urch"

Then He Took Up with Job in the Scriptures

Not So Much for Him as for Fear He Would Not Understand

CHAPTER I

I AM CHOSEN INSTEAD OF THE PRAYER MEETING VIRGIN

If you will look back over the files of the "Southern Christian
Advocate," published at the time in Macon, Georgia, you will find the
following notice--by a singular coincidence on the page devoted to
"obituaries": "Married--Mary Elizabeth Eden to William Asbury Thompson.
The bride is the daughter of Colonel and Mrs. Eden, of Edenton; the
groom is the son of the late Reverend Dr. and Mrs. Asbury Thompson, and
is serving his first year in the itinerancy on the Redwine Circuit. We
wish the young people happiness and success in their chosen field."

"Chosen field" had reference to the itinerancy, not matrimony. And
that was my "obituary" if I had only known it. For after that, if I
was not dead to the world, I only saw it through the keyhole of the
Methodist Discipline, or lifted and transfigured by William's
sermons--a straight and narrow path that led from the church door to
the grave.

But now, after an absence of thirty years, I am addressing this series
of letters to the people of the world concerning life and conditions in
another, removed from this one by the length of long country roads, by
the thickness of church doors, and by the plate glass surface of the
religious mind. They will record some experiences of two Methodist
itinerants and whatever I think besides, for they are written more
particularly to relieve my mind of a very great burden of opinions.
For William has been promoted. He has received his LL. D. in the
Kingdom of Heaven by this time if there are any degrees or giving of
degrees there, along with Moses and Elijah, and I doubt if there is a
more respected saint in that great company. We buried him a year ago
in the graveyard behind Redwine Church.

I was born in Edenton, a little white-and-blue town in Middle Georgia,
and my name was recorded in the third generation of Edens on the
baptismal registry of St. John's Church there. William was born
somewhere in a Methodist parsonage, and his name is probably written on
the first page of the oldest predestination volume in Heaven. In
Edenton the "best families" attended the Episcopal Church. It was a
St. John's, of course, though why this denomination should be so
partial to that apostle is a mystery, for his autobiography, as
recorded in the New Testament, reads