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The
WILLIAM L.
CLEMENTS
LIBRARY
University of Michigan
Gift of
Norton Strange
Townshend Fund





MY MOVING TENT.
BY
MRS. SUE F. DROMGOOLE MOONEY.
“And nightly pitch My Moving Tent
A day's march nearer home.”
“For here we have no continuing city,
But we seek one to come."
NASHville, Tenn.; Dallas, Tex.:
PUBLISHING HOUSE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, SOUTH.
BIGHAM & SMITH, Agents.
1903.

COPYRIGHTED, 1903,
BY
MRS. SUE F. DROMGOOLE MOONEY

DEDICATED
To My Husband,
IN THE DOOR OF WHOSE TENT I HAVE
SO LONG SAT, AND
To the Preachers and the People
AMONG WHOM
OUR MOVING TENT HAS BEEN PITCHED
FOR MORE THAN FORTY-SIX YEARS-
JULY, 1856–NOVEMBER, 1902.

HOPE.
A fairy float with youthful faces filled,
And songs whose sweetness smite the air!
MURFREESBORO, 1856

MEMORY.
And looking back I see the ship
With golden sails wide outspread.
HUNTINGDON, 1903.


PREFACE.
In placing these simple annals before the public
neither fame nor fortune is expected. If, after paying
for publication, there be a small sum left for the win-
ter of old age, I shall be content. The reading will,
I am sure, tend to keep alive the memory of many
godly men who labored in the days gone by to make
sure the foundations of our beloved Methodism, and
to extend the Master's kingdom.'
Mrs. SUE F. MOONEY.

A long procession sweeps in view;
Songs come swelling from the waves of blue-
Songs of glorious triumph told,
From many a tented field of gold
Where drum nor fife nor herald loud
Proclaims the name of victor proud.
Flotsam and jetsam I gather much,
With throbbing heart and holy touch;
The rushing tears come thick and fast
As mid the shipwreck of the past
I rescue what no storms destroy,
And through my tears I smile for joy.

CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
In the Beginning ...
CHAPTER II.
Among Kith and Kin...
CHAPTER III.
At Church and Camp Meeting—Some Happenings...... 28
CHAPTER IV.
A Camp Meeting Incident.........
......
CHAPTER V.
A Man Full of Faith and the Holy Ghost...........
CHAPTER VI.
My Schools and Schoolmasters.
CHAPTER VII.
Dr. Samuel D. Baldwin.
CHAPTER VIII.
My Alma Mater....
CHAPTER IX.
Parchments and Persons.......
CHAPTER X
A Clouded Life.......
CHAPTER XI.
Packing My Trunk.....

My Moving Tent.
CHAPTER XII.
My First Conference........
CHAPTER XIII.
Pitched in Franklin .......
CHAPTER XIV.
Conference in Murfreesboro.......
CHAPTER XV.
Again in Shelbyville...
CHAPTER XVI.
Unique Sermons et Res.
CHAPTER XVII.
Conference at McMinnville-Sunshine and Shadow...... 103
CHAPTER XVIII.
Eclectics .....
CHAPTER XIX.
An Iliad of Woes.........
CHAPTER XX.
Two Fights...........
..... 125
CHAPTER XXI.
Exile by Administrative Process.......
CHAPTER XXII.
In Alabama ....
CHAPTER XXIII.
In Marion...
CHAPTER XXIV.
In Athens and Across the River.......
......
148
CHAPTER XXV.
Return to Athens.......

Contents.
CHAPTER XXVI.
Back to Tennessee..........
PAGE
. 159
CHAPTER XXVII.
Confederate Chaplains and Missionaries
166
172
CHAPTER XXVIII.
Confederate Chronicles..
CHAPTER XXIX.
The Roll Call........
• 179
CHAPTER XXX.
More Minutes.
CHAPTER XXXI.
Murmurs of the Drum and Fife.
. 187
CHAPTER XXXII.
God's Heroes.....
...... 191
CHAPTER XXXIII.
The Old Order Changeth...
196
CHAPTER XXXIV.
Adjustment.
201
CHAPTER XXXV.
The Wheels Go Round.........
• 206
CHAPTER XXXVI.
The Return to Clarksville.
... 213
CHAPTER XXXVII.
Memories of Missouri...
218
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
Schools and Colleges.....
.. 227

10
My Moving Tent.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
Memphis Conference ........
PAGE
..... 232
CHAPTER XL.
In Memoriam ..
...... 238
CHAPTER XLI.
Pen Pictures.
246
CHAPTER XLII.
Lexington District.
.... 254
CHAPTER XLIII.
Shining Lights...
....... 262
CHAPTER XLIV.
Tents Taken Down..
274
CHAPTER XLV.
Folded Tents.........
291

MY MOVING TENT.
CHAPTER I.
IN THE BEGINNING.
MYTHOLOGY tells us that for kindness rendered the
wayfarer the gods promised to Tithonous whatsoever
gift he might ask. Amazed at this large liberality and
being much in love with this present life, he asked for
immortality. This boon was granted, but the petitioner
had forgotten to include youth in his request, so that in
age and awcary he was changed into a cricket, whose
cheerful song might beguile the passing hours at the
evening time, when loved ones gathered around the
hearthstone.
In presenting these pictures of places and people of a
treasured past, resurgent memory asks not immortal-
ity, but that better boon—the fountain of perpetual
youth flowing from a grateful heart to the many who
have made so pleasant life's long pilgrimage.
A letter of introduction is ofttimes a delicate and a
difficult piece of writing. This is the more so, when the
bearer thereof and the writer is the same person. How-
ever, one's credentials are among the essentials in
Church and in court, and should be in whatsoever state
of society. I deem, then, no apology necessary for this
personal data, of which there will be as little of the ego
as possible, working when I can by the rule of elimina-
tion, canceling common factors, and giving the result in
the most concise form.

12
My Moving Tent.
Southern people have been ridiculed for emphasis-
not on heraldry, with its blazing coat of arms, but on
heritage according to ancestry. In truth, they are al-
most criminally careless touching this thing, and might
learn a helpful lesson from the Jews, with whom "ac-
cording to the tribe” has a special significance. Wash-
ington Irving says: “That nation is surely doomed
that takes neither pride nor pleasure in thinking upon
a noble line of ancestry.” Napoleon understood its
power in his matchless appeal to his army before the
battle of the Pyramids : "Soldiers of France, the eyes
of forty generations are looking down upon you!”
The Presbyterian poet, Philip Doddridge, invokes the
same spirit when he sings :
A cloud of witnesses around
Hold thee in full survey.
And Goldsmith, dear to the memory of all in whose
veins flows the good, rich blood of Ireland, describes
with apt version,
A land to hastning ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates and men decay.
Wealth is all right if rightly gotten and wisely be-
stowed or given, but there should be only contempt for
the rich fool who boasts of his barns and sneeringly
says: “I never knew my grandfather, and, really, I don't
know that I ever had one." I am constrained to con-
clude that much of this bravado and self-laudation is
due to the fact that many fabulous fortunes are made
by methods that would not have been accepted in our
grandfathers' time, and when so made could not have
purchased for the possessor a place in the good old or-
der of gentleman. Sad indeed when a man so born

In the Beginning.
13
forfeits his high estate and becomes a byword and a re-
proach—“the degenerate son of a noble sire, the highest
style of sir.”
As we sit, then, in reminiscential and reverential mood
to sing our evening song, the first face revealed as the
ashes are blown aside and memory lights her fire is the
never-to-be-forgotten one of my father, Hon. John E.
Dromgoole, the son of Thomas Dromgoole, who was
the son of Rev. Edward Dromgoole, who came from
the "ould counthry” in the days of John Wesley, when
to be a Methodist a man must not count his life dear
unto himself. He lived and labored on the old Bruns-
wick Circuit, in Virginia, in the heroic days of Metho-
dism.
My father was born in Brunswick County December
28, 1805. He came to Tennessee in his young man-
hood and while Tennessee was yet in her youth as a
State. As a public official, he served her many times in
no mean capacity. He was mayor of Murfreesboro at
the time of the Federal occupation. Writing to me from
that town, February 13, 1864, concerning a request that
had been made of him, he says: “I could not possibly
get permission to go, for, though the authorities here
are courteous and disposed to grant any moderate re-
quest, I know it would be petitioning in vain to ask for
such a privilege. I have long been under arrest here,
and am held responsible for damages that may be as-
sessed for injuries to the railroad.” He was a lawyer
of much more than average ability. William H. Seward
said that the best papers that came to his department at
Washington were prepared by my father.
As a member of the Constitutional Convention that
met in Nashville in 1870, he was held in high esteem for

14
My Moving Tent.
broadness and liberality with pronounced conservatism.
Few of that noble body are living. Hon. D. N.
Kennedy and Hon. John F. House, both of Clarksville,
are the only ones I have met for years. Col. House
writes: "I thought a great deal of your father. I re-
member with great pleasure my association with him in
the Constitutional Convention of 1870." .
For more than four score years and ten my father
walked a prince among men-blameless in life and con-
versation. He never grew old. His head and his heart
were always young. At the time of his home-going,
November 21, 1897, he was probably the oldest Mason
in Tennessee, bearing credentials from the lodge in Vir-
ginia dated as far back as 1831, with a loving letter ad-
dressing him as “Dear John.”
My father was named for John Easter, another hero
of the saddlebags, when Methodism, having sung her
way across the waters, was tabernacling among men in
the wilderness, following the pioneer in lonely valley or
watching the smoke of his cabin on the mountain side
and making it a house of prayer. In the chronicles of
Methodism (see McTyeire's "History”), these names
are graven. They are yet living epistles known and
read of all men where the history of our Church is
known and read. I linger long and lovingly over the
cherished memory of my father. His personality was
so marked that now as I sit in his old room and among
the old surroundings he seems still here, yet with us. I
can see him and hear him singing a snatch of the songs
he loved, “Bonnie Doune," or
“Ye banks and braes and streams,
| Around the castle o' Montgomery;"
or more frequently, at night, one of the songs of Zion,

In the Beginning.
15
and anon calling to me when the day's duties were done,
“Can't you come and read the Richmond for me?” Of
this Church paper, he was very fond. He knew the
places and the people mentioned in it so well that
through it and him I learned to know and to love them.
The truth is, I used to think that I had been to those
churches on the Brunswick Circuit, old Olive Branch
and the others, and that I had exchanged salutations
with the sisters and the brethren. I suppose there is no
such thing as prenatal memory, but people with whom
you have been long associated through others become
very real-personal illustrations of the doctrine of
transubstantiation.
My father and mother used often to go to Virginia in
the days of my childhood, before the day of the iron
horse. There was a horse on our place which had trav-
eled the road so often that it was said he knew all the
stopping places en route, and that he could make his
way "from Dan to Beersheba !” On these occasions I
was left with my father's sister, Mrs. Fanny Hall Drom-
goole Owen, wife of Mr. Harrison Owen, whose plan-
tation joined my father's, in Rutherford County, Tenn.
“Of all the beautiful pictures that hang on memory's
wall,” none are sweeter and fairer than this aunt's.
She stands for all that is best in the highest type of
Christian womanhood. No lullabies have ever sound-
ed so sweet to me as those I heard her sing in the
night-time to allay childish fears, and to soothe and
comfort the heart of a homesick child, whose loved
ones were far away.
Many things make me linger over those days--so
sad, so sweet! “The days that are no more” save in

16
My Moving Tent.
this backward glance, and that in some sweet sense they
are ever with us.
The last time that my parents came back from Vir-
ginia my aunt, Mrs. Margaret Blanch Jordan, returned
with them, and through her I became well acquainted
with some of the old Virginia preachers, Brothers Row-
zie, Chiles, and others, and felt that I could go all about
the walls of Randolph-Macon College, and was almost
on speaking terms with some of the students and pro-
fessors. In later years this acquaintance has greatly
grown through Prof. Richard Irby, Secretary-Treas-
urer and Historian of that institution.
On his last trip my father brought me a book, the
first that was ever truly mine own, and I have it yet,
well preserved through all the wanderings of more than
forty-six years of tent life. It was bought in Murfrees-
boro, N. C., and it is a sentimental work on botany,
called “Flora's Lexicon.” Another present was a big
doll (and I have never seen one quite so beautiful,
though she could neither sit down, stand up, nor cry,
nor were her accomplishments in other lines half so va-
ried and pretentious as those of her English cousins
to-day). I kept her many years, till, in the course of
human events, I was too old for a doll; then she came
by succession to younger members of the family.
But I must hasten, for the sound of the singing is
low and very sad. As I said, my father abode long
time with us, as men count years. At the last his going
away was a translation. He had long wistfully
watched the West, for all his companions were gone.
As his eye swept the horizon, the bending heavens were
very near. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye,
while dressed for church and humming one of the songs

In the Beginning.
17
of Zion, he was caught up to join the invisible choir,
the innumerable company of saints in the celestial city
of our God and his Christ. His dear, old body was just
worn out, and God took him.
The gloves and the apron were laid aside,
The tired workman went to rest.
In the town of Dresden his Masonic brethren laid
him away by the side of his soldier-son, Maj. J. E.
Dromgoole, of the Eighteenth Tennessee Regiment,
C. S. A. In Mayfield, Ky., whence he was called home,
his Methodist brethren, and his Masonic, held for him
a most beautiful memorial service, conducted by Rev.
Warner Moore, D.D., of the Memphis Conference,
son of Rev. Smith W. Moore, of precious memory,
my father's friend. “For we know that, if our earthly
house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a
building of God, a house not made with hands, eter-
nal in the heavens.”
I close this chapter with a memoir printed in the
Christian Advocate of February 3, 1898, written by
Rev. James D. Barbee, D.D., long time his friend and
pastor, a man whom he held in the highest Christian es-
teem and brotherly love, and whom he characterized as
“true gold!"
"John Easter Dromgoole was born in Brunswick
County, Va., December 28, 1805, and died in Mayfield,
Ky., November 21, 1897. He was twice married, and
sons and daughters blessed his home. His long life was
spent in the service of God, and, having sanctified the
Lord God in his heart, he was ever ready to give an an-
swer to any who asked a reason for the hope that was
in him. 'He was no bigot, but by the grace of God that
was in him he was a Methodist.'

18
My Moving Tent.
“Like the Shunammite, he always kept a prophet's
chamber on the wall, which was used only by the itiner-
ant, and was supplied with the productions of Wesley,
Clarke, Watson, and Fletcher, and ‘Zion's Harp.'
“Though a layman, Mr. Dromgoole was a well-in-
formed theologian, and woe to the pretentious socialist
who put a lance in poise expecting an easy victory. He
was a match for the best, and, while he was respectful
to the opinions of the humblest, he never struck his col-
ors in the presence of the highest. He was a wise man
and just, therefore his services were long in demand
for the office of magistrate, which he filled with marked
ability.
“He was not only a Christian, but he was the friend
and patron of Christian education, and his children il-
lustrate his ideal in that direction; and their reverent
love and admiration indicate his personal influence upon
their spirit and character. Down to the close of his
long life he was ever an oracle to them, and they de-
lighted to honor him. Hospitality was a distinguish-
ing feature of his home, and the anniversary of his
birth was always a gala day, in whose festivities neigh-
bors and friends were invited to share. The writer was
more than once an honored guest on these occasions.
"John E. Dromgoole is dead,” they say. No, he
“is not dead, but sleepeth.” After a long and faithful
career, the weary wheels of life simply stood still, and
the old saint went up higher. He sleeps with Jesus!

CHAPTER II.
AMONG KITH AND KIN.
My father's nother was Fanny Hall, sister of Dr.
Daniel Hall, for more than fifty years a member of the
Virginia Conference. To Brother W. F. Luke, a lay-
man of Portsmouth, Va., I am indebted for much that I
know of my grandmother's family, and of Uncle Daniel
Hall especially. About two years ago I was surprised
to receive a letter from Mr. Luke, an entire stranger to
me, prefaced by saying that he had learned through the
Richmond Advocate that I was a kinswoman of Dr.
Hall; that his father and Dr. Hall were dear friends
for many years; that Dr. Hall had given to his father a
steel engraving, an almost lifelike picture of himself, a
rare piece of good work. His father had prized the
picture highly, and on his deathbed had willed it to him,
and he had religiously kept it; but he was growing
old, and was solicitous about the picture. The last
time he had gone aboard (he belonged to the Virginia
navy) he had taken the picture with him for fear that
some harm might befall it in his absence. He wished
to send it to me, believing that I would care for it as he
had done, and he requested that I should will it to some
one who would do the same. The picture came, and I
carried it to a photographer, Mr. McFadden, of Pa-
ducah, Ky., who pronounced it a fine piece of work.
He made twelve copies, and I sent one to each of the
kin whose address I could command.
I then took the steel engraving and made a long-
hoped-for visit to my aunt, Mrs. Fanny Hall Drom-
(19)

20
My Moving Tent.
goole Owen, then of the vicinity of Byhalia, Miss. I
had not seen her since my early girlhood. What for-
tunes and misfortunes since then! When I had last
seen her she was in the full bloom of womanhood;
now, in age and feebleness extreme, past her four
score years, she lay upon the bed of languishment,
suffering the Master's will, while I had passed from
girlhood to womanhood, acquainted with sorrow and
familiar with grief, from womanhood almost into the
winter of old age.
I shall never forget the reunion, so glad, yet so infi-
nitely sad. After some hours of talk and tears, I said:
“I have something to show you.” Then I placed in her
trembling hand the picture of the man she had not seen
since her childhood, a picture of which she had never
heard. Fixing upon it her age-dimmed and tear-filled
eyes, she exclaimed: “Why, it is Uncle Daniel, just as
I used to know him!” (She passed away in peace Au-
gust 29, 1901). A photograph is all that I have
left; for the engraving, with many other pictures and
cherished tokens, was lost in the fire that consumed our
parsonage and church at Kenton on the morning of the
fourth of last July.
I had with the pictures all of Brother Luke's letters.
I had saved them, for they interested me greatly, and
contained what I regarded valuable history concerning
the beginning of Methodism in the coast cities of Vir-
ginia. Besides, Brother Luke's opinions of men, meth-
ods, and matters, generally, were expressed with a point
and piquancy not current these days, and, therefore, all
the more valuable. He more recently sent me a book
about “The Four Islands," one of which is Smith's,
with delightful descriptions of the people and their

Among Kith and Kin.
21
homes and their religious life. He is a pronounced
Methodist, a stanch Democrat, and a loyal Virginian.
Recently he increased my indebtedness by sending me
some copies of the Virginian Pilot, containing a sketch
of Uncle George C. Dromgoole, whom the writer styles
“the brilliant orator of ante-bellum days, and the great
Democratic leader.” Of course this kinsman is one of
the traditions of my childhood. He closed his career as
my life was beginning.
Among my treasured memorials saved from the fire
but blackened with age is the historic address, "To the
People of Virginia by the Democratic Party in the Gen-
eral Assembly of 1834-35.” The address was submit-
ted to a called meeting, Saturday, February 27, 1835,
was read and adopted, and the same, with the proceed-
ings signed by the Chairman and by the Secretary, was
ordered published. Maj. Charles Hunton, of the Sen-
ate, was Chairman of the meeting, and John Sherrard,
of the House of Delegates, Secretary. On the com-
mittee were appointed the following five persons—viz.,
John T. Anderson, Joseph S. Watkins, George C.
Dromgoole, Hugh A. Garland, Thomas Jefferson Ran-
dolph. The peroration to this address is a trumpet call,
as well suited to the present and all future times as it
was in the past :
“In Virginia the victory is yet to be won on that soil
where the Democratic banner was first unfurled and
the shout of triumph first heard. The conflict will be
arduous, but the issue not doubtful, if you are vigilant
and united. Our opponents are active, untiring, skill-
ful, and fertile in resources. Their efforts will be to
divide and conquer. We call upon you to be united and

22
My Moving Tent.
firm. Listen to no overtures; make no compromise;
present a solid and unbroken front.
"We, your representatives, for two years, with an
overwhelming odds against us, in the midst of frowns,
contempt, and scoffs, have stood a phalanx, unbroken,
undaunted, unterrified. Every attempt has been made
to divide and distract, but all in vain. We have sus-
tained the rights of the people and demanded that their
voice should be heard. We earnestly recommend you,
fellow-citizens, as the best and most Democratic mode
of ascertaining public sentiment, to meet in your several
counties, freely consult with each other, and select those
men in whom you have most confidence and who are
most likely to unite the Democracy of the country. Let
not our past services, nor the relations in which we now
stand toward you, be any obstacle in the way. Should
you find other men more worthy of your confidence
than ourselves, we will most cheerfully yield to their
superior claims. Let no personal ambition endanger
the cause of our country, and let no man hold back who
may be honored by the people with a call to their service.
These are times to make sacrifices of personal ease and
of pecuniary interest for the public good. ... We are
persuaded that unanimity alone on our part can secure
the triumph of Democracy; on that principle, therefore,
we are determined to act.”
All of this is very true and wholesome doctrine, based
on the declaration that a house divided against itself
cannot stand.
The tragedy which darkened the last years of the
life of this brilliant and beloved son of Virginia—be-
hold! is it not written in the chronicles of the State,
where his long record as a public servant was without

Among Kith and Kin.
23
spot or wrinkle or any such thing? Would there were
more such!
My father was twice married. First to Lucy K.
Blanch, my mother, who died when I was a babe, and
afterwards to Rebecca Mildred Blanch, her sister,
both own sisters to Prof. E. A. Blanch, at one time
Professor of Mathematics in Randolph-Macon Col-
lege, and familiarly known as "Old Zeke."
My acquaintance with Uncle Alfred was principally
through Bishop McTyeire, who was a student at Ran-
dolph-Macon, and under my uncle's instruction. To
him, and also to Capt. Richard Irby, Secretary and His-
torian of that institution, I am debtor for further ac-
quaintance with Cousin Edward Dromgoole Sims, at
the time referred to Professor of Languages in Ran-
dolph-Macon and giving special attention to Anglo-
Saxon elements.
Another professor known throughout Southern
Methodism as a teacher was Dr. A. W. Jones, who mar-
ried my mother's youngest sister, Caroline Blanch. She
died at Randolph-Macon College, and was borne to her
burial by the students, young McTyeire being one of
the pall-bearers. Dr. A. W. Jones came to Tennessee
and located in Jackson, Madison County. He was
President of the Memphis Conference Female Institute
from 1849 to 1893, a long and noble record. In 1898
his son, Dr. Amos Blanch Jones, was elected President,
and is a worthy successor of his honored father.
My grandfather, Ezekiel Alfred Blanch, was a sol-
dier of the American Revolution, and a patriot of the
purest type. The words “soldier” and “patriot” are
sometimes used synonymously, but they do not ety-
mologically, nor frequently, in fact, signify the same

24
My Moving Tent.
thing. A soldier is not so high an order of man. A
patriot is one who loves his country. A soldier may
or may not. He was at first a hireling and fought for
pay. Many do yet. Before my grandfather's death
he had all his papers burned that might secure for
him or his descendants a pension, saying: “I fought
for patriotism, not for pay !” Would there were more
such! Then would this body of death—the pension
bureau-cease to be a stench in the nostrils of the
nation!
I am glad that my people—not only kinfolks, but the
South—have from the first stood for education. My
great-grandfather, Rev. Edward Dromgoole, was a
trustee of Ebenezer Academy, one of the oldest acade-
mies in the New World. It still stands, a monument to
the fidelity of the fathers. A picture of it can be seen in
"The History of Randolph-Macon College,” by Capt.
Richard Irby.
The fullness of time has come when the South should
have recognition of her rights and of her work in the
cause of education of so-called public education, or
secular, and of Christian education, or that received in
Church schools, Protestant Church schools. The record
of the South in voluntary taxation for the education of
her former slaves, the freedmen, is without a parallel
in history. Yet while songs are sung and pæons of
praise given to a great and prosperous section for gifts
to institutions called for the donors, coming from over-
full money chests and not significant of self-denial or
sacrifice, nothing is said of the suffering taxpayer at
the South, who takes his place at the plow or in the cot-
ton field, while his one-time African slave shades him-
self under an umbrella and goes to school.

Among Kith and Kin.
25
This in passing: In the history of our schools, I know
of no two that have done more for God and for human-
ity than Randolph-Macon College and the Memphis
Conference Female Institute. A history of the two is
almost a history of Southern Methodism. The one has
given us scholars, statesmen, soldiers, patriots, preach-
ers, lawyers, judges, bishops—I came near writing
Presidents; well, presidents of many schools—men
gracing every station in life. The other has polished
our daughters after the similitude of a palace—a build-
ing whose foundation and corner stone is Christ Jesus
our Lord—a palace resplendent with the virtues that
make and adorn Christian womanhood.
Among the early annual addresses for the institute, I
note many names of distinction in Church and in State.
The first was by Dr. A. W. Jones himself, followed next
year by Rev. Lorenzo Lee, of Virginia; then come a
succession of stars, one star not differing from another
in glory, but in degree. But time would fail me to give
the names of all those courtly doctors of divinity, of the
beloved bishops, of the plain preachers, and of the mas-
ters of law and bachelors of art, many of whom came
from the ranks, wrote their own diplomas, and com-
pelled the world to sign them.
And this has from the first been the glory of Metho-
dism. While born in a university, she has been such a
training school for the apostles that the fisherman from
the lake shore, unlettered and ignorant, has learned to
preach with Paul, to water with Apollos, while God has
given the increase.
I cannot close this chapter without a tear to the mem-
ory of our ascended chief pastors whose names grace
the list of commencement speakers-viz., Bishop Rob-

26
My Moving Tent.
ert Paine, D.D., Bishop D. S. Doggett, D.D., Bishop
E. M. Marvin, D.D., Bishop Kavanaugh, D.D., all of
whom died in the faith, giving glory to God. With one
exception I knew them all personally, in the home,
where men are best known, and I esteemed them very
highly for their work's sake.
Bishop Kavanaugh was the most congenial of fire-
side guests, abounding in anecdote, of which he was a
master at recital. In the pulpit he was sometimes unex-
celled, unapproachable. I heard him once when, in a
grand flight of oratory, he so moved the great audience
that they rose involuntarily and stood listening with
bated breath.
Bishop Paine had all the courtly graces of a Christian
knight, and none knew better than he how to wield the
sword of the Spirit in defense of his most holy faith. I
have heard my father say that in the old camp meeting
days he had seen the whole mountain moved at his
preaching, just as the hills nodded at the matchless
music of Apollo's harp.
Bishop Wightman was suave, scholarly, easily enter-
tained, and exceedingly entertaining. He was indeed a
minister of consolation to many, both from the pulpit,
where he magnified the grace of the gospel, and in the
homes of sickness, sorrow, and death.
Bishop Marvin was the saintliest man I ever knew,
yet wholly unpretentious in his piety. I have no better
word to express my impression of the man than spiritu-
ality. You felt it so soon as you were in his presence.
It was, in some sense, the feeling of the devout Jewish
poet,
And always when I felt thee nigh,
My shoes were off my feet!

Among Kith and Kin.
27
In contact with other men his touch was vital. As
illustrative, I give elsewhere that noble tribute by Dr.
Thomas O. Summers, Jr. Who among the old preach-
ers does not recall Bishop Marvin's rapt expression as
he would sing:
"O come, angel band;
Come and around me stand;
O bear me away on your snowy wings
To my immortal home?"

CHAPTER III.
AT CHURCH AND CAMP MEETING—SOME HAPPENINGS.
My earliest recollections of myself are very vivid.
My father had a delightful home in the country, about
eight miles south of Murfreesboro, on what was known
as the Middleton Road. All the surroundings and en-
vironments were the best. The life after the lights and
shadows of so many years of wandering seems almost
idyllic.
I recall the names of old neighbors. I see them in
their homes of peace and plenty, or mingling with each
other pleasantly in social life, exchanging greetings on
the highway or at the church door on week-day meet-
ings. Across the fields I hear the old plantation songs
sung by care-free negroes at work with hoe or plow or
picking cotton. At night, while the mellow moonlight
floods field and forest, I hear afar off the baying of
hounds and the hunter's call, while from the cabins
comes the sound of spinning wheels, and in perfect
tune and time some camp meeting song; for the sum-
mer is past and all “the house-hands” and many from
the cabins have been to camp meeting and have
learned the new songs, and have added thereunto,
until, set going, there is no stopping. I used to go
to these camp meetings dressed in my best clothes,
(which were duly admired) and not feeling half so
comfortable as I would have done in common ones.
Winrow's and Hall's are the tenting places I best
recall. The latter was about four miles from Mur-
freesboro and equi-distant from my father's. He
(28)

Some Happenings.
29
never camped, but “carried dinner to the ground” and
fed a multitude, besides contributing generously oth-
erwise, and “keeping" the horses of preachers and
visitors from a distance, many of whom attended—as
preaching "was not so common then as now," but
was uncommonly good. I am no pessimist, but I hear
no such preaching now. The difference I am not
philosopher enough to explain, but I am poet enough
to feel.
Old Mrs. S-- used to say that Mr. J— always
had a good crop, because he never hired hands, but
depended on his own force. Every preacher was in
charge of his own meeting, and he worked his full
force without methods, except Methodism, no cards,
no getting up, nor sitting down, nor "going forward,
if you feel like leading a better life, to shake hands
with the preacher, and making a bow," like, to quote
from my old washerwoman, “they're being interduced
to Gawd er Mighty.” The same is authority for saying
"that kind o' religion may do for white folks, but
'fore Gawd 'twon't do for a thick-headed nigger; I tell
'em you've got to be redeemed.”
As to the preaching there was more positivism,
more realism in it. Description was vivid; conviction
was powerful; repentance was godly sorrow for sin.
Faith was victory. The gospel was the power of God
unto salvation. Under such preaching I have seen
the mighty multitudes moved, the whole encampment
astir. Cries, shouts, songs—strong men falling down
and crying for mercy. They were converted, and from
giants in sin they became new creatures in Christ
Jesus. Many names of preachers and many preachers

30
My Moving Tent.
are in review as I pause with pen in hand trying to de-
cide who shall come first.
With a smile and a tear, I write those of Uncle Abe
Overall and his brother Nat, old Uncle Golman Green,
and Uncle Johnnie Brooks (who always wanted to kiss
the children, when there followed an unexpected game
of hide and seek). Later on there were Fountain E.
Pitts, Dr. A. L. P. Green, Dr. J. B. McFerrin, W. T.
Shaw, John B. McCurdy (who always sang to the chil-
dren), Robert Hatton (father of Gen. Robert Hatton,
of stainless record as statesman and soldier, whose
sun went down in battle ere it had reached meridian
splendor).
There were others—a long illustrious line, at the
head of which I might place Dr. J. W. Hanner, a man
tried, true, and tender-lonely in his greatness, and
great in his loneliness. The camp meeting was looked
forward to for months. It was a great religious and
social event, with sometimes a mixture of other mat-
ters.
I recall one meeting at Hall's at eleven o'clock in
the forenoon. The stand and all around was crowded
with eager, expectant listeners. I do not know who
preached, but it was wonderful preaching. At the
close Uncle Golman Green “exhorted,” a good old
Methodist word not so much in fashion now as for-
merly. I shall never forget his appearance. It awak-
ened my sympathy as soon as I saw him, and I felt
like crying, and I did cry before he was through. He
described a poor old man, a man of grief, who had
been journeying here a long time—so long, and some-
times out of money, that he felt all alone, friendless.
He had no home here, but one far, far away; and the

Some Happenings.
31
old man was going to it soon. The ship was waiting,
sails all spread, and he was ready to go; wouldn't
everybody come and shake hands with the old man
before he sailed? There was wild weeping by this
time, and I wept loudest of all. In fact, I had to be
carried to the tent, where it took some time to calm
me into a sleep from which I did not awake until the
afternoon in time for the three-o'clock service.
Imagine my surprise (and shall I say disappoint-
ment?) when I saw the same old man that the people
had told good-by in the morning sitting in the pulpit !
In an audible whisper I said to my father : “Why, he
didn't go, after all!”
In the years that followed I often heard Uncle Gol-
man, and saw the multitudes shaken by his wonderful
eloquence and play upon the emotions; but he moved
me no more, my fountain of tears was dry. In my
childish heart I somehow felt that he had fooled me,
that he ought to have gone, because he said he was
going
There were some great shouters at these meetings.
Among the best remembered of the women are my
father's sister, Mrs. Rebecca Dromgoole Harrison,
Aunt Suky Thompson, and Mrs. Fanny Pritchett.
The last lived in Murfreesboro. They were all model
Christian women, and the three being present meant
assured success for the meeting.
After camp meeting the children would hold meet-
ings at home, lively ones they were, and they named
the singers and the shouters after those that had been
active in these exercises at the camp meeting.
My father's house was the preacher's home, the
first stopping place after Conference. About the mid-

32
My Moving Tent.
dle of October the new preacher was sure to call.
There was a country schoolhouse not far off, and
when it rained and “the branch rose," as it usually did,
the children who lived beyond it always stayed over-
night at my father's. It so chanced that the new
preacher (quite a young man, this his first work) and
the school children happened there the same evening,
for it had rained hard in the afternoon. After supper
the preacher, the host and hostess, and a young lady
visitor were in the sitting room, adjoining the dining
room, which had been given up to the children for
play. They decided to have a meeting, and sent to the
cabins for help in singing and praying; and, not to
be disturbed, they fastened the door.
Conversation flagged in the other room, and the
sensible thing seemed to be to have prayers and go
to bed. A chapter had been read and the prayer be-
gun, when suddenly there was a sound of a-going—a
mighty shout, mingled with cries of “Pray on, brother;
pray on, brother; pray on, sister;" and the exultant
song, "We'll Stomp Old Satan's Kingdom Down," ac-
companied with appropriate action. There was
amazement on the part of the preacher, whose face
plainly said, “What meaneth this uproar?” on the part
of my father and mother, annoyance, not unmixed
with amusement, as the exercises continued with un-
abated interest for some time—as they tried to effect
an entrance, and to be heard above the din, both be-
ing well-nigh impossible.
The fastidious folk may smile incredulously when
I state that in the negro cabins were some excellent
vocalists who had never been to a singing school;
others who could perform, “play well” on the fiddle,

Some Happenings.
33
but who were without instruction from the music
teacher; others could whistle perfectly any tune, and
so imitate the voice of the mocking bird or the whip-
poor-will as to delude even the unwary among the
birds. At present it is largely a lost art. The chil-
dren of Africa are not now so much in field and forest
as they were fifty years agone, and their music is
not so fit an accompaniment to the whir and noise of
machinery as it was to the melody of the wildwood.

CHAPTER IV.
A CAMP MEETING INCIDENT.
The question is often asked, “Is there more politi-
cal scheming in these days than in the past?" I
would say there was less bribing then than now. The
candidates were generally men well known, the in-
signia being not so much in the outer garment of the
white robe as in the purity of life as to political record.
The majority of the voters could read and write,
and the wayfaring man, though a fool, was not easily
deceived as to men and measures. That belonged to
a later time, when good citizens and true were sub-
jected to carpet-bag rule, when free men were by
military measures compelled to submit to the votes
of their recently emancipated (freed men) slaves. The
humiliation was deep and the disgrace of it is a foul
blot cnour national history. The negroes were well-be-
haved and loyal to their owners through all the years
of war. There need never have been an interruption
to their peaceful relationship even under changed
conditions. Their ignorance of civil government is
not surprising. The ballot box was a mystery, and
one not yet fully solved.
After the war many of them were employed by for-
mer owners as overseers or managers of the planta-
tion, and worked well till election day drew nigh, when
there would be a stampede from field and furrow.
One or two years had passed. We had a work-
ing hand on our place, one never having asserted his
claim to the suffrage nor having once gone to the
(34)

A Camp Meeting Incident.
35
polls. But the day came when he seemed restless, not
inclined to his accustomed work. My father, observ-
ing this, asked: "What is the matter? Are you not
well?”
He was “very well, but”-
“O,” said my father, "you want to go and vote.”
"No, Mars; I don't want to vote, but I hear 'em
talk so much about de ballot box, I feels like if I could
only jest one time see it I'd be satisfied.”
"All right, go and see it, and when you come back
let me know what you think of it."
As far back as I remember the children, male and
female, were all partisans. They went to the meetings
and heard the big speakers (stump speakers, they were
called) on both sides, and they had very pronounced
views as to who made the best speech. They knew,
too, pretty well, how every man would vote, for every-
body was either Whig or Democrat.
There was no buying nor selling of votes for money,
but one man in the county was always in the hands
of his friends. He was what the Greeks called idiot,
one in private life; what others called simple-minded.
He was not bright, but by no means a dunce or a
fool. Well, there was a race for him by the rival
parties, and during a campaign he was the recipient
of many marked social courtesies.
At one of the camp meetings at eleven o'clock
preaching, there was a great stir. I think Dr. A. L.
P. Green had preached; at any rate, men were cut to
the heart, and when the call for mourners was made
there was an impetuous rush to the altar, while friends
went in divers directions to bring in others. Among
these was a leading Methodist and also a zealous Dem-

36
My Moving Tent.
ocrat, having in tow the said doubtful voter and steer-
ing him direct to the mourners' bench. “All right,
brother, bring him on,” called the preacher; and on
he went till he reached the extreme end of the mourn-
ers' bench, near the pulpit and near the outside where
many people were congregated standing row upon
row. They both knelt, and the good brother talked
to the penitent until the preacher called upon him to
pray. He grew very happy during the prayer, rose
from his knees, walking and exhorting—the curious
crowd coming closer to the altar. At length he began
to shout and then to sing :
"I'm climbing Jacob's ladder,
And every round goes higher, higher!"
Whether in the body or out, I verily believe he
knew not. But after a while he “came to himself” and
thought of his friend. Going back, he found the place,
but the man was gone! Nor was he seen till many
days afterwards, when all returns were in!
Some of the prayers impressed me, and some made
me wonder, as much as did good Brother Brogan, a
shoemaker and, when I knew him, a local preacher in
Alabama. I think he afterwards joined the North
Alabama Conference. Brother Brogan wished to join
the Church, and the preacher told him that on a cer-
tain Sunday he would “open the doors of the Church.”
The Sunday came and "an opportunity was given for
those who wished to join our branch of the Church.”
Brother Brogan did not avail himself of the invitation.
After service he complained: "Why, brother, you
told me you would open the door of the church, and I
just waited and watched.”

A Camp Meeting Incident.
37
We Irish are very literal or otherwise. My problem
was this: A good brother always fervently begged
the Lord “to come down in the galleries of his grace.”
The town churches had galleries, but the country
churches had none. I went to my father for a solu-
tion. “Where is it," I inquired, “that Brother
wishes the Lord to come. There are no galleries in
that old church.”
I was told to "wait till I could find out!" I waited.

CHAPTER V.
A MAN FULL OF FAITH AND THE HOLY GHOST.
UNCLE ELISHA CARR was a godly man. I had been
sent off to boarding school, and was one of the Juniors
before I knew him, but I had to learn my chapter
in the Bible, and recite it too, when he came around.
His methods were unique in everything.
He was a missionary to the negroes, and his min-
istry to them and among them was wonderfully blessed
of God. He was a real reformer, and impressed upon
them most effectively the necessity of holy living.
They must lead pure, honest lives, every day. They
must not lie, nor cheat, nor steal. “Thou shalt not
kill” was a commandment never enlarged upon to
them; for murder, now so common among them, was
almost unknown. His catechism of them was original
and often mirth-provoking. Most of them enjoyed
this exercise until it touched upon personal points. I
have thought that in certain lines he would have made
a first-class detective.
In others he was a failure, as in conducting a class
meeting with whose make-up he was not acquainted.
He inquired once of a sister of uncertain age and un-
married : “Sister, do you bring up your children in the
nurture and admonition of the Lord?” Receiving no
reply, after a word of exhortation, he passed on to
the next with the same query. She had been long
time married, but had never had a child! The em-
barrassment of the situation never dawned on him,
(38)

A Man Full of Faith and the Holy Ghost. 39
but it was the more ludicrous to others because he
was himself a grave and dignified old bachelor.
My father had one old man, a kind of patrician and
oracle among the negroes. He was very pronounced
in all his ways, and his utterances had the authority
of a seer. Two things he would not do: ride on the
cars and go to preaching Entreaties were vain.
The "devil drove the engine,” and he "would not be
caught in such company!” My brother and I finally
prevailed upon him one Sunday afternoon to hear
Uncle Elisha Carr preach at the schoolhouse, near by.
We were eager for his return to hear his report of the
sermon.
He was a man of fluent diction, never using an or-
dinary word when he could command an extraordinary
one; yet withal he was slow of speech, deliberate,
weighing his words and giving to each its full import.
To our eager questioning, “What did you think of the
sermon,” he at first made no reply; carefully laying
aside his cane, placing beside it his High Church
beaver hat, then, taking off his gloves, putting one on
his right knee and the other on his left, and slowly
shaking his gray head, he replied: “I tell you, little
Miss and young Marse, that man polergized on some
mighty onconditional subjects !"
We never knew what he meant, and I suppose he
never knew what the preacher meant. I have known
similar situations, but the preacher is not always to
blame. I reckon it sometimes happens to most of us,
and this apt phraseology is a good concealment of
ignorance. As the young lady said of a lecture: “It
sounds smart and ought to mean something, if I only
had sense enough to know!"

40
My Moving Tent.
The last time I saw Brother Carr was a dreary day
the winter preceding the close of the great drama at
Appomattox. It was in Murfreesboro, at my father's.
His visit was a surprise and a lasting pleasure. He
passed away soon after, and I saw him no more. He
was genuinely good, a man whose memory I delight
to honor. Tears filled his eyes as he bade me and our
little ones good-by, saying: “I was in the country
and I heard you were here, and I wanted to hear you
laugh once more !"
I cried, for in the old days I had so often laughed
with him, and more frequently at him. This he knew
and enjoyed, though without what we call a sense of
humor. We shall not see his like again. He has no
successor. The pathos of his lonely life was touching.
I love to think that he has a home and that he is at
home forever!

CHAPTER VI.
MY SCHOOLS AND SCHOOLMASTERS.
AMONG the many things laid low since the course of
empire took its westward way is the old field school-
house. Hugh Miller, in his autobiography, “My
Schools and Schoolmasters,” gives a pleasant picture
of the quaint old schoolhouse, with the smoke curling
over the low roof and losing itself in the mist of the
mountain, and of the ancient dame who taught him
A, B, C. But Scotland has no monopoly in memory
of “sic a house.” It is likewise an American institu-
tion, and in its decay dear to the hearts of the boys and
girls of
“Twenty years ago, John,
When you and I were young.”
According to the flesh, we may not sigh for the
touch of a vanished hand, but even the most prosaic
will sometimes sing: “I would I were a boy again !”
The trencher-chaplain, and the domestic tutor are
essentially English and have had neither local habita-
tion nor name in American pedagogy. The former
was conspicuous in Cromwell's time, and he combined
the office of teacher and preacher. His trencher duty
was discharged at the table by asking the blessing and
returning thanks, the first "for what we are about to
receive," the last for what we have received.
Not unfrequently the trencher-chaplain became the
domestic tutor, and his duties are well defined by
Bishop Hall in his “Bookes of Byting Satyres."
(41)

42
My Moving Tent.
A gentle Squire would gladly entertain
Into his house some Trencher-Chapelaine,
Some willing man that might instruct his sons.
And that would stand to good conditions.
First, that he lie upon the truckle bed,
While his young master lieth overhead.
Second, that he do on no default,
Ever presume to sit above the salt.
Third, that he never change his trencher twice.
Fourth, that he use all common courtesies,
Sit bare at meals, and one-half rise and wait.
Last, that he never his young master beat,
But, he must ask his mother to define,
How many jerks his back should line.
All these observed he could contented be
To give five marks and winter livery!
In France the young masters had no maternal pro-
tection against the teacher, and a miserable lot do
they appear. Rods were reckoned among the nec-
essary expenses of a college, and a good grove had at-
tractions undreamed of in Plato's philosophy!
The old field schoolmaster is fast becoming one of
the tender traditions of the generations passing away.
He belongs to us and to our children forever. His
reign was royal, and, though a Democratic Republican,
he was an absolute monarch, whose right their was
none to dispute, no higher court of appeal. He is the
last of a noble line, and when the States shall have
succeeded in banishing the Bible from their schools
he must appear in the rôle of the dethroned Roman
who frequented the Forum after his reign had ceased,
but had no voice in its proclamations.
His sons in the succession may have improved the
methods of teaching, but for adepts in the science of
spelling commend me to a class under the old régime.

My Schools and Schoolmasters.
43
They knew nothing of the philosophy of phonetics,
but every one could spell phthisic and beat the best
boy in college on bonnyclabber! · They were su-
premely ignorant, as was the master, of object-teach-
ing, but each scholar—they were all scholars in those
days—understood the object in teaching.
Mental gymnastics was not taught under that scien-
tific expression, nor were the vowels exploded by rule,
yet I think something was accomplished in these de-
partments. The master had a way of making indelible
impressions that beat the best patent fluid in a modern
schoolroom, and that without asking the mother!
You seldom heard any talk of brain food, and I
doubt whether "the gentle squire” would have taken
a teacher to his trencher who seriously studied the
comparative value of fish, eggs, and oatmeal as brain
nourishers. An early breakfast, a walk of two or three
miles, and four or five hours of loud study, and the
demands of appetite were so keen that no one de-
voteda thought to the "normalcondition of the brain.”
My only mournful memory of the old field school is
of the timid child whom the noise scared, and to this
day I try to shut out the sight and the sound of Big
Jim, studying and trying to "say his lesson.”
Mr. Lewis Grigg, a kind and gentle master, seldom
used the rod, but his temper was daily tried by the
boy who “always missed his grammar” and whose
moods and tenses were past finding out. I have since
thought that if the teacher had had the tact to change
the verb from love to hate the result would have been
more encouraging. There were both irony and pro-
test when the boy would begin “I love, you love," while
in wholesome dread of the sword threatening to fall

44
My Moving Tent.
on his empty head. The alacrity with which he changed
to “I did love—no, I might have loved—no, I could
have loved—no, I should have been loved, you could
have been”—about this time came the crisis, and a
stormy scene with everybody looking on, and yet ex-
ploding the vocals at their loudest! Not unfrequent-
ly there was an extra session with closed doors, to
which reporters were not admitted.
My housekeeping has never been conducted on so
perfect a plan as in the old playhouse at my first
school, where company came and went just as you
wished, and dumb waiters did duty through the whole
establishment.
And the woods were peopled
And the air, with things so lovely!
Alas ! such sweet imaginings are scattered afar. My
old master has been dead these many, many years.
The grass grows green upon his grave. The scholars
are scattered and the dust of years has gathered on the
old house. The spot seems sacred to the genius
of desolation.
I passed it on a May morning some years since.
The door was ajar, but the stick was not on the peg!
The boy who took it down had gone too far for the
master's voice to call him back to books! I sat on the
broken steps and cried. A mouse crept from the cor-
ner and glanced furtively around, as if in search of
crumbs from the long row of baskets that used to
grace the wall. A broken blackboard still stood, and
scribbled on a scrap of slate this sentence “Time and
tide wait for no man.” Where were the little brown
hands whose clumsy efforts at “copying” had called

My Schools and Schoolmasters.
45
forth the sharp rebuke. White and resting now be-
side the teacher.
A chip lay on the floor. Was it the one we threw
up so long ago on Friday afternoon for the big battle
in spelling. The boy who won died in prison far from
the haunts of his childhood. Between the planks were
bits of paper, perchance leaves of the blue-back spell-
ing book, which a bright boy would tear out as fast
as he turned them, “because there was no use being
bothered to keep the place on both sides when he had
learned what was on the other.” The chunks of a
back log lay in the capacious fireplace. The ruddy
glow had all died out, nor did the dead ashes keep
alive a spark for the morning fire. With ashes upon
head and heart, I turned away from the sad scene. It
has been beautifully said that a monument in ruins
is more beautiful than one freshly built.
I hail every advance in the art of teaching, but the
old field schoolhouse was the temple of science in that
golden age which comes but once. Never for us will
the fields bloom, the fruits ripen, the birds sing, the
waters murmur as in that wondrous time. In youth
we dream that the Fortunate islands lie in the sea of
Hope; when we are old, we know that they sweetly
smile upon us in the waters of Memory.
“Completing my course in the country,” I was sent
to Murfreesboro, and was a boarder in the home of
Rev. Green T. Henderson, at that time postmaster,
and afterwards for a number of years editor of the
Niews, a stanch and strong Democratic paper. In-
deed, Mr. Henderson might be called the Democratic
leader in Middle Tennessee.
His wife taught the first school for girls ever in

46
My Moving Tent.
Murfreesboro. By birth she was a Philadelphian, a
Miss Reese, of Quaker family and antecedents. She
was in many respects a rarely gifted woman, of comely
countenance and most gracious manner, vivacious
without flippancy. Her penmanship was well-nigh
perfect, and in the fine art of needlework she ex-
celled all others—almost rivaling the wondrous weav-
ing of Ariadne herself. “Uncle Green and Aunt Til”
were long familiar figures in Murfreesboro and in the
region round about.
After the close of the Civil War he joined the Ten-
nessee Conference and was justly ranked one of its
profoundest thinkers. Mrs. Henderson finally gave up
her home school for a position in the Academy, and
afterwards she taught in Soule College under the
presidency of Rev. Samuel D. Baldwin, of Armaged-
don fame.
The first President, however, was Rev. I. Randolph
Finley, D.D., of the Baltimore Conference, a most
courtly and polished Christian gentleman in whose
home I was a boarder at the time Dr. Baldwin came
into the presidency and when the school was taught
"in the house on the hill.” It was a glad day when the
college bell was rung and we marched into our new
quarters, the building now known as Soule College,
then called Soule Female College, female not in-
dicating sex, but for what sex.

