ong the first ones that I
ask for in Heaven will be John and William Duncan.

Gasherie De Witt! He embodied a large part of the enterprise and
enthusiasm of the place. He had his head full of railroads long before
the first spike was driven for an iron pathway to the village. We were
much together and ardently attached; went fishing together on long
summer days, he catching the fish, and I watching the process. When we
dedicated the first Brooklyn Tabernacle, he was present, and gave the
money for building a baptistry in the pulpit, and gave besides $100 for
his wife and each one of his children. When we parted from each other at
Oxford, England, he to go to Geneva, Switzerland, to die, and I to come
back to America, much of sweet acquaintanceship and complete confidence
ended for this world, only to be taken up under celestial auspices.

But time and space would fail to tell of the noble men and women that
stood around me in those early years of my ministry. They are all gone,
and their personality makes up a large part of my anticipation of the
world to come.

THE THIRD MILESTONE

1856-1862

My first sermons were to me the most tremendous endeavours of my life,
because I felt the awful responsibility of standing in a pulpit, knowing
that a great many people would be influenced by what I said concerning
God, or the soul, or the great future.

When I first began to preach, I was very cautious lest I should be
misrepresented, and guarded the subject on all sides. I got beyond that
point. I found that I got on better when, without regard to
consequences, I threw myself upon the hearts and consciences of my
hearers.

In those early days of my pastoral experience I saw how men reason
themselves into scepticism. I knew what it was to have a hundred nights
poured into one hour.

I remember one infidel book in the possession of my student companion.
He said, "DeWitt, would you like to read that book?" "Well," said I, "I
would like to look at it." I read it a little while. I said to him, "I
dare not read that book; you had better destroy it. I give you my
advice, you had better destroy it. I dare not read that book. I have
read enough of it." "Oh," he said, "haven't you a stronger mind than
that? Can't you read a book you don't exactly believe, and not be
affected by it?" I said, "You had better destroy it." He kept it. He
read it until he gave up the Bible; his belief in the existence of a
God, his good mora