Part 3

Brother Warner's mission was strictly that of a reformer. It was his part to venture boldly with the truth God had given him, with a willingness to run the gauntlet of persecutions that were sure to greet him on the right and left. His severe denunciation of all things sectarian was consistent with his pioneer position. There first had to be an awakening, a breaking up of old conditions, particularly of the recognition (into which the minds of people generally had settled) of the sects as being the church of God. His work was the initial, or birth, stage of the reform.

Following the initial stage has come the constructive, which comprehends the reformation in the local sense, the sense in which the Christian life and true ideal of the church must be exemplified in the community as something more than theory, something that will appeal as being better than what is represented in the sects. The constructive stage calls not so much for continual denunciation of sects as for manifesting those essential principles that characterize the church in her unity and entirety. The responsibility is to make good the claim, and this means much. Any tendency to establish traditions, or to regard a past course as giving direction in all respects for the future, or to become self-centered and manifest a "we are it" spirit and bar the door of progress against the entrance of further light and truth, or in any way to refuse fellowship with any others who may be Christians, would itself be sectarian, altogether unlike the true reformation, which, if it be final, must necessarily be a _restoration_ and possess universal characteristics.

For proper representation everything depends upon the understanding of, and the attitude toward, this great movement. For any body of people to hold that the reformation is entrusted to them, or that they have become the standard for the world, is a self-centered attitude, vastly different from that which regards the reformation as something prophetically due, as having come independent of man, and as being greater than the people who have been favored with its light, and that it is their part to conform to _it_ in principle, doctrine, and everything. The great movement is in the world, and any attempt to "corner" it or to limit it to a particular body of people could only result in making that body a sect, or faction, while the movement itself would proceed independently.

The true spirit of the reformation will be, however, with those who measure to its standard, whether they be few or many, and God will manifest himself accordingly. Satan has tried to becloud and defeat the movement by counterfeit factions--bodies of people who profess to be on the reformation line, but who misrepresent the truth by denying some part of it, as, for instance, the doctrine of entire sanctification in this life, or of the Christian ordinances, or who misrepresent it by advancing erroneous doctrine, such as the continuation of the Old Testmental law and Sabbath, or the speaking in tongues as a necessary evidence of having received the Holy Ghost. Many are the counterfeit movements today. One must ignore every influence of man and then rely on the witness of both the Word and the Spirit in order to be guided aright.

Brother Warner was a remarkable example of a man possessing the Christian spirit and the Christian graces wonderfully developed. While he could rebuke evil and deceptive influences in the strongest terms, he was one of the meekest and kindest of men. Christ-like, he loved all men, even his persecutors. As a husband, father, Christian brother and friend his love and respect were genuine and reached to the very soul. And yet the responsibility of his calling as a Christian and as a minister of God's truth as it applied to his time, he held more dear than all else, and to it he was wholly devoted. Not with any object of exalting the man, but to illustrate what God can accomplish in and through one who is so devoted, we introduce him to our readers.

II

ANCESTRY AND EARLY LIFE

Among those who fought in the second war against Great Britain was one Adam Warner, who was born in Virginia, and whose father was Christofel Warner. In this period of our national history a great tide of emigration from the Atlantic States was spreading itself over what is now the Middle West. Adam Warner seemed to catch the spirit of the times, and accordingly, in 1815, he set out with his family for the new country beyond the Alleghanies. He settled in Stark County, Ohio, where, about the year 1845, he died, at ninety-three years of age (a history of Williams County, Ohio, says ninety-eight, and that he had a sister who lived to the advanced age of one hundred and three). It is probable that before moving west Adam Warner lived for a while in Frederick County, Md., for there is where his son David was born, June 6, 1803.

David Warner, after moving to Stark County, was married, in 1823, to Leah Dierdorf, who was born in York County, Pa., Feb. 6, 1805. In 1830 he moved to Wayne County, Ohio, and a little later to Portage County, then back to Wayne County in 1836, to a place then called Bristol, where he kept a tavern for eight years. Of the parentage of David and Leah Warner, at their humble abode at Bristol, on June 25, 1842, amid the environment of tavern life, was born Daniel S. Warner, destined to be one of the principal instruments in God's hands to produce a shaking in the ranks of spiritual Israel, and to lead the hosts of the Lord back to Zion from their wanderings in the wilderness of denominationalism.

The children of David and Leah, in order, were as follows: Adam, Lewis, Joseph, John, Daniel, and Samantha. John died at the age of twenty, leaving but the five children. All are now deceased. A granddaughter says that the family was Pennsylvania German. Evidently the mother was. The father, as already noted, was a Virginian.