CHAPTER VII.
DR. SAMUEL D. BALDWIN.
WITH reverent hand I write the name of my best-
beloved teacher, Samuel D. Baldwin, D.D., who stands
to-day in my memory the perfect man. In writing of
him no eulogy would be extravagant. He was a gen-
ius, born great, to which he added indefatigable in-
dustry. He was devout, simple in manner, genuinely
good.
Beyondall I have ever known he was a student. Ab-
sorbed in study, he became for the time an abstract.
He neither saw nor heard anything from the outside
world. His eyes "in a fine frenzy rolling," or looking
within at the unseen, he was no longer part and parcel
of his immediate environments. A wild engine let
loose in the schoolroom might have aroused him,
but noisy schoolgirls never. Yet his class work was
unexcelled. As class lecturer he was preëminent. I
have never known his equal for fixing facts in the
memory, and then filling out with the aptest accesso-
ries. Plato in the Academy would have had in him a
worthy co-laborer.
In literature he roamed the wide field, and knew
where grew the sweetest flowers, and by whose hands
planted. In Grecian antiquities he might have walked
in the old places, and have come back to tell you what
cities he had visited, what sights he had seen, who had
run in the Olympics, who was victor, what wreaths
were given, who had fought with beasts at Ephesus;
how Alexander looked when, world-weary as a con-
(47)

48
My Moving Tent.
queror, he sighed for other worlds to conquer; and of
Cæsar's "Et tu, Brute,” at the foot of Pompey's Pillar.
My Grecian antiquities and Cleveland's literature are
among the sacred souvenirs rescued from the fire and
belonging to a past that can never perish. In the
pulpit Dr. Baldwin might have been one of the in-
spired prophets of old whose lips God had touched
with fire. His sentences were sublime. His periods
were perfect. His oratory was beyond all that I have
heard from the pulpit or from the platform, and I have
heard some of the foremost of both on this side and
on that. Bishop Charles B. Galloway at his suprem-
est most nearly approximates him, and sometimes in
his grand sweep of earth and star and sea and sky he
reminds me of my never-to-be-forgotten last teacher,
whose lessons are indelibly inscribed on life's page on
head and on heart.
There was absolutely nothing commonplace about
the man and his utterances. He walked and talked
with God. This was illustrated even in his dying
moments. He was on Pisgah's top. Here I give en-
tire what a loving hand wrote of those last days when
the fight was almost finished:
"Brother Baldwin was engaged in a glorious revival
season at McKendree Church when the cholera broke
out in the city. He kept up his meetings at night
till ten o'clock, and the balance of the time, both night
and day, whenever called, at all hours, he was waiting
on and ministering to the sick and the destitute. He
went about seeking out cases of sickness and want,
and seemed to rejoice to be able to help the sick and
those in want.
"Friday morning, the 27th ult, at four o'clock, after

Dr. Samuel D. Baldwin.
49
having just retired to his room, he was taken with a
violent attack of cholera, which was apparently
checked by his physician, Dr. Martin, so that after
lying quiet and calm till next evening at six, he said
to me he felt no particle of disease about him. He
rested well that night, and next morning seemed to
be doing finely, thought he might sit up, but lay still.
His nurse was taken ill and left him at noon on Sun-
day. His loss seemed to perplex him. He sat up a
little that evening. Was not so well from it; was
quite sick again that night and was restless, and was
quite sick next morning; still getting worse. He
asked me if I thought his race was run, his destiny
done. I told him that I did not think so.
"He replied: 'I think there is yet a vast field for me
to explore, much more for me yet to do in my Master's
vineyard. But,' said he, 'should it be otherwise
ordered, I am ready. I have prayed that when my
change shall come I might have the triumph, and I
feel that through Christ the victory is now mine.'
"He seemed to be greatly oppressed at leaving his
children in a penniless condition; but on being assured
by me that they should be properly cared for, his
mind rested quietly on that point.
"Some of the most beautiful word-painting of heav-
en that I ever listened to were sketched by him in his
hours of quiet, between his paroxysms of suffering,
when as rational and clear in mind as when in health.
“In speaking of his deceased wife he would exclaim,
“O my dear Caroline !* my dear, sweet companion, I
shall soon be with you again, and together we will
wander through the sweet fields of Eden.' Again,
* Caroline Moorman.

50
My Moving Tent.
when medicine or nourishment was offered him, he
would say: 'O, why detain me? Why not let me go
and be forever at rest?'.
"At other times he spoke of the foretaste and the
bright views he had of heaven and said : ‘The plains of
glory lie spread out before my view like mountain
sides of light, and the windows of that city are
thronged with angels all beckoning me away to my
home in the skies. During the day, before he died
at night, Dr. Green called to see him and asked if he
knew him, and he replied: 'As well as I ever did, but
not as well as I shall after a while.'
"He needed a little stimulus, and some wine being
offered him, he said to Dr. Green: 'I shall soon drink
it anew in my Father's kingdom.' He then lay gazing
intently toward heaven for some time, when Dr. Green
asked if he suffered in mind or spirit ?
“O, no,' he replied, 'I was contemplating the ex-
panding glories of the future state. After these
scenes he spoke but little, but was conscious and ra-
tional to the last. He spoke again several hours be-
fore dying, and told his friends that he knew he was dy-
ing, and seemed to be as self-possessed as if going on a
journey of two or three days. Death had no terrors
for him. These scenes and sayings all took place prior
to Sunday, the 7th, on which day he was very feeble,
yet calm and entirely rational.
“He gave me full directions as to his business, how
he wished his business matters arranged, and then
said: "'This is all on condition that I am taken. I be-
lieve the Lord has much for me yet to do; I do not
think my mission ended, yet his will, not mine, be
done.' He then spoke to his children and relatives

Dr. Samuel D. Baldwin.
and friends. After this, he lay quietly, calmly, for
some time, then roused up, saying: “The sting of
death, what is it? A sigh, a moan.' And then re-
repeated with emphasis : 'The sting of death—what a
solemn, what a mighty sentiment !
“Again, he said to several friends present: 'I wish
it distinctly stated to my friends and to the world
that the gospel I have preached to others is now my
comfort and support at the gate of death.'
“On being asked what portion of Scripture he wished
his physician to read before engaging in prayer, he
raised his hand, pointed to heaven, and said: 'In my
Father's house are many mansions. The victory was
complete.
“From 2 to 8 P.M. he gradually sank, and died as
calmly as an infant drops to sleep on its mother's lap,
without a struggle or a gasp. We had to watch to
see when he ceased to breathe, so gently passed his
spirit to its God. I never realized so forcibly the truth
of these lines
“While on his breast I lean my head,
And breathe my life out sweetly there."
"A few moments before his death he noticed his
baby boy, and, taking him in his arms, kissed him an
affectionate farewell. This melted all hearts present.
“So sinks to rest the wave along the shore.”
“Dr. Baldwin said truly that his mission was not fin-
ished. His works follow him in the beautiful lives of
the many whom
"He allured to brighter worlds,
And led the way.”

CHAPTER VIII.
MY ALMA MATER.
DR. BALDWIN was President of Soule College in
1854, the year of my graduation. I belonged to the
class of the second year. Miss Josephine Plummer
(Mrs. J. G. Rice) and Miss Sallie Huggins (Mrs. A.
Harrison) composed the class of the first year. The
institution was founded in 1852. Its fortunes have
fluctuated, sometimes on the ebb, sometimes on the
flow. Some good men and true have been at the helm,
and amidst many scenes of storm no real shipwreck
has overtaken her.
While in a sweet sense old things are best, the in-
stitution has never been more successful nor more
worthy of success than under the present administra-
tion, Miss V. O. Wardlaw, President, with a full and
accomplished faculty in the several departments of col-
lege work. Her predecessors in office under Meth-
odist rule were good men and true. If memory serye
me aright, they are as follows: Dr. I. Randolph Fin-
ley, Dr. S. D. Baldwin, Prof. C. W. Callender, Dr.
D. D. Moore, Rev. James R. Plummer, Dr. Joseph
B. West, and Prof. John Thompson. All, with the ex-
ception of Prof. Callender, were members of the
Tennessee Conference.
Some have fallen on sleep—all, I believe, with the
exception of Brother Thompson, still a member of the
"old Jerusalem.” My diploma bearing date of June
28, 1854, conferring on me the honorable degree of
Mistress of Liberal Arts, and granting me all the
(52)

My Alma Mater.
53
rights, privileges, honors, and tokens of honor that
belong to such a degree throughout the world, is
signed by Sam D. Baldwin, President, and by the
following Trustees : Levi Wade, William Spence, B.
W. Avent, D. D. Wendle, W. R. McFadden, Joseph
M. Watkins, William F. Lytle, William S. Huggins,
L. H. Carney.
As I copy their names from the time-worn paper,
what real, living presences they are to me, and the
peculiarities of each how marked! So far as I know,
not one is living to-day save in the affections of family
and friends. I wish I had time for a tribute to each of
these elect men, for they deserve more than a passing
notice.
The one I had known longest and loved best was
Mr. William Spence. Connected with the earliest rec-
ollections of my childhood is Uncle Dickie Spence, his
father, a warm-hearted old Irishman. Many the hour
I sat upon his knee and listened to weird tales of the
Banshee and of wakes and of legends of the “ould
counthree,” which he never ceased to love, and I loved
him for the tales he told.
My classmates were Adelaide Cooper, Amanda
Barlow, Alice Peeples, Georgia Thompson, and her
sister Keeble. The first three died ere life reached
its meridian. They were indeed lovely women, and
would have graced any station. They all married.
Adelaide Cooper became Mrs. Joseph Malone; Alice
Peeples, Mrs. Robert Reed; Amanda Barlow, Mrs.
John A. Meaders.
Our graduating exercises were in the old Methodist
church. The event brought together friends, a great
multitude from far and near. The sweet girl graduates

54
My Moving Tent.
looked their best, wore their best, and, I dare say, never
afterwards felt half so important. The subjects of our
"compositions” were in keeping with the grandeur
of the occasion. Mine was announced by Dr. Bald-
win as "The Immortality of the Mind.” While I was
getting together my scattered senses and finding my
voice, he kindly assured the audience that no doubt,
after hearing the young lady, they would agree with
him in thinking that "she had treated her theme in a
truly masterly manner!" I had no doubt but that the
statement surprised them as much as it did me. At
any rate, it secured for me the closest attention.
The courage of youth is wonderful and of surpass-
ing quality. I would not now dare to essay a sentence
on so vast a subject, and the recalling of the rashness
is an indorsement of the poet's sentiment-
What fools we mortals be!
School life was over. Then followed the golden
age, when there was no shadow on the earth, no fear
in the heart, no tear in the eye, no cloud in the sky.
To-day only a pleasing prophecy of good things to
come to-morrow. The young people, both in town
and in country, enjoyed the largest social life, pleas-
antly planned by parents and friends. Parties, picnics,
concerts, impromptu gatherings in the homes of
friends, gave days of delight and evenings of joy.
Thus passed a year or more, when my holidays, in
one sense, were over, for I was unexpectedly called to
teach in my Alma Mater, thus fulfilling Dr. Baldwin's
prophecy and desire. In the light of after events, I re-
garded the call as a providential preparation for the
work of the future. I am yet grateful to the Trustees

My Alma Mater.
55
for their faith in me and for their forbearance in what-
ever failure there may have been in attaining unto
their ideal.
It was not until July 31, 1856, that I joined the
Methodist itinerancy and my tent became a moving
one. On the evening of that day I was married by
Rev. William G. Dorriss, of the Tennessee Conference,
and then stationed in Murfreesboro, to Rev. Wellborn
Mooney, of the same Conference, and who was at the
time stationed in Shelbyville, Tenn. He is now closing
his fifty-third year in the ministry, as pastor.
Henceforth these sketches will be largely of per-
sons and of places where we have pitched our tent, or
where it has been pitched, for the motion has been
both active and passive. The wedding was at my
father's home in Murfreesboro, and it was about the
last, real old-time wedding, with a big supper and all
the kin and friends invited, that I ever attended. I
must say that I like it much better than the new way.
The associations are sweet, as recalling the names of
wedding guests in coming years when among stran-
gers. Then “in the presence of these witnesses” adds
beauty and solemnity to a sacrament now held in such
light esteem that divorce is become the disgrace
of the nation, "whom God hath joined together”
having with many no special sacred significance.
The elect company then and there gathered to-
gether were friends I had known and loved all my life,
and as my tent has moved from place to place, some-
times in the desert with its scorching sands, some-
times where the roses of Sharon bloomed or by the
palm trees of Elim, I have never forgotten them, nor
the graces which made their lives so lovely that al-

My Moving Tent.
ways in my affections they have reigned supreme
through more than forty-six years of wandering. My
husband had been in the traveling connection some
years before I joined it and him.
I have been much interested in some of the char-
acter-sketches of the years of his earlier ministry.
At my request, he has kindly given me the matter,
and I am sure that some yet live who cherish fond
recollections of these godly men. And some hearts
will be mightily moved by the pathos of a life, wantonly
wrecked by the wicked, but whose sun at last went
down in a cloudless sky.
"But ah! the pity of it, Iago, the pity."

CHAPTER IX.
PARCHMENTS AND PERSONS.
BELIEVING that these papers may possess some his-
toric interest and may prove a pleasure to my hus-
band's surviving friends among his brethren, clerical
and lay, I herewith append them:
After due examination of the gifts, graces, and usefulness
of Wellborn Mooney, he is hereby duly authorized as an ex-
horter in the M. E. Church, South. Signed in behalf of the
society at Wesley's Chapel, Hickory Creek Circuit, Tennessee
Conference, January 15, 1848. JOHN B. STEVENSON, A. P.
After examination into the gifts, graces and usefulness of
Wellborn Mooney, we judge him to be a proper person to ex-
ercise himself as a local preacher in the M. E. Church, South,
so long as his conduct corresponds with the gospel of Christ.
Signed in behalf of the Quarterly Conference held for the
Hickory Creek Circuit at New Union, June 18, 1848.
WILLIAM BURR, P. E.
This is to certify that the character of Wellborn Mooney
was passed and license renewed. Signed in behalf of the
Quarterly Conference held for Hickory Creek Circuit, Au-
gust 12, 1848.
WILLIAM BURR, P. E.
Know all men by these presents: That I, Robert Paine, one
of the bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, un-
der the protection of Almighty God and with a single eye to
his glory, by the imposition of hands and prayer, have this
day set apart Wellborn Mooney for the office of deacon in the
said Episcopal Church, a man who, in the judgment of the
Tennessee Conference, is well qualified for the work, and he
is hereby recommended to all whom it may concern as a prop-
er person to administer the ordinance of baptism, marriage,
and the burial of the dead, in the absence of the elder, and to
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58
My Moving Tent.
feed the flock of Christ as long as his spirit and practice are
such as become the gospel of Christ, and to continue to hold
fast the form of sound words according to the established
doctrines of the gospel. In testimony whereof I have hereunto
set my hand and seal, this second day of November, in the
year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and fifty
one.
R. PAINE.
Lebanon, Tenn.
THE STATE OF ALABAMA, ) PROBATE COURT SAID COUNTY,
LAUDERDALE COUNTY. S
Nov. 23, 1852.
Wellborn Mooney having this day produced to the judge of
our said court his credentials to the office of deacon, in the
Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and the court being sat-
isfied that he is a minister in good standing of said society of
Christians, these are to authorize and license the said Well-
born Mooney to solemnize the rites of matrimony in the State
of Alabama, according to the laws of said State. Given under
my hand and the seal of said probate court, at office in Flor-
ence, the 23d day of November, 1852.
W. T. HAWKINS, Probate Judge.
Know all men by these presents: That I, William Capers,
of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, under the protec-
tion of Almighty God, and with a single eye to his glory, by
the imposition of hands and prayers, being assisted by the
elders present, have this day set apart Wellborn Mooney for the
office of an elder in the said Methodist Episcopal Church,
South, a man who, in the judgment of the Tennessee Cos-
ference, is well qualified for that work. And he is recommend-
ed to all whom it may concern, as a proper person to adminis-
ter the sacraments and ordinances, and to feed the flock of
Christ, so long as his spirit and practice are such as become the
gospel of Christ, and he continueth to hold fast the form of
sound words according to the established doctrines of the gos-
pel. In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and
seal, this sixteenth day of October, in the year of our Lord one
thousand and eight hundred and fifty-three.
W. CAPERS.
Franklin, Tenn., October 16, 1853.

Parchments and Persons.
59
I have copied these instruments of writing just as
they are in the original, literatim et punctuatim, the
names of the writers evoking deep emotion.
On Asbury Circuit lived Edward Cage, an exhorter,
liberal, large-hearted, powerful in prayer. He was an
old man and very corpulent. His Church was Mount
Carmel. Here there was preaching every two weeks.
However "busy the plows,” they were always stopped
on Thursday in time for preaching. The horses were
rested, and the negro plowmen went to preaching.
Brother Cage's was indeed a home for the preacher,
and a pleasant one it was. He was in comfortable cir-
cumstances, and he was always one of the first to pay
his preacher in full. He was a good neighbor, kind,
accommodating, thoughtful. But when well advanced
in years, one night while having family prayers some
one shot him from the window while on his knees.
The wound was not mortal, and he lived for years
longer, probably till after the war.
ISHAM HARRIS.
I first met him at a camp meeting at Antioch, Mont-
gomery County, Tenn. The two following years I
traveled the circuit on which he lived, and I became
well acquainted with him, for he was a most trans-
parent character. Like Zaccheus, he was small of
stature. Perhaps he was about five feet five inches in
height, and weighed from one hundred and thirty to
one hundred and thirty-five pounds. He was a little
lame, but active and enterprising. He had a cataract
over one eye. For a time he did not know what ailed
his eye. One day when he was grubbing, a sprout

60
My Moving Tent.
struck his eye, and he was amazed to find his sight
decidedly improved.
In books, he was almost wholly uneducated. But
by dint of patience and perseverance he learned to
read the Bible a little, by spelling the long, hard words.
Two things he knew well: 1. He knew how to make a
good crop of corn, wheat, and tobacco. 2. He knew
the Christian religion, its doctrines, privileges, and
blessings.
When I knew “Uncle Isham,” as the people called
him, he had a family consisting of a wife, three grown
daughters, and a baby boy big enough to go with
his father over the farm, but still unweaned. By a
wise and diligent cultivation of the soil he made a
good living for himself and family and always had a
little contribution for Christ and his cause. He was
ever ready to pray and to pay. Owing to his lack of
education, his command of language was limited; he
used but few words. Of these, he had two which he
stressed and magnified, Whig and Democrat. He was
an intense Whig, but cherished no unkindness toward
those who differed from him in politics. He used
these party names as good and bad qualifiers. Any-
thing just, pure, and of good repute, was “Whig;"
anything unjust, unlovely, and of bad repute was
“Democrat.” An open, smooth highway was a real
“Whig of a road;" while a close, narrow, hilly way,
full of gullies and other obstructions was pronounced
"a Democrat road.”
| A pure gospel sermon preached with power and
with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, he en-
joyed to the full, calling it “the Whig logic;' but any
sermon unscriptural in its teachings, however fluent

Parchments and Persons.
61
and forceful, he rejected, pronouncing it “Democrat
stuff.” How often have I heard him indulge in such
remarks as this: “John Hanner is a Democrat, but
I tell you he preaches the Whig logic !”
Perhaps he went to church oftener and heard more
preaching than any other member on the Dickson
Circuit, when it embraced twenty-one churches or
preaching places, this notwithstanding he lived, say,
four miles from the church where he held his mem-
bership. He loved God and loved his race. He lived
soberly, righteously, and godly in this present evil
world, looking for that blessed hope and the glorious
appearing of the great God, our Saviour, Jesus Christ.
He would not willingly suffer sin upon his neighbor,
but reproved, rebuked, exhorted with all long-suffer-
ing and doctrine. .
During the war between the States, he was called
to Clarksville, one day, when it was garrisoned by
Federal soldiers. While there, he had occasion to ap-
pear before the commandant of the post, who was
pouring out a volley of profane oaths. Uncle Isham
approached him bravely but kindly, and said to him:
"My dear sir, you ought not to use such language.
You are a dying man, and soon you must appear at
the bar of God, your final doom to meet. I beg of you
not to swear.”
The colonel became silent, thoughtful, and then
thanked the good man for his timely and tender re-
proof. For months afterwards, he was accustomed
to inquire with much interest concerning the health
and welfare of the holy man who had the courage
to rebuke him for taking the name of the Lord in
vain,"

62
My Moving Tent.
Years ago, I do not remember when, Uncle Isham
was called away to the rest and reward of the good in
heaven. He died in the fear and faith of God.
“O may I triumph so
When all my warfare's past,
And, dying, find my latest foe
Under my feet at last.”.

CHAPTER X.
A CLOUDED LIFE.
In the early years of the Tennessee Conference, one
of her efficient laborers in the vineyard of the Lord
was Rev. —- Carlisle. He was not so learned nor
so eloquent nor so widely known as some others of
the Conference; but in the estimation of those who
knew him best he was a plain, pious, earnest preacher
and wise in winning souls to Christ. To the great
grief of his family and friends, his sky was suddenly
overcast, and under this shadow he lived for years.
He and several wild young men met unexpectedly
at the house of a farmer with whom they were all ac-
quainted. They remained, maybe, an hour or more in
social converse, apparently pleasant to all. The
preacher left first, bidding all good-by and invoking
the blessing of God upon every one. He had been
gone only a little while, when one of the young men
missed his pistol and said outright: “That preacher
has stole my pistol.” Thereupon they all mounted their
horses and set out in hot pursuit. In the course of a few
miles they 'overtook him. Some of them rode up on
his right, and others on his left. One of them, in a
rude, rough way, charged the preacher with stealing
his pistol. The preacher denied promptly and with
indignation. Not many words had passed, when one
of the party snatched the minister's saddlebags from
under him. Search was quickly made, and lo! the pis-
tol was found.
Carlisle was arrested by the authorities of the
(63)

64
My Moving Tent.
Church, charged with stealing, given a full, fair trial,
convicted of this horrid crime, and formally expelled
from its ministry and membership. He protested that
he was innocent, but the proof was against him. Next
he was arrested by the civil authorities and brought
before the court to answer to the charge of stealing.
There was quite a fever of excitement, and public
sentiment was against him.
The accused was fortunate, however, in securing
able counsel, who managed the case wisely, not to
say shrewdly. It was proven that at the home of the
farmer, and in the room where it was alleged that the
theft had been committed, the preacher's saddle-
bags were on the floor; that there was also a little
child in the room, playing on the floor with an empty
pistol. The lawyer suggested the theory that the
child in its play had put the pistol in the saddlebags.
Thus he managed to create a reasonable doubt in the
minds of the jury, and they brought in the verdict of
"not guilty.” So it was that Carlisle narrowly escaped
the penitentiary.
In poverty and disgrace, he settled down on or near
Snow Creek in - County, Tenn. Here he went
to work on a small farm and made a living for himself
and children. He was a quiet, peaceable citizen, but
was evidently much disturbed and frequently in tears.
He was regular and constant in his attendance upon
the preaching of the word, but was not allowed to re-
main for class meeting nor love feast. In his closet
and in his family he read the Scriptures and prayed
both morning and evening. But of course none could
tell whether he was really, sincerely trying to serve
God and save his soul or was playing the hypocrite.

A Clouded Life.
65
However, he was uniform and consistent in his every-
day life. At any rate, none of his neighbors could see
aught to the contrary. Apparently, he was always
sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.
One day a messenger came hurriedly to the field
where he was plowing, and besought him to go to
see a dying man. At once he took his horse from
the plow, and did not wait to get a saddle, but mounted
him bareback, and galloped away to where lay the
dying man. When he entered the death chamber, the
sick man looked up and said: "I am dying and going
to hell. I beg you to forgive me and pray for me.
I put the pistol in your saddlebags, and then prose-
cuted you for stealing. I was mad with you because
you reproved me for misbehaving in Church.”
Of course Carlisle stood forth before the world fully
vindicated. He was restored to membership in the
Church and was reinvested with his credentials as a
minister of the gospel. However, he did not reënter
the Conference, but lived, labored, and died in the
same neighborhood where sleeps his precious dust.
Perhaps no other citizen of this community ever
wielded such an influence for Christ and his cause. To
this day his memory is as ointment poured forth.
Some years ago I preached in the neighborhood in
a Church called Carlisle Chapel. Here I saw the grave
of Brother Carlisle. A few miles distant, I was enter-
tained by his son, Rev. J. W. Carlisle, then a local
preacher, but since gone to the rest and reward of the
good in heaven. This history I received from Rev.
John Brooks, from Dr. A. L. P. Green, and from the
son mentioned, Rev. John Wesley Carlisle.

66
My Moving Tent.
O yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill-
To pangs of nature, sins of will,
Defects of doubt, and taint of blood.
That nothing walks with aimless feet,
That not one life shall be destroyed,
Or cast as rubbish to the void,
When God hath made the pile complete.
"Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright, for the end
of that man is peace.”
My first work was Asbury Circuit, hallowed by a
thousand tender recollections of my ministerial as-
sociates, Rev. Jordan Moore, preacher in charge, and
Dr. J. W. Hanner, presiding elder of the Clarksville
District. I traveled this circuit one year.
My second and third years I served the Dickson
Circuit. Part of the first year Rev. Thomas Lankford
was with me, but he was called away in May by the
sickness and, finally, the death of his wife. He was a
true, good man. His preaching was hortatory. He
was a successful revivalist. That year I preached two
hundred and thirty-two times. Next year Rev. Lewis
Lowe was the assistant preacher, genial, warm-
hearted, one of God's noblest workmen. I preached
the whole of that first year on Dickson Circuit, which
was the second year of my ministry, with twenty-one
preaching places every four weeks. At one of the
churches, Union Grove, I was never invited to eat
anywhere, during the whole year, though otherwise I
was kindly treated. They were a plain, hard-working
people, who were faithful in attendance upon preach-
ing and enjoyed the class meeting. I had a pleasant
place to stay in the home of Sister Ussury, mother of

A Clouded Life.
67
Dr. Ussury, of the Antioch Church, nearest to Union
Grove.
The last appointment had been filled, the class meet-
ing held, when I went back to the pulpit and made
announcements for the new preacher, telling them
how to receive and treat him, to invite him to their
homes, to ask him to eat with them—that the preacher
was very much like other people. ... I then
rode one hundred miles to see my father, then ninety
more, to the Conference at Athens. Lo, when the ap-
pointments were read, I was the new preacher !
When I reached Palmyra, en route to Union Grove,
it was with a sad heart and many forebodings as to
dinner that day and the days to come. But, as I ap-
proached, I saw a vast number of horses and of tow-
headed mules and a multitude of people, and I received
a gracious greeting from red-headed Bill Martin:
“How are you, parson? I want you to go home with
me to dinner to-day.”
The lines next fell to me in a pleasant place, Tus-
cumbia, Ala. One of my best friends was Aleck
Ross, afterwards a local preacher. My last official act
in that station at the close of my second year was to
marry Brother Ross to Miss Julia Jones. Years
passed full of sunlight; then, one day, I was called from
Clarksville to preach her funeral sermon.
| A mother in Israel was Sister Day, from whom I
bought all of Clarke's Commentaries, six volumes.
Rev. Finch P. Scruggs was my presiding elder, and
lived in the neighboring town of Decatur. While I
was in Tuscumbia, Bishop Capers passed through
and preached one Sunday. The two years passed
pleasantly and quickly.

68
My Moving Tent.
My next station was Murfreesboro, Tenn., Rev.
Adam S. Riggs presiding elder, and in the parsonage
I had a delightful home with him and his family. This
year there was a wonderful revival of religion in the
Methodist Church, lasting for many consecutive
weeks. Many young people were happily converted,
among the number the one who has for more than
forty-five years shared my itinerant pilgrimage. Rev.
L. D. Huston, editor of the Home Circle, was with me
part of the time and did some wonderful preaching.
The year was one of signal success in every way.
Some of the best people I have ever known lived
in and around the historic town of Murfreesboro. Rem-
iniscences crowd my memory, but I yield my pen to
one whom they knew and loved before they knew me.
WELLBORN MOONEY.

CHAPTER XI.
PACKING MY TRUNK.
I HAD never packed a trunk until after my mar-
riage. After an experience of forty-six years, I am an
adept, an expert. The telescope and the grip were then
unknown conveniences to the traveling public. The
trunk, the bonnet trunk, and the carpetbag were the
carriages for feminine finery. The carpetbag fell into
disfavor with the influx of new rulers after the war,
and the odium attached to the carriers was transferred
in part to the thing carried.
A big trunk was the thing, and I soon found I had a
bigger job on hand than I had ever had before. And
I took two trunks and then availed myself of valuable
volunteer service in the packing. I have learned to
economize space since then. It may be true, too, that
I have not so much to put in. I am sure that this is
true. For those were the days of flounces and furbe-
lows and hooped skirts, "with all of which” I was well
supplied.
Our home in Shelbyville was with Brother L. B.
Knott and his excellent family. I have many pleasant
recollections of our first sojourn there. The home circle
was congenial, consisting of father and mother, grand-
ma Cooper, three sons, and three daughters. The oldest
daughter, Mary, was married to Mr. — Martin; the
second daughter, Martha, married Mr. Robert Reed,
of Murfreesboro; the third daughter, Emma, died in
girlhood. They were all industrious and happy. Broth-
er Knott was extensively engaged in building, and
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70
My Moving Tent.
sometimes an employee was a member of the family. I
remember one of these as the "hearty young man."
He was especially fond of sweet potato pudding—the
old-fashioned sort. I remarked one day upon his evident
partiality, when I thought he was taking more than his
share. “Yes,” he replied, "I do like it, it is so easy to
chaw on!”
Rev. S. S. Moody, one of the saintliest men I ever
knew, was our presiding elder. His wife was a wor-
thy helpmate and helpmeet. The home was a model
one in every respect. She was Miss Letitia Cannon, a
name known and honored in the annals of the State.
Brother Moody lived in Shelbyville, and one of my
greatest delights was a visit to his home. Rev. T. L.
Moody, now of the Tennessee Conference, was a boy,
and seemed to take great pleasure in driving us to his
father's or elsewhere.
The social surroundings were good. Across the way,
in a "big brick,” lived Mr. Whitesides. His daughters,
Mary and Ruth, were frequent visitors, running over
for a little chat, or to talk of some new book, or to tell
of some new thing. Dr. Lipscomb was a prominent
physician, living on the right of “the road as you went
to town.” The leading merchant was Mr. Robert
Mathews, an elder brother of Dr. John Mathews, now
of St. Louis, recently pastor of McKendree Church,
Nashville, Tenn. Another man in mercantile business
was Arch Hughes, a kinsman to “Uncle John F.
Hughes,” so long an honored member of the Tennessee
Conference, and one of the truest, bravest men I ever
knew. Our last letter from him is dated January 17,
1888, when he was building up McFerrin Memorial.
Our tent at this time was pitched beside the “Father

Packing My Trunk.
71
of Waters.” Brother Hughes had been our presiding
elder, and he knew how my heart yearned for the hills
of Tennessee, and that like wells of water in a thirsty
land would be good news from the friends of yore. Of
the Nashville preachers he writes: "J. B. Erwin is the
star preacher of the city. His church will not accom-
modate his congregations. They have promised him
$2,500.” Of himself he says: “I am happy in my work,
and my bow still abides in strength.”
In Shelbyville there were some good, true Meth-
odists, but the Methodist Church was not in the as-
cendency, neither numerically nor financially. Not
many rich, not many great were called, but there were
some of the salt of the earth, some of the light of the
world. The salt has not yet lost its savor, and the
light still shines. Among the elect, chosen, and faith-
ful was Brother George W. Ruth, father-in-law of Rev.
William G. Dorriss, a man whose head, heart, and
hand belonged to God and to humanity.
The Sunday school was superintended by Brother
Jones, and the singing was led by Sam Morton, lately
deceased, while Robert Shapard seemed to be the main-
spring of the whole movement.
Rev. A. L. Hamilton, D.D., was President of Shelby-
ville University. He was a graceful speaker, dramatic
in manner, wore his hair long, which gave him the ap-
pearance of Beau Brummel in the old English picture
books. He was amiable, and received with full appre-
ciation all the good things said to him and of him. I
met him time and again in Huntsville, where he mar-
ried Miss Dolly Eason, a beautiful young lady; and
I met him afterwards in Clarksville, when he was
President of The Academy; and again when the war

72
My Moving Tent.
cloud had rolled away, in Pulaski, where he was for
some days our guest. After that I saw him no more.
Among my earliest acquaintances in Shelbyville were
Miss Katie Barber and her nephew, John. Many pleas-
ant hours did we spend in their humble home. Miss
Katie had a sunbonnet which my husband so admired
that I made one for myself as nearly like it as possi-
ble. I wore it to church, but neither he nor Brother
G. W. Petway knew I was there. I have never made
another.
A never-to-be-forgotten day in Shelbyville was when
a party of us went on a "hickorynut hunt” for scaly
barks, with white “shell” and rich, delicate, delicious
meat. We rode in a wagon, and carried our dinners.
The grove was full of trees and the trees were full of
nuts. When the boys climbed up and shook the limbs,
how the rich, ripe fruit, with hull browned by the frost,
did fall! We picked up bags full, feasts for many a
day to come.
But the summer was fully past;
September had come and gone;
October was all aglow, hillside and forest,
A presage of the sear and yellow leaf,
The melancholy days to come.
The annual session of the Tennessee Conference was
drawing near. It was to be held that year at Huntsville,
Ala., North Alabama being at that time included in
the Tennessee Conference. The scenery en route was
rich in coloring, the landscape gleaming in every tint
and tone of color. We were a merry party. By we I
mean us and the Tennessee Conference, for most of the
members were aboard, besides a "goodlye companie”
from other Conferences. We stayed all night at Ste-

Packing My Trunk.
73
venson, then a new place, where hotel accommodations
were not the best. It still seems to me that we were a
long time reaching Huntsville, where I was to have my
first experience of “being sent somewhere to stay,”
which, being interpreted, means, in Methodist phraseol-
ogy, to be entertained for a week or thereabouts.

CHAPTER XII.
MY FIRST CONFERENCE.
THE two important stations in life, it has been said,
are the first and the last. The intermediate points are
but exchange places for the further way, which is always
prospective if not progressive. This Conference at
Hunstville might well be called my first. It was my
first as the wife of an itinerant Methodist preacher, and
Dr. J. B. West facetiously introduced me as “the new
member.”
We were the guests of Mrs. Rice, a wealthy widow
and a member of the Episcopal Church. Her daughter,
Amanda, had recently died in Cuba, which was at that
time a long way off, though the distance is just the
same. Mr. Lay, the rector, afterwards bishop, was ab-
sent at some Church council, and his place was supplied
by a teacher whose name I do not recall. However, he
was a member of the household and the first religious
monopolist I ever met. He read all the prayers and
said all the graces. It never dawned on him that this
was a breach of clerical courtesy. But so it seemed to
me. An illustration of dogmatic High Church im-
perialism! I exercised the grace of silence until, one
day, he said something derogatory of our Church
schools. I made a mild rejoinder, and after that things
were more lively.
This Conference was an imposing body, the equal
of which is seldom seen in deliberative councils. There
was age with ripened wisdom, mature manhood with
broadening horizon, youth with ardor and aspirations
(74)

My First Conference.
75
and possible ambition, but with marked reverence for
the họary head.
Two bishops, Soule and Paine, were in attendance-
Bishop Soule stately and saintly, speaking as one hav-
ing authority; Bishop Paine alert, active, a skillful
parliamentarian, knowing how to talk and how to keep
others from talking, whose wit was keen as a Damascus
blade, but not cruel in its cutting.
Some of the preachers I had long known, but as a
body they were strangers. Thirty years' association
broadened my knowledge, but after fifteen years of ab-
sence I can truly say of those I knew so long I think
no nobler men have trod the earth since the Master went
away, “taking heed unto themselves and unto all the
flock over which the Holy Ghost had made them over-
seers, feeding the Church of God which he purchased
with his own precious blood.” If there were at that
time any dissensions among the brethren, I was happily
in ignorance, and I have never sought to know.
Many of those I met at that Conference, the most of
them, having served their generation by the will of God,
have fallen on sleep, but some remain to this day. The
most apostolic among them was Dr. Thomas L. Mad-
din, of precious memory, whose snowy locks, and face
benign in its beauty, no pen picture can adequately por-
tray. I have yet his daguerreotype, and some of his
hair wrought into a flower-wreath by the hand of our
dead darling, Blanch, of whom he was very fond.
Dr. A. R. Erwin, father of "our Joe,” was the be-
loved and popular pastor of the Methodist Church in
Huntsville.
Rev. W. D. F. Sawrie, whose wife had recently died,
was the presiding elder of the Iluntsville District, and

76
My Moving Tent.
Prof. G. M. Everhart was President of Huntsville Fe-
male College.
Dr. W. C. Johnson, till recently the accomplished
scribe of the Memphis Conference, then belonged to the
Tennessee Conference, and was elected Scretary at this
session, having served the three previous sessions, and
having the same honor for the three succeeding sessions.
The groups, as I blow aside the dust of years, seem
more than vitagraphs. They live, and move, and have
their being. I salute them through smiles and, alas!
tears, as I remember that so many of the tents have
been dissolved while mine is still moving! Dr. A. L. P.
Green, Dr. J. B. McFerrin, Dr. J. W. Hanner, Dr. A.
R. Erwin, Dr. J. B. West, Fountain E. Pitts, R. P.
Ransom, are of those whose presence and personality
were most marked, and I enjoyed to the full the arena
when any of these contended.
Social life was at full tide, and many were the invita-
tions to dine, to drive, to take tea. The week was all
too short for the many courtesies of this sort. The
drives were delightful, the homes in all the region
round about were elegant and the people of the high-
est type—educated, cultured Christians. I recall with
much pleasure the home of Dr. Benjamin Wharton, a
few miles from Huntsville. He had a number of beau-
tiful daughters, among them Miss Laura, afterwards
the wife of Rev. James R. Plummer, at one time Pres-
ident of Clarksville Academy. He was suddenly called
home, some years ago, while living in Nashville and
while about his Father's business.
Brother Plummer was called the weeping prophet by
his brethren. Most of his ministry was spent in the
Tennessee Conference, where he was much beloved by

My First Conference.
77
preachers and people. He had a lovely family of daugh-
ters, whose tents, since the father's death, are not all
pitched in the same place. His oldest daughter, Lou,
married Rev. B. F. Haynes, of the Tennessee Confer-
ence. She was the daughter of the first marriage. Lit-
tle Bessie's feet soon grew tired in the way, and one day
in Clarksville at The Academy the angels came for her.
It was the first shadow on their tent, and we sadly
missed the bright little face from the door where she
so often stood “looking for father.” I doubt not it was
so as she looked from the heavenly heights. After
Brother Plummer's death, Sister Plummer removed to
Memphis, which is still home to her and Lolly, the
youngest living, and where live two other daughters
(Katie, Mrs. H. K. Miller; and Lylie, Mrs. R. E. Mc-
Gill). His daughter Dora married Mr. J. E. Jackson,
of Jackson, Tenn., and Claire married Mr. Wharton
Plummer, of Chicago—not a kiusman, though uniting
in his name the family name of his wife's father and
mother.
Sister Plummer and I, meeting thus in Huntsville,
Ala., in 1856, in young womanhood, have always been
bound together in closest friendship, cemented by com-
mon sorrows, by a community of interests in Church
work, and by our mutual love for the Tennessee Con-
ference, in whose bounds our husbands spent the
strength of young manhood. I shall follow her tent
and that of her children, wheresoever pitched,
“Till the mists have rolled in splendor
From the summit of the sky.”.
But while I have taken this jaunt, the Conference has
been going on, and is about to finish its work—can do

78
My Moving Tent.
so in the afternoon—and have an evening session for
reading the appointments. I did not then so well un-
derstand the tense, intense, suppressed excitement
among preachers and people pending this event. I did
not know so well the complex, complicated machinery
of the moving tent—its compressibility, its flexibility
and inflexibility, its expansion without imperialism.
As I watched the faces of the brethren, and saw the
gravity of the bishop, fear and trembling almost took
hold of me.
The bishop's address as he held the appointments in
his hand was awe-inspiring, if not awful. I have never
forgotten it: “Brethren, we have done our best for you.
Some of you will be disappointed, for you must go to
hard places; but, if any of you joined this Conference
expecting to go to heaven on flowery beds of ease, you
are in the wrong place. A Methodist preacher is not a
lotus-eater. Our Lord wants no sluggards. He says,
"Son, go work to-day in my vineyard;' and if you have
not the mind in you that was in Christ Jesus our Lord,
who went about doing his Father's business, then are
ye not of his, nor have ye any part nor lot in this mat-
ter.” At this juncture I was somewhat scared, and saw
the tents flapping in wind and rain and wintry weather,
and was in a state difficult to describe as the bishop
concluded with “Your Master said, 'The foxes have
holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son
of man hath not where to lay his head.'” The martial
spirit, if dormant, was aroused now, and when
“Am I a soldier of the cross,
A follower of the Lamb?”
was started and sung there was weeping, and rejoicing
in a quiet way, and they were ready!

My First Conference.
79
“No sculptured stone in stately temple
Proclaims their rugged lot;
Like Him who was their great example,
This vain world knew them not.
But though their names no poet wove
In deathless song or story,
Their record is inscribed above;
Their wreaths are crowns of glory.”
Wellborn Mooney was read out to Franklin Station.
Thither, after little delay, the tent moved.

CHAPTER XIII.
PITCHED IN FRANKLIN.
SWEET to me after all these years of wandering is
the town called Franklin, in the early days and still
bearing the virtues embalmed in the history of the
fathers—a spot to me in some respects more sweet
than all beside, as the scene of my first year in the
work and as the birthplace of our oldest born, Emily
Blanch Mooney; sweet for the friendships formed, for
the kindnesses received, and as the place where in after
years the battle was fought, a spot sacred to the mem-
cry of so many heroes of the Lost Cause, who here
finished their march and folded their tents forever, and
are sleeping, rank by rank, that sleep from which only
the trump of God can awake them; and because on
the old battle ground near the hicap of memorial stones
our oldest son, Prof. W. D. Mooney, was so long en-
gaged in his lifework as a teacher.
Our home was with Mrs. Betty Curran, whose un-
varying kindness I have never forgotten. Her house-
hold and her boarders were a congenial company, and
represented the law, the gospel, merchandise, materia
medica, business and social life, generally. Judge Hill
was the wit of the board. His humor was inexhaust-
ible, and his repartee quick and sharp as a rapier. He
was the brother-in-law of Rev. William Burr, of the
Tennessee Conference. Dr. Dan German, Mr. Ed Cook,
and Mr. Reahms, a merchant, were also of the house-
hold, and others whose names I do not remember.
Mrs. Tom Watson was then a young and beautiful
(80)

Pitched in Franklin.
81
woman, and prominent in all social functions. She and
her husband, Uncle Pat Reese, and Mrs. Puryear, Mrs.
De Graefenried, Miss Celeste Perkins, and other at-
tractive young ladies were frequent visitors.
Dr. John Park, who still survives, was our beloved
physician. Rev. Henry North and Rev. Mark S. An-
drews were the Methodist patriarchs, men of social
prominence and of wide religious influence in the com-
munity and in all the region round about. Brother
William Johnson, father of the late Rev. W. C. John-
son, D.D., of the Memphis Conference, was one of the
official members; also Brother Crouch, Brother Sam
House, and another whom I remember well, but whose
name escapes me. He was a good man and true, prompt,
industrious, and believed in every man's doing the
work whereunto he was called. It is said that once at
prayer meeting the preacher called upon him to pray.
“Do it yourself; you are paid for it,” was the response
and the reason.
Brother L. Wooldridge had in him the heroic element.
He was not only a true soldier of the cross, but long
past his three score years he enlisted in the Confederate
army, nor laid his armor by till all was over. This
year (1857) the Franklin Female College was finished
and opened, and I helped to make ready for the “open-
ing," as it was called.
Prof. Sharp was the first President. It was for years
called "a Church School," and was presided over by
some of our leading ministers. Bishop R. K. Hargrove
was at one time its honored head. From some cause,
or from what Dr. Barbee felicitously styles "a con-
catenation of circumstances," I am told that the Meth-

82
My Moving Tent.
odists no longer have any denominational claim on the
property.
One of my favorites among the elect women of
Franklin was Mrs. Anna Bain, afterwards Mrs. Dr.
Turner. Another was Mrs. Anne Wooldridge. She
had an infant daughter, somewhat older than our babe.
This daughter grew to womanhood and was happily
married to Mr. William Jarrett, of the vicinity of Sa-
lem, Rutherford County. She was foully murdered
one morning in her room, presumably for money she
was supposed to have.
Among the most kindly remembered of the young
people are Lizzie Hanner McReynolds (daughter of
Dr. J. W. Hanner), Fanny Park, and Mary Briggs.
The two last named are dear in memory, and are among
the many who have gone on before. Lizzie still abides
in Clarksville, Tenn., a wonderfully gifted woman, who
for several years was the solace and the joy of her dear
father, Dr. John W. Hanner, the princeliest preacher of
them all.
Rev. W. D. F. Sawrie was our presiding elder. His
preaching was noticeable for fervor, sentiment, unction.
I have no memorial roll of the Tennessee Conference,
and I do not know when Brother Sawrie died. He was
a most genial gentleman. His widow, a most excel-
lent woman, Mrs. Virginia House Sawrie, survives him,
and has her home in Nashville, Tenn.
I was in Franklin a few years ago, but I felt a stran-
ger in the old places. Few of the old congregation re-
mained. I saw strangers instead of familiar faces, yet
really the faces I saw were the unseen, and the songs
I heard in the new Church were the old songs.

Pitched in Franklin.
My pulses therefore beat again
For other friends that I had met,
while I rejoiced to renew associations with those of the
olden time who yet remained. Indeed, one must travel
far to find a place combining so many of the best ele-
ments as Franklin society-culture, religion, wealth,
and much of it given to God and to the extension of
his kingdom in the earth.
It is well worth a long journey to walk through the
Confederate cemetery, consecrated by the blood of the
gallant men who fought and fell at Franklin. They lie
row upon row, the slabs bearing the name of sleeper and
State, and thither turn the thoughts of many fathers
and mothers from nearly every Southern State, while
they bless the people who so lovingly cared for the boys
who died from home and for those shot down in battle.
The ground was the gift of Mr. John McGavock, and
is near his own home, and where sleep his kindred dead.
No spot in the South has more historic interest than
the battle ground of Franklin. Some poet of the South
will yet sing in sweetest, saddest sort, and yet a song
of triumph, as well as tears-
Of her sons for yalor long renowned,
Slaughtered on their native ground.
No daughters of the Confederacy deserve more praise
for their work than those of Franklin. They have been
in labors more abundant, whereof the Confederate
monument which graces the public square is testimony.
All honor to our noble President, Jefferson Davis, who
dedicated his great work, “The Rise and Fall of the
Confederate Government” to “the women of the Con-
federacy, whose pious ministrations to our wounded

84
My Moving Tent.
soldiers soothed the last hours of those who died far
from the objects of their tenderest love; whose do-
mestic labors contributed much to supply the wants of
our defenders in the field; whose zealous faith in our
cause shone a guiding star undimmed by the darkest
clouds of war; whose fortitude sustained them under
all the privations to which they were subjected; whose
floral tribute annually expresses their enduring love and
reverence for our sacred dead, and whose patriotism
will teach their children to emulate the deeds of our
revolutionary sires."
I am sorry that this history by one of the most gifted
men of modern times, and the most cruelly treated of
any age, is not in every Southern home. It and the
Confederate Veteran, edited by S. A. Cunningham, of
Nashville, Tenn., should belong to us and to our chil-
dren forever.

