The Story of a Life Part 23

Louis, may be found fully described in the great daily papers of those days. The ma.s.s of printed programs that lie before me tell of brilliant success before the footlights--and hint at long hours of nerve-racking rehearsals. And here are confessions of school-girls who have done wrong, and who ask to be forgiven; and other letters which wound cruelly and do not ask for pardon. But shall we not forgive all? And how can we forgive, if we do not forget?

Upon my table lies doc.u.ments from disobedient pupils of Carr-Burdette College, ungrateful pupils, narrow-minded pupils, and parents naturally championing the cause of their daughters--in which, all these stand self-accused. Here is one who has discovered how unjust were charges she had made against the Carrs--but not until she had spread those reports to willing ears. And here is one who asks with tears that she may be forgiven; but who laments that the harm she has done can never be overcome.

But what of it all, now! I should not mention these things if it were not for this: that the evil reports live in some minds and, no doubt, are handed down to strangers. Here are the refutations to several such reports, but we push them aside. Can falsehood wound beyond the grave?

Nor would we expose anyone to shame by bringing her name upon the printed page, with quotations of her own rash words. There is no punishment for a malicious nature so terrible as the vengeance of its own malice which reacts upon itself, dwarfing, embittering, deadening the higher capabilities of the soul that harbors it. He who took the snake to his warm hearth to nourish it to life, is not he who suffers from the ingrat.i.tude of a friend, but rather he who admits hate to warm it in his own bosom; for it wounds him, first of all.

Fourteen years of labor in the work Mrs. Carr loved best, amid surroundings best adapted to call forth one's greatest capabilities, and then--the last journey. The school year of 1907-8 had opened prosperously. September pa.s.sed, and in the warmth of its haze, and in the tender blue of its Texan sky, there was no hint that its sister-month would bring the chill of death.

It was on the thirty-first of October that there came the summons of which she had spoken in her dedicatory speech. Not, indeed, as a quarry slave, scourged to his dungeon, did she go to meet that call, but rather as one who had followed her Lord across the seas, who had dwelt with him in many lands, and who was now to abide with Him forever.

He who was left behind, dwells in the lofty halls her wisdom and her love fashioned out of brick and stone. The great work of her life is continued by President O. A. Carr, and when one visits that "College Beautiful," that "College Home," tapestries and statuary, pictures and mosaics, engravings and flowers--all seem instinct with the presence of Mrs. Carr.

One pa.s.ses through s.p.a.cious reception-rooms and ample halls, into parlors of refined and exquisite workmanship. Yonder is the winding stairway, with its "Cosy Nook" behind the ferns. Here is the library with its cheerful hearth. Nothing is to be seen to suggest Latin and Geometry! It is, first of all, a home for young ladies.

But when we are shown the mystic way that leads to schoolrooms, we find them stript, as it were, for service. Here is little or no adornment.

They are placed before us in stern reality--desk and blackboard and floor--with no pretense that knowledge walks on velvet carpets. In this wing, we find ourselves indeed in a school; and we feel instinctively that if we do not immediately fall to, at some difficult textbook, we have no business here, and should be sent home to our parents.

And that is just what Mrs. Carr would have done for us. Education had always for her, meant something serious, something life-long, something to become an integral part of one's character. First, Carr-Burdette College is to be a _home_ in which young ladies are to be taught conduct and hygiene; but it is a _College_ Home, where study is not play, any more than play is study. We cannot determine where we feel Mrs. Carr's influence stronger--whether in these unadorned schoolrooms, or in the luxurious parlors. Taken together, they typify the extremes of her character. She sought to build in every soul that came under her moulding touch, the firm foundation of eternal truth; and upon this foundation to erect a structure traced with all the beauty of eternal love.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "He Who was Left Behind."]

THE END

APPENDIX.

By O. A. Carr.

(Page 31.)

Our mother made our clothes from the same piece, which, for many years, was her own weaving; and our resemblance was such in childhood that many thought we were twins. For sixteen years we were together day and night--in the field, in the school-room, in the home. "Bud and Ol.," our familiar names, were p.r.o.nounced together, and the presence of one suggested the other. Our separation came when I said good-by to go to Kentucky University, and then to the other side of the earth. I can even now recall my feelings when I would go into Fitzroy Gardens, Melbourne, Australia, where, alone, I would read Owen's letters over and over.

Though himself not a preacher, he came as near as any one I ever knew to an identification of his life with the lives of those who preach the word.

