The Deacon of Dobbinsville: A Story Based on Actual Happenings — John Shaqi
The Deacon of Dobbinsville: A Story Based on Actual HappeningsMorrison, John Arch
Religion
The Deacon of Dobbinsville: A Story Based on Actual Happenings
Morrison, John Arch
Christian life -- Fiction
As Harry Benton thus spoke his wife and children listened intently, and
when the meal was finished and the Bible was brought for the morning
worship, the whole family was in a serious frame of mind. Benton went on
to say, "And when we talk of home scenes, I always think of father and
his godly influence upon my life. As I look across the years, I see
myself an ignorant awkward country boy; but there is one thing for which
I shall always thank my God, and that is that I was blessed with a
Christian father. Throughout the years his saintly life has been a
benediction to me. The most sacred picture that hangs on the wall of my
memory is that of my father with the big family Bible on his lap and all
the children gathered around him and Mother for the worship of his God.
Well do I remember when he used to pray for us, naming us out one by one
and asking God to make us useful men and women. And oh, how he used to
be persecuted by the Mount Olivet people. Well do I remember how one
morning when Father was on his way to milk your father's cows he was met
by Deacon Gramps, who beat him so shamefully. That night in family
worship Father prayed so fervently and asked God to forgive Gramps and
save him from his wicked ways. The impressions I received during those
stirring days never will leave me. I tell you, Eva, it meant something
for Father to stand true as he did, and I think heaven will be
especially sweet to those who have suffered as he has suffered."
When he had left off speaking and the family knelt in prayer, Harry
Benton's voice trembled with emotion as he prayed for all those back
home whom he remembered, and especially for his father.
When the morning chores were done and Harry Benton started to the Full
Salvation Mission, which mission he had superintended and supported for
a number of years, he was met on his front porch by a Western Union
messenger boy, who took from beneath his blue cap a slip of yellow paper
and handed it to him. This is how it read: "Come, Father very low."
Benton telephoned one of his brethren to take charge of the Mission, and
after earnestly beseeching the Lord to spare his father until his
bedside could be reached, he and his wife made hasty arrangements to
start, and were soon speeding across the fertile fields of Illinois.
They crossed the mighty Mississippi, changed trains in St. Louis' big
Union Depot, and after a few hours' ride their train was gliding past
old familiar scenes of bygone days.
"Dobbinsville, Dobbinsville," shouted the porter as he thrust his face
in at the door of the coach. Three short jerks at the signal
cord--swish, swish, swish--back from the engine--t-oot-oot-oot--a sudden
let-up in speed, a screech of the airbrakes, a bang of the door, and the
Texas Canon-Ball made one of its seldom stops at Dobbinsville and Harry
Benton and his family stepped to the platform.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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