01 Girded When He Knew It Not

Chapter 1 GIRDED WHEN HE KNEW IT NOT

1856—1882

UP in a grassy apple-orchard on a western Pennsylvania farm, a curly-headed boy stretched himself, one spring day, and looked off on the panorama of surrounding hills. He knew that fair prospect well. With eyes shut he could see the uplands broadly plaided with alternating fields of winter wheat and plowed land, could point to the dip in the rounded hills where Pine Creek runs, or where the Little Mahoning marks a gap between lines of forest-trees, and Glade Run itself, scarcely beyond ear-shot, babbles across the road between the farm and yonder little borough of Dayton. But this boy’s merry brown eyes were never shut in daylight, and now they were dark with resolution, and his mouth wore an expression of determined purpose. The orchard was his retreat. With the village boys he went fishing; with his brothers he caught squirrels in the woods and set the trap for fox and mink; but when he went to the top of the orchard he went alone, and there he had thought through many a perplexity under the blue sky, with the winds of heaven blowing round him. To-day he had come again with a mighty question surging through his soul, and to-day it must be settled. "When at length, his meditation ended, he sprang to his feet, a frank-faced lad stouter than tall for his sixteen years, his conclusion was fully reached and there was no hesitation in his bearing, as he strode down from under the trees prepared to announce that he " must have an education " and he would " find a way or make one.’’ The orchard sloped to the south, and on the farther side of the road at its foot was his father’s comfortable homestead, with green yard in front, a Dutch oven and other outbuildings cozily grouped at the rear, and a roomy barn beyond.

Adolphus Clemens Good was born December 19, 1856, in a log house in West Mahoning, and in a log house he had lived till thirteen years old. His father, Abram Good, was of German descent, and had gone with his parents when they pioneered up from Maryland into a remote pocket of the Indiana County hills, Pennsylvania. Scant were Abram Good’s opportunities for schooling in that primitive mountain district, and when thirty years old he seized his last chance for a short winter term taught by Hannah Irwin. The spring following he determined to " take the schoolmistress and all." Of five sons born to them, Adolphus was the second; and his one little sister having died, the mother often leaned on his cheerful assistance in milking, churning, and other household tasks.

Abram Good was a Lutheran, like his godly forefathers, and his eldest sons were baptized in a Lutheran church, the only one accessible from the farm. His wife was of Scotch-Irish ancestry. The Irwins for generations had represented undiluted Presbyterianism, as well as intelligence above the average. So when the Good family removed from their romantic but oppressively quiet farm into Armstrong County, they cast in their lot with Glade Run Church, of which Hannah Irwin’s father, Benjamin, was an original member and an elder until his death at a good old age. This was a typical homogeneous American community. Social simplicity and hardworking thrift were the rule. No flagrant wickedness was heard of, for temperance, order, and religion prevailed. To this day it is unaltered, and fortunate is the city resident to whom it is permitted to fly from the smoke of Pittsburgh up the Allegheny Valley in the month of May, and, leaving the railway fifty miles beyond, mount a big wagon behind stout farm-horses and drive twenty miles straight into the heart of the hills. Platoons of violets and low saxifrage escort him, trilliums wave from banks above, redbud and shad-tree brighten the woods, a joyous cascade here and there tumbles down towards Pine Creek, robins and mocking-birds sing in the tree-tops, and every farm-house is embowered in apple-blossoms, peach, and cherry.

One Lord’s day spent in that rural hamlet discloses to the visitor not only what the people are, but what they have been for a hundred years since the first settlers came, following a pack-saddle trail across the mountains. Somewhat chary of speech they are, thinking more than talking, generous in their hospitality, patriotic, inured to hard work, and stanch believers in the Word of God. It is a goodly sight, after " second preaching," to mark the long line of top-buggies and open wagons, gray heads and rosy children together, defiling homeward in every direction up the long hill roads. Looking backward to the plain little church standing on its own height, with evergreens and marbles over three generations of sleepers on the right of it, and to the left the most unpretentious hall of learning one ever saw, you have the material embodiment of the most forceful agent in keeping that community wholesome, intelligent, and Bible-loving. Pastor Mechlin was also for over thirty years principal of Glade Run Academy, and he was wise in his generation. From its quaint belfry rang out an enticing voice to girls and boys of the farms for miles around. In low, bare recitation-rooms a hundred or more students at a time grappled with geometry and Greek; and in a period of about thirty years, over sixty young men who passed out from the academy preached the gospel in their several denominations, and seven men and women became missionaries to the heathen. When from time to time his "boys" came back from their niches in the wide world, Pastor Mechlin proudly stood them up in pulpit or on platform, and then the village children learned with awe what greatness and eloquence are. In this environment, in such an atmosphere, Adolphus Good grew up, and, fond of a book in a home where books were rare, always " a good bit like his mother," the schoolmistress, it was inevitable that the hour should come when Learning would beckon to him with her potent finger and become his master passion. There was no Christian motive in his decision that spring day, but he was girded when he knew it not. The boy who would " find a way or make one " from farm to college would one day cut a path into unmitigated savagery in Equatorial Africa, and push the frontier of civilization a step forward there. He more than half suspected that his independent decision would not meet a warm response. His mother might ponder these things in her heart; but for the father to part ways with his son, one whose activity matched his own, who never had to be called twice in the morning, who could hoe his long rows of corn and turn his straight furrows with the best of them, who, though a boy, was intelligent upon the whole subject of farming — no wonder if this would be a keen disappointment. In the neighborhood, too, were those who viewed such a departure with suspicion. "’Dolphus had taken to books, and a first-rate farmer had been spoiled." From this time on for nine years young Good took straight aim for an education, and pursued it with all his might. Hand over hand he climbed upward. Three years he studied at Glade Run Academy, walking to and from home two miles, " always in classroom soon after seven o’clock for first recitation," filling vacations and odd hours with teaching school or helping his father in barn and hay-field; three years at Washington and Jefferson College, Washington, Pa.; three years more at Western Theological Seminary, Allegheny, Pa., where he threw himself ardently into Soho Mission and for most of the last year preached at Freeport.

