Perhaps it would be better stated to say, "A friend found me." Soon after the experience related in the former chapter, I left Mr. Lewis and went to spend the winter with my sister while her husband went south with stock, attend the chores, and attend school. At the annual conference of the Southern Methodist Church, there was a change made in the pastors at Perryville near my sister's home, the village where we attended church on the Sabbath, and Rev. T. F. Taliaferro was sent to be the preacher at the Methodist Church. He was a young man with a charming wife and one little girl. In the good providence of God, we got acquainted.
At once, Brother Taliaferro manifested a keen interest in me. I told him I had been a member of the Methodist Church and had my church letter but no one had ever asked me to put in my membership. He insisted that I hunt up my letter, which I did, and joined the church. At once, Brother Taliaferro and his wife became almost like father and mother to me and invited me to come at any time to the parsonage. I often went there to take a meal. They encouraged and helped me in many ways. At the winter revival, which was a union meeting among the Methodists, Presbyterians, and Cumberland Presbyterians, in which Brother Taliaferro had the leadership, I was most graciously blessed. He called on me to pray in the after-service, the first time I had been asked to participate in any sort of religious service in the church since coming to the Blue Grass. From that time forward, he would ask me to assist in the services and the old-time glow of love and zeal came back into my heart. I have often wondered what my life might have been but for the coming of this dear man and his wife to the Methodist Church in Perryville. I told him of my call to preach. We talked over the matter together frequently.
Brother Taliaferro remained with us for three years; insisted that I be licensed to preach before he left our charge, also that I go with him to his next charge, make his house my home, and preach on his circuit, help in meetings, and that he would assist me in my studies so that I would be prepared to pass an oral examination and be admitted to the Kentucky Conference on trial. All of these matters were confidential between Brother and Sister Taliaferro and myself. My relatives were not at all friendly to the idea of my becoming a preacher. They thought I would succeed better as a "hewer of wood and drawer of water."
The winter over, I left the school and went back to live with my brother and spend the summer in work on the farm. That was in "horse and buggy" days. He had a fine horse and a handsome buggy.
One Sunday morning we went into Perryville and attended service at the Methodist Church. My brother was one of the stewards in that church. Before pronouncing the benediction, Brother Taliaferro said, "I desire all of the members of the church to remain for a short business meeting after
the benediction." When they were seated and other persons had retired, he said, "I want you by vote to recommend Henry Morrison to the quarterly conference to be licensed as a local preacher." They took the vote and I think every person present, except one, voted for my recommendation.
My half-brother was indignant, walked rapidly out of the church, leaped into the buggy. I followed him and before I could get seated, he tapped the horse, and out we went barely missing the gatepost, and up the pike full speed, he frequently tapping the horse with the whip. He said, "You and Taliaferro have taken snap judgment on me. I didn't know you were going to get a license to preach.
You can't preach. If there is anybody that I am not interested in it is a one-horse Methodist preacher dragging a woman and children around the country at the point of starvation. We have one scrub preacher among our kinfolks and that's enough. I stand in with the congressmen of this district and I could have gotten you into West Point and made an army officer out of you, or I would have put you with Judge Durham in Danville to make a lawyer out of you; or I could have put you with Dr.
Meyer and made a physician out of you. You could have been somebody of whom we would feel proud." I was crying bitterly and I said, "But, Tom, you see the Lord has called me to preach." To which he answered, "He must be hard up for material." While he tapped the horse and the gravel flew back against the buggy under his rapidly moving feet, I kept saying in my heart, "Lord, Jesus, help me! I am going to preach. I don't care what Tom says."
At the next quarterly conference I was licensed to preach. It would not be long until the annual conference and Brother Taliaferro promised me he would not ask me to preach until he got to his new circuit. Soon afterward, he was taken sick, sent for me to take his horse and buggy and drive over the knobs down on Rolling Fork River to Johnson's Chapel and preach the next Sunday morning, coming back toward Perryville and preaching at Sycamore Methodist Church Sunday afternoon. I was greatly stirred, but prepared my first sermon, went over to Brother Johnson's who was the state senator of his district, spent the night there. The chapel was named for him. He was a prominent man, largely built the church, his house was the preacher's home, and it was marvelous the number of people he fed when they had preaching at his church on the Sabbath. Two of his sons became Methodist preachers and two or three of his grandsons are Methodist preachers.
