Autobiography of Z. S. Hastings Part 3

C H A P T E R N I N E

Generous friends. Christian, Catholic Methodist, $1.50 $1.00 $0.00 A hawk story. April 15, 1865. All Irish but one. The Bible in school. Not Papa.

During this period of my life, which included the latter part of the Civil War, I was occupied mostly at Christian Liberty, and Washington, Daviers County, Ind., both teaching and preaching. A part of the two years following this was spent in school at Indianapolis and Miram, Ohio. At Christian Liberty, my church house and school house were in the same yard. On the first day I occupied the one and on the second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth days, I occupied the other. And on the seventh day I rested. That is the way teachers and preachers work. I am not a sabbatarian.

At Christian Liberty which was a country place I made my home for almost four years in the family of W. A. Wilson. He was a well-to-do farmer and had an interesting family. He was a good man, but somewhat peculiar. For instance, as fast as I earned money teaching he would borrow it, giving his note drawing legal interest, and when the note was due he would pay it with the identical money he had borrowed. He would also pay the interest. I asked why he did that, "O" he would answer, "I always like to have money in my pocket."

"Then besides," he would add, "a young man ought to have his money at interest." Mr. Wilson was a Christian and very generous and kind.

He only charged me $1.50 per week for board. I also boarded at another period in my life in a Catholic family named Wade, for three years. They, too, were kind and generous, charging me only $1.00 per week. The father and mother were old and allowed me all the privileges about the home as I were a son. More than that: they allowed he all the liberty of a Protestant Christian, telling me to read my Bible as much as I pleased, and if I wished to offer thanks at the table to do so. This I did and they their crosses.

One Sat.u.r.day, when sitting in my room in the spring of the year, looking out of the open door I saw what not one boy in a million, perhaps, ever saw. A large chicken hawk made a dive down in the yard at an old hen and her brood of little chickens. Mrs. Wade heard the noise and dashed out through the open door, and threw her ap.r.o.n over the hawk, and caught it and choked it to death.

One winter when teaching in Tophet, I boarded with a Methodist man.

He too, was kind and generous to a fault. All he charged me was nothing. He said it was worth more to have me live with his boys than it cost to board me.

Teachers were elected to teach by ballot. There was an election called, and several soldiers, who were at home on furlough, were there, also others. They got into a wrangle about soldiers voting.

They came to blows. Just then a messenger came up on horseback, at full speed, and cried out that Lincoln was a.s.sa.s.sinated. I never saw such a sudden and marked change come on a company of men as came then. The whole crowd soldiers, and others, the young candidates for the school with the rest, came close together like stricken brothers and wept even to tears. Not a word was said for several moments until they began to leave for home, the director said, men we have not voted yet. So they turned in all together without a word and voted and went home. This was early Sat.u.r.day forenoon April 15th, 1865.

On another occasion I was a candidate for the teacher's place in a district where every family, except one, were Irish Catholics. The exception as a Methodist. The Methodist man was chairman of the school board. The election was called for one o'clock P. M. The leading spirit of the district was a large, old, fine looking Irishman, who had been educated for a priest. That day (it was in the spring), there was a log rolling on the leader's farm, and every man in the district was a Catholic except the chairman and myself. I was a stranger, had never been in the district before. But the Irishmen had heard of my success as a teacher in Tophet, and on their coming down to the school house after dinner to vote the leader shook hands with me and turning to the men he said, "Men, let's be after voting for the tall sapling and get back to the logs." They all voted and I received every vote but one and that was the chairman's vote. In this school, I would every morning as had been my custom elsewhere, read a small portion of the Bible, without word or comment, and offer a short prayer for G.o.d's blessing upon us through the day. I never had better behavior or as little trouble with any other school as I had this term with these Irish Catholic children.

