CHAPTER II
Finishes His Education at Columbia College, under Profs. Roach and Thomas, when only Seventeen.—Called to Preach.—Spends a Few Months Reading the Bible with Bro. Abram Miller.—Joins Bro. Samuel Rogers.-Bro. Rogers' Letter.
Dr. Hopson was always a good student. He commenced the study of Latin at eight years of age, under Prof. Dunlap, and at seventeen finished his Greek and Latin course under Profs. Roach and Thomas; at Columbia College, out of which grew up the State University from which he afterward received the degree of A. M.
Here he closed his scholastic life. At this time the older brethren thought the church demanded that young men of talent and education should be brought forward, and urged him to devote his life to the ministry.
His father, who had become a Christian but a short time before this, was opposed to his taking the step. He was proud of his son, and ambitious that he should make leis mark in the world. He had made arrangements for him to enter the office of Geyer & Bates, of St. Louis, to study law, as soon as he left college. It cost Winthrop a severe struggle to disappoint his father, as well as to silence the cravings of his own ambition. On the one' side were worldly honor, fame, distinction, pecuniary profit, while the other offered neither emolument nor worldly glory, but a hand-to-hand fight with contumely, reproach, persecution, and poverty.
The Christians were at this time few, and a despised
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people. They were ostracized from all communion with. their religious neighbors. They were called Campbellites, Stoneites, New Lights, anything but the name they chose to wear and strove to honor.
But few young men who enter the ministry to-day can appreciate the sacrifice lie was called upon to make. After prayerful consideration, he decided to devote his life to preaching the gospel. There were no Bible Colleges then, to train young men for usefulness; his only chance was to sit at the feet of some godly man, who was able to teach others how to tell the story of the cross. He spent 'several months with Bro. Abram Miller, of Millersburg, Callaway county, learning what to preach, speaking as opportunity offered. I take pleasure in letting the old veteran of the cross, Bro. Samuel Rogers, introduce Dr. Hopson to our readers as he was in 1840, in his eighteenth year "About this time I was approached by a tall, spare youth of about eighteen summers, neat in his attire; graceful, gentle, and dignified in his bearing; with an intelligent eye and charming voice-altogether such a one as would at once command respect, and, at the same time, excite the suspicion of the beholder that ho might be a scion of the stock of F. F. V.'s of old colonial days.
"He bore letters from Abram Miller, of Millersburg, Callaway county, recommending him to me as a pious youth, who desired to devote his life to the work of the ministry, and who wished to place himself under my care. He brought letters also highly commendatory to Philip Miller, then of Franklin county. Philip Miller was a man of great goodness of heart, but very plain, spoken, and sometimes blunt, almost offensively so. When the young man approached Miller, he was busy shaving shingles, and, as if to test him, was asked the very blunt question: `Young man, do you think you are of any account? Can you shave shingles?' ' I suppose I can,' was the reply. 'Well,' said Miller, `take off your coat and try.' The youth, nothing daunted, threw off his coat, took hold of the drawing-knife with his white, ten-
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der hands, and went to work as if he had served an apprenticeship at the business of shingle making.
"A few minutes satisfied Miller that the handsome youth spas no humbug, so he urged him to resign the knife, saying, That will do, sir.' This, to us, appears a trifling incident; but it was enough to endear the youth to Philip Miller for life-it was the beginning of a lasting friendship. Years afterward I heard Philip Miller tell how his admiration had been excited by the simple determination expressed on this occasion by the youth, and how his sympathies had been aroused by the discovery of great blisters, which the knife had raised on his delicate hands.
"This young man placed himself under my care for the purpose of training himself to the hardships of the Christian warfare; and I take pleasure in bearing witness that this young Timothy served his father for two years as faithfully and lovingly as any Timothy could serve. At first I put him to blowing and striking for me-to use a blacksmith's phrase-but, finding him a young man of great promise, I put him in the lead, requiring him to deliver the opening discourses generally, while I followed with exhortation. I have had a long and varied experience in helping young men into usefulness, but have never been better satisfied with the progress of any man. with whom I have associated than the young man, Winthrop H. Hopson.
"His discourses were finely arranged, quite logical, clear and forcible. They were always delivered in the finest language, yet presented in a manner so simple that a child could comprehend them. On this account I generally put him forward to preach the sermons, and I followed with exhortations. In this way we labored together with great profit, for his forte was preaching; mine, exhortation. We always traveled together, and, in the circuit of four or five counties, accomplished a grand and glorious work, which eternity alone can fully reveal.
"The old men of today dwell with animation upon the transactions of those primitive times, when I did the grubbing and Winthrop piled the brush; or, when Winthrop made the log heaps, and I fired them; or, in a different phrase, they speak of his shooting with a rest, always hitting the mark, and of my shooting off-hand, taking the game on the wing. These phrases, homely though they may be, very aptly describe the manner of our work. This very difference in manner and method gave efficiency to our labors, and made each more useful to the other.