CHAPTER XIV.
CONFERENCE IN MURFREESBORO.
| A CONFERENCE year soon passes, much more quickly
now than in days gone by. This Conference was eager-
ly anticipated, as it was to be held in Murfreesboro, my
old home, and Bishop Early was to preside. I had
heard much of him, for he and my father were old
Virginians and old friends. Their greeting was, "How
are you, John?” with a long pressure of the hands, and
nothing more to indicate the deep emotion felt by each,
but the tremor in tone which neither attempted to con-
ceal.
The Bishop was a dignified man, rather than austere,
His speech was Spartanic in its brevity, but not severe.
He never counseled with words without knowledge.
His words stood for ideas, and not for the signs merely.
They meant something. And when he appointed or
disappointed a man there was that about him that said:
“I also am a man in authority; I say to this man go, and
he goeth.” And so the decree went forth, and there
was some commotion at the moving of the tents at this
Conference. I felt less of the elation and excitement
and suspense of the first session, because I was among
old friends and continually making new ones, and I
felt that “the Bishop would, as a man of God, do his
best for the preachers and their families.” When one
cannot have this feeling of confidence in our chief pas-
tors he is in the wrong fold.
And so, whatever there may have been brooding in
the nature of a storm in the hot air of the cabinet, the
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86
My Moving Tent.
clouds cleared, and the Bishop read the appointments
with a front as calm and unwrinkled as Jove's when he
hurled his thunderbolts. How true it is that great
forces are silent, quiet, majestic, sometimes, because of
silence!
At this Conference I became acquainted or rather I
met for the first time, Rev. John Kelley and Mrs. Mary
Kelley, father and mother of Col. David Campbell Kel-
ley, D.D., of the Tennessee Conference. Sister Kelley
is known, not only in Southern Methodism in the home
land, but far away in heathen lands, where many a soul
has been turned from darkness to the marvelous light
of the gospel through her agency in the establishment
of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the
Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Her Church and
the women of the South cannot do too much in honor-
ing the name and the memory of this godly woman,
not with stones and brass and songs of praise, but by
wisely continuing her work by the organization of
auxiliary missionary societies. Her granddaughter,
Daisy Kelley, wife of Dr. W. R. Lambuth, our General
Missionary Secretary, felt the glow of the old fire in
her heart, and in young womanhood went with her
husband to the foreign field, and there did good service
for the Master in the homes of the heathen.
Of the Methodists in Murfreesboro in my girlhood I
most fondly recall the father and mother of our Mr.
Henry Spence, of the Southern Methodist Publishing
House. It was before the day of the Woman's Home
Mission Society, but Sister Spence did much effective
work in that line. She visited the sick and the stranger,
and ministered to the necessities of the needy with her
own hand most unstintingly. I knew her long and well,

Conference in Murfreesboro.
87
and I never knew her to give expression to an unkind
thought of any man, woman, or child; yet she was posi-
tive in her convictions and pronounced in her utter-
ances. She was always at her place in the church, at
the prayer meeting, and in the class room. One night,
long after she had gone to the home prepared for her
in heaven, and of which she so frequently spoke, her
husband, Brother John Spence, and my father, two
aged disciples, kept the watch night all alone—one of
the most pathetic pictures, it seems to me, that could
be imagined. When sick and away from home Sister
Spence was my ministering angel, and how often since
when among strangers have I sighed for the touch of
her hand.
Nor less did I love another Methodist in that town,
my Sunday school teacher for years, Mrs. Helen
Crichlow Baskette Hughes—Mrs. Crichlow when I
first knew her. Her gift of song could cheer me on
darkest days, and on dark, rainy days she came with
songs and words of cheer. Her sons, I think, survive
her, and are yet in Murfreesboro.
When I was last there, Mr. James, the second, was
Sunday school superintendent and also leader of the
choir. The music was good-probably better artisti-
cally than in the old time—but I missed the moth-
er's voice, and shall till I hear it in the chorus of the
skies !
Another singer, and then a Methodist and the Sun-
day school superintendent, was Mr. Joseph S. Carels.
I have heard that he yet lives, and that he belongs to
another Church, which seems strange to me, after
knowing him as a Methodist so many years.
Another man most active in Church affairs was

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My Moving Tent.
Simeon B. Christy. He was "a man without a model
and without a shadow." His peculiarities were marked,
and belonged in very truth to himself alone.
Mr. Benton Miles was the preacher's friend always.
The last time I saw him was at another Conference in
Murfreesboro, some years after the war, when he had
a few friends for supper in his own beautiful home,
before the separation after adjournment. He knew the
people, and he knew the preachers, their gifts and
graces, or the lack of them, and his comments on the
place and the man or the man for the place were apt.
Their correctness was verified by the record and the
results. He remarked to a presiding elder on this oc-
casion, "Well, brother, you have some good men, but a
weak force," which has all the pith of a proverb, for
goodness must be an active quality to attain to best re-
sults in reaching and affecting the lives of others.
St. Simeon Stylites on his patient pillar, bearing rain,
hail, wind, snow, frost, heat, damp, sleet, might possi-
bly be caught up to heaven, but that sort of goodness
will not save the souls of others. Enduring as good
soldiers means equipment, fighting the foe, a moving
tent sometimes.
Mr. William Ransom was another layman of Mur-
freesboro whom I remember most affectionately for his
genial humor, his loyal friendship, and his abounding
sympathy with the young. When I saw him last he
was older by many years, but in his accustomed place
in the church. His strength was abated and his eyes
were dim. He recognized me by my voice, but gave
the same old hearty greeting: "How glad I am to see
you!"
Gen. Joseph B. Palmer was of fine physique and

Conference in Murfreesboro.
bearing, with a face radiant with noble impulses. He
was held in high esteem by his brethren of the bar
throughout the State. His patriotism was pronounced.
In the war between the States, he unhesitatingly de-
clared for the South. He was colonel of the Eighteenth
Tennessee Regiment. His courage on many a battle-
field won for him promotion to brigadier general.
War-worn and weary, he returned after the surrender
to begin anew the battle of life in the peaceful pursuit
of his profession. In the trying times that immediate-
ly followed the close of the war, when small men sold
themselves for a mess of pottage, he was true and
steadfast to his friends and to that first and greatest ele-
ment of worth, principle. He was a Methodist, a Ma-
son, and a Confederate soldier. I salute him through
tears. He is part of our history; and when it is truth-
fully written, his name, like that of many another, will
live imperishably.
I cannot close these reminiscences of my old home
Church without a tribute to Uncle Ben Reeves, the col-
ored sexton. He had rung the bell for Sunday school,
for prayer meeting, for preaching, for weddings, and
for funerals probably for a quarter of a century or
more. He seemed part of the history of the people who
worshiped there, and was ever their faithful friend and
servant.
The church was used as a hospital by the Federals
during the occupation of the town. I met him once on
the street in Murfreesboro the last year of the war.
Inquiring after his welfare, he replied: "I get lone-
some, our folks all gone, and no bell to ring.” When
word came to me, "Uncle Ben is dead,” I said: "Who
can fill his place ? Others may sweep and dust and ring

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My Moving Tent.
the bell, but he can have no successor in the hearts of
those he had known and served so long.”
Uncle Peter Wrather was another favorite with the
white people. His seat was seldom vacant in the gal-
lery of the Methodist Church, where on revival occa-
sions his voice could be heard among the loudest sing-
ing
“There is a happy land,
Far, far away."
He returned from the war, and sustained his prestige
as chief cook in many outings to the lake with the
twelve fishermen composing the “Old Men's Fishing
Club." They are all gone now, I suppose, nor shall
we see their like again.
Murfreesboro had a strong bar at this time, politi-
cally about equally divided between the Whigs and
Democrats. John Bell, Charles Ready, Ed Ewing, J.
B. Palmer, the Keeble brothers (Ed and Pinckney)—
all ranked high among the State's legal lights. John
Morgan, the famous Confederate general, married the
daughter of Hon. Charles Ready.
While renewing friendships with old friends I have
been keenly alive, too, to what has been transpiring in
the Conference room. I am becoming, by this time,
familiar with Methodist nomenclature. My vocabulary
is so enlarged that I can name the wheels within wheels
—Quarterly Conference, Annual Conference, and later
District Conference; circuits, stations, missions—“sup-
ply" everything from a country charge to an ecumenical
council! I understand, too, office and relation, etymo-
logically and practically, election and ordination of
deacons and elders, supernumerary and superannuate,
and to be on trial and admitted into full connection!

CHAPTER XV.
AGAIN IN SHELBYVILLE.
We were returned this year to Shelbyville, "even
unto the place where our tent had been pitched at the
beginning." Again we are domiciled with Brother L. B.
Knott “as aforetime,” and life resumed its usual tenor,
as if it had been unbroken. Acquaintances made in the
former time grew into friendships that have outlived
the flight of time.
Mrs. Dr. Blakemore was an active Church worker
and a devoted friend. The country home of Mr. Brown
was a delightful resting place. Mrs. — Thompson,
too, kept wide-open door for the preacher, and was
foremost in Church work and other benevolent enter-
prises. The preachers traveled more on horseback in
those days, but I suppose could no longer be called
heroes of the saddlebags, though saddlebags were still
a part of the outfit.
Dr. A. L. P. Green was our presiding elder—a man
of most gracious presence, a conversationalist of rare
charm, a strong preacher to whom a sermonet was an
unknown quantity of no certain value, and whose hom-
iletic magazine was the Bible and the best books on the
Bible. He preached long sermons and strong sermons,
and nobody complained: "How tired I am! I thought
he would never get through!" But when he got
through he had "finished;" he never "wanted to add
another thought in conclusion.” Dr. Joseph B. West
cnce said, “the very best reading is spoiled when you
forget the period.” As a fireside companion he was
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My Moving Tent.
peerless, genial, humorous, and with a voice forceful,
but wonderfully sweet, having the drawing and hold-
ing power of the Nixies chord. You never tired hear-
ing him talk. While a fisher of men, he was an en-
thusiastic fisher of fish. Big fish, little fish, fishes with
scales, and scaleless fish-cat, trout, buffalo, all sorts
and sizes—he knew them, and knew how to catch them,
and loved to talk of his excursions with angle and rod
by brookside and river.
Our baby, Emily Blanch Mooney, was baptized at
the Methodist Church in Shelbyville, Tenn., by Rev. A.
L. P. Green, November 22, 1857. This record recalls
the beautiful and impressive ritual, and Memory with
her magic mirror shows me the faces of many whose
names I would put upon the written page, but the list
would be too long. The grave and the gay, pathos and
humor, are close together if not close akin. The bap-
tism impressed nurse Harriet in a way altogether differ-
ent from that of the accepted or the disputed standards
on the subject of baptism. The next day the nurse
noted, and was delighted with the fact, that the baby
did not have the colic! After studying the subject for
some time, she called to me with the ring of victory in
her voice: “I know why the baby hain't had the colic
to-day; cause she's been baptized.” The validity of
this claim once established, the brethren would have
no more trouble on the subject, as all tired, sleep-loving,
sleep-losing mothers would enthusiastically embrace it.
I commend its consideration to the brethren who are
presenting the subject, its subjects, the mode, and the
benefits.
Of the preachers this year, I saw most frequently
Rev. S. M. Cherry and Rev. J. G. Myers, though I

Again in Shelbyville.
93
cannot name their work. Rev. J. W. Cullom was a
sometime visitor. He was a friend dearly loved by
my husband before I knew either. I notice that he is
to preach his semicentennial sermon at the next Con-
ference, in Pulaski. May I be there to hear! In this
respect Mr. Mooney is his senior, having preached his
semicentennial two years ago. I wish I could write
that word "semicentennial” as Dr. West used to say
Bishop Kavanaugh pronounced it. But I cannot put
the sound and inflection on the point of a pen—no more
than they can be reproduced, even if written. Brother
Cullom preached at one time on the Middleton Circuit.
I was not then at the old home; but I remember that
old church called Thompson's, and looking back I see
the people, and where they sat, who sung, who prayed,
who talked in love feast. This was before Brother
Cullom's day on the circuit, when we had to go to
preaching on week days, nolens volens. Sometimes I
had to ride behind, and I kept myself awake on the way
by counting the houses, the panels of fences, and the
people we met. I was not always so successful in
church during preaching. My counting exercise here
was first the people who came in, and after that the
people who nodded, until I finally fell asleep myself,
nor was I awakened till Brother Smotherman would
begin to shout, or Brother Anthony North to sing
“On Jordan's stormy banks I stand
And cast a wishful eye,
To Canaan's fair and happy land,
Where my possessions lie.”
By this time everybody was awake, and when some-
body started
“Will you meet me
In the Promised Land?

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My Moving Tent.
old Rip Van Winkle would have been startled and
started from slumber. I often heard Uncle Kit Far-
riss preach at his church, called for Thompson Jared, a
devout Methodist layman. “Uncle Kit,” as he was
known to all the Methodist family, married a sister to
Rev. R. P. Ransom, and here the Ransoms, Smiths,
Harrisons, Owens, Simses, Norths, and Dromgooles held
their membership. Uncle Harry Ransom and his broth-
er Lemuel were always there. They were men of portly
presence, and I used to wonder if they could both get
in the door at the same time! I finally decided that
they could by a side movement! Dr. Frank Wilkes
told me of his experience once in Texas while trying to
preach one Sunday afternoon. His congregation was
large and constantly augmented and diminished by the
coming and the going of some restless cowboys. There
was a board off at the back of the church—whether for
ventilation, or because of shrinkage and falling off, I
do not know, but it was off—and it suggested a means
of egress to one of the more enterprising of the cow-
boys. He began his performance, the congregation
turning their eyes and thoughts to him instead of
to the preacher, much to the preacher's discomfiture,
who called out: "See here, my friend, you'll never get
out that way!" With dangling limbs and undaunted
courage he called back in challenging tone, “I bet you
a dollar I will!” and, added the Doctor, "he did.”
Brother Cullom loved to sing
"I'm a pilgrim, and I'm a stranger;
I can tarry, I can tarry but a night."
He has tarried with us a long time, and yet how short
seems the day! And how we shall grieve for him, or

Again in Shelbyville.
95
for ourselves, when his work is finished and the night
comes when no man can work.
Ernest Marvin Mooney, our baby boy, was baptized
at home in Clarksville, Tenn., by Rev. J. W. Cullom,
November 27, 1879, since which time our moving tents
have been far apart, but in thought and in affection
Brother Cullom has ever held a place
Whether we've pitched on the plain
Or "where Eden's bowers bloom.”

CHAPTER XVI.
UNIQUE SERMONS ET REs.
MISFORTUNES in business overtook Brother Knott.
He gave up his beautiful home for an humble one in
another part of the town. Again our tent moved, for
we went with him. His patient endurance under this
trial, his cheerful courage, profoundly impressed me.
He kneeled upon his knees and prayed and gave thanks
before his God as aforetime.
Rev. W. T. Shaw we often saw during this time.
He had no extraordinary pulpit graces, but he glorified
God by a blameless, upright life. Just before his death
he wrote us a letter which was among our prized pos-
sessions lost by fire.
Brother John A. McCurdy I saw last at Chapel Hill,
Marshall County, Tenn., at a church called Allen's
Chapel—last as "holding a meeting," for I may have
seen him again at an Annual Conference. He was at
one time on the Middleton Circuit, as was Rev. John
A. Ellis, afterwards a member of the Mississippi or the
North Mississippi Conference.
I attended a camp meeting not far from Shelbyville.
Holt's, I think, was the name of the encampment.
There I saw a man whose unique reading and preach-
ing was wonderful—past finding out. His character
was in every way above reproach—he was blameless.
Dr Green said he "read fluently, but he never by even
a mischance called a word right.” In orthoëpy he was
a pronounced success, but in orthography, of which or-
thoëpy is supposed to be a part, he was a failure. He
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Unique Sermons et Res.
97
would take his text from the “one-eyed chapter of two-
eyed John” (first chapter of Second John, Roman let-
ters), or from “Pestle Hams” (the Psalms), or from
“Eccle Cuts” (Ecclesiastes)! His exegesis of “Seeing
we are compassed about with so great a cloud of wit-
nesses," has certainly the grace of originality, which
cannot be said of some greater sermons. The intro-
duction emphasized the importance of the sense of “see-
ing," while the verb “compassed” was taken as a noun,
and the difficulties of safe sailing before the compass
was invented were enlarged upon. It seems to me
that I have heard, even from the pulpit, things not so
suggestive as this—for no doubt, in thinking of the
compass, he had in mind the four cardinal points, north,
east, west, south, all around, and a man must thus see
and thus be seen in running this race. It is of the same
sort as Rev. C. C. Mayhew's “We cast four anchors and
wished for the morning." Yet both these men were
successful in winning souls. I know the gospel is the
power of God unto salvation, and this power is manifest
over the ignorance of men, while it has in a different
way "pleased God through the foolishness of preaching
to save many."
Sometime during this year I heard Rev. J. G. Myers
preach his noted Ark sermon, familiar, I suppose, to all
the old preachers of the Tennessee Conference. I was
quite partial to Brother Myers and to his wife, who was
a Miss Purvis, of McMinnville, Tenn. She furnished
me a word not in the dictionary, but so good a one
that I have adopted it, as an apt qualifier of people
who have neither the inclination nor the ability to do
any kind of work, except to complain of their many in-
firmities of the flesh. She styled them the "do-less” sort.

98
My Moving Tent.
It is not yet an extinct genus. They generally have
some sort of dyspepsia which makes them "enjoy poor
health," and invariably brings on the back ache when
there is an accumulation of work and busy brain and
active hands and willing feet are needed. Probably
you have met some of the family; they have no local
limitations.
There were some good meetings in and around Shel-
byville during the year, but no such remarkable re-
vivals as are sometimes reported now, making the won-
der grow, when statistics are in, what has become of
them—the converts.
The apparent decrease was readily accounted for
in the history of Methodism when America, though
not greatly attached to England, was not yet detached.
Her children were coming to this country, and the altar
was simply removed from the English hearthstone to
the tent of the pioneer and to the groves, God's first
temples. I suppose, too, that in a big count some must
be put down as Douglas Jerrold asked that he should
be, when a collection was being taken for an impecu-
nious member. "How much does poor H— need, to-
night?” he asked of the collector.
“O, a five and two naughts will do”—$5.00.
“Well, you may put me down for one of the
naughts!"
There are certain infallible signs that betoken the
approach of an Annual Conference. I did not under-
stand them so well then as I do now. The brethren
bestir themselves with unwonted activity, and the anx-
ious inquiry begins to be heard, the one from the other :
“Are your collections all up?" Probably, with some,
the lapse of time has caused a relapse of interest; and

Unique Sermons et Res.
99
the preacher, through delay, has a double duty to per-
form. His only comfort, if comfort or consolation it
may be called—is, that some other brother is equally
“behind.” The remedy is with the preacher and en-
tirely within his province. His people should be trained
both by precept and example, by insistence upon method
in all Church work.
Rev. John Wiley Hill, an ascended workman of the
Tennessee Conference, magnified the office of presiding
elder in training the people to systematic paying. Jacob,
journeying even without a tent, after seeing in a dream
that wonderful ladder set up on the earth, and the top
of it reaching unto heaven, vowed a vow unto God, say-
ing: “If thou wilt keep me in the way that I go, and
give me bread to eat and raiment to put on, ... of all
that thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto
thee." Yet people who pay little and give less talk of
Jacob as "a hard man!” The law of distribution as to
time and labor, like that of compensation, is a very
kindly one, and the compensation is very sweet to the
preacher who has the hearty coöperation of his mem-
bers in the prompt payment of these connectional claims
—and all our Church work should be connectional.
Thus more fully does each bear his own burden, and il-
lustrate the ease of bearing one another's burden.
In closing this chapter on preachers and sermons
there comes to remembrance a sermon I heard preached
by Rev. L. D. Houston when he was editor of The
Home Companion. It was a great occasion, and the
sermon was greater. It was on “The Offering Up of
Isaac.” To this day I can see the father and his son
journeying toward Mount Moriah and hear the talk by
the way. I can feel the pain and the pang that rend

100
My Moving Tent.
the heart of the father as the magnitude and awfulness
of the sacrifice impress themselves upon his conscious-
ness. I behold the dawning of the morning of that
third day, when he “lifted up his eyes and saw the place
afar off.” I realize the loneliness of the desolation
that came upon him when he said to the young men :
“Abide ye here with the ass; and I and the lad will go
yonder and worship, and come again unto you.”
The menials at a distance wait,
Alone ascend the son and sire;
The wood on Isaac's shoulder laid,
The wood to build his funeral pyre.
The climax was overwhelming, and the tense emo-
tions of the congregation found vent in loud shout and
hallelujah when the angel of the Lord called to Abra-
ham out of heaven, saying: “Lay not thine hand upon
the lad, neither do thou anything unto him.”
Few things that I have heard or read are so exquisite
as his presentation of the old patriarch twelve years
after this dramatic incident, when we see him sitting
in his wife's tent, where he had gone "to mourn for
Sarah, and to weep for her.”
Though so long a time has passed, I remember his
tender tribute to Sarah. “She had been the beautiful
companion of his youth in far-off Mesopotamia, the
faithful sharer of his toils and wanderings. He was
a wanderer and a dweller in tents for at least one hun-
dred years—all the days of his life which he lived were
one hundred three score and fifteen years. Then Abra-
ham gave up the ghost and died in a good old age, an
old man, and full of years."
Then, all his wanderings past, his sons buried him

Unique Sermons et Res.
IOI
in the cave of Machpelah, which he had bought for a
possession of a burial place when his beautiful Sarah
had left him alone in the tent. How many brethren
of the Methodist moving tent have possession of a
burying place ?
Things remote are brought near by the law of as-
sociation, and the recollection of Dr. Houston's ser-
mons brings back one I heard in the long ago by an
“Old Hard-Shell Baptist," as preachers of the Primi-
tive Baptist Church were called at that time.
This sermon was sung rather than preached, or de-
livered; and, soothing and soporific as sermons or
songs may sometimes be, there was no sleeping dur-
ing this sermon, though it was about the third in order
on a summer day. The tune was not lively, but the
theme was—“And he said unto her, “Wilt thou go with
this man?' and she said, 'I will go.'”
The well-packed camels and the old man journeying
toward Mesopotamia were very realistic. The inci-
dents at the well—the courtesy of Rebecca in offering
drink to the tired traveler and to the thirsty camels-
all the details of the interview were aptly given in
serio-comic manner, while the smiles of the congrega-
tion frequently gave way to loud laughter.
In conclusion, he said: “And yes, my brither-rin,
there's not a fe-male who hears me this day but would
er mount er camel and go—yes, my brither-rin, go even
unto er fur country and to er strange man they never
hearn tell uv, save by the mouth uv er servant-yes,
they would go, even at this day and time, if you would
give 'em the gold earrings and the bracelets and the

102
My Moving Tent.
jewels of silver and the jewels of gold and the raiment.
Yes, my brither-rin, they would all go, and even ride on
a bare-backed camel, without bridle or stirrup ur-ur-ur
anything to hold by; for, my brither-rin, women are all
alike in every age, of every age, in every clime, in every
country; they will surely say 'I will go,' providing, my
brither-rin, that the camels are well packed.”

CHAPTER XVII.
CONFERENCE AT MCMINNVILLE 1858-1900. SUN-
SHINE AND SHADOW.
I DID not attend the Conference of 1858 held at Mc-
Minnville, but I was much interested in the proceed-
ings, and I love the hill country thereabouts. Mr.
Mooney, though born in Fauquier County, Va., spent
most of his boyhood and early manhood in Warren
County, near Hickory Creek, a beautiful and most ro-
mantic region. At the time of our marriage his brother,
Prof. Waynfield Mooney, was President of Irving
College, not many miles from McMinnville. It had
been my privilege to be at the College the previous
summer, and also at Mt. Zion Camp Ground. Rev. J.
C. Putnam was either presiding elder or preacher in
charge. I had had many delightful drives through the
country. One I shall never forget. It was in the after-
noon. It had rained in the morning and set all the
rivulets running. About midday the sun shone bright.
Our road lay to the right of a hill green-clad and
terraced. Afar off could be heard that sweetest of all
music, running water. All at once the whole face of
the hillside was covered with sparkling spray—the ra-
diant colors, refulgent in every shade and tone and tint
of color, more lovely than any human hand could paint
them. Nor time nor distance can efface the supernal
beauty of the scene as it burst upon me that summer
day. The two things that have seemed most unchanged
to me wheresoever our tent has moved are the hills
and the horizon. The hills sometimes seem so near
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104
My Moving Tent.
to heaven! And that broad band encircling the universe
reminds me that the Father's love encompasses all his
wandering children:
"I know not where His islands lift
Their fronded palms in air;
I only know I cannot drift
Beyond His love and care.”
But to the Conference. With these sentiments, I
was in most happy accord with the emotions evoked by
the exquisite poem of our dear friend Dr. A. R. Erwin
in his “Invocation to Ben Lomond,"* "for mine eyes
had seen the glory there, and my heart overflowed with
joy.” The surroundings are preëminently of the High-
lands and suggest many of the best things in Scottish
song and story. Better still, they lift the thoughts to
Him who sendeth the springs that run among the hills,
and who hath set our King upon his holy hill of Zion.
As I write, the tide of years rolls back in the waters
of memory, and I see a sunny spot where a multitude is
gathered, and in the multitude all the faces are of the
friends I knew and loved. I hear the voice and see the
rapt expression on the face of Dr. Erwin as he ex-
claims:
"Ben Lomond, hail! We stand to-day
Where we rejoice to stand,
Upon thy brow, whence, far away,
The view sweeps o'er the land.
Forth let us look o'er all the earth, until
The Saviour's words we feel;
The Church, a city on a hill;
Ye watchmen, guard her weal."
What was unfolded to him on the mountain height?
Did he even then hear the noise of wings, and see the
* Ben a hill.

Sunshine and Shadow."
105
chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof, when, gaz-
ing anon upon the upturned faces of the brethren, he
said:
“So, life's travel ended, may each of us stand
On Pisgah's bright summit, o'erlooking that land
Of brightness and beauty, the home of the blest,
Where the wearied ones forever shall rest."
Ah me, not long after his feet grew tired on the hills,
and God took him—the first shadow to fall upon our
moving tent.
1858-1900. Forty-two years of tent life for the old
Jerusalem Conference, and again the tribes go up to
worship at McMinnville. I feel that I can hardly write
of this second gathering. So many that we knew and
loved are gone from the Conference roll! I am glad
that there are so many sons of honored fathers in the
succession. J. B. Erwin, J. A. McFerrin, John W. Han-
ner, William Green, J. J. Ransom, are of those on
whose shoulders have fallen the mantles of ascended
prophets and sires. The Davids who, after having
served their generation, are fallen on sleep are more
than I can tell. Among those on the Memorial Roll for
1900 I note through tears the names of Absalom H.
Reams, J. G. Rice, W. G. Dorris, and Joseph J. Pitts.
There are many others to memory dear: Dr. A. L. P.
Green, Fountain E. Pitts, Thomas W. Randle, James R.
Plummer, R. L. Fagan, the Whittens, J. B. McFer-
rin, R. P. Ransom, William Burr, John F. Hughes, Wil-
liam H. Wilkes, T. L. Madden, J. J. Pitman.
Rev. J. G. Price and Mr. Mooney were boys together,
converted at the same meeting; but, I believe Mr.
Mooney was his senior somewhat in the Conference.
Their love for each other was very tender. Rev. W. G.

106
My Moving Tent.
Dorriss was my pastor at the time of our marriage, and
after twenty-five years officiated at our silver wedding.
Throughout all the years he was our steadfast friend.
For wisdom in counsel he was rarely equaled. His
words were indeed apples of gold in pictures of silver.
His judgment was well-nigh faultless, both as to men
and measures.
Dr. John W. Hanner as man and minister I held in
high and loving regard. He was not demonstrative,
did not carry his heart in his mouth. The fountain was
deep and pure, and sometimes overflowed in refreshing
streams. I kept for years, and would have kept to the
last, a letter received from him when our moving tent
was pitched beyond the river, in Missouri. One ser-
mon I heard him preach in Nashville I shall never for-
get. It might be called “The Home-Bringing of the
Bride.” For thought, word-painting, and delivery,
it was perfect.
With so many names enshrined in memory, I was in
full sympathy with the following resolution read and
adopted at the annual session of the Tennessee Con-
ference, October 24-29, 1900 :
Whereas an all-wise Providence, after a lapse of forty-two
years, has permitted the Tennessee Conference to hold a
second annual session in this beautiful mountain city; there-
fore be it
Resolved, That with gratitude deep and profound we praise
God that through all these long years the God of Jacob
has been our refuge, a very present help in time of trouble,
that his grace has sustained our living ministers found
trusting in him, and has enabled our dear fathers and breth-
ren to die like Jacob, in sight of heaven.
W. D. CHERRY,
J. W. CULLOM.

Sunshine and Shadow.
107
This resolution was timely and tasteful, as was the me-
morial meeting at which reminiscences of the former
sessions were read. It was altogether right, meet, and
proper that the poem written forty-two years ago by
Dr. A. R. Erwin, and entitled, “Ben Lomond, Hail!"
should have been read by his son, Dr. J. B. Erwin. Mr.
Will T. Hale’s response, “The Pathos of the Memories
of the Days Gone By," is as beautiful an “In Memo-
riam” as Tennyson ever wrote, though he sang most
touchingly:
Of the days so sad, so sweet;
The days that are no more.
Again the lines fell to us in a pleasant place, for by
appointment of Bishop James O. Andrew our tent was
moved to that most beautiful inland town, Huntsville,
Ala. My life in Huntsville even to this distant day
seems more than a dream of beauty. It was more. It
was a dream realized in all the charming colors that
dreams are supposed to have. The people received us
so cordially and treated us so courteously during the
whole two years, the then limit of the pastoral term,
that they have never held a second place in my affec-
tions. There are many dead, and some still living,
whose kindness to the strangers within the gate de-
serve especial mention, but the book of remembrance
would be too large.
The city itself is beautiful for situation, and this
beauty was enhanced by a lavish expenditure of money
in the erection of public and private buildings. Sani-
tary regulations were well-nigh perfect. The social and
literary life filled my utmost desire. In the several
Protestant Churches there were godly, devout men, and
of elect women not a few. Many men of wealth gave

108
My Moving Tent.
freely to God of their time and substance. Rev. Harry
P. Turner was a local preacher of influence, having his
home near the city. Rev. P. B. Robertson was in the
city—a man of usefulness and piety.
Spotswood and Rison were Methodists and drug-
gists. I do not know if they abide to this day. The
“Spottiswoodes” belonged to the heraldic days of the
Old Dominion when Knights of the Golden Horseshoe
won their spurs in deeds more daring than those of
King Richard on his famous "White Surrey.” We
could not have received a warmer welcome in a fa-
ther's house than we had into that of Dr. William
Spotswood, where for more than a year we had our
home. His wife, and his wife's mother, Mrs. Calhoun,
were mothers to me and to our babes in untold acts of
kindness.
Dr. Erwin's two years' pastorate had just closed,
probably the most popular of any in the history of the
Conference. The people, all the people, loved him, es-
pecially the people called Methodists, and would not
give him up. So he had been elected President of the
Huntsville Female College, at that time one of the most
prosperous institutions in the South. He was to suc-
ceed Prof. George M. Everhart, author of "Josephine
and Other Poems,” published by Harper and Brothers
in 1858. Not long after the change of presidents Mr.
Everhart joined the Protestant Episcopal Church.
Dr. H. N. McTyeire was editor of the Nashville
Christian Advocate, and in it severely criticised this
booklet of poems. It was thought by some that this
scathing criticism hastened Mr. Everhart's going from
our Church. I hardly think so; but when a man be-
comes dissatisfied with his Church and his Church re-

Sunshine and Shadow.
109
lations, the powers that "be and are,” the manly thing
to do is to leave, and to all such the Church can give
a Godspeed and a God bless you! in all sincerity and
truth. To his successor in the pastorate, Dr. Erwin was
most gracious, generous, and helpful—magnifying in
many ways the graces of Christian brotherhood. He
was often in our room, bringing me books and maga-
zines, all that was newest and best in current literature,
and the survival of the fittest from the old, and discuss-
ing, with Mr. Mooney, theology, homiletics, et id omne.
But the silent shadow was even then stealing across
the threshold. The first intimation I had of it was near
the close of a bright afternoon in August. The day
had been cloudless. The sun had shone with unusual
brilliancy. Coming in, and talking for a while with un-
wonted cheerfulness, even for him, he suddenly said:
"The winter and the cold will soon be here. I can see
it and feel it; through all this lovely glow the wine of
death is in the trees.”
"But,” said I, “the sun is kissing the flowers."
"But know you not,” he replied, “that it is the kiss
of death, not of life? The bloom and the fragrance will
soon be gone.”
The melancholy mood was but momentary, but it was
a revelation to us of his consciousness that for him the
summer time was past. Alas! how soon sped the re-
maining days! When November's winds "blew blaw"
we realized that the melancholy days had come. The
physicians said: “Dr. Erwin must no longer go abroad.”
The work and the incident worry of the school bore
heavily upon him. One of his teachers was called away
by her father's illness. I had gone home for a visit, the
first in a long time. The teacher had expected to be

IIO
My Moving Tent.
absent two weeks. The two weeks lengthened into a
month, with Dr. Erwin steadily growing weaker and
more anxious, with a message now, if his "little friend,"
as he always called me, would “only come and teach
those classes ;" he could not "put in a stranger.” This
was the tenor of every letter I received from my hus-
tand. Finally, he wrote: “Dr. Erwin is so anxious for
you to come, he inquires after you daily.”
The letter came on Thursday. Next morning I took
my babies and bundles and boxes and started for Ala-
tama. When Huntsville was called the snow was fall-
ing. Among the first faces that I saw, looking eagerly
at the alighting passengers, was that of Dr. Erwin.
When he saw me he exclaimed: "How glad I am!”
I was too, for I saw plainly that the summer was all
gone, and that winter was come. On Monday morn-
ing I went into the school, nor did I leave until the end.
The teacher's father died, and she did not return. Dr.
Erwin said: “Surely you will stay with me; the time
will not be long. I shall sleep soon.” Like the gentle
Greeks, he always thus spoke of death. In the morn-
ing, at noon, and in the evening I always called to see
him. I would find him bright and buoyant in happy
hope of that sleep soon to come. The last thing he ever
said to me was: “Little friend, I shall sleep soon. It will
be sweet.” One gloomy morning in January the shad-
ows lifted, and he passed from us into everlasting life!
Joe (Dr. J. B. Erwin) was then a little boy, and I
well recall how his father's hand rested in silent bene-
diction on his bowed head. We have had many true,
good friends, but none better, rione truer than Dr. A.
R. Erwin. Dr. A. L. P. Green, whose memory is pre-
cious to thousands yet living, and to the children of

Sunshine and Shadow.
III
those who have passed away, came to the funeral, and
was our guest. We talked almost the whole night.
In about half a year Methodism in Huntsville, and
the Tennessee Conference in its membership, suffered
loss in the death of another man of God, Thomas Ware
Randle, presiding elder of the Huntsville District. He
was a man of heroic soul, and when the angels met him
there was the shout of victory! Where the sunshine
kisses the shadows in God's Acre, at Pulaski, Tenn.,
there is a little grave with a stone bearing this legend,
"Erwin Randle,” our baby, who almost at the first
pulse beat was gathered into God's nursery.
Full short his journey was,
No dust unto his sandals clave;
He seemed a cherub who had lost his way
And wandered thither, so his stay
With us was short, and 'twas most meet
That he should be no delver in earth's clod,
No need to pause and cleanse his feet
To stand before his God!
One moment here, and then away!
His flight through viewless air
Beyond the cloud to endless day,
To be forever there!

CHAPTER XVIII.
ECLECTICS.
I Use this word not as applied to any school of phi-
losophy nor to philosophers, but because I have se-
lected from my book of remembrance the names of
some in Huntsville and elsewhere known and loved by
many of the preachers of the Tennessee Conference,
and by a host of friends outside local limits. One of
the most worthy of these in our Church at Huntsville
was Mrs. Martha Jordan. She was deeply religious,
devoted to her own Church, but broad and catholic.
She was the fast friend of her preacher and his family.
Her sense of humor was keen, her own humor irre-
sistible. She was witty, ready at repartee, and rich in
resources, odd in her dress and manners, affectionate
in disposition. She was universally popular, and won
her way where others failed. This was illustrated dur-
ing the occupation of the city by the Federals, when it
was sometimes difficult, and ofttimes impossible, “to
get a pass.” She went in person to Gen. Mitchell—was
so pleased to see the man whose geography she had
studied when she was a little girl! had never expected
that pleasure! After this gracious introduction, she
got a pass, and would go in person on the cotton wagon
as it passed through the pickets. The South had no
more ardent friend. She was an enthusiast in its best
sense. Leaving her home, to which she was fondly
attached, she went to Virginia and was both nurse and
mother to our boys in hospital. Her fate was most
melancholy and tragic. Returning from Nashville, the
(112)

Eclectics,
113
car caught fire and she perished in the flames. Seeing
the inevitable death that was so near, she threw from
the window her well-worn and constant traveling com-
panion-her Bible. Many passages were marked, such
as: “Thou calledst in trouble, and I delivered thee.”
Her death was a shock, and all sorrowed that her home-
going was after this sort.
“A thousand ways has Providence
To bring believers home.”
Among the elect Methodists of Huntsville were
“Grandma Watkins," Mrs. Pope, and her daughter
Mrs. Mastin, Mrs. Bibb, Mrs. Scruggs and daughters,
Brothers Turner and McDowell. Among our mem-
bers Mrs. John Nance had a large share of my love,
and among Presbyterians Mrs. Fackler and her daugh-
ters, Sallie and Elvira, were favorites. I have often
wondered how life fared with them. We were much
together in books, in the home, and in social life. Once
a week Mrs. Fackler had her pastor, Rev. Frederick
Ross, to dine with her, and to this dinner the Meth-
odist preacher and his wife had a standing invitation.
During this year Rev. Alexander Campbell, his wife,
and son-in-law visited Huntsville, the guests of ex-
Gov. Clay and wife. Mr. Campbell preached for a
week morning and evening in the Methodist Church.
He recognized the courtesy, and said nothing in any
sermon that could offend the denominational pride of
the most sensitive. He was a fine-looking man,
"brainy," and the strongest speaker I have ever heard
on the errors of Romanism. The Old Man on the Tiber
was hit hard, as was the tendency to high-churchism in
the Protestant Episcopal Church.

114
My Moving Tent.
Rev. — Hank, of the Baltimore or the Virginia
Conference, was a professor in the Huntsville Female
College. He was a bachelor, dignified, genial, and
learned, without any of the pedantry that sometimes
marks and mars the pedagogue. The college had a
hundred or more boarders, chiefly from the more South-
ern States. Mississippi was largely represented.
Among commencement visitors was a layman from
Holly Springs, Brother Alexander, who had several
daughters in school. He was the father-in-law of Rev.
W. C. Johnson, of the Memphis Conference.
Dr. H. N. McTyeire delivered the annual address
one year. This was the beginning of our acquaintance
and friendship. To my thinking he was the greatest
man in Methodism. Generations to come will rise up
and call him blessed. The coldness of which some com-
plained I never found. In the home circle he was most
genial. In the pulpit it paid to listen. His sermon on
"The Man Who Went Down to Jericho and Fell
Among Thieves” is beyond comparison with any I have
ever heard on that subject. He was sui generis. Such
a one is seldom seen. A century plant among men.
In this annual address, on “Woman," he gave her much
praise—some of it unmerited—but he denied to her in
toto any inventive genius! A woman never invented
anything, not even a coffeepot! She could make good
coffee, sometimes—she knew how to do that, or some
women did, sometimes—but to make, to construct any-
thing without pattern or rule, a woman had never done
it! She lacked invention. The present patent office
reports give a different conclusion, for they show that
women are rich in inventive talent.
Dr. E. E. Wiley was another commencement speaker.

Eclectics.
115
I have forgotten his theme, but his address pleased
the people of the college and outside. He was com-
manding in figure, a fine specimen of physical man-
hood. His manner was easy and wholly free from
affectation.
After" Dr. Erwin's death the presidency of the col-
lege was tendered Mr. Mooney. But he had full work
in his chosen profession, or preferably his calling (for
one, I believe in a divine call to the ministry), and
could not consider the offer, except to be at the head
of affairs till a suitable man could be found. So again
our tent was moved and found a resting place in the
college till a president was elected.
The trustees were fortunate in their selection of Rev.
John G. Wilson, D.D. Dr. Wilson was a scholar, and
a man of ability in other directions. He was a good
organizer and an excellent disciplinarian, holding the
reins of government firmly, but with no unpleasant
tension. Dr. Wilson was, later on, President of War-
ren College, Bowling Green, Ky. He transferred to
the St. Louis Conference, of which body he was a val-
uable and valued member. In that Conference, es-
pecially in St. Louis, I often heard him mentioned most
affectionately by the preachers and by the membership.
The largest funeral I ever witnessed was in Hunts-
ville, that of Col. Dick Anderson, an eccentric old
bachelor, who was Santa Claus all the year round to
the children of the city, to whom he lavishly distributed
candy and other confections. There was genuine grief
among them when he was carried to his burial. For
sweet charity he gave no alms, nor to the Church.
Near the college, in a lovely home, with a charming
wife and several interesting children, lived John L.

116
My Moving Tent.
Cooper, a favorite with me of all the laymen I have
known. If living, he must be an old man now, but to
me he can never grow old.
The Big Spring was a noted locality and a great
attraction to residents and to visitors. Thither at the
evening time great companies might be seen wending
their way. A petrified log in the college yard was an
object of interest, especially to the large class in geol-
ogy in the college, for the writing of the rocks was
then much affected, and many claimed for it something
higher and better even than the oft-quoted “Sermons
in Stones.” I was myself quite an enthusiast, and a
good "placer;" but when the learned began to differ,
then to disagree, my foundations seemed not so firm,
and I was not sure about the age of anything, nor
greatly concerned about the length of the days in the
“beginning” when God created the heavens and the
earth, nor as to the “primordial age” of man, nor "the
quantum sufficit for mundane needs.”
A scientist went into the garden one morning where
Dr. Farr, a Presbyterian preacher, was at work. After
the salutations he asked: “How old are you, Doctor ?”
"Seventy-five," replied the doctor. “What is your
age?”
"I am as old as Adam in the garden of Eden. I was
there."
"I always heard there was a third party there," re-
sponded the Doctor, “but I never knew it was you be-
fore.”
But the storm cloud was gathering, soon to break in
the fullness of desolation on all our pleasant places.

CHAPTER XIX.
AN ILIAD OF WOES.
THE Homeric Poem was a recital of classic tragedy.
The deeper tragedies of life are never written. These
records will have no poetry save that of unexpressed
pathos. The Minutes of the Annual Conferences, Vol-
ume II., of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South,
1858-1865, is a mine of memories, rich in treasures of
thought, faith, devotion, as with the miner's lamp we
read the names of those who toiled and triumphed.
The session of the Tennessee Conference of 1859 was
held in Columbia, Tenn., Bishop Early again presiding.
This year there were two score supernumeraries, among
them Fountain E. Pitts, Elisha Carr, Abraham Overall,
Golman Green, men I had long known; others in the
list I was to know better in the years to come, especially
these three: Gilbert D. Taylor, Robert G. Irvine, and
William H. Wilkes.
The session of 1860 was held in Clarksville, Tenn.
It was presided over by Bishop George F. Pierce, the
great Georgian, whose presence, like that of Cicero, in-
stantly impressed the Senate into silence. His oratory
at this Conference is the theme of those yet living who
heard him, and a tradition among the children of the
fathers. The list of superannuates this year has added
the names of Samuel S. Moody and Golman Green.
Three members had been transferred to the Church
above—viz., Coleman H. Cross, William J. Cooley, and
Alexander R. Erwin. The total white membership was
34,301. The total colored membership was 8,071, equal
(117)

118
My Moving Tent.
to more than one-fourth of the white membership.
Owing to disturbed civil conditions, there was an in-
crease in 1861 of only 940 white members, and of col-
ored members only 219. At the Conference in Edge-
field, October 4-11, 1865, the total white membership in
the Tennessee Conference was 30,655; colored, 1,522.
In 1900 the full white membership was 67,860. Loss
during the war: white members, 3,636; colored mem-
bers, 6,449. No colored members reported since 1897,
owing to absorption, consolidation, and separation by
organizations.
The redemption of Africa from slavish superstition
was largely the work of Southern Methodism in the
several Conferences. In the Tennessee Conference
some of our best ministers were assigned to this work
-preaching to the negroes. Such men as Elisha
Carr, John A. McCurdy, William Randle, Thomas
N. Lankford, Charles B. Faris, A. R. Erwin, and
others. Besides this provision, they had preaching
privileges on the plantations. No nobler, more con-
secrated, self-denying soldiers of the cross ever car-
ried the gospel to the wilds of Africa than those
who preached it to the black man on Southern planta-
tions. Let us honor their memory. Their works do
follow them. This preparation, through the gospel,
was the negro's only fitness for the responsibilities of
citzenship thrust upon him before fully freed from the
toils of the jungle.
This Conference (I refer to 1859) was the one in
which Dr. W. C. Johnson's tent was moved from the
Tennessee Conference to the Memphis, where he ever
magnified the grace of God in every position in which
he was placed, presiding elder, station preacher, editor,

An Iliad of Woes.
(119
anywhere, everywhere, a workman worthy of his high
and holy calling. While waiting till the day was a lit-
tle longer grown, and the calling to come up higher,
he kept in touch, in sympathy, in love with the whole
brotherhood through our connectional organ, the Chris-
tian Advocate, as editor of the Memphis Conference
news and notes. *
I love the old myth that, when the sun seems to set
on the western shore of that soft flowing sea that sweeps
around the whole wide world, he simply hides for
a night his shining face beneath the limpid wave, and
ere the weary earth and her weeping ones are fully
awake from sleep and sorrow he has made the return
voyage, and from the radiant east is rising and shining
in the white light of a new morning!
I have read, too, of Prince Ahmed's tent, which could
cover a whole army and yet fold into a parcel not too
big for the pocket! Well, the presiding bishop is our
prince, and I suppose the parcel in his pocket is the list
of appointments that cover the whole army and set the
tents a-moving.
It was with full hearts and flowing eyes that we said
good-by to friends in Huntsville, and set out to pitch
our tent among strangers in Pulaski. The welcome
was not so demonstrative as in Huntsville, but it grew
warmer all the while, and, like Peter on the mount, I
came after a while to say, “It is good to be here," and I
should have been willing for the tent to become a tab-
ernacle and there abide.
Among the first to greet us was Mr. Thomas Martin,
a leading layman of large wealth and influence, and
whose religious life was in accord with his profession.
*His sun set in cloudless splendor after this was written.

