when he did it right. And I was called to look after
William, to see that he did not pray too much or preach too long. And
I always had that sweet inward glow which he called his witness when I
attended most carefully to his needs. It may be a narrow way to look
at it, but you couldn't live with William in any peace of mind without
this witness of the Spirit. It would have made him unhappy to live
with a person who couldn't claim it, and I've had mine these thirty
years without having to pray or to fast to get it--a tender eye in me
that regarded him and a heart that prayed for him.

CHAPTER VI

WILLIAM ENTERS HIS WORLDLY MIND

This is the wonderful thing about the pure in heart--they do see God.
And that was William's distinction. In spite of his own faults and of
ethical errors in some of his preaching, he outstripped all these and
did actually see God; and it made him different from other men who,
however wise, do not see God. On this account I have no doubt that he
fumbled more souls into the Kingdom of Heaven than some of the most
popular tabernacle preachers of modern times.

Nevertheless, William had his worldly mind. There was an ancient
Antaeus in him whose heel occasionally touched the strengthening earth,
and he was as unconscious of it as a baby is of its expression. But,
once he entered his worldly mind, he became as naively unscrupulous as
any other man of the world. Never, in all the years we lived together,
did he repent of these particular deeds done in the body. He could be
brought to the very sackcloth and ashes for a supposititious sin that
he had not really committed; but no man could make him repent of a
horse trade, and I never knew but one who had the best of him in one.
In common with all circuit riders he had a passion for horses, and a
knowledge of them that would have made his fortune on the race track.
This brings me to relate an incident which will serve to indicate the
shrewdness and unscrupulousness of William once he took the spiritual
bit in his teeth.

We were on the Beaverdam Circuit, and he had bought a new horse--a
horse gifted with ungodly speed in the legs and a mettlesome,
race-track temperament. On a certain Saturday, after services at
Beaverdam Church, we were returning home in a light buggy drawn by the
big, rawboned bay. When we came to a long stretch of good road William
tightened the reins, took on a scandalous expression of Coliseum
delight and let