Recollections of him are rife. After thirty years, the picture that comes up to one is of " a sturdy little boy, his dark eyes snapping with energy and fun and his feet swinging back and forth twice as fast as any other boy’s" on the long bench in Sunday-school. One of the assistants in the academy remembers the lad who entered in the spring of 1873, " earnestness personified," who had " a way of giving his whole thought to whatever engaged his attention for the time, whether a problem in algebra or a game of ball. The boys often said, Good plays fair.’ He did not seem ambitious for leadership, and yet because of his qualifications was often given first place." To this teacher he came, when directed to write an essay, saying that it was a new thing and he did not know how. Having received general instructions, he went away and some days later came before the society with an essay on " Wheat " " which made some of us think that we had one with us who would some day be known by his pen." Years after, Dr. Mechlin wrote with the trembling hand of age: " Adolphus was an industrious, earnest, and obliging boy, ready to make the best of circumstances. He was respectful to his teachers, a kind of natural leader among the boys and always popular with them. It was often said of him, He will make a good man.’ "

There was special religious interest among the students the very summer that Good entered the academy, and, exemplary as he was, always attendant upon public worship, with the strict and early instruction of his home, it was expected that he would be among the first to avow himself on the Lord’s side. But when his teacher asked him if he did not wish to take that stand he was " surprised" to be met by "a decided negative." When under appointment as missionary to Africa, he told this friend that he "never got away from that conversation"; that he delayed becoming a Christian because he thought it would bind him to the ministry, while he then had "other plans." Those plans were for the profession of law and in the direction of a worldly ambition, which he was gradually enabled to put under his feet. He also passed through a period of questioning the received doctrines, and came out, where he stood immovable all his life, upon the solid rock of conviction. He made a " manly confession," and united with Glade Run Church, June 6, 1876, being then in his twentieth year. The next autumn he entered the sophomore class in Washington College, and, having had a shorter " fitting " than most of the students, took first rank in nothing; but he ranked well all around, and entered heartily into all the college life. He found his place in the Society of Religious Inquiry the first Sunday, and was always in athletics. No one enjoyed better a good foot-race or game of ball. A member of another class recalls that his most intimate associates in college were " men intellectually strong," and "Good was a dominating force among them. He gave the impression that, other things being equal, it was better not to get into an intellectual contest with him. No one ever doubted his religious conviction. He went his way; he acted on his conviction; nothing else mattered."

One of his classmates through both college and seminary recalls the first time he saw the "sun-browned athlete,... eager for work, but impatient of trifling. He was quiet and diffident to a degree, but it soon came to be understood that where muscle or courage or brain or conscience was needed, Good’s place was at the front." At the end of his college course, as well as the beginning, " his face was transparent; he had nothing to hide." His splendid physical life precluded uncouthness at this or any other period; ’ but," says a friend, " he was wanting in those graces of deportment which have to be courted, and his rugged honesty and self-respect without them led him, all his life, to underrate, perhaps, their value."

He was one of six men of the classes of 78 and ’79 who banded together, and lived at the lowest terms of expense, cooking for themselves by turn, as no other men in college did. If this drew down an occasional sharp grind on " Poverty Row," he was thoroughly insensitive on the subject. He belonged to the Grand Order of Log Cabin Men of America, where Lincoln belonged, and Grant and Garfield. No snobbery can touch such men. All six of that lively and congenial band became ministers in the Presbyterian Church, two of them foreign missionaries.

"What was Good’s leading characteristic in college days? " was lately asked of one of those chief friends. " Virtus — manliness," was the answer. When his own earnings were exhausted, Mr. Good’s father came to his rescue, and during his seminary course he received aid from the Board of Education to the amount of one hundred and fifty dollars. Every cent of this was voluntarily paid back from his salary in Africa, an act which astonished the secretary into issuing a call to pastors over comfortable churches in America, asking if they could not also refund some part of the aid which they had enjoyed.

