NOTE.--Dr. Boyakin was a physician, Baptist minister, and newspaper editor for many years in Illinois. He delivered the G. A. R. address at Blue Rapids, Kansas, on his one hundredth birthday. He has confused some things in these "recollections," especially the story concerning the origin of the name "Friends to Humanity," but for his years his statements are unusually in accord with the facts. VI. {p.41} IN MEMORY OF REV. JAMES LEMEN, SR. BY A WELL-WISHER (_The Standard_, Chicago, November 16, 1907) When James Lemen's early anti-slavery Baptist churches went over to the cause of slavery, it looked as if all were lost and his anti-slavery mission in Illinois had failed. At that crisis Mr. Lemen could have formed another sect, but in his splendid loyalty to the Baptist cause he simply formed another Baptist church on the broader, higher grounds for both God and humanity, and on this high plane he unfurled the banner of freedom. In God's good time the churches and state and nation came up to that grand level of right, light, and progress. Of James Lemen's sons, under his training, Robert was an eminent Baptist layman, and Joseph, James, Moses, and Josiah were able Baptist preachers. [William, the "wayward" son, also became a useful minister in his later years.] Altogether they were as faithful a band of men as ever stood for any cause. This is the rating which history places upon them. The country owes James Lemen another debt of gratitude for his services to history. He and his sons were the only family that ever kept a written and authentic set of notes of early Illinois; and the early historians, Ford, Reynolds, and Peck, drew many of their facts from that source. These notes embraced the only correct histories of both the early Methodist and the early Baptist churches in Illinois and much other early matter.[35] NOTE.--This communication was probably from Dr. W. F. Boyakin. VII. STATEMENT REGARDING JOSEPH B. LEMEN "Joseph B. Lemen has written editorially for _The New York Sun_, _The New York Tribune_, _The Chicago Tribune_, _and The Belleville Advocate_. "During the McKinley campaign of 1896 he wrote editorials from the farmers' standpoint for a number of the metropolitan newspapers of the country at the personal request of Mark Hanna. "He also wrote editorials for the metropolitan newspapers during the first Lincoln campaign." --Editor, _Belleville Advocate_. December, 1912. VIII. {p.42} HISTORIC LETTER OF REV. J. M. PECK ON THE OLD LEMEN FAMILY NOTES (From _Belleville Advocate_, January, 1908) (Clipping in I.B.H.C., K11) To the Editor of the Belleville Advocate: