Thurlow Weed was so poor in boyhood that on a cold March day
he had to wrap pieces of cloth about his bare feet in place
of socks and shoes. Thus shod, he walked several miles in the
wintry cold to borrow a history of the Reformation.
(1737)
* * * * *
William Elbert Munsey was born upon a Virginia mountain farm,
which was so poor that a disturbance could not be raised upon
it, much less the articles of food which produce a thrifty
physical manhood. After toiling in the field all day, he would
carry wood upon his tired, youthful back for a mile, that his
widowed mother and five brothers and sisters might have warmth
from the evening fire; he went to school only twelve months
in his life, but he ate the heart out of every book that came
within his reach; while plowing he would keep his book at the
end of the furrow, and when he had plowed a “round,” he would
talk with his tongueless companion for a few moments, “and then
push on between the plow handles,” the great thoughts ringing in
his soul like the tolling of a cathedral bell.
Well, what kind of a man did he make? Let one who heard him
deliver his famous lecture on “Man” answer the question: “The
vast amount of scientific knowledge he had stored his mind with
was truly amazing.
He spoke as if he had been a professor in every branch of
science for a lifetime. Every technical term was at his tongue’s
end. Man was presented in spirit, soul and body as the most
wonderful trichotomy of the universe; was analyzed, synthetized,
exalted and glorified as the last and grandest work of God. He
soared amid clouds and lightning and thunder and tempests; he
was as familiar with anatomy as if he had been a Sir Charles
Bell; with mental phenomena, as if he had been a John Locke;
with mythology, as if he had been born a Greek and had lived
in Greece a thousand years.” At the conclusion of his sermons,
congregations have been so “bewildered as to rise up in an
unconscious way, facing each other, and not knowing for some
moments whether to remain or leave the room.” But how old was
this wonderful man when he died? Just a little over forty years
of age. Like David Livingstone in the African hut, William
Elbert Munsey was found dead upon his knees by the side of his
bed.--F. F. SHANNON.
(1738)