My only reading between Columbus and Pittsburgh is to be here in
Zanesville, a town as black as Acheron, and where one might expect to
see the river Styx.
Later. I had a nice audience and a pleasant reading here, and to-day
we go on to Pittsburgh, where I read to-morrow night.
I met the other day at Dayton a woman who now has grandchildren; but
who, when I first came West, was a gay rattling girl. She was one of
the first converts of brother George's seemingly obscure ministry in
the little new town of Chillicothe. Now she has one son who is a judge
of the supreme court, and another in business. Both she and they are
not only Christians, but Christians of the primitive sort, whose
religion is their all; who triumph and glory in tribulation, knowing
that it worketh patience. She told me, with a bright sweet calm, of
her husband killed in battle the first year of the war, of her only
daughter and two grandchildren dying in the faith, and of her own
happy waiting on God's will, with bright hopes of a joyful reunion.
Her sons are leading members of the Presbyterian Church, and most
active in stirring up others to make their profession a reality, not
an empty name. When I thought that all this came from the conversion
of one giddy girl, when George seemed to be doing so little, I said,
"Who can measure the work of a faithful minister?" It is such living
witnesses that maintain Christianity on earth.
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