the teacher's back in the most approved fashion. I must confess that I did not possess the required humility and meekness to run my department on that line. I kept the rod in my own hand, and wherever incorrigible meanness showed its head, I struck at it, and I found it had a most excellent effect. While some natures will respond to kindness, it is still true that the rod is for the fool's back.

In March, 1886, we had a Sabbath-school convention at Good Thunder. It was the most interesting and profitable I ever had the pleasure of attending. At that convention a Baptist minister accepted the truth, and the next summer I had the pleasure of baptizing him and his good wife in the Blue Earth River. I am sorry to say that afterward he met with trials, and became discouraged.

TRUTH CAST OUT Spring 1886

In the spring, before camp meeting, Brother John Hopkins invited me to hold meetings in his neighborhood. A church was secured, meetings were well attended, and everything was favorable, until we reached the Sabbath question on Sunday evening. The audience was large, and the interest good.

At the close of the sermon I was informed that I could have the church no longer. I thanked the church people for the use of the church so far, and as the audience desired to hear further on this question, I would take the liberty to appoint one meeting in an empty schoolhouse that stood across the street. In the morning I found the same parties that controlled the church, controlled the schoolhouse also, and they refused it for even one meeting. Now, what was to be done? The announcement was made, and some would come for miles to the meeting, and they must not be disappointed. We decided to preach God's message in the street. Some interested ones fixed some seats with planks placed upon blocks, made a platform out of boards, and a pulpit out of a barrel. I hung my charts on the end of the schoolhouse woodshed, which stood adjacent to the street, lanterns were hung up, and thus we prepared for the meeting.

The people came; some sat in their buggies and wagons, and some on the seats prepared for them. It was a strange sight to see God's messenger proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom in the highway,