The Catholics, however, generally oppose the public reading of the Bible and prayer in the public schools. I kindly asked a good Catholic friend one day why they opposed the reading of the Bible. I said, "The Bible is a good book." "Just so," he replied, "too good a book for the common people to read." "Ah, I think not. G.o.d has nothing too good for his children," said I. The teacher, however, that reads and prays should be a good teacher.

Referring to the fact that these voters seemed to recognize me as soon as they saw me, though they had never seen me before, reminds me that has been my experience generally through life. I never could account for people, who had only heard of me, knowing me upon first sight, unless it was because of my long black beard and porcupinish hair. There was one exception to this, however, when I was taken to be quite another person. This I must now tell.

One year I went with Elder Joseph Wilson to a church in Lawrence County, Indiana, called White River Union, to help him hold his yearly protracted meeting. It was on Sunday morning. The elder and I were seated on the rostrum when a woman and her little daughter came in and taking seats, looking up at us, when the child pointing at me whispered to her mother, "See Papa." The woman looked and thought, (so she said afterwards)--why, sure enough." I did not think he was coming. Upon second thought she knew it could not be he, for he would not be in the pulpit. The fact was that the woman and her child both thought at first without doubt that I was the husband and the father, simply because I looked like him. The name of this family was Malott, and the husband was doctor. I did not get to see him. I wish I had. I would like to see the man that I look so much alike, and even his wife and child could not tell the difference. Perhaps I could see myself then as others see me, which I, nor, any man has ever yet been able to do.

No two men or any two things are exactly alike. Nor should we always judge a man by his looks.

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C H A P T E R T E N

Brother John. Washington, Ind. An accident. An incident.

Indianapolis, Hiram. Garfield.

I must tell you one other story, boys, about how I was not known.

Upon my arrival from Missouri to Indiana I went at once to your Uncle John's. They did not know I was coming. This was in the fall of 1861. Brother John had not yet returned from his school. When he did come he stopped at the woodpile and commenced to cut wood for the next day. His wife stepped out on the porch and said, "John, come in, there is a man here who wants to stay all night." "Well," said brother, "let him stay." And he kept on cutting wood. But he finally came in. I arose and said, "how do you do, sir?" He said, "Howdy."

I said, "I want to stay all night." He said, "Alright, be seated."

I sat down. He said, "Are you traveling?" I said, "I have been."

He said, "Where are you from?" I said, "I am from Missouri." He asked, "From what part." I told him. "Why," he said, "I have two brothers living there." I thought he was mistaken, I had forgotten myself. I said, "What is the name?" He said, "Hastings." I said, "I know a W. H. Hastings there." He said, "Why, that is my brother.

I also have a younger brother there, Z. S. He is a teacher and they say he has gone to preaching." I said, "Sure, I don't think he is there now."

Well, we sat there for half an hour, he asking about his brother and Missouri, and the war, and I telling what I knew. Finally his wife said, "John, don't you know that boy?" I arose and he arose and said, looking at his wife, "Know that man?" "Why, should I know him?" I extended my hand and said you ought to know me. He hesitatingly took my hand and said, "Who are you?" I said, "I am you brother, Z. S." He said, "Impossible, this cannot be Simp." (When I was a child at home, they called me Simp.) I replied, "Yes I am Simp." We could hardly make him believe.

How wonderful is life. How little we know. How much of the little we seem to forget. Yet someone says we never forget anything. I expect to know more, and know it better, in the life to come. This brother John was a grand old man, but he has been sleeping in the grave ever since Nov. 3, 1891. His good wife also sleeps. But they left one daughter and three sons, who are, at this writing, n.o.ble citizens in Daviers County, Indiana.

I was chosen President of the County Teachers a.s.sociation and elected as first a.s.sistant princ.i.p.al to teach in Washington, the county seat of Daviers County, Ind. This town was a little city of about four thousand. It is now a beautiful city of ten or twelve thousand.

While there I preached in the court house and organized a small congregation which met to hear me preach and worship in observing the Lord's Supper, on each first day of the week. Now we have a large congregation with a great church building costing many thousand dollars.

