

Rev. Allen. Wiley's career as a circuit preacher — A thrilling incident — Text at a funeral — Outline of a sermon on the word religion Page 38

Chapter VI

Wiley's first eleven years in the ministry — Progress of Methodism — Rev. William Cravens — Temperance and antislavery principles — Conversion of an infidel — Anecdotes of Cravens — Wiley's temperance resolutions — The Church an embodiment of moral power — Death of Cravens -42

CHAPTER YII.

Privations and hardships of early preachers — Shrader on Silver Creek circuit — Extent of the circuit — Xew preaching-places — Extensive revival — Pilots Bishop M'Kendree to the seat of Missouri conference — Sickness — Appointed to Spring River circuit, Arkansas — Account of the country, the people, etc. — Description of the mode of preparing breadstuff — Camp meeting on the bank of the Arkansas river — Dr. Oglesby's second appointment from the conference — Perils in the wilderness — Providential deliverance — Extent of his circuit — Explores the Missouri country — Visits Daniel Boone — Preaches at Boone's Lick — Early Jesuit Missionaries — Their reports — Central idea of Romanism — Central idea of Methodism — Protestantism favorable to free institutions 49

Chapter VIII

Wiley is appointed presiding elder on Madison district — Extent of the district — Revival on Lawrenceburg circuit under the labors of X. B. Griffith and E. G. Wood — Radical secession at Madison — Camp meeting on Pendleton circuit — Baptism of a sick man — Wiley continues on Madison district — His views in reference to the division of the larger fields of labor — Anecdote of a Roman farmer — Wiley's perseverance as a student — Visits Fort Wayne — Sketch of the character and labors of Rev. John Strange 56

Chapter IX

Division of theBlinois conference — First session of the Indiana conference — Report on Education — Subsequent action of the conference on the subject — Memorial to the state Legislature relative to the state university — Defense of the Memorial — Its failure — Founding of Indiana Asbury University — Success of the enterprise — Origin of the Preacher's Aid Society — Action of the Indiana conference on the resolutions of the General conference relative to a division of the Book Concern with the Canada conference — Wiley appointed to Indianapolis district — Reappointed to Madison district — Delegates to the General conference of 1S3G 67

Chapter X

Wiley publishes a series of articles addressed to ministers — His style as a preacher — Is stationed in New Albany — Wiley as u pastor — Is appointed presiding elder of Crawfordsville district — His feelings, and an account of his district — Sickness, etc. — Preaches the funeral of Eev. B. N. Barnes — Notice of Mr. Barnes — Temperance resolutions by the conference — Wiley is stationed in Indianapolis — Anniversary of the centenary of Methodism — The eighth annual session of the conference is held in Lawrenceburg — Dr. Simpson's Centenary Sermon — Conference at Indianapolis — Unprecedented increase in the membership of the Church — Wiley is appointed to Greencastle district — Conference at Terre Haute — Portrait of Bishop Roberts Page 76

Chapter XI

Wiley is stationed in Madison — Session of the conference at Centerville, 1842 — Action relative to a division of the conference — Formation of a new charge in Indianapolis — History of Church extension in Indianapolis — Wiley is appointed to Connersville district — Session of conference at Crawfordsville — Delegates to General conference — Conference resolutions on the death of Bishop Roberts — Sketch of his labors, etc. — Conference at Madison — Close of Wiley's term on Brookville district — Writes the Introduction and Progress of Methodism in south-eastern Indiana — Is stationed at Centenary Church, New Albany — Notices of Beauchamp, Stevenson, Locke, Griffith, Armstrong, and Ray 84

Chapter XII

Rev. Allen Wiley superannuates in 1847 — Review of his life and character — Letter to his family — Letter to a criminal under sentence of death — His style as a preacher — Writes the Pastoral Address on behalf of his conference — Death of Wiley 101

Chapter XI

Duties of those who have charge of circuits — The distributiou and renewal of the tickets — Advantages of — Band meetings — The importance of circuit stewards, and the manner in which the preacher should treat them and the leaders. Pagk 219

