W. B. Godbey - Enter His Rest

There were no factories then and hats were made in shops, dispersed far and wide over the country. “Old Yates”
had his shop in sight of that school-house, and we children went and looked at him with utter amazement, as he
would put the skin of a fox, raccoon, rabbit or mink (which abounded in those wild woods), and with his foot on
a treadle cause a suspended spring to fly around with great rapidity, jerking all the fur off the skin which filled
the space with a cloud till it settled down on the platform, whence he gathered it up and made hats of it. I was so
young then that I knew nothing about joking, but believed everything I heard spoken, in its literal sense. I began
to soliloquize: If he puts me through such an operation as “old Yates” does those fox skins, I certainly will die
meanwhile. Therefore I was awfully alarmed and wondered what was to become of me.
I had in the school a first cousin, John Bishop, two years older than myself, who had incurred the displeasure of
the teacher before I entered the school, and, according to his custom, he had chastised him severely with that
long rod which he held in his hand all the time as a symbol of his authority.
So at the ensuing playtime, my cousin and I had a most serious and sincere consultation with reference to our
fate. In this mutual counsel we both gave it as our candid conviction that our lives were in danger. He said that
he almost died while the teacher was whipping him, and believed candidly that if he had given him another lick
it would have killed him; while I frankly stated to him that I knew, if he did for me what he had said, making the
fur fly off of me faster than “Old Yates” could make it into hats, I certainly would die under the operation. As
our parents had assigned us, and would have to pay if we stopped; the same as if we continued, we knew we
would have to go on, but we both said, either to other, that we were willing to suffer any amount of pain if we
knew that he would leave life in us, while we mutually, with the deepest sorrow, decided that our lives were in
danger. That was an epoch in my life whose effects have continued to this day. I was only six years old and
continued to prosecute my education as best I could, then I graduated at the age of twenty-six. But that
castigatation, in which he never touched me, but scared me almost to death, sufficed amply for the twenty years.
I was ever afterward a favorite with my teachers and held up by them as a model student. They often, while
pleading with the school to be obedient and studious, called my name and exhorted them all to follow my
example, to my embarrassment, I felt so unworthy.
2. STRIPLINGHOOD
An old Bible agent stopped with us over night, as he was going around supplying the homes with the precious
Word. The ensuing morning, father said, “William, take that young horse and go with this man to Clifty and
show him the way.” With thrilling delight, mounting, I rode before his carriage the five miles designated. When
I was about to turn back, he called me to his carriage and spent a few moments giving me the best advice I ever
had, which I received with grateful appreciation, in which God actually used him to confirm my call to the
ministry, at the same time handing me a Bible as a present. Oh, what an epoch this was in my life! I never had
known what it was to own a book.
In all my schooling I had used my sister's old books, no new one ever having been purchased for me.
Therefore the consciousness of owning a book thrilled me with delight, especially as that book was the Bible.
Therefore I carried it home elated with joy and wrote my name in it. Here let me remind you of the importance
of giving good books to your children in such a way that they will recognize them as their own personal
property. Though my preaching father had plenty of Bibles, which I frequently read with great interest, the
presentation of this Bible forever marked a new era in my appreciation of that precious book. From that hour I
began at the first of Genesis and perused it, using all of my leisure moments in reading this blessed book. I
remember that very soon after this I was lying under an apple tree reading, when a neighbor boy about my age
came along and asked me what book I was reading. I told him and he asked me what I was reading about. I
began with creation and told him the wonderful things which I had read, my excellent memory retaining it so
that I could tell him the thrilling, inspired histories which were so interesting to me. He listened spellbound and
expressed the greatest astonishment, saying that he had never heard those things before. As there was no Sunday
School in all that country, and the preaching which was calculated to do me good was only once a month, and a
three mile's walk over rugged hills and creeks which were often past fording, I generally spent the Sunday
reading the Bible; unless interrupted, as was often the case, by visitors, as all the people in that country availed