Jasper Douthit's story; the autobiography of a pioneer

JASPER DOUTHIT'S
STORY

LIBRARY OF

HENRY M. DUNLAP
SAVOY, ILLINOIS

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LIBRARY OF THE
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JASPER

DOUTHIT'S

STORY

The Autobiography of a Pioneer

BOSTON

AMERICAN UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION

25 BEACON STREET

A FFECTIONATELY inscribed to rel-
JLjL. atives and friends, on earth and
in heaven, who have been faithful co-
workers in the mission of my life; most
of all to her who was my constant com-
panion, chief inspiration, oracle and
guide for nearly fifty years, and to our
four children, each of whom, from child-
hood to this day, lias had a mind and
heart to lend a hand.

FOREWORD

little book is the simple story of the
J- ministry of my dear brother Jasper through
many years to his own people in his own home
land. It is what a little maid in a far away old
time used to ask for, — "a truly story ' ' to the
last line, and well I can testify that the half has
not been told. But what he tells me goes right
to the heart, as it will go to the hearts of the
thousands who will read it, of our faith and
name, and the "Lend a Hand Society," of which
we are all members in the wider interpretation
of the happy thought that "joins hands and
leaves nobody out."

INTRODUCTION

story of Jasper L. Douthit, as told by
-*• himself in these pages, is the story of a
hard life, spent amid surroundings always sim-
ple, sometimes rude and rough, but it is the
story of a life singularly devoted to high
things, and such a story can never be wholly
sad. This life was shot through and through
with consecration, with devoutness, with an al-
truistic passion to uplift the particular section
of God's earth into which he was born, and to
serve the people to whom he was related. The
story is necessarily inadequately told, for no
man can justly estimate his own life or properly
tell his own story, least of all a man of Mr.
Douthit's intense temperament, whose seriousness
has never been sufficiently relieved by a sense of
humor or freedom from care and the occasional
recoil from labor which gives the imagination a
chance to put in its shadings or to cushion the
ragged rocks with moss and decorate the beet-
ling cliffs with vines and flowers.

INTRODUCTION

We have here a photograph and not a paint-
ing. Here is a realism that may mar the lit-
erary attractiveness of the picture, but which
greatly enhances its value as the material out of
which true history must eventually be written.
Mr. Douthit appears in these pages as a
chronicler rather than as an historian. He has
given us a collection of facts which, superficially
studied, may seem trifling and sometimes grue-
some, but deeper study will disclose their value
as it will reveal high joys and noble convictions.

We have here a cross-section of a pioneer life
whose part in the development of the Mississippi
valley has never been adequately stated. The
streams of immigration from over New England
and over the sea — English, Celtic, Scandina-
vian, German, French, etc. — have been studied
with such interest and with the help of such
abundant material as to overshadow that other
stream which poured out of Virginia and the
Carolinas through Tennessee and Kentucky into
southern Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Missouri.
Douthit, the people to whom he belongs, and the
counties to whose service he has given his life,
belong to this stream. He is necessarily a
" mountain man." In temper, origin and en-
vironment as well as in appearance, he belongs

INTRODUCTION

to the tribe of Abraham Lincoln. The hard
drinking, the fiery theology, the vehement prej-
udices, the bitter quarrels, the deadly feuds and
withal, the robust intellects and stalwart con-
sciences which figure in this tale find their coun-
terpart and explanation in the south and the
southeastward.

Mr. Douthit was a " home missionary," but
he expounded a foreign gospel. " About the
last place on earth one would expect to find or
try to plant a Unitarian church," was the
common remark of his friends. Unitarianism
was never put to a severer test than when Jas-
per Douthit sought with it to ameliorate the
severities and remove the illiteracy and iniquities
of southern Illinois in the sixties and the seven-
ties. Channing's interpretation of the gospel in
terms of gentleness and love, Theodore Parker's
interpretation of Christianity in terms of justice
and freedom to the slave, and Emerson's render-
ing of the universe in terms of order, progress
and peace, were by Douthit set over against Cal-
vinism in its most dogmatic form, the whiskey
jug with its fiery contents, and the shot gun with
its maximum of civic potency and political prow-
ess, and the sequel shows that these higher inter-
pretations of religion were tried and not found

INTRODUCTION

wanting. This story of the missionary work
done by Jasper Douthit in Shelby county, Illi-
nois, is a triumphant justification of the claim
that the gospel of love is more than a match for
the gospel of hate, and that a reasonable religion
is better adapted to the needs of all classes and
conditions of men than the religion of dogma-
tism and the unreasoning faith of bigotry.

Notwithstanding Mr. Douthit's attempt to
tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but
the truth about his mission, to anyone conver-
sant with the facts in the case these pages give
an inadequate account of the work accomplished
by this tireless missionary and his gentle,
dreamy-eyed and shrinking but never faltering
wife. The facts that can be put into figures —
the churches built, the Sunday-schools main-
tained, the church members enrolled, the minis-
ters, four or more, who have found their work
in and through Mr. Douthit's mission, are such
as to challenge admiration, perhaps to defy
competition among his fellow ministers. But
the tangible facts, tho^e that evade an account-
ing — his part in modifying the harshness,
ameliorating the bigotry, dissipating the illiter-
acy, improving the quality of the schools and
refining and humanizing the village, city and

INTRODUCTION

country life throughout a wide area, represent
the highest achievements of this missionary in
" Egypt." It is not going too far afield to dis-
cover some strains of the humanitarian faith
preached by Jasper Douthit, represented by the
better fences, the more passable roads, the safer
bridges, the flowers in the front yards, the well
dressed and well kempt children sitting in up-to-
date school houses and receiving efficient tuition
from competent teachers in the countryside
traversed by him for over forty-five years.

When Mr. Douthit comes to Chicago there is
a parish meeting of his own ready to greet him,
and the present writer has heard his name pro-
nounced with love and affection beyond the
farthest ranges of the Rockies by those who
have been strengthened by him in times of sor-
row, who perchance have plighted marriage
vows in his presence, or who have brought their
children to receive baptismal blessings at his
hands.

The Lithia Springs Chautauqua, situated in
its ample and splendid forest, with its annually
increasing throng of happy, gentle, appreci-
ative men, women and children, drawn from
Douthit's territory, for his bailiwick is a wide
one, is a fitting and eloquent witness to the
[v ]

INTRODUCTION

effectiveness of his work. The Unitarian
friends who through the American Unitarian
Association and other channels have made this
work possible through all these years, can find
no higher use for their money than to con-
tinue their support, with increasing confidence
and generosity, of this great inter-denomina-
tional and cross-party conference that tells so
mightily for personal purity, civic righteous-
ness, and the spiritual life.

I have used the word " sad " in connection
with the life of my friend Jasper Douthit.
Like all sensitive souls, he has a great capacity
for suffering. As will be seen, he has ever been
torn by his ideals ; his spirit has been often
fretted by the great chasm between the things
he would and the things he could do. But
Brother Douthit's power of enjoyment is also
great, and I regret that he has not been able
to put in the sunshine which made the shadows
in the picture possible. But what artist can?

My acquaintance with Mr. Douthit began in
the student days at Meadville. My first visit to
his home was while he still lived on the old home-
stead in the log house with a frame enlarge-
ment, necessitated by the increasing family.
This home at that day could be reached only

INTRODUCTION

on horseback ; it was a voyage by water and not
a journey by land, so profound were the muddy
depths between the dreary little station and the
lonely little cabin. I have been in close touch
with him and his work throughout the forty or
more years of our acquaintance. I think I
opened the campaign in Shelbyville, preaching
the first sermon in the old court-house that led
to the establishment of his church. I think I
know the man and the temper of his spirit. Be-
fore the occasion comes, Douthit is often cast
down ; after the occasion passes, he is often torn
with disappointment and humiliation; but he
ever rises to the occasion and his uttered words
are charged with courage, while his message
is ever a cheerful one. The sickly, sorrowful
looking man, once on the platform or in the
pulpit, takes on robustness. His eyes flame,
his voice, though often strident and sometimes
shrieking, always carries conviction and sym-
pathy and oftentimes enthusiasm.

Mr. Douthit and I have not always agreed.
There have been times when I have seriously dis-
tressed him ; I probably have believed more in his
work at times than he has in mine. On this ac-
count I can the more confidently declare the po-
tency of the man, the contagious quality of his
[ vii ]

INTRODUCTION

faith. His spirit was larger than his words,
though his words represented ever the largest
gospel that disturbed his countryside.

I have spoken of the support which his mis-
sion has received at the hands of the Unitarians,
mostly from the east. Great credit is due those
who have held up the hands of this Unitarian
missionary whose antecedents, training, manner
and method were so un-Unitarian. But in the
interest of the next missionary I venture to add
that much of the pathos in Douthit's work has
been rooted in the carking anxieties as to how
the modest needs of the humble home were to be
supplied. The support was always enough to
keep the light burning on the pulpit, but not
enough to make the heart free from kitchen
anxieties. The little margin between the " just
enough to keep life " and the " enough to make
life joyful " as well as loyal was often wanting.
Jasper Douthit has never been an extravagant
man; his home life and needs were of the
simplest kind. If any money slipped through
his fingers it was always for " the cause," and
still it is sad to think that that small financial
distance, the Dickens " six-pence " that made
the difference between happiness and misery,

INTRODUCTION

was never quite covered in Douthit's expense
book.

It would be interesting to know the aggre-
gate of the money support given to this re-
markable ministry during the forty-five or more
years of its activity. It would doubtless seem
a goodly sum, but compared with the hopes
raised, the purposes strengthened, the loves en-
gendered, aye, compared with the sums more
lavishly expended on less important and less
fertile causes, the sum would indeed be paltry.
And certain it is that if the end could have
been anticipated from the beginning, if the
story, even as inadequately told in this book,
had been known before it was enacted, far more
willingly would have been added the small per-
centage of increase which would have made the
difference between anxiety and confidence, sleep-
less nights and grateful sleep.

Take it all in all, I think the readers will be
glad that Jasper Douthit has told his own story.
They will read it, now with tear-dimmed eyes,
and again, perhaps, with an incredulous smile.
It is a story which it would be hard to parallel
in modern American life for its uniqueness, its
historic value, its heroic persistency and its
[ ix ]

INTRODUCTION

spiritual suggestiveness. It is the story of an
Oberlin of southern Illinois, a rustic Channing
of the prairies, a Theodore Parker of the log
house, reared in the land of mud and malaria.

JENKIN LLOYD JONES.

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

I was born October 10, 1834, in Shelby
County, Illinois, on a farm four and one-half
miles east of Shelbyville. My birthplace was
at the head of Jordan Creek, named for my
mother's father, Francis Jordan, who with his
family, were the first white settlers in that
vicinity, whither they removed in 1828. The
land consists chiefly of flat prairie, with groves
of timber bordering the creeks, and the river
Okaw, which at its mouth is called the Kaskaskia,
flows through the plain. The soil around my
birthplace is black, mucky, and very fertile.
The roads are so muddy a part of the year as
to be almost impassable for wagons. Most of
the land was originally set apart by the state
as swamp land, considered unfit for cultivation,
and was sold for about fifty cents an acre. By
drainage it has now become valuable farm land,
and is worth one hundred dollars and more per

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

acre. In digging wells, logs several inches in
diameter are sometimes found from twenty-five to
a hundred feet below the surface. Evidently this
country was once covered with water to a great
depth. Coal and gas may be found in many
places at the depth of a hundred or more feet
below the surface. The Lithia mineral springs
are in the Okaw River woods, about two and one-
half miles from my birthplace. These springs
boil from the earth and at intervals emit gas,
so that if fire is held close to the water it will
burn.

I grew up where I was born and worked on a
farm until I was seventeen years old. Here on
the family f arm rest the bones of my mother and
father and grandfather and grandmother
Douthit and scores of relatives. By this grave-
yard is the Jordan Unitarian Chapel, where my
brothers and sisters and most of their children
and other relatives and neighbors worship. My
life has been spent in Shelby County, excepting
eighteen months when I was with my parents
in Texas, in 1843-1844; part of a year at
Wabash College, Crawfordsville, Indiana, in
1856; a year in Hillsboro, 111., in 1858, as
Superintendent of Public Schools; a year in
Massachusetts, in 1858 and 1859, in the employ
[ 2 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

of Fowler & Wells at their branch office in Bos-
ton, three years at the Meadville School in
Pennsylvania, 1864 and 1867, and three months
immediately after graduation, in 1867, as pas-
tor of the Unitarian Society in Princeton, Il-
linois.

My great-grandfather, Evan Douthit, came
with his family from Nashville, Tenn., about
1830, and built a log cabin home five miles east
of where Jordan Chapel now stands. What in-
terests me about this cabin, which stood until
1896, is the fact that this grandsire and his
little Welsh-Irish wife, my great-grandmother,
who lived to the age of a hundred and fifteen
years and died in Palestine, Texas, were, in those
early days, accustomed to walk together five
miles through a pathless forest and high prairie
grass, to attend religious meetings at a place
two miles south of Lithia Springs. This great-
grandfather was a " hardshell " Calvinistic Bap-
tist preacher. About two years before I was
born, he and his family, with the exception of
the oldest son, my grandfather, moved to Texas,
then a part of Mexico, and he and his sons were
with the army that finally captured Santa Anna
and made Texas an independent republic.

My father and grandfather were pioneer

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

farmers and cattle dealers. They drove herds
of cattle all the way across the prairie from
Shelby County to Chicago, years before there
was any road to that small village by Lake
Michigan.

Andrew E. Douthit, born in 1814, eldest son
of John Douthit, who was the eldest son of Rev.
Evan Douthit, was married to Mary Ann Jor-
dan, on August 13, 1833. These were my
parents. I am the oldest of a family of six
sons and two daughters, one son having died in
infancy. Three brothers and two sisters are
now living near me and have ever been affection-
ate co-workers with me. One brother passed to
Heaven over thirty years ago, after a brief but
brilliant career looking toward the ministry.
I cannot think of him as dead, but mightily
alive and near me to this day.

My mother's people, as far back as I can
learn, were habitual pioneers, ever keeping on
the frontier. They came to the territory of
Illinois through Tennessee from the South
about the year 1804. In that year seven Jor-
dan brothers came from Smith County, Tennes-
see, to Williamson County, Illinois. When ten
years of age, my mother rode behind her father
on horseback one hundred and fifty miles to this
[ 4 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

vicinity. Soon after her marriage all of my
mother's people emigrated to Texas. Jordan's
Saline, noted on the map of Texas, was founded
by my uncle John Jordan. Grandfather Jor-
dan and some others of the family died in Texas,
and most of the survivors pushed on to Califor-
nia about the time of Freemont's journey across
the mountains to that country. So far as I
can ascertain, the Jordans were of Welsh-Irish
descent, and the Douthits were Scotch-English
and early immigrants to North Carolina.

My mother was born in 1814 in a fort in
Franklin County, southern Illinois. The fort
was built by her father, Francis Jordan, and
his brother Thomas, to protect their families
and other pioneer settlers from the Indians.
When mother was six years old, being the
youngest of a large family of brothers and
sisters, her father married for a second wife
Mrs. Elizabeth Dement, a widow who also had
a large family of children by her first husband.
Some of this step-grandmother's children have
been noted for public service to the state and
country. Her son, Col. John Dement, was a
member of the Illinois Legislature with Abra-
ham Lincoln, Stephen A. Douglas and other
celebrities. Col. Dement married the daughter
[ 5 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

of the famous Governor, also Brigadier General,
Dodge, of Iowa, and their son, Hon. Henry D.
Dement, served honorably as Secretary of State
of Illinois for several years.

My mother, when quite young, had to work
hard helping to keep house for her father's
large family of children and stepchildren. She
had no chance to go to school, but she learned
to read and write by herself after the day's
work was done. She was very conscientious —
morbidly so, perhaps — and extremely sensitive
to blame, but her conscience compelled her to
speak out plainly for what she believed to be
right and against what she believed to be wrong ;
and for her frankness she was often blamed by
those about her. She would weep over this,
and yet persist in saying the unwelcome things.
Thus when we were in Texas I often heard her
denounce slavery and plead for the abused ne-
gro, and she would not consent to my father's
owning slaves. She felt that she must also say
things that were regarded as serious heresies in
the old Baptist church; but to all her heretical
remarks the sharp sheriffs of the faith would
say, " Sister Mary Ann is good and kind-hearted
to everybody, she doesn't know any better than,
[ 6 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

to talk that way, and we must overlook her weak-
ness."

My mother's life was for many years one of
great trial and sorrow, but she was naturally
hopeful and had very vivid religious expe-
riences which gave her comfort and peace amidst
the sorest trials. My first memory of her reli-
gious experiences made a deep impression upon
my life and I will relate it here.

When a small child I was left alone one day
to watch her where she had lain for weeks, help-
less on a sick bed. It was thought she could
not recover. I was suddenly startled by her
springing from the bed and exclaiming,
"Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!" followed by,
some other words about hearing a heavenly
voice of sweet peace and good cheer. My
father, hearing her shouts, came running to the
house. I cried out with great alarm, until my
mother, with a face that shone out like an an-
gel's, spoke soothingly to me, saying she was so
full of joy that she could not help what she
did, and that she was going to get well. She
did get better, and lived a score of years longer.
Her prayer that she might see all her children
grown was answered. Not long after that

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

heavenly vision, she was baptized in the Okaw
River. A great crowd witnessed the ceremony,
and people said they never knew one who ap-
peared so like an angel. Those who knew her
love thus to think of her to this day. I think
of her too when first her father and all her
brothers and sisters had emigrated to what was
then the far distant region of Texas. In the
night-time I often heard her in her dreams call
the names of her loved ones so loudly as to
startle me from my sleep. In the daytime when
she read a letter from them the tears would flow
and she would drive harder at her spinning
wheel as if to chase away sorrow, rehearsing
the while snatches of those pathetic verses which
Cowper puts into the mouth of Selkirk, on the
lonely isle of the Pacific:

" I am out of humanity's reach ;

I must finish my journey alone,
Never hear the sweet music of speech —
I start at the sound of my own.

" Religion ! What treasure untold
Resides in that heavenly word !
More precious than silver and gold,
Or all that this earth can afford;"

[ 8 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

Being the first grandchild and son of the
eldest son of the eldest son in the third genera-
tion, my grandparents made much of me — I
think they petted me to my hurt in some re-
spects. When I was a little child my grand-
mother would take me in her lap as she sat in
the old handmade hickory chair before the wide
open fireplace on winter evenings. She would
show me the pictures in the big family Bible
and tell me the stories of Joseph and his breth-
ren, and the good Samaritan. I learned more
Bible truth from that grandmother than I ever
learned from the preachers of my early years.
In fact I have thought the good seeds planted
in my heart then from the Great Book saved me
in after years from despising the Bible when
I heard the preachers quote it in support of
slavery, liquor-drinking, the horrible doctrine of
infant damnation, and the unalterable decree of
endless torment for most folks — even the good
people that were not of the elect.

That memory of my grandmother, with the
open Bible and pictures, and the stories she
told me have had more saving power over my
life than all the Greek and Latin, the philosophy
and theology, or the higher and lower criticism

[ 9 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

that I learned in adult years, though this later
learning was very helpful. I treasure that copy
of my grandmother's Bible to-day as a most
precious heirloom.

I think it was in the fall of 1843, when I was
about nine years old, that my father and grand-
father Douthit, with part of their families, went
to visit my mother's father's kindred, who had
gone to Texas. We went in wagons over
rough, dangerous roads, being one month on the
journey. There we visited my great-grand-
father and great-grandmother Douthit, near
Palestine, Texas. Great-grandmother was over
one hundred years old then. She was little in
body, weighing not more than eighty pounds,
but bright in mind and " spry as a cricket," the
neighbors said. I can see her now, in memory,
skipping out of doors, to pick up chips to cook
the family meals in the great open fireplace.
Sometimes she sent me. Once when I was loiter-
ing for play, my mother called me to hurry up.
Just then great-grandfather passed by, leaning
upon his staff. He looked at me with rebuking
eyes and said : " My boy, if you don't mind
your mother, you can never grow to be a good
man." I never forgot that rebuke.

I have a most beautiful picture in memory of
[ 10 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

the last time I saw the dear old grandsire. It
was at a religious service in the country meet-
ing-house near Palestine. Great-grandfather
was the preacher. He was tall and spare, with
long hair falling upon his shoulders, and beard,
white as snow, reaching far down his breast.
His countenance was florid and his eyes pierc-
ing; but his body was bent and feeble with
nearly ninety years. He trembled with " the
palsy," as they called it, so that while he stood
to preach there were two stout men to support
him, one at each arm. The sermon was very
short. I cannot remember the words he spoke,
but I caught the spirit of it ; and when in after
years I read the beautiful legend of St. John
the Revelator, in his old age, an exile on the
Isle of Patmos, I always thought of the two
persons as if they were one picture and had
preached to me the same sermon : " Little chil-
dren, love one another."

My first experience with African slavery was
in Texas. I worked with the slaves in the cot-
ton fields and cotton gins, and came to love the
negroes, for they were very kind to me. They
would gather in their cabins on Sunday and of
nights, to hear me read the Bible to them. Then
seemed to come to me my first call to preach.

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

I saw slaves for slightest offenses cruelly beaten
by drunken overseers, till blood ran down their
bodies to their heels. I took their part, wept
aloud at their suffering, and longed to live to
help them toward the North Star.

In 1844, as we returned home from Texas on
a boat down Red River to New Orleans, there
was a beautiful mulatto mother with a bright
child on board. My mother had four children
then, myself the eldest. We played with the
mulatto child and came to love it dearly. I re-
member how the mother of that child would say
to my mother : " I love my children as you
do yours, but nobody can tear your children
away from you and sell them to different owners
as so many cattle. But I have had all of mine
but one sold from me and widely separated from
each other. Only this little one is left with me.
And now they are taking me and it to sell at
auction in New Orleans."

Then she would weep bitterly and my mother
would weep with her. Finally, as our boat ap-
proached the wharf in New Orleans, that slave
mother with her child in her arms went over-
board, and in spite of all attempts to prevent,
they sank forever. It was thus that distressed
mother sought to escape from the hell of slavery.

II

In body, I am a degenerate son of my
foreparents, particularly of the Douthit family.
Great-grandfather Douthit was tall and thin,
but of wiry muscle. His eldest son, my grand-
father, was a giant in strength. He and Col.
Davy Crockett, the pioneer congressman and
brave soldier, were related, and were near neigh-
bors in eastern Tennessee. Colonel Crockett was
famous for physical prowess. It will be remem-
bered that he volunteered to fight for the in-
dependence of Texas and he and his company
were overwhelmed and all killed in the Alamo.
I have heard those say who knew, that my
grandfather was the only man in the vicinity
of Colonel Crockett's home in eastern Tennessee
who could lift equally with him. In clearing
up the woodland for cultivation, when a very
heavy log was to be lifted and carried to the
heap to be burned, John Douthit and David
Crockett were the only two that could lift to-
gether, one at each end of the handspike held
under the big end of the log. My father
[ 13 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

weighed about two hundred and seventy-five
pounds.

I was a puny, crying child, my mother said,
and she hardly expected to raise me. I have
never weighed more than a hundred and thirty
pounds, and am nearly six feet in height.
When thirty-five years of age, insurance com-
panies refused to take any risk on my life ; and
during much of my ministerial life, especially
during strenuous periods, I have been horizontal
at least one day in the week, on an average,
and wholly unfit for any good to anybody.
My mother died at fifty-eight, and I did not
expect to live beyond that age. But here I am
at the age of seventy-three, in better health in
some respects than at any time in my life. To
be so well and able to keep busy is the surprise
of my life and a marvel to those who have
known me so long. I ascribe it primarily to
the power of spirit over matter. I early learned
to believe that the religion of Jesus taught
that it is sinful to abuse the body. I came to
believe that an ounce of prevention is worth
more than a pound of cure. Therefore, from
early in life, I have totally abstained from in-
toxicants, narcotics, opiates, and all harmful
drugs. I have not in my lifetime spent for
[ 14 ]

CABIN BUILT IN 1830 BY MR. DOUTHIT's GREAT-GRANDFATHER

OLD LOG CHURCH, BUILT ABOUT SIXTY YEARS AGO

The he-wn logs are now covered with boards

myself and my family five dollars for treatment
with drugs, and not a dollar that I can remem-
ber for patent medicines. My diet for over fifty
years has been mostly fruits, cereals and vege-
tables.

I am convinced that there is nothing that will
strengthen a feeble constitution and so conduce
to health and long life as to be at peace with
the good God and to seek to bless one's neigh-
bors. Alas ! the graveyards around me are
populous with those of much stronger natural
constitutions than I. They died prematurely
for lack of knowledge and for want of more
vital religion. They became slaves to bad hab-
its in eating, drinking and living.

The first dollar I earned was by pulling
" movers' " wagons out of the mud holes with a
yoke of oxen. The state road along which emi-
grants moved passed by my father's home, and
in the rainy season the wagons often stuck in
the mud. I spent that first dollar for a year's
subscription to the Phrenological Journal, pub-
lished by Fowler & Wells, in New York City.
That journal taught me the great importance
of self-control and of a " sound mind in a sound
body." I never spent a dollar in my life that
I think resulted in greater benefit to me. It
[ 15 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

led to information that brought greater good.
I made my start as a public lecturer by speak-
ing on phrenology and kindred subjects. I am
aware of the fact that phrenology has been
abused by being associated in many minds with
" bumpology " and the examining of heads for
twenty-five cents each, somewhat as the sublime
science of astronomy has been abused by as-
trology. Nevertheless, the fundamental prin-
ciples and practical importance of phrenology
are now recognized by all who have thoroughly
investigated it, including such eminent scientists,
statesmen and philanthropists as Spencer, Glad-
stone, Horace Mann, Dr. Samuel G. Howe, and
Henry Ward Beecher. I had the reputation at
one time of being an expert in the phrenologi-
cal delineation of character. I could hypnotize
though I never could be hypnotized; but as a
lecturer on psychology I became convinced that
I was using learned words about a mysterious
force that I did not at all understand, and, of
course, could not explain — a force that in the
hands of the unscrupulous might do much mis-
chief. Therefore I stopped lecturing or dem-
onstrating on the subject; and for the past
forty years I have seldom mentioned it pub-
licly. I continue, however, to hold an open
[ 16 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

mind ready for more light upon psychological
questions.

When a boy I was influenced by others to do
what I would not have done if I had been told
by those I loved and trusted that it was wrong.
In fact, I did things I would not have done if
I had ever learned that the Bible condemned
such acts, because my mother and my grand-
mother told me that the Bible contained God's
word, and I believed them. I well remember
when I would have shamefully violated one or
more of the Ten Commandments but for the
authority of my mother's Bible. This fact
convinces me of the danger in arousing doubts
about the Bible in the minds of children. It
were infinitely wiser and better, first and always,
to emphasize the everlasting truths of this
Book of books. These truths are mighty to
save from sin and error — mighty to create the
faith that makes faithful. I have known too
many young people led into chronic skepticism
and become libertines by being taught that the
Bible is full of error and of no authority. Let
us welcome biblical criticism, but it should be
given wisely at the proper age, and in a reverent
spirit, so as to create rather than destroy love
for the truth.

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

In boyhood my diet was necessarily very sim-
ple, mostly corn bread and milk and fruit, and
I lived much of the time in the open air as cow-
boy and plowboy. However, I began life with
one dreadfully dangerous habit ; namely, the
custom of taking a dram of whiskey every
morning before breakfast for the sake of health.
It was claimed that it would prevent the ague
and milk sickness, which in early days were most
prevalent and dread diseases in the vicinity of
my home. The habit grew, of course, so that
we must take a dram before each meal and then
one between meals, and still oftener on stormy
days and in very cold or very hot weather. In
the harvest field we must drink liquor every
time we drank water. Once in hay-making,
when I was about sixteen years old I drank till
I was so tipsy that I talked and behaved very
foolishly. When I came to myself, I felt ex-
tremely mortified and vowed to God that I
would never drink another drop. It was a hard
fight to keep that vow. I was ridiculed and
laughed at by almost everybody except my
mother. They said I was a temperance fanatic,
though I hardly knew what that meant. I had
never heard a temperance lecture and knew noth-
ing of taking the pledge, but I was ambitious
[ 18 1

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

to have good sense and grow manly, and I felt
that liquor would spoil me. The vow then
made has been kept till this day, excepting that
once, years ago, I was tempted by a physician
to take a little wine for my stomach's sake, as
Paul advised Timothy ; but I made haste to re-
pent and have not back-slidden since. My old
family doctor, with whom I advised for forty
years and who knew the fate of my father, said,
" Douthit, I would not prescribe liquor to you
for a hundred-acre farm." He knew there was
danger of kindling the unquenchable fire that
has destroyed so many otherwise happy homes
and blasted so many lives.