Chapter XVI

The preacher's duty to take the numbers in his charge — To give the presiding elder a quarterly account of the state of his charge — To overlook the accounts of the stewards — To appoint class collectors — To make quarterly collections — To make missionary collections. 252

Chapter XVII

The duty of preachers in charge to promote the Bible, Sunday school, and tract cause, and the erection of meeting-houses in their respective charges 259

Chapter XVIII

The preacher to furnish his successor a correct plan of the circuit — To see that our people do not lose their membership by removal — To use his influence that our people may be cleanly and decent — To read the general rules to the societies and congregations — To appoint prayer meetings — To see that our people fast on the Eriday prior to each quarterly meeting — To license suitable persons to exhort. 266

Chapter XIX

The importance of the presiding eldership — The appointing power in the bishop, and properly so — The duties of the presiding elder, and of the quarterly conference in which he presides. 273

Chapter XX

Duties and importance of presiding elders continued — A little personal history — The excellency and wished-for perpetuity of the economy of the Methodist Episcopal Church — An address intended for the Illinois conference at Bloomington, la., in the fall of 1826 Page 281

CHAPTER XXI. Conclusion « 290 fart Jfirst

LIFE AND TIMES OF REV. ALLEN WILEY.

LIFE AND TIMES

REV. ALLEN WILEY.

Chapter I

Moral heroism should command our highest esteem — Character of the early Methodist preachers in Indiana — Advantages of studying Christian biography — Rev. Allen Wiley — Place of his birth — Emigrates to Kentucky — State of the country — Removes to the vicinity of Lexington- School privileges — Removes to Indiana — Prevailing disease of the climate — Reflections on the state of society — Wiley's marriage — Influence of family religion.

There are names that should not be forgotten and deeds that ought to be remembered. The successful general, who has led his brave troops to victory on many a hard-fought battle-field, will not want for biographers. His path to victory may have been strewn with the mangled, the dying, and the dead; still he was brave and successful. Cities in ruins, agriculture suspended, commerce crippled, and a million hearts made desolate by the loss of friends, may all be the result of his victories. But, because he was victorious, the trumpet of fame proclaims, with clarion blast, the greatness of his deeds. That which is bold in conception, fearless and vigorous in execution, ever commands admiration, irrespective of its moral character. Hence, the lion, though ferocious and terrible, is, among men, an emblem of greatness and nobility, while the patient and vigilant

1G LIFE AND TIMES OF

watch -dog, who guards his master's dwelling through the long hours of night from the approach of the thief and the incendiary, is the type of all that is low and mean.

There is a moral heroism that is not sufficiently studied and admired. In this land, where we have no hereditary honors, and where so little importance is attached to primogeniture — where nature, education, and grace issue the only patents of nobility — he is the true hero who, in spite of circumstances, rises to wisdom and usefulness, or who, in surveying the state of society around him, finds his heart moved at the sight of the desolation which sin has wrought, resolves, in the strength of Him who gave him a heart to feel and the ability to will, that Lis efforts shall not cease till that moral waste shall bloom in Eden's loveliness, and who pursues his object, through opposition, and privation, and peril, with a devotion as true as the needle to the pole, till success crowns his efforts, or death terminates his career. Such moral heroes have blessed our country. Many of them have gone to their reward ; but the fruit of their labor remains. They have shown us what man can be and what man can do. More than this — as the result of their cheerful self-denial and patient toil, they have left us a rich legacy, in the domestic quiet, the social order, and the public prosperity with which we are surrounded; for in a free government these can only result from intelligence and virtue.

The pioneers of religious truth in Indiana exerted an influence upon the minds, manners, and morals of our early population, which time will never efface. Theirs was the high privilege of molding society while in the transition state ; for society, like the individual, has its different states and stages of progress — its infancy, and its maturity, and its transition state from rudeness to refinement. During this transition state, which corresponds to the period of education in the individual man, society takes on, in a type more or less distinct and with great permanence, whatever influences may be exerted upon it; for early influences upon society, like impressions upon the youthful mind, are most permanent and influential. Indiana was fortunate in this respect. Those who directed the religious mind and led on the religious movements of the day were earnest and sincere men. None suspected, for a moment, that they were actuated by sinister or selfish motives. There was, in their manner, a directness of purpose which showed at once their sincerity. They were men of large views and high resolves. They knew that these broad valleys would soon teem with a crowded and busy population; and hence, in the nucleus of every growing settlement, and on the site of every rising town, they planted the standard of the cross. Theirs was no temporizing policy. Other communities, in the early periods of their history, have been cursed with a time-serving and sometimes a dram-drinking ministry — a ministry lacking the nerve to confront vice in all its forms. "Widely different from all this were the men who preached the Gospel in the cabins of the first settlers in Indiana, and planted the Gospel in our wilderness land.

