W. G. Miller

“ But, Ladies and Gentlemen, the war is inevitable. Its coming may be hastened or retarded by the shaping of events during the next thirty days, but that war is upon us, and a civil war, of a most frightful character and most alarming proportions, is to my mind no longer a question. You can no more prevent it than you can stay the leaping floods of Niagara, or quench the king of day in the palm of your hand. It is the legitimate offspring of an 'irrepressible conflict' of ideas as antagonistic as light and darkness, as diametrically opposed to each other as right and wrong, truth and error. ”

“ To intensify either the mental or spiritual forces, it is necessary to break up, at times, their monotonous habits, and send them off into new channels of thought and feeling. A lesson may be learned in this direction from the picnic excursion. It is not the little ones alone who, relieved of the confinement of the parlor, gambol in half frantic ecstasy, but the sedate matron and the grave sire renew their youth, and in their exhuberance of spirit, join in the recreations with the zest of childhood. ”

“ In these days of special clamor for superior pulpit attractions to draw the crowd, there is a strong temptation to court popular favor by adjusting both the themes and style of address to the pulpit in such a way as to withold from the people the only spiritual food that can give life to a dead soul. Such a Ministry in the eyes of the world may be deemed a great success, but to such as judge not after the outward appearance, it is known to be a dead failure. While it utterly fails to bring souls to Christ, it is also disastrous to the Church itself. ”

“ If this be true of what seem to be the unfinished or exploded worlds, that swing like airy nothings in the heavens and fringe the imperial realm of physical being, then what may not be predicated of the profounder mysteries that lie bosomed in those unexplored depths of the Universe, where the fixed stars hold high court? When our feet trip at every step of our advance to know the mysteries of nature, why need we affect surprise when the profounder domain of providence refuses to yield up its secrets? That the ways of God are mysterious is a logical necessity. ”

“ This dear Brother had built both a house and a barn of large dimensions, and the meeting, to be held in the latter, awakened general interest throughout the circuit, bringing together a multitude of people. Every house in the neighborhood was filled with guests, and the balance, not less than fifty in number, were entertained at what was called the Cowham Mansion. But great as was the outpouring of the people, the manifestations of the Spirit were still more extraordinary. Under the preaching of the Word, the Holy Ghost fell on the people. ”

“ But another advantage of the Camp-Meeting lies in the unbroken chain of religious thought and feeling which it affords. In the ordinary experiences of life, the secular and the religious strongly mingle and intercept each other. But in the tented grove the secular is shut away from the mind, and the religious holds complete mastery. One service follows another, and one religious impulse succeeds another so rapidly that the soul finds no interval for communion with the world. ”

“ Brother Haddock has a large intellectual development, a warm heart, an eloquent tongue, and an intense spiritual activity. What he does must be done at once, and done thoroughly. He has an ardent hatred of shams, and despises all clap-trap. Both in sermons and debate, he strikes home, and woe be to the luckless pate that has the temerity to dash under his well-aimed strokes. And yet under all this seeming severity, there dwells a spirit as kind and manly as ever throbbed in a human bosom.
During this, the closing year of my term on the District, my labors were very extended. ”

“ He is an able Preacher, has a reliable judgment, and possesses a kind spirit. He hates shams and thoroughly detests the superficial. He never hangs out a flag to catch the popular breeze, and does not turn the prow of his craft down the stream. His convictions are strong, but Curtis G. Lathrop is the soul of integrity, and is most highly appreciated where best known.
The Lawrence University, located at Appleton, deserves special notice, it being the first, and, at the present writing, the only school of the Church within the bounds of the Conference. ”

“ The fountains of feeling were opened and tears came welling up from their depths, until they brimmed the eyelids of all, and fell in showers, as when the cloud angel shakes his wings. Those only who have mingled in the first religious meetings of the new settlement, can rightly appreciate the intense interest or gauge the overwhelming emotions of such an occasion. ”

“ In short, nothing could stand before his victorious Faith. In this Chapel there were most extraordinary displays of divine power. Nor, under such leadership, need it be deemed strange that revivals sometimes swept the entire circuit of the year. Nor were Brother Humiston's labors confined to his own neighborhood exclusively. He was often invited to other appointments on the charge, and even to other charges, to aid the preachers in their revival meetings, and his labors were always greatly blessed. I have known whole congregations melted to tears under the recitals of his Christian experience. ”

“ Obtaining a load of lumber, which was all that could be secured for either love or money, a shanty was immediately erected for the accommodation of the family. Was it a providential intervention that assigned us our home and field of labor in this new and rapidly populating portion of Wisconsin, rather than the city of Dubuque?
Society in its formative state needs, above all other agencies, the salutary influences of religion. To provide these and give them efficiency among the people, the presence and labors of the Gospel ministry, and the establishment of churches, are a necessity. ”

“ Why not go out into the woods, beneath the spreading branches of the trees, or even under the uncurtained canopy of Heaven, and enjoy a grand unbending of the spirit? With the shackles thrown off that have so long fettered the soul, what a Heaven of felicity there is in its conscious freedom. ”

“ There were several things to be considered and carefully weighed and determined before entering upon a work of such grave responsibilities as the Itinerant ministry. First of all, the question must be settled in a man's conviction of duty; then the question of one's fitness for the work; and, finally, the financial question could not be ignored. To enter the Itinerancy involved responsibilities that could only be sustained under the deepest convictions that can possibly penetrate a human soul. The minister is God's ambassador to lost men. ”

