T. A. Goodwin

“ Leaving the heroic husband, the growing and popular preacher, to travel long journeys, to preach to large congregations and to be caressed everywhere by loving and admiring friends, pursuing congenial studies under more favorable surroundings than his farm ever could have afforded, let us look in upon that heroic wife with her family of five children, increased ultimately to ten, and for many years almost wholly unaided by the presence or counsel of the husband, or by any considerable material aid from him. ”

“ This outrage upon woman's rights and woman's worth has been carried so far that it has become common to assume that it is her prerogative to monopolize the love of the household—at least to possess and manage the greater part of it; and some women have heard this so often that they more than half believe it themselves, so that from away back men, and even some women, talk of a woman's love as being a little purer and a great deal stronger than a man's love. ”

“ To the end of their lives their houses and barns were always open to Methodist preachers, whether they were their pastors or were strangers. It was sufficient that they came in the name of a Methodist preacher. These heroes were not always the richest men of their several neighborhoods, nor of the church, but, honoring God with their substance they not only prospered in worldly goods, but as a rule they gave to the church and to the world a race of stalwart Christian men and women, who, following in the footsteps of their fathers, felt it a pleasure to do for the church. ”

“ A man is not lovable as a woman is. How can she love him as he loves her, who is the personification and incarnation of beauty and gentleness and sweetness? That is, some are, for it must be conceded that woman is like Jeremiah's figs, the good are very, very good, while the bad are very naughty—too bad for any use. ”

“ If he was a hero to undertake such a sacrifice, what shall we call that young wife, who gave birth to her first-born during his absence, and after a few months of budding promise, during which mother-love was strongly developed, buried that child, all unsupported by the presence and sympathy of her husband ”

“ And yet the men who did this year after year are hardly mentioned, even as an appreciable force in the history of early Methodism, much less as heroes of no low grade. The preacher who preached in that cabin and ate at that table has been duly canonized, but the man who made that preaching possible at a sacrifice of time and money, and of domestic comfort which money can not measure, has generally been regarded as under unspeakable obligations to the preacher and to his neighbors for being counted worthy to do and to suffer such things for the church. ”

“ She, though a widow, gave her eldest son to her country, and his blood was the very first to fatten the soil of West Virginia in the late war, and her second son, under difficulties and discouragements that would have appalled any one but a hero, was wisely trained in head and heart, and she gave him to De Pauw University in the person of your gifted and honored red-headed Vice-President. Others may sing the man, but give me the loftier theme, the heroic women of early Indiana Methodism. ”

“ As she is the greatest of heroes as well as the best of wives who faithfully discharges the duties of a step-mother, under the burning criticisms of intermeddlers, not to mention the too frequent ingratitude of the immediate beneficiaries of her care, so the local preacher who is faithful to his calling, notwithstanding unfriendly criticisms and conspicuous ingratitude, is to be ranked as the greatest of heroes. And of such there were many in the early years of Indiana Methodism. ”

“ Every circuit had one or more, though unavoidably and without rivalry some one easily ranked all contemporaries of any given neighborhood, and some, from position as well as real merit, acquired almost a national reputation, so that a strange preacher or a bishop would be directed, when hundreds of miles distant, to what were known as "Methodist taverns," by the way. ”

“ The men who received these hospitalities were rated as the heroes, while what these women did or suffered was counted of little worth, or certainly only as commonplace; yet they were the greater heroes by far, if for no other reason, yet, because their labors were even harder than the labors of others, and quite as essential to results, and wholly without compensation—even the moral compensation which comes from realizing that the eyes of approbation are upon you—the only eye that seemed to see them was the eye of the Father in Heaven. ”

“ Greatly as I would rejoice if I thought you could live a located life, yet, if you can not feel clear in staying at home, and if you believe you would not be as useful as when traveling, notwithstanding the gloominess of our situation, I can not say stay. ”

