Home Mission Heroes; A Series of Sketches

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1904. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER VII. ONE OF THE "MISSOURI TEN," TIMOTHY HILL. DD. 1819--1887. By John B. Hill, D.D.* It is difficult to condense into the short limits of a sketch a statement of the facts necessary to the right understanding of any lifework worth studying. So at least we find it in writing of Timothy Hill, perhaps the best known synodical missionary of his day. He was descended from pious and patriotic, energetic and thrifty Puritan pioneers, longlived and fairly influential. His were scholarly antecedents, inclination and opportunities. His life was filled with continuous ministerial activity from ordination to death, attended with more than ordinary honors and, presumably therefore, with reasonable success. His varied labors required constructive and executive ability. He had historical instincts and literary tastes, for whose gratifica * Son of Dr. Timothy Hill and synodical missionary in Missouri.--Eds. tion little time could be taken from the engrossing cares of official life. The predominant spirit of the whole life was evidently missionary. The childhood of Timothy Hill was doubtless fairly happy and useful; but neither theoretically nor experimentally could he endorse the oft-expressed sentiment that "A boy is seeing the happiest days of his life." His own experience was that every period of life, however great its perplexities, was, as it should be, happier than any that preceded. His home experiences will be reasonably understood when we say that he was born and reared on a farm, in a small, retired village, fifty miles from Boston. His brothers and older sisters, all much older than he, soon left home for distant homes of their own. But to the youngest six of his sisters he was a companion, helper, pet and tease. At seven he fell from a stone wall and broke h...