And here the writer of these “Personal Recollections” found them, growing strong, and rich, and influential, and more prosperous than any other religious body in Adams county.  It is now after the lapse of thirty years, to be mentioned to their honor—­and to the honor of the churches of the State—­that they have made commendable progress in the direction of a Christian liberality, and of moral, intellectual, and religious growth; still they are not yet up to the mark.

For the purpose of the moral, intellectual and religious education of his people, the Lord has given us one day in seven, and in one year he has given us fifty such days.  This in seven years is one whole year, and in seventy-five years it is ten years, leaving out five years as the period of babyhood; and this as fitting men for the highest style of religious life, and of American citizenship is, if well employed, the best school on the face of the earth.  Needs it to be said, that to do this work well, the teachers in this school of the prophets have need to be well qualified?  There are certain Scriptures bearing on this point we will do well to ponder: 

Meditate on these things; give thyself wholly to them, that thy profitting may appear unto all.

No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who hath called him to be a soldier.  The Lord give thee understanding in all things.

We have no churches in this nation to whom these admonitions apply with greater weight of impressive authority than to the churches of Illinois.  Where much is given, there much is required, and to no State in the Union has more been given in the way of worldly wealth than to the Disciples of that commonwealth.  There is not such another body of rich land in this great nation, perhaps not in the world.  Water is an element essential to the highest productiveness, even of fertile soil, and the vapors rising on the Gulf of Mexico have not a hillock three hundred feet high to obstruct their flow up the Mississippi eastward and northward, until they reach the State of Illinois.  And the men that do business in the cities of this prosperous State, or till its fertile and alluvial soil, that was lifted up, not many geologic ages ago, from beneath the bottom of the sea, are so rich they do not know how rich they are.  But it is a peril to be rich.  Jesus, Paul and Solomon unite in saying so, and it is especially a peril when wealth comes suddenly.  When a man starts poor, and has felt the sting of contempt because of his poverty, and then finds himself rich and prosperous and flattered, and tempted to indulge in every luxury, then this man is in great peril; and there is no security against this danger like using the wealth that God has given him for the glory of God and the good of men.

But there were brethren thirty years ago that needed no admonition as touching the disposition they should make of their world goods.  I could give a goodly number of examples, but the reader will pardon me if, because of the narrow limits of these “Recollections,” I confine myself to one.