To reflect on Brother Warner's career is to marvel at the
accomplishment that was crowded into a few short years. He was active
in several callings at one time. As a minister with the heavy burden
of the gospel upon him he labored hard, preaching often and being
everywhere in demand. On occasions he preached for three and even
four hours in one discourse, the audience as well as the preacher
forgetful of the passing time. Though in physical endurance he was
weak, yet there were perhaps few speakers who could wear so well in
the labor of the pulpit. His private work of instructing seekers, and
his ministrations for the sick, requiring the exercise of prayer and
faith, absorbed his strength and occupied much time. As editor of the
paper, to which he contributed articles, many of them doctrinal and
requiring study, and for which he had to edit articles written by
others, it was necessary that he spend much time with the pen. His
correspondence also was considerable, and as stenographers were not
so available then as now he had to do his writing with his own hand.
Where would he get time for study and prayer, and for writing hymns
or poetry? And yet he accomplished all of these.
In the latter years of his life he apparently was declining to some
extent in ministerial vigor; but as a writer his productions seemed
only to grow richer with his years. Had his life been prolonged to
the full period of what is commonly expected of man, he would have
given to the world some of the finest poetical productions. His poems
are not at all inferior, though written during a strenuous career.
In 1890, he collected and published his poems in a book entitled
Poems of Grace and Truth. It contained 343 pages. With the exception
of a small book entitled Bible Readings, and the limp-cover binding
of a song-book, this book of poems was the first cloth-bound book
ever made at the Gospel Trumpet publishing office. The press-work
is imperfect owing to the poor stereotyped plates from which it
was printed. A number of beautiful poems were written since the
publication of this book and therefore were not included in it.
His longest poem was his Meditations on the Prairie. It occupies
eighty-four pages of the book mentioned and is written in
ten-syllable iambic verse. It touchingly describes with beautiful
imagery the author's acquaintance with and his subsequent marriage to
Sarah A. Keller, and the circumstances that led to her deception and
separation from him. His own description of its origin, as given in
the preface to the poem, is as follows:
In the summer of 1873, the author took a mission-field in
Nebraska, much of which had just been settled the previous year.
My companion had died one year previously. Just before going West
a correspondence was arranged with Sister Sarah A. Keller, which
soon kindled into a glowing flame of love. A year later I returned
and we were happily joined in marriage. With her precious company
I came again to this blooming plain, where one year was sweetened
with the most transporting conjugal bliss. In 1875 we returned to
Ohio, where life and labors flowed on in uninterrupted happiness,
until in 1884 the dear object of our love was deceived by the wily
foe and torn from our soul, a crisis that threatened our frail
life, and which we survived only by the grace of God.
In the fall of 1887, while on an extensive Western tour, we came
into a new part of the great prairie, which strikingly reminded us
of our travels on the new plains twelve and thirteen years before.
There the Spirit touched our mind with vivid recollections of that
cherished one, who made for us this prairie a blissful Eden. An
inspired imagination also portrayed what dire wreck of our own life
might have ensued from the crisis of broken love had not the grace
of God averted the sad issue. This cast us on the sod beneath
a load of gratitude, where the poem was inspired as our heart's
humble tribute for Heaven's pity and sustaining arm.
A quotation from this poem appears in Chapter XV of this book.
Brother Warner was a great admirer of nature as the handiwork of God,
and several of his poems are on nature subjects. What we give here
are in most cases but selections from the poems named, the omissions
being indicated by stars.