Autobiography of Z. S. Hastings Part 2

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 kins.h.i.+p, 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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C H A P T E R S I X

Conversion. First sermon. Funerals and Weddings.

From my earliest childhood I have attended Sunday Schools and church services. I have believed that G.o.d is, that Jesus Christ is the son, and that the Bible is true. Years before I became a Christian I had desired to be such and wors.h.i.+p G.o.d with other Christians. But I did not know which church to join. Mother said, read the Bible and learn. One leader said do this, another said do that. No two agreed. I did not know what to do to become one among the Christians. I prayed to G.o.d but if G.o.d spake to me in an audible voice I did not know it. But these thoughts ran through my mind. I believe and that far is all right, because the Bible so teaches and so do all the churches. It ran through my mind that I ought to tell somebody else besides G.o.d that I believe, so one day I went down town, where there were quite a number of people wors.h.i.+pping G.o.d, and they said they were Christians. I said I believe too, and publicly confessed and told all the men that I believed in G.o.d and that Jesus Christ was G.o.d's son. They all, both men and women seem glad and I was told that all the churches, as well as the Bible, taught that that was right.

Then again, in my mind, I realized that is was a shame and was sorry that I had sinned against G.o.d and neglected to turn to him. So, I determined to sin no more but from henceforth to obey G.o.d and follow the Lord Jesus always if possible until death. The Bible approved of that procedure, all the churches preached that was right.

Then it ran in my mind that I ought to be baptized and in order to be safe and right, I asked that I might in my baptism be submerged in water and raised up, for the Bible seemed to talk that way, and all the churches said that that way would do. So, I asked a man whom the good people of all the churches so far as I knew, call the Bishop B.

H. Smith (no kin to Joe Smith), to baptize me. He did so my immersing me in Medicine Creek in Grundy County, Mo., and raising me up, I came walking up out of the water calling on the name of G.o.d.

This occurred on the 18th day of September 1858. Ever since then, a half century and more I have been serving, G.o.d, keeping his commandments, following his Son, my Load and Master, and praying always. Now all this the Bible teaches, and so do all the churches.

Now what church do I belong to? You tell. Will I be saved? You say. Why cannot we all, Christians, take the Bible at what it says, and what all churches approve and be one church? You answer. You know we need not worry about the G.o.d side. He will do all things right. It occurred to me that what I did to become a Christian was that which Christ referred to in his conversation with Nicodemus.

In a few months after my second birth, I commenced to preach the word of Gospel and chose for my first subject, "Promise to Abraham." To my surprise when I had finished I had spoken nearly an hour and a half. I told all I knew from Abraham to Christ. I have preached for fifty years since then, and while I have learned more, I have never at any one time preached so long.

It took me, however, a long time to get down to the regulated time of forty or forty-five minutes. I always had too much to tell. This sermon was preached sometime in the summer of 1859. One thing I regret, yes--there may be many things,--but I wish I had kept the dates of things, such as converts, baptisms, funerals, weddings, etc.

But of these things I kept no account.

A few years ago I tried to recall the number of weddings, and I got up among the hundreds, and got lost and gave it up. And I am sure that the funerals were as many or more than the weddings. As a matter of fact I always had many calls to weddings and funerals. I have married all kinds of people, of various ages, nationalities and religions. Among them octogenarians, negroes, and Mormon. Some had been married from one to five times before. But I never hear of but two couples who, after I had married them, were divorced. Nor did I every marry any that had been divorced.

I have preached the funerals of many, Saints and sinners, people of various ages, nationalities and creeds. I have baptized believers ranging from nine to seventy-two years of age.

Although I have been preaching for over fifty years, my preaching has been usually on Sundays. I was a Sunday preacher. I never gave myself wholly to preaching for a livelihood. Yet, except the last ten or twelve years, I have missed but few Sundays.

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C H A P T E R S E V E N

Prof Ficklin. Geometry. Bethany, Vir. Ordination. First convert. First funeral. First wedding.

On the 15th day of March, 1859 I was asked how old I was. I replied 'Ego sum viginti unum.' You see at that very time I was attending Prof. Ficklin's High School in Trenton, Missouri, and I tried to put into practice my Latin. My studies at that school were Latin, Astronomy and Geometry. Geometry was my favorite study and I was happy to have Joseph Ficklin as my teacher, for he was one of the best mathematicians in the world. The books in the library on Mathematics alone covered all of one end of his study. He became the author of a series of text books on mathematics from a book on mental arithmetic to a book on Trigonometry and calculus.

