was then popular among the Jews, that the spirit may exist apart from the body, and after the body is dead."
I thus discoursed to them for one hour in development of the Bible teachings concerning human spirits; and in my turn ridiculed the persons that had ridiculed the ideas that had evidently been held by Jesus and the apostles.
Mrs. Chapman had always invited objections; but she was sure to make an endless talk over them. I said, "We will not have an endless confabulation to-night; but I will quote one passage of Scripture, and on that I will rest my case. Any other person may then quote one passage of Scripture and on that rest the case. I have preached one sermon; the other party has preached twenty. So far we will count ourselves even, and it only remains that I should quote my Scripture, and let the other party quote the one Scripture on the opposite side, and then we will be dismissed." I gave the views of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees as detailed by Josephus, and then quoted Luke in the Acts of Apostles: "The Sadducees say there is no resurrection, neither angel nor spirit; but the Pharisees confess both." And Paul says, "Men and brethren, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee." So I also say, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee, and hold to the existence of human and angelic spirits.
When I announced that I should call for objections, I saw Mrs. Chapman take up her Bible in a flutter and nervously turn over its leaves. When I sat down all eyes were turned on her, and there was a death-like stillness in the house. Then she rose up, and in a moment was out of the house. She left the town the next morning and never came back. Then it was "Old Bob Burton's" turn to speak. He said to Billy Green, "Your chest is locked, and the key is lost in the bottom of the sea."
The brethren were gratified that the power of this "soul-sleeping" delusion was broken. Billy Green never recovered from his infatuation. He afterwards built a house that, in the number of rooms it contained, was wholly beyond his necessities. But he thought that when the Lord should come, and he should own all the land that joined him, and should have children to his heart's desire, then he would need all the room.
CHAPTER II.
From Ripley I went to Mt. Sterling, the county-seat of Brown County. This church had fallen into decay for want of the care of a competent evangelist. Here I remained some weeks; and the church was very much revived, and there was a large ingathering. This was originally the home of Bro. Archie Glenn, now conspicuous in building up the University at Wichita. From the first Bro. Glenn, though modest and unobtrusive, was known as a solid and helpful member of the church. He always had the confidence of the people of Brown County, and was by them elected to various public offices, at last becoming Lieutenant-Governor of the State. But his business not prospering to suit him, he removed to Wichita, which was at that time a straggling village of uncertain fortunes, situated on a river of doubtful reputation, and located in a country concerning which the public were debating whether it should be called "The Great American Desert," or a decent place, where civilized men could live and thrive.
But Bro. Glenn did not lose faith in the Lord nor in his country. He went to his new home to be a live man. Wichita has decided to be a city, and not a straggling village of doubtful and cow-boy reputation; the Arkansas River has agreed to behave itself and to co-operate with human hands in giving fertility to its valley, and the geographers have unanimously agreed to strike the "Great American Desert" from the map of the United States. Sister Shields has grown up since these old days to be a woman, then a widow, and now a true yoke-fellow with her father in these great undertakings.
Bro. Lewis Brockman was pointed out to me, when first I came to Mt. Sterling, as a disaffected member; but, on a better acquaintance, it became apparent that his disaffection was that the church members had made a solemn vow to keep the ordinances of the Lord's house, and did not do it. When better order was obtained, he was once more in harmony with the church; came to Atchison County, Kansas, and died, a pattern of fidelity to his conscience and to every known duty.
During the period of three years in which I remained preaching in the Military Tract, I visited almost all its churches. The number of disciples was large.
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