While teaching here a very sad accident occurred one Sat.u.r.day. One of my pupils and a boy pupil from the room adjoining my room, taught by a lady teacher, were playing in an old barn with the barrel of an old army musket which had neither lock nor stock. The boys had the gun barrel lying horizontally across the top of a barrel, and in their play they would place percussion caps upon the nipple of the gun and strike them with a piece of iron to hear the explosion. It was my boy's time to strike the cap and just as he struck the other boy was pa.s.sing in front of the muzzle of the gun, and the gun fired, tearing the poor boy in front almost in two parts, killing him instantly. It was very said indeed!

The foregoing was an accident. The following was in incident. One cold, snowy, stormy, wintry morning while we were at breakfast at my boarding house in Washington, at once we heard a wonderful crashing noise of many things fall upon the porch floor and then rush through an open door of a little room that stood at the end of the porch. My host ran out and closed the door and what do you think was caught?

Not less than nine quails. We had pot-pie for dinner. The remnants of that pot-pie left over, served for dinner more or less for nearly a week until I became very tired of pot-pie. And so changed my boarding place and boarded with an old, well-to-do retired Hoosier farmer and his wife. The wife was a most excellent cook. Elder Howe, who had traveled over nearly all the states as an evangelist, says no people excel the Hoosiers for their hospitality and G.o.d things to eat.

It was about this period of my life that I attended school at the Northwestern Christian University at Indianapolis, Indiana, and later at Hiram, Ohio, 1865-1866. My teachers in Indianapolis were President Benton and Prof. Nushour, and Dr. Brown. At Hiram, Errett, Burnett, Milligan, Anderson and At.w.a.ter. It was here I saw and heard General Garfield deliver an address. He was a great and good man.

The most scholarly, pure minded and devout man I ever saw were Milligan and Anderson.

Prior to my attendance to the schools mentioned above I had seen but few of our great teachers and preachers. I had supposed the differences between what they knew and what the ordinary teacher and what the ordinary preacher knew was almost infinite in their favor and that their ability to tell it was very superior but, on becoming acquainted with them, I found they knew nothing more about the unseen world, heaven or h.e.l.l, or sin and its forgiveness, or death and salvation, than the simple scholar and devout student of the Bible.

Now do not think, Boys, for a moment that I am opposed to higher education, and University training. All these things are a great help and blessing to any person, provided, he or she accepts that wisdom that comes from G.o.d through His Bible. No man knows anything beyond the horizon of the present, except what G.o.d's Bible reveals.

And faith here becomes the only means by which this knowledge is obtained. But this is not to be wondered at, for is it not a fact that we are dependent on faith for nearly all knowledge. Faith is the greatest principle in the world, unless it is love. And faith is simply belief. Happy is the man who believes all things and proves all things, and holds fast to all that is good.

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C H A P T E R E L E V E N

A meeting. Go to Kansas, 1967. Nine Mile House. Do Stones grow? On the shelf. The Spencers. The Johnsons. Brother Rufus. March 15, 1868.

During the holidays of the year I was in school in Indianapolis I held a good meeting at Christian Liberty where I had taught and preached for a number of years. Many hearing, believed and were baptized. It was at this place afterwards that I preached my farewell sermon to old Indianans before going to Kansas. There were a great many people at this meeting. Among them a Methodist preacher who, being free to address the people, complimented me by saying that I had not only been a faithful servant of G.o.d among my own people but also among all people. He also said that while I left many friends in Indiana I would make many in Kansas. I am happy to say, I have found it even so. That preacher after ran for Governor of Indiana.

