on the whole thing is that the author of that book died in poverty,
shame, debauchery, kicked out of society.

I have no doubt that derision kept many people out of the ark. The
world laughed to see a man go in, and said, "Here is a man starting for
the ark. Why, there will be no deluge. If there is one, that miserable
ship will not weather it. Aha! going into the ark! Well, that is too
good to keep. Here, fellows, have you heard the news? This man is going
into the ark." Under this artillery of scorn the man's good resolution
perished.

I was the youngest of a large family of children. My parents were
neither rich nor poor; four of the sons wanted collegiate education, and
four obtained it, but not without great home-struggle. The day I left
our country home to look after myself we rode across the country, and my
father was driving. He began to tell how good the Lord had been to him,
in sickness and in health, and when times of hardship came how
Providence had always provided the means of livelihood for the large
household; and he wound up by saying, "De Witt, I have always found it
safe to trust the Lord." I have felt the mighty impetus of that lesson
in the farm waggon. It has been fulfilled in my own life and in the
lives of many consecrated men and women I have known.

In the minister's house where I prepared for college there worked a man
by the name of Peter Croy. He could neither read nor write, but he was a
man of God. Often theologians would stop in the house--grave
theologians--and at family prayer Peter Croy would be called upon to
lead; and all those wise men sat around, wonder-struck at his religious
efficiency.