Biographical Sketches of Living Old Men; Of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, in Six Volumes (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1877. Excerpt: ... REV. MATTHEW HOUSTON BONE. MAYSyiLLE, ALA. Matthew Houston Bonk was born May 24th, 1803, near Statesville, Wilson County, Tennessee. His father, Hugh Bone, and mother, Mary Hill, were both of Scotch-Irish lineage, and reared in the same community in Iredell county, North Carolina. They inherited religious and Presbyterian proclivities from a long line of pious ancestors. Naturally of good constitutions, strong minds, and christian habits, well confirmed under the teachings of that eminent divine, Rev. James Hall, D. D., they were fully qualified to take position as heads of a family and train their children for God and the Church, which they did. Seven children, five sons and two daughters, were born unto them, of which Matthew Houston, named for a prominent Presbyterian divine of that day, was the sixth. His early education was very limited, the country contiguous to his father's house affording very meagre facilities in that regard. His boyhood years were spent in tilling the soil of his father's farm in connection with his brothers. This laid the foundation of a good physical constitution. His moral training, it hardly needs to be said, was in strict accord with the standard erected in the Abrahamic Covenant. This created the basis of what has been ever since, a strictly religious life, and an entire consecration to his God. On the 9th of September, 1821, at a camp-meeting at Good Providence, Union County, Kentucky, he embrac ed, by faith, all the blessings stipulated and guaranteed in the covenant before mentioned. From the time of his early boyhood the thought had predominated in his mind, that some day he would be a preacher. Now that the seal of the covenant had been applied more directly to his heart through the washing of regeneration and the bel...