Benjamin Prentiss McPherson

“ And then, looking into the burning pit, Sam thought of Mike McCarthy, for whom he had at that moment a kind of passion akin to a young girl's blind devotion to her lover. With a shudder he realised that Mike also would go into the pit, for he had heard Mike laughing at churches and declaring there was no God.
The evangelist ran upon the platform and called to the people demanding that they stand upon their feet. "Stand up for Jesus," he shouted; "stand up and be counted among the host of the Lord God."
In the church people began getting to their feet. Jane McPherson stood with the others. ”

“ Where the church had failed the bold sensualist succeeded. Sam felt that he could have prayed in the presence of the entire town.
"Oh, Father!" he cried, sending up his voice in the silence of the little room, "make me stick to the thought that the right living of this, my life, is my duty to you."
By the door below, while Valmore waited on the sidewalk, Telfer talked to Jane McPherson.
"I wanted Sam to hear," he explained. "He needs a religion. All young men need a religion. I wanted him to hear how even a man like Mike McCarthy keeps instinctively trying to justify himself before God." ”

“ The consciousness that, in spite of Benham's mushroom-like growth as a proud testimonial to the sacredness of institutions established by the free-born, the city had begun closely to resemble large cities everywhere was sobering, but on the whole, inspiriting to him as a worker. His mission was clearly disclosed to him—a mission worthy of the energies of a clergyman eager to bring his church into closer touch with everyday life and common human conditions. For Mr. Prentiss as an American and a churchman was ambitious for the future of the Episcopal faith. ”

“ It is a comfort to believe that, whatever our troubles, in the end all will work together for our good. The new year has opened upon us here at Genevrier pretty gloomily, as George has told you. You will not be surprised, therefore, to hear that M. is also quite sick, much sicker than G. She is one of those meek, precious little darlings whom it is painful to see suffer, and I have hardly known what I was about, or where I was, since she was taken down. My baby is deserted by us all ”

“ Mrs. Prentiss’ books were all written after her marriage to Rev. George L. Prentiss, which occurred in 1845. Mr. Prentiss was the pastor of a church in New Bedford. Afterwards they lived in New York and, in the year 1866, they went to a quiet place among the Green Mountains to spend the summer, and so delighted were they with the beauties of Dorset that they made it their summer home, building a cottage there in which Mrs. Prentiss died about twelve years later.
It is impossible to give you any account of the varied scenes of her life in such a brief sketch. ”

“ Some of the men joined Telfer and Valmore, talking in low, excited voices. "And Mary McKane, too, the hypocrite," Sam heard one of them say.
The voice inside the jail changed. Still praying, Mike McCarthy seemed also to be talking to the group in the darkness outside.
"I am sick of my life. I have sought leadership and have not found it. Oh Father! Send down to men a new Christ, one to get hold of us, a modern Christ with a pipe in his mouth who will swear and knock us about so that we vermin who pretend to be made in Thy image will understand. ”

“ It was the daring of genius, and of a genius which counted as only a stimulant the obstacles intervening. To grapple with giants, such as he found in Guion, Yerger, Sharkey, McNutt, and Lake, would have intimidated a less bold and daring mind; but Prentiss courted the conflict con amore, and applying all his herculean powers with the vigor of youth and the ardency of enterprise, he soon found himself quite equal to any competitor.
When an infant, a fever settled in his leg, causing it to wither from the knee to the foot, and doomed him through life to lameness. ”

“ Sam went to the express office and putting several bills into an envelope sealed and sent it to the woman while the three children walked up and down in the train shed carrying the cases, aglow with the pride of them.
At two o’clock Sam, with the little girl in his arms and with one of the boys seated on either side of him, sat in a stateroom of a New York flyer—bound for Sue.
CHAPTER II
Sam McPherson is a living American. He is a rich man, but his money, that he spent so many years and so much of his energy acquiring, does not mean much to him. ”

“ They were, many of them, not of the brute trader type, but were, instead, men who thought and acted quickly and with a daring and audacity impossible to the average mind. They wanted power and were, many of them, entirely unscrupulous, but for the most part they were men with a fire burning within them, men who became what they were because the world offered them no better outlet for their vast energies.
Sam McPherson had been untiring and without scruples in the first hard, quick struggle to get his head above the great unknown body of men there in the city. ”

“ Ah, how much easier it is to pray daily, "Oh, Jesus Christus, wachs in mir!" than to consent to, yea rejoice in, the terms of the grant! Well, George went for the doctor. His quarters at this season are right opposite; he is a German and brother of the author Auerbach. We brought G.'s cot into our room and George and I took care of him till three o'clock, when for the first time since we had children, I gave out and left the poor man to get along as nurse as he best could. I can tell you it comes hard on one's pride to resign one's office to a half-sick husband. ”

“ If a man comes down straight from the mount to speak to those who have just come from the same place, he must be in a state to edify and they to be edified.
From New York she writes to Miss Shipman, October 24th:
Your letter came just as we started for Poughkeepsie. The Synod met there and I was invited to accompany George, and, quite contrary to my usual habits, I went. We had a nice time. I feel that you are in the best place in the world. Next to dying and going home one's self, it must be sweet to accompany a Christian friend down to the very banks of the river. ”

“ Men and women went up and down the aisles clasping the hands of people in the pews, talking and praying aloud. “Welcome among us,” they said to certain ones who stood upon their feet. “It gladdens our hearts to see you among us. We are happy at seeing you in the fold among the saved. It is good to confess Jesus.”
Suddenly a voice from the bench back of him struck terror to Sam’s heart. Jim Williams, who worked in Sawyer’s barber shop, was upon his knees and in a loud voice was praying for the soul of Sam McPherson. ”

