The next Conference met at Orange,N. J., April 25th, 1907. Bishop Wesley J. Gaines, presided. I was sent to the charge at Haddonfield,N. J.I was at this church two years. A good work was done. From this church I was stationed at the church at Mt. Holly,N. J.(The Mt. Moriah A. M. E. Church). We met a most pleasant and active band of workers at this place and did a good work for the Lord.
At the Conference which met at Orange I had the pleasure of hearing theRev.Samuel G. Miller, D.D., President of the Bible Educational Association, speak on the necessity of an educated ministry. I was deeply impressed with his remarks and when he made it known that he was at the head of an institution in Philadelphia where ministers regardless of their intellectual condition would be received and aided along educational lines, I determined that I would visit the school and see what they were doing.
SAMUEL G. MILLER, D.D.
SAMUEL G. MILLER, D.D.My Instructor in Hebrew, New Testament Greek, Theology, etc., Bible College, Philadelphia,Pa.
Not long afterward I went to the school and foundDr.Miller at his post. I told him that I was about seventy years old, that I did not feel that it was worth while for me to undertake any course of study and that if I did I feared that I could not keep pace with the class. Hereplied to me that age had nothing to do with a man’s ability to study if he would apply himself—that the mind never grew old, that it was immortal, and that the only thing for me to do was to enter the school and get down to hard work. I was both amused and astonished at his advice. But I entered the school and took up those difficult studies. New Testament Greek, Hebrew, Psychology, and put in several hours a day on them. I was astonished at my success. I found that my memory came back to me and that I was really able to perform feats of memory. I found that it became easier for me to acquire knowledge as I went along. I remained in the college three years, and am now able to read the Bible in its original tongues and have taken the Theological course. And now in my seventy-third year, I have done what I would loved to have done fifty years ago. I have educated myself. How strange the Providence of God! The Southern people enslaved my people and caused me a great deal of my suffering, but at the end or almost at the end of my earthly journey, I met this godly Southern man,Dr.Miller, who has made a new man out of me along educational lines. Thank God, He has His own children among the Southern people as well as in the North. And I believe that when the Southern people realize what the Negro is tothem as well as what he has been, that they will do wonders for the Race. At this very writing, the white people of the State of South Carolina are vying with the White people of North Carolina, as to which state has the best and most progressive class of Colored people. I thank God that I have gotten out of the briars.
I am greatly surprised that I have been able to fill the posts of duty and honor which have been assigned me in my life. I have done what I could and the best I could. On the battle field, as chaplain in the state legislature, as pastor, as presiding elder, as a high official in Fraternal Orders, as an officer in the Civil War, as son, husband, father and friend. I have tried to be faithful, and I can truly repeat the words of dying King Edward, “I tried to do my duty.”