I20
My Moving Tent.
He loved his State, his county, his town, his Church,
and this love was manifested in many activities and
enterprises for the general good. It crystallized in the
gift of thirty thousand dollars for a girls' college,
which now bears his honored name, Martin College.
It is located in a lovely campus, with beautiful build-
ings. Brother Martin could do more work and more
kinds of work than any man I have ever known. He
was facile princeps at every needed sort of Church
work, even to the work of the sexton when that official
was careless or absent—would make the fire, ring the
bell.
Mr. George W. Petway, now an aged disciple, was
in the strength of manhood, a steward in the Church,
and looking well after the comfort of his pastor. His
wife and three lovely daughters, Alice, Laura, and
Lucy, took me to their hearts, and in mine they have a
place steadfast and sure. In Brother Petway's home
we frequently met his brother, Rev. F. S. Petway, after-
wards a member of the Memphis Conference. The
family had the gift of song, and the brothers, George
and Ferd, were known as the "sweet singers of Israel."
Out on the Columbia pike, not far from town, lived
Mrs. — Lester, a devout Methodist, the mother of
Messrs. James and John Lester, both lawyers, and of Mr.
Frank, who lived, I think, at Lester's Station, near the
Alabama line. She was the mother-in-law of Dr. James
L. Coleman, of Athens, Ala., and of Brother Sumner,
a worthy local Methodist preacher, who, with his wife
and lovely little girls, made part of the home circle.
Another daughter, Miss Sallie (afterwards Mrs. Wil-
son, of Columbia), was my friend, steadfast and true,

An Iliad of Woes.
I21
being with me in sickness and in sorrow, and in some
of the most trying experiences of the moving tent.
Another steward was Mr. J. B. Childers, a self-made,
strong-willed man of marked peculiarities, one of which
was to promise little and to give much. His acqui-
escence in any proposed measure was not expected. He
always voted in the negative and acted in the affirma-
live. If the recording angel has put down all his acts
of kindness, the list will be a long one, and, like Ben
Adhem's, it will lead the rest.
For the first time we lived in a parsonage, a modest,
unpretentious building, but comparatively comfortable.
Our nearest and best neighbor was Booker Shapard, a
steward and a prince in Israel. He had in him the stuff
of which martyrs are made. Convinced that a thing
was right, he was steadfast, immovable. Some of his
children and grandchildren are the working members
of the Church in Pulaski to-day.
The bar was inferior to none in the State. Some had
already attained distinction—a distinction retained un-
til this day. I recall Col. Solon E. Rose, Hon. T. M.
Jones, Hon. Hilary Ward, John C. Brown, afterwards
Confederate general and Governor of Tennessee,
Judge John Walker, the Lesters, Maj. Nathan Adams,
and T. M. N. Jones, a Methodist steward lately gone
home at a ripe old age full of grace and full of honors.
The Abernathys, too, were well represented at the bar,
in medicine, in schools, in court, and later on in camp.
Judge Walker, after the war, was Consul to the Island
of St. Thomas. This is a rapid and probably imperfect
record. A review after the lapse of years often con-
tains unnoted omissions. Other lawyers came in later

122
My Moving Tent.
and have made for themselves no mean place among
the chiefs and elders of the people.
But while I have been getting acquainted with the
people and my environments, another year has rolled
around. Another Conference has come—held this year
at Athens, Ala. It was my last for many a year. Al-
ready there was much moving of tents, and before we
met again a mighty revolution would have taken place.
Already the soil of the South had been consecrated by
the sacrifice of some of her noblest sons. When the
Conference met at Athens, already many tents had been
folded forever. The election of a sectional President
by the Northern vote had aroused the wildest excite-
ment and antagonism in the South. President Lin-
coln's proclamation calling for troops had the effect
lipon the Southern people of the Scottish “firebrand :"
"In arms the huts and hamlets rise;
From winding glen, from upland brown,
They poured each hardy tenant down.”
Hospitality was unstinted in every home in Athens,
but there seemed a shadow over all things, a sadness
in every song. Our Conference home was with the
family of Judge Coleman, deceased, father of Rev.
James L. Coleman, of the Tennessee Conference; if
living now, of the North Alabama. A very delightful
home it was, both as to the home circle and associate
guests. Among these were Rev. E. T. Hart, afterwards
of the Memphis Conference, and Rev. Edward Sehon, of
the Louisville Conference. For ease and elegance of
manner, and for fluency in conversation and in pulpit
and on platform, Dr. Sehon had few equals.
Hon. Gustavus A. Henry, of Clarksville, reminded
me of him in many ways. Rev. A. F. Laurence was

An Iliad of Woes.
123
pastor of the Methodist Church in Athens. The mem-
bership was composed of the choicest material—the
Colemans, Fraziers, Hobbses, Malones, and others. Mrs.
Chiles was president of the Athens Female College
a Northern woman, not of Southern sentiments. Rev.
Joel Whitten was presiding elder of the Florence Dis-
trict. The three brothers, Joel, Simon Peter, and Moses
L., were held in high esteem by the preachers and peo-
ple. Simon Peter was for several sessions secretary of
the Tennessee Conference; he was followed by Rev. R.
A. Young, D.D., who served efficiently for many suc-
cessive sessions. The last time I saw Brother Joel was
at a session of the Memphis Conference held in Jack-
son, Tenn., in 1877 or 1878. The session included
Thanksgiving day, and the sermon was preached by
Rev. Edward Slater, D.D. A few months later both
these noble men died at their posts during an epidemic
of yellow fever—the one in Decatur, the other in Mem-
phis.
If I am correct as to date, it was during this scourge
that Dr. Thomas O. Summers, Jr., volunteered his
services to the stricken city of Memphis, and did there
such heroic work for God and humanity. About this
time Bishop Marvin died. Of all tributes to his mem-
ory, none equal in beauty and in delineation of charac-
ter that written by Dr. Summers. His suicide, a few
years ago in the city of St. Louis, gives a deeper sig-
nificance to the passage brought to his mind by the
death of the bishop:
“Who knows whether Life
May not be Death,
And Death itself be Life.”
Of Bishop Marvin he said in closing: "His was a mon-

I 24
My Moving Tent.
umental life or character, simple, lovely, original, grand.
He stood amid trials and disappointments and sacri-
fices like a Pharos in a stormy sea, flinging its white
iight across the waters, though the waves howled about
it in fury, and the broad shoulders of the hurricane
pressed heavily against its solid form. If I should be
asked for an epitaph to write above his grave, it should
be that stamped upon an old Grecian coin—a bullock
between an altar and a plow, with the inscription be-
neath: 'Ready either for life or for death, for service
or for sacrifice.'” The living and the dying of Bishop
Marvin had profoundly impressed this rarely gifted
but ill-fated man.
When appointments were read the following were
appointed chaplains to the Confederate army-viz.,
Fountain E. Pitts, John A. Ellis, Jeremiah Cullom, John
A. Edmondson, Sterling M. Cherry, Francis A. Kim-
ball, Alexander L. Hamilton, Moses L. Whitten, Mar-
cus G. Williams, and John M. Pirtle. All these, with
one exception, remained to the end steadfast and true.
For him, even after he had changed the color of his
coat, I had ever the kindest feeling, for he was a friend
in the hour of peril and extremity.
In the army were William J. Johnson, J. R. Harris,
William H. Anthony, David C. Kelley, Thomas L. Dun-
can, John A. Thompson, J. B. Hardin, Burnet W. Bond
(killed at Fort Donelson February following), Henry
C. Wheeler, and P. G. Jamieson. Later, Bishop Pierce
appointed Dr. J. B. McFerrin, R. P. Ransom, William
Burr, and Wellborn Mooney missionary chaplains to
the Army of Tennessee. Again we were sent to Pu-
laski to tent on the old camp ground.

CHAPTER XX.
Two FIGHTS.
We were never more cordially received anywhere
than in Pulaski upon our return from the Conference at
Athens, and to no people am I so strongly bound by
the cords of love and a common misfortune. Nothing
so binds people to a cause as suffering for it; nothing
so strongly unites them as mutual sorrows. I care not
for the ministrations of a man over the grave of a loved
one who has not himself buried his dead out of sight.
From one who has not tasted the sorrows of death the
ritual seems words, idle words—or cold, hard, metallic !
The good old county of Giles nobly sustained the
prestige of Tennessee as the Volunteer State during
the Civil War. Her stalwart sons, never laggards in
war, were among the first to respond for the defense of
the South and for the vindication of constitutional rights
or State rights. Hume Field's company and John C.
Brown's company were among the first organized, and
they and other Giles Countians were among the last
to lay their armor by when the long fight was over-
though many had sealed their faith with their blood
on many a battlefield before the final furling of their
beloved flag. Let me say with emphasis that no men
anywhere, in any nation, ever made a better record as
soldiers than the men from Tennessee who wore the
gray. Further, no such army as the Southern Army,
Confederate States of America, was ever marshaled.
The statement is truth and will bear the test. In the
beginning of the war the pulse beat high. When the
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126
My Moving Tent.
returns were in from the first battle of Manassas, en-
thusiasm was at fever heat. There was in the Southern
constellation no star that told of the coming tide of
woes that would sweep the land from shore to shore.
Not until the fall of Fort Donelson did we begin to
realize the awful significance of war and the unmiti-
gated evils of invasion. Then in our quiet town there
was hurrying to and fro.
The Southern hospital was removed from Nashville
to Pulaski, and in the dawning of a gray Sunday morn-
ing the sick soldiers were received into Giles College,
not far from the historic hill where Sam Davis, the
typical Southern hero, was hanged, a martyr to his
faith and to his lofty ideal of friendship. The tide of
invasion rolled nearer and nearer, and the hospital was
ordered farther south. On another sad Sunday we said
good-by to our soldier friends, and to many it was a
final farewell.
Dark days followed. The hospital changed hands,
and we were under Federal garrison—till one memo-
rable first of May, when the army of occupation was
enjoying the delicious languor of an early spring day.
No thought of the boys in gray disturbed the dreams
of the boys in blue as they lay in the shade of the trees
along the hillside or near the banks of Richland Creek.
The scene was as peaceful as a pastoral poem. But
suddenly, about two o'clock in the afternoon, Morgan's
men came as the wind comes. “Thou hearest the sound
thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh.” The old
yell waked the music in every echo's throat and in every
mother's heart. Hill shouted back to hill. "Dixie,”
“Annie Laurie," and snatches of other songs that we
used to sing came floating in like great waves of melody.

Two Fights.
127
It was a brilliant dash, anda complete surprise to friends
and to foes. The first rejoiced beyond measure. It
was the only cavalry race I ever saw. It was animating
and exciting beyond anything in my experience, and it
is quite beyond description. Looking up the Columbia
pike, I beheld the whole Federal force in rapid retreat.
How fast they went! though at first not a pursuer
could be seen. But the invisible, invincible force was
fast following on. You felt it like elixir in the air, and
there was no resisting the inclination to cry out, “Catch
them! catch them !” Morgan did catch them, all of
them. Then such a time of rejoicing! It continued
all night and until about nine o'clock next morning,
when our friends left as suddenly and as mysteriously
as they had come. None knew whither they had gone.
It took the day to adjust ourselves to changed con-
ditions, and to face the situation, which we knew to be
serious. It was cool toward evening, and I had a fire
kindled in the open fireplace, and was preparing my-
self to read some of the captured mail, when again,
suddenly, I heard a shout that brought me to my feet
and sent the letters to the flames. The Yankees were
marching in several thousand strong, and mad. They
broke ranks at the corner of the old Methodist church,
and before the reign of terror was over they broke
everything else. They went their way as they pleased,
and that was not a way of pleasantness nor a path of
peace. I stood at the front door scared, but determined
to stay there, rather than in the house, till some one
should come to keep me company. The blue uniforms
shone out in bright array in the light of the dying day.
Presently I saw one soldier bear our way, and make
as straight as he could for the parsonage gate. I saw

128
My Moviug Tent.
from his unsteady step that he had been liberally pat-
ronizing the army canteen. On the hill to our right
was a handsome house with beautiful grounds owned
by Dr. Ordway. Among the belongings was a flock
of goats. I had rarely seen them, for they were ex-
ceptionally well-behaved goats, and since my acquaint-
ance with them my appreciation for the goat family
has increased. The hill sloped gently to the front
fence, and as I cast my eyes helplessly about, I spied
the whole company of goats drawn up in a line, looking
eagerly abroad and sniffing the battle from afar! Old
Captain Billy stood at the head of the column, his long
horns looking like the headdress of some historic
Highland chief. He had his men under perfect com-
mand. Without any message from me, he gave me a
look with a nod of his helmeted head, as much as to
say: "I understand !”
On came Paddy, staggering and swearing. When
he came to the gate, no sooner did he reach over to
open it than Captain Billy leaped the fence at a bound
and made for him on the side next the gate, causing a
fall from which the Irishman never fully recovered.
For when he would try to rise the goat would dash at
him in another place. When he would appeal to the
Virgin Mary or to the saints to save him, the goat
took it as a challenge and renewed activities. I as-
sure you, it was a lively fight and one much enjoyed
by me and the goat—both of whom Paddy would
curse long and loud, getting a thrust every time he
said an ugly word. When the fight was over, and
Paddy had turned his back, the Captain gave me
another look and quietly rejoined his company, all
of whom had remained in line during the whole en-

Two Fights.
129
gagement. There were "Hot Times in the Old Town”
that night, but all was peace at the parsonage. Smart-
ing from his wounds and defeat, and inflamed with
whisky, the Irishman grew so obstreperous that he
was tied to a young tree in the courthouse yard,
which by his agility and athletics he pulled up by
the roots ! Darker days were to follow.

CHAPTER XXI.
EXILE BY ADMINISTRATIVE PROCESS.
CLASSICAL history tells us that in "ye olden tyme,"
when the war was over, there were erected on the bat-
tlefields two altars, one to memory and one to forgive-
ness. The sentiment of this is good, and approximates
that higher, holier law, “Love your enemies.” Not
with the love of approval, but as including the spirit
of forgiveness, and without resentment or retaliation.
Paul, the great apostle, writes: “If it be possible, as
much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men.” It
is at least inferential that this is sometimes well-nigh
impossible. So the citizens of Pulaski found it, when
again under Federal rule.
In June, 1862, and later, the towns of Tennessee
were sad illustrations of what men clothed in a little
brief authority will do, and the sending “further
South," as it was phrased, of Southern sympathizers,
was a common occurrence not only in Tennessee, but
in North Alabama. In evidence of this statement, and
to show that I have naught in malice set down, I here-
with give a true copy of the famous or infamous order
under which our tent was moved South several months
before the annual session of the Tennessee Conference,
which, despite the disturbed state of the country, met in
October at Cornersville, Dr. J. B. McFerrin presiding,
and Dr. R. A. Young, Secretary. At this Conference
Mr. Mooney was appointed to Athens Station, but
months passed before he heard of it, as the sequel will
show. But to resume:
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Exile by Administrative Process.
131
[SPECIAL ORDER No. 96.]
HEADQUARTERS U. S. FORCES, June 23, 1862.
Rev. Wellborn Mooney, Booker Shepard, Dr. James A.
Sumpter, Dr. Charles C. Abernathy, and Robert Winstead,
citizens of Giles County, who have been active participants
in the rebellion, so far as urging the enlistment of soldiers
and furnishing them money, outfits, and arms, industrious
circulators of reports calculated to aggravate the already in-
flamed minds of their countrymen, keep alive false hopes,
and check returning loyalty, and sympathizers with the so-
called Confederacy now battling to desecrate that flag which
floats from the capitol of Giles County, to protect their
lives and the property of loyal people, having been duly no-
tified by the Commandant of this post on the 12th day of
June, 1862, that the Federal Government could no longer brook
treason in any shape beneath that flag, and that the cause
to which their hearts are given having been driven to the
last extremity, needed the active aid of all who truly sym-
pathized with it, and having been duly warned that by this
day, 10 o'clock, they must determine whether they will re-
turn to their allegiance or go and aid their friends and the
cause which so much needs them, and enjoy the benefits of
a government they prefer to that of their fathers.
In obedience to the choice made by the above-named gen-
tlemen, it is ordered that Capt. Twyman, with an escort of
twenty mounted scouts, conduct them carefully and safely
to our lines, and deliver them under a flag of truce to any
officer of the Southern army that may be met with, with a
copy of this order, and a request from the Commandant of
this post that he so place these gentlemen that they may
give the most efficient service to their cause. Should they
return within our lines except as prisoners of war, they will
be dealt with as spies. The Commandant has authorized
them to carry with them their property and families.
By order of W. Munday, commanding post.
W. H. MUNDAY, A. A. A. G.
They had from noon one day till next morning at
seven o'clock to get together what property they could

132
My Moving Tent.
carry. Our worldly possessions were put in a wagon
drawn by two stout mules furnished by Mr. John A.
Jackson, of Pulaski. I wished more than ever for Ah-
med's tent. I was not compelled to go except from the
necessities of the case. There was naught else for me
to do, as I could not remain unprotected in the parson-
age. With the wagon went my old cook, Aunt Edith,
and the nurse, Harriet. Before starting Capt. Twy-
man assured me in the presence of friends that he
would give five minutes in each hour for a rest for me
and the children, and to allow the wagon to keep up.
This we thought kind. Amid the lamentations of
friends we turned our faces to the south, not knowing
what further troubles awaited us.
The sun shone hot and the way was a weary one,
unrelieved by any of the amenities of social travel, as
we were separated from our companions in distress
most of the time. Toward midday it grew very sultry.
Later there was a heavy rainfall, and we were com-
pletely drenched, as all our wraps were in the wagon,
which we had not seen since starting, having made no
halt at all that first day, except long enough to eat our
dinner at an abandoned blacksmith shop. This luncheon
had been prepared for us by thoughtful friends in Pu-
laski. We invited the captain to eat with us, and the
invitation was accepted heartily, if not with good will.
Night came upon us two miles this side of Rogersville,
and we were halted at a humble home whose only
occupants were two scared women. Negotiations of
some sort were had with them by the captain. The
whole company was fed, our party being lodged in the
house in an upper room. Next morning, at an early
hour, we were ordered to move on, but we were delayed

Exile by Administrative Process.
133
at Rogersville by the passing of Federal troops, Gen.
D. C. Buell's moving into Tennessee. The road was so
obstructed that again we were halted. Kind friends
would have cared for us, but we were kept waiting in
the suntillabout eleven o'clock before we were allowed
to accept their hospitality and shelter for the night.
Then we were brusquely told that we might go, and
that a guard would be placed around the house for-
our protection! All night long there was the moving
of men and military stores, the neighing of horses, the
calling of soldiers, and all the paraphernalia of camp
life in motion. The second night passed and the morn-
ing came, and no wagon! Capt. Twyman made his ap-
pearance and told us that at noon we must move on, as
the road would be clear. After a short absence, he re-
turned, saying we should start at ten o'clock.
The captain, I take it, was never, at his best, very
amiable. He was cross, easily irritated, and the sus-
picion was not lacking that he kept himself unduly
stimulated. He was every whit a martinet of the
meanest type, subjecting the helpless citizens in his
charge to all sorts of petty tyranny, calling after night
for all letters that they might have on their person, or
in their possession, searching baggage, even the carpet
bags containing the children's clothing. In this connec-
tion I mention with gratitude the kind and courteous
conduct of the lieutenant and the sergeant of the com-
pany, both endeavoring, whenever the opportunity
offered, to do something to make the situation more
endurable for me and the children. The situation had
now become serious for the prisoners.
I finally decided to remonstrate against going for-
ward at all under the circumstances, telling the captain

134
My Moving Tent.
that conditions had not been complied with, and that I
was like the traveler going to London when beset by
robbers and his money or his life demanded : “Blow
away,” he replied ; “I might as well go to London dead
as without money.” This did not impress him. I then
said: “Captain, I am not a prisoner; and if you persist
in this course, endangering, as I think, the lives of the
prisoners, and not delivering their property-in short,
if you do not keep to the strict letter of that order—I
mean to report you and have you arrested.” At this he
simpiy smiled in a superior, sardonic sort of way, and
we were told to move on! This soon became impossi-
ble, as the road was crowded, blocked with men and
wagons. About two miles ahead we were halted at a
comfortable farmhouse as yet undespoiled by war.
There was a large veranda in front, and thither we
betook ourselves, dusty, discouraged, and almost faint-
hearted. The captain stretched himself at full length
under a tree near by. The scene that followed defies
description. It would have been amusing had it not
been so sad. It was a Dutch regiment that came march-
ing on. You could tell this even before hearing the
delighted ejaculations, “Ach! Mein Gott!" as they be-
held the full orchard of ripened apples, on which they
alighted with the avidity, if not the alacrity, of grass-
hoppers, the farmer in vain expostulating: “Boys, shut
the gate ! don't ruin my trees!”
Meanwhile I was painfully pondering: "What is to
become of us? what shall I do?” Just then I saw com-
ing from the right a body of horsemen of superior sort,
and my heart was gladdened. They alighted and came
to the veranda near unto the place where I was sitting.
Soon one of them (I shall never forget him) turned to

Exile by Administrative Process.
135
me and said: “Madam, you look troubled; may I in-
quire the cause?” His tone was so kindly, his bear-
ing so chivalrous that at once my resolution was taken,
and I rehearsed the whole matter to him from the be-
ginning, not omitting what I had said to the cap-
tain.
“Right you are,” he replied; "he is amenable to ar-
rest, and there is no necessity for your reporting him
at Pulaski. But may I see the order of which you,
speak?”
“With your permission," I answered, “I will read it
to you."
He smiled, saying: “All right, you read, and hold on
to the paper.” At the close of the reading he inquired:
"Where is the captain?”
“There," I replied, pointing to the man under the
tree.
Thereupon he ordered him up, saying: “See that
these instructions are complied with, sir; have that
wagon here before these people are ordered to move
on, and consider yourself under arrest unless this or-
der is strictly complied with.”
The latent activity in the captain was surprising.
In just a little while he had the wagon to the front, nor
did we again lose sight of it till we had crossed the
Tennessee River, which we did about nightfall, when
with much pleasure we said good-by to the captain,
not sorrowing that we should see his face no more.
In a letter from Pulaski, dated January 9, 1863, and
written by Mrs. C. C. Abernathy, she says: “Lieut.
Twyman, brother of Capt. Twyman, was shot at Mur-
freesboro a few weeks since by our authorities for vio-
lating his parole, having been captured before. Two

136
My Moving Tent.
or three of the gallant escort who saw you safely to
the Tennessee River shared the same fate.”
I close the chapter with this statement from Capt.
Twyman:
BAINBRIDGE FERRY, June 26, 1862.
After this order was handed me I was instructed to see the
within-named gentlemen across the river, and direct them to
pass out of our lines as speedily as possible. Guards and
pickets will pass them through at the nearest point to Bain-
bridge Ferry. 5 o'clock P.M.
H. G. TWYMAN,
Captain Commanding Twyman Scouts.
More than thirty-nine years have passed, but I have
not forgotten how heavy were the shadows on the
moving tent as we reached the farther shore and en-
camped beyond the river.

CHAPTER XXII.
IN ALABAMA.
ACROSS the river I felt like exclaiming with the old
Indian chief, “A-la-ba-ma!” (here we rest). But not
yet. The night and the darkness soon came down, and
there was every indication of a furious storm. Pushing
on as best we could in ignorance of the way, we were
alarmed by a cry that the wagon had turned over. We
feared that some one had been hurt or killed, but these
fears were happily dispelled on hearing our old cook
call out to the driver: “Where's my bandbox ?”
The way was rough, and for a while we went on, not
knowing whither. Soon the lightning revealed to us a
good dwelling in the distance, where we were soon
warmly welcomed, and right royally entertained for
two or three days. The host was Mr. Warren Peden,
formerly of Pulaski, Tenn. I am not sure that Mr.
Peden was at home, but his wife was, and our tent was
never pitched under a more cordial and hospitable roof,
nor in a more beautiful valley, the Chickasaw.
Our route lay along the Byler road over Sand Moun-
tain. Over the white and glistening sand we slowly
traveled south, wistfully longing for a cloud to shield
us from the sun's direct rays. The first night we found
shelter, but not sleep, for we had a battle royal all night
long with the bedbugs. The slain of the enemy were
many, but they came on again and again in overwhelm-
ing numbers, and attacked in unexpected quarters till
we were almost overpowered. Not until broad daylight
was there a cessation of hostilities; then we wended our
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138
My Moving Tent.
way over the mountain, bearing in our bodies the
signs of bloody warfare and conscious of ignominious
defeat.
About halfway to Tuscaloosa we came to a pleasant
place, combining in its accommodations a store, the
post office, and a boarding house, what the English used
to call “a travelers' inn.” It was kept by a Methodist
—a Brother Cole—and here for a season our tents were
folded. To this day no meal has ever tasted so good
as that first supper, when we had "sure enough” coffee,
fried chicken, biscuit, batter cakes, butter, and milk out
of glass goblets! I rubbed my sleepy eyes in sweet
surprise. The manna in the desert was not more wel-
come to the hungry Israelites nor more refreshing. It
was good to be there, and we decided to stay till word
should come froin Bishop Andrew to go forward.
Meantime our company had been pleasantly augmented
by other Tennessceans and Pulaskians, Maj. Nath
Adams and Capt. David Rhea—the former a brother
of Gen. Adams, who was killed at the battle of Frank-
lin; the latter a brother-in-law of Dr. James Sumpter,
of our party. Maj. Adams was not only a good lawyer,
but a man of more than ordinary culture, and very
affable in manner. Capt. Rhea abounded in anecdotes.
He was a typical Southern gentleman and soldier. He
survived the casualties and calamities of war, and was
for years successful in the peaceful pursuits of the
farm. One sad, never-to-be-forgotten day he was
drowned in Richland Creek. His wife and daughters
were in Galveston during the late overflow. One
daughter perished, while the others barely escaped with
their lives.
Many incidents pleasantly broke the monotony of

In Alabama.
139
tent life while on the road. Much travel passed that
way. The women came from afar for letters from hus-
bands, fathers, sons, brothers, and sweethearts in the
army. For the most part they seemed sad and had
but little to say. I was sometimes invited to sit on the
porch and entertain them while they waited for their
mail. One day there came quite a cheerful company of
them. The talkative one of the group was a woman
about forty, dark and rather good-looking, "of a come-
ly countenance.” She was barefoot, and chewing to-
bacco most vigorously and spitting quite freely and in-
discriminately. By way of saying something, I re-
marked: “You seem fond of tobacco.”
“O yes,” she replied, “every gal in Butler chaws.”
At length came the letter from Bishop Andrew to my
husband saying: “Go on to Marion, Ala., and take
charge of the Methodist Church.” So the good-byes
were given to the kind family and to our erstwhile
companions, and again the tent moved toward the
south, to Tuscaloosa, thence to Marion. We came at
the close of the day to North Port, crossing the Black
Warrior near the spot where Prof. Benagh had a short
while before been drowned while bathing. We saw,
too, the site of the old prison, at that time a place of
some local interest, and sadly suggestive of scenes in-
cident to war's alarms. We were entertained by the
Methodist preacher of Northport, a Brother Mabry,
and made as welcome as if we had been expected guests
in times of peace and plenty. I learn from his kins-
man, Rev. M. J. Mabry, of the Tennessee Conference,
that this good man, Rev. W. E. Mabry, died some
years ago in Palatki, Fla.
Provisions seemed scarce in Tuscaloosa. Nothing

140
My Moving Tent.
abounded except watermelons. We bought two soon
after leaving Tuscaloosa, and dined on them near noon
by a big spring under the shade of a tree. Tuscaloosa
is a fine old city, beautifully shaded with triple rows of
water oaks. I had often heard Dr. Thomas O. Sum-
mers speak of Tuscaloosa, and the people I met fully
justified his high opinion of them.
Our carriage was drawn by two big, lazy mules
named John and Jane. The driver was from Tar River,
North Carolina, an African himself as black as tar, with
gleaming white teeth, and with rolling eyes the larger
part of which was white. He made strenuous efforts
to increase the pace of the two J's, but in no single sec-
ond did he move them to increased speed. They just
jogged along, and entreaty, persuasion, invective, the
lash were tried in vain. They ganged their own gait,
so that it was late before a habitation was reached, and
then the people refused to take us in, because we were
strangers and the men were gone. Their hesitation to
entertain was due not so much to lack of inclination
as to lack of ability, and from fear on the part of the
women and the children, these and the old men being
in most cases the only keepers of the gate.
The moon and the stars came out, and still Jehu
prodded and John and Jane plodded. The dead pines
shone white in the moonlight, looking like veritable
ghosts, while the melancholy hooting of an owl added
to the weirdness and the sense of isolation. All re-
quests for lodging were refused. The children went
to sleep crying for bread. I was hungry, desperately
hungry, and I steadfastly believe that no one has a full
conception of that petition in the Lord's Prayer, “Give
us this day our daily bread," until he has been down-

In Alabama.
141
right, absolutely, superlatively hungry-hungry as I
was that night. I said, in my extremity, “Who can
blame hungry men on a march for taking something to
eat?” I have thought, too, that a starving, dying soul
must so feel its need of the Bread of Life. Be that as
it may, I shall never, so long as I have a crust, refuse
to divide it with the hungry. Along toward ten o'clock
some kind people took us in after they had been as-
sured by my husband that he was a minister. I was
then too hungry to eat, but sleep was sweet indeed.

CHAPTER XXIII.
IN MARION.
No noteworthy incident marked our further way
toward Marion, the Mecca of our hopes. We started
after an early breakfast, and Jehu, John, and Jane
again tried our patience, with about eight hours of per-
sistent, provoking plodding. About two o'clock in the
afternoon we reached the town, tired, dusty, and in
our now normal state of hunger, but abnormally hun-
gry. We drove direct to the parsonage, wholly unex-
pected by the people, and, I may add, wholly unde-
sired.
Dr. A. H. Mitchell was the pastor, not only popular,
but having a permanent place in the affections of the
people called Methodists. He still survives, in his
ninety-fourth year, and none love him more than the
pilgrims and the strangers whom he so kindly greeted
that summer day so long ago. He stands on what
Whitman calls “old age's lambent peak”—the golden
setting clear and broad. Abraham, when he sat in
his tent door in the heat of the day and looked up and
saw the three men, could not have been kinder in
"fetching the water” and the morsel of bread, that the
travelers might comfort their hearts, than was Dr.
Mitchell to the strangers from Tennessee.
But when the evening drew nigh, and it was noised
abroad in the city that a man from Tennessee had
pitched his tent at the parsonage, and was come to take
charge of the Methodist Church, and that Dr. Mitchell
had been put on the district and was to leave the sta-
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In Marion.
143
tion at once, there was more than grief among the peo-
ple. They wanted nobody but Dr. Mitchell, and least
of all did they want a man from Tennessee. For Ten-
nessee, though Southern to the core, had not seceded
in the beginning, and therefore Tennesseeans were
traitors to the South! This was decidedly a new and
unexpected situation, and adjustment and explanations
were difficult and embarrassing, not in order, not called
for. The light was dawning, and was soon so clear
that the wayfaring man, though a fool, could read the
revelation.
Only a diplomat and a man of God could have stilled
the rising storm. This Dr. Mitchell did. He had
known of the contemplated change, but thoughtit best,
in the unsettled condition of the country and the un-
certainty as to the time of our coming, to say nothing
about the matter. The grace of submission, if not of
reconciliation, prevailed, and the strangers stayed.
The Doctor went to the district and Mr. Mooney en-
tered upon the work at Marion.
I was not feeling comfortable, but I kept my Irish
under until a favorable opportunity—not for showing
it, but for showing that I was a Tennesseean. This
came one day at a dining, a long table full of guests,
when peculiarities of speech became the subject of con-
versation. One of the company remarked: “I have
heard it said that all Tennesseeans say 'youns' and
'weuns."
This loosened my tongue. “That is all right,” I said,
“good old English, as you should know, 'you ones, we
ones' appositively, for explanation; the use is some-
what archaic, but current, reputable, respectable in old
forms. They have been ruined by corruption of the

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My Moving Tent.
orthography to the baser use of orthoëpy, the dialect
spelling is wrong—there are two words in each, you
ones, we ones—and there is no letter 'u' in ones, nor
can it be abbreviated thus. But," I continued, “I never
heard 'I taken,' 'I seen,' until I crossed the Tennessee
River, and struck the natives of Alabama.” I carried
the table, and the wordy warfare ceased with the gra-
cious apology or explanation : "Why, Mrs. Mooney, I
supposed that you were a Virginian.”
Well, I soon ceased to wonder on which side the
river I was, and in memory Marion became a Paradise
Regained, without weed or noxious plant or any vile
thing. It remained free from invasion, I think,
throughout the war, but her losses in wealth and in
men were heavy. She gave largely of both, and gave
with a free heart, willingly. Her men stayed and
fought till the star of hope went out in our Southern
skies to rise no more.
It was past midsummer when we pitched our tent
in this goodly land, but ere the sun had turned his face
westward we had become much attached to the people.
There was unity in the membership, and they were for-
ward in every good word and work. Here was the
model Sunday school of all I have ever known, under
the superintendency of Brother Brown, a layman. He
was absolute dictator, and yet there never was the least
friction in the school, neither in the work nor among
the workers. The school gave more missionary money
than any school with which I have been connected, and
devoted more time to the study of the Scriptures, and
took more interest in the teachers' meeting.
The names of Le Vert, Howell, Armstrong, Myatt,
Dozier, Perry, awaken a thousand pleasing and tender

In Marion.
145
associations. Rev. E. Le Vert (“uncle," he was affec-
tionately called) was, as his name indicates, of French
family. His mind was quick, alert; so was his manner,
at home, in the pulpit, everywhere. He was mighty in
the Scriptures, and next to the Bible he loved Burns
and other Scotch poets. He was fond of children, and
used often to entertain them with poetry—such lines as :
"Sic a wife as Willie had
I would na' gie a button for.”
“The Twa Dogs” and “The Cotter's Saturday Night”
he could quote ad libitum. Herecited Smollett's “Tears
of Scotland” with faultless elocution and most dra-
matic effect, and declared the poem a true recital of
our own sufferings :
“Mourn, hapless Caledonia, mourn!
Thy banished peace, thy laurels torn,
Thy sons for valor long renowned
Lie slaughtered on their native ground.
Thy hospitable roofs no more
Invite the stranger to thy door.
In smoking ruins, sunk they lie,
The monuments of cruelty.”
His own hospitality was not only liberal; it was lavish.
Rev. — Armstrong, one of the most guileless of
men, was president of the academy or college for girls.
He was, after the war, president of Athens Female Col-
lege, and still later of Grenada Institute, Mississippi,
whither he had scarcely moved his tent before he sick-
ened and died of that Southern scourge, yellow fever.
He was very absent-minded, very polite, and always
thanked you "for the suggestion.” The girls in his
classroom were much upset one day during recitation.
so much so that they could not control their laughter.
10

146
My. Moving Tent.
Finally Miss Mattie Le Vert said: "Excuse us, Mr.
Armstrong, we are laughing at your handkerchief.”
Passing an open drawer en route to his recitation room,
he had laid hands on what he supposed to be a hand-
kerchief, and which he was using rather freely. It
was his wife's lace undersleeve, a dainty bit of handi-
work. Looking at it in mild wonder, and then at Miss
Mattie, he said, “I thank you for the suggestion,” and
resumed his class work. In a little while he was again
reminded of the unusual style of his handkerchief, and
again 'said, “I thank you for the suggestion.” The third
time Miss Mattie said: “Mr. Armstrong, if you will
give me Mrs. Armstrong's undersleeve, I will put it
away.”
“I thank you, Miss Mattie, for the suggestion,” re-
plied the urbane and unruffled professor, and handing
it over went on undisturbed with the lesson.
Ah, me! 'twas years ago
When all this happened, that I sing;
And many a time the Southern snow
Has mapped the flowers of spring!
But still their fragrance floats to me,
On lang’rous, quiet days like this,
And wakes iny soul from reverie
To scenes of unforgotten bliss.
Among these scenes I see the gay groups who called
for us in carriages and wagonettes for an outing in the
woods to gather chestnuts and chinquapins, the dwarf
chestnuts. Jests and songs abounded while we gath-
ered up rich stores of these delicious nuts, which, like
the squirrels, we opened and ate, reserving the better
portion for domestic uses in the preparation of dainty
dishes, recipes for which are not given in the cook-
books. The woods, too, held hitherto uncounted wealth

In Marion.
147
in grapes, hanging in purple-black clusters, which
when duly ripened by the frost were pleasant to the
taste and a fruit to be desired to be made into pies, into
wine, and into other things known only to the inventive
and expert housekeeper.
A gracious revival in the fall cheered our hearts.
This revival included the whole membership, young
and old. In addition, there were many gracious con-
versions, principally from the Sunday school. Some
still survive, to adorn the doctrine of God our Sav-
iour by a pious walk and godly conversation.

CHAPTER XXIV.
IN ATHENS AND ACROSS THE RIVER.
I THINK I may safely say that I saw every side of
the war, except the bright side, and my tent was so
often moved that I sometimes did not know one hour
where it would be the next. Yet, there was always a
bright light in the cloud. Notwithstanding the sad
surroundings, and the enormous draughts upon faith.
hope, and courage, the great Southern heart beat
warm, and the milk of human kindness flowed freely.
The Tennessee Conference which met at Cornersville
appointed Mr. Mooney to the Athens Station; but, as
travel and all mail communications were greatly in-
terrupted, some time passed before he learned of his
appointment. In December the South Alabama, or
Mobile, Conference met, and many anxious thoughts
occupied our minds while trying to decide which to
do, whether to return to North Alabama or to stay
where we were, for we had every assurance that our
tent would not be moved from Marion. It was finally
concluded that, as there was no present danger of
arrest, no Federals being in North Alabama, that Mr.
Mooney should return to his own Conference, leaving
me and the children for some time in Marion, we giv-
ing up the parsonage to the "new preacher," and mov-
ing into a hired house. Here Christmas, with its beau-
tiful flowers, came to us with many tokens of love from
the kindly people of Marion.
Letters were not frequent. Papers were scarce; so
were all postal facilities. Even in this spot, so secure,
(148)

In Athens and Across the River.
149
so blessed, the South began to be in sore straits, and
ofttimes the shadows were heavy on the tent. Some-
times a soldier on furlough would bring us a little bag
of coffee he had gotten in exchange for tobacco while
on picket duty. Knitting and weaving were the pop-
ular accomplishments among the women and the
girls, while many became experts in making fine cake
without flour. There had been no flour in town for
sale in a long time, when it was rumored that some
bags were being brought overland from Tennessee.
The wagons were met miles from town, and every
sack bought! For speculation? O, no, but for gen-
eral distribution as far as they would go—and wide
as was the want, one sack, marked “Paid for," was left
at the parsonage door. This was before the winter
time.
Women delicately brought up learned not only to
card and spin and weave and knit, but they became ac-
quainted with the woods and roots and plants-deal-
ers, in one sense, in dyes, but not sellers—coloring,
with these things native to the soil, most exquisitely
the coarsest cloth until it made quite a dainty dress.
I saw, too (and wore them), shoes made out of Confed-
erate jeans, that were not only comfortable, but fash-
ionable and the appropriate and approved sort to wear.
This gray Confederate jeans claimed much time and
care in its preparation. A black silk dress was some-
times shredded, picked to pieces and mixed with the
wool, carded, spun, and woven and made into uni-
forms for the fathers and the sons at the front. A
very excellent shoe blacking was made from the China
berry, while sorghum on the plantation became a

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My Moving Tent.
popular sweet, though there was no scarcity of sugar
in this region.
A long-delayed letter from Tennessee gives the sit-
uation throughout the South at this time. I quote,
“Our people, I mean the women, for they are the
people, are busily employed making up clothing, bed-
ding, etc., for our Tennessee boys in Virginia, and
by the first of next week a large lot of the necessities
and comforts of life will leave for the field of strife.”
May came, and with it Mr. Mooney, and once
again the tent moved. The way seemed safe, and soon
we were in Athens and delightfully domiciled with
Mrs. Judge Coleman and her family, Miss Mattie
and Masters Frank and Ruffin. Alas, no sooner did
we indulge the pleasing sense of security than a large
force of Federals compelled another moving of tents.
Somerville, four miles across the Tennessee River, be-
came the city of refuge for many Athenians. The
families of Dr. James L. Coleman and Mr. Mooney
were encamped for some time in the Institute, not far
from the Methodist church.
Mr. Mooney went on to the army, and was ap-
pointed missionary chaplain to the Army of Tennes-
see by Bishop Pierce. I saw him no more till the
final folding of tents at Appomattox.
Dr. Coleman's family, Miss Sallie Lester, the chil-
dren, myself, and the servants remained in Somerville
till a few days after the battle of Chickamauga, when
the Doctor decided to return to Athens to be near
his mother and the family in the time of deeper trou-
ble that he saw so surely coming. So, again we re-
crossed the Tennessee, and encamped for the time in
Athens. I was glad the Doctor went, for sore sorrow

In Athens and Across the River. 151
awaited the mother, in the news that her beloved son
Richard was among the dead at Chickamauga. It de-
volved on me to be the messenger, and my eyes still
overflow when I recall the scene in that stricken home.
"John and Richard both gone! O God, how can I
stand it !” Thus in Ramah was there a voice heard,
"weeping and lamentation,” Rachel weeping for her
children, and would not be comforted, because they are
not.” Many a time has April wept upon their graves
since that day, but all through the South the mothers'
cry is still: “O God, how can I stand it !"
We were just a little in advance of the Yankees who
pitched their tents in Mrs. Coleman's grove, near to
the house, and within a few yards of my window. To
be more quiet, at the earnest request of Mrs. Rebecca
Hobbs, of precious memory, I moved my tent into
town, into her own pleasant home, where it seemed that
for a time we might abide in peace. Delusive dream!
On the morning of December 17, she and her husband,
Ira Hobbs, a devout Virginia Methodist, were ordered
out of the lines, and I was again homeless, not know-
ing what to do nor where to pitch my tent. The
morning came, one of the most dismal I have ever
seen—snow, slush, mud, a leaden sky. A number of
friends gathered in to tell the old people good-bye,
and along came the sergeant to receive the keys of the
house. The old people were greatly loved, and there
was much weeping as they went around speaking
words of comfort to their companions, whom in all
probability they should not see again.
The tension was extreme, when unexpectedly an in-
cident occurred which relieved the situation and my
overwrought feelings. The sergeant sat in front of

152
My Moving Tent.
the fire, I sat to his right in the corner, and opposite
me in the corner sat Sister Martha Frazier, daughter
of John Wiche, of Virginia. She was a most devoted
friend of Mrs. Hobbs. She was small, with auburn
hair, blue eyes, very emotional, and her emotion was
full, free, flowing. In vain she tried to dry her eyes
with constant applications of her apron. A fresh foun-
tain was continually opened. She (Mrs. Frazier) was
the last in the line, and the leavetaking was most af-
fectionate and affecting. Mrs. Hobbs, passing directly
to the sergeant and, carrying her key basket after the
manner of Virginia housekeepers, on her arm, handed
him the keys, saying: “Personally, sir, I have no ill will
toward you, and I hope to meet you in heaven !” Sister
Frazier, overcome with weeping, had not heard
the wish, but just as it was uttered she exclaimed:
"I am glad there is a country where the invader can
never come !" I gave way to uncontrollable laughter,
sad as the situation was, while the poor soldier looked
unutterable things as he reluctantly received the keys.
Extremity is opportunity. The meeting broke up.
Not seeing the opportunity, but realizing the necessity,
I said to the officer: "I alone am left in this house
with my little ones and their nurse; I must beg of you
a conveyance, an army wagon or something of the
sort, for my trunks and the nurse; I can get a horse,
buggy, and driver for myself and the children. We
are ready to go, trunks all packed. I should be so glad
if you would.” He most graciously granted the re-
quest, and soon we were on our way to Dr. Cole-
man's, just outside the picket post. I had not thought
of this dilemma till I saw the picket coming from our
right. I told the boy to drive a little faster while

In Athens and Across the River.
153
I lifted up my folded handkerchief after the style of a
pass. I knew he could not possibly get through
the picket mud till we were beyond, and seeing the
United States wagon following he could not be charged
with neglect of duty. So we just drove on. We were
not expected, but received a warm welcome.

CHAPTER XXV.
RETURN TO ATHENS.
Just as our tents were about to move, the following
letter was received from Bragg's Army, Catoosa
County, Ga.:
September 20, 1864.
A terrible battle is now progressing in hearing. Skirmish-
ing commenced on the 18th, the battle yesterday. Bragg's
army is large and buoyant-has been reënforced from Mis-
sissippi and Virginia. Bragg made the attack. The enemy
has given way so'me, but fights obstinately. A Confederate
victory is expected. I am quite hopeful. Killed, George
Malone, from near Shady Grove Camp Ground. Col. Palmer,
Lieut. Col. Butler, and Maj. Joiner, of the Eighteenth Ten-
nessee, wounded. I saw the third Tennessee in line of battle
a few hours since. Jack Lester, Clack, etc., all well. Col.
Lillard badly wounded. I saw Dan and Richard Coleman
yesterday. Both were said to be unhurt this morning. [This
was a mistake; Richard was killed-shot to pieces with
shrapnel.]
I write from Gen. Stuart's hospital, where I am helping to
wait on the wounded. Of the preachers, I have seen Mc-
Ferrin, Browning, and Bolton. The battle continued all day
yesterday, from say about ten o'clock A.M. till night, with
little or no cessation-good many wounded are being
brought off the field. The mail carrier is about to leave.
Good-by.
This letter revived our drooping spirits, and we
packed our belongings with comparative cheerfulness,
ignorant as yet of the wounds and the deaths of friends
and relatives.
As we journeyed on, so beautiful was nature in her
rich, red, burial robes that there were no sad sugges-
(154)

Return to Athens.
155
tions of death in field, forest, nor in the life caroling
so sweetly from happy homes hidden away in the
trees. We strolled for some time along the banks of
the river, we rested on the roots of the trees, and en-
joyed the shade while we ate our dinners. Then the
children played merrily for a while, picked up nuts,
and gathered grapes. About four o'clock we re-
crossed the Tennessee River. We spent the night at
Mooresville with an elect woman, who entertained us
most delightfully. Her home and her gracious man-
ner make a perfect picture in memory. The next day
we reached Athens. The tedium of tent life in Somer-
ville was brightened by transient gleams across the
darkness that was so surely shutting us in. It was
there on a Sunday and at church that I lost all hope
of the final success of the Confederacy. The little in-
cident is still vivid, though it will lose much of its
realism in the putting it on paper. It had been ad-
vertised far and near that on a certain Sunday Rev.
- would preach on the Confederacy in Prophecy.
It was a very hot day, but the eagerness to hear
brought out a multitude of men, women, and children.
Of course the men were mostly old, or otherwise un-
fit for military service.
The horses were a sight to see! They might have
been descendants of Jacob's stock—that is, if the
equine species was included in the ringed, streaked,
and striped cattle so famous in patriarchal lore. They
had evidently not come from green pastures, and as
I looked on them I thought they too evinced in their
way a mild interest in what the preacher would have
to say, for the war had been hard on the horse. Really,
I had not supposed there were so many in the coun-

156
My Moving Tent.
try as were hitched here and there, near to and at
some distance from the church. The sight reminded
me of an old-fashioned camp meeting.
| All Athens, it appeared, had come out with the rural
population to hear this new thing. From some cause
Miss Sallie Lester and I were rather late. For this
reason, and because the front was fully occupied, we
took seats in the rear of the church and near the
door on the right. Introductory services were nearly
over, but we were in time for the text: "Behold the
man child !”
I was never much on the prophecies, and could
not tell whether the preacher was giving us gospel
truth or not. The novelty had a certain charm that was
interesting. Toward the peroration he warmed up
and, waving his hand, exclaimed dramatically: "Be-
hold the man child !” Inadvertently a number of
heads turned in the direction indicated. “Behold the
man child,” he again exclaimed with somewhat more
of the imperative form. Just then there entered at our
right a chubby little child, a boy in breeches for the
first time. They were cut very tight and made of
butternut jeans. They were short in the legs, wide in
the belt or waistband. The body or waist was also
short and somewhat full above, but the wide belt to
which it and the pants were fastened was tight, un-
comfortably so, to the sight. Of this discomfort and
the general grotesqueness of his appearance the man
child was happily ignorant and wholly unconscious
that he was marked as an illustration. He went on his
way up the aisle and toward the pulpit. When the
preacher for the third time exclaimed, “Behold the
man child !" the little fellow was in full view and stood

Return to Athens.
157
still as if to say: "Here am I; behold me." I whis-
pered to Miss Sallie: “My last hope is gone—he is too
tight around the middle to breathe much longer.”
On another Sunday we had an orator of the vehe-
ment sort, who expounded and pounded and knocked
the book, tossed his hair, and beat the air, and occa-
sionally brought his foot to bear with full force on
the pulpit floor, while his arms turned in as many
different directions as an aërial amateur in athletics.
He had one especially objectionable gesture, accom-
panied by a guttural nostalgic air.
Dr. Stitt Malone, of Athens, was sitting by Dr.
James L. Coleman (in the right-hand amen corner) to
whom he whispered something in evident concern, but
which appeared to amuse Dr. Coleman very much. In
a little while, the violent gesticulation was repeated,
and at once, with a quick step and anxious air, came
Dr. Malone down the aisle and passed out of the
door. Dr. Coleman was much upset; but he did not
follow, nor did he again look our way till the sermon
was over and the congregation had been dismissed.
“Doctor," we asked anxiously, “what was the mat-
ter with Dr. Malone? What was he whispering about?
What were you laughing about?” It was some time
before Dr. Coleman was composed enough to tell us,
but when he had about exhausted himself and our pa-
tience, he said: “Dr. Malone pulled me down and whis-
pered almost audibly: 'If the preacher does that again,
Ishall puke.' No sooner said than he had to leave, but
whether the repeated dose relieved him I can't say."
The Doctor was not a Thompsonian, but he knew the
effect of an emetic as expressed in that school of ma-
teria medica.

158
My Moving Tent.
Talking thus by the way, I have gone both back-
ward and forward incidentally, and will not tarry now
to tell of the terrible days and nights in Athens after
our return from Somerville, and my seeking sanctuary
at Dr. Coleman's. The occasion of this new reign of
terror was this. In the absence of most of the Fed-
eral force on a foraging expedition, the Southern cav-
alry had dashed in and captured men, munitions, pro-
visions, and all the belongings. Retaliation, the usual
recourse, was had, and that of an unusually severe
sort. It seems to me that the fullness of time has
come when brave men, fighting, as they claim, in a
good cause, should scorn a measure of this sort, where
only the defenseless are the sufferers. I thought I
should never sleep again. Thought, an anxious pil-
grim, ever turned to Tennessee. Most painfully did
I ponder the problem: “How shall I get back ?”

