[578]
any portion of our domain from the nation.
Indeed, I would not advocate it anywhere except where a plain promise of independence has been given.
It is a fitting close to my life story to lift up my heart in thanksgiving to my Heavenly Father for the mercies and blessings which he has unceasingly showered upon me and mine.
It is fifty years this spring since my conversion-when in Tampa, Fla., I began to have a sense of the presence of the Spirit of God.
I then took the Old and New Testament story of Christ as giving me the Messiah of promise.
To me He was and is the manifestation of the Infinite One.
And in His name I have prayed and hoped and trusted.
His precept-Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and thy neighbor as thyself-expresses the aim and aspiration of my soul.
True, I have often violated my own conviction of right, yet my religion has been a great help and comfort to me. To be a member of a Christian church, as I have always been since that Florida experience, to participate in its worship from Sabbath to Sabbath, and to contribute to its activities, I have counted as duties-yes, far more, as the most satisfying of privileges.
The people of God-those who hold and have held tenaciously and sincerely to the Lord God as revealed to us in the Holy Scriptures, both before and since the appearance of our beloved Master upon the earthconstitute one people-one great church.
For any good man to stand aloof and not identify himself with any branch in a thorough and practical way surely would not be best for him nor for his fellow men. By separate personal action, however intrinsically good one might be, the whole world could
This text is part of:
Table of Contents:
Chapter
47
: freedmen's aid societies and an act of congress creating a Bureau of refugees, freedmen and abandoned lands
Chapter
55
:
first
appropriation by congress for the bureau; the reconstruction Act,
March
2
,
1867
; increase of educational work
Chapter
60
: opposition to Bureau and reconstruction work became personal; the
Congregational Church of
Washington
Chapter
62
: life in
Washington, D. C.
,
1866
to
1874
; assigned to duty in regular army as commander,
Department of the Columbia
Chapter
63
: in the
Northwest
, among the
Indians
; trip to
Alaska
; life in
Portland, Ore.
;
1874
to
1881
Chapter
64
: superintendent of the
United States military Academy
; commanding
Department of the Platte
,
Omaha, Neb.
Chapter
68
:
French
army maneuvers,
1884
; promotion to
Major General
,
United States army
,
San Francisco
1886
-
88
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