Class Book l'ki:si.\ri;i) my 39^ PASTORAL SKETCHES REV. B. CARRADINE, D.D. Author of "A Journey to Palestine," "Sanctification," "The Sec- ond Blessing in Symbol," "The Lottery Exposed," "Church Entertainments," "The Bottle," "Secret Societies," "The Better IVay," and "The Old Man." FIFTH EDITION CHRISTIAN WITNESS CO. CHICAGO, ILL. ^ <> Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1896, By Kentucky Methodist Publishing Co., In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. PREFACE. This book was undertaken with a view to mental rest and relaxation. The author had not the time nor means to go to the mountains or seashore for u season of recuperation, and so wrote this volume. Three of the chapters— viii., xviii., and xix. —were penned some years ago. The remainder of the book was written during a part of the spring and summer of the present year. As the author wrote, his eyes were often wet with tears, and frequently the smiles would play about the mouth over the facts and fancies that (lowed from his pen. But it was not limph to elicit -miles and tears from himself or others that lume was written. These are on!\ means to an end or, more truly speaking, the gilt on the sword or the paint and trimmings of the chariot. The reader cannot but see thai, under the pathos and hu- mor of the book, follies are punctured, formality assailed, sin d, truth exalted, and dee]) spiritual Ie860n8 inculcated. The book is a transcript of human character, a description of a part of the life procession that is -cni moving in the ec- ical world or that is beheld from the (."lunch In the ministerial e So the volume wa i for a purpose; not simply that (3) ' 4 PASTORAL SKETCHES. it might prove a mental recreation and refreshment to the writer, but that it might accomplish good for others. The au- thor feels that the book has a mission, so he opens the window and sends it forth over the waves of the world. Whether it returns with the olive branch or never comes back, it is at- tended with the prayer of the writer that it may cheer and brighten the hearts of thousands of readers, and be a blessing wherever it goes. The Author. October, 1S96. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. Paok Reminiscences of Certain Preachers 7 CHAPTER II. Baptismal Incidents 23 CHAPTER III. The Interrupted Marriage Ceremony 31 CHAPTER IV. The Indefinitely Postponed Marriage 48 CHAPTER V. Some Funeral Scenes 62 CHAPTER VI. The Choir 74 CHAPTER VII. Street Preaching 9° CHAPTER VIII. A Remarkable Missionar] ICO CHAPTER IX. Certain Expressions and Pronunciations in Pulpit and Pew. Ill CHAPTER X. How Treacher- Arc "Taken In "... 128 CHAPTER XI. The Confer, nee Letter 152 CHAPTER XII. The Conference College 163 CHAPTER xm. A Martyr l88 (5) 6 PASTORAL SKETCHES. CHAPTER XIV. Pao* Gu ^ 3o4 CHAPTER XV.VV Li "le Jack CHAPTER XVI. Emma ,_ C 2 CHAPTER XVII. Professor S „-„ CHAPTER XVIII. A Photograph of a Class of Conference Undergraduates. 268 CHAPTER XIX. The Sickness of Ziunne 2 5^ CHAPTER XX. The Annual Conference 2Q5 PASTORAL SKETCHES. CHAPTER I. REMINISCENCES OF CERTAIN PREACHERS. ©XE of the earliest memories in the life of the author is that of sitting by the side of his mother in church, as a little boy of five or six years, with his feet dangling halfway down to the floor, and his eyes fixed on the face of the preach- er, poised high above him and before him in the pulpit. Sometimes the day was hot, the sermon lengthy, and the little dangling legs became cramped and the neck wearied in looking upward so long at the speaker. But the reverent, listening face of the mother, and the boy's own awful sense of the dig- nity of the preacher, were sufficient to bring the curly-haired, white-jacketed lad through the serv- ice without rebuke to himself, and mortification to the mother. As the boy grew, the faces and forms in the pulpit changed, according to the policy of the (list Church. All were good men, but they (7) s PASTORAL SKETCHES. variously impressed the lad, as piety, eloquence, dress, personal characteristics, or other things too numerous to mention, prevailed. For instance, one is remembered more by a bald head than anything else. The child won- dered over the fact of an unending forehead, that went away up, and clear over, and was lost in the collar behind. Another had a very red face and a very loud voice, and this, coupled with the fact that he was an unusually large man, with a hand of corre- sponding proportions, caused a riveted attention to be given