CHAPTER XXVI.
BACK TO TENNESSEE.
I HAD State money, Tennessee and South Carolina,
and besides this some silver and gold, probably fifty
or sixty dollars. This I was afraid to spend, not know-
ing what darker days were ahead. I have been sorry
that I did not spend it, for at the last it was stolen.
I had only one thing I could convert into greenbacks
—a piece of sole leather, for which I received a good
price, but not enough to begin a hazardous journey
upon. However, it would take me to Pulaski, and I
would go there if not to Murfreesboro, if I could buy
a ticket without taking the oath, and if I could get
seats in the car, the road being held and run by the
military.
After an especially sleepless night, I arose unre-
freshed the next morning, and was on my way to the
dining room when I was startled by the sound of a
familiar voice. Imagine my surprise, on entering the
room, to be greeted by Rev. John A. Edmondson.
The delight was not unmixed, for I found him in blue,
rather than in gray. He saw my hesitation, and said
in his old, frank way: “I know how you feel, but you
have no better friend."
After breakfast, he came into our room and seated
the children one on each knee, and put into the hand
of each a five-dollar bill! My problem was being
solved in a most unexpected way. I had had no
dream, seen no ladder with the angels of God ascend-
ing and descending; but I said with Jacob: “Surely
(159)

160
My Moving Tent.
the Lord was in this place, and I knew it not !” Brother
Edmondson asked me to tell him freely what I wished
to do, whether to remain in Alabama or to return to
Tennessee. I told him my heart's desire was to get
back home to Murfreesboro, if I could do so in safety,
and without being subjected to the humiliation of
taking the oath—that I could not do—that I wished
to buy tickets for myself and nurse without going to
the office of the provost. He was as kind as kind could
be—bought my tickets for me, and secured transpor-
tation for my trunks through the country to Murfrees-
boro. More than this, he went with us in person to
Pulaski, and never left till he saw us safe in the home
of that noble layman, George W. Petway. There were
still stones of difficulty in the way, but I was steadfast
in purpose to go to Murfreesboro.
One afternoon Mrs. Liles Abernathy, Alice Petway,
and I were walking on the street of Pulaski when we
were met by that man of God, Dr. Gilbert D. Taylor,
with whom I had always been a favorite. He shook
hands hurriedly, and as I thought brusquely, and
passed on, which my friend explained by saying: "He
is watched.” I then noticed that he had left in my hand
a bit of folded paper. On reaching my room, I unfold-
ed it and found it to be quite a large bill of currency
which in the years to come he steadfastly refused to let
Mr. Mooney repay. Both of these men were in entire
ignorance of how I was compassed about, both of
them seemed angels of deliverance; both their names
are deeply inscribed on the fleshly tablets of our
hearts.
Years afterwards, Bishop McTyeire went west to
hold a Conference. When he returned he said to me:

Back to Tennessee.
Ібі
"I met a friend of yours out in that lonely place.
You write to him; he will appreciate it, I am sure.”
The friend was Rev. John A. Edmondson, whose heart
of gold was unmixed with base alloy in the tribute
paid to friendship.
Dr. Taylor has gone home. I have never known a
truer, braver man, nor one who so closely followed
the Master's example in going about and doing good.
Seldom a day passed that you could not see him on
his old white horse with a basket in hand, filled with
some delicacy for the sick or the poor. I have always
my life was spared in answer to his earnest, importu-
nate prayer. My grief was great when I heard that he
was gone, but it was for myself; I know that he was
glad to go. The fight had been a hard one all the
way, but with Paul he could say: “I am ready, I have
kept the faith.”
In a few days after the incident recorded, Mr. John
A. McKissack accompanied me to Nashville, and I
thought all my tribulations were over, having, as I
supposed, nothing that would be searched. But I had
reckoned without the man in blue, in buttons, who
very positively told me that I could not get aboard
for Murfreesboro until he had examined my baggage !
Opening my carpetbag, lo! a pair of boots and a pair
of cotton cards. “Both contraband !” he observed
rather exultantly.
"But,” I said, “I am not going South; I am com-
ing from the South, and the cards belong to this old
colored woman.”
“Yes,” she answered, “and I'm gwine ter keep 'em,
too.” And she did.
II

162
My Moving Tent.
The boots I handed to the friend with me, saying:
“Give them to some poor fellow who needs them; I
do not.” This she did, and many years afterwards I
was sweetly surprised to hear the sequel from the man
himself who received them, Maj. J. W. A. Wright, at
that time in a Federal prison in Nashville. I was in-
troduced to him at Monteagle. On hearing my name
he evinced great excitement, saying: “I have wished
to see you, madam, for years—for years—for to you
I am indebted for my life. But for the boots you sent
a poor prisoner, I could never have escaped; and un-
less I had escaped, I should have died. I got away
that night, and here I am after so long a time to
thank you from a full heart.” I heard his lectures on
botany, and when the summer was ended he sent me
from his Alabama home several valuable and much-
prized books of which he was the author. I bear tes-
timony to the tribute that as a scholar he had few
peers, as a platform orator his style was well-nigh
faultless.
This digression by the way revives pleasant recol-
lections; but I must hasten, for I cannot yet sing
"Home Again," and my fears increase with every mo-
ment's delay, lest after all I may be disappointed.
The young man took my key and unlocked the bon-
net trunk, but, seeing it filled with baby clothes, he at
once locked it and handed me the key, for which I
thanked him, and hurried aboard with many misgiv-
ings. The car was filled with Federal officers, not a
woman in the company. They were very courteous
to me, and exceedingly kind to the children, taking
the two older in charge, buying for them fruit and
candy and talking to them like men hungry for home

Back to Tennessee.
163
and the prattle of little ones. But I was so uneasy that
I scarcely breathed. Finally one of the officers said,
"Well, my little fellow, what is your father?” “A
preacher, sir," was the ready reply. “But what sort
of a preacher?” meaning whether Northern or South-
ern. “Why," was the amazed answer, “a good preach-
er, sir.” “Colonel,” called some one from the rear,
“let that little fellow alone; he's too sharp for you."
A general laugh followed, in which I joined heartily,
for my journey was over; my tent to be moved no
more
Till the warrior's banner took its flight
To greet the warrior's God.
From this time till then I was in Murfreesboro and
in the region round about. I was there when Hood's
army came into Tennessee and when it left, and I
wish to assert, in denial of the false history taught our
children, that it was never “dissolved into a rabble of
demoralized fugitives.” Men came and went who had
not seen their families for years, not even revisiting
the sites of their desolated homes. Many left letters
which were not received till after the surrender, when
the sad survivors of the Lost Cause had returned. I
have before me now several such, time-worn and faded
and bearing the blotches of unavailing tears. The
instances were not rare. Such sublimity of courage
is seldom witnessed. I saw it illustrated among the
men left behind as prisoners, naked, cold, hungry,
steadfast, unmovable as the Roman sentinel amid the
fiery deluge of Pompeii. The spectacle moves me
even now beyond words. I shall never forget the ap-
pearance of one who threw from the prison window a
note addressed to me and signed: “Old man in need

164
My Moving Tent.
of everything." I carried to the prison door a big
basket full of food and clothing. The guard was in
gone on a like mission. I met them returning and
was advised not to go, and the servant bearing the
basket said, “I am afraid;" but I was almost there,
and I thought of the old man and decided I would
try by entreaty or persuasion or guile. I approached
the guard with inward fear and trembling, saying:
“Good morning, sir. The weather is cold.”
“Cold as hell,” he answered.
"Well, that is a new way of describing it," I said,
laughing at the new qualifier ; "but," I continued, “I
suspect you are hungry.”
"Hungry as hell," was the reply.
“Well, I have brought you a good, hot breakfast,
everything good; come on, and have something to
eat," and I opened up the basket and he ate with a
good will heartily, refusing to invite the other guard,
as I suggested. He was in a good humor by the time
he had finished, and quite a good-looking young man.
“Now,” said I, "you have too much good sense not
to know that I did not bring all this breakfast to feed
one hungry man, and you know, too, what it is to be
hungry, and how those poor fellows inside suffer, for
you have not rations for your own men—the officers
are permitting the citizens to feed such as are able to
leave the prison accompanied by the guard, but some
cannot do this; but here, read this note.”
"No," he said, "you can go in with the basket; I
don't care to read the note.”
I insisted, and before he was through he was in
quite a tender mood and urged me to go in. I told

Back to Tennessee.
165
him I wished him to see what was in the basket, and
then call for the writer, "an old man in need of every-
thing." The old gentleman came, and as he bowed
and I gave him the answer the guard and the giver
both turned away. When I said “Good morning.”
again, the guard's smile was sunny, and he invited me
to come as often as I pleased.
Meantime, there are other moving tents toward
which all our hearts are anxiously turned, and for a
time we shall follow them, that we may note from
their own records some of the work done by the
chaplains and the missionary chaplains of the Army
of Tennessee.

CHAPTER XXVII.
CONFEDERATE CHAPLAINS AND MISSIONARIES.
When down the stormy crescent goes,
A light before me swims;
Between dark stems the forest glows,
I hear the noise of hymns!
THAT the loss of membership in our Churches in
the South was so small when we consider the awful
death rate during the war was owing largely to the
work of the chaplains and missionary chaplains in the
Southern army, who, as ministering angels, bore the
Holy Grail to men in the camp, and the message of
salvation to men on the battlefield and in the hos-
pital, and then when life was over wrote the sad
tidings to waiting ones at home. It is, therefore, with
no ordinary emotion and with the duepest reverence
that I copy from the faded old papers "The Minutes
of the Meetings of the Chaplains' Association of the
Army of Tennessee,” following as closely as possible
the dates given and the places of meeting.
LOOKOUT HOTEL, SUMMERVILLE, LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN,
November 23, 1863.
The Association of Chaplains and Missionaries of Bragg's
Army convened at the above place.
After preliminary religious exercises, Rev. B. W. Mc-
Donold was called to the chair, and A. D. McVoy was chosen
Secretary.
The roll of those present, being taken, was called as follows:
G. G. Harris, Eighteenth and Twenty-Sixth Tennessee Reg-
iment, Brown's Brigade; G. G. Chapman, Thirty-Second
Tennessee Regiment, Brown's Brigade; G. T. Henderson,
Second Tennessee Regiment, Polk's Brigade; G. H. Wil-
(166)

Confederate Chaplains and Missionaries. 167
loughby, Eighteenth Alabama Regiment, Clayton's Brigade;
A. D. McVoy, Thirty-Eighth Alabama Regiment, Clayton's
Brigade; W. A. Simmons, Eleventh Georgia Regiment,
Bate's Brigade; S. M. Cherry, Thirty-Seventh Georgia
Regiment, Bate's Brigade; J. A. Ellis, Twentieth Tennes-
see Regiment, Bate's Brigade; B. W. McDonold, Fiftieth
Alabama Regiment, Deas's Brigade; W. F. Morton, Thirty-
Ninth Alabama Regiment, Deas's Brigade; G. H. Tompkins,
Seventh Florida Regiment, Triggs's Brigade; A. C. Mat-
thews, Allison's Tennessee Regiment; B. M. Taylor, Seven-
teenth and Twenty-Third Tennessee Regiment, Johnson's
Brigade; C. M. McDonald, Twenty-First Mississippi Regi-
ment, Humphries's Brigade; T. S. West, Thirteenth Missis-
sippi Regiment, Humphries's Brigade; W. T. Hall, Thirtieth
Mississippi Regiment, Walthall's Brigade; J. G. Richards,
Tenth South Carolina Regiment, Manigault's Brigade;
C. D. Elliott, Bragg's Staff; G. M. Craig, Fifteenth South
Carolina Regiment, Jenkins's Brigade; James McDowell,
Palmetto South Carolina Regiment, Jenkins's Brigade; W.
F. Robison, Fifteenth Georgia Regiment, Bennings's Brigade;
H. B. McCallom, Fifteenth South Carolina Regiment, Ker-
shaw's Brigade; Wellborn Mooney, Missionary Chaplain; F.
S. Petway, Missionary Chaplain; Willian Burr, Missionary
Chaplain ; C. W. Miller, Missionary Chaplain.
The meeting was then opened for business. A discussion
arose relative to the general meetings of chaplains, whether
or not they should be held oftener.
By motion, it was decided that the next general meeting
be held the first Wednesday in December, and that the place
and time be left to the chairman to decide, and give due
notice of the same.
J. W. Willoughby moved that this meeting recommend
the chaplains of each corps to hold regular meetings for con-
sultation, which was adopted.
By motion, a committee was appointed to draught a con-
stitution and by-laws.
By motion, the President, B. W. McDonold, was ap-
pointed on the committee, and he appointed W. T. Hall and
Rev. Mr. Milligan.

168
My Moving Tent.
The Chairman of Committee on Supply of Chaplains made
inquiries relative to the existence of the committee, and if it
could report.
It was decided that this committee had no claim on said
committee.
By motion of W. T. Hall, it was decided that the chap-
lains of each division be requested to furnish the chairman
with the roll of chaplains and the regiments destitute.
The morning session adjourned to meet again in the after-
noon.
Afternoon Session.
The chairman called the meeting to order, and opened it for
business.
The roll was called.
An inquiry was made relative to obtaining supplies of
tracts, papers, Bibles, and Testaments; upon which an in-
formal discussion sprung up. It was left to each chaplain
to regulate the matter himself, after obtaining the desired
information.
An inquiry was made in regard to Christian Associations,
The Chairman requested the Chaplain from each corps to
explain the nature, operation, and success of such associa-
tions.
By motion of J. M. Craig, a Committee on Christian As-
sociations in the Army was appointed, consisting of J. M.
Craig, W. A. Simmons, and J. G. Richards.
The meeting adjourned to meet at 10 A.M.
SECOND DAY.
LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN, November 4, 1863.
After preliminary religious exercises, the chairman de-
clared the meeting open for business.
The roll being called, the minutes were read and approved.
W. T. Hall moved that the meeting be governed by the
usual parliamentary rules, which was adopted.
The subject of chaplains' support was fully discussed, and
referred to a committee consisting of J. M. Craig, W. E.
Walters, and William Burr.
The meeting adjourned to meet in the afternoon.

Confederate Chaplains and Missionaries. 169
Afternoon Session.
The chairman called the meeting to order for business.
The Committee on Chaplains' Support reported, but the
following resolution was offered by W. T. Hall as a sub-
stitute for the committee's report:
"Whereas experience teaches that the religious wants of
the army are most efficiently met by chaplains; and whereas
it is exceedingly desirable that the most efficient clergy-
men of the Church be dedicated to this work; and whereas
it has come to our knowledge that several excellent chap-
lains have already resigned, and many others are known to
be on the point of resigning their positions as chaplains, be-
cause of incompetent support; and whereas frequent changes
of this kind are detrimental to the cause of religion in the
army, and greatly to be deprecated—therefore be it
"Resolved, By the chaplains in Gen. Bragg's army, that we
recommend to the various religious denominations in the
Confederate States of America that they institute an in-
quiry into the support of their ministers in the army, and
prevent the resignation of any for want of competent sup-
port.”
J. M. Craig reported the following resolutions:
“The undersigned chaplains and officers in the Army of
Tennessee do respectfully petition the Congress of the Con-
federate States of America to grant army chaplains the priv-
ilege of drawing forage for one horse. We respectfully but
earnestly lay this petition before your honorable body for
the following reasons:
"1. It not unfrequently happens that the men of middle
age or even older accept appointments as chaplains, and
these men are from lifelong habits and from age wholly un-
fitted for the long and active marches to which their com-
mands are frequently subjected.
"2. The sick and the wounded whom it is the chaplain's
duty to visit are frequently, and especially immediately after
battles, placed at such distances from camp as to make it
absolutely necessary that the chaplain shall have a horse, or
fail to do his duty by those who are in especial need of his
services.

170
My Moving Tent.
"3. Many general officers require the chaplains of their
commands to appear mounted at inspections and on reviews.
"4. All other commissioned staff officers are entitled to
forage for their horses.
"For these reasons we believe it to be but a mere act of
justice on the part of the government toward the chaplains
to give them this privilege; but if in the judgment of your
honorable body it be improper to give the chaplains this
forage, we ask that you will direct the quartermasters to sell
it to them.
"We do further state that we consider this step as abso-
lutely necessary to enable us in many cases to secure and
retain good chaplains in the service.”
W. E. Walters offered the following resolutions:
"Whereas a number of families consisting of women and
children now residing upon the mountains and in the vicinity
of this army are destitute of the means of subsistence; and
whereas it is absolutely impossible for them to obtain bread
by purchase, owing to its scarcity, and the fact that they have
no means of transportation; and whereas some of them have
sons and husbands in the Confederate army, and the wail-
ings of the mother and the wife and the cries of helpless
children should not rise for bread in our very midst, and
rise in vain, unheeded by us—therefore be it
"Resolved: 1. That the poor and suffering women and chil-
dren, especially the families of our soldiers now residing
upon this mountain and in the vicinity of this army, should
be supported.
“2. That we respectfully ask that Gen. Bragg will order
that rations be issued to those poor families, or an oppor-
tunity be afforded them of purchasing necessary supplies
from our commissary department.
"3. That a copy of these preambles and resolutions be
respectfully transmitted by the Secretary of this meeting to
Gen. Braxton Bragg."
B. W. McDonold offered the following resolutions:
“Resolved: 1. That we earnestly pray and toil for the evan-
gelization of the army, and that we make a special business
to pray for each other and to assist each other in our work.

Confederate Chaplains and Missionaries. 171
"2. That we prepare the business for next chaplains' meet-
ing beforehand, giving to it our deliberate thought and
fervent prayer.
"3. That we request all the smaller associations of this
army to send up to our next meeting a written narrative of
the state of religion in their respective fields, with any sug-
gestions for the consideration of the general meeting which
they may choose to make.”
After religious exercises, the meeting was adjourned.
A. D. McVoy, Secretary.

CHAPTER XXVIII.
CONFEDERATE CHRONICLES.
DALTON, GA., December 9, 1863.
The Chaplains' Association of the Army of Tennessee met
according to adjournment in the Presbyterian Church at
Dalton, Ga., at 10 o'clock A.M.
The opening services were conducted by Missionary C.
W. Miller.
The Chairman, Chaplain B. W. McDonold, called the house
to order, when, the Secretary being absent, Chaplain M. B.
DeWitt was appointed Secretary pro tem.
The roll was then called and the following chaplains and
missionaries answered to their names: B. W. McDon-
old, R. T. Norton, M. G. Graham, M. B. DeWitt, J. J. Har-
ris, J. A. Ellis, L. H. Milliken, J. G. Bolton, L. B. Chapman,
G. L. Gray, M. T. Bennett, L. C. Ransom, William Burr,
C. W. Miller, W. Mooney, W. Flinn, and S. A. Kelley.
W. H. Browning was appointed Assistant Secretary pro
teni.
The minutes of the last meeting not appearing, the Chair
called for communications, memorials, and petitions from
chaplains from Corps Associations, etc. Whereupon the
Corresponding Secretary of Hardee's Corps stated that he
had been ordered to present to this association at each reg-
ular meeting a correct report of the state of religion in said
corps. Also that he had been directed to petition the Gen-
eral Association to appoint some chaplain to prepare for
publication a tract on the "Duty of Colonels to Supply Their
Regiments with Chaplains.” Further, he presented a docu-
ment from the same Association containing a protest against
the depredations committed by our soldiers upon the rights
and property of citizens.
The Committee on Constitution and By-Laws made their
report, and after amendments and corrections was adopted
[filed].
The Association then proceeded to the election of officers
(172)

Confederate Chronicles.
173
for its government, which resulted as follows: President,
Chaplain B. W. McDonold; Vice President, Chaplain W. H.
Browning; Secretary, Missionary Wellborn Mooney; As-
sistant Secretary, A. D. McVoy; Corresponding Secretary,
M. B. DeWitt; Treasurer, Missionary William Burr.
On motion, the Association resolved to meet the second
Wednesday of each month at 10 A.M.
The Committee on Memorial to Congress on the subject
of forage for chaplains' horses reported, whereupon Chap-
lain Browning was appointed to forward said memorial to
Congress.
The committee appointed to consider the best mode of
conducting Christian Associations in the army, being un-
prepared to report, were, on motion, allowed further time.
The protest from Hardee's Corps Association was taken
up, and, on motion, unanimously agreed to and indorsed.
A motion to publish said report was laid on the table.
On motion, it was resolved to secure the preparation of a
tract on the "Duty of Colonels to Supply Their Regiments
with Chaplains.”
On motion, a committee consisting of Chaplains Brown-
ing, Bennett, and Chapman was appointed to secure such a
tract as shall meet the wishes of this Association in the form
of a prize essay.
Further, it was resolved that all members of this Associa-
tion shall make efforts to get contributions to provide a suit-
able prize.
On motion, it was resolved that the prize essay shall not
exceed eight pages in length, nor fall short of four, also that
the time for bestowment of prize be limited to three months
from this date.
On motion, a committee consisting of Missionaries
Mooney and Burr and Chaplain Ellis was appointed to se-
cure a suitable tract on "The Depredations of Soldiers on
the Rights and Property of Citizens.”
On motion, the Association adjourned to meet at its next
regular time.
B. W. McDoNOLD, President;
M. B. DEWITT, Secretary pro tem.

174
My Moving Tent.
DALTON, GA., January 12, 1864.
The Chaplains' Association of the Army of Tennessee met
in the Presbyterian Church pursuant to adjournment, and
was opened by religious exercises by the President, Dr. B.
W. McDonold.
On the calling of the roll the following answered to their
names [many are so faded and indistinct as to be illegible].
I make out: B. W. McDonold, W. H. Browning, J. B.
Chapman, T. Page, J. G. Richards, G. T. Gray, W. G. Gra-
ham, J. G. Bolton, W. T. Hall, W. F. Norton, A. Otkin, J.
B. McFerrin, R. P. Ransom, William Burr, Wellborn
Mooney [and a long list of others, whose names, I have no
doubt, are inscribed in the Lamb's Book of Life. I have
tried my best to decipher all, but time and poor ink are not
good insurance agents for the heralds of fame].
The minutes were read and approved. The President called
for communications from Corps Associations. None were
present.
It was moved by W. H. Browning that the subject of pro-
curing a library for the use of chaplains and missionaries of
the Army of Tennessee be discussed.
W. H. Browning moved that steps be taken to secure such
a library. Adopted.
On motion, the following were appointed a committee to
consider the matter and to procure a library: W. H. Brown-
ing, Bennett, and Cherry.
On motion, the President was added to the committee.
The Chairman of Committee for Prize Essay made a brief
verbal report.
The Committee on Christian Associations was, on motion,
discharged.
The Committee on the Tract "Against Depredations on Pri-
vate Property reported that the tract was in process of prep-
aration.
It was resolved that an adjourned meeting be held next
Tuesday to hear the tract read.
W. H. Browning reported that he had forwarded the me-
morial on forage for chaplains' horses to Hon. John V.
Wright, Member of Congress from Tennessee.

Confederate Chronicles.
175
He read a letter on the subject from Mr. Wright.
S. M. Cherry made a statement respecting the depository.
It was moved and adopted that we recommend to the reli-
gious public to send all the papers and tracts, etc., which are in-
tended for circulation in this army, and not for special ap-
propriation, to the care of Rev. S. M. Cherry, tract agent.
It was moved and adopted that a committee of three be
appointed to report to the adjourned meeting our supply of
Bibles. Committee : McDonold, Buck, and Richards.
It was resolved that, in view of the great difficulties sur-
rounding us and the importance of the action of the present
session of Congress, we, the members of this Association,
between this and the next meeting, pray especially for the
light of divine grace to assist that body.
It was resolved that a committee of three be appointed to
prepare a petition to Gen. Johnston and general officers of
this army on the subject of sanctification of the Sabbath,
to be presented to the adjourned meeting. Committee: Mc-
Donold, Richards, and Norton.
Adjourned with prayer. B. W. McDONOLD, President;
A. D. McVoy, Secretary.
DALTON, GA., January 19, 1864.
Adjourned meeting of the General Chaplains' Association
met pursuant to adjournment in the Presbyterian Church.
Calling of the roll was omitted.
Committee on Supply of Bibles for this Army reported, and
the report was received, amended, and adopted as follows:
“Hon. James A. Seddon.
“Sir: The undersigned committee on behalf of the Army of
Tennessee beg leave to state that there is great destitution
of the Scripture in this army, and to inquire whether it is
consistent with the interests of the country for us to procure
Bibles for the army from the enemy.”
The committee to prepare a memorial on the Sanctifica-
tion of the Sabbath presented the following report, which
was adopted and ordered to be presented to the general
officers of the commands. (See report.)
Committee on tract entitled "Depredations on Private

176
My Moving Tent.
Property” submitted the following tract, which was received,
amended, and adopted, and a committee appointed to super-
intend publication, consisting of the following: Bennett, Burr,
and Hall.
Adjourned with prayer.
B. W. McDONOLD, President;
A. D. McVoy, Secretary.
DALTON, GA., February 10, 1864.
Chaplains' Association of the Army of Tennessee met pur-
suant to adjournment in the Presbyterian Church, and was
opened with religious exercises by Chaplain T. G. Hughes,
after which the chairman called the meeting to order for
business.
The roll being called, the following members answered to
their names: B. W. McDonold, W. H. Browning, W. T.
Bennett, S. M. Cherry, A. D. McVoy, J. A. Ellis, W. T.
Hall, W. F. Norton, J. H. Thompson, R. G. Porter, B. F.
Perry, C. W. Buck, A. F. Smith, A. B. Fears, J. T. Gwin,
G. R. Talley, M. B. DeWitt, R. M. Norton, J. G. Richards,
W. W. Graham, J. F. McCutchen, Robert McCoy, J. B. Mc-
Ferrin, J. S. Holt, William Flinn, T. S. West, T. G. Hughes,
C. M. Hutton, H. H. Kavanaugh, I. G. Long, G. A. Cald-
well.
The minutes of the last meeting were read and approved.
Surgeon J. H. Gibbs was invited to a seat as advisory
inember.
M. B. DeWitt presented a communication on state of
religion in Hardee's Corps.
W. T. Bennett presented a similar communication from
Hindman's Corps. Both indicated a very encouraging state
of religion in the respective corps..
B. W. McDonold, chairman of committee to secure Bibles,
reported he had corresponded with the Secretary of War,
whether it were possible to obtain Bibles from the enemy.
That an answer from the Secretary of War stated that there
was no commerce whatever with the enemy, and that there-
fore the Bibles could not be procured in this way.

Confederate Chronicles.
177
S. M. Cherry read a communication from Rev. A. M. Mil-
ler in reference to the Evangelical Tract Society.
W. H. Browning reported verbally from the Committee on
Supply of Religious Exercises, stating that every regiment
in Hardee's Corps, except Cleburne's Division, had been
visited and supplied with preaching.
W. H. Browning, for Committee on Prize Tract, reported
verbally, and requested further time, which was granted.
W. T. Bennett, Chairman on Committee to publish tract
on "Depredations on Private Property,” reported that the
tract publishers at Macon were willing to adopt and publish
the tract as their own.
J. G. Richards introduced the following, which was
adopted:
"Resolved, That the General Association recommend to
the chaplains and missionaries of the several brigades to
furnish their Corps Associations statistical tables stating the
amount of reading matter distributed, showing the number
of prayer meetings held, sermons preached, the number of
Christian Associations and memberships, and that the Corps
Associations report the same to this Association.”
J. B. McFerrin moved that the Secretary notify the chap-
lains and missionaries of this army in regard to these reso-
lutions.
The following committee were appointed to draught a
blank form for the above statistical report: B. W. McDonold,
B. F. Perry, and J. G. Richards.
W. T. Bennett introduced a resolution in reference to the
discouragement of any denominational peculiarities preju-
dicial to the interests of Zion in the army, which was laid
upon the table as unnecessary.
W. T. Hall introduced a resolution to overture the Pres-
ident of the Confederate States of America to appoint an
early day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer.
A substitute was adopted that a committee be appointed
to memorialize the President of the Confederate States of
America in reference to the above subject, consisting of W.
T. Hall, M. B. De Witt, and C. W. Buck.
M. B. DeWitt introduced the following:
I 2

178
My Moving Tent.
"Resolved, That we, the chaplains and missionaries of the
Army of Tennessee, in Association assembled, do most ear-
nestly, yet respectfully, petition the Congress of the Confed-
erate States of America to so alter or amend the army reg-
ulations as to forbid all reviews, inspections, and other
parades, and, indeed, all other work not essentially necessary
to the security of the army, on the Sabbath day. God has
commanded us to keep this day holy, which cannot be done
under the present regulations."
W. H. Browning presented the following as a substitute for
the above, which was adopted:
"Resolved, That we, as chaplains and missionaries of this
army, present a memorial from the army to Congress to re-
move existing regulations affecting the sanctity of the Sab-
bath.”
The following committee was appointed to forward the
petition to Congress: W. H. Browning, M. B. DeWitt, and
J. T. Page.
J. F. McCutchen introduced a resolution in reference to a
monthly fast, which after some discussion was withdrawn.
· Adjournment with prayer.
B. W. McDONOLD, President;
A. D. McVoy, Secretary.

CHAPTER XXIX.
THE ROLL CALL.
PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, DALTON, GA., March 9, 1864.
The General Association of the Chaplains and Mission-
aries of the Army of Tennessee met pursuant to adjourn-
ment.
After prayer meeting conducted by Chaplain Gray, the
president took the chair and called the meeting to order. The
following members answered to their names: W. T. Hall, J.
B. Chapman, B. W. McDonold, W. F. Norton, G. T. Gray, W.
H. Browning, J. B. McFerrin, R. L. Wiggins, J. G. Richards,
J. S. Holt, William Burr, W. W. Graham, R. A. Wilson, W.
Mooney, H. H. Kavanaugh, J. N. Myers, T. Page, W. W. Hen-
drix, R. B. Lester, J. G. Bolton, J. A. Wiggins, W. P. Mc-
Bride, R. P. Ransom, S. R. Lester, O. P. Caldwell, A. D. Mc-
Voy, J. G. Johnson, T. H. Davenport, L. B. Payne, W. A.
Harrison, W. H. Robert, J. A. Myers, E. C. Boggs.
The minutes of the last meeting were read and, after verbal
changes, approved. Judge M. G. Wellburne, a colporteur to
the army, and Rev. M. E. Hanks, a.visiting preacher, were in-
vited to seats as advisory members.
Communications were called for. The corresponding secre-
tary read a most encouraging report in regard to the state of
religion in Hood's Corps. (See paper marked A.)
W. H. Browning moved that general missionaries report to
corps associations, which motion was so amended as to allow
such reports to be made to this body to-day, and then adopted.
W. H. Browning made a verbal report from the Association
of Chaplains and Missionaries of Hardee's Corps, suggesting
the propriety of prayers at dress parade.
The chairman of the committee on prize essay submitted
the following: “Your committee appointed to procure the
writing of a prize tract on the importance of the office of chap-
lain, and the obligations resting upon commanders of regiments
to see that their commands are supplied with chaplains, beg
leave to report that they have used all diligence to procure the
(179)

180
My Moving Tent.
writing of said tract, and that they have received but four
manuscripts; and, while none of them are what we would like
them to be, we present the following, as in our judgment, the
best. That the sum of $273 was handed to the committee as a
prize and to assist in its publication. The author of the manu-
script selected requests, should his production be accepted, that
the whole amount should be appropriated to its publication.
All of which is respectfully submitted.
W. H. BROWNING,
W. T. BENNETT,
J. B. CHAPMAN,
Committee."
It was moved and carried that the report be received and
the committee discharged.
B. W. McDonold, chairman of the committee to draft
blank forms for statistical reports, stated that the form had
been drafted, and presented to and adopted by the Association
of Chaplains and Missionaries in Hood's Corps, but had not
been presented to the Association in Hardee's Corps.
The committee appointed to forward a memorial to Congress
in regard to the proper observance of the Sabbath, reported
that they had not received any petition on this subject.
The committee appointed to memorialize President Davis as
to a day of fasting and prayer, reported that that duty had been
performed.
It was moved that the tract selected by the Committee on
Prize Essay be read, which motion, after some animated dis-
cussion, prevailed, and the tract was read by the chairman of
the committee.
Chaplain Page was called to the chair.
Dr. McDonold offered the following:
"Resolved, That all four of the tracts, together with the
money, be referred to the Evangelical Tract Society, with the
request that they procure and publish a premium tract on this
subject.”
Chaplain Browning proposed this as a substitute for the
above resolution:
"Resolved. That we present the sum of $273 to the Board of
Managers of the Evangelical Tract Society with the request
that they offer it as a prize for a tract on the importance of

The Roll Call.
181
the office of chaplain and the necessity of procuring chaplains
in each regiment."
This substitute was accepted by the author of the resolution
and adopted by the Association, whereupon W. H. Browning
was appointed to forward this noney and to make known the
wishes of this body to the managers of the Evangelical So-
ciety.
Unfinished business was called for. There was none.
NEW BUSINESS.
Chaplain Otken presented the following: "That this Asso-
ciation memoralizes his Excellency, President Davis, to permit
ministers of the gospel now in the ranks to be appointed to the
position of chaplains when properly recommended and quali-
fied for this sacred office.”
This resolution was adopted, and Otken, Chapman, and
Mooney were charged with the duty of presenting this memo-
rial.
Dr. McFerrin read a report of his labors as general mis-
sionary, from January 31 to February 28, 1864. See report
marked B.
Several chaplains from the cavalry reported their labors,
and invited others to come over and help them.
It was moved by W. T. Hall that the minister simply record
results. The inotion was lost.
On motion, the treasurer was instructed to pay the assistant
clerk six dollars for stationery purchased by him.
On motion, the Association adjourned with prayer by Rev.
Brother Hendrix.
B. W. McDONOLD, Pres.;
WELLBORN MOONEY, Clerk.
DALTON, GA., March 8, 1864.
To the Chaplains' and Missionaries' Association of the Army of Tennessee.
Brethren: The Corresponding Secretary of the Chaplains'
Association of Hood's Corps begs leave to present the follow-
ing brief report of the state of religion in the said corps:
The following brigades were the only ones heard from since
the last meeting: Lewis's, Findley's, Brown's, Walthall's,
Managault's, Deas's, and Clayton's. In Findley's, Brown's,

182
My Moving Tent.
Deas's, and Clayton's Brigades a series of interesting revival
meetings are in progress, promising great and good results.
Already a large number have been converted, and have con-
nected themselves with the different Churches. A number
have been baptized, while there are others awaiting baptism.
In Clayton's Brigade the meeting has been in progress six
weeks, and still continues with unabated interest. Eighty have
presented themselves at different occasions as the subjects of
prayer. Twenty-seven converted, iour baptized, ten awaiting
baptism, and twenty-four have connected with the different
branches of the Church.
In Findley's Brigade a meeting of unusual interest is in
progress, having been but recently commenced. Eight, thus
far, have joined the different Churches. The meeting is daily
increasing in interest, and the prospect is of the most encoura-
ging character.
In Managault's Brigade prayer meetings of peculiar interest
were held in line of battle, in wliich much earnest feeling was
manifested by the troops.
In Deas's Brigade a general feeling of interest in religion
prevails, and a good prospect for a revival is apparent. Six
have been converted and joined the Church.
In Walthall's Brigade troops eagerly receive and appreciate
religious reading. Divine services and Bible classes are regu-
larly held and well attended. No marked or unusual religious
feeling yet manifested, but a good prospect indicated.
In Brown's Brigade an interesting meeting is in progress,
and a number of conversions reported. The chaplains speak
most encouragingly of a most hopeful state of things, indul-
ging the pleasing thought that the army is better in morals and
Christian character while immured in winter quarters, prepar-
ing physically, morally, and spiritually for the stern realities
and severe ordeals of the opening campaign—the Bible read,
the gospel appreciated, attendance on public worship good and
increasing, Christians praying, numbers seeking Christ, and
numbers converted, rejoicing in the newly discovered hope of
eternal life. Thus there are many features that revive and
cheer the hearts of the chaplains and missionaries of this
corps.
Under the blessing of God we look for greater results to

The Roll Call.
183
crown the labors of the devoted ministers of God—the refor-
mation of the soldiers' life, and the salvation of his soul.
All of which is respectfully submitted.
A. D. McVoy, Cor. Sec.,
Chaplains' Association, Hood's Corps.
B.
Report of missionary labors from January 31 to February
28, 1864, by J. B. McFerrin, Missionary in the Army of Ten-
nessee:
To the Chaplains' and Missionaries' Association of the Army of Tennessee.
The undersigned, in compliance with the request of the As-
sociation at last meeting, begs leave to submit the following
report, viz.: He preached in the month, including the last day
of January and the 28th day of February, twenty-two sermons;
visited the hospitals at Kingston, conducted many prayer meet-
ings, received the names and gave certificates to fifty-three
candidates for membership in the Church of Christ, and bap-
tized nine persons in the name of the Holy Trinity. He dis-
tributed a few copies of religious books and tracts, and held
various religious conversations with sinners on the subject of
religion. Nineteen of the sermons were delivered in and near
Kingston, Ga., one at Tilton, and one to Gen. Polk's Brigade
in the field, and one at Dalton. The meeting at Kingston was
continued about three weeks. It was a season of refreshing
from the presence of the Lord. Most of the converts were
young men belonging to battalions of battery camped near the
town, yet some of the citizens, and some of the inmates of the
hospital were partakers of the benefits.
He had the efficient coöperation of Rev. R. A. Wilson, post
chaplain, the aid of Maj. A. L. Hamilton, post quartermaster,
and a passing visit from Rev. R. P. Ransom, Rev. C. W.
Miller, and Rev. Dr. Stiles, missionaries.
The meeting, he trusts, was productive of much good.
J. B. McFERRIN, Missionary in the Army of Tennessee.

CHAPTER XXX.
MORE MINUTES.
The General Association of the Chaplains and Missionaries
of the Army of Tennessee met pursuant to adjournment.
In the absence of the president and the vice president, Rev.
G. A. Caldwell was called to the chair. He conducted brief
religious services, after which the Association was pronounced
ready for the transaction of business.
The roll being called, the following members responded to
their names: A. D. McVoy, S. M. Cherry, J. H. Tomkins, W.
W. Graham, J. H. Jenkins, J. T. Gwinn, J. A. Ellis, G. R. Tal-
ley, T. G. Hughes, J. N. Myers, W. W. Hendrix, L. R. Red-
ding, R. B. Lester, O. B. Caldwell, W. P. McBride, J. G. Bol-
ton, T. Page, M. B. DeWitt, R. L. Wiggins, C. A. Otken, Well-
born Mooney, R. P. Ransom, T. H. Davenport, T. H. M. Hen-
derson, L. C. Boggs, W. A. Robert, J. P. De Pas, M. T. Rosser,
J. W. McGee, C. W. Miller, W. A. Wood, J. L. Neese, A. Van-
Hoose, D. Hayes, T. C. Teasdale, G. A. Caldwell.
The minutes were read and, after slight verbal change, were
approved.
Revs. M. E. Hanks, R. M. Powell, W. J. Wardlaw, and
Hon. J. L. M. Curry were invited to seats as advisory mem-
bers.
J. B. McFerrin, W. A. Harrison, C. W. Buck, L. B. Payne,
W. A. Parks, H. H. Kavanaugh, and Thomas Turner came in
and took their seats.
Communications were called for. Brother DeWitt, Corre-
sponding Secretary, Hardee's Corps, made a most gratifying
report, accompanied with statistics of the state of religion in
that corps. The report was received, but, the statistics not hav-
ing been put in the hands of the secretary, he is unable to give
the aggregate numbers.
Brother McVoy, Corresponding Secretary, presented a sta-
tistical report in regard to the state of religion in Hood's
Corps, which was received, and shows 16 chaplains, 6 mission-
aries, 5 Christian associations, 1,553 members in these associ-
(184)

More Minutes.
185
ations or in the Church; died, --; killed, 10; 156 members
in Sunday schools; 55 regular prayer meetings; 224 sermons
preached; 734 Bibles on hand; 539 Testaments on hand; 579
hymn books on hand; 146,739 pages of tracts distributed;
5,636 religious papers distributed; 153 conversions; 37 bap-
tized; 131 joined the Church; 350 at the altar for prayers;
20,700 pages of books and magazines.
Chaplain McVoy represented that the statistics furnished
him were very imperfect, not showing fully the happy revival
influence with which that corps is blessed. Only seven bri-
gades reported at all.
Rev. O. B. Caldwell presented a report on the Chaplains'
Association of Hume's Brigade of Cavalry, Tunnel Hill, April
II, 1864, which was received, and shows: Chaplains, 4; mis-
sionaries, 1; Evangelical Associations, 4; members, 110; died,
I; killed, —; regular prayer meeting, I; sermons preached, 16;
conversions, 5; Bibles on hand, —; Testaments on hand, 25;
hymn books, — ; Bibles distributed, 2; Testaments distributed,
841; religious papers distributed, 750; members of Bible class-
es, 105. Brother Caldwell stated that there was a good deal
of religious interest in this brigade, and invited his brother
ministers to visit and preach to the cavalry.
S. M. Cherry, being called on for a report, gave a summary
of his labors as agent and chaplain the past two months, from
which it appears that he has furnished the chaplains, mission-
aries, and soldiers of the Army of Tennessee 12,860 copies of
religious newspapers, 300,000 pages of tracts, 1,500 hymn
books, 200 Bibles, 900 Testaments, and a lot of miscellaneous
religious books, besides preaching 26 sermons.
J. B. McFerrin, from the joint committee in Hardee's and
Hood's Corps, on the subject of procuring a suitable hymn
book for this army, reported verbally that this enterprise was
impracticable, which report was received and adopted.
Brother Page reported the following: “The Corresponding
Secretary of the Evangelical Tract Society of Petersburg, Va.,
reports he will receive the premium offered by this Associa-
tion, and procure the writing of the tract called for, and also
asks that a further sum be created by this Association to meet
the expenses of publication. This is the substance of a letter
written by the Corresponding Secretary of the Evangelical

186
My Moving Tent.
Tract Society, Petersburg, Va., to Brother Browning, chair-
man of your committee.” (Signed T. Page.)
Whereupon L. R. Redding offered the following resolution,
which was adopted:
“Resolved, That Brother Page be requested to say in reply
to the communication of the Evangelical Tract Society that
this Association declines to take any further action on the
subject.”
Brother Otken, chairman of the committee appointed to
memorialize President Davis in reference to the promotion of
ministers of the gospel in the ranks to the position of chap-
lains, reported that said memorial had been forwarded, but no
reply received as yet. The report was received and adopted.
Unfinished business was next in order. There was none.
New BUSINESS.
M. B. DeWitt presented a revised form of statistical re-
ports, which, on motion of Brother McVoy, was adopted in
lieu of the one now in use.
Chaplain DeWitt proposed this:
"Resolved, That this General Association appoint a suitable
person to collect materials for a history of the great revival of
religion in the Confederate States army.”
On motion, this resolution was laid on the table, and made
the order of the day for 12 o'clock M., at the next meeting of
the Association.
A. D. McVoy and M. B. DeWitt were appointed to pre-
pare blank forms for statistical reports, the former for Hood's
and the latter for Hardee's Corps.
The Association adjourned with prayer by Brother Talley.
GEORGE A. CALDWELL, President;
WELLBORN MOONEY, Clerk.

CHAPTER XXXI.
MURMURS OF THE DRUM AND FIFE.
MURMURS of the drum and fife!
How far the music rings.
But high above the sounds of strife,
A song of better things.
METHODIST CHURCH, MARIETTA, GA., June 20, 1864.
The General Association of Chaplains and Missionaries of
the Army of Tennessee met in obedience to the call of the
president.
After prayer meeting, conducted by the chairman, B. W.
McDonold, and a brief address by the same, in which he gave
his reasons for calling the present meeting, the Association
proceeded to the transaction of business.
The roll being called, the following answered to their
names: B. W. McDonold, M. B. DeWitt, J. H. Tomkins, R. G.
Porter, G. H. Talley, William Burr, W. C. Molloy, A. O. Stan-
ley, F. F. Glenn, T. H. Weir, J. B. Stone, A. G. Bakewell, C.
M. Coffee, R. H. Whitehead, G. W. Johnson, E. M. Bounds,
J. L. Latimore, Anthony Burroughs.
The minutes of the preceding meeting were read and ap-
proved.
Communications were called for.
Chaplains McVoy and DeWitt gave encouraging verbal re-
ports of the state of religion in their respective Corps—Har-
dee's and Hood's—but did not present the usual statistical re-
ports, the active operations of the army having prevented the
preparation of such.
Brother Cherry reported that he had distributed since the
last meeting of the Association 20,000 papers and 60,000 pages
of tracts.
T. C. Weir reported that within the last year there had been
quite an increase of chaplains in Polk's Corps, and that a wave
of revival influence had visited and refreshed that part of our
army.
Brother Latimore, and other brethren, also testified that
(187)

188
My Moving Tent.
Polk's Corps had enjoyed a time of refreshing from the pres-
ence of the Lord.
William Burr announced that Roddy's Cavalry had been
blessed with an extensive revival of religion.
The following members came in and took their seats: J. P.
De Pas, R. L. Wiggins, W. P. Foster, and G. T. Gray.
Reports of standing committees were called for, but, none
being presented, the chairman called for reports of special
committees.
Wellborn Mooney, of the special committee appointed to
memorialize President Davis in reference to the promotion of
ministers of the gospel to the position of chaplains, reported
and read an elegant and courteous reply from his Excellency,
every way favorable to such promotion. Whereupon it was
moved and carried that this report be received, and that the
committee be discharged from further duty, and that Presi-
dent Davis's letter be spread upon the minutes.
“CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA, EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT,
RICHMOND, VA., April 19, 1864.
“Rev. Charles H. Otken, Rev. J. B. Chapman, Rev. W.
Mooney, Committee, Dalton, Ga.
“Gentlemen : The President has received your letter of March
9, and directs me to express to you his deep sense of the im-
portance of regular and earnest religious instruction and con-
solation to our brave soldiers. He does not presume to doubt
the necessity of chaplains in full numbers, and knows of no
barrier to the promotion of such from the ranks. On the other
hand, he considers the spirit which prompts ministers to volun-
teer as privates in the ranks and serve their country in so
glorious and trying position as an earnest of their fitness for
the duties of chaplain, where knowledge of the wants as well
as zeal for the good of the soldier is required. The presence
of a large number of these devoted men in the ranks of the
army has contributed greatly to elevate and purify the reli-
gious tone and sentiment of our gallant soldiers; and, while it
may not be possible to provide for all of these as chaplains, thus
rendering necessary a discrimination as to their claims, no in-
tention exists to preclude them from receiving the sanction and
countenance of law in their honorable efforts by promotion.

Murmurs of the Drum and Fife.
189
"Thanking you for your kind wishes and prayers in his be-
half, the President wishes me to convey to you the assurance
of his esteem and of his appreciation of the great work in which
you are engaged.
"I am, gentlemen, very respectfully your obedient servant,
WILLIAM PRESTON JOHNSON, Colonel and A. D. C.”
Brother Page reported that he, as requested, had written
the Corresponding Secretary of the Evangelical Tract Society,
informing him that this Association had declined to take any
further action on the subject of procuring a tract on “The
Importance of the Office of Chaplain," etc., which report was
received, and Brother Page discharged from further duty.
Here the Chair announced that the hour (noon) had arrived
for which the following resolution had been made the order of
the day:
"Resolved, That the General Association appoint a suitable
person to collect materials for 'The History of the Great Re-
vival in the Confederate States Army.''
This resolution having been read by the clerk, it was moved
by Wellborn Mooney to lay it on the table, and make it the
order of the day for 12 o'clock at the next regular meeting of
the body, which motion was lost.
After considerable discussion the house proceeded to vote
on the original resolution.
The ayes and noes were called for, with the following result:
Ayes: A. D. McVoy, M. B. DeWitt, J. H. Tomkins, S. M.
Cherry, G. R. Tally, William Burr, Wellborn Mooney, H. S.
Moore, A. O. Stanley, T. F. Glenn, T. C. Wier, J. B. Stone,
C. M. Coffee, G. W. Johnson, Anthony Burroughs, R. G. Por-
ter, R. S. Wiggins, G. T. Gray, and J. W. Ready-19.
Noes: W. T. Hall, C. W. Buck, T. Page, A. G. Blakewell,
R. H. Whitehead, C. M. Gordon, E. M. Bounds, J. L. Lati-
more, and J. D. De Pas–9.
The resolution was then adopted, Dr. B. W. McDonold hav-
ing been excused from voting.
On motion, it was resolved to appoint a committee of five
to nominate the suitable person contemplated in this resolution,
and to report to the next meeting of the General Association.
Whereupon the chair appointed the following brethren on the

190
My Moving Tent.
said committee: S. M. Cherry, M. B. DeWitt, C. H. Otken, J.
G. Richards, and J. S. Latimore.
Unfinished business was declared in order, but there was
none,
NEW BUSINESS.
On motion of Brother Hall, a committee was raised to no-
tice appropriately the death of any member of this Association
who may have died since the last meeting.
W. T. Hall, C. W. Buck, and R. L. Wiggins were placed on
this committee.
No further business appearing, the Association adjourned
with prayer by Brother Hall, to convene on the second Wednes-
day in next month (July), at such place as shall be hereafter
designated.
B. W. McDONOLD, President;
WELLBORN MOONEY, Clerk.