I was doing so well and had so many friends in Indiana that I had about abandoned the idea of going to Kansas, but mother, two of my brothers and my two sisters, were already in Kansas and were pleading with me to visit them at any rate. So about the first of July, 1867 I took a train from Washington, Indiana, to St. Louis, Mo, and from there I boarded a steamer for Leavenworth, Kansas, where I landed on the tenth of July, 1867. Our steamer, however, had made a landing early in the morning at Wyandotte to unload some railroad irons for the second road in Kansas. While there I steeped off on the muddy sh.o.r.e remarking that that was the first time I had ever dotted Kansas soil with my feet. "Well sir" said an old darky standing by, "this as a mighty big dot where you step off." I do not know to this day whether he meant the track I made or the town. Kansas City, Missouri was not big enough to stop at then, but it is the big dot of the West now. At Leavenworth and everywhere the yards, gardens, road-sides, fields, all looked barren and dead as if a fire had ran over them.

The gra.s.s-hoppers had just left.

My brother Henry lived west of Leavenworth city in what was called the Nine Mile House. My brother, younger brother, Rufus, and two sisters, Mrs. Dotson, and Mrs. Sears, lived near Gra.s.shopper Falls known now as Valley Falls.

Of course I had not been in Kansas very long until it was known that I was a young preacher. And I was called upon to preach the funeral of a most excellent lady, Mrs. Roach, who had died in the neighborhood of the Nine Mile House. This was the first time I ever preached in Kansas. It was only a few days after this that I attended a meeting held by Brethren Dibble and McCleary, a few miles west of the Nine Mile House at a place called NO. 6 and here I was invited to preach. I did do it, taking for a subject, "Growth." I remember saying in order to growth there must be union, for separation is death. Even rocks grow, but, separated into stones, they ceased to grow. Good, old, devout, scholarly brother Humber was there, and kindly criticized my sermon by saying he did not believe that rocks grow. I have never preached that sermon since, but I still think rocks do grow.

From that time, 1867, I was a faithful Sunday preacher, more or less in Kansas until I was nearly sixty years old, when I became so infirm that I submitted to a place on the shelf, where I am still waiting for transportation to the skies.

But I am not dead yet, so I will go back and tell the rest of my story. So many new friends in Kansas came about me soliciting me to stay, and teach and preach, that I agreed to do so for one year at least. Among these friends there were none better than Mr. Charley Spencer of Round Prairie. He secured for me the school at a larger salary than I had been getting in Indiana. I also had the privilege of preaching in the lower room of the Masonic building. To Mr.

Spencer I preached the gospel, and taught his children to read.

He believed and was baptized, and his children grew up to be wise and good. His son, Hon. d.i.c.k Spencer now a leading lawyer of St.

Joseph, Mo. learned his A. B. C. at my knees. It was also here during this year that I had the great pleasure and joy of baptizing my youngest brother, Rufus, into Christ.

In the meantime it was here I formed the acquaintance of the Johnson family, Mrs. Emily Johnson, the aged mother and six n.o.ble sons, W. L.

David, W. H., J. E., J. C., and M. S. These were all good citizen and Christians. The youngest of whom, M. S. whose wife I baptized, became an able preacher of the Word, and is to this day, preaching somewhere in the state of Oklahoma. The third son, W. H. was widower, and, with my help to solemnize the contract, he took a second wife. This wedding took place on the hill across the creek from at Joseph McBride's residence (for the bride was his daughter), and this was my first wedding in Kansas. Of the weddings that followed this I will not attempt to tell you, for they are too many to be enumerated in a short story of an old preacher's life.

These Johnsons all sold their possessions in Leavenworth County and at the suggestion of Pardee Butler, moved north into Atchison Co. and settled in a new community called Pardee Station. The Johnsons earnestly solicited me to follow them to their new place and teach and preach in a large new school house that had been erected at the station. So in the spring, 1868, I visited Pardee Station, and preached. It happened that this Sunday was the 15th day of March, and consequently my thirtieth birthday anniversary.

This was the first time I ever preached in Atchison County. It was here and at this time that I met Elder Pardee Butler for the first time in life, and his family, consisting of his wife, two sons George C. 15 years old and Charley P. 9 years old, and a little grown daughter Rosetta, 23 years old of whom I will speak more fully later on.

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