It was the misfortune of Daniel S. to be frail, sickly, and to a great extent unappreciated, from his very birth. His lungs were weak and he was denied that stock of vitality with which every child has the right to begin life. Intoxicants were freely used in those days, and David Warner had fallen an easy prey to intemperance. If the affliction of this infant may not be ascribed to paternal indiscreetness, possibly inebriety, it is not because such instances were uncommon. Into how many homes has the demon of strong drink entered to bring sorrow to the wife and mother and to curse the unborn with the blight of its baneful effects! In this case, at any rate, the father was rough, and inconsiderate of his offspring. While he exercised toward his family a degree of temporal care, it seemed that the very frailty of this child, which should have awakened compassion, met only his frown and disfavor. In later years Daniel, in reflecting on the circumstances attending his birth and childhood, wrote the following lines, which are a part of his poem on Innocence:

Conceived in sin, to sorrow born, Unwelcome here on earth, The shadows of a life forlorn Hung gloomy o'er my birth.

A mother's heart oppressed with grief, A father's wicked spleen, Who cursed my faint and gasping breath, Combine to paint the scene.

But life held on its tender thread, Days unexpected grew To weeks, and still he lived-- Why, Heaven only knew.

He lived, though life was bitter gain, His youth a flood of tears, His body doomed to cruel pain, His mind to nervous fears.

In contrast with this paternal attitude, however, was the constancy of a true-hearted mother. Blessed with this and endowed with indelible memories of a mother's devotion, what child growing up to cope with life's obstacles may not, after all, hold a chance of succeeding, however handicapped otherwise? If ever any planting bears fruit in the human breast, or becomes a latent force tending to guide one steadily through life's dangerous rapids, it is that of a mother's love. Especially is this true of the love of a _Christian_ mother, coupled with her prayers.

Mrs. Warner was an excellent woman. Her patient and gentle bearing under disturbing conditions, her disposition to make the best of disappointment and discouragement, left an impress, not only upon the family, but upon the neighborhood. Her kindness is referred to in two other stanzas of the poem Innocence:

If angels blessed his thorny path, It may be said in truth, But two e'er showed their smiling face In all his suffering youth.

One was his mother, ever kind, A blessed providence; The other, pure and lovely friend, Was angel Innocence.

It has been true generally that great men have first had great mothers. But what is a mother's greatness, after all, but simple, unalloyed, Christian motherliness?

"I should have become an atheist but for one recollection, and that was the memory of the time when my departed mother used to take my little hand in hers and cause me on my knees to say, 'Our Father, who art in heaven.'"--_John Randolph._

"All I am, all I hope to be, I owe to my angel mother--blessings on her memory! I remember my mother's prayers. They have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life."--_Lincoln._

"If my mother could rise in the dead of the night and pray for my recovery from sickness, my life must be worth something. I then and there resolved to prove myself worthy of my mother's prayers."--_Garfield._

"It is to my mother that I owe everything. If I am thy child, O my God, it is because thou gavest me such a mother. If I prefer the truth to all things, it is the fruit of my mother's teachings. If I did not perish long ago in sin and misery, it is because of the long and faithful years which she pleaded for me. What comparison is there between the honor I paid her and her slavery for me?"--_St. Augustine._

One more tribute. In his book Bible Proofs of the Second Work of Grace, published in 1880, Daniel S. Warner places the following dedicatory note: "To the sacred memory of my sainted mother, whose tender affections were the only solace in my suffering childhood, and whose never-failing love, and whose pure and innocent life were the only stars that shone in the darkness of my youth, this volume is respectfully dedicated by the author."

From Wayne County, David Warner brought his family, in 1843, to a farm of 140 acres near New Washington, Crawford County, Ohio. The house, built partly of logs, stood three fourths of a mile southwest of the village. It was here that Daniel spent his childhood. Of this period he writes:

It seemed the special pleasure of Another certain one To quite demolish everything He set his heart upon;

To chafe his spirit and extort The flow of bitter tears Out of a soft and pensive heart, Through all his tender years.

He never knew that "Father" was A sweet, endearing name; Its very mention was a dread, His life's most deadly bane.

The demon of intemp'rance there Infused the wrath of hell, And most upon this sickly head The storm of fury fell.

Like chickens when the mother bird Gives signal of a foe, The little peeps are quickly hushed, All chicks are lying low,

So, when returning from the town, The dreaded steps we heard, All ran and quickly settled down, And not a lip was stirred.

O horrors of the liquor fiend! We've seen thy hell on earth. Thy serpent coils around us twined, The moment of our birth.