We have said they were earnest men. Their very vocation was proof of that. They abandoned all idea of ease or wealth. Intent upon their great mission, they penetrated the wilderness with cheeks unblenched, and met the dangers of flood and field with unquailing eye and unflinching nerve. And what though bridgeless streams had frequently to be swam, undrained swamps to be crossed ; and what though they should occasionally have to lodge in a wilderness, with a stone for their pillow and the canopy of heaven for their covering — they believed that He who watched over Jacob in the wil- 2* derness of Haran, would watch over them — and, with the apostle, they would exclaim, "Xoue of these things more us." Diligent in the acquisition of knowledge as they were faithful in disseminating and fearless in defending the truth, they became wise and able ministers of the Gospel. If they had but few books they studied them well. Their eloquence was the gushing forth of a heart full of emotion; and emotion is the true source of eloquence. They felt the truths which they spoke, and hence their influence upon others.

The study of Christian biography is always profitable ; for there we see Christianity in action. Christians are living epistles of the truth and power of the Gospel. To cherish the memory, revere the virtues, and record the deeds of the men who first brought among us the blessings of the Gospel, and whose labors have made the wilderness and the solitary places glad, and caused the desert to bud and blossom as the rose, is alike a duty and a privilege.

Prominent anion o- those who labored lono- and well for

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the improvement of society in Indiana, stands the name of Rev. Allen Wiley — a name almost as familiar throughout Indiana as household words. His career commenced in comparative obscurity. His early opportunities for acquiring knowledge were very limited — such only as the sons of the adventurous settlers of Kentucky enjoyed from 1797 to 1804. And, although when he entered the ministry in 1816, he could boast of but the ordinary advantages of a common school education, yet, with a family dependent upon him, and subjected to the numerous disadvantages incident to a residence in a new and sparsely-settled country, and burdened with the daily and onerous duties of an itinerant preacher, he, nevertheless, attained to ripeness in scholarship, profoundness in theological learning, and to a commanding position as an able expositor and defender of the doctrines of Christianity.

For many years previous to his death he was in the daily habit of reading portions of the Scriptures in the English, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew languages. He read his Hebrew Bible through, with great care. He was familiar with profane and sacred history. As a theologian he ranked as a master; and, although his style was rarely ornate, yet with the rules of rhetoric his mind was familiar, and in logic and verbal criticism he was always at home. To trace the process by which so much was accomplished, and mark the stages by which the humble backwoodsman became the ripe scholar, the profound theologian, and the able minister, as well as to mark some of the incidents in a life not devoid of interest, shall be our object in these pages.

Rev. Allen Wiley was born in Frederick county, Virginia, January 15, 1789. His father emigrated to Kentucky in the spring of 1797, and settled near the present site of Petersburg. Allen, of course, received but little instruction previous to their leaving the "Old Dominion," and at his new home in Kentucky, at that day, schools were few and far between. There were then but few families on the Indiana side of the Ohio river. Many of the Indians were yet hostile; and, after providing for the immediate wants of their families and guarding them from the incursions of the Indians, the attention of the early settlers was directed to such improvements as would insure their future comfort and competency, so that but little time was left for mental improvement, even if their opportunities had been greater than they were. In 1799 Mr. Wiley removed to Fayette county, in the vicinity of Lexington. Here young Allen enjoyed, for a short time, the advantages of a school, having for his instructor William Houston, who subsequently entered the ministry, and has labored for a number of years as a member of the Baltimore conference.