I had to work early and late, helping mother
and father, from the time I was six years old,
and without much play, excepting the little
time at school where I had nothing to do but say
over A B C's three or four times daily and
play " bull pen " and " hop scotch " at the
noon hour. It was rough frontier life; very
rough, my children and grandchildren would
think. The only clothes I wore were made by
my mother. She spun, wove and sewed them
with her own hands. They were made of flax,
tow, cotton or wool. When I did not go bare-
headed, my cap was home-made of cloth, my hat

[ 19 ]

JASPER DOUTHITS STORY

was made by hand out of wheat straw. I went
barefoot, except in winter; and then my father
must make the shoes for the whole family, and
mine would not get made until very cold weather.
Meantime I would have to walk barefoot over
the frozen ground, or wade through snow or
mud, to feed cattle, sheep and hogs, and haul
fire-wood. I must have been ten or twelve
years of age when I saw the first pair of boots.
They were made by a Pennsylvania Dutchman
who moved into the neighborhood. It marked
an era in my life when my father got him to
make my first boots. It created as much talk
to hear of a man in the country who could make
boots as it did when the first train of cars came.
There was a rush to the boot-maker. He would
make promises and fail again and again to keep
them, so that I had to go something less than
a dozen times before I got my boots. But it
was a greater fortune than it would be for me
to get a fine horse and buggy now, badly as I
sometimes feel the need of them.

The memories of my home for the first ten
years of my life are very precious, bright and
beautiful. I have in my recollection a blessed
picture of our family, after the day of toil,
seated around the great open fireplace with the
[ 20 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

old lard lamp on the table or the tallow-dip can-
dle, which was the luxury then for light;
with mother knitting or sewing or seated at the
little spinning-wheel spinning flax, while father
read aloud from David Crockett, Weems's Life
of Francis Marion, Robinson Crusoe or the
Bible, or sang some good old hymns. If all
the memories of that home for years after could
have been as lovely and blessed as those of the
first few years, it would have been a richer leg-
acy for my father's children than all the wealth
of Solomon.

Alas, for the fact that so many once equally
happy homes have been ruined and lives em-
bittered by that insidious evil, strong drink ! In
these early years I often heard my father say:
" A man should drink moderately and control
himself. Whenever I can't drink without go-
ing to excess, I will stop." He was a man of
remarkable will-power, but, nevertheless, through
the associations of public life and the treating
custom, he did get to drinking till he was
a terror to his best beloved, and even the officers
of the law would flee from him. Then his nat-
urally strong will was destroyed. He was a
helpless, miserable victim of that which made
him sometimes a raving maniac. And finally,

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

as a last resort, to prevent his taking the lives
of his family it was necessary to put him under
the bonds of public law.

I had an opportunity to know much of the
habits of people in this region. My father
kept the post-office, called Locust Grove, at our
home, five miles east of Shelbyville, over sixty
years ago, when the mail was carried on a stage
coach from Terre Haute through Charleston,
Shelbyville, etc., to Springfield. The Locust
Grove precinct election was held for years at
our house. My father for much of his life
held some office of trust. He was for several
years sheriff and ex-officio collector of the
county. He collected all the taxes in the
county, traveling from township to township to
do it. The revenue must be paid in gold and
silver, and father hauled it up to Springfield in
a two-horse covered wagon. I served part of
the time as his deputy, or assistant, and thus
became acquainted with many people. The
county officers were generous, sociable, pleasant
men, and the custom of treating to drinks
caused most of them to fall victims to the habit.
Thus many men of the most popular qualities
were ruined, among them some of my nearest
and dearest. For these reasons my first mis-
[ 22 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

sion work was in fighting this evil. In these
battles I have received the severest wounds of
my life. I have been cursed, libeled and black-
mailed again and again, and my life and prop-
erty have been often in peril.

LIBERTY, UNION, CHARITY, TEMPERANCE AND
RIGHTEOUSNESS i — These words have ever had
a special charm to me since I first caught any
of their meaning, — though, like all the great
words, they yield a thousand times more mean-
ing the longer the things they stand for are
pondered, even as the real America has been ex-
tending ever since Columbus sighted a little of
its shores. My favorite text was Paul's theme
before Felix : " Righteousness, temperance and
the judgment to come." I warned of the judg-
ment to come against what to me were the twin
evils, — strong drink and African slavery.

Very early, as I have said, the serpent began
to crawl through our own home. There was an
old still-house near by, and the candidate for
office that was most lavish in treating voters
to whiskey was usually elected. I have seen
kegs of liquor placed at the polling place all
day, free as water for everybody, and at night
almost every one would be more or less drunk,
including the judges and clerks of the election.
[ 23 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

It was the custom sixty years ago here on
Christmas and New Year's for neighbors to
come together at our house and have what was
called a whiskey stew and spree. A big iron
kettle or pot (used for making soap and wash-
ing clothes) that held eight or ten gallons, was
filled with whiskey and other stuff, and made hot
and sweetened for men and women, and boys
and girls to drink. This was the Christmas or
New Year's treat. The decanter of " bitters "
stood on the sideboard in many houses, and the
preachers who were being entertained drank be-
fore and after the sermon. When a small boy,
I attended a sort of bar, a grocery store kept
by my father where sugar, coffee, etc., and
whiskey were sold, and felt honored in the doing
until my eyes were opened to the horror of it. A
great-hearted man, who was very kind to me
and whom I loved when he was sober, became a
terror to his family and to everybody. He said
he couldn't help it, and so in desperate remorse
he resolved to kill himself with drink, and he
did.

I see him now as he came to our " grocery "
(dramshop) one day with a sled drawn over the
snow by a bob-tailed horse, saying that he had
come for his last barrel of whiskey. It was

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

loaded on his sled and he got astride and started
homeward, saying: "This is my coffin." When
he drank till he was so weak he could not help
himself to it, the doctor was called and said he
must have a little toddy (weakened whiskey) to
keep him alive. I sat by him and gave him the
toddy in a teaspoon till he breathed his last. I
would not obey such medical advice now. I saw
many others going down to this death. I saw
homes made miserable. I was alarmed, and
would tend bar no more.

Ill

My first hard battle was the struggle for an
education. When sixteen years old I had at-
tended a district school only about nine months,
and most of that time I was reciting over and
over again, four times daily, my A B C's and
A-b, Ab's. That was then the foolish method
of teaching. I learned to read at home with my
mother. The first words she taught me was the
title of the family Bible. The first scripture I
remember learning was Proverbs, the fourth
chapter, and particularly this seventh verse:
"Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get
wisdom and with all thy getting get understand-
ing."

My father was an honest man with excellent
ability for business, and possessing very popu-
lar qualities. He would have been wealthy,
but for strong drink. He loved his children and
wanted to do his best for them; but he was
deeply imbued with Predestinarian Baptist ideas
about religion and education.

The Baptist preachers were frequently enter-
[ 26 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

tained at my father's house, and to hear them
talk one would suppose they believed that all
book knowledge, except of the Bible, and per-
haps arithmetic, was of the devil. They seemed
to think that if children learned to read, write
and cipher so as to do ordinary business, it was
sufficient. My father seemed to think that way.
When I would beg him to let me go to school, he
would say, in the summer time, that maybe I
could go when the crop was harvested. Then,
after harvest, he would say he could not do
without me to help feed and herd stock, for he
kept many cattle and hogs. The result was that
I could go to school but a few weeks each year.
I grew more and more dissatisfied with my ig-
norance, and lost hope that my father would
allow me to get an education. I had read and
re-read the few books in our house and had
studied far into the nights after working hard
all day. About the only books I had to read
until I was about sixteen years of age were the
Bible, Robinson Crusoe, and the Life of David
Crockett, written by himself.

I wanted more books, and used to go into the

forest on Sundays, without my parents knowing

it, and chop cord-wood to earn money to buy

books. I ordered the books from New York

[ 27 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

City by express. The nearest express office then
was Springfield, sixty miles distant. In due
time notice came that the books were at the ex-
press office. How could I get the box? There
was no railroad and no way I knew of to get the
package except to send by my father. He was
the sheriff of Shelby County, and also collector
of all the taxes in the county. The taxes must
be paid in gold and silver, and when he had col-
lected a chest full, he put it in a covered wagon,
and, accompanied by a guard, with two horses-
took it to Springfield, the state capital. I asked
him to bring my books on one of these trips.
He seemed to think there was dangerous heresy
in the books, and did not bring them. I felt
wronged, and told our hired man so. He
thought so too. He was an illiterate fellow who
went on sprees occasionally, but he swore he
would help me get the books. I told him I was
determined, not only to get the books, but to
stay away until I got an education, and he vol-
unteered to give me his wages for that purpose.
He gave me three silver dollars to begin with.
One Sunday afternoon in springtime I stole
away from home, weeping as I went, for I loved
home dearly. I walked ten miles to the stage
stand on the way to Springfield. Then, hungry
[ 28 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

and weary, I waited for the stage coach and
four horses that carried the mail and passengers
across the state via Charleston and Shelbyville
to Springfield. It was late at night when the
stage coach came along. The passengers quizzed
me as to where I came from, whither bound
and what for. I frankly told them all. Most
of them advised me to go back home to my
mother. There was one stout burly man with
long black beard, whom I took to be a cattle
dealer, who said gruffly to me that I was doing
wrong and should go back home. But one
good man commended my course and hoped I
would be a good boy and make a useful man.
We rode all night, arriving in Springfield about
daybreak. I got my box of books as soon as the
express office was opened and took it into a quiet
corner of a store to examine the contents. Be-
sides some books on self -education and the laws
of health, there was a phrenological bust by L.
N. Fowler. A bald-headed man eyed me curi-
ously as I opened the box, and asked where I
came from and what I meant to do. I told him
that I had run away from home to get an educa-
tion. He shook his head ominously and said:
" My lad, you better go back to your mother,
quicker." Finding no comfort there, I went for
[ 29 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

a walk on the street and saw a sign of " Book-
binding and Store." That was a charming
sight, such as I had never before seen. I went
in and asked to work for my board and clothes
in that store for six months or a year. It
seemed a splendid opportunity to get knowledge.
The head man took quite an interest in me, and
after much close questioning offered to give me
a year's schooling if I would bind myself to
serve an apprenticeship in book-binding.

I promised to report next day if I decided to
accept the proposal. I hesitated to be bound so
long a time to a stranger. As I walked, or
rather gawked, about the only capital city I had
ever seen, I met a little bow-legged man who
looked at me curiously and asked if I wanted to
hire at work. I told him that I did. He asked
if I could drive oxen hitched to a dirt-scraper on
the railroad. I told him I thought I could.
Then he said he would give me nine dollars a
month on trial, if I could begin at once. I
agreed to do so because I was almost penniless
and wanted to earn my bread and board at least.
Then the little man told me the work was to help
build the Illinois Central Railroad, near the west
line of Shelby County and sixteen miles from
Shelbyville. This surprised me. I shrank
[ 30 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

from going back so near home. However, I
felt that I must stick to my contract. The little
man promised to bring my box of books, and
the next morning just as the sun rose, I started
with face toward it, to walk to the place where
I was to work, about forty-five miles southeast
of Springfield.

About noon I grew weary and faint, and
called at a one-room cabin and asked the woman
for a drink of water. She waited on me cheer-
fully, inquired where I was going, and said:
" Poor boy, you look as if you were almost
starved. Won't you have a glass of milk and a
piece of gooseberry pie ? "

I replied that I would like it very much, but
did not have enough money to pay for it and
lodging that night; for I feared I could not
reach my journey's end that day.

" Oh ! " said the woman, " I don't mean to
charge you anything. You are very welcome
to what I have."

That was the most refreshing lunch I ever
remember eating. I had eaten very little since
leaving home two days before, and had spent for
stage fare, express package, and so on, all but
twenty-eight cents of the three dollars given
me by father's hired man. I pushed on more

'JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

briskly, half hoping I might reach my destina-
tion before dark. But when night came it was
very dark. I was three or four miles from the
end of my journey, and the remainder of the
road was very dim and through high prairie
grass. I had walked over forty miles and was
about exhausted. There was a cabin of round
logs in a little grove on the prairie. It was a
few miles northwest of where Pana now stands.
There was a lone woman in the cabin. I asked
her if I might stay over night.

" I don't like," she said, " to turn away
strangers this dark night, but my old man went
hunting and has not got back."

I pleaded with her to just give me shelter till
daybreak.

"Well," said she, "I haven't the heart to
turn you off into the dark to walk across that
prairie. You might be lost and the wolves get
you. Come in ! "

The husband came home at a late hour with
some venison, for he had killed a deer. Early
next morning we had breakfast of hard, fried
venison, corn bread and milk.

" Now, what do I owe you ? " I inquired of the
man.

" Oh," said he, " we never charge strangers."

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

But I insisted on paying him something.

" Well, then, if you are a mind to, you may
give the old woman a bit."

That meant a silver piece of twelve and one-
half cents. I had only a twenty-five-cent piece
and a three-cent piece. When I handed the
woman the twenty-five-cent piece, they both ex-
claimed, " Oh, we haven't any change, just keep
your money, and sometime when you are passing
this way, you may hand us the change."

But I insisted that they should take the twen-
ty-five cents and I would wait for the change
until I came that way again. They consented.
I have never met them since. I wish I could
thank them afresh for their hospitality. All I
had in the world was the clothes I wore, the three-
cent piece, and the box of books. I carried the
three-cent piece in my pocket for nearly thirty
years as a precious memento, and an incentive to
economy. I finally lost it, but the grateful
memories associated with it grow more and more
green as the years roll on.

I soon arrived on the railroad line at the head-
quarters of the man for whom I was to work.
It was a short distance south of where the city of
Pana has since been built. The man's wife and
daughter did the cooking. The boarders were

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

mostly Irishmen. I went to work with them.
When Sunday came, all put on clean shirts but
me. I had no change of clothes, nor money to
buy any. But there was a stream of water near
by. I thought I must get clean somehow. The
sun shone warm toward noon in a sand-bank on
the north side of the stream, and there was a
grove of willows on the north side of the sand-
bank. I washed my shirt and hung it upon the
willows to dry while I sat on the sunny sand-bank
and kept a sharp lookout ready to jump and hide
in the willows if any one came along. The shirt
was dried, but badly wrinkled.

At supper time the good woman said to me,
" What in the world is the matter with your
shirt?"

I had to tell her.

" Lawsee me ! My dear child," she exclaimed,
" why didn't you tell me you had no change ?
Now, I must make you a shirt this very night,
and Sally must help, if it is Sunday."

Sally was her young daughter. So she and
her daughter sat up that night, made the gar-
ment, and washed and ironed it ready for me
Monday morning.

The five weeks I was with that family at their
shanty of a boarding house on the prairie, I was

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

treated as if I were kith and kin. Thirty years
passed and I had not seen the mother who made
that shirt for me. Then I went one Sunday to
preach in a school-house in a remote district of
Illinois, and there I recognized seated before me
in the meeting that same little bow-legged man
who hired me on the streets of Springfield and
his wife who was so kind to the runaway boy.
I must go home with them for dinner. It was
like a communion service of happy and grateful
recollections.

I drove the oxen with the scraper the first
month. I worked with the Irishmen and we had
a good time reading " Uncle Tom's Cabin " in
the shade at the noon hour, and I also experi-
mented on them with my phrenological bust.
But I thought I could make more and be more
independent by taking a contract for a job of
shoveling dirt at so much per yard. Before I
had finished this job, I spied a covered wagon
coming across the prairie. A large, tall man
was walking ahead of it. The man was my
grandfather Douthit. My father was driving
the wagon. They had been with another load
of silver and gold to Springfield, and had some-
how got track of me. Grandfather told me that
mother was greatly distressed about me. Father
[ 35 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

wanted me to go home for her sake, and he
promised that if I would go and help make an-
other crop, I should go to school the next fall
at the new Academy that was then being built
in Shelbyville. I said I must finish my contract
at grading first, and then I would go home, and
I did. But I could not enter the Academy for
nearly a year afterwards. That was in the
spring of 1854.

I was very kindly received by the good prin-
cipal, Charles W. Jerome, and his assistants.
The school was founded and conducted under
Methodist auspices; but in a liberal Christian
spirit. There was no sectarianism or bigotry
about it to hurt any of us. It stood for clean
habits, no liquor and no tobacco, nor any-
thing that defiled. The daily morning reading
of the Bible, with prayer and song, are among
the most precious and blessed memories of my
life. Principal Jerome is now living in Atlanta,
Georgia, over eighty years of age. While a
zealous Methodist, he has been a constant and
helpful friend to me in the mission of my life.

Principal Jerome permitted me to occupy a
little room in the seminary building where I
slept and boarded myself, with the help my
[ 36 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

mother could give. I earned my tuition acting
as janitor. I also earned something as book-
agent. I sold Fowler & Wells's publications,
especially those written by Rev. G. S. Weaver.
One of his books was entitled " Hopes and Helps
for the Young." My first piece committed to
memory and declaimed in school was from that
book. The subject was " Perseverance." The
piece closed with Longfellow's "Psalm of Life."
That book was a favorite with many of the stu-
dents. I was surprised to learn in after years
that the author was a Universalist minister. Dr.
Weaver is still living, or was a few weeks ago,
— 1908, — about ninety years of age, at Canton,
New York, the seat of the Universalist Divinity
School. He has been very kind to me, and often
writes me words of hearty sympathy and good
cheer.

During my attendance at the Shelby Acad-
emy, I also taught a subscription school in
arithmetic and writing. This school was held
on Friday evenings and Saturdays and Sundays.
People who try to read my scrawls now laugh
skeptically when they learn that the writer was
once a teacher of penmanship. The school was
ten miles from Shelbyville. I walked to it over
[ 37 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

muddy roads. Sometimes I had to wade waist
deep through cold water, across swollen streams,
to meet the appointments.

The hired man who loaned me the three dol-
lars when I first left home was as good as his
word. While I was at the Academy he would
come to Shelbyville and, when sober, would
come to the school door and ask for " Jack "
Douthit, as I was then called. I would have to
go to the door, for he was diffident about com-
ing in. Then he would ask how I was getting
along, and if I needed some more cash, and would
insist on loaning it to me, saying : " Never
mind, if you never pay it. I'm a sinner and
never had any larnin, but I want you to be
lamed. Maybe you'll be President some day."
When I left school I owed him twenty-five dol-
lars or more. It seemed a big sum, but I paid
it, though he insisted in after years in helping
me more. He would say : " If I don't let you
have it, I will spend it for drink." During the
Civil War he was in prison for a long time near
the home of his own people in the state of Ten-
nessee. I wanted to visit him to help him to
liberty, but could not. When he escaped from
the prison he came to see me by night. He had
got into a spree on the way and had been in the
[ 38 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

calaboose, for he was riotous and dangerous
when drinking. He was feeling very badly and
suffering intense remorse. He asked me to pray
God to forgive him, and vowed he would drink
no more. He then went back to his people in
Tennessee, and his enemies stole upon him at
night when he was in bed, suffering with wounds,
and shot him to death. Dear, faithful old
friend! I would rather meet your fate in the
Great Hereafter than that of the fellows who
for your vote or your money tempted you to
ruin.

After two terms at the Academy, I was en-
gaged to teach in the primary department.
After one year as teacher I resolved to go and
work my way, if possible, through Antioch
College at Yellow Springs, Ohio, for I had read
of Horace Mann, the President, and I longed
to be seated at the feet of the man whom I had
learned to love without seeing. But there were
good, pious people who sincerely believed that
Antioch College was an infidel institution and
that its President was a dangerous man, leading
young people astray. Many young men and
women were kept in that way from being blessed
by that great educator, statesman and philan-
thropist. I heard that I might have a chance
[ 39 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

to pay my way through Antioch College by
manual labor and I started for Yellow Springs
in the fall of 1856.

On leaving Shelbyville my good Methodist
pastor gave me a note of introduction to Dr.
Curry, President of Asbury University, (now
DePauw), Greencastle, Indiana. I stopped
over and called on President Curry. He re-
ceived me kindly and urged me to remain and go
to school there, and he would give me a chance
to work my way in part. While seated in the
depot, feeling very lonely and thinking of Dr.
Curry's proposal, a woman with a sunny, moth-
erly face approached me and spoke to me kindly,
and then called her husband and introduced him.
The gentleman was Professor Butler of Wabash
College. He was a cousin of Mrs. Lydia Sigour-
ney, the author and poet. To their inquiries I
told them where I was going. They said I had
better go to Wabash College at Crawfordsville,
Indiana, which was only thirty miles distant.
They promised to get me a chance to work my
way there and they would be good friends to me.
I was charmed by their kindness, and next day
walked to Crawfordsville. I was given a room
in the college, where I worked and boarded my-
,self, mostly on baked potatoes and graham
[ 40 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

bread and milk, for six months. The diet was
wholesome, but studying hard and eating alone
was not favorable to good digestion. I became
miserably homesick. President White and Pro-
fessors Hovey, Hadley and Butler were very
kind to me. They said I might go home for a
visit; and, if I would return to complete some
studies, they would have me sent to Lane Theo-
logical Seminary, Cincinnati, Ohio, to prepare
for the ministry. I accepted the offer on condi-
tion that I would not be obliged to enter the min-
istry of any particular sect. Now my father
was strongly opposed to my being an educated
minister. He thought I would make a better
stock dealer or merchant. When he learned
that they were going to make a preacher of me,
he offered to furnish means to establish me in the
book and drug business, if I would stop going
to school. I yielded to the temptation, and so
dealt in books and drugs for a year. But I still
wanted to be a preacher.

IV

One cause of my homesickness and nervous
dyspepsia at Wabash was the want of female
society, — a want that would have been gratified
at Antioch College, for that was the only col-
lege then in the country, unless it was Oberlin,
that stood for the co-education of the sexes. I
had mother, sisters, aunts and cousins at home,
in the district school and at " Shelby Male and
Female Academy," as the seminary was first
called; but at Wabash College I became ac-
quainted with no woman except the one who
baked graham bread for me. I was too diffi-
dent, and could not dress well enough to culti-
vate acquaintances. In my extreme loneliness I
took consolation in correspondence. By a sort
of romantic " happen so," as some would call it,
though I prefer to think of it as a special Prov-
idence, I got into correspondence with Miss
Emily Lovell of East Abington, Mass. I had
never met her — I had only read some of her
verses in print, and I felt drawn toward her, so
that I was encouraged to tell her frankly about

C ** ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

myself, my ambitions, and the noted people and
authors I liked, among whom were Longfellow,
Henry Ward Beecher, Horace Mann, Mrs.
Stowe, Dr. Geo. S. Weaver, author of " Hopes
and Helps for the Young," " The Two Ways of
Life " and other books published by Fowler &
Wells, for whom I had been acting as agent.
Miss Lovell promptly responded to say that my
favorite authors and people were hers also. We
told each other frankly about our families, our
yearnings to be good and to do good. She told
me how intensely interested she had been in read-
ing the life of Mrs. Sarah Edgarton Mayo, —
first wife of the late Rev. A. D. Mayo, D.D.,
and " The Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons."
She was enthusiastic to be a missionary. She
wrote me verses about hearing music from the
throne of God and seeing a magic hand reached
out to clasp hers in life's journey. She wrote
me a prayer in verse, of which the closing stanza
is as follows :

" Guide Thou my deeds !
Teach me, O Lord, how rightly to discern

The wants my humble means may well supply;
I've gathered roses, and I fain would turn
Upon another's brow their grace to lie.
The wine of life with willing hands I'd serve
[ 43 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

To needy objects; Father! can it be?
With heaven-born strength wilt Thou my spirit

nerve,
And guide my deeds that they may honor Thee."

I proposed that we send our ambrotypes to
Professor L. N. Fowler and let him decide our
fitness for each other. He made a remarkably
accurate " hit " when he said the woman would
be a better wife for me than I could be husband
for her.

" The young lady," he said, " is of high
moral character, and she is talented, domestic,
affable, playful and very affectionate ; but she
is a timid sensitive soul, and it would nearly
kill her to be scolded. However, if you make up
your mind to be largely guided by her counsel
and conform to her nature, you can spend a
happy, useful and mutually helpful life to-
gether."

I was very unhappy to think myself not
worthy of such a talented, pure, lovely woman.
I told her the worst faults which Prof. Fowler
mentioned, namely, my impulsive temper and
self-will. I felt that I ought to give up the idea
of wedding one so good. All the same, when we
finally met, she said she would take the risk.

We were married at East Abington, (now
[ 44 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

Rockland) Mass., November 2, 1857, by Rev.
Varnum Lincoln, the Universalist minister. She
was a native of that place, and her parents were
natives of that vicinity. Her grandfather
Lovell was a soldier of the Revolution, and
fought at Bunker Hill. General Solomon
Lovell, he who during the Revolutionary War
led the Penobscot Expedition, and my wife's
people have a common ancestry.

My wife in her girlhood attended Mt. Caesar
Seminary, Keene, New Hampshire. In early
life she contributed verses and stories to such
periodicals as the Universalist Ladies Monthly
Magazine and the New York Evening Post,
when the latter was edited by William Cullen
Bryant. For several years during our mission
work, besides attention to household duties, she
gave lessons to young people in Latin and
French and taught subscription schools. In
the beginning of my ministry, especially when
I was disabled, she would write the sermons for
me to preach. To this woman, under God, I
owe most of what I have been and what I have
done of good for nearly fifty years ; and our
children, two sons and two daughters, have been
constantly co-workers with us. Winifred, our
youngest daughter and my housekeeper now,
C 45 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

came as a Christmas gift when the mother was
busy preparing for the first Christmas tree I
ever saw, and the first in this county, so far as
I know. It was for the Sunday-school at
Log Church on Christmas Eve, 1871 ; and from
the time that child was old enough to be carried
to church and Sunday-school, she has never to
this day missed weekly attendance at church and
Sunday-school, excepting probably a half dozen
times, and then only on account of illness. For
many years she has been a constant Sunday-
school teacher.

Our youngest son, Robert Collyer, is pastor
of the Unitarian Church, Castine, Me. George
Lovell, our eldest son, has been a constant helper
in church work, besides acting as business man-
ager for Our Best Words and for Post-office
Mission and Lithia Springs Chautauqua. I
could not manage the Chautauqua without such
a helper. Our eldest daughter, Helen, wife of
Mr. Joseph W. Garis, a railroad employee, lives
at Lake Geneva, Wis., and has ever been a most
faithful and cheerful helper.

After our marriage, my wife and I had charge

of the public schools at Hillsboro, 111., for the

year 1858, and then we returned to East Abing-

ton, Mass. At Hillsboro I saw Abraham Lin-

[ 46 ]

EMILY LOVELL DOUTHIT

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

coin for the last time, and heard him speak at the
time of the famous debate with Senator Doug-
las, in 1858. He spoke in a circus tent at Hills-
boro. I see him now as he walked into the tent
at the farther end from where I was seated.
His trousers were baggy at the knees, and he
looked like some ungainly giant. A crowd was
around him, but he seemed a head taller than the
rest. He and Douglas did not actually meet
there. Douglas had visited Hillsboro a few
days before and made his speech to an immense
crowd out in a grove, for the weather was fair.
The day appointed for Lincoln threatened rain,
so that the circus tent was engaged for him. He
had spoken but a little while when the rain
poured down in torrents and drove the people
off their seats to stand close around the speaker's
stand in the middle of the tent. Some one sug-
gested that they stop the meeting till the rain
was over, but the crowd cried : " Oh ! no. Go
on, go on ! " Lincoln did " go on " for nearly
two hours, and the people kept crowding closer
and closer to him as if they were hypnotized.
Mr. Lincoln seemed to me to grow taller and his
face became more radiant the longer he spoke.
I remember what he said of Senator Douglas's
theory of " Popular Sovereignty," that is, the
[ 47 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

right of the people to vote slavery up or down
in the territories. " The fact is," said Lincoln,
" Judge Douglas's theory of popular sover-
eignty seems to me about as thin as the soup
made from the shadow of a starved pigeon."
In the same speech I remember his saying:
" There is an honest old man down in Georgia by
the name of Toombs. He boasts that he will call
the roll of his slaves at the foot of Bunker Hill
Monument. Dear fellow, he little knows the
temper of the Northern people upon the subject
of slavery, or he would never make such a boast
as that."

Up to the time I heard that speech of Lin-
coln's I had been a Douglas Democrat, though
opposed to slavery and an advocate of total ab-
stinence. But when Senator Douglas spoke in
Hillsboro they made a banquet for him at night
where wine and whiskey flowed shamefully.
When Lincoln came, his friends proposed a ban-
quet for him, and were going to have liquors,
But Lincoln protested. He said his friends
would please him best if they furnished no drinks
that would intoxicate, and they obeyed him.
From that time I was a convert to Lincoln, and
would have died in his stead. I wept at his
death as if he had been my best friend on earth.
[ 48 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

Then I solemnly vowed that I would henceforth
live to keep his memory green, taking for my
motto his memorable words, " With malice to-
ward none and charity for all, with firmness in
the right as God gives us to see the right, let us
finish the work that is given us to do."

I have tried to keep that motto at the head of
a column of my missionary publication, Our Best
Words, for nearly thirty years.