As well as I loved geometry I had to leave school before I finished it. Like many another poor boy, my money gave out. The hardest practical geometrical problem that ever came to me in after life was this: I wished to divide a piece of land which in shape was a trapezoid. This trapezoid had two right angles, and the parallel sides were respectively 170 and 120 rods in length. The shorter of the other two sides was 160 rods in length. Now the question was, at what point in the line of the side 160 rods in length should a line start, running parallel with the parallel sides of the land to the opposite side, so as to divide the land into two equal parts? I have never been able to solve this problem, nor could the surveyor I had employed, but two of my boys, before they were as old as I was when I wanted to solve it, solved it. So you see each generation becomes wiser than the preceding one. This is well, provided the wisdom is such as to direct all knowledge into the ways of righteousness.

I had to quit school before I had finished all my studies, but had it not been for the war which came in 1861, I perhaps would have been a graduate of Bethany, Vir. University. For the good, rich brethren of the country in which I commenced to preach had a habit of helping young men to an education, who were called to preach, and who bode to be a success. But the war coming on, spoiled all these plans for me.

But I will not express regrets for who would dare to complain when he has placed himself to be lead by the hand of the Almighty. As it is it may be far better than it might have been.

It was decided that I ought to be set apart to the work of an Evangelist (preacher) in the church of G.o.d, and on the 6th day of Aug.

1861, during a district meeting of churches at Lindley, Grundy County Missouri, I was ordained to the Christian ministry, by the laying on hands, fasting and prayer. Brethren John R. Howard, David T. Wright, Benjamin F. Smith, D. W. Stewart, and R. M. Sharp partic.i.p.ating.

My first convert was a slave woman, who, hearing me preach, believed and was baptized. She was accepted of G.o.d, for before him a poor slave woman at her master's feet is as precious in his sight as the queen on her throne. G.o.d is no respecter of persons.

My first funeral was on the occasion of the death of a dear little child, only a few months old, the first born of young parents. But the sermon was easy, for has not the Saviour said, "Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven."

My first wedding was when, after I had finished a term of school, one of my school boys, a young man, came to me and said he wanted me to marry him to one of my school girls, a young lady. I said, all right I will do that. The arrangements were made. Afterwards I got to thinking about it, I did not know how it was done. I had been to but very few weddings in my life, and I had not noticed particularly how it was done. So, I went to an old preacher who, I knew, had married many people, and asked him how it was done. He said it was easy, just get the parties together and talk to them very solemnly a little while about marriage and getting married and then tell them to join their right hands and ask each a solemn leading question, and if each said yes, then p.r.o.nounce them husband and wife, and the thing is done. So I went away and formulated in my mind the solemn words to say and the solemn questions to ask. This ceremony proved to be very acceptable and popular, and during all these fifty years or more I have been using the same ceremony and asking the same questions, with but very little variation.

But I must confess when the time came for this first wedding, and I had arrived at the place and saw the many guests with their wedding garments on, I began to feel that it was not so easy a job after all.

In fact, I felt a little scared. And then to add embarra.s.sment to fright, another one of my pupils, a young man both older and taller than I, came to me while we were in the midst of the crowd, awaiting the coming of the bride and groom. Stooping over he said in a whisper to me, "Please stand up." I, thinking that he had some message that I out to hear, quietly arose at once, (for he was one of my best friends) when he began to unfold a large, long paper and read aloud to me some lingo of my duties, responsibilities and procedures.

But just then the bride and groom were coming, and I said to my friend, "Be seated, sir, you are a little too late with your lingo."

The joke had the effect of remove my embarra.s.sment and fright, and I, with ease proceeded with the marriage ceremony and the wedding was most beautiful.

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C H A P T E R E I G H T

First vote. Oldest brother. War. Return to Indiana. In Tophet again. First Baptism. Clarksburg meeting.

About this time I was, the first time privileged to exercise my right as a voter.

The question was whether the state of Missouri should secede from the union. Brother and I voted in the negative. Then during the same year, 1860, November the 6th, we were privileged to vote for a President of the United States. The candidates were A. Lincoln, S.