In the fall of 1804 Mr. Wiley removed to Indiana, and settled about three miles above the present town of Harrison, on White Water, Allen then being in his sixteenth year. Here opportunities for school instruction were limited to the winter months, the rest of the year being devoted to labor on the farm, except the latter part of summer, or from the time designated by the phrase "laying the corn by," till early frost or corn-gathering time — a period in which the chills and fever or the oldfashioned ague never failed to pay the early settlers its annual visit. But the ague was not attended with much mortality, and disappeared at the approach of frost, leaving the farmer sufficient strength to gather his crop and a voracious appetite for his corn-bread, sweet milk, and pumpkin pies, luxuries not to be lightly esteemed. During the winter months, the youth of both sexes would flock with eagerness to the log school-house, where the Irish pedagogue or the "universal Yankee" dealt out lessons in orthography, penmanship, arithmetic, and flogging, quite indiscriminately to all who might attend. The different stages of improvement in society are distinctly marked by the character and qualifications of the school-teacher.

First. We have the school -master — the man with whip and ferule constantly in hand, whose authority is upheld by blows and knocks. Under the reign of these masters, there usually occurs, during the Christmas holidays, what is termed, " Turnino- out the teacher." The larger scholars will assemble at a given hour in the morning, and bar the entrance to the school-house, and prevent the master's admission, till he will capitulate, by promising to treat the school to apples, cakes, or such articles, and to such extent as the vox popvii may demand; or, if this is not sufficient, the person of the teacher is secured and conveyed to an adjoining stream or pond, where the danger of an immediate submersion will secure the Christmas treat This over, rod and ferule are again reinstalled with absolute authority, and all things move on as before.

Next comes the school-keeper. Easy soul, he is anxious to please parents and pupils. Government he has none ; of learning he has but little ; and, as a consequence, he is "not apt to teach."

Lastly. We have the school-teacher — the educator proper — with blackboard, and maps, and moral suasion in the foreground, while corporeal punishment is held as a dernier resort. Young men who have been educated in the west — a phrase of great ambiguity — have usually passed through these stages of social progress from the reign of the school-master to the arrival of the school-teacher. Young Wiley gave his teachers, what few of them he had, but little trouble. He was docile in his disposition, and allowed none whose advantages were not greatly superior to his, to be in advance of him. He was with the foremost in all that he undertook. Nature endowed him with a good constitution. Exercise in the open air, and plain but wholesome diet, had aided in a perfect development of his physical powers; and, as his health was fine, his spirits flowed freely, and young Wiley was usually on good terms with all around him. Accustomed from infancy to the hardships and privations of frontier life, he knew how to sympathize with the backwoodsmen in their cabin homes. He felt that he was one of them; and what, to one differently raised, would have seemed difficult, was with him a matter of course. To cross swollen and rapid streams, destitute of bridges and ferries, to find his way through difficult and unfrequented paths in the wilderness, were matters to which he was accustomed. And thus Providence gave him in youth that kind of training which best fitted him for the post that in subsequent years he was called to fill. " For planets govern not the soul, nor guide the destiny of man."

Early in 1808 Mr. Wiley was united in marriage to Miss Margaret Eades, daughter of James Eades, who was one of the earliest settlers on the White Water, having settled a few miles below the site of the present town of Harrison as early as 1799. In the choice of a companion for life, Mr. Wiley was peculiarly fortunate ; his wife proved a helpmeet indeed. Mr. Eades's family belonged to the Baptist persuasion, and had secured Baptist preaching in their neighborhood, which was the first in that part of the country. In the house of his father-inlaw, he was, for the first time, brouo-ht into familiar intercourse with family religion.

Chapter II

Death of Mrs. Wiley's father — Wiley begins to read the Bible and pray in his family — Distress of mind on the subject of religion — Unhappy effects of the doctrine of predestination — Becomes acquainted with Eev. Moses Crume — Obtains a copy of the small Scriptural Catechism, and a copy of the Methodist Discipline, containing Coke's and Asbury's Explanatory Notes — Joins the Methodist Episcopal Church — Perplexed on the subject of baptism — Is baptized by pouring — Experiences religion during a love-feast.