I have a clear recollection of Lincoln, as I first
used to see him in the old hotel across the street
from the court-house where he stopped during
the terms of the circuit court in Shelbyville. I
see the Great Commoner as he sat on the porch,
southern fashion, when court was not in ses-
sion, his long, lank limbs doubled up, or straight-
ened out with feet propped up, while he read the
paper or a book, or chatted familiarly with the
old farmers or his fellow attorneys. He never
told a story just for the story alone, but always
to clinch an argument.

I heard him make a speech in the old court-
house in Shelbyville, in which he gave his reasons
for breaking from the old Whig party and help-
ing to organize the Free Soil, or Republican
party. There was a very intense partisan spirit
in those days in southern Illinois, and the sym-
[49 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

pathy was nearly all with the South, so that an
outspoken anti-slavery man was considered
hardly human. Politicians were accustomed to
indulge in personal abuse and ridicule of their
opponents, and so did lawyers in pleading in
court. Consequently, when I went with my
father, as a boy, to the court-house to hear polit-
ical speeches or the pleadings of lawyers, I al-
ways expected to hear them hurl denunciations
and abuse at their opponents. But on that day,
when Lincoln gave his reasons for leaving the
Whig party, I witnessed a very different scene.
I was surprised at the very pleasant manner and
kindly spirit in which Mr. Lincoln treated his
opponents.

While he spoke, some who had been his as-
sociates in the Whig party grew furious, inter-
rupted his speech, and hurled abusive epithets at
him. I wondered that he took it all so calmly
and with such self-control. I do not remember
any words of that speech, I only know that he
bore testimony against slavery ; but I shall never
forget how he looked and the manner in which he
spoke — how patient he was toward his cross
critics. I went home and told my mother that
I had heard a lawyer and a politician speak with-
I 50 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

out talking harshly or abusing anybody. I had
never witnessed the like before in my life.

Lincoln came once again to Shelbyville to
make a speech after the organization of the Re-
publican party. There were only about half a
dozen persons in Shelbyville and vicinity who
called themselves Republicans. They invited Lin-
coln to come to Shelbyville and advertised him to
speak in the court-house. Most of the old parti-
sans turned the cold shoulder and said they would
not go to hear him. As the hour approached,
it seemed as if there would be scarcely any one
present. Then a few of the friends went to
Lincoln and said, " Let us not try to hold any
meeting at the court-house this time, but just
have a little quiet caucus in the back room of Mr.
B.'s shoe-shop." To this Lincoln promptly re-
plied : " Oh ! we must go into the court-house ac-
cording to appointment, no matter how few may
come. We must not seem ashamed of our prin-
ciples. They should be proclaimed from the
house-tops all over the nation."

UNIVERSITY Of

During the year 1859 I was employed
part of the time with Prof. D. P. Butler in
the branch office in Boston, of Fowler & Wells,
phrenologists and publishers, of New York City.
During part of the year I lectured on the Science
of Man and the Laws of Health through the
towns along the coast between Boston and Ply-
mouth. I was religiously a wanderer, yearning
for church fellowship, but the Spiritualists and
Abolitionists were about the only people that
were making any noise, and the only ones with
whom I found any sympathy. The abolition
orators were thundering, as on Sinai, against the
indifference and infidelity of the church in re-
gard to the national sin, African slavery. I
had become much interested in psychology and
the phenomena of spiritism. But none of these
things satisfied my deep religious longings.
Nearly all the public preaching I heard was of
the tearing down sort, and I felt the need of
reconstruction. In other words, I was in that
transition from the old to the new theology

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

where hundreds make shipwreck of faith for
want of rational religious sympathy. If it had
not been for my wife's influence and the read-
ing of Beecher's and Parker's sermons and pray-
ers, and also now and then newspaper reports of
sermons of Drs. Henry W. Bellows and James
Freeman Clarke, I think I should have become
an Ishmaelite in religion.

The anti-slavery agitation caused me to read
James Freeman Clarke's and Theodore Parker's
sermons as reported in the Boston papers. I
would have gone to hear Dr. Clarke preach if
I could have had the opportunity. I was drawn
to him because I learned that he had exchanged
pulpits with Theodore Parker when no other
preachers would do so. I do not remember see-
ing notices in the papers of any Unitarian
preaching other than that of Parker and Clarke.
I lectured in several towns where there were Uni-
tarian churches, but, strange to say, did not get
acquainted with any Unitarians. I read and
was thrilled by Parker's sermons on " The Per-
manent and Transient in Christianity " and
" The False and True Revival of Religion." I
made an effort to hear Parker at Music Hall the
last Sunday he preached, before he went to Italy
to die. I was then staying sixteen miles from
[ 53 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

Boston, and I had not money to pay carfare
to the city and return, so I resolved to walk,
and started early that Sunday morning; but
when I had gone about half-way I grew faint
and turned back, to regret the rest of my life
that I did not start the day before, in order to
improve the only opportunity to see and hear
the man whose printed words had revived in me
new life and hope. It may be Dr. Channing
would have helped me as much as Parker; but
I had no chance to read him — in fact I had
scarcely heard of him

While employed at Fowler and Wells's office,
near the Old South Meeting-house in Boston,
I first saw Thomas Starr King. He and Henry
Ward Beecher were walking arm in arm and
conversing playfully with each other. I got
into touch too with William Lloyd Garrison
and Wendell Phillips. One day a compactly
built man with genial, ruddy face walked into
the office and asked for a copy of the Phrenr
ological Journal, paid for it, spoke a few pleas-
ant words and passed out. There was a picture
of the man and a description of his character
in that number of the Journal. The man was
the Hon. Henry Wilson, the shoemaker and
[ 54 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

statesman, who was Vice President during Presi-
dent Grant's first term.

When Henry Wilson was on his death bed
I read in the papers that he kept beside him a
little book entitled "Daily Strength for Daily
Needs," being a selection of scripture, poetry,
and comforting thoughts by sages and saints.
I secured a copy of that book at once, and
have kept it close beside me ever since, at home
and abroad. When I miss getting a morning
thought from the book, it often seems as if I
had failed to get the needed key note to the
day.

In the fall of 1859 I came back to Shelby
County, and my wife and I, now with one child,
went to keeping house in a little cabin on a
farm near my birthplace. The first time I got
a chance to speak, I declared myself an Abo-
litionist. I believe I was the only one the^i in
Shelby County who called himself an Abo-
litionist in public. This shocked all of my
friends and relatives. It was terrible, they
thought; for in their eyes, an Abolitionist was
a monster, and now to think I had married a
Yankee wife and turned Abolitionist! The
newspapers made a sensation of it. For ex-
[ 65 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

ample, it was reported that, in a Sunday-school
talk, I had called John Brown a martyr and
compared him to George Washington. I did
not say that, but I did say that we must beware
how we judged those who were unpopular be-
cause they were a foe to slavery. I said that
even Washington was unpopular with millions
of people, when he was ready to die for the
freedom of others, and that those who die for
the liberty of their fellow-beings to-day, may,
in the future ages, wear martyrs' crowns.
This remark was quickly interpreted as refer-
ring to the hanging of John Brown, and I was
called a John Brownite for years, despite the
fact that I did not at all approve of his bloody
raid at Harper's Ferry, though I did sym-
pathize with and admire the pluck of the old
hero.

Practically, so far as the local newspapers
were concerned, there was no free speech on
political questions in those days in southern
Illinois. Although instinctively hating African
slavery, yet through ignorance, I gave my first
vote for James Buchanan for President, but I
persisted in expressing abolition sentiments and
was ridiculed and laughed at for my incon-
sistency. When my eyes were open to see my
[ 56 ]

JASPER BOUTHIT'S STORY

folly, I tried to make amends, not by allying
myself with any of the existing parties but
by pleading for free speech and fair play.
It was my conviction that civil war might be
averted if the questions at issue were only
fairly presented to all the American people.
Light was what was most needed; so I thought
then, and I have seen no reason to change my
opinion. But alas ! the light could only come
through the lurid flames of devastating war.

" Fair Play in Politics," was the heading
of a plea of a half newspaper column which I
wrote in the early summer of 1860 and sent
to the editor of the Okaw Democrat for pub-
lication. The editor being a personal friend,
I had hopes of the plea being admitted. After
considerable squirming, he told me that he would
be glad to favor me in any way that he could,
but for the sake of the party he could not admit
my communication ; " and," said he, " if you
take any decided stand against the old party,
I shall be compelled to denounce you publicly."
I did take a decided stand. But there was no
paper through which to get my ideas before the
public until the following July.

On Saturday morning, July 28, 1860, the
first number of The Shelby Freeman was pub-
[ 57 ]

JASPER DOUTHITS STORY

lished in Shelbyville. Mr. E. E. Chittenden,
a frail but plucky man, was editor. My re-
jected article was published in the first num-
ber and I was made associate editor. The Free-
man advocated the election of Abraham Lincoln
for President, and was published weekly till he
was elected and inaugurated and the first call
made for volunteers to suppress the rebellion.
Then the editor, Mr. Chittenden, answered the
call and went to the wuzf SPJ' *be first newspaper
in southern Illinois devoted to free soil, free
labor and free speech, died. In April, 1863,
the press which we had used was bought by
John W. Johnson, to print The Shelby County
Union.

I enlisted from Shelby County in the army of
the Union, and went up to the state capital
to be examined and mustered in. I was pale-
faced and frail in body. The examining sur-
geon shook his head doubtfully. I thought
about it over night. I had left my mother in
great distress and my wife reluctant to have me
go. I was the eldest son, the other children were
still young, my mother sorely needed my
presence, and I had promised to live near her
as long as she lived, which was not expected to
be long. Several of the friends with whom I
[ 58 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

had enlisted, among them my old teacher,
Charles W. Jerome, advised me to return home,
saying that I could do as much for the cause
at home as I could as a soldier. Therefore I
returned, just as determined to die at home for
my country, if exigency required, as if in the
army. I lectured on the slavery question and
" preached politics " as they said, although I
knew no politics except "Liberty and Union,
one and inseparable."

In the spring of 1863, I got into trouble with
the " Knights of the Golden Circle." The real
object of that order was to resist the draft, and
secretly help the rebellion, but it appeared be-
fore the public in the guise of a " Peace Democ-
racy." Thus it misled many well-meaning
people and gave a chance for bushwhackers and
other emissaries of the confederacy to come
into southern Illinois. One of these came from
Missouri into our district. He called himself
a preacher. He held meetings at Liberty
Meeting-house. This house had been built
for the double purpose of school and church,
in fact all sorts of meetings, for it was the only
house where public meetings could be held in
that district; and I had stipulated when soli-
citing funds to build it, that it should be always
[ 59 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

open to the community and sacred to free
speech. A lodge of the " Knights of the Gol-
den Circle " was organized there by the Mis-
souri bushwhacker, and a score or more of my
neighbors joined it. Besides secret sessions, the
lodge held open meetings, to which everybody
was welcome. In these meetings peace and
union were talked.

I went to a meeting of the Circle and begged
for the privilege of speaking in behalf of peace
and good-will among neighbors. The Missouri
man was presiding. I arose and said : " Mr.
Chairman: I am glad to hear that this is a
Democratic peace meeting. I believe in peace
and true democracy. Therefore, I beg leave
to occupy ten minutes or less in reading a letter
from a brave and patriotic Democrat, Major
General Rosecrans, and also a short article from
the Chicago Times, the leading Democratic
organ of Illinois," — these authorities both con-
demned the Golden Circle organizations, —
" Can I have the privilege? "

The chairman replied that the meeting was a
Democratic love feast and a private affair for
the purpose of reorganizing the good old Dem-
ocratic party, that I could not be allowed to
speak or read anything, and that if I was keen
[ 60 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

to exercise free speech I could " go out to the
brush and bellow forth." To the credit of the
majority in that meeting, be it said, the chair-
man was censured for the summary way in which
I was refused a hearing. Then, after I was put
out, was held the secret session in which the so-
called preacher and bushwhacker made a rousing
speech. He said : " Had it not been for such
weak-kneed cowardly traitors (the Douglas
Democrats) we should have had the tyrant
Lincoln dethroned long ago, yea, verily, and
beheaded. I tell you we must prepare to fight.
Clean out your old guns and get ready. If
you have no gun, go up north and press one,
and while you are there press a horse and am-
munition. If we can't fight on a large scale, we
can bushwhack it. If you don't know how, I
can teach you. I have had some experience in
bushwhacking myself."

My younger brother, George, who was not
known to the chairman and was so very quiet
and sleepy-looking that night that he was
scarcely noticed in the noisy crowd, was not
put out. This brother had an excellent mem-
ory, and reported that speech word for word.
I wrote out an account of this meeting and ex-
tracts from the speeches, and I took it to the
[ 61 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

only newspaper then printed in the county. It
was rejected, not because its correctness was
questioned, but because the press of the county
was then intensely partisan, and the editor said
it would never do to publish such a report. It
would create discord in the party and make
votes for the " black Republicans." I then
sent the report to the St. Louis Democrat, the
Republican daily most widely read in this part
of Illinois at that time. On Thursday, March
19, 1863, it appeared in that paper on the
first page under flaming headlines that startled
the country. Here at home the excitement was
intense. It was as if a bombshell had burst,
and somebody must surely get hurt or leave for
other parts in a hurry. Several of those who
heard the speech of the confessed bushwhacker
acknowledged that it was correctly reported.
I learned years afterwards that all concerned
in that " Knights of the Golden Circle " meeting
held a council over my report. They all agreed
that I had " got it mighty korect " ; but the
question was, how I got it. Some suspected a
traitor in camp, but most of them thought that
after they had voted me " down and out " that
night, I had climbed through the house roof
and witnessed the whole proceedings through
[ 62 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

the scuttle-hole in the loft. They never sus-
pected my young brother.

It was hot times for me for a while. Reso-
lutions were passed and vigilance committees
were appointed to warn me, and as a last resort
to threaten that if I did not desist reporting
names and speeches for public print I should
be treated as a spy. I was so stubborn that
no doubt the reader would have been spared
these reminiscences but for the fact that my
father and mother and a large number of my
kindred who, though grieved at my outspoken-
ness, strongly resented any violent treatment
of me. As for the bushwhacker and his victims,
it seemed that the only way they could remain,
in the locality and save themselves from arrest
by government officials was to deny my report
and publish a libel on me. The bushwhacker
therefore prepared a manifesto, vindicating
himself as a very honorable and peaceable
gentleman, stating that he had never uttered the
words reported of him in the daily papers, and
that the secret conference, held at Liberty
Meeting-house, was in the interest of peace and
harmony among neighbors; and adding that
Jasper Douthit was a notorious blood-thirsty
Abolitionist, a stirrer up of strife among other-
[ 63 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

wise peaceable neighbors. Then, to induce
others to sign that manifesto, the bushwhacker
told them he knew that the " black-hearted Abe
Lincoln " had sent me a lot of government arms
and ammunition which I had secreted in my
house on the prairie, eight miles from Shelby-
ville. He induced nine of my neighbors to
sign this statement and it was published in the
Okaw Patriot of June 12, 1863.

The manifesto extolled the bushwhacker as " a
fine school-teacher, a gentleman, patriot and
peacemaker," declared my report of the meeting
false and libelous, and continued as follows:

" With a brief history of the author of the
article in the Democrat, we close. He is the son
of a respectable Democrat citizen of the neigh-
borhood. In his better days he went to Boston
to attend school and received a stroke of negro-
phobia which fractured his brain. He is a
man of small calibre. He is regarded by those
who know him as maliciously dangerous to the
community. He pays homage to John Brown.
This Bostonian Jasper is a breeder of sedition,
and is daily seeking the life-blood of the genu-
ine peace men of our country. He should be
cautioned by those who have any influence over
him, if any such there be, and if he persists in
such conduct his presence may become unen-
durable."

[ 64 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

Most of the nine signers told me afterwards
that they had never read the article until It
appeared in print. All of them abundantly
atoned for that wrong which they were led un-
wittingly to do me. Some of them later became
earnest members of my congregation and
helpers in my work, and I ministered at the
funeral of several of them. Only one of the
nine is now living. He is over eighty years
of age, and his home is in a distant city, but
he wants to be regarded as one of my parish-
ioners and writes me friendly words of good
cheer. One of the number was converted at a
revival meeting one night years after the war,
and on the next morning he mounted a horse
and rode five miles to see me and say:
" Douthit, I was induced by that Tory bush-
whacker to sign that libel about you when I
knew it was not true. I have been ashamed of
it ever since, but I could never get courage to
ask your pardon until now. Will you forgive
me?"

I had already forgiven him and everybody
else, and I think just then I was the unhappier
man of the two, because I could not remember
aught for which to ask his forgiveness.

In 1864 rumors were flying thick that any-
[ 65 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

one who attempted to take the enrollment for a
draft would be shot. There were men who
boasted openly that they would do the mur-
derous deed. Bloody riots in resisting the en-
rollment were of frequent occurrence in south-
ern Illinois and Indiana. Several enrolling offi-
cers had been shot down. All the people seemed
to be walking on the thin crust of a volcano
that was ready to burst at any hour. " The
Knights of the Golden Circle " were drilling
in sight of my home on the prairie, to resist the
" tyrant Lincoln," as they called him. I would
talk and reason with some of my neighbors, but
many were glum and mum, and would give me
no chance to talk with them. Under these cir-
cumstances I was appointed to take the enroll-
ment in the eastern half of the county. On re-
ceiving my commission I was offered a company,
or regiment of soldiers, to be stationed in the
county, but I objected to their presence, because
I knew that in the counties where soldiers were
present there had been riot and bloodshed. I
was advised to start well armed, but I declined to
do this. I determined to do the work peaceably,
or die in the attempt. However, I took the pre-
caution to change my hat and coat and to ride
a different horse, from day to day, as I went
[ 66 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

about the work. This expedient, with the pru-
dent co-operation of friends in both parties,
probably saved one enrolling officer from assas-
sination. Years afterwards some persons con-
fessed to me that they, with others, had resolved
on shooting me if I were seen near their homes.
" I shall always be thankful," said one man to
me, " that we did not know that you were
around until you had done the work and gone."

My plan was to go only to those I thought
I could trust and get the names of the others
from the trusty ones. This worked very well,
except in a few instances where I made the mis-
take of revealing myself to foes instead of
friends. Some had read that bushwhacker's
libel in the papers and they believed their papers
then more than they did their Bibles. It was
just such ignorance and partisanship that made
the Civil War possible.

The first morning I went out to take the en-
rollment I went to the house of an old citizen
who had heard, for he could not read, of the
rumors about me. He was in the field at work.
His wife kindly invited me into the house and
sent the children after their father. He came,
walking fast, and as he entered the room he
snatched a gun from out the rack over the door,
[ 67 ]

JASPER DOUTHITS STORY

and holding it up, cried out, with some unquot-
able expletives : " Now you get out and go
home in a hurry, or you will be shot ! "

I arose and replied as mildly as possible,
under the circumstances, calling him by name.
" If you wish to shoot me, pop away. But
I don't want to hurt you, nor anyone else.
This is all the weapon I carry," showing him
a little pen-knife, " but let me tell you that I am
not going home. I am going to do my duty
to my country, and if I am killed there are
many thousands to take my place."

" Well, Jasper," said the man, " I don't want
to shoot you myself. I couldn't do it, anyhow,
for your mother's sake. She is a good woman,
but I am afraid you will be shot if you don't
quit."

One night after this there were a dozen shots
fired through the open door of my house about
midnight. As the last shot was fired I walked
to the door in my night-clothes, but the shooters
dodged behind a hazel-thicket, and nobody was
hurt. Until that time I carried no firearms and
kept none in the house, although it was rumored
and believed by many that I had secreted a lot of
government arms in or near my house. A few
days after the shooting I was in Shelbyville,
[ 68 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

when an old friend and captain in the army,
who was home on a furlough, persuaded me to
take home a six-shooter belonging to him, re-
marking that it was a duty that I owed my
friends to use it in self-defense, if attacked.
It was loaded and I carried it home and prac-
tised with it at an object the size of a man
about ten steps distant, until all the barrels were
empty. I missed the object every time, but
it was not the fault of the revolver. Then,
laughing at myself for my folly, I laid the re-
volver away empty and made haste to return it
to its owner in good order. That was the ex-
tent of my carnal warfare during all the " un-
pleasantness."

This little incident would not be worth men-
tioning but for the fact that at that time I had
become the " raw head and bloody bones " of
the neighborhood. Little children on the road
would hide behind trees when they saw me
coming; men would arm themselves to pass by
my home. To those who know me it seems
amusing now, but it was serious then. It shows
how partisan demagoguery, working on ignor-
ance and prejudice, can inaugurate civil war
and lead peaceable and well-meaning citizens
to shed each other's blood.
[ 69 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

Among the many incidents that flood my
memory, illustrative of the ignorance that pre-
vailed, I will relate one more. A person who
had been to Shelbyville and heard some talk
about peace conventions and Democratic vic-
tories at elections in New York and Indiana
passed by my house on his way home, and the
following conversation occurred. The exact
words are given, as I wrote them down im-
mediately afterward:

"Hello, Douthit! Have you heard the
news? "

"No, what is it?"

" Well, we're gwine to have peace ; we've
pinted a man, Vallandingham, to go and see
Jeff about arranging it, and, if Old Abe don't

give him a free pass to , where's the

place where Jeff Davis lives ? "

" Richmond, do you mean ? "

"Oh! yes; that's the place. Well, if Old
Abe don't give Vallandingham a pass to Rich-
mond, as I was gwine to say, we're gwine to
succeed (secede) right off. They say New
York and Indiana have succeeded already.
Hurrah for Vallandingham ! "

Many are the memories of encouraging words
that were whispered or spoken aloud to me in
[ 70 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

hours of trial. About this time I preached a
sermon on " The True Path to Peace," which
was printed in full in the Shelby County Union.
I advocated peace by a vigorous prosecution
of the inevitable war and by freedom for the
slaves. It was resolved, by several who were op-
posed to my views, that I should be summarily
silenced if I persisted in expressing such senti-
ments and praying for the President of the
United States. Accordingly, one bright Sun-
day morning at the hour I had appointed for
services, a large crowd of " peace Democrats "
gathered in and around the little log school
house. They were armed with shotguns, rifles,
revolvers, bowie-knives, and heavy clubs. They
looked sour and surly. The congregation
gathered and filled the house. I did not know
any of my friends were armed. Scarcely a
word was spoken by anyone. The time came to
begin service. A deathly silence reigned as I
took my seat in the pulpit. Everybody
seemed to be asking, "What next?" Just
then a quiet, conversative man whom I had
never known to take any active part in any
meetings, and whom I did not know as being in
sympathy with me, walked gently up the aisle
and drawing near to my ear, whispered:
[ 71 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

" Douthit, go on and preach and pray as you
think right. There are plenty of us to stand
by you." I was determined to speak my con-
victions anyhow, and did clear my conscience
very well that day. Nevertheless, I have
always regarded that action of so modest and
quiet a man as a sort of special inspiration.
I shall never cease to remember with gratitude
how the best of human nature as well as the
worst showed itself in those days of trial.

VI

During most of this trying time I was
preaching without ordination. I can hardly
remember when I did not feel " called " to be
a preacher. When a mere lad I felt so much
desire to be a Christian that I would gladly
have walked a long journey to find a congre-
gation that would give me fellowship on my
simple confession of a determined purpose to
live a Christian life. But all the churches I
knew required much more as conditions of
membership, and insisted upon tes's very dif-
ferent from what I found in the simple teach-
ings of Jesus. The churches would tell me to
take the Bible as it reads and follow Christ, and
then would insist on my taking the Bible as
they read it, and following their creeds. In
short, I must be a slave to other people's
opinions about the Bible and about Christ. I
could not honestly be that. Therefore, for
many years I was obliged to walk alone ; and I
would almost have lost faith in all churches and
[ 73 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

all religion but for a mother's love and saintly
example.

When about twenty-one years old I made
public confession of religion and was baptized,
kneeling in the waters of the Okaw, at Shelby-
ville. Rev. Isaac Groves, then pastor of the
First Methodist Church, performed the cere-
mony. I worshiped and worked with that
church for several years. Though never
yielding formal assent to its articles of faith, I
was treated as kindly as if I had been a bona
fide member, and I have ever held that church
in grateful regard as my foster mother in
religion.

Dear old " Auntie " Graham, was the first
woman I ever heard utter a prayer in public,
and that prayer powerfully moved me. She
was the mother or grandmother of the Metho-
dists in Shelbyville, and was loved by every-
body. Her speech in meeting was to me a mar-
velous thing, for I had heard all my life that
it was wrong for a woman to speak in meeting.
It was but a short time after that, " Aunt
Fanny " Gage, then of St. Louis, and later of
New York City, spoke in Shelbyville against
strong drink and pleaded most eloquently that
mothers, wives, sisters and daughters should

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

have equal rights before the law with men. I
became an enthusiastic convert and loved
" Aunt Fanny " thenceforth as if she were my
own aunt.*

How much it helped me to have loved and
trusted persons to pray for me! This will ex-
plain how I came to be in some measure instru-
mental in starting one of the earliest revivals
in the old Methodist church at Shelbyville. I
had just started to school in Shelby Academy
and was a green country boy without anyone
in school that knew me, or that I knew, ex-
cept indirectly. Some of the students made
sport of me and laughed at my awkwardness,
I had left home too against my father's wish
and with my mother in trouble. This caused
me great distress and I prayed God to help me
to be a Christian and to prove to the family

* The first library at the beginning of my work at
Log Church contained several of Mrs. Gage's books.
They were published by the National Temperance So-
ciety, New York City. "The Old Still House" was
one of the books of which I think she was the au-
thor. The scene of that story seemed to have been
laid in southern Illinois. At least it was an exact pic-
ture of things as they had been and were there. The
book was eagerly read until several copies were worn
out. No book in our Sunday-school was ever read so
much and with such good results.

[ "75 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

that I had only the best motives in leaving
home. I was very shy and shrank from public
notice. It was on a Sunday afternoon that
I started to school in Shelbyville. I walked all
the way, five miles, through the deep, dark
woods, instead of going directly on the state
road, where people would see me. I called at
the door of the first house I came to in the edge
of the town, — it was where the Chicago & East-
ern Illinois railway depot now stands, — and it
happened to be the humble home of former coun-
try acquaintances, namely William B. Jackson
and his wife. I told them I had come to go to
school and wanted to work for my board some-
where. " Very well," they said, " come right
in, Jasper ; we will have something for you
to do till you can do better." They were as
good as their word. The first j ob they gave me
was to dig a cellar for them. Mr. Jackson was
later for many years a Justice of the Peace
in Shelbyville, and became a charter member,
and a good one too, of the Unitarian church.
He passed away years ago, but his widow still
lives, over eighty-five years of age, a loyal mem-
ber of my congregation.

It was in a shy, lonely and homesick mood that
I went one Sunday night to the Methodist
C ™ ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

church. A very boyish looking young man by
the name of Phillip Minear preached, and the ser-
mon seemed to be for me. At the close of the
sermon the preacher said : " If there be any
here who wish to be Christians and want to be
prayed for, let them come forward and kneel at
the altar while the congregation stands and
sings a hymn." I had slipped into the very
back seat near the door for I shrank from
being seen in my plain clothes, but when this
invitation was given I walked up the aisle and
knelt at the altar alone, — the only one who
went up that evening. Fervent prayers were
made for the strange lad that few knew. I am
not sure but it was " Auntie " Graham who
made one of the prayers. Encouraged by the
move, the minister announced a meeting for
Monday evening; and on that evening a dozen
or more, mostly young people, went to the
altar with me. The meetings continued, and
grew noisy with shouting, too noisy for me,
because some of those who shouted did not im-
press me favorably, and some of the more
zealous ones disgusted me. I quit going to the
meetings, though they continued for a month
or more, and were then transferred to another
church in the county and held there for
[77]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

several weeks. There were hundreds of con-
verts. Meantime committees were sent to per-
suade me to again attend the meetings, but I
stubbornly refused. Nevertheless, all the while
I was wrestling in prayer and beseeching God
for such a miraculous experience as my mother
and grandparents had. I went to my mother,
and she tried to reason with me that it was not
necessary for me to have exactly her experience.
She thought I was already a Christian al-
though I did not know it. My grandfather
Douthit, whom I loved and trusted, finally said
to me, " Why, Jasper, you should not make
such ado, and be asking God to give you the
same experience that your mother had. St.
John gives a very simple test of how we may
know that we have religion. He says : ' We
know that we have passed from death unto life,
because we love the brethren.' Now," con-
tinued my grandfather, " if you know that you
love the brethren, you have got religion." I
thought a moment, and exclaimed in rapture!
" Why grandfather, of course I love every-
body."