After my return from Australia it was our happiness to go together to a church composed of many whom I baptized when I began preaching forty-five years ago, some of them our relatives. The building was within a mile of where we were born, and near the site of the first school-house we ever entered. There were the boys and girls with whom we played in childhood, heads of families now. Such an audience was an inspiration to me, and especially the presence of "Bud." I ever felt that I could preach better when he was hearing. We went over the familiar roads planning a meeting to be held when the weather would permit, and I thought this happiness would be mine, but alas! there came the telegram: "Bud is very sick, come at once." We all came to him, except one brother who was far away. There were the chairs my mother used, my father's desk, the little chair in which I sat in earliest childhood, and the pictures on the wall of those whom my brother loved.

There, amid all to remind me of early days, I took my seat beside him with the sad duty on me to report to the physician his pulse and fever day and night. What was revealed by his tearful eyes fixed upon us can never be put in a book; but when the physician told him he must die, he simply said "I am ready."

With the exception of a short sojourn in Missouri and Illinois Owen spent his life in Kentucky, at May's Lick, also at Lexington, Maysville and Mt. Carmel. The call for a young man who neither blasphemed nor drank secured for him his first business engagement at Lexington. He was engaged in Maysville many years, and he spent his earnings in helping our afflicted parents; and from the needy he never turned away. After the death of father and mother, Owen made his home with his sister, Mary E. G.o.ddard, near Mt. Carmel, whence he was called to go up higher, Thursday, January 14, 1902.

Owen Carr was a Christian. His life was very quiet, but useful. His faith was simple, his convictions were strong and he was true to them.

To maintain what he held to be truth I believe he would have laid down his life. Yes, he did this in effect, toiling for the good of others, bearing heavy burdens of suffering, fulfilling his mission to the family, in the community, in the church. How can I speak his praise?

Does he know, now, how we all loved him? No words could ever tell it.

A companion wrote: "Though our a.s.sociation was not long at any one time, yet he was so transparent and companionable that in a short time I knew Owen Carr well. He was one of the few men in the world that I really loved ardently; and I have his obituary on the 'Treasure page' of my little sc.r.a.p book. He was the divinest and sweetest impersonation of unostentatious unselfishness and of transparent honesty and integrity that I ever knew among men.

J. H. M."

IN MEMORY OF THE n.o.bLE.

(Page 46.)

"Not of the blood," though they were Englishmen: "nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man", and yet the Myalls, Eneas, Jonas, George and Edward, stand in memory as n.o.bLE MEN. In the days of their activity, their motto seemed to be: "We will do more than any others". Of these four men two--Jonas at May's Lick, and Edward, at Maysville, Kentucky--still live, and they are my witnesses. Eneas and Jonas Myall were blacksmiths; and they shod one hundred mules in a day, at a time when mules were driven overland to market! Energy, perseverance, generosity characterized these men--each in his own way.--Remembrance of them has been with me and has been presented to the young men in many lands and on both sides of the earth.

Of Eneas Myall Longfellow's words in "THE VILLAGE BLACKSMITH" are true in almost every line.

If money was to be raised for benevolent purposes Eneas Myall was the one to secure it; for he headed the list with a liberal offering, and while others did the talking, he did the work. He was more eloquent in deed than they were in speech: hence May's Lick church was in the lead of all churches in that part of the country in expenditures at home and abroad. As a deacon in the church he was well nigh perfection. I have never seen a better.

His constancy made him great in usefulness. For more than sixty years he led the songs in the May's Lick church. For a period of twenty years he was never known to be absent from the meeting on Lord's day morning and night and the Wednesday night prayer meeting except on one occasion, when he went to Paris to see his sick brother. His best singing was done, as it seems, on occasions when the boy, his protege, was in the pulpit. Such singing is seldom heard now-a-days as was heard when these men, Ed., George, Jonas and Eneas Myall sang together with Eneas to lead. There was only one occasion, as I remember, when Eneas Myall could not sing, and that was the morning when my father came forward to confess his faith in Jesus. He wept for joy; but could not talk--could not sing. The circ.u.mstances seemed to me to magnify his sincerity; for it was just at the close of the war. Eneas Myall was of strong prejudice, and he was opposed to my father politically, but the welcome he extended seemed to say: we differ out yonder in the world where political troubles are, and war rages; but here, in the church, there is peace, and we have fellowship. When I took my father down into the water to bury him with Christ in baptism, Eneas Myall had recovered himself so as to sing:

"How happy are they, who their Savior obey."