A. Douglas, J. B. Breckenridge and John Bell. Brother voted for Bell for he thought Bell was the only one that would save the union. I voted for Douglas because I thought his election would save from the impending war. The manner of voting was then quite different from what it is now. The judges of election sat in the school house by a lower open window and the voters would file up to the window on the outside. For instance when I appeared at the window to vote, a judge from within asked, "What is your name?" I replied, Z. S. Hastings.

"For whom do you vote," asked the judge. I vote for Stephen A.

Douglas," was my reply. The judge then said in a loud voice, "Z. S.

Hastings votes for Stephen A. Douglas." The clerk recorded it. That was all. The next president I voted for was Abraham Lincoln. And, as it is said, of some Democrats who are still voting for Thomas Jefferson, I am still voting for Abraham Lincoln, that is to say, these Democrats are still voting for some of the principles that were taught by Thomas Jefferson, and I am still voting for some of the principles held by Abraham Lincoln. Among them the rule which is called Golden and is found the Book. This rule is not an "iridescent dream" with me.

My oldest brother Joshua Thomas Hastings was a home guard soldier and a teacher in Bolivar, Missouri, when the battle of Springfield was fought and General Lyon was killed. After the battle the Home Guards and Union men in general in that part of the state, had (using a war word) to skedaddle for their lives. My brother tried to make his escape to Kansas but three times was arrested by confederate scouts.

Once, in a road, sheltered on either side with hazel brush and a thick undergrowth of other bushes, the leader of the band, who seemed to want to befriend my brother, whispered to him, that a majority of them (there were six or eight of them) had voted to kill him. "Now"

said he, "jump for your life," As soon as said, brother leaped into the brush like a wild deer,--bang, went the cracking of half a dozen or more guns, but each shot missed except one, which just grazed the top of his shoulder. My brother then determined to return back to Bolivar, and with his family return, if possible to Indiana. In this he was successful.

At this time our mother and two sisters were living in Allen County Kansas. Brother had not been back in Indiana long until he helped to raise a new company for the war and with it went into the union army.

But in less than a year he was taken sick and died in an army hospital at Henderson, in Kentucky, November 14th, 1863.

In the meantime I too had returned to Indiana, and, with brother's wife, went to him, when hearing he was sick. We were with him only about three hours before he died. At the end of the next two days we returned with him to our old home in old Clarksburg, (now Oden) Daviers County, Indiana, where, the next day, we buried brother by the side of our father, who had been buried nine years. This was the second death in father's family. Brother was a good man, a scholar, a soldier, and a teacher. He gave his life upon the altar of his country at the early age of thirty-six.

War is a great evil, dreadful, fearful, terrible. O, for the time when "nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more!"

Upon my return to Indiana, after an absence of nearly five years, I was quite a different person, in many respects, from what I was when I went away. I had grown in length to be six feet and two inches tall and the hair of my head and the beard of my face was as black as jet, the one standing on its ends, the other full and hanging six inches or more in length. Besides had I not been born anew and was now a new creature? Old things had pa.s.sed away. Yet I went back to my old place of teaching, Tophet. With preaching added to teaching, there again I taught the urchins and preached to the sinners. And at this writing 1911, there is a new name, a new people (a converted people), a house of G.o.d and many wors.h.i.+ppers of the Most High G.o.d.

Surely the world doth grow better.

At the Owl Prairie where I hoed corn when I was a little boy and fished in the ca.n.a.l, I was called to take charge of a protracted meeting, and at this meeting I had my first baptism. Heretofore I had always insisted on someone of experience to doing this. The baptism took place in the West Fork of the White River. Owl Prairie is now the city of Elnoa with two railroads, and churches and schools.

My next attendance at a protracted meeting was to help Thompson Little. This meeting was held at old Clarksburg on the very site, in a new church building, where I went to school when quite young and where I appeared in my first effort as a public speaker. It was a recitation and commenced the way:

"'Tis a lesson you should head, If at first you don't succeed Try, try again."

Well, at this meeting I preached and seven young people came forward at one time and gave me their hands and made the good confession. It was the greatest number that ever came forward at any one time upon my invitation. These seven were all my old playmates and schoolmates. It was a good meeting.

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