A few mornings after that talk with my
grandfather, I went into a deep glen near Shel-
byville to pray and thank God for the light

JORDAN UNITARIAN CHURCH
Dedicated Sept. 29, 1870

J^A^fc^*

i Pw H

P1^^ ~~* ?„' TTI r

I

UNION CHURCH AT MODE

Dedicated July 20, 1873

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

that had come to me. It was winter and the
trees were bare. But while I prayed, the winter
woods seemed suddenly glowing with a won-
drous light and beauty; and a sweet old hymn
came to me, giving assurance that God sent
Jesus to be my Deliverer, Saviour and Best
Friend, forever. Then what a wonderful peace
came to me ! This is why the song, " Wonder-
ful Peace," sung by Bishop McCabe at Lithia
Springs, is one of my favorite songs. That
morning as I walked the busy streets to school,
the faces of all I met — men, women and chil-
dren — seemed radiant with a light that never
shone from sun or star. That was a heavenly
vision which I have tried to obey for over fifty
years.

The reader may smile at this religious ex-
perience and call it a mere fancy. Well, it was
a mighty real and uplifting fancy to me which
I hope never to forget, in time or eternity. I
can but wish that more of those whom I have
tried to serve would experience such a fancy,
if it might strengthen and comfort them as it
has strengthened and comforted me through
life's hardest battles and sorest trials.

The majority of people drawn to my min-
istry have not had strong religious faith, nor

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

have they been trained to habitual public wor-
ship. On the contrary they have been alien-
ated from the church and, except in a few con-
spicious instances, they have been honest doubt-
ers, agnostics, and more intellectual and material-
istic than spiritual. To preach to such people
is harder work than to preach to spiritually-
minded people and habitual church-goers. It
draws on the nerves and vitality, unless the
preacher is mighty in faith and full of the
Holy Spirit. I remember once at Meadville,
President Livermore spoke to me of this fact.
" But," continued he, " such people are just
the ones who need earnest, Christian, Unitarian
preaching." Preaching to such people made
me crave the fellowship of deeply spiritual reli-
gious people.

When asked how I became a Unitarian I re-
ply that I suppose, like Topsy, " I jist growed."
Though most of my ancestors were Calvinists and
a few were Methodists, for several generations
back, yet I cannot remember the time when I
was not Unitarian in principle — that is, Uni-
tarian in what to me to-day is the broadest, best
sense of the word. I would emphasize the
unite, and care less for the arian or ism, but we
must have some name in this world in order to
[ 80 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

do honest business. I became identified with
the Unitarians simply because they were the
only body of Christian believers, so far as I
knew, who would ordain me and give me perfect
freedom to preach the gospel as God gave me to
see it, without dictation by Pope, Synod, or
Conference. The Methodist people with whom
I first taught and worshiped gave me, indeed,
the liberty to speak in their class meetings ; and
when teaching in the primary department of
the Shelby Academy, I made appointments to
preach in the school-houses round about. I
was preaching at least five years before receiv-
ing ordination in 1862. But there were some
churches and school-houses where I was not al-
lowed to preach. Therefore, the year before
the Civil War began, I solicited funds and
helped build an independent meeting-house in
the woods four miles east and south of Shelby-
ville, which we named " Liberty," and which was
free for religious and other public meetings.
Here I tried to preach, and organized a Sun-
day-school. That was the house in which the
" Knights of the Golden Circle " held their meet-
ings. It was burned soon afterwards. The
burden of my preaching in that house was for
Union, Liberty, Charity, Temperance and
[ 81 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

Righteousness in religion and through the
nation.

The preachers I heard fifty years ago had
" an itch for disputation " and heresy hunting,
so that congregations were split upon such
questions as whether God made the Devil or
the Devil made himself. There was bitter con-
troversy and turning each other out of church
on such questions as communion and baptism,
regardless of how pure the character of the
heretic might be. I thought that was all wrong,
but I dare say I sometimes made the mistake of
showing some of the same spirit which I con-
demned; for I have never found it difficult to
show, on occasion, the requisite amount of in-
dignation against what I believed to be wrong;
while to " speak the truth in love," to be gen-
tle amidst " an evil and perverse generation " —
is not so easy.

My wife had often heard Rev. Thomas Went-
worth Higginson speak, and she admired him
and Theodore Parker, and told me that they
were Unitarians. She thought the Unitarians
would ordain me to preach, taking none but
Christ for Master and Leader in religion.
That was what I wanted. Accordingly I wrote
Mr. Higginson. He replied in a very kind
[ 82 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

letter, and referred me to Robert Collyer, " a
noble man and a minister-at-large in Chicago.
I don't know how radical he is, but he is liberal,
which is better." Soon a hearty letter came
from Brother Collyer, saying : " Come and
see me, and go with me to our Western Confer-
ence at Detroit, Michigan." There on June
22, 1862, I was ordained to the Christian min-
istry. Moncure D. Conway, Charles G. Ames,
Thomas J. Mumford, George W. Hosmer, and
Robert Collyer took part in the service. Then
I went back to my own country, preaching in
groves and school-houses, for I was not allowed
in the churches — till worn in body and sick at
heart, I went again to see Brother Collyer. He
looked at me and said : " My dear fellow, you
are so thin I doubt if you can stand it to go
through four years at Meadville, and I am
afraid it will be a wet blanket to your enthu-
siasm, but you shall have a chance." Rev. J.
G. Forman, then minister at Alton, Illinois, and
Secretary of the Western Sanitary Commission,
joined heartily with Collyer in sending me to
Meadville. So I went.

The three years spent at the Meadville Theo-
logical School are remembered as the happiest
and most helpful period of my life. My wife
[ 83 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

and our two older children made a pleasant
home for me, and all the associations of the
school inspired me to do and be my best. I do
not remember so much of what I learned from
the text-books, but there is a flood of precious
memories of the spirit and life that pervaded
the school. Personal contact with such peo-
ple as President A. A. Livermore, Doctors
George W. Hosmer and Austin Craig (the
genius and saint of the " Christian Connec-
tions"), Professors George L. Cary and Fred-
erick Huidekoper, and such fellow students as
Jenkin Lloyd Jones, Edward A. Horton,
George H. Young, Isaac Porter, David Cronyn,
Charles W. Wendte and the rest meant much
to me, as well as the almost daily fellowship, the
religious study and practice, the social worship
and song, and Sunday service at church of
such a minister as Richard Metcalf, whose ser-
mon on " The Abiding Memory " went so deep
into my heart that I shall never forget it.
Then the uniform courtesy — the " kindness
kindly expressed " — of the patrons of the
school, the Shippens, the Huidekopers and
others — and especially have I often thanked
God for Miss Elizabeth Huidekoper's kindness
to my family, and her helping hand from that
[ 84 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

day till now, when at ninety years she is pro-
moted and crowned forever among the bene-
factors of that school on God's hill — all, all
abide in my memory as a living picture of
" sweetness and light." I know there were
cloudy days and nights of suffering ; and at last
I was obliged, because of my mother's distress,
to go home to her instead of being present with
my class at graduation. Nevertheless, memory
now only notes the cloudless hours and cheerful
faces.

While a student at Meadville Divinity School
I received what I regard as one of the highest
honors of my life, one for which I was cer-
tainly not qualified. I was offered the Presi-
dency of the United Brethren College at West-
field, Clark County, Illinois. In scholarship I was
not prepared for the position, but the United
Brethren and I had been welded together by a
furnace blast that tried most souls in the war
for the Union and against slavery and intem-
perance. We had been emphasizing the unite
for several years, so that we considered our-
selves as one in spirit and purpose. I think
it must have been from this fact that the Uni-
tarian missionary was thus honored by the
United Brethren. I remember that when I con-
[ 85 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

suited our beloved President Livermore about
the position offered me, he smilingly said:
" Oh, Brother Douthit, you must finish the
course here first, and then, if they want you,
you may accept that position." But Westfield
College has had better presidents than I could
have made. It has grown and is now one of
the most liberal Christian educational institu-
tions in southern Illinois.

Soon after graduating at Meadville in 1867,
I was called to the Unitarian Society in Prince-
ton, Bureau County, Illinois. This society was
a part of the congregation of the Rev. Owen
Lovejoy, member of Congress and brother of
the abolition martyr, Elijah P. Lovejoy.
While at Princeton I first made the acquaint-
ance of the late Carl Schurz. He was engaged
to lecture there, and on the day of his lecture
in the evening I met him in a public hall where
a traveling phrenologist had hung on the wall
likenesses to illustrate a series of lectures. Mr.
Schurz was interested in phrenology. We had
a pleasant talk about the pictures, among which
was one of Bismarck, who happened to be the
subject of his lecture that evening. I had
learned to admire and trust Mr. Schurz when
Lincoln was first nominated for President, and
[ 86 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

I had been greatly helped by the example of his
heroic life and noble character. At Princeton
I had also a very pleasant and most helpful ac-
quaintance with William Cullen Bryant, the
poet. Three of his brothers were members of
my congregation, and my wife had been a con-
tributor to the poet's paper. Before this ac-
quaintance with the author of " Thanatopsis "
I had read and thought more of Thomas Car-
lyle than of Emerson; but Mr. Bryant called
my attention to the fact that Emerson was al-
ways sunny, sweet and optimistic, whereas Car-
lyle was often cynical and pessimistic. I
needed that lesson then. In my first efforts
for reform I was liable to be faultfinding, to
emphasize the error more than the truth, and
under strong excitement was disposed to ridicule
and be sarcastic. My speech was too often
more in the spirit of Carlyle than of Emer-
son — perhaps influenced more by the law
thundered from Sinai than by the spirit of the
Christ. I went fishing for men as Mr. Beecher
once said some ministers did. It was as if a
fisherman with a good outfit, hook, line and
bait, should go along the bank of the stream
or pond and thrash the water with his rod, cry-
ing " Bite or be damned." The great apostle's
[ 87 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

advice was: "Speak the truth in love." It
is possible to speak the truth in the spirit of
Satan. Jesus said, " Let your light so shine
that others seeing your good works may glo-
rify your Father which is in Heaven." Dr.
William G. Eliot once said to me : "I think
we should read that saying of Jesus with the
emphasis on so." That is, let your light shine
in such a spirit and manner as will show more
of God's truth and love. I had a fine illustra-
tion to the point a year after that lesson from
Bryant. I was preaching in Mattoon, Illinois,
and Mr. Emerson filled the pulpit for me one
Sunday. His subject was " Immortality."
All who heard him praised the discourse, be-
cause, of course, none of us wanted to be
thought unable to understand the great man.
There was a little six-year-old girl there who
joined the chorus of praise. Her grown sister
expressed surprise, saying : " Why, child,
what do you know about that sermon? You
couldn't understand a word of it." To which
the little sister made quick reply : " Suppose
I didn't understand the words, I knew the
sermon was good ; for I could see it in his face."
When excited and moved with indignation at
wrong, I have often felt rebuked by the memory

[ 88 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

of the following words of Charles G. Ames in
his " charge " when I was ordained. He said :
" Take heed to your spirit and temper, that
you speak the truth only in love. The hour
cometh when looking in the Master's eye of
tender, awful goodness, you shall judge it bet-
ter to have spoken three words in charity than
three thousand words in disdainful sharpness of
wit." The longer I live the more I feel the need
of pity rather than blame for the erring and
sinful.

I spent three months at Princeton and then
went back to my own country. The change
was a hard trial for both my wife and me. I
resigned at Princeton in the face of the unani-
mous protest of the members of the society and
also in opposition to the wish of some dear
friends like Robert Collyer. Indeed it seemed
a foolish move to most of my friends to give
up a good salary and pleasant post and come
to a region where I must serve without salary
and struggle with poverty. But God and my
wife and my sorely troubled mother knew why
I felt this to be the loudest call on earth to me.
Aside from the call to general mission work,
there were strong reasons then why I should be
near my distressed mother, who the doctors said
[ 89 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

could remain but a little longer in that body
of pain. She had grieved because of my ab-
sence for three years at Meadville, and now she
begged that her eldest son would stay with her
to the last and be a sort of guardian to her
younger children when she was called away.
No wonder some dear Unitarian friends were
much disappointed, if not vexed, to have me
leave such a position as I had in Princeton for
this unpromising field. They did not know all
the cause, and I did not feel at liberty to tell
it then. My mother and brothers and sisters
helped me all they could. They persuaded my
father to let me have a little patch of ground
to cultivate, and on which Mrs. Douthit could
raise chickens and turkeys. I built a shanty
which we afterwards used as a hen-house and
camped in it until my brothers helped me build
a house of three rooms, where we lived from
1869 to 1875, when we moved to Shelby ville.
Here we lived in a little old house till the Hon-
orable George Partridge, of St. Louis, joined
with friends in Shelbyville in helping us to buy
the brick parsonage by the church. There was
left to us by some of those who took shares in
this house, a debt of twelve hundred dollars un-
paid and secured by mortgage. This pressed
[ 90 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

heavily on us when I was in the midst of my anti-
saloon crusade and my salary was cut down. It
was then that the late Mrs. Helen M. Gougar, a
most heroic and eloquent temperance reformer,
was called to plead for home protection in Shel-
byville. She learned of the mortgage on our
house, and our pinch, and quietly went to work,
and with the assistance of local friends and
others at a distance she gave my wife and me
the greatest surprise of our lives — a warranty
deed to the house free of all incumbrances. I
mention this fact because of an erroneous im-
pression abroad, that my wife and I got into
debt and so got that mortgage on the house.
We did not. We only assumed the debt that
other shareholders incurred and failed to pay.
But we did mortgage this house later in the
effort to found Lithia Springs Chautauqua.

[ 91 ]

VII

My mission work began in the old " Hard-
shell " Baptist meeting-house, later called the
Log Church, where my mother had taken me
when I was a babe, and held me in her lap dur-
ing the long services — the sermon often being
two hours long. It was in the midst of a dis-
trict that had always been destitute of any other
church privileges. For many miles around
there were no other churches excepting in Shel-
byville, five miles away.

The Predestinarian or " Hardshell " Baptists
were the first people who held religious
services in that region. Their theology was
Calvinism gone to seed. They taught that
God had decreed from the foundation of the
world a fixed number who were to be saved and
a fixed number who were to be cast into Hell
forever, without any regard to good or bad
works. Man had no will of his own. Hence
to make any effort to improve or reform or
train children in the way they should go was
[ 92 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

folly, if not blasphemy. The only thing to do
was to sit still or drift, and let God do it all.

I state this old Baptist doctrine just as I un-
derstood it when I was a boy. I did not be-
lieve it, but I believed in my mother. My
mother and grandmother planted Bible seeds in
my mind and heart that choked out the doctrine
of the preachers. It has been one of the chief
regrets of my life that I was not made more
familiar with the Bible in my early youth so
that I could quote it easily. It would have
been a great advantage to me among the people
for whom I have labored. I once asked Ralph
Waldo Emerson how he would convince these
people of the sin and evil of slavery and strong
drink, especially when they hold to the Bible's
infallibility and quoted scripture in support of
slavery. He replied promptly : " I would
quote the same authority against slavery, be-
cause to them it is the highest." I did this with
excellent effect.

The do-nothing doctrine of the " Hardshell "
Baptists caused them to vehemently oppose all
missionary efforts, Sunday-schools and temper-
ance reform and an educated ministry. All
that saved my mother's children, so far as I
can see, was the fact that she did not practise
[ 93 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

the " don't care " doctrine with her children,
but, by constant precept and example, taught us
to be good and do good. She and my father
were ever saying to their children, " Whatever
you do, you must always speak the truth, be
honest with everybody, and go to meeting
(church) and behave."

It would hardly be just for me to omit say-
ing that while my Calvinistic forefathers held
to doctrines and practised customs which in the
light of the present day I believe to be wrong,
yet they were thoroughly sincere in their faith.
" I would rather you would differ from me, if
you must in order to be honest, than to pretend
to believe what you do not." Thus my grand-
father would often say to me. They were more
true to the light God gave them than some of
their descendants who claim greater and better
light. These Baptists called a member who was
strong in the faith " hard," which meant sternly
orthodox ; and a member that was disposed to be
liberal they called " soft." My mother was
reckoned as " soft." When I first told her with
joy that I had found a people who would take
me in and ordain me to preach the gospel, she
asked, " What do they believe? " When I told
her, as nearly as I could, she exclaimed:
[ 94 ]

MB. DOUTHIT ABOUT 1870

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

" Why, my child, that is what I always believed.
I joined the Baptists because I wanted so much
to belong to meeting, and there was nothing
else to join."

It was naturally decreed that a church such
as I have described should die. The factions
ground together like the upper and nether mill-
stones, having no grist, till they ground them-
selves to pieces. Their divisions and subdivi-
sions were endless on questions that nobody on
earth knows anything about. The split that
was the beginning of the end of the old church
in this locality, was on what they called " the
two-seed doctrine " — the seed of good and evil.
One side held that God made Himself and that
the Devil made himself, and each of them had
a separate kingdom. The other side contended
that God created Himself and the Devil also.
The church split on that question, and that
about ended it in that region. My mother's last
pastor and a dozen or more of the churches of
the Southern Illinois Baptist Association went
over to the Universalists ; for their good hearts
made them feel that if God had decreed any-
thing, he must have decreed that all should be
saved.

It is hard to conceive of a community with
[ 95 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

so great a prejudice against giving money for
religious purposes as prevailed in this locality.
It was taught to be especially wrong to give
money for church or missionary purposes. I
knew a well-to-do farmer, a good fellow in
many respects, who boasted near the end of his
long life that he had never given a dollar to a
church or a preacher. And yet he asked me to
visit him at his death-bed and I preached his
funeral sermon. I had many years before been
asked to pray at the death-bed of his wife. I
have often paid livery hire to serve at funerals
where the bereaved parties seemed to think the
honor of being invited to officiate, and a " thank
ye," were reward enough. I have thought so
too, because it gave me a hearing among many
people to whom I could never otherwise get a
chance to preach.

I have known professed church people, good
honest fellows as the world goes, who were sup-
posed to possess fifty or seventy-five thousand
dollars, who seemed to think they were doing
generously to give ten or twenty dollars a year
for the support of their faith. So much de-
pends upon early training and the custom of
the community. It requires much grace, tact
and generous example to change such habits —
[ 96 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

often more than I have been able to illustrate.
The following editorial appeared in the
Shelby County Union as late as the year 1870.
It illustrates the prejudice that even then pre-
vailed against giving money for religious ob-
jects. The Union said:

" A few Sundays ago we witnessed the taking
up of a collection in a church. It was at the
session of a Sunday-school. One hundred and
fifty, more or less, were present. Some shook
their heads, some appeared too busily engaged
to notice the hat when passed, while others dived
into their pockets and made a ' dry haul ' — it
may be a few tobacco crumbs. All but one lone
man, — that was the minister. The boy who
carried the empty hat looked at that one with
something like mingled pity and dread, and then
reluctantly presented the hat, and the minister
was the only contributor among those one hun-
dred and fifty poverty-stricken souls. The Su-
perintendent of the Sunday-school had to say
that the weekly distribution of Sunday-school
papers must stop for want of a few dimes nec-
essary to partly pay for the same. And yet
harvests are plenty and business brisk."

But there is a brighter sequel to that story,

for the Sunday-school papers were not long

discontinued. As soon as the want was made

known, the Unitarian Sunday-school Society,

[ 97 1

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

gave enough copies of The Daysprlng to
gladden all the children's hearts and brighten
the homes round about. Some " Hardshell "
Baptist parents made their children return the
papers and said they should not come to the
Sunday-school if they were allowed to read any-
thing but the Bible, but there were other par-
ents who sent money to help pay for the
" pretty little paper." I remember one pious
old grandma who lived in a cabin in the deep
woods and who walked one day over two miles
through a snowstorm to our home on the
prairie. She came to bring " two bits " (twenty-
five cents), which she had wrapped carefully
in a bandana handkerchief, to pay for The
Dayspring for her grandchildren. I have
been happily surprised in recent years to find
files of that little paper preserved to this day
as a precious treasure in some homes of this
mission.

While some well-to-do people at a distance,
knowing the character of the work and the
need, have volunteered aid and seemed happy
to do so again and again, yet in this vicinity
it has been wage workers and persons of little
means who as a rule have been the most cheer-
ful and generous co-workers in the mission.
[ 98 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

Many have been the times in my extremity that
some of the poorest in this world's goods have
caused me to thank God and take courage for
renewed efforts. They have helped with their
own hands to build meeting-houses, to build the
tabernacle and library chapel at Lithia, and to
dig down hills and make roads in the park.
In many instances they have given a share of
their wages to support the Chautauqua.

For example, while I write this story, a
young man comes to say, " I will give half my
wages for a month to help support the Chau-
tauqua for 1908." A hired girl, on learning
that the Chautauqua might not be held next
year for want of funds, says : " I will give
$10 of my wages rather than not have it go
on." A poor man and an excellent helper in
Chautauqua work, whose home is fifty miles
away, says : " I have heard that you are hav-
ing a hard tug to continue the Chautauqua. I
will help you all I can free of charge. I am
going to rally a company to come over and help
you this year for the love of it." A poor ten-
ant farmer who has a family and a hard strug-
gle to make ends meet comes to say : " There
are several of us fellows who can't give much,
but we will give ten dollars apiece to help out the
[ 99 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

Chautauqua, because it is doing our folks so
much good."

Several times in the history of this mission,
when, for want of support, I was on the eve
of answering a louder call, some of the poor
people of my parish, without knowing that I
had decided to leave, have come to the rescue.
For instance, once while we lived in the little
home on the prairie, my wife and I were ready
to give up, but just then there came a poor
farmer in a two-horse wagon with a load of
chickens, sacks of flour, potatoes, and other
family necessities and said : " I know you
must be having a hard scrabble to get along,
but I do hope you will stick by us, for we can-
not do without you."

Another time, in Shelbyville, I had written
my resignation when one of the poorest families
of my congregation did an act which moved the
hearts of those in better circumstances to make
me feel obliged to reconsider my decision.

I will relate one very singular experience.
It was during one of the darkest hours in our
battle at Lithia. It seemed that we must give
up and surrender our home and everything but
honor. We were at the bottom of the meal
tub, and my wife and I had determined to live

[ 100 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

on spare diet rather than incur more debt. In
that critical hour, there came to our door one
dark night a woman of a popular church, a
woman who had the name of being stingy and
whose husband I had tried hard to rescue from
drink. This widow did not know of our want.
She called my wife and said : " The Lord has
been telling me all day that before I slept I
must come and give you some money. I don't
know why it is so, but I can't sleep till I have
given you this ; but you must never mention my
name to anyone but your husband." Then she
said " Good-night." She had given my wife
twenty-five dollars. In less than a month after
that event some Unitarian friends helped us to
push the battle at Lithia for another year. By
such seemingly special providences we were kept
in the battle.

But I must go back to the early days of the
mission. One Sunday afternoon in the Log
Church — after two of the Baptist preachers
had preached an hour and a half or two hours
each, and had denounced Sunday-schools and
new-fangled college preachers, I arose, and an-
nounced a meeting the next Sunday for the or-
ganization of a Sunday-school. The novel an-
nouncement created a sensation; and there was

[ 101 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

a crowd on hand, mostly children of laborers
working on the railroad, now the Big Four.
We had a big Sunday-school. Then my wife
started a subscription school, and had a house
full, the greater number being Irish-Catholic
children. I held meetings every night for sev-
eral weeks. The old house was crammed and
jammed, running over with people. But it
could stand the pressure. It was built of hewn
logs of big trees, and had enough timber in it
to make half a dozen houses of its size.

The crowd that gathered at the Sunday-
school hour did not all come from religious
motives. Sometimes a few of them came to
settle quarrels that had begun at a dance or at
the races. It was not a very great novelty to
have a fight in the yard or the road with knives
and pistols. Once in Sunday-school, while I
was expounding the Beatitudes, a rough man
who was fired with drink, rose and said, " That's

all a lie." He further said he had come

there to whip the abolition preacher, and he
was going to do it right away. The fellow was
angry with me, because, knowing of the dis-
tress of his family, I had warned saloon keep-
ers that I would prosecute them if they let him
have liquor. He had come to take vengeance

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

upon me. A half dozen boys remonstrated
with him, and when he persisted in his determi-
nation and rushed for the pulpit, it became nec-
essary to deal with him less gently. In spite
of his struggles, the boys succeeded in taking
him bodily and placing him on the back of his
horse, and, on promise of good behavior, he
was permitted to go his way. Then we called
back into the house the scared and scattered
women and children, for there was only one adult
man there, and all sang with spirit and under-
standing a rousing temperance song.

My wife and I lived at first in a little shanty,
about ten by twelve. We tried to live on what
she earned by teaching and what I could raise
by cultivating a little farm. The whole com-
munity, except the Catholics, were " dead set "
against paying a preacher anything. A for-
eigner, however, who became a regular attend-
ant at my meetings, came to me one day and
said, " I don't see how you live without pay.
Come down to my house and I will give you a
little sweetening to help you along." He gave
me a big jug of sorghum molasses. That was
my first year's salary and my first pay as
preacher in that mission. The next year the
same man paid me five dollars, this being the first
[ 103 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

money I received as salary from the people
to whom I was preaching. This man was not
noted for his generosity, but he had been trained
to give for the support of the gospel. Then an
old fellow who hailed from Nova Scotia, and
who was inclined to scoff at the church, said:
" I find that since these preaching services have
begun my chickens have not been stolen so much,
and life and limb are safer. I for one am wil-
ling to chip in to help keep the thing a-going."
And so he headed a subscription, and went
with it to Shelbyville, five miles away. Thus
my third year's salary was increased to about
fifty dollars, although my wife made much more
by raising chickens and turkeys than I did by
preaching.

[ 104 ]

VIII

In the first years of my work at the Log
Church, 1867 and 1868, I began to preach in
Mattoon. At first the Methodist and Cum-
berland Presbyterian churches were kindly
opened to me ; and then the public halls. Ralph
Waldo Emerson, the Concord sage, gave me a
labor of love in Union Hall, on Sunday, Dec.
15, 1868, and on the following Sunday, Dec.
22 — Forefathers' Day — Unity Church of
Liberal Christians was organized in Mattoon.

I also preached at the school-houses round
about, tried to cultivate a little farm of twenty
acres, and edited a department in the Shelby-
ville Union, called " The Preaching Corner."
This was, of course, purely a labor of love,
but it required the best of two days of each
week for preparing copy, reading proof and
going, on foot or horseback, to and from Shel-
byville.

I started also to build a new chapel in my
[ 105 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

own district and the following letter to my
brother tells how it was done:

"April 17th, 1870.
" Dear Brother George, —

" I am overwhelmed with work. Is that news
to you? This morning I awoke at two o'clock,
and the more I thought of what there is to do
to-day the more I couldn't sleep. Most that
presses now to be done is for other folks and
pro bono publico. I find the Chapel, Oak
Grove, will go unfinished another summer (the
enterprise had lagged through one summer) un-
less I drop all and go right to work at it.
Hence it comes to pass that I strike out as soon
as daylight to hire a plasterer, see that the mor-
tar is mixed, etc., etc. I expect to go right on
and foot the bill myself, if I can sell anything ;
and when it is ready I'll send for Collyer to dedi-
cate it and then ask the assembled people to pay
for their church, and if they don't do it, I will
resign in a farewell discourse, give them my pri-
vate opinion of a people who appreciate the gos-
pel enough to permit a preacher to build a
church and pay for the privilege of preaching
in it. / am in earnest."

This Oak Grove Chapel stood within a few
feet of the spot where our primitive log school
house stood sixty-eight years ago. There we

[ 106 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

little boys with nothing to wear but coarse,
home-spun tow shirts, a single garment, hang-
ing below the knees like the children's night-
gowns now, first went to school, and said over
and over again every day for six months, our
A B C's. About a mile from the same place
I taught my first subscription school when I
was eighteen years old. Robert Collyer came
down from Chicago to the dedication of this
chapel. It was a novel occasion — the first of
the kind in that region. I will let him tell of
this, his first visit to the mission. The follow-
ing is an extract from a report he gave to The
Liberal Christian, a weekly paper edited by Dr.
Bellows, published in New York City :

" Jasper L. Douthit's new church in Shelby
County, Illinois, was dedicated on Thursday,
the 29th of September, 1870. It was a beauti-
ful and touching sight to me altogether. The
church is called the Oak Grove Church. It is
in the center of a noble piece of woodland,
buried so deep there that they have had to cut a
road two miles long through the timber on one
side, and another a little shorter in another di-
rection. But the place is central in the thinly-
settled region over which Mr. Douthit has the
care of souls. It is also close to the secluded
cemetery of the countryside — a sweet spot as

[ 107 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

ever the sun shone upon — silent above ground
almost as below. The church itself is a nice,
seemly structure of the meeting-house order
of architecture. The seats and pulpit are of
black walnut, rough but solid. The whole thing
is home-made ; that is, by Mr. Douthit and the
rough-and-ready farmers and others interested
in the movement, together with the help of a
devoted carpenter, who gave a great deal of his
labor. Contributions of work and money have
been made by members of almost all the churches
in that region, by Jews also, and a few out-
siders. It fell to my lot to preach the dedica-
tion sermon. A Lutheran minister read, ' The
wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad
for them,' and offered the prayer. They listen
down in ' Egypt ' to the preaching as if it did
them good. I left the manuscript in the saddle
bags and ventured to speak without it. Said
very little about points of difference and all I
could about the great things all Christians hold
in common. They have the quaint old Quaker
fashion down there of sitting separately — the
men on the one side, and the women on the other.
The women wore sunbonnets, and some of the
men were without their coats. Rustic all of
them and rough, but good to look at, — very.
Mr. Douthit had one great load on his mind - —
the lifting of the debt. It was only about two
hundred dollars, but it was appalling to him be-
cause they had all done what they could who had
the thing at heart. He told me afterwards,
[ 108 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

with a solemn face, that if it hadn't been paid
he had made up his mind to sell his only mare.
Mr. Douthit made a most effective address at
the close of the sermon, and told the people what
he wanted them to do. There was a little spurt
of generosity, then a pause, as when a ship
about to be launched slides almost down to the
water and then will go no further; but we put
our shoulders to it and started afresh ; got warm
to the work; went through the whole congre-
gation, one by one, and ended by getting almost
half as much again as was wanted, making the
minister about as happy as a minister can be.