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Our union was sweet, and our harmony complete throughout the campaign. Winthrop sat at my feet, like a little child, to receive, both by precept and example, all I had to give that would make him useful in the vineyard of his Master; and I sometimes found it profitable to reverse the order and become his pupil. Him I found to be an accomplished scholar, and I knew myself to be very defective, even in the Mina's English, so I requested him to criticize and correct me when there should be a necessity for it, and to do this without hesitation. This he did but with a manner so humble and gracious as to make me feel that my fault was a virtue. Dear boy, how I loved him!
"I have said he was always neat in his dress, and dignified in his bearing. Owing to this fact, many poor people appeared a little shy of him on first acquaintance. To live in To., cabins and dress in homespun was the style in those days in that country. When entering the cabins of these lowly people, Winthrop was quick to detect the cause of shyness on the part of the inmates, and always ready to remove it by his easy, gentle way of making himself at home, and appearing as if he had been used to nothing better all his life. He was a very magnet to little children, and possessed that rare faculty of remembering their names, so that, meet them where he might, he would address them by their proper names, and make them feel easy in his presence. He was never vulgarly familiar with any one, old or young, and was never guilty of using slang phrases, and could not be tempted to approach even the precincts of a conversation vulgar or smutty. When he entered a house, it seemed to be his first study to avoid giving trouble to any one. Winthrop H. Hopson had then, and now has, the appearance of being stiff and proud; but this is only the man as lie appears to the stranger. Let him come near to you, and all this appearance of haughtiness and pride will vanish, for it is, like beauty, only skin deep. To know him and to love him, your acquaintance must extend beneath the surface. I wish the young men of this day, who have not one-half so much to puff them up with pride as he had, were as humble and teachable as he. Being handsome and accomplished, and belonging to a family which took rank among the best of that country, or any other country, it is not strange that he should have been greatly loved and honored by the young and old of all classes. But it is passing strange that his head should not have been a little turned by the attentions and coin; lime its he received. I never knew
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him to compromise his dignity in any manner; what is better, he maintained a pure and spotless character.
"Winthrop prudently avoided the meshes of matrimony, as well as every appearance of the kind, until after our separation; then he married a charming Christian girl whom I had baptized Rebecca Parsons, the fourth daughter of Col. James Parsons.
"There are those, perhaps, who may think that I should not have said so much about my Timothy. But such persons must know that what I have said is specially for the benefit of young preachers, who, when they read this, may take my boy preacher for a pattern. I do not know that what I am writing will ever see the light; lest it should, I must add a few more words upon the same subject, and for the same purpose.
"No loving son could be more attentive to the wants of a, father than was Winthrop to mine. On stopping for the night, his first and unceasing care was my comfort. I must be first seated, have the best chair, and have it in the best place. If there were two beds offered us, I must have choice; or, if we had to occupy the same bed, I must have choice of sides. In those days money was scarce, and came to us in small installments. When. money was offered to him, he was in the habit of refusing it, as I learned, by saying: `I am young, and have no family; I can get along without it. Give it to Uncle Sam, he has a large family to support, and needs all he can get. Thus he was ever regarding my welfare, and, in his unselfishness, forgetting his own comfort and convenience.
"On one occasion, when we were going to an appointment on the head waters of the Burbois River, we came to a tributary that was so swollen by recent rain that we were unable to ford it, and our embarrassment was increased by the fact that the canoe was on the other side. Winthrop, without a word, stripped himself, plunged into the turbid stream, ant brought the canoe over, so that we were enabled to get across in good plight and meet our engagement promptly. How all this contrasts with that class of coarse, ill-bred young men, who act as if they suppose people will not hold them in honor unless they are peevish, fretful,. fault-finding, and troublesome in general.
"Thirty years full of import, full of change and disappointment, have been numbered with those beyond the flood, since Winthrop and I traversed the Missouri hills and valleys together, bearing the joyful tidings of peace and love to the listening mul-
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titudes. But the results of the work begun by us will never pass away. At this distance from the scene, it were vain for me to attempt a description in detail of the work that was accomplished. Whole communities almost were turned from the service of sin unto the service of the living God. Where only the song of the reveler had been before, you could now hear songs of praise. Family after family was completely transformed. I have reason to think that when Winthrop and I get home we will find a blessed congregation, of those dear souls who were brought to Christ under our preaching, waiting for us at the gate."
This is the only picture of Dr. Hopson at the time he first began to preach. This is from the pen of the dear old man who loved his son Timothy till the end of his life. The above extract is from Bro. Samuel Rogers' "Toils and Struggles of the Olden Times," edited by his son, Elder John I. Rogers. It is a book that should be in every Christian's library. The lives of saints should be precious in the eyes of the people of God.
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