It is not strange that a man possessed of such firmness, such perseverance and such energy should become wealthy. His earnings increased: He sowed with an unsparing hand, and he reaped bountifully.

Wealth did not make him proud nor dry up the fountain of his generosity.

He seemed never so happy as when he was dividing what he possessed with his friends. When he and his good wife, "aunt Sallie" would spread the banquet, and he would gather all the preachers he could find and those who loved such company to his house, and around the table where he presided, what a feast for body and soul was there! What preacher who has ever been at May's Lick does not remember Eneas Myall and his family? He has gone; and shall we ever see his like again? Before him across the silent river had pa.s.sed his faithful wife and the elders of the May's Lick church, as nearly models, as mortals could be expected to be, of what the Scriptures say of bishops, elders, pastors. What a church that was! over which Aaron Mitch.e.l.l, Waller Small and Benjamin James presided, and taught by precept and example and led and protected, in those days when Walter Scott did the preaching and Eneas Myall led in song!

MY SHEEP.

(Page 272.)

"A sheep can never become a goat!" True of the woolly quadruped but this fact is no reply to my sermon; for the Savior was not talking about animals. He meant people when he said "My sheep hear my voice and follow me". That is what sheep (animals) do; hence people who hear his voice and follow him he calls his sheep; and says "they shall never perish".

Who? His sheep; that is, people who hear his voice and follow him. If they should cease to hear his voice and follow they would cease to be his sheep and the Savior did not say of such, "they shall never perish."

But were they his sheep before they heard his voice.

They might have been called "sheep" on account of some other resemblance, such as p.r.o.neness to wander away, need of guidance, of protection; but for these reasons it would not be true of them that "they shall never perish". It is certain that they would perish; hence the Great Good Shepherd came and called them home, saved and protected them.

If you say they were his sheep because he died for them--"laid down his life for the sheep", I answer: He called them his sheep before he laid down his life for them; and when he died it was not for them alone but "he died for all".

The truth is that the characteristic of sheep, to hear and follow, is possessed by all mankind; and whose sheep they are depends upon whose voice they hear and whom they follow. They are not the Savior's sheep unless they hear HIS voice and follow HIM. When persons do turn away from other voices and give heed to HIS they become HIS sheep. Would you say, this is not true, and give as a reason, "a GOAT can never become a SHEEP?" As well say this as to say "a sheep can never become a goat" as a proof that a believer may not, can not, cease to be a believer.

The one expression is fate fixed as fatally as is the other; and neither of them contains any Scripture idea.

The TRIAL was unique. The purpose was to determine whether I should be permitted to use their baptistry; and this depended on whether I was sound on what they called "the design of the ordinance." There were the officers of the Baptist Church to hear and a lawyer to ask questions. He put them in such a way that each question could be answered by simply quoting the Scripture; and that was happy; it was right, too, whether he intended it or not: "What do you believe baptism is for--what purpose has it?" Answer. "Repent and be baptized--in the name of Jesus the Christ FOR the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." Acts 2:38.

"Do you regard it as a saving ordinance?" Answer--"He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved." Mark 16:15-16.

"Yes, we believe that: of course, we believe the Scriptures, but what do YOU THINK? Do you think a person cannot be saved without baptism?"

Answer--"I think just what the Savior says: 'He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.' It is not my privilege to THINK anything except what the Savior said, and what his Apostles preached and practiced. Aside from this I have no ability to think; for I have nothing to think about." "Well, our Savior says: 'he that believeth not shall be d.a.m.ned' and he does not say he that believeth not and is not baptized shall be d.a.m.ned." "Does not this show that baptism is not necessary to salvation, that it is not a saving ordinance?"

Answer--"Baptism is not named in that clause, hence, we cannot think what that clause says and have baptism in mind at all; since it is not there. The way to be saved, Jesus says, is: 'he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved;' but the way to be d.a.m.ned, he says, is, 'he that believeth not shall be d.a.m.ned.' I think just what the Savior says on the subject of d.a.m.nATION; and I think just what he says on the subject of SALVATION."

Then Brother Jones, a Baptist, addressed the meeting in substance thus: "Brethren, I have heard every sermon our young brother has preached in Hobart, and I have found no fault with it. He says just what the Scriptures say, and surely you cannot refuse that. You heard the sermon on, 'What must I do to be saved'"? Then Brother Jones gave an outline of that sermon--the first I had ever heard that I understood--heard it from W. T. Moore at May's Lick, Ky., and from him I learned how to preach it.