" I can hardly tell how much good Mr.
Douthit has done in that region. It is to me
simply wonderful. Religious men and women
of other persuasions join with him and help in
the singing and prayer. His brothers, splen-
did, stalwart fellows, are on his side, and main-
tain his cause. He goes to Mattoon once a
month when he is strong enough, and has a
small hearing there; writes a religious column
for one of the papers, and has a small farm be-
sides, but I doubt whether he is much of a far-
mer, and small blame to him. Is it worth my
while to say that his best helper and inspirer
after God, is his wife, a small slender woman
from Abington, in Massachusetts, who is proud
and glad in her quiet way, of the good work.
She works herself, also, I fear beyond her
strength, but does not seem to know it; a poet
and a thinker, doing her own housework, a
[ 109 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

woman's work on a farm, caring for her little
brood of children, and almost not regretting
that she is five or six hundred miles from a
mountain and eight or nine hundred from the
sea."

So much for Robert Collyer's report. It
was Mr. Collyer's eloquence and running fire
of drollery and happy anecdotes that completely
captured the crowd. At first some persons left
the house with a grumble. This provoked Coll-
yer to a witty comment which I cannot recall,
but to the effect that it did not disturb him for
little children to run out of church while he
talked, but grown folks ought to have learned
to behave better when a stranger came to do
them good. Then some sang and others
laughed, and the grumbling fellows returned to
see what was up. There was soon a broad smile
on their faces and they shoved their hands into
their pockets and " shelled out " their loose
change. I remember one dear old woman who
wore a frilled cap with a sunbonnet over it. I
had known her for a lifetime, but had never
known her to give a cent for any such thing.
She looked glum and cross when Mr. Collyer
began his plea, but soon she smiled and pulled
out of her pocket a little bag of silver and

OAK GROVE CHAPEL

With one of the oldest burying-grounds in that part of the country

FIRST UNITARIAN CHURCH, SHELBYVILLE

Dedicated May 8, 1876

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

emptied it in the collection. Blessed be her
memory !

Not long after that I was offered the ap-
pointment under President Grant's administra-
tion to an Indian Agency, which I declined, and
most of my friends thought I was foolish to do
so, just as they thought when I declined the
post-office under Lincoln.

On my birthday, Monday morning, October
10, 1870, I wrote my brother George who was
at Antioch College :

" My Dear Brother, —

" I want you to help me. Since Collyer was
with me and is gone I feel even more lonely than
before. Perhaps the excitement and wear and
tear were too much for me. At any rate I have
had a low, sad time for a week or more, and like
Elijah under the Juniper tree, I have placed my
face on the earth and asked the Lord to let me
die and go where the wicked trouble us no more
and the weary are at rest. Of course, I know
this is not the right spirit, even while I can't feel
differently. «O God, be pitiful!' I would
write to you about our dedication, but that I
was surfeited with it and the troubles it brought,
and do not want to think about it much. We

had trouble with the family again about

it. They didn't want Collyer to preach the
dedication sermon at all unless he would preach

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

it on Sunday, and voted against it, although a
large majority voted for him to come as he did.
The day appointed it rained and we postponed
till next day. Collyer gave a most rousing talk
that made eyes water with mirth and sorrow
alternately, and when we asked for help to
clear the church of debt we got by pledges on
paper two hundred and ninety -five dollars! A
most miraculous draught! It will pay the debt
wholly and partly pay for a bell for the chapel.
I never beheld such generosity before. Only
three persons in the congregation said no!
The others seemed glad to give because Robert
Collyer asked them. I long for the days when
you will be with me; but still I pray you press
on at Antioch and graduate. Write letters to
your brothers and sisters exhorting them to
fidelity and to be good Christians. Why don't
you have the Index sent direct to you and
save me the trouble of mailing ? Pardon me for
saying that I think it is not just the thing
which you need to read. You had better by
far read Beecher's Lecture Room Talks, etc.
Write me a good long letter. May God bless

^ " Affectionately,

" JASPER."

"P. S. — This is my birthday. I am 36
years old and some wiser if no better. Give my
love to Dr. Hosmer and tell him I often think
of him."

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

In my diary of Thursday, Jan. 5th, 1871,
appears this entry :

" Elder Ellis closed his labors with us Mon-
day night. He presented a subscription at the
close of meeting for my support for the year
1871. Mostly young folks were present.
They came up with remarkable alacrity and put
down their names, for from one to ten dollars —
only three of the latter. It amounted to sixty-
two dollars on paper, on the spot, and most of
the members of the society, strange to say, were
absent. In fact this was subscribed largely
by those who gave nothing last year. Ellis
talked to them very plainly. Said he, ' I am
his ( Jasper's ) bishop and he shall go away from,
here if you don't support him better than you
have done.' "

[ 113 ]

IX

I remember that for the first twenty or
twenty-five years of my life there were no
funeral services whatever at the burial of the
dead, not even a hymn or prayer, throughout
the country in which I was reared and began
preaching. It was the custom to have a funeral
preached some months or years after the death.
Then the preacher made no reference to the
dead but a long harangue mostly of scripture
quotations to prove his pet doctrine and comfort
the elect. I recall nothing tender and uplifting
that was spoken on such occasions, and yet there
was something in the deep sincerity of the
preacher and the general spirit of the service
that struck me with awe and made me want to
be good. This custom of no service at funerals
shocked new-comers. I have heard Yankees and
Irish-Catholics exclaim : " What a queer peo-
ple these! They bury their dead as if they
were no more than dogs ! " But now for many
years I have not known any people in all this
country so " queer " as not to have a funeral

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

service at the burial; so that even those who
habitually neglect the church and lead godless
lives never bury one of their family without
calling a minister to officiate.

I have said I never witnessed a funeral service
at a burial till I was over twenty years old. It
was on the death of the husband of my father's
sister. While his body lay in the coffin at their
home and the mourners had gathered to follow
it to the grave, my aunt begged me to read
some comforting scripture and make a prayer.
But after that first service at my uncle's death
to this present time I have ministered at the
burial of all my uncles and aunts, in this vicin-
ity, and nearly all my relatives in this locality
on my father's side, who have passed away ; and
there are dozens of these laid side by side here
since fifty years ago. When grandfather
Douthit passed, Elder John Ellis assisted me in
the service. When my mother went in August,
1871, aged fifty-seven, my young brother
George assisted me with a most uplifting hymn.

Two years after my mother's death, my
brother George himself joined " the Choir In-
visible." Then I must alone endeavor to speak
comforting words to the weeping crowd in Oak
Grove Chapel, where he had helped me so effect-

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

ively. That was, at the time, the sorest cross
of my life. I could not feel that it was right
for one to go who was so young, so stalwart
physically and so helpful and full of promise
as co-worker with me in the ministry.

George Douthit was a manly man. His body
was large and tall, weighing nearly two hun-
dred pounds, with a fine face, and most like, so
my mother used to say, his father when young
and before the dread custom of the times had
changed him. He had a charming musical
voice. He was the picture of health, and seemed
destined for long life. He was cheerful, full
of humor and good spirits, fond of manly exer-
cise, and, withal, of most serious purpose. He
felt called to help me in the ministry and did
help wonderfully. But he presumed too much
on his strong constitution. He overworked and
unwisely exposed himself. He returned from
Antioch, after a year of hard study, and worked
through a heated term in the harvest field. He
was prostrated with malarial fever and when
slightly recovered he attended crowded meetings
of nights in badly ventilated and over-heated
rooms.

I want to tell a great deal about my brother

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

George in this story, because he has been near
me and a co-worker in this mission as effectively
since what we call his death as before that event.
" For are they not all ministering spirits ? "
The story of my life work would be sadly
lacking without this testimony of what his life
on earth and in heaven has helped me to be
and do.

I cannot now sing well enough to be heard in
public; and I could scarcely distinguish
"Yankee Doodle" from "Old Hundred" till
I heard brother George sing. The last time he
was with me in a public meeting before he passed
up higher, he sang with such marvelous power
the old hymn : " Guide me, O Thou Great
Jehovah," that it seemed as if a holy contagion
swept through the entire audience; and a little
while after, to my great surprise, I was singing
that hymn as I had never sung before in my life,
though I had learned printed notes in music and
tried in vain for many years to sing.

I am convinced there is infinitely more music
to be learned by contact with hearts and souls
inspired of God than by all the training of
experts with printed notes or vocal culture.
" Nearer my God to Thee " was sung by my

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

brother George at Log Church the first time
it was heard in this part of the country. He
had learned it at Antioch College.

George was one of the little band of eight
persons who united in organizing the first
Unitarian church in southern Illinois, namely,
the Oak Grove Church of Liberal Christians.
When he heard the history of my early struggles
and my failure to get to Antioch College, he
was ambitious to gain a victory over that
failure. He would go to Antioch anyhow,
graduate and come back and help me win other
victories from defeat. He did go, for three
years. Meantime, as was revealed after his
death, he bequeathed the little estate he pos-
sessed to be used for the education of my chil-
dren, so deeply interested was he in my work.

Not only in this mission was his death greatly
mourned, but his teachers and fellow students
at Antioch College felt his loss keenly. They
had all grown strongly attached to him, and
were deeply impressed with his life among them,
so much so that Doctor George W. Hosmer, the
President of the College, was moved to come and
preach a sermon in his memory a few months
after the burial.

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

I cannot forbear transcribing some extracts
from a letter written at the time of my brother's
death by President Hosmer to the Liberal
Christian. This letter was dated February 10,
1873. It reads as follows:

" Just now we are mourning the loss of
George W. Douthit, the brother of our mission-
ary minister in southern Illinois. Mr. Douthit
was twenty-four years old, a member of our
Sophomore class, a superior scholar, and a noble
young man. He died at his home in Illinois.
Let me tell you of this family and its home.

" Southern Illinois, you know, was Egypt,
because so dark with ignorance, intemperance,
and the love and defense of slavery. In that
darkness these young men, our devoted minister,
Jasper, and this lamented George and other
brothers and sisters were born. Jasper was the
eldest, and in his early youth he rose up in pro-
test against the life about him ; he was for anti-
slavery, for temperance, for education, and for
free liberal Christianity. The community was
incensed against him, violence was threatened;
but he stood calm and determined. Pressed by
such difficulties and dangers even, he heard there
was to be a Conference of Liberal Christians at
Detroit. I remember him as he appeared there,
looking as Abraham Lincoln would have looked
at his age. He touched our hearts, he con-

C

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

vinced our reason, and we gave him the right
hand of fellowship, and helped him go to Mead-
ville to prepare for the ministry.

" When Jasper was prepared, by three years
at Meadville school, he would go nowhere else
but back to his old battlefield in Illinois, though
earnestly invited to easier fields of labor, and he
returned in solemn purpose to do what he could
to scatter that darkness. And there he has been
for some years, enduring hardness that Paul
would praise. He is near his old home amidst
those who, twelve years ago, threatened him with
violence, and his sphere is an area of fifteen to
twenty miles; he has four preaching stations,
and is giving himself in all helpful ways to the
people around him. I think we have no such
Christian ministry as his.

" George, whose death we mourn, rose up in
the light of Jasper's life. Quickened, inspired
and aided, he came here for education to prepare
himself for usefulness in helping Jasper. He
has distinguished himself here, showing large
ability and fine intuition. Always grave, ear-
nest and manly, he prompted his fellow students
to true, noble life.

" Just before leaving here, Mr. Douthit read
a paper of rare pith and force before his Lit-
erary Society. The last time he was with his
associates, it became known that he was to leave
for a time, and some of the younger members,
with an unreasonable levity, called upon Mr.
Douthit for a song. With a quiet dignity he
[ 120 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

rose, and uttering a Methodist farewell song or
hymn, to suit his circumstances and feelings, he
sang it through, filling eyes not used to weeping
with tears, and awakening thoughts of tender
solemnities in those not often reached by reli-
gious appeals."

The visit of Dr. Hosmer and the memorial
service proved one of the most memorable oc-
casions in the history of this mission. The ven-
erable president was a most impressive person-
ality to look upon. He was large, dignified and
manly, with silver locks and a face beaming with
smiles. My father thought Dr. Hosmer
preached the greatest sermon he ever heard. It
moved all hearts. It was a beautiful tribute
to the memory of one whose brief life had seem-
ingly moved more souls to think of God and
eternal life than many who stay on earth more
than three times as many years.

While visiting me on this occasion, Presi-
dent Hosmer wrote again to the Liberal Chris-
tian, of June 7th, 1873, giving his impression
as follows:

" Here I am, this charming summer day, in
southern Illinois, in Brother Douthit's best
room, in the quiet country, a beautiful grove
round the simple house, the wild flowers bloom-

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

ing, and the birds singing, making the morning
joyful. This room has a large case of some
of the best books usually seen in a minister's
library. There are four large portraits upon
the wall, each finely significant — Dr. Chan-
ning's, Theodore Parker's, Robert Collyer's, and
one of George Douthit, the brother of our
friend Jasper, a very superior young man, a
student of Antioch College, who died last win-
ter. We all loved and highly valued him, and
the college sends me to sympathize with the be-
reaved neighborhood and bear testimony to the
worth of the promising young man. I wish
our whole denomination could see the modest
home of their missionary and his field of work.
His house, built by his own hands, with the help
of the brothers, would hold a small part of our
Israel at a time, and the intrusion would be seri-
ous to most housekeepers; but Mrs. Douthit,
who was a Massachusetts woman and not a
stranger to books and Muses, with a calm,
sweet dignity, would not be disturbed. We
really have an Oberlin here in southern Illinois.
Brother Douthit strives to supply the spiritual
wants of the people anywhere within six or seven
or ten miles. He has four principal preaching
stations; and by his large, catholic spirit and
fine, sharp thought, he is winning hearers and
fellow workers; and a great enlightenment al-
ready appears. People are collected for wor-
ship ; schools are better managed and more cared
for.

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

" The work Mr. Douthit is doing here is
hard, — to many it would seem repulsive, — and
very poorly compensated; he could not live but
for his few acres of land and his garden.
These farmers, many of them, having had no re-
lations with any church for years, have no habit
of giving and are surprised with themselves
when Mr. Douthit's unselfishness and real, use-
ful service wins gifts from them. But the work
is interesting; it shows the only way of uplift-
ing these wide-spreading farming communities
of the West."

Sometimes, when cast down and feeling keenly
my personal shortcomings and failure to ac-
complish what I have attempted, I have been
cheered by the thought that if this mission has
been the means under God of saving that one
brother from ruin, and making his brief life
such a power for good, the mission has been
worth more than it has cost. And, so far as
God gives me to see, the lives of scores of young
people whom I knew forty or fifty years ago
would have been blasted, as many before them
had been, but for just such influences as God
sent through this Unitarian mission.

In a remote part of the county some twelve
niiles from Shelbyville, about a mile from a little
village called Mode and beside one of the oldest
[ 123 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

graveyards in the county, there was a little log
school-house. I preached there for some time,
and the house became too small for our meetings.
Then the farmers said they would join hands
and build a new meeting-house and call it Union
Church, to be free to all denominations when
not occupied by the Unitarians. The house
was built to seat some three or four hundred
people, and everybody said that Robert Collyer
must come and dedicate it. They had read and
heard of his being at Oak Grove Chapel. Mr.
Collyer came and when he arrived he said he
had gotten farther into the real Egypt than
he had ever been before ; for it was a sort of
wilderness place.

The following report of the dedication serv-
ice was made by the Shelby ville Union:

" Last Sunday, the 13th of July, 1873, was
the day set apart for the dedication of a new
church just completed near Mode, in this county,
and twelve miles southeast of this city. In the
service the Unitarian, Christian, Methodist and
Presbyteriari sects were represented. An ex-
cellent choir had been extemporized by Prof. J.
C. Smith, of Marshall, Clark County, who had
also the aid of a sweet-toned instrument. About
six hundred dollars in money was to be raised,
to leave the house free from debt. It was up-

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

hill work. Mr. Collyer said that one sad sign
of the need of a church in that community was
the apparent indifference on the part of some
persons in the immediate vicinity. Many per-
sons gave beyond their ability. For example:
it was enough to bring tears to a stingy man's
eyes to see old Uncle Jacob Elliott come forward
holding out a handful of money in addition to
the generous contributions of money, timber and
land he had already given. He is one of the
oldest settlers of Shelby County and truly one
of nature's noblemen. And his wife is equal to
her worthy husband. Everybody had a free
invitation to go to Uncle Jacob's crib and help
himself to oats and corn for his beasts and to eat
a lunch with him. The name of Jacob Elliott
will go down to a grateful posterity, while the
men who live in splendid mansions and refused
to give anything will be forgotten. Uncle
Jacob lives in an old log house of but two
rooms."

It was during this visit for the dedication at
Mode that Mr. Collyer learned the story
of John Oliver Reed's remarkable conversion.
A while before this visit of Mr. Collyer, this
man had told his religious experience in a heart-
searching speech to a wondering crowd at a
meeting at Oak Grove Chapel. My wife and
I took notes of that speech, and reported to
Mr. Collyer when he came. He made a sermon

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

story of it to his congregation in Chicago, and
it was published in the daily papers. Then the
American Unitarian Association printed it in
tract form, and it was reprinted in England
and translated into Welsh. Thousands of
copies have been and are still being circulated
in America and in other countries. The tract
is entitled " A Story of the Prairie." It is true
to facts in every particular. John was my
cousin, the son of my father's sister, and after
his conversion he told how once, while I was
taking the enrollment for the draft, he went to
one of my Sunday services with a pistol in his
pocket, resolved to shoot me if I preached what
he had heard I was in the habit of preaching;
but during the opening prayer he gave up the
resolve; and was troubled in conscience till the
great light and wonderful peace came to him.
In those early days I made appointments at
various school-houses, and nearly always had
good congregations. Much of the time,
having no other way of getting there, I walked
through mud or snow or sleet. The last long
walk made on Sunday morning to fill an ap-
pointment was twelve miles through the snow.
There was just one family at meeting that
stormy morning, and they were not members of
[ 126 ]

MR. DOUTHIT AND HIS SONS ROBERT AND GEORGE

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

the church. They afterwards became zealous
members of the Free Methodist church, but
were always my faithful friends. The father
helped me to buy one of the first printing
presses used in the mission; and his daughter
was married at the Unitarian parsonage and
went to Africa as a missionary, and died there.

During this period Elder John Ellis, of
Yellow Springs, Ohio, a liberal evangelist of the
" Christian Connection," gave valuable assist-
ance in my work. Elder Ellis was one of the
early trustees of Antioch College and he was
at one time editor of the Herald of Gospel
Liberty, published at Dayton, Ohio, said to be
the oldest religious weekly published in the
United States. But he was mostly a pilgrim
preacher, walking to his appointments, much
of the time, with staff in hand, till he dropped
suddenly.

Brother Ellis was powerful in song and
prayer. He was the author of the once popular
song in the West, called " The White Pilgrim,"
and he could sing it most impressively. He be-
came interested in my work in the year 1868,
and from that time to the close of the first
protracted meeting in the court-house, March,
1876, he was frequently with me. He helped
[ 127 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

in the gathering of congregations at Oak
Grove, Mode, Sylvan and other points in the
county. He died a few years ago at the age
of eighty. His wife, a physician and relative
of General W. T. Sherman, published her hus-
band's autobiography, in which he speaks only
too kindly of me and my labors. At one time
in the first years of the work in Shelbyville,
Mrs. Ellis had a class of over fifty young
women in Unity Sunday-school who were mostly
hired girls in the homes of the town.

During the years of my preaching at Oak
Grove, Mode, Sylvan, Mt. Carmel and the old
court-house, and in the early meetings at
Lithia Springs, Jacob Smith, a popular sing-
ing-school teacher, gave me valuable assistance.
He was an elder in the Presbyterian church at
Marshall, Illinois, but was a most loyal friend.
He sang with his whole soul and taught others
to sing in my meetings from the time we first
met, about 1869, till the Father called him
home.

[ 128 ]

In 1874 I was jaded in body and hedged
in by poverty. The way to continue the work
was hidden. My mother had died and I was
not needed at home for her sake. Brother
George had gone. I was tempted to give up ;
but some friends urged me to go to the
National Unitarian Conference in Saratoga,
New York, and make a speech. My wife said
I was not fit to go alone. Our four children
were quite small. The youngest child, our
Christmas gift, three years old, seemed too little
to leave. However, it was decided to leave all
with friends and go. I thought it would
probably be the only and last opportunity I
would have to testify to a Unitarian Conference
of what was nearest my heart. People had
told me that Unitarianism was only for the
" highly cultured," and that I was wasting my
life where the field was not ready for our
gospel. I really felt that if this were true, I
[ 129 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

could not call myself a Unitarian, but before
I discarded the name, I would clear my con-
science with some last words to the Unitarian
body. Moreover, I was encouraged on learning
that distinguished Unitarians like Doctors Ed-
ward E. Hale, Henry W. Bellows, Rush R.
Shippen and Robert Collyer had determined to
make a forward move for missionary work.

So I accepted the invitation to speak at the
National Conference and Mrs. Douthit went
with me. The missionary meeting was held on
Thursday evening, September 17, and Judge E.
Rockwood Hoar presided. One of the speakers
was Rev. Thos. L. Eliot, of Portland, Oregon,
who was most eloquent for aggressive work.

From the rapturous applause his address re-
ceived, I began to think that the main body of
Unitarians was alive for the gospel to all
people. I was glad, though I trembled, to be
called to follow Dr. Eliot. The following is
the synopsis of my speech as reported at that
time in the Christian Register:

" We ought to have learned from higher au-
thority than Prof. Max Mueller that Christian-
ity is a missionary religion. The command of
its great founder was, ' Go into all the world
and preach the gospel.' To preach the gospel
[ 130 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

in Christ's mind was to live the gospel. Chris-
tianity is not merely giving wise advice, not
going half way, but the whole way, to save men
from sin. The Holy Spirit blows everywhere
for the salvation of men. The leaven of the
Kingdom of God leavens the whole, not half, of
humanity. If Unitarianism does not mean that
a Christian is a missionary by nature, if it does
not mean to convert the world to Christianity,
then we had better give up the Christian name
and no longer dishonor it. What shall we do?
Shall we scatter our literature? Yes; but let
us send men as missionaries with the Holy Spirit
in their hearts. It is a great joy to me that
this denomination has concluded not to spend
its force in grinding upon itself, but that it is
to show a more missionary spirit. We need
more spiritual force. We need, as Dr. Hedge
has said, ' morality with the divine emphasis.'
Where the will of God fills the heart, it finds the
way to other hearts. It is the individual, per-
sonal sympathy that moves men. Warm sym-
pathy is what most people crave. And for the
want of it amongst us, many remain in false
ecclesiastical relations who would otherwise join
with us in the army of progress. On the line
of progress in holiness and love let us move on-
ward. Let us obey the laws of God, which are
the laws of progress."

Dr. Henry W. Bellows, of New York, the
beloved President of the National Sanitary

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

Commission for the armies of the Union in the
Civil War, followed me with one of his most in-
spiring addresses. " Dr. Bellows never spoke
with greater power," so the Christian Register
reported ; and that was saying much of the most
eloquent preacher then among the Unitarians.
" The meeting was exceedingly enthusiastic,"
continues the Register's report. " Brothers
Eliot and Douthit received the warmest welcome
that warm-hearted people could give. They
are the embodiment of the true missionary
spirit."

At the close of the meeting Judge Hoar, the
chairman, was the first to thank me for my
address. Then followed scores to shake hands
and express sympathy. I was surprised beyond
expression, and my wife was still more sur-
prised, " for," said she, " I have heard you
preach better often when nobody thanked you."

The hour was late; but after the speaking,
Rev. Rush R. Shippen, Secretary of the Con-
ference, presented the following resolution:

"' Resolved; That we give to Brothers Eliot
and Douthit our hearty sympathy and God-
speed in their arduous labors in difficult places
of our work, and that we promise them sus-
tenance and sympathy forever."
[ 132 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

The resolution was emphatically approved by
a standing vote of that audience of several
thousand wide-awake Unitarians. That great
multitude of bright, cheering faces was about
the most inspiring scene I ever beheld. It seems
as if it would never fade from my memory.

The following editorial comment appeared in
the Christian Register of Sept. 26, 1874, Rev.
Thomas J. Mumford, Editor:

" The best meeting at the Saratoga Confer-
ence was on Thursday evening, when in addi-
tion to the other excellent addresses Messrs.
Eliot of Oregon, and Douthit of Illinois, made
the most telling speeches of the kind to which
we have ever listened. The earnestness, sim-
plicity and modest unconsciousness of these no-
ble men, fresh from their outposts, thrilled the
whole assembly, and if the representatives of
our churches had felt authorized to make large
pledges, the hoped-for $100,000 could have
been raised on the spot. Many laymen said
substantially : ' If this is the work that can be
done in our country, and such men as these can
be found to do it, it is time for us to close our
skeptical mouths and open our unbelieving
pocket-books very wide in response to the ap-
peal of the Unitarian Association.' Many
clergymen also heard and we trust heeded the
voice of that memorable hour which called them
[ 133 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

to renewed consecration and increased sacrifice
in the work of the ministry. There is nothing
so potent in its influence, or so searching in its
suggestions, as the presence of faithful men who
have endured hardness without the least whim-
pering or boastfulness. It puts to shame all
our ordinary devotion and average fidelity.
Messrs. Eliot and Douthit must return to their
isolated positions cheered and strengthened by
such cordial manifestations of the confidence,
honor and love of their communion."

Ex-Governor John D. Long, of Massa-
chusetts, later Secretary of the Navy in Presi-
dent McKinley's cabinet, in an article in the
March, 1875, number of the Unitarian Review,
Boston, has this bit of description :

" At the recent National Conference at Sara-
toga, where, with the few usual exceptions which
prove the rule, everybody was brilliant and fer-
vid and kindling; where some denominational
questions were argued with rare eloquence;
where orators spoke, unsurpassed in graceful
persuasiveness or magnificent declamation ;
where elaborate thinkers searched the obscurest
enigmas of theology and science, the audience
groping to follow, — you who were there re-
member that one evening, at a sort of mission-
ary meeting, there came forward a young man,
slender and tall, and as lank as Abraham Lin-
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JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

coin. His straight hair ran down behind his ears
to the collar of his coat. He rambled in his
speech, as if he were timid before that cultivated
assembly, and stumbled over the minutes which
at first he held in his hands. But his voice
somehow was of that sympathetic, human sort
that you couldn't help listening to; his eyes
were so honest and soulful and saintly that you
couldn't look away from them ; and as he nar-
rated in a homely way his labors among obscure
men in obscure places, his preaching in barns
and taverns and court-houses and school-houses
and school-rooms, in that Egypt which is the
Nazareth of his state, going about doing good,
literally following in the steps of the Saviour,
with scarce other compensation than his own

Cse of doing the Master's work, — so worn
n his labors that he was almost too ill to be at
Saratoga, — the heart of every man and woman
in that audience went out to him and loved him ;
and more than one cheek was wet with tears.
Human nature, which loves warm existences and
generous deeds, and wearies of philosophy and
talk, seemed to assert itself with a glad sense of
relief; and this genuine Christian warrior and
holy pilgrim was from that hour the very hero
of that great Conference, though himself all the
time utterly simple, unaffected and unconscious ;
and as I looked at his pale face and listened to
the sweet Methodistical appeal of his voice,
which rose in the eloquence of truth, when he
threw his notes aside and uttered his soul in the
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JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

freedom of his own quaint, natural exhortatory
style, like a bird singing in its native forest;
and as I thought of the Jim Bludsos, the rough
natures, the hungry souls, whom no white
choker or clerical pendant could have touched,
but to whom he had brought a gleam of the
higher life, and in whom he had implanted the
springing seeds of Christian charity and cul-
ture ; of the homes he had blessed and the hearts
he had lightened, — then and there it was that,
walking on the plains of Judea, healing the
sick, blessing little children, feeding the poor,
and comforting the sinning and the sorrowing,
I saw, with my own eyes, once more upon the
earth, a living disciple of the blessed Jesus of
Nazareth. Such a spirit and such a life, adapt-
ing themselves, of course, to every variety of
circumstances and society, are what, if there is
any worth in Christianity, the Christian Uni-
tarian body wants today ; for such were the life
and spirit of Jesus Christ, its founder."

