While my education had not gone beyond that of the common country schools, and while I was but seventeen years of age, yet the average minister of the community had even less education. Not until three years after I was licensed to preach did I learn that there was such an institution in the world as a Theological Seminary. However, in those pioneer days all the ministers, missionaries, Irish pack-peddlers, and horse thieves who passed through put up at my father's house for the night without ever being charged a cent. They more than paid their way, though, I can assure you, by having to talk religion and theology until midnight with my father who was a born theologian. Though my father was not an educated man, yet he had picked up an immense amount of knowledge along certain lines, and always enjoyed a friendly debate more than a good dinner. At such times, from early childhood, I had been allowed to sit in the chimney corner and listen until the last word was said. It was my motion-picture show. And no child ever had more pleasure than came to me when I saw that my father had "wound up" his man in the argument. Then, with the greatest cordiality, my father would show the guest to bed. As there was but one great room, and beds none too many, I usually slept with the guest. And according to the guest's report in the morning, I had given him the completest kicking he ever had in his life. With such training, and in such a community, it is not strange that my biblical and doctrinal examination was pronounced entirely satisfactory. After I had gone to school for ten years it, probably, would not have been so satisfactory. Indeed, I was strongly advised not to go to college, as it was likely to rob me of my spirituality; and besides, many souls would be lost while I was getting an education. Though I continued for a time on the farm or in the coal mines, yet I was told to go out and preach somewhere on Sundays. Accordingly, I would ride ten or twenty miles on Sunday to preach in different schoolhouses. Putting the rein over the horn of the saddle, I would plead before the cold gray sky for an unknown God to renew my happy feelings as a token of His existence. But no happiness, or assurance, came to me. When the time came to preach, I felt the importance of not throwing our lives away in sinful living, and so was able to give them some very earnest advice. Then on the return trip I would continue to pray to an unsympathetic sky. Nothing, however, ever came of it except a deeper depression of spirits. Though the dynamo was running at a terrific rate, yet the circuit of my thoughts was broken beyond my ability to repair. So I decided to go to college at any sacrifice.