CHAPTER XXXII.
God's HEROES.
Not on the gory field of Fame
Their noble deeds were done;
Not in the sound of earth's acclaim
Their fadeless crowns were won.
SECOND BAPTIST CHURCH, ATLANTA, GA., August 10, 1864.
The General Association of Chaplains and Missionaries of
the Army of Tennessee niet pursuant to adjournment.
Prayer meeting was conducted by Brother Wright.
The president being absent, Vice President Browning pre-
sided.
By common consent the calling of the roll was omitted.
The minutes of the last meeting were read and approved.
Communications were called for.
It was moved by Brother Cherry, and carried, that the
House hear an account of the state of religion in the army,
so far as the brethren present may be prepared to give it.
Hardee's Corps, Cleburne's Division: An increasing reli-
gious interest.
Bate's Division: Chaplain's laboring when opportunity
serves, and their labors, under the blessing of God, crowned
with more or less success.
Cheatham's Division: A happy spiritual influence in
Wright's and Gist's Brigades.
Stewart's Corps, Walthall's Division: A pleasant state of
things in Canty's Brigade.
French's Division: Great interest on the subject of reli-
gion in Crockett's Brigade, also a happy influence in Sears's
and Eaton's Brigades.
Loring's Division: Scott's, Featherstone's, and Adams's
Brigades are all blessed with an outpouring of the Spirit, and
many souls are turning to God. Fifty to sixty conversions in
the past eight or ten days.
Lee's Corps, Clayton's Division: A deep religious feeling
throughout the command. The men are hungering and thirst-
(191)

192
My Moving Tent.
ing for the word of life. Several have lately been born unto
God in each of the brigades.
Stevens's Division: The good work goes on in Cumming's
Brigade. Many have joined the Church of late. There is also
a good influence in Brown's Brigade.
Anderson's Division: A blessed influence in this command.
Great anxiety for religious reading. In Roddy's and Ghol-
son's Cavalry Brigades there is a number of penitents, and
great desire for chaplains or missionaries.
The Association being thinly attended, the account of the
spiritual condition was meager, though highly encouraging.
S. M. Cherry reported that since the last meeting of this
Association he had furnished for the use and benefit of the
army 20 Bibles, 950 Testaments, and 16,000 religious newspa-
pers.
G. W. Johnson and J. M. McCutchen came in and took their
seats.
REPORTS OF STANDING COMMITTEES.
It was moved, and carried, that Brother Cherry be relieved
from the committee appointed to nominate a suitable person
to collect materials for the history of the great religious re-
vivals in the Confederate States army.
On motion, Wellborn Mooney was put in his place as chair-
man of this committee.
The committee charged with noticing appropriately the
death of the lamented Brother McMullen, failed to report,
none of them being present, whereupon it was ordered that
J. A. Walker and A. D. McVoy be added to this committee.
The chairman of the committee appointed to prepare a
memoir of Brothers Smith and Johnson represented that he
had no report, and was not sufficiently acquainted with these
dear brethren to furnish a suitable memoir. Therefore, on
motion of G. R. Tally, the committee was relieved from fur-
ther duty. It was then moved, and carried, to raise another
committee of three to prepare the memoirs in question. S. M.
Cherry, S. Holt, and J. B. Mack were placed on this commit-
tee.
Unfinished business, none.

God's Heroes.
193
New BUSINESS.
Chairman Tally presented the following resolution, which,
on motion of Brother Johnston, was laid on the table and
made the order of business for 12 o'clock M., at the next meet-
ing of this body:
"Resolved, That the chaplains and missionaries of the dif-
ferent corps in the Tennessee army unite in one General As-
sociation, to meet twice a month, and that the meeting be
opened with a sermon.
G. R. TALLY,
S. M. CHERRY.”
The Association then adjourned with prayer by Rev. Mr.
Johnston.
W. H. BROWNING, Vice President;
WELLBORN MOONEY, Clerk.
The General Association of the Chaplains and Missionaries
of the Army of Tennessee met pursuant to adjournment.
After prayer meeting conducted by Brother Bennett, Dr.
McDonold took the chair.
The roll was called, and the following members answered to
their names: B. W. McDonold, W. T. Bennett, M. B. DeWitt,
R. W. Norton, L. R. Redding, J. G. Bolton, William Burr,
Wellborn Mooney, W. S. Moore, J. P. De Pas, J. L. Cooper, J.
S. Mathis, J. V. Pointer, George P. Birdwell, C. M. Coffee, E.
M. Bounds, G. W. Johnson, A. Burroughs, H. L. Harvey.
The minutes of the last meeting were read and approved.
Communications were called for.
Chaplain DeWitt, Corresponding Secretary, reported ver-
bally that in Hardee's Corps' there were some precious revivals
of religion, and that the chaplains and missionaries associated
with that command are laboring harmoniously and successfully
in that wide and extended field, now "white unto the harvest."
Owing to the active movements of the troops, and their fre-
quent engagements with the enemy, he had been unable to pre-
pare a statistical report.
Brother Cooper, Corresponding Secretary Stewart's Corps,
made a most gratifying report in regard to the spiritual con-
dition of that corps.
Brother McVoy, Corresponding Secretary Lee's Corps, be-
ing absent, no report was presented.

194
My Moving Tent.
J. L. Cooper presented a communication on the destitution
and want of Bibles and Testaments in Stewart's Corps, which
was received and docketed.
Reports of standing committees came next in order. There
were none.
REPORTS OF SPECIAL COMMITTEES.
The committee appointed to prepare memoirs of Revs.
McMullen, Johnson, and Smith being all absent, and, some of
them having failed previously to report, were therefore dis-
charged.
J. T. Latimore came in and took his seat.
The clerk read the following report:
“The undersigned members of the committee appointed to
nominate a suitable person to collect materials for a history of
the great revival of religion in the Confederate States army beg
leave to report that they have been unable to have a consulta-
tion with Revs. J. G. Richards and J. L. Latimore, the other
members of the committee. That after a free conference
among themselves they have unanimously agreed to propose
the name of Brig. Gen. M. P. Lowrey as a suitable person to
perform this important work; therefore be it
"Resolved, That this Association do respectfully request
the Rev. Brig. Gen. M. P. Lowrey to proceed at his earliest
opportunity to collect materials for a history of the great re-
ligious revival in the Confederate States army, and to put the
same in the hands of the clerk of this body, to be held by him
subject to its order and disposal.
W. MOONEY,
M. B. DEWITT,
C. H. OTKEN.”
Redding moved the adoption of the report entire.
H. S. Moore moved, as a substitute, that the clerk of this
Association be appointed to do the work. Withdrawn.
Moved by Mooney, and carried, that the resolution be re-
considered as to the Confederate States army.
Armies of Tennessee and Mississippi were inserted, and the
report adopted.
Mooney, DeWitt, Otken, Latimore, and Richardson were
appointed to wait on Gen. Lowrey.
Rev. Wellborn Mooney reported a gracious revival in Low-

God's Heroes.
195
rey's Brigade, Cleburne's Division, in which he had been as-
sisted by Rev. Dr. Teasdale, of the Missionary Baptist Church,
and by Gen. Lowrey, of the same Church. Many brave men
from the ranks had been convicted and were gloriously con-
verted. One hundred and twenty-five were at the altar for
prayers at one time. Eighty-seven soldiers were baptized at
one service.
NEW BUSINESS.
The resignation of W. H. Browning, the worthy vice presi-
dent, was tendered, and accepted with sincere regret that his
failing health rendered it necessary that he should retire from
the chaplaincy.
The Association adjourned with prayer by Brother Burr, to
meet in obedience to the call of the President at army head-
quarters Wednesday at 10 o'clock.
Whether that meeting was ever held this scribe
saith not. Now the rest of the acts of the Associa-
tion and its goodness, and its deeds first and last, be-
hold, are they not written in the Lamb's Book of
Life? “When the roll is called up yonder,” may there
be no absent member!
Before closing these records I recall an incident
which many of the old soldiers will remember. It
occurred in Cheatham's Division during the great re-
vival in the Army of Tennessee. The services were
conducted one night near a dead tree which was on
fire. The fire was noticed, but it was agreed there was
no danger. The sermon was preached, and seekers
of religion were invited. Many came, and while they
were being instructed and prayed for, without the
slightest warning the tree fell between two of the
preachers, Rev. Allen Tribble and Rev. J. G. Bolton.
They both escaped unharmed, but a dozen or more
soldiers were killed or wounded.

CHAPTER XXXIII.
THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH.
THE breaking up of camps throughout the South
necessarily led to much moving of tents among all
classes. The old home life was a thing of the past.
Thc laborer was no longer worthy of his hire, and
had lie been worthy his former owner could not have
afforded to "keep” him.
Many, indeed, had been the hearts anxious for the
war to cease; but, weary as the waiting was at home,
the earnest exhortation to loved ones in the army had
been, “Stay on till all is over; we can endure." Nor
was this spirit lacking when the remnants of the
Southern army returned, and had to begin the battle
for bread without hoe or plow or horse; for though
the last was a concession at the surrender, such were
the obstructions on the part of speculators already
hungry and ready to take advantage of the helpless,
that not many reached home with a horse. Truly,
the oid order was passing, "giving way to new,” the
like of which had not been seen, and from the like of
which “may the good Lord deliver us!” The visage
of the times was rough indeed. There were wild ran-
gers in every forest claiming that the land was forfeited
to the government and forty acres and a mule would
be given to each freedman. War at its worst estate
was scarcely so bad as the troublous times known as
"reconstruction.” Domestic affairs were in a deplor-
able condition.
In December (18), 1865, the thirteenth amendment,
(196)

The Old Order Changeth. 197
abolishing slavery, was adopted as part of the Consti-
tution, and at once there was an exodus of many of
the old-time faithful attachés of the fallen fortunes
of their masters, and who would have remained faith-
ful but for the evil counsels of bad white men come
hither from the ends of the earth to prey, to plunder,
and for political purposes.
Fluentes Omnium (“fragged robins”) and vultures,
whose sharp beaks found no dead body too filthy for
picking, if perchance some morsel could be found to
appease for a time the insatiable appetite. The Freed-
men's Bureau, Civil Rights, and Tenure of Office
bills were all extremely oppressive measures upon the
former land owners and slaveholders. The Tenure
of Office bill especially, because, while the second bill
guaranteed to the negroes the rights of citizenship,
the last virtually disfranchised their former owners,
"as a requisite demanded by Congress for holding
office was that every candidate should swear that he
had not participated in the secession movement.”
This virtually excluded Southern men from holding
office, and was the sowing of dragon's teeth that gave
for successive years a wild crop of adventurers known
as “carpetbaggers” or beggars.
Nor was the Church exempt from the evils that in-
fested the State. Every available means was used to
retain possession of our churches (many of which had
been used as hospitals), even when soldiers had gone
and we were no longer under military rule. "Ab-
sorption" was a much-mooted theme in certain cler-
ical circles. I know an instance in which a missionary
came "to take possession" of one of our wealthiest
and most influential Methodist churches !

198
My Moving Tent.
But enough, 'twere long to tell of the haps and
mishaps till the convening of the Edgefield Confer-
ence, October 4-11, 1865, Bishop H. H. Kavanaugh
presiding, and Rev. R. A. Young, D.D., Secretary.
The brethren had never sung with such pathos, such
expressed emotion:
“What troubles have we seen,
What conflicts we have passed,
Fightings without and fears within,
Since we assembled last!
But out of all, the Lord
Hath brought us by his love;
And still he doth his help afford,
And hides our life above."
Six preachers had died during the year, names to
memory ever dear-viz., Benjamin F. Smith, Abra-
ham Overall, Moses M. Henkle, John Kelley, Daniel
H. Jones, and Samuel S. Moody.
The appointing of the preachers, always a delicate
and difficult work, was doubly so this year by reason
of great losses during the war, losses affecting the
resources of the Church for years to come. But many
of the old leaders were yet at the helm; and, though
the old ship had been tossed to and fro, it had not
suffered shipwreck; and, while some had entered the
sweet haven of rest, those that remained were of good
cheer and gave thanks to God.
I had taught school as best I could the last year of
the war, and had a little money when it was over.
When our tent was moved the remainder amounted
to thirty-five cents, and there were five of us! This
was not an exceptional case; some were not even so
well provided. The general condition and sentiment
were pithily expressed by Capt. Sam Morgan on the

The Old Order Changeth. 199
Monday morning after the return of our Tennessee
troops. In reply to the inquiry, "How are you, Cap-
tain?" he answered: “I never felt better in my life. I
am at the bottom. I can't get any lower. The next
turn of the wheel I am bound to go up. I'm here
hunting work."
Mr. Mooney replied: "That's my case, and that's
what I'm here for. I'm bound to have work even if
it's to beat rock on the turnpike.”
Capt. Morgan replied: “You'll get it; some men are
on the street now waiting for you. They want you to
teach school at Salem, you and your wife.”
The next Monday morning we opened school, with
the best-behaved “boys” I have ever seen, many of
them being ex-Confederate soldiers—all veterans now
-if their march is not over. Is it a wonder when I try
to realize it that I sometimes feel like “The Straggler”
(Wilson Hunt Stites, author, of Nashville, Tenn.),
who thus sings :
The evening shades are gathering fast,
The day is almost done;
As I sit here before my door
And watch the setting sun,
I see its rainbow tints adorn
The glowing Western skies.
And watch the shadows from the vale
Before me softly rise.
Up from the valleys and the gloom,
My war-worn comrades come,
And march as to an unheard note
Or spirit tap of drum.
How like they seem to those I knew,
To those who fought and died,
To those who lived the warfare through,
And conquering hate defied.

200
My Moving Tent.
I'd love to call and bid them stop
Until I fell in line.
Tis hard for their old comrades here
To be thus left behind.
How gladly would I join them now,
Though in the spirit land,
And tent upon celestial fields,
With that immortal band!
How grateful I was that after the lapse of these
eventful years our tent was for the third time pitched
in Pulaski, R. P. Ransom, presiding elder of the
Florence District ! It seemed but a short holiday
from school work, for in just a week I again rang the
school bell, not having this time to go from home, as
I taught in the parsonage.

CHAPTER XXXIV.
ADJUSTMENT.
We had all drunk deep of the waters of Marah, and
found them bitter indeed, but again mid the old sur-
roundings, and with friends so tried and true, we felt
“that the waters were made sweet," and that the
fountain flowed all the freer and fuller and purer for
our journey through the wilderness where there
had been no water. But the realities of life pressed
hard upon all, and adjustment was a problem not only
of the State but of the household.
Unaccustomed labor was hard upon our people, es-
pecially upon the old, too far gone in the journey to
bear additional burdens, and without the inspiration
of hope to sustain them in the further way. Hence the
exceeding grace of the quality of youth which believes
that Pan still plays upon his pipes, and that some-
where the Golden Fleece awaits the coming of the
Argonauts. The lessons of economy too, enforced
by four years of experience of want, were helpful re-
lief measures in this experimental period. Above all,
faith, so long tried in the furnace of affliction, shone
resplendent. The South, so long suffering, had about
this time to assert her right to safety on her own
streets and highways and in quiet country places
where daily and nightly lives were in jeopardy and
the virtue of the home assailed. This Kuklux organi-
zation, having its birth in the strenuous exigencies of
the time, was cradled in a house in this historic town,
Pulaski, but sprang like Minerva from the brain of
(201)

202
My Moving Tent.
Jupiter, full armed, and as supernatural beings in-
spired a very wholesome awe upon superstitious vio-
lators of the law.
Our Church officials remained almost as they were
before: Thomas Martin, Booker Shapard, J. B. Chil-
ders, Allen May, George W. Petway, and T. M. N.
Jones. At least three of these have since gone home:
Thomas Martin, Booker Shapard, and T. M. N. Jones.
Again and again during this year and the years that
followed did my heart overflow with gratitude to a
good and wise father who in a time of peace and
prosperity prepared me for a possible day of coming
calamity. My school was large, my patrons prompt
in paying. This revenue supplemented my husband's
salary, so that there was no lack of any good thing.
The Church too was wonderfully revived in the mem-
bership and in the increase thereof numerically and
financially. In my school was J. J. Ransom, son of
that great and good man Rev. R. P. Ransom, our
presiding elder. John, even at this early day gave un-
mistakable evidence of those qualities that mark him
as a man and minister—scholarship and courage.
Among the frequent visitors to the parsonage was
Rev. John Sherrill, whose hearty salutations I recall
with tears as I think of his lonely grave in Texas.
But henceforth I cannot tarry long in these pleasant
places in the dear old Tennessee Conference—but one
more tribute of tears to Dr. Gilbert D. Taylor, who
walked the earth serenely as a saint, until “God took
him.”
The Conference of 1867 was again held in that
beautiful inland city, Huntsville. It had been one of
the pleasures of hope to attend, but a long and painful

Adjustment.
203
illness kept me indoors for weeks after the adjourn-
ment. When I could travel, along toward Christmas
time, we moved to Clarksville, Tenn., where were
formed some of the most delightful friendships of a
lifetime. There I should have been well pleased to
stay on indefinitely, going out no more. Often in the
nighttime since, when afar and among strangers, I
have fed my hungry, homesick heart with the fond
fancy that I was back again, and thither was our tent
several times pitched, and always have I cherished
the fondest recollections of the place and the people
-all the people of all the Churches, and of no Church.
The first year Rev. R. S. Hunter was our presiding
elder. He transferred at the end of the Conference
year to one of the Missouri Conferences, and was
succeeded by Rev. R. P. Ransom. The Conference
that year (1867) was entertained by Clarksville, and a
most delightful session it was, Bishop Paine presiding
and Dr. R. A. Young, as aforetime and for a long time
to come, Secretary. Before I leave this city, so sweet-
ly enshrined in memory, I should like to stretch a
hand across the gulf of years to some whose person-
ality is so vivid, so distinct, that I can hardly realize
the sense of separation, except by the sharpness of its
sorrow
I think I never had a truer friend than Dr. J. B.
West, a man of matchless wit, and whose preaching
excelled in beauty, pathos, and power. He was pres-
ident of The Academy, at that time called a Confer-
ence school, and having a large number of young
women from several States in the college family.
Clarksville is the only place where we have ever
lived that the Board of Stewards voluntarily increased

204
My Moving Tent.
the pastor's salary. The body was composed of such
men as Hon. John F. House, Hon. Charles G. Smith,
B. W. Macrae, R. H. Pickering, W. S. McReynolds,
John F. Couts, M. C. Pitman, Samuel Caldwell, Hen-
ry Atkins, and Sterling Beaumont. I may possibly
have omitted some from this roll of worthies, all of
whom deserve more than a passing mention.
Brother Atkins was a cheerful Christian, and most
devout, in whom all men had the utmost confidence.
This feeling was illustrated by people coming from the
country to trade, and yet, though pressed for time,
willing to wait till he could serve them.
Every member of the Clarksville Bar was a member
of some Church! Once when Dr. John E. Edwards
preached in the Methodist Church "on a certain Sab-
bath day,” coming for the purpose from the seat of
the General Conference, the Bar in a body attended
his ministry, a courtesy I have never known shown a
minister elsewhere, and I must add that the Virginian
was worthy for whom this thing was done, and that
his preaching more than equaled expectation.
The social and literary life of Clarksville was of the
best. It had fewer of the vices of wealth than other
towns—this from the fact that the men of wealth were
men of piety, the women of wealth gave of their riches
and time to the Church. In all the years of my so-
journ I never knew of a dance or a card party given
by a woman the member of any Church. Hence the
morals of young men attending the Southwestern
Presbyterian University were in no danger from this
sometimes fruitful cause of evil, and I have never
known better behavior, better morale, than among

Adjustment.
205
this student Body, as regarded their relation to each
other and to the community.
I was more than sorry when Conference met again
and I knew that our tent must be moved, this time to
Gallatin, Mr. Mooney being on the Lebanon District,
and our home for the first year in Gallatin. Rev. T.
L. Moody was our pastor and a pleasant member of
our home circle. The next year we removed to Edge-
field or East Nashville. This Conference, 1869, was
at my old home, Murfreesboro, and we were “at home”
at my father's.
The State Constitutional Convention met next year,
1870, in Nashville and much good was accomplished in
statecraft. At the close of this year, Rev. John F.
Hughes was placed on the district, and once more our
tent was pitched in Pulaski.

CHAPTER XXXV.
THE WHEELS GO ROUND.
This return seemed almost like a home-going. The
time of absence had been so short that there were
no marked changes in the community. When I rang
the schoolbell the playtime had been but a bit longer,
and the boys and girls were only a little larger grown.
This year there was a gracious revival of religion in
our Church, and there were added to it daily such as
should be saved. The revival was in the latter part
of 1872. Mr. Mooney was assisted by Rev. C. C.
Mayhew, who afterwards transferred to the Illinois
Conference. He was a wonderful preacher. I know
no more apt qualifier. “The common people heard
him gladly," and men with no pretentions to piety
crowdied the church, while our most intelligent mem-
bers felt built up in their most holy faith. Yet it would
have puzzled even the learned Dr. Thomas O. Sum-
mers to give an exegesis of his sermons. He just
preached right on without a text, though he always
took one. “We cast four anchors out of the stern,
and wished for the day,” was a favorite. I heard him
on: “There be four things which are little upon the
earth, but they are exceeding wise: the ants, the co-
nies, the locusts, and the spider.” I could not follow
him in his flights, but the wisdom of these four little
things was magnified by the foolishness of man, who
will not prepare his meat in due season, nor build his
house on the rock, nor go forth in bands, nor take
hold with his hands!
(206)

The Wheels Go Round. 207
This meeting had not closed when the Conference
convened in Nashville, Bishop Doggett presiding.
Mr. Mooney was assigned to the Carthage District, a
long, hard move, with no parsonage for the presiding
elder, and I may say right here that at this time there
were not many parsonages in the Tennessee Confer-
ence, none that I remember on the districts. The
Carthage District then was of unfortunate shape, long
and narrow, and therefore inconvenient to travel. It
embraced a country of rich soil and romantic scenery.
It contained nine pastoral charges, and they were all
served by men of heroic mold, enduring hardness as
good soldiers of the cross. The presiding elder left
his wife and children in their little home in Clarksville
and went at once to his work, preaching fifty-nine
sermons on his first round.
Goose Creek Circuit was in charge of Rev. B. F.
Ferrell, who had been longer in the work than any
man in the district. The old historic Cumberland
Circuit, once part and parcel of the old Roaring River
Circuit, served by Rev. N. B. S. Owings, was the
largest circuit in the district. It had eleven churches
and twenty-two stewards. It was the birthplace of fif-
teen itinerant Methodist preachers whose names are
as ointment poured forth in many a Methodist home.
I wish I could pause for a panegyric to each of the
faithful men who served on the district this year.
Suffice it to say that in labors they were more abun-
dant. Mr. Mooney was at home but four times dur-
ing the year. In company with Dr. J. B. West, I at-
tended his District Conference at Hartsville, going to
Gallatin by rail and thence to Hartsville by stage, a
ride thoroughly enjoyed. We were all three the

208
My Moving Tent.
guests of Capt. Ellis and wife, and more enjoyable
entertainment I have seldom had. The drives
through that romantic region so rich in legend are
still a pleasure.
But I have a bit of Mr. Mooney's experience more
enjoyable in the recital than in the endurance. He
may give it:
“In traveling through the upper portion of Middle
Tennessee I heard of a little scope of country pretty
well cut off from the rest of the world. It contained
twenty or twenty-five families. The soil produced
abundant harvests. There was a little log cabin in
the neighborhood, once used as a schoolhouse and
for preaching. But, alas ! most of the Church people
are gone, and the community is without the gospel.
I sent an appointment for preaching two or three
months in advance. Then I went to the place one day
earlier, that I might 'warn in the folks, that there
might be no disappointment. I took with me an old
local preacher 'to the manor born,' and native there.
“We went to the house of a prosperous planter who
proved to be quite a character. We entered his house
on a bright sunny day in winter. He was in his room
sitting near a huge wood-fire. The front of the legs of
his pantaloons was much scorched. On his head he
wore first a woolen cap, once white, but far from white
when I saw it; over this cap was a lady's breakfast
shawl folded so as to show four thicknesses; over this
shawl was an old black soft felt hat. In the same room
were his wife and two children. She was in bed sick,
and sadly in need of attention. The children were un-
washed, uncombed, and needed clean clothing. Thus
this gentleman of about thirty-five years played in-

The Wheels Go Round.
209
valid in his wife's sick chamber. Yet he ran a large
farm, controlled a number of hired hands, made
money, and kept it. His laborers were up at four
o'clock in the morning and ready for work. His house
was old and rusty and yet unfinished. Numerous
long festoons hung from the upper joists, and the busy
builders, it seemed, had been unmolested in their
toil of years. The dirt lay in undisturbed repose upon
the floor, and without the fear of brush or broom.
"I may as well confess, I was much disturbed about
a place to sleep, clean enough, I mean. Imagine my
joy, then, when I saw the woman of all work go to a
big feather bed in “the big room” turn back the bed-
clothes and put on a white counterpane to be used as
a sheet. “Good !” thought I; “I can sleep on that.” At
breakfast the next morning I found a very primitive
sort of table. The legs crossed each other underneath,
and the table was so low that I could not get my knees
under it. On the table we had plenty of coarse corn
bread, fat hog meat, and coffee without sugar or
cream. Maybe there was some sorghum. It was my
first and only visit.”
There was work, hard work, and plenty of it, for us
all; and I was not sorry when the year had rolled
around, though there had been much to cheer us,
even in this exceptional experience. Rev. J. P. Mc-
Ferrin was my pastor, and no brother could have been
kinder or more considerate. He was a sweet singer,
and his songs have cheered often since in the days
that have come and gone. It was an added joy then
the next year that while Mr. Mooney was put on the
Columbia District Brother McFerrin would again be
my pastor. This was considered, and was, one of the
14

210
My Moving Tent.
best districts in the Conference; but it had no dis-
trict parsonage, and in three years we paid out seven
hundred dollars for house rent, and occupied three
different houses—living one year in Spring Hill,
where the rent was nominal, as I taught in the acad-
emy, and we occupied it as home.
In this recital, I am making a plea for home mis-
sion work and for homes for our faithful preachers.
Had I my itinerant life to live over again, I should
prefer, in fact, to stretch a tent of my own rather than
to live in a hired house. We moved from Spring Hill,
where Rev. J. M. Jordan was our pastor (a faithful,
zealous man), to Culleoka, where my pastors were
Rev. J. C. Putnam and Rev. Green P. Jackson, and
where lived Rev. W. H. Wilkes, all three faithful
overseers of the flock, and differing greatly in their
gifts and graces. I have not seen Brother Putnam
since the old days. Brother Jackson I met at the
recent session of the Tennessee Conference in Pu-
laski, and found him as of yore-full of the gospel of
grace and of literary lore. The tragic death of Broth-
er Wilkes some years ago was a great shock and sor-
row. I have been somewhat comforted concerning it,
since hearing from his daughter Alice (Mrs. W. R.
Peebles) that she thinks that death was so sudden
that he suffered no pain at all.*
The attraction to Culleoka, or the real moving
cause, was the Webb School, in which we placed our
oldest son, and where he remained till he finished the
course. These were indeed years of sunshine in all
our relations of life; but alas! the shadow of death was
beside our tent and soon darkened all our joy, for
* Struck by a train while riding in his buggy.

The Wheels Go Round.
211
about June 14, 1876, our oldest born, our darling
Blanch, passed away gently and triumphantly. Death
left a strange sweet smile, which, when we saw her
last, still lingered on her face. Her funeral service
was conducted by Bishop Wightman and by Rev. J.
C. Putnam in the Methodist Church at Culleoka. She
was buried in Pulaski, where much of her childhood
had been spent. Many old friends gathered at the
depot to receive her body and convey it to the last
resting place. The services at the grave were con-
ducted by Rev. W. R. Peebles, Drs. F. C. Wilkes,
R. H. Rivers, and Rev. A. G. Dinwiddie, the pastor
in Pulaski. The people in Culleoka, Pulaski, Athens,
and in all the region round about gave us a sweet
ministry of love and sympathy, but from my
heart the shadow has never fully lifted. Many, too,
were the letters of condolence from bishops, preach-
ers, and friends from all over the Conference. These
tokens of consolation were appreciated and are still
treasured.
Before saying good-bye to the Columbia District
and its good men and women I must refer to Rev.
Robert G. Irvine, who had become effective and was
serving some work in this district, probably Pleasant
Valley Circuit, in Giles County. One day, while at
home in the midst of his family, suddenly a bloody
streak seemed to pass before his eyes, and lo! the
sight of one was gone. The other became much
affected by sympathy. He went to that expert oculist,
Dr. T. J. Edwards, of Union City, and there remained
till the Doctor assured him that all hope was gone.
Going home, longing once more to see the face of his

212
My Moving Tent.
wife, even for a little while, they walked into the gar-
den at midday, when he placed her in an open place in
the full sunlight, striving in vain for a glimpse of the
well-loved, familiar face. A more pathetic scene I
cannot imagine. When others' burdens are so heavy,
why should we murmur or complain?
Tradition tells that once a poor pilgrim started
afoot to the prophet's tomb. Day by day he walked
upon the scorching sands. Foot-sore and weary, he
cried out: “Allah is unkind.” In this temper he ap-
proached the holy place; and then, blistered and
scorched, he saw one faint with hunger and almost
ready to die; and lo! the man had no feet; he had
made the journey on his knees,

CHAPTER XXXVI.
THE RETURN TO CLARKSVILLE.
If anything could have brought solace to hearts
so sorely smitten, it was the return to Clarksville,
where for the four following years Mr. Mooney was
on the Clarksville District, and then for a year at
New Providence and Bethel, during all of which time
we lived in Clarksville in our own home. These were
pleasant, prosperous years, saddened only by the
memory of our loss.
Rev. R. K. Brown was my pastor part of the
time. If not to all the country dear, he was so to
the better part of it, and that included the larger.
A more conscientious preacher I have never known,
nor one more thoughtful of his friends and their com-
fort. There are preachers and preachers, but the one
who preaches best to me is the one who thinks most
of me during the week, and shows his thoughtfulness
in deeds of kindness. Brother Brown abounded in this
sort of goodness. Often coming from the schoolroom,
tired with the day's work, have I found his carriage
at the gate, himself reins in hand, waiting to give me
a drive. His sermons too, like himself, were good,
not entertaining in popular phrase, but upbuilding to
his hearers whom he had visited during the week, and
could therefore feed with food convenient—that is,
coming at the right time and nourishing. I have never
known any one with more delicacy of feeling. In
visiting the poor and the needy, he seemed intuitively
(213)

214
My Moving Tent.
to divine their wants, and could so minister to them
as not to humiliate nor wound.
Dr. J. D. Barbee, a good man and true, of sterling
worth and Saxon grit, was my next pastor. Under
his ministry there was a gracious revival. Our two
daughters were converted, and with many others
joined the Church in Clarksville. Everybody loved
Brother Barbee, and at the fiery trial through which
he passed at the Conference session of 1898 held in
that city his friends were a unit, faithful and full of
faith in him. Neither Senate nor Sanhedrin could
shake their steadfastness of confidence, nor inject a
suspicion of falseness on his shining armor. His ser-
mons were strong, his voice loud, with no uncertain
sound, his English terse, intensive. His illustrations
were from the classics. A favorite was the old Trojan
horse. I learned to prepare myself for the Ciceronian
cry, “Intus, entus, inquam est Trojanus equus," for he
had a way of placing his hand over and above the rim
of his ear, so conserving the sound while he exploded
the vowels and consonants with might and main.
When I saw that movement I used to brace my back
against the bench and hold fast the hand of my neigh-
bor, thus breaking the full force of the vocal outpour.
He was not half-hearted in anything. I like that sort.
I like him.
The laymen of our Church in Clarksville were and
are unsurpassed by any Church Mr. Mooney has ever
served in a ministry of more than half a century. No
matter how high his position in the State or in the
Congress of States, none ever felt himself too exalted
or too removed to manifest a lively interest in the con-
cerns of his home Church. I should love to say some-

The Return to Clarksville.
215
thing of the many members, official and private, who
made all the years of our sojourn there so sweet and
so pleasant that in the retrospect there is no pain,
and the only tears are of regret that the moving tent
is pitched so far away.
During our last sojourn there were two notable so-
cial events, the golden wedding of Dr. A. D. Sears,
the long time pastor of the Missionary Baptist Church,
and our silver wedding. We had as celebrant, Rev.
William G. Dorriss, who officiated at our marriage, a
quarter of a century before. Of the large company
present on this anniversary, there were only the three
who had been our wedding guests, Brother Dorriss,
his wife, and daughter, Mrs. Sallie Dorriss Jackson,
the well-beloved associate and friend of my girlhood.
Dr. Thomas O. Summers, then editor of the Nash-
ville Christian Advocate, sent a poem for the occasion,
read by Dr. J. D. Barbee, closing with
Then I pronounce that you
Are man and wife by silver ties;
Golden and diamond weddings, too,
Be yours, till you ascend the skies.
Dr. J. B. West offered an eloquent and befitting
prayer. There were poems recited by members of
the Clarksville Reading Club, under whose direction
the programme had been planned. Mrs. John F.
Couts gave “Twenty-Five Years Ago,” and Prof. John
S. Collins "Five and Twenty Years Ago," after which
Mr. John J. West, the vice president, presented to me
as president, many beautiful silver souvenirs from the
members, twenty-four of whom served as attendants
or waiters. This was the last time that father and

216
My Moving Tent.
mother and all the living children were at home at
the same time.
Soon Conference came and our tent was moved to
College Grove, Tenn.; thence, after two most delight-
ful years, to Bellbuckle, Tenn., where, after two more
years, very unexpectedly, all the tender ties and as-
sociations with Conference and people were broken,
and by appointment of Bishop E. R. Hendrix we
were encamped beyond the Mississippi River, on the
banks thereof, at Cape Girardeau, Cape Girardeau
County, Mo., St. Louis Conference.
A river gives a great sense of separation, and when
on the other side I felt a stranger indeed. This feel-
ing was intensified from the fact that a part of the
family was left in Tennessee, and from hearing a
strange speech in "my ain countrie,” a large per cent
of the population being German. The St. Louis Con-
ference differs in many respects from other Confer-
ences. The Conference itself is, or was, largely com-
posite, made up of transfers. Some one described the
territory as like a pair of tongs-long-legged, weak
in the body, and strong in the head. My recollec-
tions of the body, clerical and lay, are most pleasant.
I was delighted after so many years to meet again
Dr. John Mathews, a leader in any great body of men,
and whose ministry in the city of St. Louis is one of
the marvels and the glories of Methodism. Aside
from his great preaching power, his recognition of
strangers in the congregation was a potent factor in
his popularity and in his success in winning souls for
Christ. He literally drew all men unto him, and Cen-
tenary was always crowded.
Dr. T. M. Finney, Dr. D. R. McAnnally (then edit-

The Return to Clarksville.
217
or of the St. Louis Advocate), Dr. E. M. Bounds, Dr.
J. E. Godbey (editor of the Southwestern Methodist),
Dr. W. B. Palmore (present editor of the St. Louis
Advocate), Bishop J. C. Granbery, with the pastors of
St. John's, Cook Avenue, and St. Paul's, gave Meth-
odism force and prestige among the Protestant
Churches in this stronghold of Romanism. I am not
sure that all the brethren named belonged to this
Conference, but I associate them with it. Others there
are whom I remember, but I am like the old man who
introduced his wife as : “This is my wife, of whom you
have heard, but her name escapes me, though I used
to know it well."
The leading laymen were Samuel Cupples and R.
M. Scruggs, familiar to the people called Methodists
far beyond the St. Louis Conference. Their attend-
ance at the District Conferences was beneficial to
business interests, as they were wise in counsel and
looked carefully into the business methods, or lack of
business methods, in the several charges, notifying
the brethren not to expect help from them in case
Church property was burned uninsured.
This Conference surpasses in the payment of do-
mestic missionary money, the money being in the
treasury to meet the appropriations of the incoming
year. Thus weak charges in important places can be
served by strong men without that fearful foreboding
suffered sometimes by good and faithful men in our
home mission fields. The Cape is an appointment of
importance from the fact that the Southeast Missouri
Normal School is located there and during ten
months of the year there is a large student body in
attendance, not a few coming from Methodist homes.

CHAPTER XXXVII.
MEMORIES OF MISSOURI
THRONG my mind, the groups not always gay, but
seldom sad. The Cape is a fine old town, and our
Church there, though weak, is composed of excellent
material. The Poes, Mrs. Stewart and family, Miss
Mamie Matlock and Mrs. Ellen Wright, Gertrude
Alexander, and others are fondly remembered. The
town belongs to the early period of settlement on the
Mississippi River. All the force of tradition and
legend link it to the “Fathers of the Church," a senti-
ment strengthened by Romish schools, in which in
many instances “the Sisters” represent the home life
—many girls passing with them those years when
mind and heart are most easily and most indelibly im-
pressed. The old cemetery near the river has many
graves antedating the Louisiana Purchase and rep-
resenting many nationalities. Some of the inscrip-
tions are quaint and pathetic, and show that the heart
of the sleeper or of the survivor had an aching void
which the new world could not fill.
On the Charleston road lies what is known as the
County Farm, a beautiful “bit o'land” worked by the
county poor. The house is historic, as the place
where Gen. Grant received his commission. The
farm when we knew it was in charge of a Brother
Poe, and admirably managed both as to outdoor work
and indoor life of the inmates, the only institution of
the sort I have ever seen of which this could be said.
Religious services were frequently held, members of
(218)

Memories of Missouri.
219
the Church in town going out with their pastor and
assisting with song and prayer.
When I first saw him, Brother Poe stood in the door-
way. I did not know his name, but I cried out in sur-
prise: "Do look at that man! He looks like Edgar
Allan Poe come to life!” It was on this same drive
that I saw illustrated a beautiful custom they have of
helping each other, both in the Cape and elsewhere
west of the river. On the right of the road going
from town we saw men and boys sawing and piling
wood, an immense quantity, reminding me of the old
Christmas wood-pile. Near to the busy scene was a
comfortable-looking farmhouse, through the window
of which could be seen a long table spread with snowy
cloths, and women passing busily to and fro. The
scene enlisted my interest, and I asked: “What does
it mean?"
“The woman living in the house,” explained Broth-
er Poe, “lost her husband last week, and the neigh-
bors are giving her a ‘wooding.' Yesterday and the
day before they cut and hauled wood, now they are
sawing and piling, and when they are through they
will have supper and a good time socially."
"Why,” I exclaimed, “that crowd would eat her
out!”
“But,” said he, "she furnishes nothing whatever
except the table. Every woman carries a basket full of
cooked food with a good supply uncooked for the
pantry.” The wood was not all gone in a year.
When the people of Missouri mean to surprise the
preacher and his family they do it most successfully
hy a little conference inter nos, adjourning with "Pass
tie word.” It is all done so quietly and delicately.

220
My Moving Tent.
The aid thus given is a great help in housekeeping.
We seldom had to buy anything for pantry or store-
room. Among our presents one Christmas were five
turkeys. Their way of helping in sickness, too, is
commendable. The watchers plan aforetime, the wom-
en “by turns” sitting up till midnight, when the watch
is relieved by the men—after they have all eaten of
the supper which the women have prepared at home,
thus relieving the family of all work and worry and
the sometimes burden of feeding the watchers.
While in the Cape I became acquainted with that
elect woman of Southern Methodism, Miss Lucinda
B. Helm, and interested in her special work, homes
for the preachers. She attended the Conference at
Fredericktown, and presented the work in her quiet
way to the women who attended a parlor meeting
The necessity for the work had been emphasized by
our experience at the Cape, where at our first going
there was no parsonage.
The owner of our hired house called to see me, ask-
ing after our comfort and if I could suggest any
change about the house, etc. I mentioned some
changes that I thought would be improvements, to
which he readily agreed, suavely saying: “I am always
willing to do any reasonable thing to oblige my ten-
ants.” After a little pause, painful to me, I replied : “As
a matter of fact, I suppose that we are your tenants;
but I had not so thought of it before.” He wondered
to a mutual friend what mistake he had made.
Another gentleman asked me, “What do you hine
for?” meaning, "What salary do you receive for teach-
ing?” That word was all right, but I told him that

Memories of Missouri.
221
with us "hire” was a plantation word—that negroes
were hired, or hired out, in the days of slavery.
But all in all, I enjoyed life in the Cape. While
there we visited the old Williams Churchyard, most
beautifully kept by Brother — Williams, by whose
conduct and courtesy we were shown over the his-
toric spot in which reposed the body of the first Meth-
odist preacher west of the Mississippi River.* At the
head of the grave has sprung up a tree, as if our great
first mother, the earth, would in this way keep his
memory green. Not far from the cemetery is Mc-
Kendree Church or Chapel, the first Methodist
Church buit in the then Western wilderness. The old
pulpit still stands in which that man of God (McKen-
dree) held forth the word of life. It bears not only
the marks of age, but the cuts of the relic hunter.
The puncheon floor which served a pioneer people
has not been removed, but has been piously preserved
by placing a plank floor upon it. The locality is pic-
turesque in the extreme, and one could readily place
the tents of the old campers and hear the songs of
Zion welling up from thankful hearts. The earthly
houses of those tabernacles have all been taken down
and placed upon the heavenly hills.
As I mused thus, there came from the trees a burst
of sweetest song, and from the thick cluster of inter-
vening branches I heard the noise of wings, and I
thought : "Blessed are they that do his command-
ments, that they may have right to the tree of life,
and may enter in through the gates into the city.”
Again, after two years when Ahmed's army tent
was taken from the pocket, it had the names of all,
* I have lost his name.

222
My Moving Tent.
.
and marching orders, and our encampment was on
the Great Muddy, in Washington, Franklin County,
Mo., a town in which four-fifths of the population is
German, and the confusion of tongues a revelation of
the possibilities of language. Here for the first time,
outside of a book, I saw the wooden shoe, and on
still mornings I yet hear the clatter as the school chil-
dren bring their feet to bear upon the pavement.
Nearly all the buildings, public and private, are of
brick, giving the place a solid look not unlike the
builders. There was a large pork-packing house near
the river, and, what interested me more, a corncob
pipe factory, many of the cobs coming from Tennes-
see. Pipes were most daintily fashioned into things
of beauty out of these cobs. An old Confederate sol-
dier had for his especial work the making of the stems,
long stems, short stems, straight stems, crooked
stems, an infinite variety of stems. The pipes too
were of divers sorts, some of substantial shape, and
others of fantastic form. The Germans are almost
without exception smokers, and the pipe is more pop-
ular than the cigarette.
Some of the truest Southern people I have ever
known are in these Missouri towns. Yet it nearly
broke my heart when I found two old Confederates
in the county farm. The Daughters of the Confed-
eracy in Missouri have wrought nobly, and the old
soldiers are now well cared for. We had some good
men and true in the Church at Washington and New
Haven. Among the most active were Brothers Pur-
vis and Pike (one a Canadian, the other an English-
man), whose wives were sisters. Both households in
many ways contributed to the comfort of the pastor

Memories of Missouri.
223
and his family. Hospitality is a distinguishing grace
of the Missourians. Social functions are daily affairs.
The first I attended in Washington, I was surprised
when the host inquired, “Where is the butter?” for
there was a great pyramid of it on the table. A big
bowl of apple butter was handed around, and I found
that, while this was not the foundation of the feast, it
was a daily dish at every meal. The making it some-
times in the great apple orchards was charming from
its novelty. I learned to enjoy it almost as much as
a Missourian, and I was kindly remembered by great
jars and bucketfuls.
Washington is fifty miles from St. Louis on the
Missouri Pacific railroad. Here, and also at Cape
Girardean Dr. John Mathews came out and lectured
for us, to the delight of pastor and people, for the
Doctor is a master on the platform as well as in the
pulpit. I am grateful debtor to him and wife, to
Bishop Granbery and family, and to Dr. Finney, wife,
and daughter, for much that makes my memory of
Missouri altogether pleasant, except for the intense
desire to be back in Tennessee. The way was un-
expectedly opened, and I believe providentially.
But before I recross the “Father of Waters” allow
me some other reminiscences, though the half can-
not be told. After the adjournment of the Confer-
ence at Fredericktown, on a bright, sharp September
day, we had a memorable drive to the place "where the
battle was fought.” Later in the day we drove to the
historic French mine, Bel Mina,* the oldest in the
new world, and still showing signs of the French oc-
cupancy. The quaint houses and the rustic bridge
*I think that is the name.

224
My Moving Tent.
make quite an Acadian picture. The work is inter-
esting beyond description. I saw at one time six
thousand pounds of boiling lead, looking a veritable
silver sea, against which sat the assayer, the refiner,
the purifier, separating the dross or alloy from the
pure. Never before had I so felt the force of the fig-
ure—the fiery furnace and the purifying process:
“And I will turn my hand upon thee and purely purge
away thy dross. Take away the dross from the sil-
ver and there shall come a vessel for the finer.” But
who may abide the day of his coming, and who shall
stand when he appeareth, for he is a refiner's fire and
like fuller's sope,* and he shall sit as a refiner and
purifier of silver.” The smoke from the furnace differs
much from that of coal or iron, being white and losing
itself in lovely radiant lines amid the clouds and be-
coming a part thereof.
At Cairo, en route, I saw the making of the wood-
work of the Singer sewing machine, through the
whole process, cutting the tree, sizing, scalding, split-
ting, dividing, placing, pressing, glueing, varnishing.
The machinery, wheels within wheels, et id omne, is
done in Stirling, Scotland. To the romantic, senti-
mental sightseer the spot where, or the reputed spot,
where Evangeline passed her lover, is an object of
ever-increasing interest, and is not far from the city
called Cairo.
In St. Louis I saw many humane institutions, ob-
ject lessons, and rebukes to those followers of a mere-
ly human philosophy, which at its best is seldom hu-
mane. In company with Sister Avis I visited the
Woman's Christian Home, an institution under the
* Old spelling: Latin, sapo; English, soap.