Thus I was introduced only too kindly to our
Unitarian body. I feel unworthy and rebuked
every time I read such kind words as I have
quoted about myself in these pages; but I have
been persuaded that it is due the cause to which
I have devoted my life, and to the distinguished
friends who have thus kindly testified and co-
operated with me in the mission. In the words
of him who gave me the " charge " at my
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JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

ordination, Rev. Charles G. Ames : " I have
learned from the Swedish sage that he who takes
to himself the credit of good works which the
Lord enables him to perform, is at heart a
thief — he takes what does not belong to
him."

I never again received such enthusiastic ap-
plause as that at Saratoga. I never was invited
but once afterwards to address so large an
audience. That was a year or two after the
meeting at Saratoga and it was in Music Hall,
Boston. I was in no condition to speak. I
had been dissipating, that is, I had accepted in-
vitations to too many banquets. In company
with Doctors Hale, Bellows, Brooke Herford,
Rush R. Shippen and others, I had lunched at
Harvard College with President Eliot; and on
the evening of the meeting at Music Hall I had
been with Doctor Hale to a club banquet in Bos-
ton, where by request I had given some report
of my acquaintance with Ralph Waldo Emer-
son on his lecture tour in the West. My ad-
dress at Music Hall seemed to fall flat, though
there were some expressions of approval from
Doctors Bellows and Hale and a few others on
the platform. I hope never to forget how, at
the close of the meeting, Doctor Hale kindly
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JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

took me to his home, put me to bed, passed his
hand softly over my face and said soothingly:
" Good night ! Good night ! You have done
what you could. Now don't worry, but sleep
sweetly." I had tried very hard to keep from
making known my distress; but somehow the
dear man knew it all.

That meeting at Saratoga made me quite rec-
onciled to my task. Mrs. Douthit and I then
consecrated ourselves anew to this mission. It
is not too much to say that mostly in the
strength of the inspiration and assurance re-
ceived at that Conference, I have kept courage
and pegged away here " in His name " thirty-
eight years longer than I had expected. I have
held on, hoping against hope deferred, because I
believed that whatever else might be said of the
faults of Unitarians, they were noted for being
as good as their word, and so long as I gave
myself and my all to the faith that makes faith-
ful and also tried my best to practise the faith-
fulness that makes faith in the service of man,
I might trust the good Providence for the re-
sult. And through all the years since, from
time to time, I have had cause to thank God and
take courage from the men and women who were
at that Saratoga Conference, though most of
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JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

their faces I have not seen since, nor can I hope
to see them again on earth.

After so many years in the rural districts I
felt I ought to make a determined effort in
Shelbyville. On Sunday, February 15, 1874, I
began regular preaching in the old court-house,
Several discouraging attempts had been made
to secure a hearing at this place. In my diary
for Monday, February 22, 1869, occurs the
following :

" A muddy, disagreeable ride to the court-
house and back last night. About a dozen were
present. They listened suspiciously rather than
kindly. Some acted as if they had gone into
the wrong pew and were ashamed of it. Next
Sunday I shall try again in the day time."

Accordingly I walked five miles on the next
Sunday morning to the court-house. The ap-
pointment had been thoroughly advertised. A
short time before the hour for services one man
looked in at the door, and on being told there
would be preaching if anyone came to hear,
said perhaps he'd come around again after
awhile, and he went away. That fellow lived
in the district where I had been holding meet-
ings, and had come to Shelbyville on Saturday,
and had got so drunk he couldn't get home that
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JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

night, and so was on hand, to a small extent, that
Sunday morning. I waited until nearly twelve
o'clock, but the man not returning and no one
else coming, I turned my steps homeward some-
what cast down, but determined to try it again.
Occasional efforts were made during the next
five years, but were not very successful. But
now, in 1874, I determined that if the audience
averaged no more than one dozen, and though
the minister had to be his own janitor, and
pay all incidental expenses, he would neverthe-
less stick to it for one year. At the first
meeting there were about two dozen persons
present, and the audiences gradually increased.
A number of the members of my congregations
in the country came in and helped. Unexpected
friends arose. A small Sunday-school was or-
ganized in the spring of 1874, and rapidly in-
creased in number and interest. The Church of
the Disciples, Boston, Dr. James Freeman
Clarke, pastor, sent us a donation of books for
the Sunday-school library. Then our old
singing teacher, Mr. Jacob C. Smith, the same
who had got acquainted with me in the country
work, came over from Marshall, Illinois, and
taught one of his popular singing-schools in
the court-house during May, 1874, closing with
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JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

a jubilee concert, and giving part of the pro-
ceeds for purchase of an organ for the society.

On Thursday evening, May 13, 1875, at a
meeting held in the court-house, thirteen per-
sons united in a church organization. Novem-
ber 1, 1875, the members had increased to
twenty-one persons. During the month of
February, 1876, real revival meetings were com-
menced at the court-house, continuing with
unabated interest every night for eight weeks.
Elder John Ellis, of whom I have spoken on
another page, assisted in this memorable re-
vival.

I believe that protracted effort was what
Theodore Parker would call " A True Revival
of Religion." The result was certainly ethical.
I think I may say the key-note of the meet-
ings was struck by Jenkin Lloyd Jones, who
preached in the old court-house a while before
the meetings began. His sermon was very
practical and enthusiastic. It caused the dry
bones to shake.

The final result was a church of seventy-five
members of the unchurched and mostly poor
people of Shelbyville, with several of the
county officers. Many had been hard drinkers.
One had been a saloon keeper for forty years.

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

A few years before, in his saloon, when I called
to notify him that I would prosecute him for
letting my father have whiskey contrary to law,
in order to intimidate me he made a pass to
break my head with a whiskey glass. But he
was " cooled off " instantly by a " few pointed
words " and a movement to " make good "
from my now sainted brother George, who was
with me and who was of size, nerve and force
enough to command respect, though he was still
a mere boy. It was the only time I ever saw my
brother thoroughly angry. Now this man con-
sulted with me as to the disposition to make of
his stock of liquors, and was my faithful friend
and helper until his death. He was punctual
at church and took a great pride in being the
first one at the annual day-dawn Easter services,
of which I believe he attended every one until
he was called to the everlasting Easter morn.

One of the prime movers in building the Uni-
tarian Church in Shelbyville, and a most gen-
erous supporter of the mission in his last years,
was one of the most beloved and trusted of
public officials. His grandfather won honor
as a soldier of the Revolution and lived to be
over eighty years , old. This man might have
been Governor of Illinois or held some other

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

high position if he had not fallen a victim in
the prime of life to the social glass. This man
came among the first to hear the preaching at
the old court-house in Shelbyville, and wel-
comed with joy as a new found treasure the
Unitarian gospel. He exclaimed : " That is
what I have always thought, but never heard
preached before ! I want to join that church."
And he did so, in good earnest, though he had
been during the Civil War strongly opposed
to my politics. Then he told me privately of
his weakness. He did not tell everybody, but
he told me more than I felt at liberty to relate
until his warfare on earth was over.

I remember well on the same night after
he signed the church covenant, at the old court-
house, he asked me to walk alone with him,
and said : " Douthit, I am in a worse way than
most people think ; you don't know it all. You
don't know how hard it is for me to resist when
old friends ask me to drink. I'm going to have
a desperate struggle, and I will need all the help
I can get. But I have enlisted for the war and
am determined to stick if you'll stick by me."
I replied : " Yes, my dear fellow, I will stick
by you so long as you will let me; I will stick
by you in this world and the next, if God will
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JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

let me, and I believe He will." " Douthit," he
said, " I would give all I am worth in this world,
if I might have heard forty years ago, the words
of warning and the gospel which I have heard
within the last few years."

I think it is not too much to say that the
first Congregational (Unitarian) Church of
Shelbyville would never have been built if it had
not been for that man, William A. Cochran.
He was a most loyal member to the last. In
the line of church charities and expenses, he al-
ways led the subscription. By his personal in-
fluence, he brought many of his friends to
church with him, and the people elected him
and re-elected him clerk of the Circuit Court
until his death.

This man was a good listener, and he never
got offended at the preacher who was some-
times, perhaps, too personal and practical. He
often expressed to me the joy it was to him to
be able to give to the church, and when he lost
large sums of money, he would say to me, " I
wish I had given that to the church, for then
I would have had no regrets."

I have said in the pulpit, and will repeat here,
that if the little church in Shelbyville has been
the means of saving even one man like William
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JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

A. Cochran, to such heroic effort for reform,
and thus redeemed his life, then the church is
worth all it has cost of toil and money. The
great question of the Master should ever be in
mind : " What doth it profit a man though he
gain the whole world and lose his own soul? "

The Shelbyville church, costing six thousand
dollars, was built two blocks from the old court-
house, and was paid for and dedicated within
the year. The corner-stone was laid on Mon-
day, November 2, 1875. Rev. Benjamin Mills,
pastor of the Presbyterian Church, Rev. Theo-
dore Brooks, pastor of the Christian Church,
and Elder John Ellis assisted in the ceremonies.
On May 8, 1876, the dedication exercises
were held, Rev. James Freeman Clarke, D.D.,
preaching the sermon of the morning; and in
the evening of the same day I was installed as
pastor of the congregation, Rev. W. G. Eliot
preaching the sermon. Dr. John H. Heywood,
Rev. F. L. Hosmer, Elder John Ellis and the
Rabbi Sonnenschein of St. Louis, assisted in the
ceremonies of installation and dedication.

In the spring of 1875 we left the little home

and farm in the country and moved to Shelby-

ville, and two years later to the substantial brick

dwelling next door to the church, since known as

[ 145 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

the Unitarian parsonage. Here has been my
home for over thirty years. While I felt that
for the good of the mission the change must be
made, I foresaw that it would make the ever
present financial problem more difficult for us.
In my humble cottage in the country, near my
brothers and other relatives, with my little farm
and garden, expenses were small and the problem
of how to live could be more easily met in case
of insufficient salary or failing strength which
might render me unable to work. But the reso-
lution of the Saratoga Conference of 1874 and
the surprising success of the effort in Shelby-
ville later, encouraged me to risk all. I knew
it would be a hard tug, for I could not but be
mindful of the inherent weakness of the organ-
ization in a financial way. The members were
mostly poor people on the move, and Shelby-
ville is an old town of only three thousand
population and ten churches. But I put all
the energy and life I could into the work and
refused to be discouraged by obstacles.

There is one experience of my ministry in
those years that lingers in memory, as about my
only real vacation. It was the summer of the
Philadelphia Centennial year. I had become so
worn by the continuous strain incident to the
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JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

pioneer church work that I could hardly walk a
hundred yards without stopping to rest. After
the church dedication, it was somehow made pos-
sible for me to take my wife and four children
to visit with her people near Boston and not
worry about the expense. While there we spent
some weeks in a cottage on the sea shore, but
I did not gain as fast as it seemed I ought.
I had read Starr King's charming book about
the White Mountains and longed to be there.
Born and reared on the prairie, I had had no
experience of mountains. I was persuaded to
go there alone for a week in August, 1876.
The train arrived at Bethlehem, N. H., near
Mt. Agassiz, late in the evening. The altitude
had changed the temperature for me from
August to a cool October. There was a
blazing fire in the fireplace at the hotel, and
a cheerful company of strangers chatting
pleasantly around the fire. I slept sweetly and
next morning after breakfast thought to take
a stroll a short way up Mt. Agassiz; but I
kept on and on until I had climbed to the top,
and when I came down was astonished not to
feel weary.

Learning that Henry Ward Beecher was at
the Twin Mountain House, near the foot of Mt.
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JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

Washington, I resolved to go there and stay
a few days. I engaged lodging at a farm
house near by. While at the railroad station
one day, as a passing train stopped, I heard
a cheery voice from the cars call my name and
say, " Am glad to see you here." It was the
voice of William H. Baldwin, President of the
Young Men's Christian Union, of Boston. He
was not to stop there but he jumped off the
train hurriedly and said : " I want you to
meet my friend Beecher. Let me write you an
introduction," and he hastily wrote in pencil
on a card kindly commending me to the famous
preacher. That was just like President Bald-
win, as every one will say who knows him. I
had been a subscriber to Mr. Beecher's paper,
the Christian Union, from the first number, and
had read his sermons for many years.

I found Mr. Beecher at the hotel engaged in
a game of croquet with Mrs. Mary A. Liver-
more and her husband, Rev. Daniel P. Liver-
more, the Universalist minister. I presented my
card of introduction when Mr. Beecher was
through playing. He greeted me cordially,
and among other things remarked that Mr.
Baldwin was a grand, good man doing a noble
work in Boston. He said the bigotry of the
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JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

Young Men's Christian Association in ex-
cluding Unitarians and Universalists caused the
Young Men's Christian Union to be organized
with Mr. Baldwin as president. " I am glad
to know," continued Mr. Beecher, " the move-
ment is growing rapidly in public favor as it
well deserves." When I told Mr. Beecher that
I had read him for years and admired and
loved him because he had done so much to save
me from religious unbelief, he dropped his head
and said in a serious tone : " Well, such testi-
mony helps me to better bear the unjust criti-
cism of which I have had to suffer a good deal
lately."

He invited me to see him any time at his
room and I had pleasant and profitable inter-
views with him during the week. He expressed
kindly interest in my work and said, " If you
need any books or any help anyway let me
know." I thanked him, but felt that his sym-
pathy and friendship were all I deserved, and
never asked for anything more. I heard him
preach on Sunday a memorable sermon on the
" Joys of the Christian Life." It became
known, I suspect through Mr. Beecher, that I
was a minister and interested in temperance re-
form. I was invited to speak on temperance

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

one Saturday evening at the Town House and
then accepted an invitation to preach the next
day, Sunday, evening. I was greatly surprised
to have my message received with such favor,
but still more surprised, and also amused, to find
that some of the farmers mistook me for Mr.
Beecher. It had been rumored that he was to
preach there at that time and people had come
from miles around to hear him. I certainly
did not in the least resemble the great preacher.
But the most remarkable experience of all to
me was the marvelous uplift in physical vigor.
I had been there but a few days before I ch'mbed
on foot five miles or more over rugged steeps
to the summit of Mt. Washington and returned
the same day. This sudden recovery of
strength was the most remarkable experience of
the kind in my life. On reaching the summit
I was overcome with awe and felt that I must
fall down and worship. The summit was
covered with snow. For scores of miles around
I beheld mountains and valleys and rivers and
villages that seemed as clusters of toy houses.
The Atlantic Ocean glimmered in the sunlight
nearly one hundred miles in the distance. I
read in silence some passages of scripture with
new meaning : " Great and marvelous are thy
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JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

works, Lord God Almighty." " Before the
mountains were brought forth, or ever thou
had'st formed the earth and the world, even
from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God."
" Lead me unto the Rock that is higher than
I." " Thou art my Rock and my Salvation."
While I was thus reading, a stranger perched
on a great rock above me suddenly broke out in
a loud voice with scripture quotations followed
with a hymn like " Rock of Ages," and all the
people round about stood still and silent as if
enchanted. That scene and day, August 23,
1876, linger bright in memory as the close of
the last real vacation and the most inspiring
experience in my life. Fresh power came to
me to will to be, and to do more and better
than ever. I resolved then that for the sake
of preparation for more and better work I
would make a pilgrimage to that altar of the
Most High every few years, the rest of my
life. The resolution has never been kept.
Meager means and fidelity to nearer duty have
prevented.

XI

A temperance crusade had been started by
our meetings at the court-house, and kept up
when we moved to the church, so that when
the so-called Blue Ribbon Crusade swept over
the country the meetings in Shelbyville natur-
ally started in our church, and then moved to
the largest audience room in town. For forty-
two nights in succession we held crowded houses,
until it seemed that nearly every man and
woman in Shelbyville and vicinity was wearing
a blue ribbon as a token of having signed the
pledge of total abstinence. I plunged into this
work with all my might, regardless of my limita-
tions of strength and heedless of consequences.
I was borne on by the wave of enthusiasm that
everywhere prevailed. At the close of those
meetings early in the year of 1878, I was
prostrate for six weeks.

A woman physician, Dr. Petrie, from
New York state, happened in town, and
learning of my case, kindly came to see me as

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

I lay helpless. She looked at me and said:
" I have a message from heaven for you.
You think you will die, but you will not. But
if you don't stop so much speaking night after
night you will become a miserable, chronic
wreck and useless the rest of your life." The
message deeply impressed me. I took the ad-
vice. I wish I knew the address to-day of the
good messenger so that I might express to her
my gratitude for the timely, wise warning that
has helped me to keep a frail body in fair
working condition for thirty years longer than
I expected. I was compelled, however, to give
up the work of a circuit preacher and confine
my labor to places near home. Thenceforward
I gave myself more to local preaching and
Post-office Misson work, the latter finally, for
the most part through Our Best Words. I
edited and printed this paper first as a parish
paper, in 1880, and then for a year more as a
missionary monthly, jointly with Dr. Charles
G. Ames, then minister in Philadelphia.

I have always believed in proclaiming my
message from the house-tops — that is, in ad-
vertising and in spreading the principles
which I have felt most called upon to preach.
I early recognized the power of the press
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JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

as an ally in this regard, and have improved
every opportunity to enlist the services of
the printed word in my work. I have
been a contributor to the local press most
of the time for fifty years, beginning as
associate editor of the short-lived Shelby
County Freeman, the first Free Soil or Repub-
lican paper started in this region of Illinois.
The Union was established in 1863 by John W.
Johnson. He was a sort of Parson Brownlow
editor, and a terror to " Copperheads," and his
columns were always open for anything I wished
to say. Several of my sermons on the war
were published in the Union. In 1868 the late
Capt. Park T. Martin, of Danville, Illinois, be-
came editor and, in part, proprietor of the
Union, and invited me to edit " The Preaching
Corner," of three columns, more or less. This
I did for the year 1870 ; and I continued to con-
tribute often to the local press thereafter.
With a few rare and conspicuous exceptions
during the Civil War and in my early anti-
saloon crusade, I have been treated with marked
courtesy and even generosity by the editorial
fraternity. Many local newspapers exchange
with Our Best Words, and the local press in this
and adjoining counties and the reform press
[ 154 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

over the state and nation have been especially
kind and generous in their notices of my work
at Lithia Springs.

In the several local histories of Shelby
County, large, costly volumes, I have been solic-
ited to write accounts of the Unitarian Mission
and have been given ample space in these sub-
stantial records of local history to tell of our
gospel and the effort to spread its principles
here. These volumes are in the homes of the
prominent families in every township in the
county, and will be conned over again and again
by coming generations.

From the time it was established in 1880,
twenty-eight years ago, Our Best Words has
had a circulation varying from five hundred to
ten thousand copies. The paper has been read
by hundreds of ministers and editors of all sects
and parties. These have learned through its
pages truths and facts, especially about Unita-
rians, that they probably would never have
otherwise known. I think it is not too much
to say that without some such printed messen-
ger this mission could not have had half the
influence in making known our principles of
freedom, fellowship and character in religion ;
and I am quite sure Lithia Springs Chautauqua
C 155 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

could not have been possible. Through the
reading of this little paper, several persons at a
distance have expressed the desire to become
identified with the Unitarian church, — persons
who have not before learned of any church they
could honestly join. The editing and pub-
lishing of the paper has been a labor of love
with me, and despite the defects and drawbacks,
the work upon it has been a pleasant diversion
and has often proved a rest from greater cares ;
so that, on the whole, it has been to me about
the most satisfactory feature of my missionary
service. Without such winged words, I should
feel like a disarmed soldier in battle.

In connection with editorial work on Our
Best Words for twenty years past, my son,
George L. Douthit, and I have published, be-
sides various tracts and pamphlets, the fol-
lowing books, most of which I have edited:
" Shelby Seminary Memorial," Illustrated,
cloth, 116 pages; "Out of Darkness Into
Light ;" " The Journal of a Bereaved Mother,"
by Mrs. M. A. Deane, cloth, 400 pages ; and
" The Life Story and Personal Reminiscences
of Col. John Sobieski," Illustrated, cloth, 400
pages.

When partly recovered from that long pros-
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JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

tration, occasioned by overwork during the Blue
Ribbon Crusade meetings, I began war against
the snares and stumbling-blocks in the way of
those who had taken the pledge and joined the
church in an effort to reform. These were the
open door of the licensed dram-shop, the corrupt
politics, and the treating customs of the par-
tisan bosses and the candidates for office. This
custom was so deeply rooted and of such long
standing that the majority of voters in both
parties regarded it as necessary for success.
" Of course no man can be elected to office in
this county unless he sets up the drinks freely.
You have got to do it or be beaten." That
was the stereotyped reply of political candidates
when I began to plead with them. Even some
members of my congregation would insist that
they had to do it, and persisted in the face
of my solemn protest. I saw no more effective
method of working than to publicly expose
through Our Best Words every clearly known
case of a candidate setting up drinks while
electioneering for office. I gave warning pub-
licly that I would publish the names of any
and all candidates who treated voters to liquor.
It was done, but it was a most painful ex-
perience. The saloon was in politics, and I
[ 157 ]

enlisted for the war to drive it out. Neither
of the political parties would tackle the giant,
nor whisper a word against it in their platforms
or party organs. By the help of Mrs. Ada H.
Kepley, of Effingham County, a member of my
Shelbyville congregation, and about a dozen
Free Methodists, at the court-house. May 29,
1886,. the Prohibition party had been organized,
and I warmly espoused the cause. But this
political activity was a most troublous and
costly business to me. My salary was cut down
and some friends at home and abroad turned
away. My printing press would probably have
been burned but for the fact that it was in a
third story where fire could not consume it with-
out putting a whole block in ashes.

Thanks to the efforts of Rev. J. T. Sunder-
land, Rev. John H. Heywood, Dr. James De
Normandie and other friends, I was enabled to
live and continue the battle, which went on till
the snake was scotched if not killed. At least it
has since been possible for men to be elected
to office in Shelby County who do not bribe
voters with liquor. The saloons were driven
out of Shelbyville, and my printing office was
moved into the room on the corner of the public
square where one of the largest and most pop-
[ 158 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

ular saloons had been kept. Our Best Words
had become a weekly, with the largest circula-
tion of any paper in the county, and by a
combination with the Farmers' Mutual Benefit
Association and similar movements, we came
very near electing at one time, 1890, an anti-
saloon ticket in the county. And yet, notwith-
standing my outspokenness for over fifty-six
years against their business, I am often called
upon to officiate at the funerals of saloon
keepers or members of their families. My
friend, Senator Chafee, once made the public
statement that no other preacher in town is
called on oftener to serve at the funerals of dead
drunkards. Saloon keepers have of late years
treated me with courtesy. The only instance
I recall to the contrary, besides the one already
given in this story, is of a saloon keeper who
took occasion, on meeting me in a friend's office,
to speak insultingly to me, and abuse me because
of my criticism of saloons. I expostulated with
him and told him that his father and mother
in heaven, who were my old friends, would be
grieved to have him treat me so, and that he
ought to quit his bad business and become a
better man ; that I meant only kindness to him.
Imagine my surprise when, in less than two
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JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

weeks afterward, that man was converted, joined
the church of his choice, and sent me a special
invitation to be present at his baptism. He
quit the saloon business and remained a consist-
ent church member the rest of his life. It is
one of the strangest, most astonishing ex-
periences of my life, that so very many who
have been most bitter in their abuse of me have
come to be among the most faithful friends.
But I was in a cross-fire on the one hand be-
cause of my aggressive temperance work, and
on the other because of my Unitarianism. Sev-
eral of the ablest friends of the mission at home
and abroad had died. Many of our church
members had gone away. My salary grew
smaller, so that I felt for the time I must either
give up the paper or give up my home and the
mission. At that time a stranger came to me
with a tempting price to buy my paper, and in
February, 1892, I sold out, but with the distinct
understanding that Our Best Words would be
continued in the same line of battle. I was
deceived. It soon became an organ of the Pop-
ulists. I was worn down again, and a season
of sad reverses followed. Then, after a year
or so, in which saloons again came into Shelby-
ville, a few friends rallied to my aid; and I
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JASPER DOUTHTFS STORY

began to publish in April, 1893, a small
monthly paper, Simple Truth, and finally re-
purchased Our Best Words, in October, 1894.
Then the Unitarians near Lithia Springs, some
of whom had worshiped at Oak Grove Chapel,
went to work and built another church near
where the Log Church stood, and right by the
graves of my father and mother. This was
called Jordan Unitarian Church. The church
was dedicated July 24, 1892, free from debt.
I never consented to have a church dedicated
otherwise. My dear friend, Rev. John H. Hey-
wood of Louisville, and Rev. T. B. Forbush,
then the zealous western superintendent of the
American Unitarian Association, and others
assisted.

My wife and I felt greatly honored and
blessed to have, during years before their trans-
lation, the hearty sympathy and kind co-opera-
tion of such saintly women as Miss Elizabeth
G. Huidekoper, mentioned elsewhere in this
story ; Miss Dorothea Dix, the famous American
philanthropist; Mrs. Martha P. Lowe, wife of
Charles Lowe, the much loved Secretary over
thirty years ago, of the American Unitarian As-
sociation, and Miss Elizabeth P. Channing,
niece of the immortal Doctor Channing. The

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

cheerful letters which these women frequently
wrote us through twenty-five years or more,
bring to mind, as I write, some of the happiest
recollections of my life, — but the happiness is
lessened by the thought that I ought to have
been a better man and accomplished more good
when favored with the friendships of such noble
women. Miss Channing gave me, a few years
before her death, what I prize as one of the
most precious treasures, — an autograph letter
of her distinguished uncle. The letter is most
tenderly consoling for the bereaved, especially
for all who have lost good mothers.
Here is a copy of Dr. Channing's letter :

"NEWPORT, Sept. 25th, 1837.
" My Dear Elizabeth, —

" I sympathize with you in your great loss,
for great it is to you, though I trust it is un-
speakable gain to your departed friend. I was
not at all surprised to hear of your mother's
death; grief and increasing infirmity had long
been leading her toward the grave, and now we
trust her wounded spirit is at rest. I never
knew a more tender heart. She not only felt
her bereavements most keenly, but was exqui-
sitely alive to the sufferings of her fellow crea-
tures. Few fulfilled as she did the law of ' bear-
ing others' burdens.' What deep sympathy,
what deepest solicitude, what never wearied
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JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

kindness have you experienced from her from
the first hour of life. What can equal in con-
stancy and disinterestedness a mother's love!
In losing such a friend we lose one whose place
cannot be supplied. You must be grateful that
you were so long allowed to commune with the
affectionate spirit; that you had so many op-
portunities of testifying your gratitude; that
you witnessed so much desire, amidst her trou-
ble and peculiar sensibilities, to resign herself
to the Divine Will. You must feel that she
died, as she had lived, to minister to you, — to
minister to the spirit by carrying your thoughts
upward and into eternity. Though the outward
ear cannot hear her voice, yet ' she speaketh.'
Our friends whilst they lived bound us to earth.
By death they perform a more blessed office,
they may lift us above it. I hope it will be the
effect of your suffering, — to tranquilize your
mind, to diminish the power of shortlived evil
over you, to give you fortitude and energy. I
beg you to present my affectionate remembrance
to your sister. My love to George and the chil-
dren. Ruth and my children are well and hold
yours in affectionate remembrance.
" Very truly and affectionately,
" Yours,

" WM. E. CHANNING."

In the beautiful " Autobiography and
Diary " of the late Miss E. P. Channing, is the
following record:

[ 163 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

"Sept. 14th, 1906 (?): — Gave my mite to
help on Mr. Douthit's mission, I think the
needed five thousand will be raised, and the apos-
tle of temperance, who has disarmed sectarian
prejudice, will at last be comforted with the
thought that he is understood."

[ 164 ]

XII

My first printed sermon was on " Unity in
Division." It appeared in the Phrenological
Journal, about forty years ago. I have
always been more eager to imbibe the spirit
of Jesus and impart something of that spirit
to others than to make people take my denomi-
national badge. It has been my hobby, so to
speak, to insist upon loyalty to conviction, to
respect the honest convictions of others and re-
joice in the good they may do that I cannot
do. I am glad to consider myself a member of
the church universal with a door wide open as
the Kingdom of Heaven, from which nothing
but an unchristian spirit can exclude me. In the
beginning of my mission, I had preached regu-
larly at the old Salem school-house for a long
time when one of my auditors, the late Curtis
Hornbeck, Esq., father of Rev. Marcus D.
Hornbeck, now a prominent Methodist minister
of Denver, Colorado, said to me one day:
" Brother Douthit, you are the queerest
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JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

preacher I ever knew. Here you have been
preaching for two years and have never once
given any of us a chance to join the church. If
you had, myself and wife and all my family
would have joined, but now we have joined
another church."