O Rum! thy red infernal flame-- I witness to the truth-- Filled all my mother's cup with pain, And swallowed up my youth.

The Warner family, though clever, straightforward, and strictly honest, were but a simple rural folk and not inclined to religion. That such a bright spiritual light as was afterward exhibited in Daniel could come from such a family, is one of the puzzling questions of blood relation. Was it that in the family blood there was latent quality which in his case only was near enough to the surface to be called into action and developed by higher influence? or should it be said that he represents a variation in the strain, such as is sometimes seen in biological observation? If the latter, the mystery remains; for why do such things occur? Aside from natural phenomena, we believe that Brother Warner was a "chosen vessel" unto the Lord. He possessed such a combination of qualities as made him capable of high development in the divine graces. He was a Christian than whom perhaps none other ever lived who was more reverent, spiritual, and devoted; and God had a special work for him.

BOYHOOD CHARACTERISTICS

In his boyhood Daniel early displayed a gift of entertainment and of public speaking. The school in his district was ungraded. On occasions of entertainment, such as the last day of school, after the younger children had spoken their "pieces" and the program began to grow monotonous, a call would be made for Dan Warner. Then he would take the floor and soon would have them convulsing with merriment. Mischievousness and clownishness were traits. The trouble he sometimes caused the teacher was frequently such that the latter could not locate it nor determine just who was to blame. When he would be stood on the floor he would soon have others with him. On one occasion he did something for which he was sentenced to a scourging. When he appeared at school the next morning he was prepared for this contingency by having on two or three coats. He was, however, bright in his studies and in a general way sociable and well liked.

The community in which he lived was strongly democratic in politics. His father, a staunch democrat, actually had a degree of pride in his boy when the latter would make stump speeches during a campaign. It was natural for Dan to mount a storebox on the street or anywhere and address a crowd on the issues of the day. In later years, however, when he became a minister and his oratorical abilities were directed in the channel of preaching the gospel, his father was not pleased.

Among the sports in which he indulged was coon hunting. On finding a coon tree at night he and his companion would cover themselves with a coon robe and lie under the tree until morning. He got to be rather wild, and took particular delight in the dance, but never indulged in the lowest forms of sin.

These are but brevities of his boyhood career. It is difficult to prepare an account of this part of his life that would be to any considerable degree full. One accident, by which he was maimed for life, should here be noted. He attempted to remove a bunch of grass that had clogged the sickle of a mowing-machine. As he was in this act the team started and the ends of two of his fingers, the middle ones of the left hand, were suddenly clipped off. Fortunately the loss of these members did not hinder him in writing nor was it a disfigurement usually noticed in his preaching.

There was one more move for the David Warner family, and this was to Williams County, Ohio, the northwest corner of the State, where, in Bridgewater Township, about four miles north of the town of Montpelier, farm life was resumed. Here the parents spent the rest of their lives. The removal to this place was made in 1863, during the Civil War. Joseph Warner was drafted for the army. Being a man of a family, he desired to arrange for a substitute. For this Daniel offered himself, and accordingly became a private in Company C, 195th Regiment, Ohio Infantry. Little is known of his army experience. It is said that he found favor with the Captain and was made his clerk, or secretary. At the close of his term he was honorably discharged.

While living in Williams County, the occupation of teaching school appealed to him, and for several terms he was an instructor of the young in matters of common-school education. He was now in his early twenties. But here we shall close this chapter, and introduce him in our next in a different aspect.

III

CONVERSION, COLLEGE, AND CALLING

It is natural that the question of religion should present itself to a young man or woman when approaching maturity. It is then that life is full of prospects, when one plans and builds for the future. It is then that opinions are formed, and there is an inclination to reach some kind of decision, for the time being at least, regarding every issue. One reaches this parting of the ways and the question comes, "Which road shall I take?" The answer, so far as religion is concerned, depends to some extent on what one has observed in those who make a profession, though it is true that the influence of the Holy Spirit alone--that monitor who makes his appeal to the inner consciousness--sometimes decides the question.

The community at New Washington, where the Warner family lived, was strongly Catholic and Lutheran. There was too much whisky and tobacco and too little of genuine Christianity for a convincing testimony in favor of the latter. As for Dan Warner, he thought to decide the question of religion by trying to be an infidel. But of course he had not considered that God might speak to him and convince him against his will. He naturally possessed a tender conscience, a capacity to exalt righteousness and a susceptibility to right spiritual influence.