Memories of Missouri.
225
management of the Christian women of the several
Protestant Churches, each furnishing a room. Wom-
en and girls coming as strangers to the city, while in
search of employment, here find shelter and security
and food free of charge till they bcome wage-winners.
The matron told me that of the hundreds thus aided
only a few had failed to repay the kindness.
Shaw's Garden, St. Louis, was both a study and a
pleasure, enlarging my knowledge of the world's
Flora, and charming the eye with the infinite variety
of form and color. Amid the graves in God's Acre,
I stood with reverent heart and bowed head before
that of Gen. Sterling Price, so idolized by the Con-
federates of Missouri, the beautiful monolith with its
legend being the gift of Southern State soldiers.
I attended in St. Louis a service held by the Salva-
tion Army, and had a clearer conception of the ne-
cessity of Christian work to be done in cities, es-
pecially coast cities and river towns, by authorized
agencies outside Church and chapel, if the Church
expect to reach and influence the lives of this seething
element from house boats, from the slums, from the
riverside where there is no synagogue, of men,
women, and children, crowded into places in no sense
homes—all these elements so mightily mixed—that
cannot, will not go to the regular Sunday service.
These people crowded to the Salvation Army serv-
ice. They felt it was for them, and they took part in
it.
Some of the experiences were thrilling. One boy,
rescued from the river, said: “I was hungry and you
fed me, naked and you clothed me, swearing and you
put a song in my mouth, and I mean to keep on sing-
15

226
My Moving Tent.
ing and praising the Lord for all his goodness.” The
amens were frequent and fervent all over the house,
and the martial music from drum, fife, and bassoon,
mingled with the hallelujahs and the spirited singing,
made a never-to-be-forgotten scene and impression,
the impression that much home mission work needs
to be done among this ever-increasing, hard-to-be-
reached population, made up of both native and for-
eign folk.
Many other places, especially the parks, were visited,
and the Old Folks' Home. Of this sweetest of all pro-
visions for "ye gentle olde folke," I had only an out-
side look; but I saw from the open window a sweet
picture of the light at eventide.
I had heard a learned gentleman say: "It is worth
a trip across the continent to see the bridge at St.
Louis.” I am not engineer enough to know if these
words were extravagant, but it impressed me that in
design and construction it is equal to any of the
Old World's wonders, excepting the Great Pyr-
amid. I stood on the bridge at midday and ate my
dinner while I watched the boats go by, and was re-
minded that the one on which we were to return, the
City of Arkansas, would leave to-morrow. We said
good-by to our friends with thanks for the many cour-
tęsies received, and made ready to go aboard,

CHAPTER XXXVIII.
SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES.
It was in May, 1888, while we were still in Cape
Girardeau, that Mr. Mooney received a letter from
S. B. Watts, attorney at law, Meridian, Miss., saying:
Bishop Hendrix, in response to my request, gives me your
name as an educator of experience. The trustees of East Mis-
sissippi College, located in this city, and under the auspices of
the Mississippi Annual Conference, M. E. Church, South, are
in search of a president for 1888-89. The institution was
founded in 1878, and has been in continuous successful opera-
tion ever since. It is a boarding school, and has a capacity for
about forty boarders. The location is as good as any I know,
society good, and health excellent. The local patronage is
good. The Methodist is the leading denomination. If you
would like to come South, Meridian is the place.
Mr. Mooney had never a call to teach, his one call-
ing being that of a Methodist preacher, so he did not
entertain this third offer of a college. I would will-
ingly have gone South, but for some time negotiations
had been pending in Tennessee looking to the pur-
chase of the Dresden Academy for a home school.
Four of us were teachers and in as niany different
States: a son in Tennessee, a daughter in Logan Col-
lege, Russellville, Ky., and another in Williamston
College, South Carolina. So situated and so sep-
arated, I had been on the alert for a place where for
a time we might have some home life; the daughters
and I teach together till the younger children were
educated, or other changes should come. Thus the
year before correspondence was had with Mrs. E. T.
(227)

228
My Moving Tent.
Hart, widow of Rev. E. T. Hart, of the Memphis Con-
ference, who, after transferring from the Tennessee
Conference, had taught in Dresden. Sister Hart
wished to sell the property, and I had written Bishop
McTyeire, my chief counselor, in reference to the
matter. His reply from some cause did not reach me
at the expected time. I heard from him thus on Oc-
tober 31, 1888:
Dear Sister Mooney: I wish you had received my Dresden
letter. I reply in substance to yours. I am not acquainted by
personal visitation with Dresden, but by report I know it to
be a good place and people. The center is eligible for a school
such as you propose. Brother Mooney could work for many
years within easy reach and find pleasant fields. It seems to
me that the property is offered to you on very reasonable
terms. But go and see it. Never buy and settle until you
have seen with your own eyes.
May our Father guide you! Amen.
Yours very truly,
H. N. MCTYEIRE.
Dear good Bishop! never too busy for a word of
cheer or of counsel, to write to say “I rejoice with
you” or “I weep with you.” This was the last letter I
ever had from him. While we were yet in Missouri he
went from us a bright and a shining light destined to
shine brighter, for the coming generations will rise
up and call him blessed, recognizing the wisdom and
the worth of his great work for Southern Methodism
in writing her history and in giving her a university.
I followed his advice, and in November, near unto
the time of Thanksgiving, I came, I saw, and decided
to buy. In the following June the two little ones and
I left Washington, Mo., for Dresden, Tenn., coming
by rail to St. Louis, by boat from that place to Hick-
man, Ky. The City of Arkansas was a good boat,

Schools and Colleges.
229
well furnished. There was “a goodlye companye” of
passengers in the beginning, and we had an abundance
of well-prepared and well-served food. The old pilot
was an interesting character, wise not only in river
craft, but he knew the river and all intermediate
points from New Orleans to St. Louis, and the his-
tory of the boats by name, and the boatmen. He gave
us a graphic account of the movements of the boats
on the river during the civil war and the maneuver-
ing of men, some getting praise and pay which should
have been awarded others. Alas, and alas, for the
many uncrowned heroes!
When the boat reached Cape Girardeau several
friends came aboard to give us a passing salutation.
The courtesy cheered us for the further way, and is
kindly remembered. We landed at Hickman stran-
gers to all. However, the clerk of the boat had direct-
ed us "to a good place where we might get dinner and
spend the several hours of waiting for a train to Union
City." I inquired of the clerk of the hotel the name of
the Methodist preacher. He wrote "Rev. R. M.
King," to whom I addressed a note, givng hotel and
destination. He soon replied in person, and very
pleasantly relieved the tedium of waiting, and then
saw us off on the train to Dresden, all done as cor-
dially as if he were receiving a favor rather than be-
stowing one. On the train another Methodist preach-
er introduced himself, a "Brother Matthews," I
think, who showed us all needed traveling courtesies,
and for the time made us forgetful that our tent was
moving to a place of which we knew little or nothing.
The weather all day had been showery—alternate
rain and sunshine. How like life and the unknown

230
My Moving Tent.
life to which I hastened! I often recall that time-worn
traveler, the “Wandering Jew," whose footprints till
he reached the meridian scarce left an impression on
the soft fallen snow. But past that line and journey-
ing toward the Arctic, every pressure of the foot left
upon earth's white shroud the sign of the bloody cross.
As we reached Dresden there was a glorious burst
of sunshine, and when we alighted we received a gen-
erous and gracious welcome from Mr. E. H. Ayres, a
steward in the Church, and from Rev. J. W. Black-
ard, the Methodist pastor. As aforetime, I was the
guest of Mr. J. W. Moran and his wife, who insisted
that their home be our home till all things were in
readiness at the academy. No sweeter spot could re-
fresh a tired traveler, and the kindness extended at
my coming has been steadfast through all these years.
Outside the immediate home circle no one sorrowed
more than I when Sister Moran was unexpectedly
called from the joys of her beautiful earthly home to a
mansion in our Father's house on high. During the
day we moved over to the academy, which looked
lonely and bare, but much work was needed, and I
kept busy till the going down of the sun. That night
I went to prayer meeting, and never but once before
had I felt so utterly depressed. About halfway to the
church the frogs began a concert of most melancholy
music, nor did their vocal trills and basso profundos
cease till long past the hour when well-behaved mu-
sicians should have been asleep. I have ever since
had a keener appreciation of the possible pleasures of
the deaf. The dulcet sounds ceased before morning.
With the coming of the day, I began to put a cheer-
ful courage on and to hum:

Schools and Colleges.
231
Ask her, if when storms are along
She can sing a merry song.
I fear the ditty was about as doleful as the song of
the frogs, or the whistle of the boy going through the
graveyard to show he was not scared.
Before the second night the son came “to help put
things in order.” After a few days the two daughters
joined us, and we were for a time busy with pleasant
plans for our school work, and in getting acquainted
with the people, some of whom I had met on my visit
of inspection in the fall. Mr. Mooney remained in
Washington till after the adjournment of the St. Louis
Conference in September, when he was transferred to
the Memphis Conference, which met in November at
Fulton, Ky., and was presided over by our good
Bishop Hendrix, of Missouri, the presiding bishop
at the several preceding Conferences I had attended.
This fact alone helped to make me feel at home in the
new field to which we had come. The sense of satis-
faction was increased on meeting again Dr. W. C.
Johnson, whom we had known so well in the days
gone by.
Thirteen years, with their lights and shadows, have
come and gone, and I have liked the brethren of the
body and the people generally with each added year,
though there has been a good deal of tent-moving
and of fluctuating fortune.

CHAPTER XXXIX.
MEMPHIS CONFERENCE.
IF I were a preacher and intended to transfer, or
consented to be transferred, it would certainly be in
the early years of my ministry. Life is too short after
a man has reached his meridian, or part of it, for him
readily to adjust himself to new relations, to form the
same sweet, strong associations, bonds in the best
sense, which are not easily broken, and which to a
true man are never sundered. Among no people is
the change so easily effected as in the great Methodist
itinerant ranks, where going and coming are in some
sort inwrought in the system, a change of compa-
nies and captains and men showing the true esprit de
corps of the army, a spirit genial, kindly, spiritual,
and sometimes spirited.
The ruling humor is what the French call bon-
homie—kindness, good nature, free and easy man-
ners, cordial benevolence. And this benevolence fre-
quently takes the active form of beneficence. And if
the announcement is made that a brother has been un-
fortunate and is in need, at once the hand goes to the
pocket, and if haply and happily a dollar be found,
the men begin a march to the front and put it on the
table. It is all done so quickly that there is hardly a
pause in the bishop's work.
Our change of Conferences and of Conference rela-
tions, while not without a mixture of regret, has been
wholly without morbid repinings. We still painfully
miss many who made life a pleasure in the past, and
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Memphis Conference.
233
at times feel a yearning for the old places and the old
faces. But absorbed in his loved employ, I have nev-
er heard Mr. Mooney murmur or complain, no matter
what his appointment.
In the fifteen years of separation and absence many
of the preachers with whom he served in the Tennes-
see Conference and the people to whom he minis-
tered have passed away, and so abounding is the
brotherly kindness in the Memphis Conference that
from the first he has been made to feel one of them.
For myself, I feel that I have come to stay, and to say:
"Thy people shall be my people, where thou livest I
will live, where thou diest I will die, and there will I
be buried.”
His appointments have been in order of time and
place, or place and time: Hickman Station, three
years; Lexington District, four years; Mayfield Sta-
tion, two years; Third Street, Paducah, one year;
Kenton and Rutherford, two years. His present work
is Greenfield and Brock's, in the Union City District
—the beginning of his fifty-third year in the work of
the ministry, with never a year off nor a month for a
holiday. His health failed the latter part of the year
in Paducah, but a three weeks' draught of the bracing
air at Monteagle made him well, without other tonic
or medicines.
There are many precious names in all these charges
"the which if they should be written, every one,” this
book would not contain them. A grateful heart is a
living book of remembrance. In it all their names are
written, especially those of the brethren of the Con-
ference, and of the elect women in its bounds, whose
sympathy was so manifest and so abounding after the

234
My Moving Tent.
burning of the Kenton Church and parsonage, to-
gether with our books and belongings. May this
grace abound to your account—not that we desired a
gift—“notwithstanding ye have done well that ye did
communicate with our affliction. The grace of our
Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.” And as
ye have ministered may ye be ministered unto.
The personnel of this Conference is striking. There
are some very homely men in its make-up, and home-
ly simply means homelike, not ugly. And even an
ugly man becomes good-looking if you like him and
he have the redeeming grace of goodness, which is
transforming in power. I always thought that Broth-
er Sam Caldwell, of Clarksville, was handsome, and I
stood to it, though Dr. West and others said I was
lacking in good taste or good sense. But Brother
Caldwell said that I had “more sense than anybody
who had ever come to Clarksville.” So if any one
charge that there are ugly men in the Memphis Con-
ference, I am not prepared to vote until he gives a
well-defined meaning to his qualifier. The almond
tree is certainly beautiful, even when the strength of
the tree is gone, and there is no longer hope of foliage
or fruit. Still more beautiful is the young head that
bows for benediction and out of respect and reverence
for the hoary head. Both trees are in this Conference.
In no Conference have I seen more sympathy for the
superannuates, for the old men whose race is so
nearly run that they are no longer expected to move
at the front of the army.
The Memphis Conference has some kings on this
roll whose rule is still acknowledged by loving sub-
jects. When they rise to speak there is a holy hush,

Memphis Conference.
235
and when the blessing has been pronounced there are
songs and sobs and embraces and sometimes a shout.
Brother John Randal is now the patriarch of the Con-
ference, having joined in 1843, when the Conference
was yet in its infancy, and embodying in his experi-
ence the trials and the triumphs of his beloved Church.
He is always attended by some young brother, for he
is in age and feebleness extreme. Like Barzillai, he
asks no favors from the king for himself, but prays
for all good and gracious gifts for his sons in the gos-
pel.
The yearly increase and decrease in the list of su-
perannuates is about equal—some are taken and oth-
ers are added. Two great men and princes in Israel
fell last year, and there was weeping and lamenta-
tions throughout the encampment. Brother C. J.
Maulden sickened a few days before the meeting of
the Conference at Martin. He had been aweary and
needing rest for a long time, but a man of heroic
mold, and the perseverance of a saint, he could not
realize that the tabernacle was being taken down. I
saw him daily for some time after our return from
Conference. He was braver than I, he could die; but
when I knew that “the crossing was nigh,” I could not
see him go over, though I knew full well that he was
entering "the haven of rest” of which he loved to talk
and sing.
Dr. W. T. Harris had been my presiding elder. He
was my father's frend, and of all the preachers in the
Memphis Conference he came closest into our home
life and affections. No man in the body claimed a
larger share of its love, and no member surpassed
Dr. Harris in love for his brethren. The lowliest

236
My Moving Tent.
among them he would have served at any personal
inconvenience or sacrifice. By nature he was chival-
rous, and he had the true courage of the soldier of
the cross.' There was no taint of cowardice in him,
neither physical nor moral, if the two can be disasso-
ciated. The weak always appealed to him most strong-
ly. In the pulpit he was eloquent. His sermons had
gospel, grammar, rhetoric, and graceful gesture.
“There was no shower of shooting stars,
Ending in darkness,"
but there was the glorious shining of the Sun of
Righteousness with healing in his wings. He
preached the last sermon in the church at Kenton,
and was the last guest at our table. How little we
thought that we would see and hear him no more!
I am not writing eulogistically of a dead man. I am
glad that I said these things to him (appreciation of
his preaching and social nature) while he was with us.
He too has a son, on whom the mantle of the gifted
father has fallen and is most worthily worn-Rev.
Sid Harris, now the popular pastor of Clinton Station,
Kentucky. Few young ministers in any Conference
are more in demand for pulpit or for platform.
Another of my presiding elders, Rev. W. L. Duck-
worth, has been added to the list of supernumeraries;
and another, Rev. A. R. Wilson, to the superannu-
ates. But both still do most effective work. Indeed,
the words "supernumerary” and “superannuate”
would be misnomers in any but the Methodist vocab-
ulary. As a matter of fact Methodism never has too
many men, and they are never too old to work. Her
consecrated sons sing in life's latest song: “I'll do
what you want nie to do.” Both these brethren have

Memphis Conference.
237
been wise in winning souls to Christ. Each has a son
in the ministry—Rev. R. P. Duckworth and Rev. J.
C. Wilson-both young men of rare promise.
One of the most touching scenes I ever witnessed
occurred at the late session of the Memphis Confer-
ence in Dyersburg, when the name of T. J. McGill
was called. He arose, and with a face all aglow asked
that his name be placed with those of his more wor-
thy brethren, the old soldiers of the cross, no longer
able to do the work of itinerant Methodist preachers.
As he finished his farewell there were no dry eyes in
the church. My pen cannot describe the exquisite
pathos of the unexpected incident, and when his old
comrades gathered round and clasped him in their
arms the people could not discern the noise of the
shout of joy from the noise of weeping.
Of the chief of the fathers of the princes and elders
yet on these rolls are B. A. Hayes, 1846, and R. V.
Taylor, 1847. There are others equally worthy. Of
the superannuates some ask no aid from the Church,
others but a pittance to eke out the remnant of the
day so far spent. No class of men should so appeal
to the active, substantial sympathy of the Church.
No claimants are more worthy, none more helpless,
except their widows and orphans. Surely if an old
horse can have a warm stall and a green pasture, the
old hero of the saddlebags should be cared for. All
honor to the North Alabama Conference for the
adoption at its last session of "A plan to provide
homes for its superannuate preachers and for fami-
lies of deceased preachers."

CHAPTER XL.
IN MEMORIAM.
THE years at Hickman and on the Lexington Dis-
trict had not passed unmarked by sorrow. Several
times the silent specter had stolen in and shadowed
all the sunshine. It is a solace, however, to be at
home; and as I decline toward the gray twilight of
years I call to mind the fact that in an itinerant life
of more than two score years I have lived longer con-
secutively in Dresden than in any one other place-
eight consecutive years! The passing of time was,
as in Eastern lands, marked by flowers. The music of
wedding bells was followed by the tolling and the
dirge and the melancholy march to the graveyard.
Our daughter, Roberta Young, after living and
teaching in the community one year, was married,
June 12, 1890, in the Methodist Church at Dresden, to
Prof. Walter W. Brown, of Williamston, S. C. In
the short time that she had been with them the people
had learned to love her dearly, and she went from
the Church, the community, and her home with many
blessings and the pleasing prophecy of a long and
continued useful life. She was educated at home and
in Bedford College, afterwards completing the course
of English, mathematics, and music in the Shelby-
ville Female College, under the presidency of Prof.
J. P. Hamilton, receiving the degree of Mistress of
Arts and a special diploma in music. Shortly after
graduation she went to Cape Girardeau, Mo., in
which city she endeared herself to a large circle of
(238)

In Memoriam.
239
friends both in the Church of which her father was
pastor and in the community. In young womanhood
she went to Williamston, S. C., as teacher of music in
the Williamston. Female College. There she met
Prof. Brown, a young man richly dowered by nature
and birth, and with the best training of college and
university. Much of her childhood and girlhood was
passed in the city of Clarksville, where she was hap-
pily converted under the ministry of Dr. James D.
Barbee, and joined the Methodist Church, of which
she remained a faithful member until all the anguish
and the pain were over-pain borne with patience
through years—ending in death far from home among
strangers, tender, helpful, sympathetic, it is true, but
lacking still the grace that makes old things sweet
and softens and sanctifies the pang of parting—the
spices and the myrrh with which loving hands would
embalm the body for its burial. Though dying al-
most a thousand miles from home, the devoted hus-
band brought the beloved body and placed it beside
their infant, Maud Mooney Brown, who, after a brief
life, had been gathered home July 3, 1891.
Where the Saviour's voice is calling,
Where no blight is ever falling,
Where no sound of shout or brawling-
God's little ones!
Where the pains of earth are o'er,
On a fair, celestial shore,
Where the tide flows evermore-
God's little ones!
I think the heart of the mother was comforted some-
what after a while in these thoughts, but the hearts of
both father and mother sorrowed much for their lit-
tle one so soon taken. Now all three are

240
My Moving Tent.
Asleep in Jesus, blessed sleep,
From which none ever wakes to weep.
To us the only surcease from sorrow is the thought
that they are safely sheltered from every stormy
wind that blows. But the darkness of the day, Sep-
tember 14, 1896, when we buried our child, has
dimmed all the remaining days of brightness. A
glory went from the earth no more to be seen in fruit
and flower, a sweetness not to be heard in the song of
bird nor in the happy voices of humankind. The
venerable Dr. R. A. Young, whose name she bore,
wrote: “Heaven is richer to-day.” We believe it, and
rejoice in the thought that to-day she is singing that
wonderful new song in the new city. But ah! my
friend, the old song in the old home was wonderfully
sweet, and we miss it.
But before this, on October 21, 1893, death had
come unexpectedly to our home, and the following
funeral notice, widely circulated by Capt. C. M. Ew-
ing and Col. E. Tansil, brought together a great mul-
titude of Masons and old Confederate soldiers in
Weakley County, besides many sympathizing friends
of the family:
FUNERAL NOTICE.
Maj. J. E. Dromgoole, of Shoals, Ind., died this morning at
five o'clock, at the residence of Rev. Wellborn Mooney.
Friends are invited to the burial to-morrow (Sunday) after-
noon at three o'clock, at the cemetery.
Service of song and prayer at the residence, conducted by
Revs. Stewart and Killgore. Masonic Ritual of Interment.
All ex-Confederate soldiers are invited to attend.
I copy in part from that excellent county paper,
the Dresden Enterprise (then edited by Mr. Robert

In Memoriam.
241
Lewis and wife), the following sketch of the deceased,
written by his aged father and read at the academy.
"Its deep pathos," says the editor, "visibly affected
the large audience.”
John Easter Dromgoole was born in Brunswick County,
Va., August 31, 1831. He came with his parents to Tennessee
when he was but three months old. The family settled in
Rutherford County, near the town of Murfreesboro, where the
subject of this sketch remained till mature manhood. He was
a graduate of Union University, of the Kentucky Military In-
stitute, and of the Lebanon Law School. His first practice as
an attorney was in the town of Murfreesboro.
About the year 1858 he removed to Indiana, and at the com-
mencement of our late troubles was practicing his profession
at the county seat of Martin County. His known adhesion
to the Southern view of the existing troubles and his open
public defense of the position he had taken soon got him into
trouble. He was assaulted by brutal men and most cruelly
beaten. He then left Indiana, and returned to his former
home.
He went out as a private in the Eighteenth Tennessee Regi-
ment; was captured at the surrender of Fort Donelson and
sent to Camp Douglas. By the aid of a few noble women,
and the liberal use of means, he made his escape from Camp
Douglas, was conveyed safely by Federal aid through the
States of Kentucky and Tennessee and on to the Federal out-
posts south of Murfreesboro, where he again joined his for-
mer associates in camp, near Shelbyville. He was in many
severe conflicts, was wounded three times, and carries with
him to the grave the evidence that he had been at the post of
danger. He was in the war till the final collapse, and was
mustered out near Greensboro, N. C.
The war over, he returned to Martin County, Ind., and re-
sumed his old vocation, and remained there until declining
health admonished him that he was nearing the confines of the
eternal world. Suddenly there came a great longing, a heart-
hunger to rest beneath the shade of the trees in his own be-
loved South. Hastily throwing together a few things needful
for his journey, he turned his face homeward. Three weeks
16

242
My Moving Tent.
ago last Friday he reached Dresden, so changed from his for-
mier robust self as to be past recognition. Filled with emotion,
he exclaimed: "I have come home to die.” This shadow never
lifted, or, rather, the shadow had already lifted, and he was
looking steadfastly beyond. At 5 A.M. October 21, just as the
night was dying and the new day was dawning, the light of
immortal glory silently covered his face, the warfare was
ended, the toilsome march was over.
Among his last audible utterances were: “Thank the good
people of Dresden. Don't forget it. Thank them for me for
all their kindness. It began the day I came, and it has never
ceased."
Nor did the loving ministry cease when dark, gray
shadows had veiled the aching eyes. Willing hands
with gentle touch made ready the body for burial, and
kind hearts kept the death watch through the hours
of weary waiting. God bless the old soldiers who
came to a comrade's funeral! Gazing on him, they
felt that the pulse of a hero's heart is stilled, but that
he had passed on to certain victory at last. May you
all meet him in the grand reunion above!
The reverent and affectionate manner in which he
was laid to rest endears to me still more strongly the
grand and ancient order of Freemasonry and in-
creases my interest in the personal welfare of each
member of the mystic brotherhood who participated
in the ritual of interment. When you are called to
the grand lodge above by the Supreme Architect of
the universe, may you be reunited in the circle that
shall nevermore be broken! These sadly sweet words
were found on a slip of paper beneath the pillow on
which his head had rested in dying:
What would I not give to wander
Where my old companions dwell?

In Memoriam.
243
Absence makes the heart grow warmer;
Land of beauty, fare thee well.
Still my fancy can discover
Sunny spots where friends may dwell;
Darker shadows round me hover;
Land of beauty, fare thee well.
Through the mists that float above me,
Fondly sounds the evening bell;
Like a voice from those that love me,
Breathing fondly, “Fare thee well.”
His escape from prison, and the home-bringing of
his wife and child form one of the unwritten romances
of the Civil War. His wife, formerly Miss Augusta
Cook, of Indiana, was true and devoted. The lit-
tle girl brought home died, and was buried in her
father's absence. The faithful wife breathed out her
life while the battle of Murfreesboro was raging, leav-
ing an infant, Lily, only a few hours old.
He was on his way to visit this daughter, Mrs.
Baker, when his last sickness came upon him with
such swiftness and severity that he turned his face
homeward to die among his own people.
I wish to say here that the mob which attacked him
was composed of lewd fellows of the baser sort, cow-
ards who probably never met the foe in open field of
fight. The Indiana troops in and around Murfrees-
boro were the flower of the Federal force, and seemed
to establish a sort of guardianship over the orphan
babe of this Indiana mother who had died while her
husband was in the Southern army in the midst of the
fight. To show that the better element of the people
of Indiana had no part nor lot in this matter, I give
this tribute from the Martin County paper;

244
My Moving Tent.
AT REST.
Word reached here last week that Maj. J. E. Dromgoole
died at Dresden, Tenn., October 21. He left here a short time
ago to visit his father at the above point. For years he has
been troubled with wounds and disease contracted during the
Civil War. When the war commenced he was at Dover Hill,
but, true to his convictions, he went South and fought for
what he believed to be right. After the war he came here, and
has lived here almost continuously since. He was a member
of the Martin County bar, and was considered by all to have
a magnificent education, both legal and general. Until recent-
ly he was President of the Blue Ribbon Temperance Club, and
to-night they will hold a meeting devoted to his memory.
It has been said that adversity is the true test of manhood;
and had many a man passed through all he did, they long ago
would have given up, despairing. But though troubled with
wounds and disease, health wrecked, and away from his old
home, he attained the ripe age of sixty-one. When the hand of
death was placed upon his brow and his eyes closed to all
things worldly, it was a sweet release to a pain-wrecked tene-
ment. At the time when fields and forests give up their golden
fruits, having fulfilled their mission, he gave his life again to
its Author.
O, the outward hath gone, but in glory and power
The spirit surviveth the things of an hour.
Besides these deaths in the home, there have been
others of friends whom we miss and mourn—so many
that when I begin to count them there is opened a
freshi fountain of tears. The loss to our local Church
has been heavy, both by death and removal.. I have
elsewhere mentioned the death of Mrs. J. W. Moran,
a wise and willing-hearted worker in whatever con-
cerned the welfare of her Church and the comfort of
her pastor. Mrs. Mary A. Gardner and her daugh-
ter, Mrs. Metta Gardner Thomason, were among my
first, truest, and most steadfast friends. Better still,

In Memoriam.
245
they were noble types of beautiful Christian woman-
hood. For these and for the many others who have
fallen on sleep since my moving tent was pitched in
Dresden I have only a tribute of tears to wet the
grasses above their graves.
One of the sweet old circle that gave me a hearty
hand claspand “God bless you” at my coming still sur-
vives, Mrs. Margaret Maloan. Her life has long been
a benediction in the home where she had the tender
charge of the orphan children committed to her care
by the dying mother, Mrs. Patience Emmerson Ma-
loan. But to a large and loving circle outside the
home has she been a ministering angel and a helper
of many in times of trouble. It is light with her at
the evening time, but when the light of her life goes
out there will be sorrow in many hearts.
Dresden was the home of Hon. Emerson Ether-
edge, long a leader in the old Whig party, and famous
far beyond local limits for his fluency of diction and
his matchless eloquence. He did a noble work for
Tennessee in the dark days of reconstruction.

CHAPTER XLI.
PEN PICTURES.
I do not know that I am a good judge of preach-
ing, or a judge of good preaching. If I am, I have
heard some not to be surpassed in this country nor
* across the waters. This statement does not apply to
the sermons of the great men already mentioned, but
to sermons I have heard in the Memphis Conference
by the preachers belonging thereto, or by presiding
bishops. The one preached by Bishop C. B. Gallo-
way at the session of the Conference in Memphis was
mighty in power. The whole place was shaken where
they sat. Even the memory of it is thrilling. Bishop
Hendrix's sermon at Paducah was food fit for the
Master's table. Bishop Wilson, at the Lexington
District Conference, preached such a sermon as few
men can make in a lifetime. Like the man who beats
on cold iron till every muscle is tense, and every
breath a heart throb, so beat the blows of his ham-
mer, such as the fabled Thor might have wielded till
he broke the mighty mountain in pieces and disclosed
the burning mass glowing hot within. Such power
was in the preaching, as he spake it, that it was in-
deed “like a fire and like a hammer that breaketh
the rock in pieces."
At Dyersburg in November we had three sermons
upon the fatness and sweetness of which a man might
feast a long time though in a desert place where no
manna was falling. I refer to the sermon by Dr. E.
E. Hoss in his presentation of Peter, the erring, re-
(246)

Pen Pictures.
247
pentant, reclaimed apostle, showing the length and
breadth and the height and the depth of the love of
Christ, passing all knowledge, with which the man of
God should be filled when he feeds the flock, includ-
ing the lambs and the sheep; to Dr. J. C. Morris's
graphic portrayal of Christ's triumphal ride into Je-
rusalem and the glorious climax when the Doctor
himself joined the procession, and the glad hallelu-
jahs, sitting upon an ass and rejoicing more than one
who had conquered with white horses; and to Bishop
Morrison's sermon on Sunday, when he showed us
"The Triumph of a King,” and, like Stephen, we saw
the heavens opened and Jesus standing to receive
and crown the faithful itinerant who had gone forth
weeping and was now coming rejoicing, bringing his
sheaves with him. All the lowly ones were there and
not unnoticed by the King of kings, even the wife of
the itinerant who for long years had toiled and moved
and wept and patched the old pants and dyed and
made over the old coat_even she was given recog-
nition and part in this glorious coronation scene.
Both these climaxes brought emotion to the high tide.
Strong men wept and rejoiced. Nor was it the emotion
that exhausts. It was the insweeping and outpouring
of a tidal wave that refreshes and builds up.
I do not know how the animal, meek and lowly,
felt, but the preachers' wives already felt some of the
compensation of reward. But I did not "set out” to
write about what Dr. Sam Steel's old sexton used to
call “Occasional Sermons," such as we could not, or
at least I could not, take for everyday Sunday fare.
I meant to say something of the sort we take for
common, which is sometimes uncommonly good.

248
My Moving Tent.
Dr. J. H. Evans was my first presiding elder, Dres-
den being then in the Union City District. The good
old art, if I may call it so, of sermon-making is his to a
high degree. I do not mean sermonizing, but ser-
mon-making. I never heard him indulge in prosy
platitudes nor pretty phrases nor sensational stuff.
He is in truth an able minister of the New Testament.
Dr. Warner Moore, the worthy son of Dr. Smith W.
Moore (of precious memory in Church history), is
scholarly, scriptural, strong. He always has an au-
dience of people who think and appreciate that gift in
others. Rev. W. A. Freeman, now of Hernando
Street, Memphis, is genial, affectionate, having a
strong hold upon the hearts of the people and the
preachers. His preaching has in it much of that qual-
ity called unction—"an unction from the Holy One."
Rev. W. D. Jenkins, for the third year my presiding
elder, is an earnest preacher, speaking the word of
God with all boldness. He presents no beautiful bou-
quets of fragrant flowers for fastidious folks. He
dresses and tries to keep clean the garden of the Lord.
My pastors, first and last, in this Conference, have
been as follows:
Rev. J. W. Blackard, wise in planning and looking
well after all the interests of the Church, material and
spiritual. As a delegate to the Ecumenical Council,
he received favorable recognition abroad and from
the great Methodist family. Having served stations
in town and in city, he is now entering upon the work
of presiding elder of the Jackson District.
Rev. E. H. Stewart, an indefatigable worker among
the young people and the children. He is the most
conscientious man I have ever known. This is the

Pen Pictures.
249
consensus of opinion of all who know him best.
Though frail of body, he does much work for the
Master, and work that will last. Needless to add, he
is loved wherever he goes.
Rev. A. J. Meaders, the accomplished Secretary of
the Conference, long my neighbor, is an expert work-
man, both in the pulpit and out of it. His sermons are
well thought out and well delivered. He always goes
before his people prepared. His tent was moved
from Dresden about the time that ours was moved to
Mayfield, since which time the man in the door of
whose tent I have so long sat has been my pastor,
and after a careful comparison of the gifts and graces
of all the others, I unhesitatingly say that he is the
best of them all!
In my occasional visits to Dresden I have found
other worthy ministers in the Methodist manse, all of
whom have been not only neighborly but brotherly.
Byron Roach, whose tent is now pitched in Texas,
succeeded Brother Meaders. His kindly attention to
my father is gratefully remembered.
H. C. Johnson—no son could have been kinder to a
mother than he to me in a time of sickness. The
same can be said of his successor, my one time Sun-
day school pupil, Rev. C. A. Warterfield. Both are
sweet singers, both are good preachers, but their
sweetest songs and best sermons are the ministries
of gentle deeds.
One of the worthies of the Conference, and one of
the worthiest, is Rev. J. H. Witt. When “Uncle John”
rises to speak there is silence in the senate. Every
one expects to hear something, and no one is disap-
pointed. He has the courage of his convictions. He

250
My Moving Tent.
joined the Conference in 1853, when a circuit was as
large as a district is now, and when Immanuel's land
was cultivated with an old-fashioned gospel plow-
straight furrows, precious seed sown with tears, gath-
ering in of sheaves and rejoicing. He uses none of
Brother Jones's gunpowder, of which an old hunter
said when advertising it that he “could walk a mile
through hell with a bushel bag of it under each arm;
and it would not take fire.” Brother Witt is Pres-
ident of the Ministerial Aid Society, an association
to which all the preachers and laymen and Meth-
odist women ought to belong. The small “sum of
three dollars from the preachers and one dollar from
the laymen and women, due in thirty days after the
death of a preacher,” helps to bury the man of God
and to feed his widow and orphans at a time when
there is no support nor help from other source. It
costs more and more for a man to die and be buried.
Some can hardly afford it. Let more be spent in
timely aid for those he fears to leave helpless, and
less in costly caskets and funeral flowers. This is
good insurance, membership in this society, and it
bears good interest for time and eternity. Some
preachers are rich in "wordly gear and goods,” and
are perhaps a trifle indifferent or careless. The
larger part are poor, and as riches take to themselves
wings and fly away, it is wise, as well as kind, for the
rich and the poor to belong to this benevolent asso-
ciation or brotherhood.
W. C. Sellars, of McKenzie Station, is versatile,
sentimental, sympathetic, unique-versatile, a quick
intellect, catches ideas from the glance of a moment,
and easily turns the thought from one subject to an-

Pen Pictures.
251
other, thus bringing out of the gospel treasury things
both new and old, sometimes focusing in one beau-
tiful bow all the rich colors of thought. He is senti-
mental, not sickly but the expression of quick intellec-
tual opinions with that touch of the Master that sends
the pulsating throb from head to heart; sympathetic
because when his heart is thus moved the stream of
pity is not exhausted in an idle flow of tears, but head,
heart, and hand—the complete man-is awake, alert,
active; unique, well, even Mr. Webster fails in de-
fining that fully, and I must acknowledge myself like
the subject, a nondescript, or accept as a definition of
unique that given to normal by an enthusiastic young
lady on normal methods. “What do you mean by
normal?" I asked. “Normal, normal? Well, nor-
mal is normal, you know.”
Rev. G. W. Wilson is the most methodic man I
have met in the Conference. I would that all the
people called Methodists had as much method as
Brother Wilson. He does not attain at a bound the
height to which he is climbing. Real reformers sel-
dom do, but he knows every step of the way. He is
a good organizer and an untiring worker. His tent
is again in Martin, where I first met him when I came
to the Conference, since which time he has served
some of the most important stations and districts.
Rev. H. B. Johnston, now of the Paducah District,
was one of my first preacher friends in the Memphis
Conference. He was then pastor of First Church,
Jackson, Tenn. He too excels in wise planning and
in executive ability. Like Nehemiah, he sees the
situation, and straightway assigns the workers their
places upon the walls. Beyond most men he abounds

252
My Moving Tent.
in the grace of hospitality. At his home in Paducah,
the doors, like the gospel gates, stand open wide day
and night.
Rev. T. J. Newell is a transfer from the North Mis-
sissippi Conference, where, as President of Grenada
Institute, he proved himself an excellent educator.
He is singularly successful in Church work in its dif-
ferent departments—church-building and building up
the Church, numerically, financially, and spiritually.
I have heard him preach but once. That sermon was
like the old-time religion-"good enough for me.”
The papers just now are having much to say about
thie preaching of Rev. G. T. Sullivan, presiding elder
of the Memphis District. I am ready to accept all
the good things said. If Southern Methodism has
anywhere a man of more adaptation, of more accom-
modation, of more willingness to serve his brethren,
a more intelligent and ready helper in the woman's
work of the Church, I have yet to meet him. As Sec-
retary of the Memphis Conference Board of Church
Extension, the Woman's Home Mission Society will
ever esteem him very highly for his work's sake and
for his ready assistance to them. If all the preachers
were as well acquainted with the work and as willing
to coöperate as Brother Sullivan and Rev. W. A.
Dungan, the Home Mission Society could soon help
to build homes in all the waste places, besides aiding
the educational and missionary work among the poor
and the ignorant and the heathen coming into our
country.
In all the authorized departments of Church work
the officers of the several societies, the Woman's For-
eign Missionary Society and the Woman's Home

Pen Pictures.
253
Mission Society, need the encouragement, the sympa-
thy, and the active coöperation of the pastor and the
presiding elder in enlisting and educating the women
and the girls of the Church, making them feel that they
have their sanction and approval. In this respect I
gratefully acknowledge the kindly aid of Rev. H. W.
Brooks, of the Dyersburg District, and of Rev. E. B.
Ramsey, at present the popular pastor of Fulton Sta-
tion, Ky. In the Home Mission work, wheresoever
his tent has been pitched, he has not failed to organize
a society, showing not only a readiness to help those
women, but a sympathy and brotherly kindness for
his brethren in the ministry who are without homes.
This example should stir others to holy zeal, for
even in the Memphis Conference the Church suffers
because some of our married men, without money
and without a home, have been compelled to serve
tables. For such a one there should be no censure,
when the Church in her membership fails to provide
him a home. I honor the man, when so placed, who
will not beg bread nor buy it on credit. A meager
knowledge of arithmetic will serve to show that a
small salary, uncertainly and irregularly paid, will not
pay house rent and feed and clothe a family, even
though "they live on sunbeams and mites” and risk
the chance of a box of clothing from the supply de-
partment, under the loving guardianship of Mrs. Bet-
tie McFerrin Yarbrough, Nashville, Tenn. As pil-
grims and sojourners,
“Let each his friendly aid afford,
And feel his brother's care."

CHAPTER XLII.
LEXINGTON DISTRICT.
If anybody doubts the necessity of Home Mis-
sions, let him go through the length, somewhat devi-
ous, and the breadth, somewhat circuitous, of the
district bearing the historic name of Lexington. If
I mistake not, it includes in its territory parts of seven
counties, making the geography and the topography
both difficult—the first of description, and the latter
as a local habitation or for an encampment.
But here, year after year, the faithful men of God
have gone with the message of salvation, and oft-
times with the pathetic cry of the Master: "The foxes
have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but I
have not where to lay my head.” But of late there
has been much improvement in this respect, from the
growth of sentiment in the Church that we must have
a home for the preachers. Most of the charges in the
district now have some sort of a parsonage, and un-
der the administration of that tireless worker, Rev.
J. W. Waters, presiding elder of the district, a district
parsonage has been secured in the town of Lexing-
ton. Until his going to the district, no home what-
ever was provided for the presiding elder. A large
per cent of the small appropriations from the Board
of Domestic Missions was expended in travel, some-
times to points outside the district—wheresoever his
home, if any he had, might chance to be.
While thiese homes for preachers have been multi-
plied, they are not so well finished nor so well fur-
(254)

Lexington District.
255
nished as they should be; and the preacher, even to
make himself comparatively comfortable, must ex-
pend a considerable portion of his salary. For many
reasons this is important ground for Southern Meth-
odism. The men who serve in these places come as
near measuring up to the old standard as any. In
fact, but for their heroic endurance and that of others
similarly situated, I should read the “History of
Methodism,” as told by McTyeire and others, as I do
the "Romance of the Cavaliers," as related by Scott.
But what mine eyes have seen and mine ears have
heard, that I believe. I honor the men who serve in
these lowly places; and, as I said, I believe they
measure up to the old standard. A request came to
the bishop at Conference: “Send us a man who can
swim.” “What do you mean?” inquired the bishop.
“Why, the last man we had, in order to keep an ap-
pointment, had to cross a fierce, rushing stream, and
he was drowned. 'Send us a man who can swim.'”
I verily believe that there are preachers in this Con-
ference, not only in Lexington District, so devoted
to the work that no personal inconvenience nor sac-
rifice would keep them from an appointment.
Rev. J. W. Waters is at present the presiding elder
of the district, and I doubt not he could furnish from
his experience incidents equally as interesting as the
following, written by a former presiding elder:
“On my way to quarterly meeting at Sulphur
Spring, on Sugar Creek Circuit, I was met in Camden
by the preacher in charge, Rev. L. D. Hamilton, who
had previously ordered his buggy sent to Camden.
Brother Hamilton rode a red sorrel horse to Camden,
and harnessed him to the buggy. There was snow on

256
My Moving Tent.
the ground, but it was not very deep. The earth was
frozen, but not hard enough to bear the weight of the
horse, so his feet would go through the crust and
down, way down into the mud. We found that we
were making very slow time. The horse was true to
pull, but he had been in this country a long time, and
some things he had learned from experience. For in-
stance, he knew that it was easier to pull an empty
buggy uphill than to pull the same buggy with two
men in it. So he would stop at each hill and wait for
one, or both of us, to get out. Besides, he was a coun-
try horse and not accustomed to city harness. He
was used to the collar but not the strap. However, we
jogged on, and got cold and hungry. Within two
or three miles of Holladay a trace broke and was
mended. A little farther on something else broke
and was mended. Finally, in the worst mudhole in
all the way, the harness failed utterly and beyond re-
pair. Out went Hamilton into the deep mud, led
forth the horse and put the saddle on him, and
“brought” him to the buggy for me to mount. He
took the harness in one hand and arm and waded out
of the mudhole. I rode up to a log and said: 'Now,
Hamilton, get on.' He did so, and the two preachers
rode into the town of Holladay, both on the red sorrel
horse; nor did they go like John Gilpin, at galloping
pace. At the parsonage Brother Batton was waiting
with his wagon to take us and Sister Hamilton and the
children to his house for the night. But Brother
Hamilton was cold and hungry, and was in no mood
for going. However, Sister Hamilton soon gave us
refreshments and we were in better plight. Hamilton
and a friend went back for the buggy. His wife, the

Lexington District.
257
two little girls, and I got into the wagon and went
home with good Brother Batton. That night was
cold, bitter cold. Next morning Brother Batton and
his daughter, and Sister Hamilton, the two little girls,
and I entered the wagon and set out for quarterly
meeting. For a time all went well; but after a while,
going downhill, there was a heavy jolt and an omi-
nous fall. The young lady, who was sitting in a chair,
had fallen backward and hit her head against the hind
gate of the wagon. However, she was soon up again,
and we went on as if nothing had happened. We had
a good congregation at the church, preaching and
Quarterly Conference, but the house was new and un-
finished, and the weather was considered too cold for
services at night. The preacher and his family, the
presiding elder, and another gentleman, all went home
with the good Dutchman to spend the night. The
good Dutchman is a man of medium size, but his wife
is as large as she is clever, and that is saying a good
deal. She, Sister Hamilton, and the little girls occu-
pied one room and the same bed, while the four men
were comfortably quartered in another apartment.
The next morning the snow was deep, but even be-
fore breakfast a messenger came for a magistrate to
perform a marriage ceremony. In due time Brother
Hamilton and I set out for the church, walking up-
hill and downhill and across the hollows for a mile or
two. After service a lady approached me and said:
You promised yesterday to go home with me to-day.'
'Well, I am ready to go,' was the reply. We went out
to the wagon, to which two good-looking steers were
hitched, swept the snow from the uncovered seats,
and were soon off. Buck and Ball were cold and
17

258
My Moving Tent.
lively, and it did not take them long to go home. At
the home there was no one but the old gentleman, who
did not feel well enough to go to church. He had
gone to bed and the fire was out, the wood was cov-
ered with snow, and the dinner uncooked. But it
was not long until the fire was made, the meal pre-
pared and eaten. We might have gone in the strength
of that dinner till next morning! My bedchamber
that night was indeed well ventilated. The intended
chimney had not been built, and there was a hole or
crack in the wall large enough for a cat to crawl
through. But there was a great quantity of good,
warm bedclothing, and I had good, comfortable sleep.
The next morning after breakfast I walked over to a
neighbor's, where I expected to meet Brother Hamil-
ton and Brother Batton. They came, and we were
soon off for the home of Brother Hubbs, who fur-
nished me with a good mule to ride, and Brother
Hamilton and I went that afternoon to Camden. For
push and pluck commend me to Lewis D. Hamilton."
It was while Brother Jacob Carl was on the work at
Holladay that I attended the District Conference be-
fore mentioned, over which Bishop Wilson presided.
We were pleasantly entertained in the home of an oll
Confederate soldier, Mr. Holladay, who has since
crossed over the river. I like all good men, but I
just can't help liking an old Methodist preacher and
an old Confederate soldier better than I do other
good men, because they are the best we have in
Church and State.
This District Conference was noticeable for the
large attendance of clerical and lay members, and of
the people are not a few. Although the dog star raged,

Lexington District.
259
and the sun was at his fiercest heat, every charge was
represented, not a pastor absent, and a layman from
every circuit and station, many coming long distances
over rough roads, spending time, strength, and money
to attend the Conference, and staying and working
till after adjournment. Not only in the Lexington
District, but throughout the Memphis Conference,
may the excellency of the lay element be emphasized!
Of lawyers there are not a few, and the law and the
gospel work admirably together. All disputed legal
points are soon settled without friction.
The laymen that I have known longest and best are:
George W. Martin, of Martin, Tenn., a man of cul-
ture and of wealth, and giving largely to the Church
and to the cause of Christian education.
A. G. Hawkins, of Huntingdon, one of Forrest's
men, who followed that wizard of the saddle to the
last, and who still delights to do him honor, and al-
ways on the Sabbath day may be found in the Sunday
school which he has long served as superintendent.
His kinsman, Capt. Sam Hawkins, seeing with the
quickness of an X-ray through the wrappings and
folds and voluminous verbs of legal lore.
J. Y. Barbee, of Ripley, another old Confederate,
whom all delight to honor for spotless integrity, for
liberality to the Church and her institutions, and for
his daily walk with God. The sense of loss would be
sharp should I fail to see him and Judge W. I. McFar-
lane, of Humboldt, at Conference. Their warm hand
clasp and friendly greetings cheer the heart and light-
en the pathway.
Other lawyers of note are: S. D. Hays, of Jackson,
Tenn.; J. C. Speight, of Mayfield, Ky.; J. C. Dean, of

260
My Moving Tent.
Clinton; L. H. Estes, of Memphis; Levi S. Woods
and John M. Taylor, of Lexington, Tenn.; and J. L.
Fry, of Kenton; with that knight of the quill, J. W. N.
Burkett, of Jackson, Tenn.
The Memphis Conference feels that Mr. John R.
Pepper, Chairman of the Memphis Conference Sun-
day School Board, while belonging to the whole
Church, is her peculiar property in no selfish sense.
The excellent Sunday school work throughout her
territory is the outgrowth of sentiment created and
fostered by him in the city of Memphis and in the
annual meetings of Sunday school workers. While
conservative in his views, he is broad, aggressive, and
progressive, ready to adopt any new method or move-
ment for the best development of this great interest.
Prof. H. M. Hamill, D.D., Superintendent of Train-
ing Work, M. E. Church, South, will doubtless find
the Memphis Conference responsive to his proposed
plan of Bible study, with all the adjuncts and aids for
systematic work. Mr. Pepper attended the late
Ecumenical Council, and was a keen observer of the
moving tent among our English brethren, and I have
been greatly edified with his recital, showing how the
young giant, once rocked in the Epworth cradle,
crossed the ocean, climbed the mountains, journeyed
on foot and on horseback, tabernacling for a while in
the wilderness, and then built for his God a stately
temple, a place where His honor delighteth to dwell.
There are others, many others, in this part of
Southern Methodism, both lay and clerical, "mag-
nanimous, courtly, Christlike," whose names I should
love to write; but they are living epistles known and
read of all men who love our Lord Jesus Christ and

Lexington District.
261
the Church he purchased with his own precious
blood.
One of the hopeful signs of the times is the in-
creased interest taken by laymen in the study of God's
word; an interest evinced by their willingness to
teach in the Sunday school and to prepare themselves
for this work by reading our excellent Sunday school
literature, and by buying the books for the Teachers'
Study Circle. A layman of Nashville once said to
mę: "The young people are so much more favored
now than in my day. They have so much and such
good Sunday reading. On Sunday afternoons I was
always set down to 'The Life and Times of C. C. Ma-
hew.' I had read it so often that I knew just when and
where the rabbit would cross the road or path, and I
sat down to read, and held the book upside down.”
And yet a well-grounded fear prevails that our
Church literature is not so much read as in the time
when there was less of it. In many Sunday schools
the library is a thing of the past. In others, books
for Sunday afternoon reading are not in demand by
our young people.