I am convinced that as a rule it is better for
people to become members of some church than
to be habitual non-church goers, or religious
tramps. I have observed that children of Prot-
estant families who have united with the Catho-
lic church have been better, other things being
equal, than the children of Protestants that
grow up without any church association. Oft-
times when I have been going many miles over
bad roads to meet my appointments, I have met,
going or coming, Catholic friends who must
travel long distances to attend their morning
services at church, while at the same time, some
persons calling themselves Unitarians, who lived
near church and who would go twice as far over
bad roads on week days to serve themselves and
for pleasure, were absent from their church serv-
ice because of the bad roads, the inclement
weather, a Sunday headache, or a social visit.
For the fifty years I have been preaching,
I never knew a family, to the best of my knowl-
[ 166 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

edge and belief, that habitually neglected
church duties which did not degenerate in morals
and manners, and become worse than their
fathers and mothers, — worse even though
" smart " and educated, in a sense. The more
respectable such persons, the more mischievous
their examples and influence on society.

" There are two freedoms," says Charles
Kingsley, " the false, where a man is free to
do what he likes ; the true, where a man is free
to do what he ought."

Non-observance of Sunday and the non-
church going habit have been among my great-
est causes of discouragement. Out-spoken op-
position and bitter persecution are not so hurt-
ful as the selfish indifference of professed
friends of a good cause.

We read that Jesus " went into the synagogue
on the Sabbath day, as his custom was." But
I have found many people who profess to be
sincere followers of Christ who when in
distress will send for a minister, and yet who
will on the Sabbath day follow a custom
directly contrary to the example of Jesus.
They will substitute visits and feasts for church-
going. Sometimes people use Sunday for labor
that could better be done on week days, and they
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JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

cannot go to church because they must take
an ox out of the pit which they put in on
Saturday, or had neglected all the week to take
out. I think of communities destitute of
church services where there might now be
flourishing congregations if the people had
formed the habit of attending public worship
on the Sabbath. I write with deep feeling
on this subject. My mother in heaven was
during much of her life, a slave to the kitchen
on Sunday, cooking over a hot, open fire-
place, and often having no chajice for church
or rest. Therefore, for many years, I have
made it a rule not to accept invitations to din-
ner on Sunday where I knew some of the family
were kept from church to prepare it. Not that
I object to dinners or social visits, but I do
earnestly protest against the discouraging,
soul-starving and church-killing habit of
staying away from church for a Sunday pleas-
ure excursion, or to cook and eat; or to trade
or do any work that could as well be done some
other day. In fact I have known the morals
of more than one community blighted by the
habit of manual labor or horse-racing and ball
games on Sunday. The following is a record
of the diary of my brother George. I give
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JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

it as illustrating a not unusual scene in the
early years of my work:

"Sunday, June 16th, 1867:— I went with
Jasper to Salem. He preached about a man's
social nature, — his duty of cultivating and ex-
ercising it by worshiping God together on Sun-
days. The folks around here have become so in-
dustrious, it would seem, that they have no time
to cultivate anything, unless it would be a patch
of corn, or to plant any kind of seed on the
Sabbath, except corn. There are eight teams
within a mile of here at work today. There
would appear to be some plausible excuse for
working to-day, it being so late in the season.
But I think they will lose more than they will
gain. They will lower their moral nature; and
in the very act of doing so they will plant seeds
of thorns that will ultimately grow and prick
them sore. They may raise better corn; but if
they do, it will be so much the worse, it will be
increasing an already too large acquisitiveness
at the expense of their higher nature."

In every case I now remember, that prophecy
of my brother, made over forty years ago when
he was nineteen years old, has proved true.
Yes, " God made the Sabbath for man." That
is, he has made one day in seven for man to use
mostly for rest and public worship, — made this
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JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

a law of necessity in human nature, and if this
law is violated a bitter harvest must be reaped
sooner or later. No man can habitually defy
that custom of Jesus without being worse for
it.

While most of my labors have been in this
county of Shelby, yet in the early years I
preached in the towns along the line of the
Illinois Central Railroad, main trunk and
branch, from Decatur and Champaign south-
ward to Centralia, and also on the Indianapolis,
Terre Haute, Alton and St. Louis line, from
Charleston in eastern Illinois to Litchfield in
the west. The managers of the above roads
kindly gave me free passage.

During the first few years of my charge in
Shelby ville, at the urgent request of Dr. E. E.
Hale and others, I tried to act as a state mis-
sionary for Illinois. I kept up the services in
Shelby County, and preached also in Jackson-
ville, Alton, Hillsboro, Pana, Decatur, Farina,
Centralia, Effingham, Charleston, Urbana and
Champaign, the seat of the state University.
At the two last named cities I had the hearty co-
operation of the then president of the Uni-
versity, Dr. Peabody, and others of the Board
of Instruction. But I broke down at such

[ no ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

work. There was not enough of me to go
around. Finally I concentrated my effort in
Shelbyville and the vicinity, using Our Best
Words as an arm to reach out to the acquaint-
ances made over the state. I felt a stronger call
to preach to the people that would gather to
hear me in the school-houses and out-door
meetings in the vicinity of my birthplace,
though certainly money was never an element of
strength to this call.

This home mission has been to me a high
calling of God. I have by invitation preached
in churches in the larger cities of the nation,
such as Chicago, Boston, Cleveland, Toledo,
Columbus, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Detroit,
Milwaukee, St. Louis, Louisville, New Orleans,
and other cities. 1 can truthfully say, I have
never anywhere nor at any time felt more hon-
ored before God than in preaching to Irish-
Catholics and other neighbors at Log Church;
and never have felt so loud a call anywhere as at
places like the old whiskey-haunted court-
house in Shelbyville.

There are a few things which may seem
trifling in themselves which I will mention as
showing the progress of ideas here since the
mission began and in which it has led.

The first time I ever saw flowers in a church
in Illinois was in the little school-house where
we first held Unitarian services before we had
any house of worship. The school-teacher,
who was an eastern woman, had gathered some
crab-apple, red-bud, plum-tree and other blos-
soms, and put them in an old tin can on the
desk in front of me. When I went to the desk
to begin services, a good old brother from the
rear of the house came up, and said, " I'll put
these things out of your way." Suiting the
action to the words, he threw the buds and
blossoms out of the window, and put the can
under the desk. It was taken as a matter of
course by the assembly. I was somewhat em-
barrassed, but proceeded with the service as well
as I could. This incident fitly illustrates the
only kind of theology I heard until I was seven-
teen years old, — a theology that hid the bright
things of earth and made it as bare and for-
bidding and as much a vale of tears as pos-
sible.

The first Easter service I ever knew observed
by any other church than Catholics was by our
little assembly of Unitarians. In commemora-
tion of the first Easter morning at the sepulchre,
a meeting conducted by the pastor has been held

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

in the Unitarian Church in Shelbyville, every
year since the church was built in 1876. The
first Christmas tree that I ever saw in Illinois
was in the Unitarian Sunday-school. The first
Thanksgiving service held in response to the
President's proclamation in Shelby County, out-
side of Shelbyville, was held in our Oak Grove
Chapel. We held services of mercy and dis-
tributed Our Dumb Animals for years before
others recognized that religion had enough
bearing on kindness to animals to call for a
special service. The first time I ever knew of
" Nearer my God to Thee " being sung in this
vicinity, was in the old Log Church by my
brother George, who had been at Antioch Col-
lege and had brought it home with him. The
first memorial service held in the county for
a Union soldier was held by the Unitarian mis-
sionary.

I remember when funeral sermons were
preached some time after the burial it was cus-
tomary to sing, " Hark ! from the Tombs a Dole-
ful Sound," but I have not heard that hymn
for forty years. Instead they sing the hymns
and songs of brighter hope, such as " One
Sweetly Solemn Thought," and " Lead Kindly
Light." Now flowers provoke sweet thoughts
[ 173 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

in all the churches; and many of them have a
special " Flower Service," and vie with each
other in celebrating Easter and Christmas; and
we have had union Thanksgiving services, where
Catholics, Unitarians and orthodox joined.

I have tried to circulate only such literature
as would have a tendency to liberate Christians
and Christianize " liberals." The result has
been a wonderful change in the attitude of the
churches of all denominations in the vicinity,
including the Catholic. Some of my best
friends have been the orthodox pastors and the
Catholic priests.

We have built in this mission four church
edifices in Shelby County, the largest being a
substantial brick structure costing six thousand
dollars, and three of wood, costing eight hun-
dred dollars, fifteen hundred dollars and twelve
hundred dollars each, besides one in Mattoon
costing ten thousand dollars, and a tabernacle
at Lithia Springs for our summer meetings,
seating fifteen hundred. This auditorium has
recently been greatly improved at a cost of six-
teen hundred dollars, or more. In addition to
the above, the Library Chapel at Lithia was
dedicated in August, 1904.

The American Unitarian Association now
[ 174 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

holds in trust for missionary purposes the two
hundred acres of Lithia Springs land and the
improvements thereon, worth twenty thousand
dollars at a low estimate, the church edifice and
lot within a square of the court-house in Shelby-
ville, valued at five thousand dollars, the Jordan
Chapel and lot within two miles of Lithia
Springs, valued at fifteen hundred dollars, and
the Library Chapel, at Lithia, valued at twelve
hundred dollars.

I have always insisted that the people of the
community should build their house of worship
themselves. I never solicited outside aid for
a church edifice except in one instance, and I
have that to regret. This was the case of Unity
church at Mattoon. It was built at the close of
the Civil War, when material was very high, so
that it was said to have cost nearly ten thousand
dollars. It was then and thus built against
my advice. However, a pathetic appeal from
the late Thomas P. C. Lane, the prime mover
for the building, prompted me to help free
it of debt. Mr. Lane was plunged suddenly
into deep sorrow by the death of his little
daughter, Nina. He wished the church to be a
memorial of her. Therefore, to help lift the
debt on the church, I received fifteen hundred
[ 175 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

dollars from Mrs. Anna Richmond, of Provi-
dence, R. I., Miss Dorothea Dix, members of
Robert Collyer's Church of the Messiah, N. Y.,
and others; and by the advice of Dr. Wm. G.
Eliot I paid this money to the trustees of the
Mattoon church with the stipulation that in case
the building ever ceased for the term of two
years to be used for Unitarian services, and the
property should revert and be sold, the fifteen
hundred dollars should be applied to general mis-
sionary work in the state of Illinois. The
building did cease to be thus used and the prop-
erty was sold in 1906; but I am informed that
the trustees think best to put on interest the
fifteen hundred dollars for a time, with the rest
of the funds from the sale, in the hope that op-
portunity may yet offer for building another
Unitarian edifice in that enterprising city. I
must think there would be more practical
religion in at once applying the money ac-
cording to the above stipulation to the sup-
port of some good, live Christian missionary in
this state. If the people are filled with the
spirit of Christ, the necessary churches will be
built as naturally as the bark grows on living
trees. Spirit controls matter, — not matter
spirit. A costly church building, with few or

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

no worshipers, is like a mighty ship of war with
few or none to man it.

As nearly as I can estimate, over one thou-
sand persons have been received into church
membership under my ministry in this vicinity,
two hundred children christened, nearly one
thousand funerals attended, and about four
hundred marriage ceremonies performed.
Many of those to whom I have ministered have
passed from earth. And a great number of
those who have united in church covenant are
scattered abroad in the different states from
Massachusetts Bay to " where rolls the Ore-
gon," and from the Dakotas on the north to
Texas in the south.

One object which at the beginning I con-
fidently hoped to achieve in this mission was to
establish at least one self-supporting congre-
gation. I confess that the failure to do this
has been the saddest, sorest disappointment of
my forty-five years' missionary effort. How-
ever, with a consciousness of having done what
I could for the right as God gave me to see the
right, I am content to leave results with Him.

My work has been largely of a social settle-
ment character, with a religious emphasis, and
mostly in rural districts. I have preached to
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JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

tenants, wage-workers, and people on the wing;
so that, from year to year, my congregations
have come and gone. Young people, ambitious
to rise in the world, have passed on to where
they hoped for more advantages. But alas !
some have overlooked the fact that the only way
to really rise in this world or the next, is to
live a good life. I am thinking of some
who have gone to large cities who would better
be cultivating the fertile land and raising fruits
and poultry near Lithia Springs.

It has been my lot to draw mostly poor
people, — wage-workers and tenants, — with few
owners of their own homes, into church mem-
bership. Free thinkers or agnostics, who
could not honestly assent to the creeds of the
popular churches, have occasionally been drawn
into our fellowship. No wealthy persons and
none who have sought first for fashionable
society and soft seats have identified themselves
with my congregations, although a goodly num-
ber of my people have become influential and
noted as teachers, editors and reformers. But
while there is a membership of several hundred
scattered over this and other states, the num-
ber in the immediate vicinity is small.

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

Dr. Wm. G. Eliot, of the Church of the Mes-
siah and Chancellor of Washington University,
St. Louis, Mo., was my wise and fatherly adviser
in mission work for years before he was trans-
lated. I remember once going to him disheart-
ened, and almost persuaded to abandon the mis-
sion. The support had fallen off and my con-
gregations grown small, as they have often
done, and then grown up again. I asked him
what I should do. " Are you sure," inquired
the Chancellor, " that you are pleading for the
highest character and purest standard of public
morals ? " I replied : " I have been trying my
best to do that and it seems that has caused
several people to turn away from me ! " " Very
well, then," said the Chancellor, " stick, and
don't worry! Be of good courage! The Uni-
tarian misson stands for character and the best
quality of work rather than for quantity or a
great following. Only do your part well, and
leave results to God. I will help you all I can."

One of the oldest and most trusted citizens of
central Illinois, distinguished in his profes-
sion and a member of one of the oldest churches,
recently volunteered to testify substantially as
follows :

C 179 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

" If Jasper Douthit had just preached the
gospel and not made such a crusade against
liquor license and other social evils, but instead
had done more proselyting and persuaded peo-
ple to join the Unitarian Church, he might have
had a strong, self-supporting congregation in
Shelbyville. However, I incline to believe the
course he has pursued had done more good to
everybody among all the churches and parties.
His work has been leavening the whole com-
munity, killing religious bigotry and partisan
prejudice, and has been most effective for moral
reform."

[ 180 ]

XIII

One Sunday morning about the year 1865, at
the close of a little meeting in Dole's Hall, Mat-
toon, a young man introduced himself to me
as Lyman Clark. He had come on horseback
from twelve miles south to hear me preach. He
told me he was thinking seriously of the min-
istry, and inquired about the Meadville Theo-
logical School. He had served valiantly, as I
afterwards learned, in the Union army. He
went four years to Meadville and graduated in
1869. He had parishes at Jacksonville, 111.,
Lancaster, N. H., Petersham, Mass., Ayer,
Mass., and at Andover, N. H,, and served these
different parishes for twenty-five years.
During his pastorate at Petersham he ren-
dered valuable service as member of the State
Legislature. Two of his sons are graduates of
Harvard University, and one of them, Rev.
Albert W. Clark, is a most worthy young min-
ister and present pastor of the Unitarian Church
at Schenectady, N. Y.

James Brown, of Mode, Shelby County, was

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

ordained March 11, 1877, in the Unitarian
Church at Shelbyville at the hands of the late
Brooke Herford of England, John H. Heywood
of Louisville, Ky., and other ministers. Mr.
Brown served the little flocks at Mode for nearly
a score of years, and preached in the country
school-houses round about, meanwhile sup-
porting himself and family by hard work at
wagon-making. He died March 81, 1902, at
the age of 58 years.

Rev. Napoleon Hoagland, now minister at
Tyngsboro, Mass., came, when a small boy, to
hear me preach at the school-house near Mode,
before the Union church was built. He was the
picture then, in my mind, of Whittier's " Bare-
foot Boy," — and bareheaded also, — but a
good boy. He studied with me and my wife at
our home, and then entered the Meadville
School; graduating after four years, in 1885.
He has served parishes at Greeley, Colo. ;
Wichita, Kansas ; Olympia, Washington ; Prov-
idence, R. I. ; Marshfield, Mendon and War-
wick, Mass. He has ever been a constant friend
and helper of the mission around his birthplace.
His mother was a devout and noble woman, and
my schoolmate at Shelby Academy, over fifty
years ago.

[ 182 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

Rev. Ada H. Kepley, of Effingham, Illinois,
was ordained in the Unitarian Church at Shelby -
ville, on July 24, 1892. Rev. W. H. Lloyd of
the Presbyterian church, Shelby ville; Rev. T. B.
Forbush and Rev. John H. Heywood took part
in the services. Mrs. Kepley had been a mem-
ber of the Unitarian church for many years.
She had been a most active and self-sacrificing
worker in the temperance and social purity
reforms in her home county and throughout
the state. She was before, as since her ordina-
tion, practically a minister at large in Effingham
and adjoining counties. She edited and pub-
lished, at a sacrifice, the Friend of Home for
many years. It was one of the brightest and
best temperance monthlies in the country. She
was a close co-worker with the saintly Frances
E. Willard and received high praise from Miss
Willard for specially heroic service. Sister
Kepley has most unselfishly served others all
these years " without pay and without price."

Her husband, the late Henry B. Kepley, Esq.,
President of the Board of Trustees of Austin
College, was in full sympathy with Mrs. Kep-
ley's work. He too was a member of the Uni-
tarian congregation of Shelbyville. He built
at his own expense a chapel in the heart of the
[ 183 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

city of Effingham, which was called " The
Temple." It was for Mrs. Kepley's use and
dedicated to mission Sunday-school and gospel
temperance purposes.

Rev. Ollie Cable Green is a teacher in the
public schools at Winchester, HI., and also
public librarian. She united with the Uni-
tarian Church, Shelbyville, in 1885. She was
ordained by the United Brethren Church before
she became a member of my congregation. She
was a valuable assistant to me for several years
in this mission. She has taught in the primary
department of the public schools of Illinois for
a score of years. She has made a heroic effort
to rear and educate a family of useful children,
one of whom is named after James Freeman
Clarke. During part of her career as a teacher
she has supplied the pulpit for the Universal-
ists and some other denominations in the places
where she has taught. While true to her colors
as a Unitarian, she is in no sense a contro-
versialist, but is deeply religious and is fre-
quently welcomed to preach in orthodox pulpits.

My son, Robert Collyer Douthit, began mis-
sion work with his father as a printer boy, and
served as a foreman in Our Best Words office
when the paper had the largest circulation.
[ 184 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

Ten thousand copies of one issue were circulated
over this and adjacent counties during the fight
against the saloon politics and the treating
custom. During these years, we also published
" Old Shelby Seminary Memorial " and other
books. But the printer boy felt called to the
ministry. He took a four years' course in
Meadville Theological School, graduating in
1893. After graduating, he served acceptably
the Unitarian parishes in Baraboo, Wis., and
Petersham, Mass. Then, for about two years,
he had charge of the congregations in this
mission, meantime also assisting at Lithia
Springs Chautauqua, besides editing and
printing Our Best Words. Then for health's
sake he returned East and was minister of the
church at Dover, Mass., for nearly three years.
He is now pastor of the first parish in Castine,
Maine.

There is also Colonel Sobieski, now of Los
Angeles, California, a descendant of the famous
King John Sobieski of Poland. Colonel So-
bieski has been a member of the Shelbyville
Church for twelve years, and though not for-
mally ordained, yet since his connection with the
Unitarian church he has been essentially a Chris-
tian minister, " after the order of Melchisedek,
[ 185 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

King of Salem." When this (at that time)
young Polish prince was shot through the body
and lay bleeding on the battle-field of Gettys-
burg, he was pronounced mortally wounded by
the surgeon, whereupon the chaplain advised him
to make his peace with God. Colonel Sobieski
replied quickly in broken English : " I have
never had any fuss with God." All who knew
Colonel Sobieski intimately would say he spoke
the truth. He has been a loving disciple of the
" Prince of Peace " all his life. He has traveled
extensively pleading for temperance reform and
has spoken oftener and in more states for good-
will to man than any other living American. He
is still at it. He ministers at funerals and is
often called to occupy on Sundays the pulpits of
different churches. He always speaks out
bravely, but most kindly and wisely, for " pure
religion and perfect liberty," and the people
hear him gladly. Though unlettered in a sense,
never having gone to school a day in his life,
yet, in the best sense he is broadly cultured and
charms with his pleasing manners, his eloquence
and, most of all, his Chistian spirit. He is a
missionary for whom we all thank God, while we
pray for more of the same kind. He was for
many of the early years, the platform manager
[ 186 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

at Lithia Springs Chautauqua, and to his
very unselfish service and wise counsel must be
credited much of the real success of that enter-
prise.

My relations with orthodox ministers have
been from the first remarkably friendly, con-
sidering how frankly I have dissented from the
creeds of the churches. The first pastor of a
Shelbyville church to propose a pulpit exchange
with me was the pastor of the Second M. E.
Church, Rev. James M. West, late of Blooming-
ton, 111. The late Rev. James L. Crane, General
Grant's close friend and chaplain in the Civil
War, father of Drs. Frank Crane, of
Worcester, Mass., and the late Charles Crane,
of Boston, Mass., was one of the first Metho-
dists I ever heard preach. He was pastor
of the First Methodist church in the early years
of my ministry in Shelbyville. Through his
influence I was chosen president of the Shelby-
ville Ministerial Union, the first club of the kind
organized here, I believe, of which the pastors
of all Protestant congregations in the city, ex-
cepting perhaps one, were members. A few
years since, and a while before he was promoted,
the Methodist veteran and saint, Isaac Groves,
at the age of eighty years, came from his home
[ 187 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

in Urbana, Illinois, to visit me and preach in
the pulpit of the " singular sheep " he baptised
over two score years before.

About the first local pastor to subscribe and
insist on paying for Our Best Words, was a
Catholic priest, and some of my best friends and
helpers have been members of that church. In
the early years of my anti-slavery work, the
United Brethren were most loyal allies, as the
Free Methodist brethren have been in my later
crusade against the liquor traffic and kindred
evils. The Christian Church in Shelbyville was
often granted me for religious services more
than twenty-five years ago, when many homes
of worship in the county were closed against
me. The late Elder Bushrod W. Henry was
pastor of that congregation for several years.
He performed the marriage ceremony for my
parents, and always seemed glad to favor their
son.

However, occasionally, I have been furiously
preached and prayed against. Once in a large
meeting, years ago, a minister so loudly cursed
me in his prayer that he was not wanted after-
wards by a majorty of his parishioners. Some-
times ministers have, for lack of information, so
misrepresented the Unitarian position that I have
[ 188 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

felt obliged to correct them publicly. Such was
the case when the late good Bishop Edward Ed-
wards, of the United Brethren Church, came to
this mission and unwittingly misrepresented
Unitarians. I was present, took notes and
publicly replied to his criticisms. I had a large
hearing and was invited to repeat my reply
again and again. Then, by the help of Robert
Collyer and his people of the Unity Church,
Chicago, my discourse was published and given
a circulation of many thousand copies. I
afterwards had the pleasure, through the kind-
ness of Professor Huidekoper of Meadville, Pa.,
of placing in the hands of the bishop the works
of Channing and other representative Unitar-
ians. He thankfully received and promised to
read them, and I trust was better informed.

At another time the newly installed pastor of
a local church, an honest and zealous minister,
felt it his duty to have no fellowship with the
Unitarian missionary, and he said so kindly in
public. I admired his loyalty to conviction and
his brave stand against public evils. I cultivated
his acquaintance, but he was shy of me. He
would not attend meetings over which I presided,
until a temperance rally was arranged to meet
in the Unitarian church with Governor John
[ 189 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

P. St. John of Kansas as the speaker. Nearly
all the ministers of the city were present, in-
cluding this brother. He had said he could not
call a Unitarian minister a " brother in Christ."
Governor St. John's speech against the liquor
evil proved a baptism of the Holy Spirit to most
of us in that meeting. We were made one in
purpose for the overthrow of the evil. I shall
never forget how the minister who had been so
shy of me, now reached across the seats to clasp
my hand and say, " Brother Douthit, let's hold
the next meeting in a larger church." It was
the first time he had addressed me so frater-
nally. Not long after that we were in the post-
office together, when I received a letter with a
horrid picture of a skull and cross-bonej, threat-
ening my life. " Will you let me have that to
keep over Sunday ? " asked this brother. I cheer-
fully granted the request. In his sermon
the next Sunday to a full house, including
prominent saloon politicians, this minister
held up before his congregation the picture
of skull and cross-bones and read the threat, and
then gave a most rousing sermon against the cor-
rupt politics that would resort to such a method
of argument. That good minister proved to be
one of my best friends and pluckiest co-workers
[ 190 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

for temperance and social purity. He tenderly
assisted me at my father's funeral. He is now
one of the ablest and most loved ministers of his
denomination and a prominent Chautauqua
worker.

From the beginning of our meetings at Lithia
Springs the pastors of the various churches of
Shelbyville and vicinity, both Catholic and
Protestant, have, to the best of my recollection,
been constant, brotherly and prayerful co-work-
ers with scarcely any exception.

I was joined in the first basket-meeting at
Lithia Springs in 1884 by two ministers in this
vicinity with whom I had recently had some ex-
tended controversy on points of doctrine
through the local press. For this reason it
was a matter of surprise and comment on the
part of many people that this Elder and this
Doctor should be the first persons to unite
with the Unitarian minister in holding field
meetings at Lithia Springs. But why should
this be considered a strange thing? Cannot
disciples of the same Master honestly differ
and give reasons for their differences on some
points, and yet be good friends and strong allies
in preaching a common Christianity and re-
sisting a common evil?

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

There is a beautiful tradition about such
springs as these at Lithia, and others in southern
Indiana and Illinois. The tradition is this:
" When the Indians were at war with each other,
no matter how fiercely the battle raged, they
agreed that these springs should be neutral
ground, and that whenever any of the warring
tribes met here they should at least smoke the
pipe of peace while they remained around the
springs."

[ 192 ]

XIV

The closing part of this story I devote to
Lithia Springs and the institution I have tried
to found there.

The Lithia Springs are about one mile and
a half from where Log Church was, in an out-
of-the-way place, no public road going nearer
than a mile at the time of my early mission work
at Log Church, and for many years after.
Now roads are laid out on all sides, and the
Big Four railroad station at Middlesworth, is
only a mile distant. Twenty years ago the
estate, a rolling country of hills and glens and
creek bottom lands, was covered with forest. It
lay for three-fourths of a mile on each side
of " Lick Branch," now called " Lithia Creek."
This is a water course of rapid fall, so that
in sudden freshets it becomes a rushing tor-
rent, but quickly subsides within a few hours
so that it can be safely crossed on foot. This
estate fell to me by inheritance from my father
in 1889. There was no fence enclosing it, and
years ago wild deer, and later all sorts of
[ 193 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

domestic animals came to drink at the springs
until they became a pond of mud. By and by
one of the springs was protected by an old
barrel with the bottom knocked out, and from
this the people for miles around procured water
to carry to their homes to drink. The springs
came to be regarded as a necessity to the
neighborhood for many miles about, in seasons
of drouth, both for water for stock and for
domestic use, and they were never known to fail
in the dryest time. During a drouth many
wagons would often be lined up waiting their
turn. Hidden away in the forest and with few
homes near, it was a long time before the
place was much known outside of the neighbor-
hood. But gradually the beauties of the spot
and the healthfulness of the water began to
acquire more than a local fame, and by 1885,
or thereabouts, it had become a popular camping
and picnic resort. Then Satan got busy, and
the sober and orderly were often kept away
by those who congregated there, especially on
Sundays, to drink and carouse, with no police-
man to molest or make afraid.

It had been my custom in the summer time
all the years I lived in Shelbyville to speak
frequently at basket meetings, as the all-day
[ 194 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

picnics with social and religious services were
called. Some of these were annual occasions
in which people of all the different religious
bodies in the vicinity united. I came to have
more calls to address these picnics and basket
meetings than I could accept. I saw that
Lithia Springs would be an ideal place for such
gatherings.

With the co-operation of Elder L. M. Linn,
a rough and plucky hater of the saloon,
and others of the Christian Church, a basket
meeting was held there on Sunday, August 31,
1884. Christians of all denominations joined
heartily in the services. Two thousand people
were reported to be present. In the afternoon
a temperance service which I had prepared and
printed was used, and hosts of people bore
testimony in behalf of temperance by spirited
singing while the congregation filed by the min-
isters in charge and clasped hands in token of
their desire and purpose to pull together in
resisting the Devil and building up the Kingdom
of God. Then other meetings were held. On
Sunday, August 9, 1885, Rev. J. T. Sunder-
land, then Secretary of the Western Unitarian
Conference, preached there in the morning and
assisted in interesting services for the children
[ 195 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

in the afternoon. At these meetings there were
only old logs and the grass about the springs
for seats and the blue sky for canopy.