Sabbath morning I went up in the field where there was a great rock covered with bushes and grapevines, and I prayed earnestly for help. We had a fine congregation. I cannot remember positively what my text was, but I had liberty, told my experience, exhorted the people. Everybody was in tears. I went to Brother Johnson's for dinner. Some one said, "Everybody in the church wept.
Even our school-teacher who isn't a Christian and never was known to weep before wept while you preached and told your experience." In those days, weeping was a good sign in a religious service that the Word was getting to the hearts of the people. I was quite encouraged, went on to Sycamore and preached in the afternoon; didn't get on quite so well, but the people shook hands with me and gave me words of encouragement. I went back to the parsonage that evening in triumph, with a bucket of honey, about a half bushel of apples, and three or four dollars the stewards sent to the preacher. No parents ever received their preacher boy with warmer hearts than Brother and Sister Taliaferro received me and heard with delight the story of my visit, the preaching and the weeping and the very kind and sympathetic reception they gave me.
It was noised abroad that Henry Morrison had commenced preaching and the people were eager to hear me at Perryville, where I had attended Ewing Institute, was a member of the debating club, and was said to be an orator. I do not recall that I was ever defeated in any of our debates. So the people wanted to hear me and Brother Taliaferro persuaded me to take his place in the pulpit on a Sunday evening service. The house was packed. There were two infidels in the village, carriage builders; they were sitting in the church, the first time I ever saw them there, looking at me with glaring eyes and hard faces. I well remember my text, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." I stood up, looked at the people, read my text, and my mind seemed to become blank. I stood there awhile and said, "I believe God has called me to preach. I believe that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob has called me to preach. But I can't preach now. I have forgotten what I wanted to say. But I will preach. I must preach. I am called to preach." With that, I commenced crying, and shouted out, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand," saying that I couldn't preach then but I intended to preach in the future. "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." I was weeping, beating the book, and assuring them that I couldn't preach now, but they must repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Finally, I walked down out of the pulpit as I had seen old preachers do at revivals, exhorting a little in a very confused manner, and called on Professor Borden, the dear old saint who was principal of Ewing Institute, to pray. He was so humiliated by my failure that he didn't feel like praying and called on Brother Taliaferro to offer prayer; he did and dismissed the audience.
A few of the old people walked up and shook hands with me without saying a word. Their eyes were full of pity. Professor Borden came up, shook me by the hand, and said, "Henry, the greatest orator that ever lived failed the first time. Try it again." I assured him that while I was humiliated I was not going to give up. A few Sundays later, Brother Taliaferro announced me to preach at the evening service. I wrote out my sermon from text to Amen. My text was, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." I tried to read my sermon, but stumbled along and made a bad effort of it.
When we went back to the parsonage, I said, "Brother Taliaferro, we've made a mistake. When I went over to Johnson's Chapel where there was need that I preach I had liberty and was blessed.
Here you are putting me up where there's no need for it and I am trying to show the people that I can preach, and I am a pitiful failure. Don't ask me to preach any more unless there is a call for it, a reason why I should go into the pulpit to deliver a message from the Lord." He agreed with me and I made no more effort to preach in Perryville. I went down in the country to a schoolhouse one night and preached and got along very well.
Soon after that Brother Taliaferro went to conference and was sent to the Floydsburg Circuit. I was working on the farm to get a few dollars ahead and after he had been on his new work several months I took the train to Louisville. He met me there in a spring wagon, took me and my trunk to his home in Brownsboro, a village some twenty miles out from Louisville where Sister Taliaferro received me as a son. I remained with them until the annual conference met, walked the circuit, and preached every Sabbath, morning and evening, somewhere, at Floydsburg, Shiloh, Wesley's Chapel or Glenmary, and the Lord graciously blessed me. I weighed about 135 pounds, I looked like a mere boy, and it is wonderful how generous people are to young preachers. If he fails, they apologize for him; if he succeeds, they give him too much praise. The people that I preached to on the Floydsburg Circuit, the old and the middle-aged, have all been dead many years, but I carry the memory of them,
their happy homes and their love for me, their words of encouragement, as a precious treasure in my memory.
SOME CHAPTERS OF MY LIFE STORY
By H. C. Morrison
CHAPTER 10