in my hearing.

"'Because,' was the ringing answer, 'I think less of the price of a
horse than of my own soul.'"

About that time father began teaching school in neighboring districts,
which he followed for several years. But all of his spare time was spent
in studying the Bible, church history, the writings of A. Campbell, and
other religious books. It was at that time that he began committing the
New Testament to memory.

Grandfather Butler and Samuel Green were the leaders of the new
organization, as they had been of the Baptist Church, in Eld. Newcomb's
absence--for he was away evangelizing much of the time. They called on
the young people to take part in their social meetings on the Lord's
day, at first only asking them to read a passage of Scripture, afterward
to talk and pray, and, as they gained confidence in themselves, they
were asked to lead the meetings. Thus there grew, in that church, one
after the other, within a few years, eight preachers: A. B. Green, Wm.
Moody, Holland Brown, Leonard Brown, Philander Green, B. F. Perky,
Pardee Butler and L. L. Carpenter.

A. B. Green had been preaching a year or more before father was baptized,
but I do not know which of the others began first, nor do I know the
exact time when father began to preach, but it was about 1837 or 1838.
He was not ordained at Wadsworth, for the church at that time doubted
whether there was any Scriptural authority for ordination. He was
ordained some six or seven years afterward, in 1844, at Sullivan.

In such times of religious excitement it was not necessary for a man to