“ The McPhersons have all good cause to abhor the very name of gambling," Miss McPherson replied, hitching her chair a little further away from Geraldine as from something poisonous; then, in her characteristic way of suddenly changing the conversation, she said: "You saw my nephew, Neil McPherson?"
"Oh, yes," Mrs. Jerrold replied. "We saw a good deal of him; he is very fine-looking, with such gentlemanly manners for a boy. I should be glad if Grey would imitate him," and she glanced at her son, on whose face a cloud instantly fell. ”

“ One of his friends wrote after his death: "I have heard many anecdotes of him, which I considered of doubtful authority; for he is a traditional character all over Mississippi—their Cid, their Wallace, their Coeur de Lion, and all the old stories are wrought over again, and annexed to his name." Another of his friends, who knew him long and intimately, the late Balie Peyton, of Tennessee, testified: "No man ever left a purer fame than Seargent S. Prentiss, in all that constitutes high honor and spotless integrity of character. ”

“ Mike McCarthy and Sam were friends. For years the man had idled upon the streets of the town, loitering about, boasting and talking. He had sat for hours in a chair under a tree before the New Leland House, reading books, doing tricks with cards, engaging in long discussions with John Telfer or any who would stand up to him.
Mike McCarthy got into trouble in a fight over a woman. A young farmer living at the edge of Caxton had come home from the fields to find his wife in the bold Irishman's arms and the two men had gone out of the house together to fight in the road. ”

“ In personal appearance Prentiss was eminently handsome, and yet eminently manly. Although of medium height, there was that in the carriage of his head that was astonishingly impressive. I shall never forget him on one occasion, "in '44," when he rose at a public meeting to reply to an antagonist worthy of his steel. His whole soul was roused, his high smooth forehead fairly coruscated. He remained silent for some seconds, and only looked. The bald eagle never glanced so fiercely from his eyry. It seemed as if his deep blue eye would distend until it swallowed up the thousands of his audience. ”

“ All about them the rush of life went on, vast changes were impending in the industrial life of the people, cities were doubling and tripling their population, a war was being fought, and the flag of their country flew in the ports of strange seas, while American boys pushed their way through the tangled jungles of strange lands carrying in their hands Rainey-Whittaker rifles. And in a huge stone house, set in a broad expanse of green lawns near the shores of Lake Michigan, Sam McPherson sat looking at his wife, who in turn looked at him. ”

“ The District Court apparently found that McPherson's speech did not address a matter of public concern. [8] The Court of Appeals rejected this conclusion, finding that "the life and death of the President are obviously matters of public concern." 786 F.2d at 1236. Our view of these determinations of the courts [p386] below is limited in this context by our constitutional obligation to assure that the record supports this conclusion:
" [W] e are compelled to examine for ourselves the statements in issue and the circumstances under which they [were] made to see whether or not they . . . ”

“ Let him reflect that peaceful men in corn-growing counties do not by choice sleep among the dogs of war nor wash their linen in the blood of their country's foe. Let him, in his sympathy with the talkers, remember with kindness the heroism of the listeners.
·⁠·⁠·⁠·⁠·⁠·⁠· On a summer day Sam McPherson sat on a box before Wildman's grocery lost in thought. In his hand he held the little yellow account book and in this he buried himself, striving to wipe from his consciousness a scene being enacted before his eyes upon the street. ”

“ I have been thinking, lately, that if I enjoy my imperfect work, how God, who has made so many beautiful, as well as useful, things, must enjoy His faultless creations. My work is still to go from house to house where sickness and death are so busy. Mrs. F. G. has just lost her two only children within a day of each other. Neither her mother nor sister could go near her during their illness or after their death, because of the flock of little ones in their house, and it was not safe to have a funeral. Dr. Hastings made a prayer ”

“ I said.
"Yes, I am happy," she replied, "and such happiness is worth all it costs. If my flesh shudders at the remembrance of what I have endured, my faith sustains God through the whole. But tell me a little more about yourself, my dear. I should so love to give you a helping hand, if I might."
"You know," I began, "dear Mrs. Campbell, that there are some trials that cannot do us any good. They only call out all there is in us that is unlovely and severe." ”

“ As he watched him George recalled old Merchant Camp’s words of the day before.
“But look you, young man,” he had said, “you are not the only one that feels the impulse of change. It has occurred to me many times of late that my will needs a bit of altering, too.”
Distinctly young Prentiss recalled the blank look that crossed Herbert Camp’s face at this saying. True, he had stammered something [103] about a mere matter of money having no effect upon a person of honor. ”

“ They regularly went to Europe in the summer season and could be seen at all the race-courses and gambling resorts of the Continent. It is amusing to chronicle in this connection that just prior to McPherson's arrest—that is to say during the summer vacation of 1904—he crossed the Atlantic on the same steamer with an assistant district attorney of New York county, who failed to recognize his ship companion and found him an entertaining and agreeable comrade. ”

“ My brother then joined me in Portland. It is a consolation to know that he lived and died in the exercise of those Christian sentiments which were deeply instilled into his mind by the society of your angelic wife, who has preceded you to our home of rest. God grant that we may all meet there!
* * * * *
B. S. S. PRENTISS. One of the best informed writers on the history of the Revolutionary times and of the war for the Union thus introduces a notice of Mr. Prentiss:
Small in stature; limping in gait; broad-chested; a high intellectual forehead; manly beauty in every feature ”

“ The answer to your prayer for light must [Pg 65] come from God, but He often sends those answers through human agency. And so I am very glad you sent for me to-night. I love to be intrusted with His commissions. And now don't you think we ought to go down and join the rest of them?"
As they entered the library, every one took a hasty glance at their faces, and the tranquil expression of each satisfied what anxiety they had felt. The next day was Sunday, and quite a procession set off for church. Margaret came last of all, leading her beloved little Mabel by the hand. ”