In November, 1889, soon after the death of
my father, I was given possession of part of
that tract of land, the first land I ever owned.
I say a " part " of that tract, because I
bought 100 acres more which has greatly ad-
vanced in value. I was not expecting to inherit
any real estate, and I had made up my mind to
be content without it. In fact, I rather en-
joyed singing, or trying to sing, as I rode on
horseback, or walked to my appointments, those
verses of the pioneer Methodist preacher:

" No foot of land do I possess,
Nor cottage in the wilderness."

When the partitioners of the estate set apart
this Lithia Springs ground to my share, I was
grateful in a sense, yet, in another sense, I
was a little unhappy that I could not now
honestly sing the old song.

My father had owned the springs from the
time the Indians left. They had very precious
associations for me. The land was that over
which my mother had carried me as she gathered
the sap from the maple trees around them
[ 196 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

to make the yearly supply of sweets for the
family table; and now I craved to live long
enough to see it consecrated forever as holy
ground, made too pure to ever tolerate in any
form that which had caused my mother so much
distress, destroyed so many homes, and blasted
the lives of so many of my neighbors and
relatives.

There was no income to be derived from
the grounds, which were wild, unfenced, unculti-
vated. The neighbors only thought of them
as a fine farm in the rough, and especially valu-
able for stock because of the rare water supply,
but I only thought of how I might conse-
crate the ground to the mission of my life. It
seemed to me that here was an opportunity to
establish some form of work or beneficent in-
stitution that would become a permanent
rallying center for practical religion. What
form it might take I did not know. I must
make the venture walking by faith and not by
sight. I must make the start alone and without
even the approval of prudent business men.

The first thing to be done was to prepare
the place to hold meetings. I was moneyless
and with insufficient salary for even living ex-
penses. I had not ten dollars capital to begin
[ 197 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

with. Therefore I borrowed on the land as
security enough money to fence it, clear a part
of the dense underbrush around the springs,
build a shelter over the springs and wall with
tile. By the middle of the summer of 1890,
with the help of generous neighbors, we had
completed a large covered shed or wigwam with
open sides, later called the " tabernacle " or
auditorium, to hold meetings in.

I determined that our nation's birthday
should be kept in one place in Shelby County at
a safe distance from those plague spots, the
saloons. Therefore, to begin with, I invited
everybody to a free Fourth of July picnic at
Lithia Springs, and there was a mighty re-
sponse. The papers reported ten thousand
people present. The woods were full of people,
and many pretty trees were spoiled by the
horses.

There was still a mountain of prejudice and
long prevailing custom to overcome. Old resi-
dents of the vicinity contended that the springs
must not be fenced from the public. It was
claimed that they must remain forever as free as
the air to everybody. The only road to them
ran diagonally across the land, as it had run,
for aught I know, since the Indians made the
[ 198 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

trail; and, strange to say, a majority of the
township commissioners encouraged by public
sentiment insisted that it must continue to go
that way instead of on the section line. They
claimed that for the convenience of the public
the road must run so as to include the springs ;
that the owner of the land had no right to en-
close and control that water. It should be free
to all people at all times as it always had been, —
and certainly no temperance crank should be al-
lowed to control it. That would interfere with
" personal liberty." The case actually went to
the courts. Finally the Shelby County Board
of Supervisors, — the county legislature, — ap-
pointed three of its members as a jury, or court,
before which the case should be tried. The court
was convened, seated on old logs about the
springs. Many people were present. Hon. Geo.
D. Chafee, now senator, my most faithful friend
from the beginning, was attorney for the owner
of the land, and Col. L. B. Stephenson, then of
St. Louis, for the road commissioners. After
much testimony and eloquent pleading, the ver-
dict was that the springs might be enclosed and
the road changed to the section line.

The first ten days' encampment was held in
August, 1891, and was conducted mostly by
[ 199 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

workers for temperance and kindred reforms
as advocated by the Woman's Christian Tem-
perance Union. Miss Frances E. Willard, was
to me and my wife the patron saint of this
mission for nearly thirty years. She seemed
to have a special interest in Our Best Words and
the mission work since the first and only time
she visited Shelbyville, near the beginning of
her wonderful career. It so happened at that
visit that I was the only minister to be on the
platform with her and assist in the meeting by
prayer. I remember how she hastened to clasp
my hand at the close of her address and say:
" Well, I am so thankful to have had the
presence and prayer of at least one minister at
this meeting." There was a trembling and
pathos in her voice as she spoke that I shall
never forget.

From that time until she was promoted,
saying : " How beautiful it is to be with God,"
she wrote me often, and I never had such a
prompt correspondent with any busy person,
unless it was Dr. Henry W. Bellows of All
Souls Church, New York. I am moved to give
place here to one of her letters. From her
home in Evanston in 1894, she wrote:
[ 200 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

" Dear Brother, —

" I have your unique paper, and I can but
feel that if every paper in this country were at
the same high level we would be on the high road
to the millenium. You know that I am in the
heartiest sympathy with you in all your great
and beautiful work. All women owe you their
thanks. We are in a great battle wherever we
may be, and I think you feel as I do, that those
who care for the same things and do the same
work are really always in the same world of
thought and growth.

" And believe me always,

" Yours with sisterly regard,

" FRANCES E . WILLARD."

About half a dozen families tented on the
grounds at the first Assembly while we held
meetings day and evening for the ten days ; and
the number of tenters steadily increased from
year to year until there were a thousand or
more.

It is the testimony of many of wide obser-
vation that the place is ideal for camping and
Chautauqua purposes. The breezes are always
cooler and more constant here in summer than on
the prairie, the scenery is beautiful, the soil dry,
sandy and well drained, with no mud a few
[ 201 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

hours after the heaviest rain. It is healthful,
almost free from mosquitoes, and far away
from the vicious influences of the city, the
bustle of trade and the fashionable " resorts,"
just the place where whole families may gather,
in love of nature and truth, and dwell in sweet
simplicity to learn from the wisest and best men
and women of earth lessons of health, virtue and
happiness. The water is equal to any in the
country for medicinal and health-giving qual-
ities, and of just the right temperature to drink.

Nearly if not quite every plant, tree and
flower that grows in the Mississippi valley may
be found about these springs; and Prof.
Leander S. Keyser, the popular author on orni-
thology, who spent a week on the grounds,
says there are probably two hundred varieties of
birds here during the year. During the last
eighteen years they have been specially pro-
tected and undisturbed on the grounds, so that
they have increased in number and grown re-
markably tame.

Many have said in substance what Booker
T. Washington wrote : " I have visited few
spots anywhere in the world that possess such
charms, such an influence for good in every
direction as is true of Lithia Springs." And
[ 202 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

Commander Ballington Booth testified : " I
have seen some beautiful assembly grounds.
But I must say that I have yet to see a place
that is more picturesque and seems more fitted
by nature for the purpose to which this spot
has been consecrated."

As before stated, beginning with 1891,
annual ten-day assemblies were held. These first
assemblies were of the old-fashioned camp-meet-
ing order. The time of the encampment was
later increased to fifteen days, and, at the sug-
gestion of Chaplain C. C. McCabe, afterwards
Bishop, who came to help several times, I planned
to have the institution become a part of the great
Chautauqua system, a real national Chautauqua,
and one that should be a credit to the Unitarian
mission and name. But this meant more ex-
pense for schools, lectures, and a high class of
entertainments. It meant more buildings. It
meant more systematic school work, especially
for the young, combined with recreation.

In a circular letter dated November 10, 1898,
to the friends of the mission in the Unitarian
body, my wife and I offered to take less than
half price for the estate if ten thousand dollars
could be raised for it at once, saying that we
hoped the enterprise, conducted as it had been,
[ 203 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

might become self-supporting. Thereupon Dr.
Edward Everett Hale made an enthusiastic ap-
peal through the Christian Register, recom-
mending that the offer be accepted; but a year
passed, and there was surprisingly little response
to the appeal.

At the annual Lithia Assembly in August,
1899, the party Prohibitionists in council on the
ground made a move to purchase one hundred
acres at my price, one hundred dollars per acre.
This movement of the Prohibitionists was led by
the Hon. Hale Johnson, now of sainted memory,
the noble and beloved candidate for Vice Presi-
dent, who was shot dead by an insane man when
he was trying to befriend him.

I was on the point of completing the bar-
gain with Mr. Johnson when my wife and I were
advised by Ballington Booth and other friends
that, as we wished so much to keep the Chau-
tauqua under the auspices of the denomination
with which we had labored so long, there should
be another effort to that end. Hon. George
E. Adams, of Chicago, Vice President of the
American Unitarian Association, was in camp at
the time. My wife and I conferred with him,
and he assured us that he would favor bringing
the matter of raising a Lithia Springs fund be-
[ 204 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

fore the next National Conference of Unitarian
and other Christian Churches, which was to meet
in Washington, D. C., October, 1899.

We decided to act upon Mr. Adams's sug-
gestion. Accordingly at the meeting in Wash-
ington by motion of Mr. Hale, seconded by Mr.
Adams and others, the movement to raise a
fund for Lithia Springs was endorsed by the
Conference at Washington, the late Hon.
George F. Hoar, United States Senator from
Massachusetts, presiding. I then and there pro-
posed that if eight thousand dollars, estimated
to be half the value of two hundred acres, could
be raised immediately we would give a deed for
two hundred acres to the American Unitarian
Association. Dr. Hale and others favored the
raising of the sum right in that Conference,
but the business was placed in the hands of a
committee. It was my understanding that the
committee would convene immediately and sub-
mit a plan for raising the eight thousand dollars
by the close of the Conference. Therefore,
though urgent duties called me home, I remained
in the city two days and nights longer expecting
the sum to be subscribed. Imagine my chagrin
when nothing was done.

Finally, through the co-operation of the
[ 205 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

Women's National Alliance and the energetic
push of Rev. Charles E. St. John, Secretary of
the American Unitarian Association, who visited
the Chautauqua in 1900, a fund of eight thou-
sand dollars was completed, and in April, two
years after the Conference at Washington, a
deed was given by my wife and myself to the
American Unitarian Association for two hun-
dred acres of Lithia Springs ground, with spe-
cial contract and lease for the purpose of con-
tinuing the Chautauqua work.

It will be noticed that instead of ten thousand
dollars for two hundred and sixty acres, eight
thousand dollars was raised for two hundred
acres. During the three years of uncertainty,
with seven per cent, interest to pay and the in-
creasing necessity of keeping up a high stand-
ard for the Assembly, thus holding the vantage
already gained, my debts had increased so that
there was a balance of forty-two hundred dollars
unpaid. And now, largely in consequence of
these uncertainties and delays in raising the
fund, my worst fears were realized by the an-
nouncement that a rival Assembly was incorpo-
rated to be held at the old Fair Grounds, by some
money loaners and church members not in sym-
pathy with my religious views or my fight
[ 206 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

against the drink evil. The saloon keepers were
elated. The promoters of the new enterprise
had practically unlimited capital, and they pre-
pared to spend it freely. An auditorium cost-
ing some eight thousand dollars was built, the
grounds were improved and beautified with an
artificial lake, and they have yearly engaged
some of the costliest talent in the nation and
some good preachers and lecturers, many of
whom are not aware of what they do. The
promoters were men who knew nothing of the
real Chautauqua movement. They thought I
had been making money and that rivalry was
just as legitimate in this as in other enterprises.
Thus, while those true to Chautauqua princi-
ples, at home and abroad, have given us sym-
pathy and help in our struggle, the press in
this section being outspoken in regard to the
" mean trick " in opposition to Lithia, yet great
numbers went to see the crowd and the show at
the Fair Grounds. Thus the future of Lithia
Chautauqua was clouded. I doubt not that in
various ways the opposition has cost us thou-
sands of dollars.

In the face of the depressing financial pros-
pect in 1901, when kind contributors thought
the outlook bright and many friends thought
[ 207 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

the whole matter settled satisfactorily, I was
menaced by this wealthy and unscrupulous riv-
alry. Thus it will be seen why, when the time
came for dedication of the grounds in August,
1901, my heart failed me. I advised with
Rev. Henry H. Barber, who was with us, and
he said : " Go on, I'll help you all I can."
And so he did. I again took counsel of my
hopes and not of my fears ; and the dedication
took place, seemingly with flying colors, Sun-
day, August 25, 1901. But while the people
rejoiced, I wept in my tent. The principal ad-
dress was made by Mrs. Laura Ormiston Chant
of England, and pastors of the local churches
were invited and took part in the exercises, be-
sides many prominent helpers on the grounds.

Chaplain, afterwards Bishop, McCabe spoke
for us at one of the earlier Fourth of July
celebrations. He was not a party prohibition-
ist, but as soon as he saw what I was trying to
do he said, " Brother Douthit, I want to help
you," and he returned to me a large part of
the first money I paid him for his very ac-
ceptable services. " Why not start a Chau-
tauqua here? " he said to me, " and let it be
an inter-denominational and inter-partisan as-
sembly? " " It is just what I have prayed for
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JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

these many years," I responded enthusiastically.
" Give me your hand on that, and by the help
of God it shall be." And so I added " Inter-
denominational and Inter-partisan," to my
watchwords as the gift of Chaplain McCabe,
and he helped to bring his suggestions to pass,
serving at the assemblies several times. But to
be true to these principles at the beginning re-
quired a struggle and loss of patronage. For
instance, the first time our Catholic brethren
were given the program for a day, many non-
Catholics stayed away from the grounds and
some people sulked in their tents. " It will ruin
the Assembly to let in Catholics or colored
people," was the cry. " Well then, it must be
ruined," was the manager's reply. Nevertheless
the number of campers increased. At some as-
semblies of late years there has been an average
attendance of fifteen hundred people daily ; and
it is the uniform testimony that there were
never before in that part of Illinois so large a
proportion of intelligent, kindly disposed, and
well-bred men and women of all sects, Catho-
lic and Protestant, all parties, classes, and of
different races, brought together for such a
length of time and with such harmony of spirit
and purpose.

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JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

They came from eight or ten of the sur-
rounding states on railroads; and they came in
wagons, some from fifty and a hundred miles.
At our annual assemblies people of all sects and
races and from all sections have been welcomed
to its privileges. On these grounds Jew and
Gentile, Unitarian, Universalist and Catholic
are treated with courtesy and good fellowship
by people of orthodox churches. They attend
the same classes. Many of them eat at the same
table. They sing and pray together ; they take
counsel together and dwell in unity and peace
with none to molest or make afraid. Thus the
fellowship I had craved for a lifetime had come
to pass on the holiest ground, to me, on earth.

When the good name Chautauqua was being
perverted for commercial purposes, Chancellor
John H. Vincent and other leading workers for
the true Chautauqua called a meeting in St.
Louis in the fall of 1899 and organized the In-
ternational Chautauqua Alliance, in order to
prevent, so far as possible, fake enterprises
under the name. The officers of this Alliance
then chosen were men of different religious
bodies, and for many years I was honored with
the office of recording secretary, and later, for
two years, with that of corresponding secretary.
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JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

I want to record the fact, that I never in my
life associated with a nobler, more unselfish and
brotherly body of men, on the whole, than
were the members of this International Alliance.
I was never treated more cordially by any body
of people, religious or otherwise, though for
most of the years of its existence I have been the
only Unitarian Chautauqua manager in the Al-
liance. Furthermore, I want to say that but
for the quick sympathy and prompt and tactful
co-operation of the members of this Alliance,
represented by Bishop Vincent and his son Dr.
George E. Vincent of the University of Chicago,
Lithia Springs Chautauqua, with its very lim-
ited resources, being without any endowment or
capital, could not have survived to this day and
won, against the wealthy local opposition, the
high credit and prestige it now has among good
people and the real Chautauqua workers of the
world.

The greatest strain of all my life was dur-
ing the years 1901 to 1905, years which were the
last my dear wife was to be with me on earth.
She was an invalid now and needed my constant
care; I must nurse and support her with one
hand and with the other keep driving at work
as hard as I could to save the cause from defeat.

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

This cause was the inspiring thought of the
close of the many years of our life together;
and she faithfully, sweetly, cheered me on to
the last. It was in the early days of the As-
sembly of 1905, August 1, at our cottage at
Lithia Springs, that she left all she loved here
in the fond trust, as I fully believe, that our
hopes would triumph, and that all our labor,
trials and sacrifices had not been for naught.
Forty-eight years together, and nearly all the
time actively engaged in our mission work. I
emphasize and dwell lovingly on " our"

How I got through the trials, uncertainties
and perplexities of continuing the work I hardly
know. It was much more of an uncertain
struggle than the first period, because I had
taken a great responsibility, much was expected
of me, and I shrank from presenting the facts
of the case to those who believed that in con-
tributing to the eight thousand dollar fund they
had done all that was asked and all that was
needed. But somehow the high credit of the
Chautauqua was sustained and necessary im-
provements of great utility were added to the
grounds.

In 1905 I felt that I ought not to carry
the load of uncertainty, perplexity and debt any

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

longer; forty-two hundred dollars in mortgages
had remained since 1901 and had been increased
by seven per cent, interest, and other ex-
penses. But following a signed appeal by a
score of friends of this mission in the Unitarian
body, part of this sum was raised, to my great
relief.

The Lithia Springs Chautauqua Association,
a local, non-profit sharing corporation was
organized to take the financial responsibility of
the enterprise. The business management of
this body was unfortunate, for which I do not
feel at all to blame, as my advice was not re-
garded, though I had charge of the program as
usual. But there was a notion that I was noth-
ing but a preacher, and so the practical financial
management was entrusted to others who were
wholly inexperienced in Chautauqua business
and who thought they knew how to make it
boom. The result was that on November 8,
1907, this company relinquished the manage-
ment, being in debt about twenty-five hundred
dollars. Nevertheless, this well-meant effort re-
sulted in some four thousand dollars voluntary
donations by the people of this locality for im-
provements, besides keeping up the work for
two years, and the local Association is under

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

obligations to pay its debts as soon as it can.
This, in some measure, is a small token of the
devotion of this people to Lithia Springs, and
under discouraging circumstances at that; be-
cause this local organization somehow failed at
the start to get the confidence of the people.

[ 214. ]

XV

What is Chautauqua? This cannot be an-
swered in a sentence, nor on several pages.
Chautauqua is in some respects what the people
make it. It is, briefly stated, an educational
institution at a summer resort home under some
positive religious auspices, where people of all
sects and no sect, — those with church homes
and of no church home, — dwell together and
unite to help bring the Kingdom of God into
each other's hearts and homes, and learn to make
the most of themselves and their opportunities,
forgetting differences in the endeavor to uplift
and enoble all work. It is a bit of heaven on
earth, a foretaste of the millennium, where all
dwell together in unity and singleness of pur-
pose, a vacation, social, restful, recreative, in-
structive, all with the best moral and religious
influences. Time is counted by the Chautauqua
meeting and outing, and whole families, and
whole neighborhoods even, look forward to it
each year as little children do to Christmas, aa
a wholesome, social, happy, joyous, earnest and

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

instructive coming together. Think, then, what
Chautauqua means to a hard-working commu-
nity of farmers, for Lithia Springs is essen-
tially a farmer's Chautauqua, and their families
and others who badly need this vacation and
change of work. Many who help in the schools
and on the program make this their vacation
time, giving their services. For instance, the
orchestra that has served us so acceptably, has
almost entirely given its services in this way for
years, the members taking this as an outing
time from regular employment. The employes
and helpers on the grounds also join in the feel-
ing of gladness and fraternity, young people
and old, school-teachers and hired help in the
farming communities, coming for miles to help
in getting ready, many working in this way for
season tickets for themselves and families. Sev-
eral hundred tickets have thus been secured in
one season.

Chautauqua is also a place where, by coming
in touch with the great souls of earth, many are
quickened to higher life. Chautauqua is reli-
gion with a practical emphasis, and liberty with
a religious emphasis. Poor people and rich peo-
ple will mingle at Chautauqua who hardly ever
meet in church. Country men and towns' peo-
[ 216 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

pie, — people from various sections in this and
other lands will meet on a common footing. In
this way the gospel is preached to thousands
whom the churches do not reach.

This whole veffort at Lithia Springs has
meant for me " more and better work for the
Kingdom of God " with these two mottoes flung
in the breeze : " No North, no South, no East,
no West, but one grand Union, and one Flag."
" In the love of truth and in the spirit of Jesus
Christ we unite for the worship of God and the
service of man."

Booker T. Washington, the great mental and
spiritual emancipator of his race, on the occa-
sion of his last visit to us (1903) very kindly
said:

" I am glad to return to Lithia Springs for
the third time. I am always glad to come here.
I am always glad to shake the hand of your
leader. I have refused invitations to at least
twenty-five Chautauquas this season, and this is
the third and last one that I shall attend. I
come to Lithia Springs because I believe in what
you are doing and in the way you are do-
ing it. Because you are strong for reality,
simplicity, getting down to nature. I am glad
to see your children get out where they can
wade in the water, hear the songs of the birds
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JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

and live near nature. I was born in a log
cabin, and I haven't felt so much at home for
fifteen years as when Brother Douthit put me in
that log cabin."

But this great educator and benefactor of his
race and all races did not tell it all. He came
to Lithia to help us when he could have received
very much more money from others.

My fellow-townsman and friend for over
forty years, Senator George D. Chafee, at Li-
brary Chapel, October 15, 1904, gave this testi-
mony:

" Here under the shadow of these trees, in
this happy little valley, around these bubbh'ng
springs, in this rude structure, — tabernacle
they call it, — where nothing has been done for
show, during the last dozen years have been
gathered annually the very best and brightest
men and women the world has known, and their
sweetest and brightest thoughts have been ex-
pressed for us who came to listen and learn.

" Here was absolute freedom ; here was rest
for the weary ; here was hope for the sorrowful ;
here were pictures of a bright future; here
reminiscent joys of the past.

" I don't believe there ever was another ten
acres in the world where so many great and good
men and women met and gave such free expres-
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JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

sion to so many great and good thoughts in the
same length of time. Religion, History, Ro-
mance, Right Living, Higher Aims, Education,
Music, Good Fellowship, — everything, except
the sordid aim to accumulate money, here has its
highest and best."

Several things mark this Chautauqua as
unique, notably: (1) It is probably the only
Chautauqua Assembly begun among farmers
and in a rural district, miles from any village or
city. (2) It was the first Chautauqua in the
world, so far as I can learn, to invite and wel-
come our Roman Catholic friends to equal priv-
ileges on its platform and give them the making
of the program for a day. — Also the colored
people were given the program. (3) It is the
only one, that I know of, which began as an
anti-saloon crusade and encampment, but also
gives each political party a day's program.
(4) It is the only Chautauqua conducted under
Unitarian auspices, and it should, therefore, be
non-sectarian in spirit, principle and purpose,
according to the traditions of the Chautauqua
idea. (5) It was the first to give a day's pro-
gram to the Congress of Religion. (6) It is
the only Chautauqua on earth having a wealthy
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JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

opposition only five miles distant, organized for
commercial purposes under the name Chau-
tauqua.

Here has been virtually a parliament of re-
ligions; a church federation; a convention for
fair play to all ; a people's university ; a kinder-
garten ; a school for good citizenship and social
purity; a school for Bible study; a school for
domestic science, health and good behavior; a
conference of men and women to cultivate the
art of making happy homes and of making
the most of life, the best of each other and
of everything the good God gives us.

As the Lithia Springs Chautauqua has grown
great changes have been wrought in the un-
fenced woodland around Lithia. A small part
has been cleared of underbrush and set in blue-
grass, having a beautiful park-like effect. A
driveway of several miles over the park
(laid out by Prof. J. C. Blair, of our state
University, and in process of construction
though not completed for lack of means), gives
a varied view along cultivated fields, through
a pleasant, beautifully shaded meadow, with
high bluffs near the creek, up deep glens, and
through forest so dense that most of the view
is of the blue sky above. Roads have been
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JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

worked, fences made, washouts filled up, bridges
and embankments built. Hundreds of stumps
of once majestic trees must be rooted up with
dynamite so as to put the park of forty acres
around the springs in trim for cottages, log
cabins and tents.

Early in the year 1902, the grounds were
planned, nearly two hundred building lots
platted, and arrangements made for leasing
lots for a term of years, with restrictions
giving the managers of the Chautauqua control
as to proper use of the leased ground.
Prices of leases were fixed at from ten to fifteen
dollars per year, and several cottages were built
the first season. There are now some twenty-five
leased lots, with cottages varying from one hun-
dred and fifty to eight hundred dollars or more
in cost, post-office and headquarters building,
grocery-store, dining-hall, kitchen and restau-
rant, five-room cottage for manager, and Kin-
dergarten Hall, making a total investment of
some seventy-five hundred dollars made by indi-
viduals.

On the American Unitarian Association
grounds for the use of the Chautauqua are four
two-room cottages, nine cabins and two dormi-
tories of six and eight rooms each, all bringing
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JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

an income, where rented, of about two hundred
and fifty dollars at each annual assembly. Then
there is the rustic Library Chapel, with its circu-
lating library of nearly one thousand volumes,
and of great value as a place for holding meet-
ings and classes. This was finished in 1904 by
funds placed in our hands by Mr. and Mrs.
Henry Pickering of Boston. The dedication
services were held Monday, August 22, 1904,
Rev. Henry H. Barber preaching the sermon,
and Rev. Fred V. Hawley making an address.

The recent remodeling of the tabernacle, ice
house, dam for swimming and boating pool,
miscellaneous buildings, feed-yard for horses,
etc., raises the total value of improvements on
the grounds, private and belonging to the
Association, for Chautauqua and missionary
purposes, to over twenty thousand dollars.

This, besides the necessary work of clearing,
road-making, etc., which has resulted in no
direct income, gives some idea of what has been
accomplished in a material way, most of it in the
face of the local opposition that has beset us
since 1901. Besides the two hundred acres in-
cluded I and members of my family hold ninety
acres more, controlling it for Chautauqua pur-
poses, thirty acres of which, bought by my son
[ 222 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

and his wife, near the springs, had before
been used as a harbor for evil-doers. All this
should ultimately belong to the Chautauqua
estate or be controlled in its interest.

Here I am at the end of my story. It has
taken more of work and time than I supposed.
Spring is here. I have been in Shelbyville all
winter preaching on Sunday, and preparing
for Chautauqua other days. I long for the
bright days to come when I can spend more
time amid the healthful influences of the
springs. I preach regularly in Shelbyville '
during the winter season, and for the summer
I hold services regularly in Library Chapel.

My son George lives near the springs and
looks after the wants of the cottagers and other
interests. He is postmaster of Lithia, which is
a regular U. S. post-office for the summer
season, and my grandson and namesake, Jas-
per, is chief clerk. My son and family also
help with Our Best Words, the monthly wings
of the mission since 1880. Crowds of cot-
tagers and visitors, camping and picnic par-
ties, etc., are coming and going all summer,
and often in winter. We still hold Fourth
of July celebrations ; and the local Methodist
churches last year inaugurated an annual basket
[ 223 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

meeting, to be held in June, which promises to
be very largely attended. All these services,
with the Assembly in August, keep the vacation
filled with interesting work.

I have dwelt at such length upon the work at
Lithia Springs, because, as God gives me to see
it, this is the most important visible result of this
mission, and the nearest realization of my prayer
through a half century, for good fellowship
and co-operation among all people for right-
eousness, temperance, peace and good-will to
men.

When, many years ago, Jenkin Lloyd Jones
was Secretary of the Western Unitarian Con-
ference, he once visited this mission in the
muddy season. In his report of the visit he said
that the American Unitarian Association had
aimed an arrow at the state capitol and it had
glanced off and stuck in the mud down in
" Egypt." I do not know exactly what Brother
Jones meant by that remark, but it is sugges-
tive. It has been claimed by some that Uni-
tarian Christianity is not so much for the
" great plain people," — to use Lincoln's favor-
ite phrase, — as for the highly cultured, and
that missionary efforts should therefore be ex-
[ 224 ]

JASPER DOUTHIT'S STORY

erted chiefly among the " influential, intellectual
and scholarly," and at college towns and uni-
versities. But the gospel I have felt called
to preach for nearly fifty years is sent of God
for all sorts, classes and conditions of people,
especially the more needy and unfortunate of our
Father's children. " In my early missionary
work," said good Bishop Thoburn, " I made the
mistake of fancying that if I could get hold of
the influential part of the community, I could
get hold of the masses. I found that this fancy
was contrary to reason and history. Chris-
tianity was founded by beginning at the bot-
tom" I did not realize this fact at the begin-
ning of my ministry, but I did feel that I must
begin where I was born and work among the
people with whom I was brought up.

Here I have labored over forty-five years,
mostly under the auspices of the American Uni-
tarian Association, whose avowed object is " to
diffuse the knowledge and promote the interests
of pure Christianity." This has, indeed, been
my desire and purpose since the time I began
to worship and work with the First Methodist
Church, Shelby ville, Illinois, in 1854, until now.

I have tried in these pages to give a simple,
plain story of my life-experience, with the
earnest prayer that it may help others to do
more and better work than I have done for the
Kingdom of God on earth.
[ 225 ]