CHAPTER XLIII.
SHINING LIGHTS.
My long connection with the Church and the itin.
erancy in the several Conferences has brought me
into acquaintance or association with many of its
leading men and women, and with prominent people
not of the M. E. Church, South, nor of any of the
various branches of Methodism. I have known all
our bishops, except Bishops Duncan and Smith.
Bishops Paine, Wightman, Marvin, McTyeire,
Keener, and Kavanaugh were favorites, not only in
the pulpit but in the home as guests, where, freed
from the care of all the Churches, they were delight-
ful fireside companions, Bishop McTyeire especially,
taking an interest in the children, even the smaller
ones, while Bishop Wightman charmed the older by
fascinating reminiscences of his youth and early man-
hood.
Bishop John Vincent, of the M. E. Church, North,
I have heard with great delight as a lecturer. A na-
tive of Tuscaloosa, Ala., the South delights to do him
honor.
Dr. B. M. Palmer,* of the old school Presbyterian
Church, for almost fifty years pastor of the Church
in New Orleans, is a man of mark and might, place
him where you will. If I had not been born a Metho-
dist, I should have been a Presbyterian; but as it was
decreed otherwise, I must, as a Methodist, say that
after long association with members and ministers of
* Since died.
(262)

Shining Lights.
263
this Church, my conviction is that we have no better
types of Christianity. If I were a minister, I should
covet earnestly those best gifts so largely the dower of
Dr. B. M. Palmer, whose manners are as simple as
his tongue is eloquent.
"Bob Burdette” ranks in popularity with “Our
Bob," and yet no two public speakers are more un-
like in manner, in matter, and in appearance. Gov.
Taylor sometimes makes me cry, even with his “Fid-
dle and Bow.” Burdette's humor is more of a sug-
gestive sort, whether it provoke laughter or tears,
and, as Hood has said, “there is no dividing line be-
tween the two." The rainbow is the creation of both
the shower and the sunshine.
For transitions of humor from grave to gay, and
vice versâ Bishop Candler stands unrivaled, one
moment his face looking as stern and solemn as that
of the Sphynx rising from the sands of the desert and
brooding over the unsolved mysteries of silence, of
sorrow, of death, and the next mirthful as that of the
merry monarch to whom all things were play.
W. B. Palmore, leader of the knights of the twenti-
eth century, is a strong temperance speaker, and
would refuse to smoke even the pipe of peace filled
with tobacco if all the Indians were on the warpath,
His memory is marvelous, his vocabulary varied and
exhaustless, and his familiarity with the whole wide
world, while it makes you not akin, strengthens the
bonds of brotherhood and interest, and keeps you
awake and listening much beyond the time usually
allotted to the lecturer.
Dr. Young J. Allen has interested me as a speaker
on the foreign field far beyond any I have heard. His

264
My Moving Tent.
address at the Clarksville Conference three years ago
awakened such interest in the Eastern empire as had
never been felt before, its customs, its concessions,
its provinces, its literature, and its religion. An in-
telligent gentleman remarked that it would be wisdom
in the Church to have Dr. Allen make that address all
through the length and breadth of Southern Metho-
dism, all of which I steadfastly believe.
Dr. W. R. Lambuth, Missionary Secretary, is a
speaker whom all the people hear gladly on any ques-
tion connected with missions, whether of the foreign
fields or of home missions. His study of the problem
invests him with authority as a speaker, while his
presentation of the more puzzling problems of sociol-
ogy, in its relation to active Christianity, are pro-
foundly thought-provoking and heart-stirring. His
intelligence and piety make him a master in Israel.
While in Missouri, I more than once listened to
Miss Frances E. Willard, a most womanly woman, of
attractive personality, great intellectuality, and of
commanding power as a speaker over a great and
mixed multitude.
Mrs. Clara Hoffman, of Kansas City, President of
the Missouri Woman's Christian Temperance Union,
is an orator of no mean ability. Few men surpass her
as a speaker.
Mrs. Juliana Hayes, first President of our Woman's
Foreign Missionary Society, I was once most pleas-
antly associated with at an annual meeting of the
Tennessee Conference Woman's Foreign Missionary
Society, of which I was at that time the President.
Sister Hayes could not realize that I was “Mrs.
Mooney.” Like the sister from the Cumberland

Shining Lights.
265
country, she "was expecting to see a large, fine-look-
ing woman.”
Miss Lochie Rankin, our first missionary to China,
was also in attendance at that meeting, and Dr. Wil-
liam Patterson, of the Mexican Mission, with many
others whose tents have been folded here forever.
I do not remember the time when the Christian Ad-
vocate, under its several names, did not come to my
father's house. Since 1856 it has been quite a famil-
iar friend in my own home.
Beginning with that hero of Tennessee Methodism,
Dr. J. B. McFerrin, I have been personally acquainted
with all its editors: Dr. Holland N. McTyeire, Dr.
Thomas O. Summers, Dr. O. P. Fitzgerald, and Dr.
E. E. Hoss, mighty princes and potentates and lords
-rulers in the realm of thought. Dr. Summers was a
sturdy English oak on whom the winds blew hard and
upon whose head the blasts beat furiously. Long he
withstood the storm unbroken and unbent, but one
day a lightning stroke struck to his heart, and
“Life and Thought went away.”
Better so than to have lived longer to drink deeper
from sorrow's cup. His learning was a vast sea in
which sportive swimmers would soon sink or cry for
a helping hand. Stern, hearty, bluff, sad, patient, ten-
der, he was a great man in the best sense, and a good
one in the highest. One grace adorning his daily home
life, Dr. Summers had beyond most men—hospitality.
Always at his table there was placed a plate for the
stranger or the brother from a country charge. Such
a one was never allowed to go home nungry, nor to a
public place for a meal. I would rather break bread

266
My Moving Tent.
with such a man under a tent than to partake of a feast
at some mansion where one dare not go uninvited,
however hungry.
Another editor whom I know very well, though I
have never seen him, is Dr. J. J. Lafferty, of the Balti-
more and Richmond Christian Advocate. I am old Vir-
ginian enough to believe with my whole heart that
Dr. Lafferty stands unmatched in the courtly field of
fame where pens, not swords, decide the combat.
And in strife such as men sometimes wage I would
wish no better blade in “open battle or on tilting
field.”
Dr. R. H. Mahon and Dr. John W. Boswell, both
former editors of the Memphis Christian Advocate,
the latter now editor of the New Orleans Christian
Advocate, are strong writers and preachers of Pau-
line power.
Dr. D. R. McAnally, at one time editor of the St.
Louis Christian Advocate, was a man of good com-
mon sense, of culture and ability. His style was Ad-
disonian. Both in writing and in preaching was he
fond of quoting the old masters of poetry. He did it
well, too, though disclaiming artificial aids and elocu-
tionary effects.
Dr. A. R. Winfield, when editor of the Arkansas
Methodist, wielded a trenchant pen, and, while a man
of power in the pulpit, was more popular on the plat-
form, happily combining positiveness with pleasantry,
wit, and humor. Dr. J. E. Godbey, the present editor,
is an accomplished writer, having drunk deep from the
well of "Englische undefyled,” and making all his
knowledge subservient to his higher ministry, a
preacher of the gospel.

Shining Lights.
267
Dr. J. J. Tigert, though comparatively a young
man, is an author of acknowledged ability both at
home in America and across the seas. The motto of
the Review, “Causas cognoscite rerum,” is aptly de-
scriptive of the mental quality of the man. For the
shallow and the superficial he has scant toleration.
Though he walks among the stars, he never forgets
that his feet are upon the earth. So, while working
diligently to make the Review approximate his ideal,
he goes freely among the brethren and people at an
Annual Conference to solicit subscriptions. This be-
gets a fraternal, responsive feeling. His predeces-
sors, with the exception of Drs. Summers and Harri-
son, I did not know as editors of the Review. Those
better qualified to judge of the work than I say that
the Review was never better edited than it is at present.
The same is true of the editorial work of the Sunday
School Magazine. Dr. James Atkins, the Sunday
School Editor, rightly receives the commendation of
our leading men in Church and State.
Not least among the shining lights are three stars
which bring light and joy and gladness into many
hearts and homes. They are: Mrs. F. A. Butler, editor
of the Woman's Missionary Advocate, the official or-
gan of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society;
Miss Mary Helm, editor of Our Homes; and Mrs. W.
H. Johnson, of Dallas, Tex., editor of the King's
Messenger, these two papers representing different de-
partments of the Woman's Home Mission work.
Miss Belle Bennett, President of the Home Mission
Society, is a woman of most gracious presence, a
good writer, an excellent presiding officer, and a
forceful, fluent speaker. She has done much work in

268
My Moving Tent.
both the Foreign and the Home Mission Society, es-
pecially in educational lines. She is a wise planner,
and her work will be permanent and evolutionary,
growing better and better.
Dear, too, to the heart of every man, woman, and
child in Southern Methodism should be the work of
Miss Anne Maria Barnes, of Georgia. Her pen, while
it pleases the children, has told in triumphant tone of
the work of the Southern Methodist Church in giving
the gospel to the negro slaves on Southern planta-
tions. Her book on this subject, and “Joe, A Boy of
the War Times,” by Rev. R. J. Bigham, should be
read by all our people, young and old, and their cir-
culation outside denominational Church lines would
be helpful in correcting many evils arising from prej-
udices and ignorance, and a prejudgment based on ig-
norance is the worst sort.
One of the best contributions to Church literature
and history is the "Life of Lucinda B. Helm,” found-
er of the Woman's Home Mission Society, by Mrs.
Gross Alexander. She had an excellent subject, and
she handled it well and lovingly. In this connection
I would note the superior work of Mrs. Alexander as
Editor of Leaflets of the Home Mission Society, and
of Mrs. J. D. Hammond, Superintendent of Press
Work of the same society.
Dr. H. M. Du Bose, whom some one styles the poet
of Southern Methodism, as editor of the Epworth Era
is an exquisite word-painter. He is greatly admired
and much beloved by the young people of the Church.
“Bible Questions and Answers,” by Rev. T. L.
Moody, a member of the Tennessee Conference, is a
perfect piece of work of the sort, and should be used

Shining Lights.
269
in our Sunday schools, where, with all our improve-
ments on methods of teaching, we have rather fallen
from grace on the catechism. With Dr. Tigert, “I
heartily commend these 'Questions and Answers' to
parents and teachers in the home and in the school.”'
It was my great privilege to hear on one occasion
the venerable Dr. Andrew Hunter, who was at the
time a guest of Dr. J. B. West, of Clarksville, presi-
dent of the Academy, when Miss Florence Hunter
was a pupil. It was not long after the close of the
Civil War, and the Doctor preached a strong, help-
ful sermon on “Love Your Enemies.” It was very
wholesome doctrinę and full of comfort.
Dr. R. G. Porter (“Gilderoy”) I know, not only
through the Church press, but by personal corre-
spondence. His experience with “Newton's female
cohorts," who came to pray for him, and whom he
"did not recognize as elders of the Church, and whom
he had not called,” is rich with a humor that I cannot
transfer to paper. His style as a writer is natural,
vivacious, and always intensely interesting.
When I was quite young I heard, as debaters, Chap-
man, Methodist, and Graves, Baptist. The crowded
church and excited partisans impressed me not alto-
gether pleasantly, and the impression remains. In
after years I heard Dr. Jacob Ditzler on the same sub-
ject—baptism—though not in debate, and more re-
cently Rev. R. H. Pigue, of the Memphis Conference.
Rev. T. P. Clark is also a strong defender of the
faith of his Church when her teaching of this subject
is assailed—its mode, subjects, et id omne.
"Daniel in the Den of Lions” seems a favorite
theme with the preachers. Dr. Ditzler was once a

270
My Moving Tent.
visitor at our home in Clarksville, and stayed over
Sunday and preached. I was ill, as I had been for
several previous Sundays. The pastor was new, and
had delighted his flock one of those days on "Daniel
in the Den of Lions.” Then along came a visiting
brother. He too thought this theme might be used
to the edification of the people. Dr. Ditzler had been
announced to preach, and great expectations were
indulged. On his return to the parsonage, after
preaching, I inquired: "Doctor, what did you preach
about?” “Well,” he replied, “after turning over sev-
eral subjects in my mind, I decided that I could not
discourse on a more suitable theme than 'Daniel in
the Den of Lions.'” My face betrayed me, and after
giving him a recital of the previous Sundays, I could
not refrain from an expression of sympathy for poor
Daniel, so long a defenseless sufferer since his escape
from the other lions.
Soon after this we had as guest that man of God,
long one of the leading ministers in the Memphis
Conference, Rev. William C. McMahan. A man
more courtly, more Christlike, more appreciative of
the common courtesies of life, I have never enter-
tained. He was a man of pulpit power, and preached
with wonderful success on “The New Birth,” his
favorite theme. Another favorite was “For so an
entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly,
into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour
Jesus Christ.” Not long afterwards, in 1870, he was
called home to enjoy that abundant entrance.
It was a great grief to me to sever connection with
the Methodist women in the bounds of the Tennessee
Conference, women with whom I had been so long

Shining Lights.
271
associated in Church work in the several stations
served by my husband and in the charges served by
brethren beloved while he was on districts. I was at-
tached to all of them locally as coworkers and as of-
ficers in the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society.
Some have passed from labor to reward. Especially
is the old Clarksville circle broken. Those that re-
main are widely scattered. Yet forever fixed in mem-
ory are the names of Clara Beaumont Wisdom, Dora
Stewart, Sallie Scott Bringhurst, Clara McReynolds,
Mrs. R. H. Pickering, Mrs. Sallie Dorriss Jackson,
Mrs. John F. Couts, Mary Macrae, Mary Caldwell,
Kate Rogers, and a host of others.
Stars that shimmer all more bright
Long lonely ways, on darkest night.
Among the elect in the Memphis Conference are
Mrs. Ellen M. Watson, President of the Woman's
Foreign Missionary Society; Miss Fanny King, the
Vice President; Miss Laura Bradford, the Corre-
sponding Secretary; Mrs. Tom Neal, the Recording
Secretary-all well known officially throughout
Southern Methodism.
In the Home Mission Society of the Memphis Con-
ference, Mrs. Ross Witherspoon is the recognized
leader, As Corresponding Secretary she has wrought
wisely and well, besides being in labors more abund-
ant in other departments of Church work. The asso-
ciate officers of the society, Mrs. J. H. Evans, Mrs. J.
W. N. Burkett, Mrs. J. S. Swayne, Mrs. J. H. Rob-
erts, Mrs. J. T. Perkins, each in her place is best, and
my association with them in this great work is one of
the sweet compensations for the loss of companion-
ship of other years in other places,

272
My Moving Tent.
A guest of honor at the recent annual meeting of
the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society at Fulton,
Ky., was Miss Maria L. Gibson, President of the
Scarritt Bible and Training School, at Kansas City.
Few women in the Church are more widely known,
few more dearly loved for her works. This love
grows as one looks upon her earnest face and listens
to her sweet recital of the school-work and home-life
of the institution.
It is said that Cæsar knew the names of his beloved
legion and could call them without reference to the
written roll. Many names uncalled here are indelibly
inscribed on mind and heart. They need, none of them,
my pen nor praise, but I would cull for each, in every
place where our tent has been pitched, some fair
flower, some sweet forget-me-not for this memorial
altar, not heaped, as in ancient times, with wreaths
wrenched from the vanquished, but with a freewill of-
fering of the grateful.
Rome in her golden age had her seven stars, and
they have shone on with undimmed splendor through
succeeding centuries. The shining lights of Metho-
dism are more like that multitude of stars, making
luminous that great white pathway across the sky, a
light so soft, so sweet, that tired eyes looking out at
it may exclaim, “How beautiful it is !” Remember-
ing the time when but few stars shone, may we not re-
joice that the Southern star is in the ascendant ?
I may but mention a few in the glowing galaxy, and
in all our Southland I know no man so much at home
among the stars as Dr. James H. Carlisle, so long the
honored head of that grand old school, Wofford Col-
lege, South Carolina.

Shining Lights.
273
S. A. Link and W. T. Hale are charming compan-
ions, whether among the poets laureate or among the
birds, the fields, the flowers.
Will Allen Dromgoole has won friends from the
mountain heights of Tennessee to the Golden Gate
of California.
"A Girl's Journey through Europe, Egypt, and the
Holy Land,” by Lenamay Green, has delighted thou-
sands of sight-seers and travel lovers who must stay
at home.
Now that the evening draweth nigh, and the sol-
emn, silent stars appear, whose heart is not warmed
by the golden “Sunset Views,” presented to us by
Bishop O. P. Fitzgerald ? Such scenes that
We seem to see the flowering groves
Of fair old Beulah's Land!
18

CHAPTER XLIV.
TENTS TAKEN Down.
“Pilgrim and stranger no more shall I roam,
Joyfully, joyfully resting at home.”
On this still eve many are the echoing footsteps I
hear of the departed years, and many other beautiful
faces look upon me from the magic mirror of mem-
ory, and others still, whose daily presence makes
bright this earthly house of the tabernacle, which, as
regards myself and long-time fellow-pilgrims and
travelers, I am reminded by many infallible signs
must soon be taken down. It is a glorious company,
whether of the living or of the dead, and, while the
sense of separation makes sad, the thought of reunion
makes glad.
These signs are known and read of all men, and in
no literature more wisely and tenderly and tersely ex-
pressed than in Ecclesiastes : “Remember now thy
Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days
come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt
say, I have no pleasure in them; while the sun, or the
light, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened, nor
the clouds return after the rain: in the day when the
keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong
men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease be-
cause they are few, and those that look out of the
windows be darkened, and the doors shall be shut in
the streets, when the sound of the grinding is low,
and he shall rise up at the voice of the bird, and all
the daughters of music shall be brought low; also
(274)

Tents Taken Down.
275
when they shall be afraid of that which is high, and
fears shall be in the way, and the almond tree shall
flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and
desire shall fail : because man goeth to his long home,
and the mourners go about the streets: or ever
the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be bro-
ken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the
wheel broken at the cistern. Then shall the dust re-
turn to the earth as it was : and the spirit shall return
unto God who gave it.”
In this graphic summary of life, with all its swell-
ing tide of woes, is embodied the experience of ev-
ery seer, whether he be of the school of the prophets,
or some simple soul who reads the signs of sorrow
on every careworn face and marks decrepitude as it
halts feebly to the tomb. The pathos in the picture
is inexpressibly sad, and yet wonderfully sweet for the
assurance that the spirit returns to God who gave it.
I saw these signs personally illustrated when, after
many years' absence, I returned last October to the
session of the Tennessee Conference, held in the dear
old town of Pulaski, where in days gone by our tent
had been so often pitched, and of which body I had
become a moving member forty-five years before in
the city of Huntsville, Ala. So many tents had been
silently folded away, so many pitched in other places.
Out of the whole number who were members in 1856,
only thirteen remained—viz.: J. B. Anderson,* 1854;
J. D. Barbee, 1852; S. M. Cherry, 1855; J. W. Cul-
lom, 1851; R. M. Haggard,* 1854; D. C. Kelley, 1852;
T. B. Marks, 1845; John Mathews, 1846; J. C. Put-
nam, 1848; W. H. Riggin, 1853 ; R. A. Young,* 1844.
* Since died.

276
My Moving Tent.
Of all the preachers who belonged to the Tennessee
Conference in 1849, when Mr. Mooney joined, only
five are now members of it: John Mathews, T. B.
Marks, J. C. Putnam, B. F. Ferrell, and R. A. Young.
Of this number, only one is effcetive: Dr. John Math-
ews,* of McKendree Station, Nashville, Tenn.
Through fast-flowing tears I exchanged silent saluta-
tions with many who had remembered their Creator in
the days of their youth and whose spirit had returned
unto God who gave it. Some whom I had first seen
standing upon the radiant peaks of youth had grown to
maturity, past meridian, and were entering that lone-
ly land toward the setting sun. More pathetic still
the aged pilgrim, with strength all spent, to whom the
grasshopper had become a burden, who, in the words
of Uncle John Randle, of the Memphis Conference,
“God is still nursing and caring for.” Bishop Morri-
son sweetly styles it “The Beauties of the Childhood
of Old Age.”
When I stood among the graves and read the rec-
ords there of many mentioned in the earlier chap-
ters of this book, I said from a full heart : "Truly we
have here no continuing city.” This fact was empha-
sized in that great meeting one night when Rev. J.
W. Cullom preached his semicentennial sermon,
which was no sermon at all, save that, beginning away
back yonder, fifty years ago, he declared to the breth-
ren the wonderful grace of God which had helped him
win souls for Christ, as many as were added to the
Church that great day when Peter preached. Three
thousand souls for Christ! As he neared the close,
the Holy Ghost fell on them that heard, and they
* Now superannuate in St. Louis,

Tents Taken Down.
277
gathered him in their arms and gave glory to God
that he had so magnified his grace in the abundant
sheaves gathered in by this man who had not dis-
dained to toil in lowly places.
If from habit of mind my memory goes slipping
back to the golden days when Life and I were young,
let no one conclude that, except in sentimental sort,
I think the old days were best. I belong neither to
the school of the laughing philosopher nor to that of
him who thought life so full of woe that he wept all
the time. While neither optimist nor pessimist, I am
still less inclined to the Tub of Diogenes and the snarl-
ing sentiment which bids every one "get out of my
sunshine."
Twixt tears and smiles,
The happy medium lies.
In material matters, as applied to the preacher,
many things are better than when I joined the trav-
eling connection, and many things might be bettered.
Traveling itself is better as regards rapidity of move-
ment and comfort on the way. Yet so much of the
history of Methodism is connected with the horse,
that it is not without a sigh that I see him supplanted
by the railroad, by the bicycle, by the automobile, and
presently and prospectively by the flying man. Then
in the not-too-distant perspective not only may the
pastoral term be extended indefinitely, and the preach-
er stay on in one place till he is worn out and the peo-
ple are in the same state, but it is among the pleasant
possibilities that he can just stay in his study and sit
or stand and preach to his people through the tele-
phone or some other quick transmitter of sound and
thought. This would surely save him the fatigue of

278
My Moving Tent.
travel and the discomforts of being abroad in bad
weather, as well as caustic criticisms on his dress and
address.
Again, the preachers now have homes, and better
homes than they used to have, and yet they need more
homes and better homes, for the ideal earthly home
should approximate the heavenly.
"Since earth-life finds its richest recompense
What time we spend around a transient dome,
No wonder that in God's immense
Hope builds for us an everlasting home.”
Just as far back as I remember, the old preachers
used to sing with tremulous tones :
“No foot of land do I possess,
No cottage in the wilderness.”
To my childish thinking there was a pathos, a plain-
tiveness in the quaint old melody that had in it the
cry of a homesick heart.
Take from heaven the thought of home, with all
that home means, and you leave us a Christianity as
bleak as an ice palace. Take from the Bible the sen-
timent that crystallizes around the celestial city as the
home of our Father's widely scattered children, and
you make us orphans indeed, whose tears must for-
ever flow.
Heaven is not an abstraction, an ideality. Around
it cluster all the magnetic forces that once bound us
to the earthly home. It has the glory of God; but it
has gates and mansions and walls, and the nations
of them that are saved walk in the light of it, and they
rejoice as one by one they are gathered home to go
out no more. What force in the exhortation of the
poet:

Tents Taken Down.
279
Come, let us join our friends above,
That have obtained the prize;
And on the eagle wings of love
To joys celestial rise.
What is meant by the Woman's Foreign Mission-
ary Society, by the Woman's Home Mission Society,
by Church Extension, by the Church itself, but the
multiplication of Christian homes in which we may be
fitted for this inheritance among the saints in light ?
I do not know the location of our first earthly
Eden. Our senior bishop may be right in locating it
along our Southern shore, where many of the beau-
ties and delights of an earthly paradise can surely be
seen. This I know: I shall see no sweeter, serener
sight this side the heavenly home than that of him-
self and his aged wife sitting in the sunlight of their
own home in the city of New Orleans on an April
day in the year 1900. What a wonderful history was
that he gave of Methodism in the Crescent City, of
its trials and its triumphs, and yet never even a re-
mote reference to himself as a factor in the gracious
result, but a noble tribute to the holy band who had
gone forth from the old Carondelet to tell the story
of Jesus and his love.
The tabernacle in the wilderness is a recital of
weariness, of pain, of suffering, of terrible tragedies,
of glorious victories. Hard as the way was, it meant
a going from bondage into marvelous liberty. It
meant, too, God's promise and pledge for protection
so long as the people walked in the way. I imagine
that, when the old tabernacle was finally taken down
and put away for that costly temple, unrivaled in
earth's architecture, to the devout Jew holding

280
My Moving Tent.
the tradition of the fathers, there were not lacking
tears to enshrine it in memory, even while their
voices joined in the glad hallelujahs of the temple
service. No doubt they recalled Moses and Miriam
and the thousands who had fallen on the way to
Canaan, even after Solomon had finished the great
feast and sent away the people to their tents glad and
merry in heart for the goodness that God had showed
unto David and to Solomon and to Israel his people.
And this feeling was and is right and wholesome. But
while "prosperously effected” at having reached a
long-desired result, it is never wise to conclude that
the work is finished. Every heart and every home
should be a temple to God. And the love of home
and for home fosters a feeling of love to God as our
Father in heaven. The home, too, provokes and
evokes patriotism.
No hireling can serve his country as does the pa-
triot. Men fighting for their homes and their altars
are well-nigh invincible. The home combats selfish-
ness. The little flower blooming on Alpine heights
amid perpetual snows breathes out its fragrance on
the Arctic air because of the fire that burns contin-
ually in the heart of the mountain. The drift of the
times is to break loose from the old moorings, to be-
come flotsam and jetsam on the great sea of life.
The Church was here, perhaps, a mightier work
than ever she had in the olden time, because it is hard-
er to reach and to preach to men who are daily
drifting and are so frequently away from home and its
restraints on the Sabbath day, and therefore forget to
keep it holy. Strangers within the gates of the city,
a Christian city, often do not become a part of the

Tents Taken Down.
281
worshiping congregation, and too often feel that the
Church manifests no concern for them, for their
spiritual welfare.
The conditions are different from what they were
at the time of the English exodus of Methodists to
America. They came to find homes, to build homes.
They came to stay. And no sooner was the smoke
seen from the chimney of the pioneer, whether in the
valley or on the mountain side, than it was the sure
signal for the coming of the man of God. Anon the
class, and soon a society. What seemed England's
loss was America's gain. Not so now, where often in
cities great revivals are reported and yet statistics
show no gain. True the man may go on his way re-
joicing, but he ought to belong to some body, some-
where, even though his name be inscribed in heaven.
Bishop McTyeire had some wise utterances on
“The Religion of Arithmetic and the Arithmetic of
Religion.” And farther back it is recorded: “The
Lord added to the church daily such as should be
saved.” Indeed, I have come to the conclusion that
our Heavenly Father is a good counter. In his book
of remembrances all our names are written, the hairs
of the head numbered, and the fall of the sparrow
noted. The discouraged prophet thought that he
alone of all Israel had not bowed the knee to Baal,
but what saith the answer of God unto him? "I have
reserved to myself seven thousand men, who have not
bowed the knee to Baal.” “Then they that feared the
Lord spake often one to another: and the Lord
hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance
was written before him for them that feared the Lord,
and that thought upon his name. And they shall be

282
My Moving Tent.
mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make
up my jewels.
God's omniscience would make all this so-called
painstaking unnecessary, while his foreknowledge of
the elect would make it doubly a work of super-
erogation. Why, then, are these and numerous other
instances recorded, but to assure the least of his little
ones of his loving care and watchfulness and to incite
us to like loving oversight, that none go astray, that
none be lost, and that those afar off be invited in, that
Peter and John going to the temple to pray should
give a helping hand to the lame man at the gate, so
that he may stand, then walk, then leap, and then
enter into the temple, praising God. For lack of this
sweet “sight-seeing,” how many young men going
into a city strangers are lost to the Church of their
fathers!
Changed conditions, especially in the South since
the war, make it the more necessary that the Church,
if she retain her own, particularly her young men and
young women, must in the cities be more alert, active,
both in her ministry and in her membership. Under
the old régime men owned large estates in land.
When the children married, they were settled near
the old homestead. Women were not compelled to
go forth as bread-winners; young men were content
to be as their fathers had been. Sociology was a
theme seldom publicly discussed, and would have
been considered outside the province of the preacher
in his study of soul-saving. But now, in order to save
some, he must at least know that a large per cent of
the young men and the young women from rural dis-
tricts are seeking cities and towns to find more con-

Tents Taken Down.
283
genial work and more remunerative than that on the
farm. Many of them at home are Methodists, but
unless the Methodist preacher and Methodist people
seek them out and extend a kindly word and a help-
ing hand, they never go into the temple to pray.
What is true of Methodism is true also of Protest-
antism generally. Hence this city contingent is large-
ly a loss to the different denominations, and a gain
only to the world, the flesh, the devil, or to Roman
Catholicism. Say what you will, a hungry man will go
to the door of the man that feeds him, whether it be
the house door or the Church door.
Perhaps you think I have wandered away from my
theme, “Tents Taken Down.” Not so. No sadder
sight can be seen than a tent taken down in ruins be-
fore a shocking death closes the tragedy.
“For sadder sight the eye can know,
Than proud bark lost or seaman's woe,
The shipwreck of the soul.”
Such tragedies are far too common, and I am plead-
ing with Methodist people and with Methodist preach-
ers for the home with all that the word stands for.
Its synonyms are strong. They are the heart, the
hearthstone, the altar. The Saxons never surren-
dered them, nor can a surrender be made except by
the keepers of the house. This home shrine should be
the sweetest to which love, thought, sentiment can
return while our pilgrim feet are treading strange
shores while in this earthly house of the tabernacle.
The number of homeless people is appalling. Sta-
tistics cannot approximate it. I am not writing of
those who live in tents like the Bedouins of the desert
and gypsies. They are nomads born, and have par-

284
My Moving Tent.
ticular places for pitching their tents and have large
wealth in flocks and herds and hidden store. My ref-
erence is to strangers coming to our shores, and to
those once wealthy but now poor, and to that other
great army of indigents whose nightly cry is: “The
foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests,
but I have not where to lay my head.” Home-plant-
ing, then, is Church extension, is Church conquest.
May I illustrate from what is known as Queen
Anne's War, a time of suffering and of fearful fore-
boding to the English colonies of America ? It was
the advice of one of the wisest and most watchful of
the governors to the home ministers that there ought
to be a line of frontier posts at the north, with soldiers
for colonists; that simply to pursue the Indians time
and again to the depths of the forest was as useless
as to shoot birds on the wing. Mr. Penn advised that
the colonies be drawn together in intercourse and in
interest by a common principle of citizenship. Now,
in application, may we not claim that the home is the
strongest principle of citizenship, and that it is al-
most as useless for the Church Extension Society to
go on building churches in the West without a home
hard by for the preacher as it was useless for the colo-
nists to pursue flying Indians into the forest primeval,
or for the hunter to waste his powder on birds awing
beyond range. Shoot he never so well, the object
aimed at is never reached.
Many of the older Conferences are comparatively
well supplied with homes for their moving men. In
the Memphis Conference there are 144 pastoral
charges and 137, probably 138, parsonages. The ul-
timatum and the desideratum is a home for every man

Tents Taken Down.
285
of God that passeth by, and to set for him a bed and a
table and a stool and a candlestick, which meaneth all
needed furniture, and a light in the window, signify-
ing more to the moving man than did the old Feast of
Lights, so celebrated in song and story. East of the
river there are 2,985 charges; 727 are without par-
sonages. West of the river, our frontier work, there
are 1,864 charges, and 371 yet to be supplied with
homes for the preachers—a total of almost eleven
hundred homeless, moving Methodist ministers, to
the majority of whom a hired house and furniture are
not easily attainable with the small salaries paid, and
which, be they never so comfortable, are in no sort the
ideal home.
I ponder painfully on the many moves that we have
made and the time spent in hunting a house, the add-
ed time in trying to adapt and adjust the furniture
that had scarcely sustained the rough handling on
railroads, the bill for repairing sometimes being suf-
ficient to cover the cost of a new outfit, to say noth-
ing of the final made-over look and a wooden protest
which the ancients supposed that the living tree would
have uttered. Then the carpets, fit and misfit, taken
off for this floor, added to for that, until the cunning
weaver could scarcely solve the problem of the origi-
nal color and figure, and an expert mathematician
couldn't for the life of him tell from the parts left
what equaled the first. The arithmeticians say that
two halves equal the whole, but they wisely insist that
the parts thereof should be of the same sort if the re-
sult be a unit—wise men who never made over a car-
pet nor a curtain nor any such thing, and who will
not agree, with George Eliot's average woman, that

286
My Moving Tent.
two and two will always make five if you insist upon
it long enough.
May we not appeal to the Methodist brethren who
have homes, laymen and preachers, in behalf of the
mother and brethren standing without and desiring
to speak unto them? Let us have homes, with all that
home means, for the men that travel and break unto
us the bread of life, and for the men whose lives have
been spent in such service, on whose tents the shad-
ows of the dying day are heavy. Why not make them
bright with the glory of the setting sun? The recom-
pense of reward will be great here and hereafter be-
cause of its unselfishness.
“What if I build for others,
And the walls of the building stand
Long after I am forgotten
By the dwellers in the land,
Long after the buildings have crumbled
That were builded upon the sand ?
What if I build for others,
And the building shelters me not,
And within the home I have builded
I shall have no part or lot,
And the dwellers who have their home there
Through all time shall know me not?
Yet when the years shall have faded,
And beneath the rooftree's shade
The children of generations
In their childish days have played,
And have passed from under the rooftrée
And vanished into the shade.
Some dweller beneath the rooftree
Thinking of it when it was new,
May say, as his thoughts turn backward,
Keeping its age in view :

Tents Taken Down.
287
“The builder who built this building
Builded wiser than he knew.'
And I, though I have passed onward,
Hearing the Master's call;
May know, though it may not matter
To what the building befall,
'Tis better to have builded for others
That not to have builded at all."
I cannot recall the great company of old preach-
ers whom I used to know who went forth weep-
ing, bearing precious seed, without a feeling of the
deepest emotion, of tenderest thanks. I never en-
ter a comfortable church or a pleasant parsonage
without recalling that true saying: “Other men la-
bored, and ye are entered into their labors” as reapers.
My poor pen has failed to portray adequately the ma-
jestic simplicity of their character. 'Twas this that
made them great. For their sons and successors in
the gospel I can express no better wish than that they
may work as wisely and as well as did the fathers. I
love to think that I shall see them again—of the
home-going and of the reunion when the moving tent
is finally folded. May each to whom this memorial
shall come
Nightly pitch the moving tent
A day's march nearer home,
and be able to say with those already gone: "For we
know that 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.” Even since
the beginning of this book embalming the memory of
many that I loved, some of them then living have

288
My Moving Tent.
been called home, their moving tents folded here for-
ever.
And now I must take a fond farewell of all the pil-
grim company with whom I have traveled so long.
May the sun still shine upon your tents, until, like
those forever folded here, they are covered with the
light of immortal life! The shadows multiply in the
mellow glow of the dying day, but the distant hill-
tops are all aglow! Afar too, I hear the voice of
singing. I wonder is it the echo of the old songs, or
is it that great voice out of heaven saying: “Behold,
the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell
with them, and they shall be his people, and God
himself shall be with them, and be their God.'

APPENDED MATTER.
(289)
19

FOLDED TENTS.
These all died in the faith,
Gibing glory to God.
REV. R. A. YOUNG, D.D.,
Nashville, Tenn.
MRS. SALLIE DORRISS JACKSON,
Clarksville, Tenn.
REV. B. M. PALMER,
New Orleans, La.
REV. W. C. JOHNSON, D.D.,
Memphis, Tenn.
MRS. FANNY HALL DROMGOOLE OWEN,
Ingram's Mill, Miss.
REV. HENRY URQUHART,
Birmingham, Ala.
CAPT. RICHARD IRBY,
Randolph-Macon College, Va.
S. A. CALDWELL,
Clarksville, Tenn.
MRS. CALEB L. COOPER,
Midland, Tenn
MRS. MARGARET MALOAN,
Dresden, Tenn.
(290)

CHAPTER XLV.
FOLDED TENTS.
REV. R. A. YOUNG, D.D.
Among the cherished memories of my young wom-
anhood is the friendship of Dr. R. A. Young. This
friendship continued with unabated warmth to the
last, till his journey was ended. On a sick bed and at
a distance it was not my privilege to see him as he
neared the crossing and "brushed the dew on Jor-
dan's bank.” But of the innumerable company who
mourned his going, none sorrowed more sincerely
than I, because I should see his face no more. Better
so, for I love to think of him as I used to know him
when in the strength of robust manhood.
A more guileless spirit I have not seen among
men. He had the wisdom that cometh from above-
pure, peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full
of mercy and of good fruits without hypocrisy. Had
he been more of a politician, he might have attained a
position in the Church which her gratitude should
have accorded him, and for which he was fitly and
fully equipped. If that be treason, make the most of
it. I feel it, and I felt it and expressed it more than
once during the years of uncomplaining silence that
nobly closed his lips. His generosity, especially to-
ward the brethren of the ministry, was of surpassing
grace and graciousness. I rejoice that several of
them have borne testimony to this beautiful charac-
teristic. I am sure there is much more than doth ap-
pear. I am confident, too, that the unwritten history
(291)

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of the Publishing House will show Southern Metho-
dism his debtor beyond her ability to repay. The
gratitude that should be shown
Whene'er a generous deed is done
Should make no delay.
His freedom from evil-speaking was most marked.
Never do I recall, even in the intimacy of fireside
talk, a remark detrimental to the character of any one.
In this respect he was truly an example in word, in
conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity.
He was a conversationalist of rare charm, but for re-
tort or repartee he had no genius. He had that great-
er gift of delighting his listeners, whether learned or
unlearnd, with a rich recital of incidents of travel, of
anecdote, having at the same time the tact of bring-
ing out what was best in others, so that a modest,
untraveled man was always at ease in his company.
He saw people at their best, and when there was no
good to be seen he was optimist enough to hope for
some undiscovered grace.
As a preacher he was far beyond the average. Yet
his vigor of thought, his simplicity of speech, his pu-
rity of diction were such that in his presentation of
gospel truth the wayfaring man, though a fool, need
not err therein. He was absolutely free from clap-
trap, from sensationalism. The plan of salvation was
made plain, the gospel, the power of God unto the
salvation of sinners. He was a wise builder, and the
material he put into the churches at Nashville and
elsewhere has stood the test. The records will show.
He knew his people, all of them, for he was a dili-
gent pastor as well as a good preacher in the best
sense. He never failed to interest an audience, no

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293
matter what his theme. Even at a time when mis-
sions was a subject tiresome as a thrice-told tale he
commanded great congregations, and they were al-
ways responsive to his appeals for money.
Nothing succeeds like success. How prone we are
after success has been won to listen to the shouts of
the onrushing multitude, many of whom had no part
in the fight, while we leave uncrowned by the wayside
the hero who fought and won, the blood and dust of
conflict his only memorials! The way was a long one
and sometimes a rough one, and toward the last a
weary one, for he was sore hit by the archers. None
of these things moved him. With the exultation of
Paul he could exclaim : “I have fought a good fight,
I have finished my course, I have kept the faith:
henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of right-
eousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall
give me at that day.” I know not what the glory of
that crown may be. I know that few men are so wor-
thy of royal recognition from the just and righteous
Judge.
While sorrowing for the noble life ended, it is with
rejoicing for the immortal life begun. The sorrow
and the regret and the fullness of sympathy are for
those who yet remain and whose lives are the lonelier,
bereft of the long companionship of one so genuinely
good and great.
MRS. SALLIE DORRISS JACKSON.
Mrs. Sallie Dorriss Jackson, daughter of Rev. Wil-
liam G. Dorriss, deceased, was born April 5, 1840, at
Florence, Ala. She was converted and joined the

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Church when a little girl. She was married to Mr. A.
J. Blackman, of Rutherford County, January 21, 1858.
Mr. Blackman died less than a year after his mar-
riage.
On September 4, 1862, the subject of this sketch
was married to Mr. Thomas H. Jackson, of Clarks-
ville, Tenn., in which city she sweetly fell asleep in
Jesus August 28, 1902. She was the mother of eight
children. The husband and five children survive her.
Three had gone on before. Her oldest son, Rev. W.
L. Jackson, is a member of the Tennessee Confer-
ence. He was a spring of joy continually in the heart
of his mother. Well and truly does he write: “She
was the most self-sacrificing mother I ever knew."
This I know to be true. She was an equally devoted
wife, and always a loving daughter to her honored
father. "Her children arise up, and call her blessed;
her husband also, and he praiseth her.”
I knew Sallie Dorriss in her young womanhood.
Her father was my pastor in Murfreesboro in 1856.
One seldom sees a more beautiful woman. Her man-
ner was magnetic, and she was soon the most popu-
lar young lady in a choice social circle. She had a
wonderful gift of song. The old melody comes to me
this morning, as through tears I try to write and re-
alize that I shall hear the matchless sweetness of the
song no more save as memory touches the ever-
vibrant chord of unforgetting love. For I loved
her most tenderly, devotedly through long years,
the trials of which only make purer and firmer the
friendship.
She was our next-door neighbor in Clarksville, and

Folded Tents.
295
a kinder one we never had in all our wanderings. In
sickness she was skillful, attentive, affectionate,
faithful day and night beside the bed of suffering.
She was not so much a ministering angel as a sym-
pathetic, helpful woman. She was charitable in the
double sense. She loved her neighbor, she stretched
out her hand to the poor-yea, she stretched forth her
hands to the needy, and these hands had in them
food and clothing. Anything that she could give
she gave willingly, without murmuring and com-
plaining
Naturally she was of a bright, sunny disposi-
tion. When I saw her last in her home in Clarksville,
and several of the children were present with her
father, and Hon. Caleb L. Cooper and myself of the
old friends, I asked as aforetime for a song. She
complied with ready grace, but said: "I fear it will
be melancholy music, so many sad things have hap-
pened since I saw you last.” This was the only ref-
erence she made to her private griefs, though we
talked almost to the dying of the day. She held me
long as we said good-bye, which somehow we both
felt to be the last. It was. I saw her no more, but I
am grateful for that meeting in the home with her
father and the husband and so many of the children.
Her religious life was positive. Her convictions
were strong. She hated hypocrisy. A faithful friend,
a devoted wife and mother, a consistent Christian.
She was buried in Clarksville, Tenn. Revs. T. C.
Ragsdale, J. B. Erwin, and P. A. Sowell, all at one
time her pastors, were present and took part in the
burial service. May the God of all consolation be

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with the husband and children, and as they journey
may they sing as did the mother:
"He lives and grants me daily breath;
He lives, and I shall conquer death;
He lives my mansion to prepare;
He lives to bring me safely there."
REV. B. M. PALMER, D.D.
The death of a good man in any walk of life is a
calamity. The death of a great, good man is a great
public calamity, whether that man be a State official
or a leader in the Church of God. When the news
went abroad that Dr. B. M. Palmer, pastor of the
First Presbyterian Church, New Orleans, had been
seriously hurt in a street railway accident, there were
many anxious hearts throughout our common com-
munion, for as citizen, patriot, Christian, he be-
longed to the commonwealth and to all the Churches.
His death, just announced, gives universal sorrow.
There is a tear in every eye; there is grief too great
for words. Few men had wrought so long and so
well for God and humanity. Few were so highly
dowered with those gifts and graces that beautify and
adorn the high places of thought. Yet while walking
the radiant rounds, amid those sublime spaces where
only the few appear and talk with the Master, with
what serenity and sweetness of splendor his face
shone when he talked and walked with his brethren
on the lower plane of life!
I esteem it among the precious privileges of mem-
ory that for years at the annual commencement of
the Southwestern Presbyterian University, in Clarks-
ville, Tenn., I listened to his matchless eloquence in

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297
pulpit and on platform, and to his words of wisdom
in counsel to the young men about to leave the fos-
tering care of the institution. He was a man of ad-
mirable poise as well as parts. No hero of the olden
time surpassed him in that rare quality called cour-
age, whose vital forces must be in a strong, true
heart. He lived in a time that tested this. A true
soldier of Christ and the cross, he was no less true to
the South; and when the Southern star was eclipsed
in blood, and the voice of lamentation was heard in
the land-Rachel weeping for her children—then was
Dr. Palmer an angel of consolation to the Churches.
And while smaller men sought so-called higher places,
most nobly, most valiantly did he abide with the
weeping mother, and help to keep green and imper-
ishable the record of her slaughtered sons, to bind up
the broken-hearted, to replant the roses and the lilies
in our desolated land. In the noble army of ministers,
living and dead, of any Church, of all the Churches,
no one is more worthy of tears and laurels than Dr. B.
M. Palmer. As one who knew him and loved him, I
bring this tribute.
REV. WILLIAM C. JOHNSON, D.D.
On the morning of June 14, 1902, Dr. William C.
Johnson, of the Memphis Conference, gave his last
message to family and friends. He ceased almost at
once to work and live. For both life and work he
had such intense desire as amounted almost to a pas-
sion. He thought this a good and beautiful world,
and he had none of that fanciful, sickly sentiment
that longs to fly away and be at rest before life's du-
ties are fully done. He loved to live, because his was

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so largely a life of love. He loved his home, his fam-
ily, his friends. Above all he loved God, whom he
had so long and faithfully served, and his brethren of
the Tennessee and Memphis Conferences, his associ-
ates in the work of the ministry.
He was connected with the Church of his choice in
various positions. When I first knew him he was
Secretary of the Tennessee Conference. When I
last saw him (at Dyersburg, Tenn.) he was scribe of
the Memphis Conference, sitting beside the Secretary
and making notes for the Memphis department of the
Christian Advocate. Occasionally, when debate waxed
warm, he would rise feebly and in a voice of no un-
certain sound make himself heard. His position on
vexed and vexing questions was never problematical.
Convinced that he was right, no policy, no strategy,
no eloquence, howsoever sweet and strong the stream,
could move him. This steadfastness of soul was in
no sense stubbornness or contrariness, for a sweeter
spirit one seldom sees. He reminded me in some re-
spects of Moses, the servant of God. He followed
the light or abode in the tent under the shadow of the
Almighty.
He would have lived longer before entering into
the land beyond—the land richer and sweeter than
the land of promise—but there was the spirit of sub-
mission, resignation, of ready acceptance of God's
will as right and wise and full of love. He filled the
hearts of his brethren. It is an affection that will la-
ment his absence long after the appointed days of
mourning have been fulfilled. There is love, too, and
sympathy too full to be expressed, for the widowed,
lonely wife who had so long time shared with

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299
him the toils of itinerant life, and who in the last
years had been his constant companion in travel and
at Conference. The tent is taken down, but the gold-
en promise holds good of a reunion in that celestial
city whose builder and maker is God.
“A11 journeys in welcome to the weary,
And heaven, the heart's true home, will come at last.”
CAPT. RICHARD IRBY
died at his home in Ashland, Va., July 4, 1902, at
the age of seventy-seven years.
Thoughts tender and pensive come to me as I sit,
this summer day, at my desk looking over letters from
children and friends, some scattered and some in that
far country whence they will not return. In the pre-
cious package I find some from Capt. Richard Irby,
late Secretary-Treasurer and Historian of Randolph-
Macon College. My heart and eyes overflow as I
look upon his last letter to me, written January 22,
1902. He generally wrote me about Christmas time
or the new year, sometimes sending a souvenir of the
season. In this letter he expresses sympathy for our
loss by fire, and the liveliest interest in my book, say-
ing: "I trust that you may be doubly repaid for all
your labor and find many readers. Please send me a
copy when it is ready, including postage. I antici-
pate much pleasure in reading.” I give this quota-
tion as characteristic of the man, of his kindness and
thoughtfulness. I could multiply them..
I had never the pleasure and the privilege of seeing
him face to face. My acquaintance with him began
while he was writing the history of Randolph-Macon
College, a book that should be in all our Methodist

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homes, Sunday school libraries, and Y. M. C. A.
reading rooms. From it the children may learn how
wisely the fathers wrought when Methodism was yet
a problem in this new world. I have no book that I
prize more highly. For the author I had the friend-
ship based upon my knowledge of him as patriot, citi-
zen, Christian. Few are more justly entitled to the
encomium, “Mark the perfect man, and behold the up-
right, for the end of that man is peace.”
Not only does Virginia mourn his death, but its
shadow is on all our hearts and homes. He was dear
to Southern Methodism for his work for the Church
and for his active interest in the cause of Christian
education. But there is a bright light in the clouds
which men may see long after
“The mists have rolled in splendor
From the summit of the skies,
and, seeing, may devoutly say:“We thank God for the
gift of this good man. What though we may not
grasp his hand again, nor see him in the familiar
places, the consciousness of his presence will long be
felt in Church and council, and grateful hearts will do
him homage.”






CQ
1903
Mooney, Sue F. Dromgoole.
39411

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[N.S. Townshe
SEXYXELLILLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL
CHARLES R. SANDERS, JR.
of
sedan
HALIFAX COUNTY. VIRGINIA
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provenance: Michael Ginsberg

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