Page:Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston of Texas (1884).djvu/259

Rh service as Chaplain of the House of Representatives was so blest to many. One set of these volumes, elegantly bound, he presented to his attached Washington pastor; whom, for years before his public Christian profession, he always called 'brother.' On another occasion, to aid his own Bible study, as well as to facilitate that of those whom he most esteemed, he bought three copies of that expensive work, 'West's Analysis of the Bible,' one of which volumes he presented to his wife's pastor in Texas, and a second to his own pastor at Washington.

"During the session of 1854 he expressed his conviction that he ought to make a profession of religion, by the public ordinance of baptism. The question was debated whether he ought to receive this rite, and make that public consecration in the presence of his associates in Congress at Washington, or amid his family and early companions in his Texan home. The scale turned in favor of the latter suggestion.

"On his return to Congress the next winter, many eyes were on him; and the tests of his thorough and fixed devotion of himself to God were anxiously looked for by his pastor. They became at once apparent, and remained immovable. Calling early after his arrival to see him, an hour was spent in conversation on his profession, and the grounds which had led to it. On rising to leave, the pastor was followed as usual to the door, and, as often happened, the General asked: 'Brother S., is there anything I can do for you?' his reference being to claims of humanity, sometimes presented to him. The reply was, 'No, General, I have no tax upon you at present.' Immediately, however, the recollection was awakened that the next Sabbath was the season for the Lord's supper, and that with one of the leading brethren of the church. General Houston had formerly a trying, and yet unsettled controversy, in his official capacity as the head of a Senate Committee. At once, prompted by the recollection, the pastor added, still holding his hand, 'General, I recall that statement in part; I have nothing to ask of you as a man, but I have something to ask of you as a Christian pastor.' Fixing his keen eye, as he looked down upon mine, he meekly but firmly asked, 'What is it, brother S.?' 'General,' was the reply, 'you know the alienation between you and brother W. You will meet at the Lord's supper next Sabbath evening; you ought not to meet till that difficulty is settled. Now I wish you, after service on Sunday morning, to let me bring you two together, and without a word of attempt at justification on either side, I wish you to take him by the hand, and say with all your heart, that you will forgive and forget and bury the past, and that you wish him to do the same, and hereafter to meet you as brothers in Christ.' The fire began to glow in his eyes, his brow to knit, his teeth to clench, and his whole frame shook with the struggle of the old man within him; but in an instant, the man whose passion had been terrible, indeed ungovernable on so many a bloody battle-field, was changed from the lion into the lamb. He meekly replied, 'Brother S., I will do it.' And, what he promised was done, and in an air of majestic frankness and nobleness of soul, such as moved every beholder. From that hour I never have doubted that General Houston was a man renewed by the Holy Spirit.

"Many a time the Christian pastor is asked if he thinks such and such an one baptized and received into the fellowship of the church, perhaps a playful child, a pleasure-loving youth, a morose head of a family, a miserly business man, can be a Christian. If such men as Jephthah and Samson and David and Solomon could be true servants of God, because saved by faith, not by works of