prepared to enter Eminence
College. I rented an old, dilapidated house near the railroad, a mile
above town. The place had about three acres for cultivation, and the
same amount in grass. I kept a horse and buggy, a cow and several hogs.
My wife raised a large number of fowls. I cultivated the ground, making
it produce all it would, cut and hauled my fuel from the woods, and so
managed as to be at no great expense in living. But when going to a
city market every week, and feeling no embarrassment about money, we
indulged in a style of living that now had to be discontinued. This
went rather hard, but we tried to bear it bravely. The plainest and
hardest living of our lives, by far, were those years at Eminence. The
self-denial of my wife, for my sake and the gospel's, greatly
encouraged me to bear the cross.

I did double work during the whole time, reciting eight times a day.
This required intense application. I allowed myself eight hours for
sleep, and the other sixteen were given to study. Whether eating,
walking, working in the garden or chopping wood, I was boring into the
questions of the recitation room. I would occasionally take a little
turn with the boys on the playground at noon, but not often. I was fond
of it, but felt that I could not spare the time. This was a sad
mistake, confirmed by a life of broken-down health. But, like many
others, it was not discovered till the mischief was done. A determined
effort to crowd four years' work into two, under discouraging
circumstances, resulted in impaired health; which continued labor
beyond my strength kept impaired for the rest of my life. It is often
stated that preachers suffer more from overeating than overwork. This
is doubtless true to a large extent. But it was far from true in my
case. I was never a large eater after I was grown. And when my health
first failed me, want of a variety of good, nourishing food had no
little to do with it. And all through subsequent life, a trouble has
been to take sufficient food to meet the wants of the system.

I was the first married man that ever attended Eminence College. It was
considered quite a novelty by some. But a few months later, in the same
term, Bro. Briney came in. He and his wife boarded at the college. A
few years later Bro. George Bersot and wife came, and married
school-boys got to be quite common.

While attending school, I preached once a month for the old church at
home--Pleasant Hill. The distance w