iana Conference of
the Methodist Episcopal Church, South--(I was born and reared in the
"pine hills" of Mississippi).

It is not necessary to go into any lengthy details concerning my work
at this time, beyond the fact that I was fairly successful in it, and
for the time being, I found it eminently satisfactory and fairly
pleasant to myself. However, under the workings of the itinerant
system, in a few years I found myself located in the state of Missouri,
where I transferred my church relations to the St. Louis Conference of
the M. E. Church. This change involved nothing but a matter of
personal choice and convenience.

CHAPTER III

NEW VISIONS AND DISTURBANCES

Having thus changed my church relations, and feeling that I had a
greater field of usefulness open to me, my zeal for efficiency and
success increased. I had a sincere and consuming desire to "save men's
souls." And believing my creed to be as infallible as the Bible upon
which it was based, I studied to make myself efficient and able in its
defense. By following the ordinary methods of interpretation, I soon
found no trouble in doing this. Does the reader inquire here what are
the "ordinary methods of interpretation"? Taking a chapter, or verse,
or paragraph of the Bible here and there, thru the whole book, from
Genesis to Revelation, and weaving them together as a connected whole,
regardless of whether there is any natural connection between them or
not; then disposing of all contradictory passages as either
"figurative,"--with unlimited latitude on the interpretation of the
"figures,"--or as pertaining to those "great and mysterious, unknowable
things of God's divine revelation,"--mysteries too great for man to
know! This method of interpretation is the common practice, to a
greater or less extent, of every church in Christendom that accepts the
doctrine of the infallibility of the Bible, and looks to it as its sole
and final source of authority in religion. There is not a creed in
Christendom today, and never has been, that cannot be supported and
proved to be conclusively correct from the Bible by this method of
interpretation. By the same method the Bible can be made the
defense--and it often has been--of war, murder, slavery, polygamy,
adultery, and the foulest crimes known to humanity, and these all made
the divine institutions of God. And these are exactly the leading
methods of interpretation of the Bible that are being followed