A Sunny Life; The Biography of Samuel June Barrows (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. 1913. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER III SUNDAY-SCHOOL AND CHURCH In writing of a many-sided character, one cannot describe several characteristics abreast, like the horses of a Russian troika. We must rather drive tandem, like the teams in narrow, crooked streets; so having seen the school side of little Sammy, we must take up the religious side, though it is perfectly correct to say that from a mere child the religious spirit penetrated every part of his life and gave strength and character to all that he did. The boy's mother had been a rarely brilliant girl, full of fun and.love of society, and her circumstances at that time gave her an opportunity to gratify her love of pleasure. When she attended the big balls in New York, seventy-five or eighty years ago, few could vie with her in grace and lightness in the dance, or were quicker in repartee. But after the mental and spiritual change known then, perhaps now also, as "experiencing religion," she cast off the enjoyment of these good times as things unsuitable for a Christian, thus following the fashion of those who leave the good times, as they consider them, to the irreligious, instead of taking their religion into the good times. Henceforth she became a devout and consistent member of the strictest fold of the Baptists, and in this faith her children were brought up. She herself was baptized in the Harlem River by having a hole hewn through the ice for the immersion, but by the time her children were dipped, the more effeminate method of warm water in tanks below the pulpit had been adopted. But a courage was developed in other directions that needed as much backbone as to be immersed in icy water, and that was the courage to "stand up for Jesus," as it was called, in public. The boy Samuel had that courage. It was developed i...