“ A brave soul never falters in the presence of difficulty or peril, but always deals the strongest blows where the conflict rages the sharpest. The struggle was brief and the result satisfactory. Kneeling by the side of the rock, prayer was offered for Divine guidance and help, and there fell on the soul a baptism of serene peace and holy joy, which hallowed each remaining step of the journey. ”

“ Early in the session, the election of delegates to the General Conference occurred. As I was too young to be thought of in that connection, I was permitted to sit quietly and take notes. The only issue of any great importance in the election was the slavery question. And as this institution had already been put in issue in the general elections of the country, it could not well be left out on this occasion. So it was made the chief subject of discussion. To be a thorough-going anti-slavery man was the stubborn test of qualifications for a delegate. ”

“ We came first to Milwaukee when in our youth. We came again to the Milwaukee District in 1859, and to the station in 1862, giving to the first four years of severe labor, and to the last three of the most successful years of our Itinerant life. We had known this people as it seldom falls to the lot of Itinerants to know a people. With not a few we had knelt at the Altar of God, when they passed into the spiritual kingdom. The names of very many of them had been entered by the writer's hand on the records of the Church. ”

“ Like all "land seekers" of those early times, a few things were deemed essential to make a location desirable. These were prairie, timber and water. But with us one additional requisite must not be ignored. We must also find a "water power." With all these objects in view, the line of travel became perplexing and described a good many angles, but the main direction lay through East Troy, Summit, Watertown, Oak Grove and Waupun. At the last named place we found a few scattered log houses, and, within a radius of five miles, perhaps a dozen families. The location was beautiful. ”

“ In a large city, the population is constantly changing, and unless the Pastor shall be on the alert in looking up the people, members of his own flock, to say nothing of others, will drop out of sight. Soon they will feel that the band of union between them and the Church has been severed, and they have become outcasts. The result of such a state of things, will be either recklessness of life, or a seeking of other Church alliances. In either case, the charge itself suffers loss. In addition to this class of cases that need the eagle eye of the Pastor, there is a constant influx of population. ”

“ The emigrants in the North were mainly those who came to the Western world to find an asylum from the religious persecutions to which they had been subjected at home. In the South, society was largely established under the sanctions of royalty. These two facts will account for the radical differences existing between the people of the two sections. In the North, society very naturally accepted the political doctrines of personal equality and universal freedom. In the South, the people as naturally adhered to their aristocratic ideas, and held to the doctrine of privileged classes. ”

“ During this year he assisted Brother Moulthrop in holding a protracted meeting at Prairieville, and large numbers were converted.
Brother Crews was one of the choicest men in the Conference. He began his ministerial work when what is now the great Northwest was yet in its infancy, and has mingled in the discussion and settlement of all the great questions which have arisen. His appointments have placed him in the front rank of his compeers, and among them all, none have made a better record, or will go from labor to reward leaving a profounder regret among the people. ”

“ The mysterious ways of Providence are, however, not unfrequently so interwoven with human events as that average intelligence may be able to understand portions of them, though much of mystery must always remain. And in no one particular do these understandable portions find a clearer illustration than in those interventions which assign individual men to given pursuits and responsibilities in life. Truly, "There is a Providence that shapes our ends, rough hew them as we will." ”

“ Neither the Church nor the individuals concerned derived any advantage in the result, and though the wisdom of the administration was never called in question as far as I knew, yet I could not suppress the conviction that Church trials can only be commended as a last resort. It is much easier to awaken than allay the spirit of strife. Abating this discordant note, which did not long disturb the harmony of the Church, the two years we spent on this charge are freighted with most precious memories. ”

“ Nearly a third of a century he has devoted to teaching, dividing his time almost equally between the Seminary and the Institute.
Dr. Bannister is one of Nature's noblemen, and his membership in any Conference is an honor to the body. The Wisconsin Conference has recognized his worth, and has sent him three times as one of her delegates to the General Conference, and on one occasion was pleased to put him at the head of the list. But he is not the property of a Conference; he belongs to the whole Church, and is the peer of his brethren in any convocation she may assemble. ”

“ The battle is for human liberty, and it were better that every man should go down, and every dollar be sacrificed, than that we should transmit to the coming millions of this land other than a legacy of freedom. ”

“ As the mother Church of the city, her membership is widely scattered, and her congregations large. Yet the Pastor, with a careful husbanding of time, and an earnest effort, can pass over the field as often as the exigencies of the work require. He may not always visit each family as often as they desire, for there are many in every Church who have a very limited idea of the amount of labor, care and thought the pastoral office imposes, but he will be able to meet all reasonable demands. ”

“ The Bible declaration, that God hath made of one blood all the nations of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, so beautifully set forth in our Declaration of Independence, and teaching the great lesson of universal equality and universal freedom, forms the corner-stone of our institutions. ”

“ She certainly felt devout, and she had not the remotest idea that there was anything in the Church that could disturb the devotion of others. But alas! for poor human nature. A horrible nightmare was that moment lurking under the wings of the beautiful dream of our innocent sister. In that highly respectable congregation, there were evil eyes that could not look at the Minister or close in prayer. ”