And so we find him on reaching the age of maturity trying to believe there was nothing in Christianity; but at this his success was poor. There were certain persons within his field of acquaintance whose Christian piety made its impression. Then again, there was the influence of song. He had a good voice and found enjoyment in engaging in song with the young people. On a Sunday afternoon, at a neighbor's, where a number were gathered and were singing gospel hymns, he became greatly affected. God spoke to his conscience. His conviction was so strong as to cause him for several months to lose his love for the dance and to reflect seriously on his course of life. It was his turning-point so far as infidelity was concerned.[1]

But after a few months, when the conviction had worn away somewhat, he began to renew his attendance at dances and apparently to be more reckless than ever regarding his spiritual well-being. His heart, however, was yet tender from the wound made by the spirit of conviction. One night during a severe illness of his sister he attended a dance. After he had returned home at two o'clock in the morning, his mother went to his room and expostulated with her boy regarding his sinful career. Here again is where a mother's part played effectively. As she reasoned with him on his wrong conduct, his going to a dance while his sister--his only sister--lay at the point of death, and his offence against a just God, before whom he must one day stand in judgment, the depths of his heart were broken up and he fell on his knees and called for mercy.

From that time he was deeply convicted though to his companions he gave no evidence of a changed life, as he had not received the new birth. With some young friends he began to attend a protracted meeting in a schoolhouse not far from his home. The meeting was one of power, and sinners were made to reflect on the question of their souls' salvation. On their way home one night his companions were expressing their opinions as to religion, what it was, etc. One of them, addressing Dan, said, "What do _you_ think it is?" He replied, "I am going to find out." Knowing him to be prankish the others supposed he meant to play some trick, and as they separated wondered to themselves what Dan could have up his sleeve. Not until he had gone forward to the altar the next evening and they had seen him rise a changed young man with the peace of God in his countenance did they take his words and actions seriously.

The date of this, his conversion, was February, 1865. He refers to the event some years later as follows: "Passed once more the old schoolhouse where I gave my heart to God (February, 1865). Thank God for that step! Oh, how glad I am it was ever my lot to become a Christian!"

Another item of interest relating to this time was his engagement to Frances Stocking, reference to which in his diary for June 11, 1874, the reader will find on another page.

One quality that was manifest in Brother Warner's early religious life as well as throughout his entire career was earnestness. He was sincere and intense in his devotion and his Christian work. We shall find as we read the notes from his diary that his words breathe a spirit of love and devotion, evincing a deep spirituality. When he yielded to God, he meant it as the decision of his very soul, and his conversion was for him an actual change for time and eternity. Old things were passed away. New propositions and prospects arose to occupy his thoughts.

ATTENDS OBERLIN COLLEGE

What ideals and plans were his immediately after his conversion we do not know. It was not long, however, until he decided that a more advanced education was needful. Nothing will give a young person nobler ambitions and greater desire to rise to all that is good and associated with usefulness than Christianity. On the 5th of September of the same year of his conversion he started to school at Oberlin College and enrolled for an English preparatory course. The details of his study at Oberlin and just how long he remained have not been learned. An old memorandum of his accounts indicates that he attended there only two months at first, and then taught school through the winter at Corunna, Ind., returning to Oberlin in the spring, and that he started again with the new school year in September, 1866. It is known, however, that his excellency of character shone while he was at school and was the subject of remark.

He did not attend college as long as he had expected to; for it was while he was there that he began to feel God's hand upon him for the ministry. When he saw how long it would take to complete his college work and the need of laboring in the Lord's harvest while it was day, he felt impressed that God wanted him to cut short his college course and to prepare at once for the ministry. He accordingly went home, arranged for a room in his father's house, and spent one season there in applying himself to prayer, Bible-study, and those other things which he believed were directly necessary to his ministerial preparation.

Preparation for the ministry is more successful when, along with it, there can be more or less of actual practise. We can believe that Brother Warner was spiritual enough to keep in touch with God and to discern the divine leading in the important matter to which he had committed himself. At any rate, in connection with his work of preparation he began to engage in ministering the gospel. He preached his first sermon on Easter night, 1867, in a Methodist Episcopal protracted meeting in the Cogswell Schoolhouse, not far from where he lived. Text, Acts 3:18--"But those things, which God before had showed by the mouth of all his prophets, that Christ should suffer, he hath so fulfilled."

FOOTNOTE:

[1] The use of tobacco, was very common among the professors in his community. It is related that he received an impression of the evil of this habit when on attendance at a prayer-meeting he saw one of those present attempt to take a chew secretly, by hiding his face behind a chair.

IV

CHURCH OF GOD (WINEBRENNERIAN)