“ Three-fourths of the early societies in Indiana were organized by local preachers, a class of heroic men who never figured in Conferences, and whose names are not mentioned among the heroes of the period, but who, on the contrary, were often held in light esteem by their traveling contemporaries because they were not in the regular work, though often in labors quite as abundant as the most laborious of these. ”

“ But, tested by any human standard, that gifted and devoted wife exhibited more of the stuff that heroes are made of, than he ever had occasion to show. That he did a father's part well, none will deny, but it was chiefly the mother's hand that so trained that family of six boys that four of them became eminent and useful preachers, while the mother of the Bovard family of preachers always owned her as her spiritual mother and guide. ”

“ As a preacher he was faithful and laborious, but he never worked harder or, personally, he never fared harder as a preacher than he did as a farmer, while his sorest trials as a preacher were always alleviated by attentions that amounted in many cases almost to adoration. ”

“ No traveling preacher ever displayed greater heroism than these truly great men, and yet they were not the greatest heroes of that heroic age. Such sacrifices as they made from year to year are not to be lightly esteemed, yet the supplying of the larder and of the crib was the smallest part of the sacrifice required for such an offering to the Lord. ”

“ It is no exaggeration to say that the wives of our early preachers often suffered for want of nourishing food, while, when on his circuit, the husband had abundance. Besides this there was the absence of almost every domestic and social comfort which the annual and long moves necessarily implied, and yet in mentioning the heroes of early Methodism in Indiana these are seldom referred to. They were in all cases the greater heroes. ”

“ We are familiar with the deeds of those who have been voted the heroes of early Methodism, but no one has ever told what were the sacrifices and hardships of the heroic women, whose time and strength were devoted to the same cause, in a less conspicuous way. ”

“ But who ever sings the woman? Occasionally a Debora or a Joan of Arc, a kind of a female monstrosity, comes to the front and receives recognition, but their conspicuousness is due more to the low level of their surroundings, than to their individual pre-eminence. ”

“ Eloquent, energetic and educated, he was second to none in everything which constituted a real hero. But when Sally Nolan, the belle of young Indianapolis, the tavern keeper's daughter, consented, at his request, to exchange her leadership of fashionable society in Indianapolis for the lot of an itinerant's wife, and to ride with him from Indianapolis to Madison on horseback to enter upon her life work, she showed a [Pg 7] greater heroism than Edwin Ray ever did in his whole life ”

“ Later on I learned that he was a son of the heroic man and woman whose house had been open for years for preaching and for the entertainment of preachers, and that he was at that time studying law in Wilmington, which accounted for his wearing store clothes. Years passed, and that green boy ripened and developed, and he went out into the world to become a Circuit Judge, a State Senator, a Supreme Judge, and he has been for nine years the honored Dean of the School of Law in De Pauw University. ”

“ A few years later at a session of the Conference, he was guest at the same house with the bishop, and while the bishop was engaged in writing, he was engaged in telling the young lady of the house how many sacrifices the itinerant had to make for the church and for Christ. In spite of his powers of abstraction, the bishop heard the preacher's story, and turning from the table, he said: "Yes, Benjamin, I can testify to the sacrifices you have made for the church. There never was a more hospitable home in the Cumberland Mountains than that you left to become an [Pg 3] itinerant. ”

“ Three-fourths of the early students of this University came from homes that had been open to the early traveling preachers, and the generation of preachers and the preachers' wives just passing away was recruited almost wholly from them, and the later generations of students and preachers, and preachers' wives, not to mention the men who are foremost in all honorable callings, are largely the grand-children and great-grand-children of these same devoted heroic men. ”

“ We need not detract one iota from the well-earned laurels of that great and good man, to say that the greater hero of the twain was that faithful, uncomplaining wife: and that, great as were his labors, hers were much greater, and all the more heroic because they were unobserved and unapplauded. If heroism consists in "the braving of difficulties with a noble devotion to some great cause, and a just confidence of being able to meet dangers [Pg 5] in the spirit of such a cause," then was Mrs. ”