Both in college and seminary, along with other students, Mr. Good led country Sunday-schools and cottage prayer-meetings, " preached the gospel to the poor and visited them in their homes." His services were offered at Soho Mission, Pittsburgh, with the remark, " I do not know what I can do, but I want to do all I can and in the best way." Again he was girded when he knew it not. The poverty, shiftlessness, and vice with which he there came in contact were surprising to one reared in his country ways, and long afterward, in Africa, he was applying the lessons he learned in that experience. When this loyal, exuberantly active young student made an unreserved surrender in favor of the ministry of the gospel, it was as good as settled that it would carry him farther — it would take him as far as the commission read. Accordingly, in March, 1881, we find him writing to his pastor that he was about to offer himself to the Board of Foreign Missions. " It has long been my purpose." What field he shall enter must be determined in the future; now he only asks to know whether he " will be sent anywhere or not." His reasons for this step are most matter-of-fact — " just about those that would suggest themselves to any one. The gospel is here within reach of all and many of its temporal benefits, at least, are enjoyed by all. The heathen have neither." This, he thought, made it the duty, " especially of every young minister," to inquire, not, "Why should I go! but Why should I not go? To the latter question I can give no answer, and I therefore consider it my duty to go if the church will send me." This whole-souled decision next constrained him one step farther — to propose the field at that time most unpopular in the range of Presbyterian missions. His was a nature impatient of halfway measures. In a speech before the General Assembly, June, 1882, the treasurer of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions announced with satisfaction that " thirty young men, graduates of our seminaries, have been accepted for the foreign field." Only one of them was sent to Africa, and he only after a mild effort had failed to turn him towards another country. When Adolphus Good took aim he was not one to turn aside without convincing reasons, and he had taken aim for Africa. The following letter to the secretary of the Board in New York explains the situation:

’’Allegheny City, Pa., December 6, 1881.

"... I had not known until I received your note how much I desired to go to Africa. I had looked upon my going there as almost a certainty, especially after seeing you this fall. The action of the Board came as a surprise and, I confess, somewhat of a disappointment. I have thought over the subject a good deal since, and tried to find out exactly why I prefer that field to others. Part of the ground for my preference, I frankly confess, is not very sound.

" At first I chose that field without having any decided preference. I chose it because it seemed to me, as it does yet, the field in which the church was most shamefully coming short of her duty, and the one where she was least likely to be able to find men to work. Since then, looking forward to it, the hopefulness of youth and a somewhat adventure-loving disposition have clothed the enterprise in a sort of romantic dress, which I well know is unreal and would be soon torn off by the hard facts of missionary life. Of course the thought of not going disappointed such hopes as these. I find that the great incentive to mission work, the only lasting source of inspiration, — love for the Master and lost souls, — is to be found in any field. So I will go, and try to go willingly, wherever I am sent. Still, I think there are reasons why I should go to Africa, if I am sent. I am unusually strong and healthy, and think I could stand the climate. In my early days I learned what hard work and roughing it meant. I am rather inclined to adventure than afraid of it. Doing without home and society is not so much of a privation to me as to most persons. And, most important of all, I have at present no prospect of being married."

Two months later his position is the same, and he hopes the Board is about ready to reach a " final decision " as to where to send him.

" If there is good reason for further delay I can wait still longer, but if not I would like to have the matter settled. I have no great objection to going to Siam.... Still, for reasons given in my last letter, I prefer Africa. Hoping that if such is the will of the Master you will prefer to have me go there, " I remain, yours respectfully, "A.C. GOOD."

Whence came this young man’s first impulse which had resulted in dedication on the foreign missionary altar! As Robert Moffat’s came, like Mackay’s of Uganda — from his mother. She pored over the pages of the missionary magazine, and searched out every missionary paragraph in the Banner; and the boy’s eyes followed his mother’s. For the rest, the whole gospel was declared in Glade Run Church; the last command of Jesus was preached, and Paul was preached.

Mr. Good was licensed by the presbytery of Kittanning, April 21, 1881.

" I remember his trial sermon," says one. " My heart was drawn out to that young man with his smooth, frank face and clear eye." Pastor Mechlin considered that "he underwent a remarkable examination in theology " at that time. The same presbytery ordained him an evangelist the next year, and he sailed alone for Gaboon three months after, September 28, 1882. So little did the West Africa mission stand in the eye of the church in those days that, when the humiliating quota of one new man a year was filled, even his name was overlooked in the list of departures in the Foreign Missionary and for four years after only one brief paragraph referring to him appeared in its pages. But in the old home, that September day, his father was walking nervously from house to yard, from yard to house, no one venturing to speak to him; and his mother sat silent and tearless in her chair.