God had shown me my time would come soon. He had held out death to me and made me see it could mean being in eternal bliss. How wonderful! But this feeling of exhilaration and joyous peace vanished as swiftly as had the celestial being. Terrorizing fear engulfed me! I managed to continue reading. However, the lines were no longer a song of David, the Israelite King. They turned into my own piteous lament. I kept on saying the phrases, but by the time I reached the final verse, I was not reading. I was crying out to my God, _"O spare me, that I may recover strength, before I go hence, and be no more!"_ How I got through the remainder of the service, I will never know. Later I could not recall a single word I had spoken. After the benediction, one of the elderly brethren came up to me and shook my hand. "Brother Dave," he said, "that was the finest sermon you ever preached!" He didn't know it was my last. I spent the night at that kind old gentleman's house. Next morning as I drove my buggy toward home, I let my team find the way by habit rather than by my direction. They went up and down the little hills and through the sand beds at slow pace. Eventually I tied their lines to the dashboard so that I could give full attention to searching the Scriptures. I needed solace for my very soul. As I thumbed through the pages of my Bible there welled up in my memory all the passages I usually read to the bereaved at a graveside. These brought small comfort. None, in fact. I wondered that I had ever thought such Scriptures could, in themselves, console. I searched for other promises but could find not one to blot out my bitter regret and remorse. Faces of the dear people in my churches came before me. I thought of the Sundays I had stood in the pulpit at Millers Crossing and at Shiloh, here at Drake Eye Springs, and at all my other churches and of how I had spoken softly and shouted loudly, of how I had cajoled and pled. Once more, in my mind's eye, I read them the Holy Scriptures and prayed with them all. It was summer again, and I stood waist-deep in the pleasant waters of Cornie Creek, baptizing candidates by the score. One by one I lowered each into a symbolic watery grave and then raised them up—to walk a new spiritual life. And members stood at the water's edge and sang the sacred hymns. I thought on all these things of bygone years. But I asked myself, did I actually show the great and mighty and merciful God to the people? Did a single one get even a glimpse of the truth? Lige, as I rode on toward home that cold, lonely February day, I was utterly dejected. I felt all was lost. Finally I stopped looking through the Bible. I quit thinking of sermons I had or had not preached. Instead, I began to call out to God. I must have actually cried aloud, for my mares, Martha and Mary, gave a sudden leap and almost took me into a ditch!