2. The most convenient thing in this life.
Answer: 1. Good weather and good health.
2. Money
What, from any stand-point, do you think is the best
thing in this life?
Answer: Christianity.
What, from any stand-point, do you think is the worst
thing?
Answer: Sin.
Now, in my old age I do not wish to live my life over again, but I
can see where I might have done better especially as it relates to
the questions above. I might have taken more advantage of the good
weather and avoided the bad. I might have taken better care of my
health. I might have secured a little more money for the rainy days.
I might have wedded myself more closely to Christianity, and have
divorced myself more fully from sin.
But I am now in my old age content--am ready, and resting in the
hope of the glory that shall be revealed. God is good. My counsel
to my children and to all young people for many years has been,
briefly stated:
Take care of your health.
Take care of your money.
Take care of your religion.
But, to return to Lindley, Missouri and to the 19th year of my age, I
find myself, Dr. Elmore, wife and boy, stopping with my brother Henry
and his young family. Brother Henry is nine yeas my senior. He
lives to this day. He had, a year or two before, moved to that
place.
The next morning after we arrived in Lindley, Dr. Elmore was fixing
the shaft of his buggy when his revolver fell from his pocket, was
discharged and shot him in the breast, the ball ranging upwards and
lodged in his shoulder. He soon got well, but the ball is with him
to this day.
I never owned a gun, a dog, a fiddle, a pocket knife, a razor, a
pipe, a cigar or cigarette, a plug of tobacco, or a hug of whiskey.
I never had any use for these things. I do not wholly condemn all
these, but I do think the world would be better and safer without
guns, dirk knives, dogs, tobacco, and strong drink.
During my stay of almost five years in Grundy and Sullivan counties,
Mo., I spent the time in teaching and attending school. The
principal events of my life were my second birth, my first sermon, my
first convert, my first funeral, my first marriage, (I mean the first
marriage I ever solemnized), my first religious debate and my first
vote.
I taught in both Sullivan and Grundy counties. I soon gained the
same popularity as a teacher that I had in Indiana. I never sought
schools. They always sought me. I attended the Baptist College in
Trenton one year. It was a very pleasant and profitable year of my
early life. It was before the war when the general talk was about
slavery and a probable war.
One day I and a young friend, chum and class-mate, a son of a Baptist
preacher, were studying our lessons under a large beech tree in the
college campus. My mate said to me, "Hastings, aren't you an
abolitionist?" I said, "Yes, I am." "I believe all men ought to be
free." He answered, "I thought so, and so am I and my father too."
"But I want to admonish you not to talk it so much." The admonition
was well given, and well taken, for the forebodings of the day were
that not talk but action would be the right step. And so it was, for
it was not long before the whole country was in an awful fratricidal
war. The like of which, I hope our country will never see again.
It was during this year the great migration took place to Pike's Peak
for gold. Nearly every day the streets would be full of covered
wagons bound for Pike's Peak. I noticed on one wagon written in
great red letters, "Hastings, bound for Pike's Peak or Hell." It was
the noon hour, and I said to the other boys, "There is a Hastings in
this crowd, and I am going to find him." I went into a grocery store
where many of them were buying provisions. I soon picked him out, a
tall good looking fellow, then besides he swore a great deal which
tallied with what I saw on the wagon, so I stepped up to him and
said, "Is your name Hastings?" He answered with an oath that it was.
I said to him, "I see from what is written on your wagon that you are
bound for Pike's Peak or Hell." Without waiting for him to reply, I
further said, "I think from the way you are going, and the way you
talk, you will probably get to both places." At first he looked like
he was going to hit me, and then he smiled and said, "You don't
swear?" I said, "No, nor do I think you ought to swear." He said,
"Probably I ought not."
Then I told him my name was Hastings too. He shook hands with me and
we had quite a visit. But he swore no more in my presence. We could
trace no kinship, and I was a little glad of it. I do not think any
man is totally depraved, but some are very nearly so. There is less
excuse for swearing than almost any other sin.
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