Brenham, Washington County, Texas, years afterwards. God had caused my poor heart, in the mean time, to bow beneath the greatest affliotion in life, and I tendered General Mayfield my hand, and endeavored to look forgiveness, -I did not feel like talking. My wife was in the grave, hastened there prematurely, as I believed, by the grief of two years, in consequence of the chains her eldest child wore in a foreign land. When he questioned me as to my feelings towards him, faithfulness required me to say, that there were some wounds made in life that could not with safety be probed, even when they were old; and that this was one of them.

CHAPTER XVI.

W

AFFLICTION. - - 1843.

ELDOM in the history of human affairs does a people pass through a more gloomy period than we experienced in the fall of 1842. Widows

among us wept and refused to be comforted; mothers mourned in consequence of the imprisoned and dead, and there was anxiety lest the widow and orphan should suffer for bread. Our crops on the Guadalupe were all consumed, whether in the field or in the crib, by the passing soldiery, and to us signs appeared foreboding war on a large scale. As, however, a calm follows a tempest, and as sometimes the highest joy succeeds the deepest sadness, so Texas passed the last trials, in September, of an invasion of her territory by any large force of her enemies. Occasionally afterwards there were conflicts between small parties, but this was the beginning of better days for the Republic. The dim rainbow of promised peace very shortly spanned the heavens, and as the sound of war gradually died away, the gospel trumpet sent her silvery notes across our plains. Hence, in 'the future, we will be permitted to record less of war, and more of religion.

The monthly meeting was just at hand, and delegates were appointed to the Union Association, to meet with the church at Washington, on the Brazos River. The church first organized there had disbanded, but another organiza

tion had been formed, under the ministry of brother William Tryon. Arriving at brother Farquahar's, close by the place, we were informed that the Association would not meet. The people and brethren at Washington, in consequence of the great poverty of the country, had decided that they could not sustain it. I felt considerably provoked, and gave vent to a little of my displeasure. Having just returned from the western campaign, where we had together starved three days at a time in defence of the country, patience under the circumstances was more than the brethren, in their charity, expected of me. My language, as well as I remember, was that "A set of Baptists that could not live on beef alone, in times like these, through the short session of an association, were not worth shucks." Brethren now would get offended with such talk; but we did not mind it much then. If a brother got a little mad about anything we did, we just let him blow out, knowing that he would feel better when he got in good humor. We held a little conference with brethren Tryon, Baylor, and others, and called a meeting of the association at Mount Gilead, near the present locality of Brenham, Washington County.

The association met at the place appointed on Saturday, the twenty-sixth of November, 1842. The business transacted and the acquaintances made at this meeting greatly encouraged us, notwithstanding the distressed condition of the country at large.

Here I met for the first time Elder Hosea Garrett, just from South Carolina, his native State, whose face has appeared at nearly every session of the Union Association since, and whose counsel has been as wise, upon the whole, and received at the hands of the brethren as much consideration, in all our deliberative bodies, as that of any other

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man that ever came to Texas as a Baptist preacher. At first, he was considered more modest and retiring in his manners than was best in such an era of our history; but with a warm and generous impulse he steadily maintained the dignity of the Christian character, and won his way to confidence and position. Although he did not enjoy the privileges of an early education, he possessed the rare quality of good common sense. He has ever been the true and

steady friend of our literary institutions, as all his past record shows; and although as a man, and as a preacher, he has at no period of our history appeared as a blazing comet, yet as a steadily shining star he has all the time faithfully reflected his borrowed light.

Seven years with me had passed, years of war, attended with frequent changes of plans and locations, and, weary of frontier life, my mind led me to seek repose. The welfare of my helpmate required it. Her spirit was crushed by the previous loss of our elder daughter; and now that the elder son was in chains, and in the hands of a semisavage people, her health was rapidly declining, and I could under these circumstances no longer join my countrymen in absences from home. My way was by no means clear. The church I first organized at Washington failed, and now the frontier church at Gonzales was scattered; my farming and financial operations all had failed, and in the midst of my distresses, like Jacob, after the loss of Joseph and Simeon, and the demand for Benjamin also, I could but cry "All these are against me; out, and faith revealed no reason why these things should fail to "bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave." We moved to the city of Houston, and after a few weeks of patient search for

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a field of usefulness, in connection with means of support,

I located the family near the mouth of the Trinity River. Here I preached what I could among the scattered settlements, and waited the developments of the country.

My cup was full of sorrow, but the Father of mercies and goodness determined that it was best for me and for his glory to make it run over. The partner of my bosom sickened, suffered long, and died. The son she longed to see again was seen by her no more on earth. She went to sleep with clearest hopes of heaven. Had it been God's will, I could then cheerfully have taken the three remaining children to join her and my Master on the other shore.

In my age I have nerved myself, with the blessing of God, to write the trials of mine and others, endured in 1842. Clouds of gloom hang so heavily around all the recollections of 1843, in the west, that I must leave its records to others. I can't write them.