Page:Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston of Texas (1884).djvu/258

 his letter to the Hebrews, first, on the three antediluvian examples of saving faith, Abel, Enoch, and Noah; next, on the four of the patriarchal period, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph; then of the two in the transition period of Israel's origin as a nation, Moses, the law-giver, and Joshua, the military founder of the Hebrew State; the four men around whose history clusters the interest of the reign of the Judges, Barak, Gideon, Jephthah, and Samson, were each made the theme of a sermon. Strange specimens of Christians these men were admitted to be; doubtful sharers of the thorough redemption, and the genuine renewal which faith in the Redeemer, then to come, always gives. Men they were, who, from their external conduct alone, presented in the Old Testament history of their lives as military and civil leaders, we should never dream were men of humble faith in God; but whose "life hid with Christ in God" Paul is inspired to bring out, for the instruction and comfort of kindred spirits in these last days. As the circumstances of the age in which these men were depicted, an age of settlement in a new land, of conquest over rude and heathen tribes, and even of border and intestine warfare among independent and jealous States not yet consolidated into a nationality. General Houston followed the narrative, and seemed to ponder the resemblance to times and circumstances through which he and thousands of his comrades had passed. When little hints from the inspired record of their lives in the Book of Judges were made to reveal their meaning in the strong light of Paul's statement about them, statements which, as the great apostle unto the Gentiles, of that Gospel which, four hundred and thirty years before the Law was preached unto Abraham, he was inspired to make, and it was made to appear that men leading so rough a life might yet be genuine servants of God and be redeemed by Christ, Gen. Houston's whole soul appeared to be absorbed in the contemplation. He, too, became a sincere believer in that same Redeemer.

"It was his practice, as intimated, to spend his Sabbath afternoons in writing to his wife, not only incidents of the week, but abstracts of the sermons that he heard. Often her replies, sometimes commenting on the doctrine, often urging the exhortation of the sermons reported, were read with intense interest to the pastor. Some of these are treasured as instructive and pleasant memories. Among these remembrances were comments on a discourse of the Rev. Dr, Dewey at the Unitarian Church. The General had expressed his wish to gratify some friends of Dr. Dewey by hearing once, at least, this great and cultured expounder of the history and moral lessons of Jesus as an unequaled human teacher. No mind could have better discriminated than his did, between the excellence and value of all that was urged by the preacher, and that omitted "truth as it is in Jesus," on which he could alone rely as his own personal hope of redemption.

"His reading became more and more decidedly religious; and what he had found valuable to himself he was fond of imparting to others. He early expressed a wish to obtain a copy of 'Nelson on Infidelity,' of which he had heard as eminently adapted to men of his caste of mind. Its perusal so met his own intellectual demands, that he sought, through the same source, several copies for distribution to some of his special friends, whose religious views he thought needed such an aid. At another time he procured several copies of the 'Western Sketch-Book.' and 'Adam and David,' by Rev. Mr. Gallagher, the eloquent and devoted Presbyterian pioneer in the Mississippi valley, whose subsequent