"There are moments in life that are never forgot,

Which brighten, and brighten, as time steals away. 0, these hallowed remembrances can not decay;

But they come on the soul with a magical thrill, And in days that are darkest they kindly will stay,

And the heart in its last throb will beat with them still."

Such, with the faithful Christian, is the period of his early espousal to Christ. In the fall of 1808 Mr. Wiley's father-in-law died. Two sons of Mr. Eades, who lived at a distance, and who were professors of religion, visited their mother, and the remainder of the family, upon the death of their father. During their stay, one of them conducted family prayer with much gravity and devotion, which made so powerful an impression upon the mind of Mr. Wiley that he resolved to become religious. He began immediately to read the Bible — a book to which he had paid but little attention. On returning home from his mother-in-law's, with his wife and child, he attempted family prayer in his own house, which, he said, was the first time that he ever kneeled down to pray in all his life. He continued this course for several months with a greatly- increased desire for salvation. But his feelings fluctuated, and his desire for salvation

24 LIFE AXD TIMES ul

began to abate, as he was endeavoring to travel alone in this, to him, new way. Previous to his marriage he was a confirmed fatalist; his religious acquaintances were of the Baptist persuasion. His predilections now were in favor of that Church, as most of his religious instruction had been received from them. They had taught him that it would be wrong for him to unite with any Church till he had experienced a gracious change upon his heart. But with a deep conviction of his sinfulness, there came such a sense of moral obligation and of his personal accountability to God for his actions, as at once overthrew all his previous notions about fatality. At this period of his existence he said, "I could no longer believe fatality nor unconditional election and reprobration." How was it possible for him to have such a sense of guilt for actions that were the result of necessity, or for having pursued a course that had been decreed for him from all eternity, unconditionally ? He felt conscious of his moral agency and guilt for not having led a different life. And yet his previous views excited a bewildering and distracting influence upon his mind. In this unhappy state of mind he came near abandoning all effort for salvation. For a season he would cease to pray almost entirely, and then, becoming alarmed at his own indifference, he would renew his exertions, and seek, with increased earnestness, the way of salvation. But he had no one to o-uide him; his mind was a prey to conflicting influences, and his condition was deplorable. Fortunately, about this time he became acquainted with that excellent man of God, Rev. Moses Crume. who, that year, had been removed from the Cincinnati to the White Water circuit, to supply the place made vacant on the latter circuit by the removal of Thomas Nelson. Mr. Crume had preached at Mr. Manwaring's, whose house was the regular preaching-place for the Methodists in that part of the

White Water country, and his next appointment was somewhere on the upper waters of the Dry Fork, a tributary of White Water; but as he was unacquainted with the nearest route — it being but a pathway — Mr. Wiley volunteered to pilot him about seven miles on his way. During this short journey, they had much conversation on the subject of religion, and, at parting, Mr. Wiley desired to purchase a copy of the small Scriptural Catechism published by the Methodist Church, and which the preachers usually carried for sale. Mr. Crume declined selling him a copy, but made him a present of one. This little book, he remarked in after years, ** laid the foundation of my present theological knowledge." This little book corrected his false notions about fatality, predestination, etc., and gave him Scriptural views of the plan of salvation. Mr. Crume exhorted him to go forward, assuring him that one cause of his perplexity was his neglect of duty. He now commenced afresh, and with more earnestness than ever, to seek the Lord. He had none of his friends to counsel and encourage him. His two brothers-in-law, who were religious, resided at a distance. He felt that his way was dark and his efforts feeble ; still he struggled on. At length he borrowed a copy of the Methodist Discipline, which contained Coke's and Asbury's explanatory notes. This he read with great care, and found fault with a few things of minor importance in it. He stated his objections to Mr. Crume, who, at this time, was his only religious instructor, except his Scripture Catechism. Mr. Crume removed his objections, and Wiley finally concluded to join the Methodist Episcopal Church, which he did, with much fear and trembling, on the 18th of April, 1810, being then in the twenty -second year of his age. His earliest religious impressions were among the Baptists; and, as might have been expected, his mind was perplexed on the subject of immersion — not but what the