to all that he said and did. When that large hand struck the Bible a resounding blow, and the loud voice ascended at the same time, it meant something, and a certain small child in the audience never dreamed of going to sleep. Another is remembered mainly by a broad, white shirt bosom, in the center of which reposed a large gold stud; and by the way he pronounced the word "realizing." He divided the syllables in a slow, high-sounding way, thus: " re-al-i-zing." While the word was thus drawn out, India rubber fashion, yet it was pronounced with such a mu- sical roll of the voice that one person at least in the audience was fascinated. The child had no REMINISCENCES OF CERTAIN PREACHERS. 9 idea what " realizing " meant, but he was enam- ored with the sound and bigness of the word, and yearned to live and grow up, that he might use the same word in conversation. He determined to employ it on all occasions, and knock down pla- toons of listeners even as he himself had been overrun and prostrated. A fourth greatly impressed him with the way he took out and put up his spectacles. The preacher was an aged man with white hair and heavy gray eyebrows. Everything he did was deliberate. As he stood up in the pulpit before the great Bible the child watched him with bated breath. He first glanced gravely over the audience ; then, hold- ing the left lapel of his coat with his left hand, he solemnly put his right hand into the inner side pocket and drew out a black tin box five inches long. He looked at it as if he had never seen it before. The child scarcely breathed as the preach- er slowlv opened the case and with finger and thumb drew out a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles. In the most deliberate manner they were opened and carefully placed upon die nose; and then the tin ca e was closed with a snap that could be heard all over the church, and replaced in the side pock- -olemnlv Bfl B body is lowered in the grave. IO PASTORAL SKETCHES. Then came the opening of the Bible. It was done reverently, and made the boy feel that the Book was different from all other books. Dis- tinct to this day is the memory how tenderly the leaves were turned, and how the eyes lingered as if the preacher saw many precious things while he was passing on to the selection of his text. We recall the gravity with which that text was read, and then reread. Then in the same deliberate way the tin box was taken out of the side pocket, the spectacles were removed with the right hand, and deposited in the case now open for their re- ception. For a moment the preacher looked down on them as one would at the face of a friend in a coffin, then came the snap, the screws were shot in, the casket was closed, the box lowered the second time into the grave, and the sermon began. Fully four minutes had elapsed since the preacher stood up, but somehow the soul felt that there had been no loss of time, and every second of time and every motion of the man had counted. However, not all can do as did this man. A fifth preacher is recalled by his habit of drink- ing a glass of water just in the middle of his sermon. The author was raised in Yazoo City, Miss. Just ten miles from that town was another smaller REMINISCENCES OF CERTAIN PREACHERS. II place called Benton. Exactly halfway between the two towns on the main plank road was a water- ing place called " The Ponds." Having stopped there frequently in his mother's carriage in pass- ing from one place to another, the writer of this sketch, as a child, had a vivid memory of the lo- cality and the watering. So when the preacher we now speak of would stop suddenly in his ser- mon and pour out a glass of water and drink it all down ; by a natural association of ideas the child in the audience felt in a vague way that the min- ister had reached "The Ponds" and was just halfway through his sermon. If the sermon were uninteresting, and the day warm, the sight of the preacher arriving at "The Ponds " and drinking, while the rest of the team, just as dry as he and even dryer, but not allowed by custom to share the refreshing draught, this sight was far from being calculated to promote re- ligious feelings in a parch-mouthed, neck-cricked, and leg-aching little boy. The very vision of- the glass pitcher, the CUt- goblet, the crystal water, the way the preach- er poured it out, and the way he drank it all down, wiped his mouth, and cleared his throat with a loud "Ahem!" were all exceedingly trying tea- ——! 12 PASTORAL SKETCHES.