ANOTHER one of the stirring and energetic preachers who were brought into the ministry under the shadows of New Lebanon, was Archibald McCorkle. This gentleman was one of the emigrants to that part of Missouri in the early days already alluded to in the sketch of Rev. Robert Sloan.

He was born in Lancaster District, South Carolina, on the 31st March, 1795. He bore the Christian name of his father, who emigrated to that State from Pennsylvania, and whose ancestors were of the Scotch-Irish stock, who fled to this continent from British persecution.

Mr. McCorkle, several years before his death, prepared an extended biography of his own life. This manuscript is now before me. It is an exceedingly interesting paper, full of detailed accounts of his long career as a minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It would make a volume of itself.

In the limits allowed to the book we are now preparing, I can afford but a few pages to any one of the names whose lives will be incorporated herein.

In the sketch of this venerable brother, who has but recently passed to his reward on high, I am glad to have authentic and reliable data from which to cull, here and there, some of the leading events of a long and useful life.

Mr. M. had the good fortune to be brought up under a pious and upright father--one who was no mere negative Christian, but who had fire in his bones and zeal in his heart, and who was one of the first to assist in the matter of inaugurating camp-meetings on this continent. It is stated, as a historical fact, that when the influence of the great revival was first felt in the Carolinas, in 1802, a camp-meeting was held in the neighborhood of old Archy McCorkle, and that the novelty of the occasion and the universal religious interest that pervaded the country brought to the campground great numbers of people. Indeed, so great was the concourse that three separate pulpits were erected in the grove, and three several preachers were engaged at the same time in proclaiming the tidings of salvation. What a grand occasion it must have been, and how sublime the scene!

Of a camp-meeting held in the following year, at which Mr. McCorkle's father was a camper, he speaks as follows (I use his own words): "I recollect of walking from the camp one evening, during the meeting, and taking a view of the ground among the seats and around the stand, when it appeared to me I could almost have walked from person to person, without touching the ground, for fifty yards or more, such were the numbers of the slain of the Lord: some with a few friends around them; and many by themselves; some lying as still as if dead, others beating their breasts and crying in agony for mercy; while still others were rolling and tossing from side to side, as in the greatest agony." This scene is so similar to many that occurred in other places during the progress of that great awakening, we must conclude that the moral wave which was first agitated and set in motion in the "Cumberland country" had scaled the Alleghany Mountains and spread its flood over all the land to the Atlantic coast.

It is mentioned that this was the last camp-meeting held in that congregation, but it is added that similar meetings were kept up in other localities till his father's family removed to Tennessee, in 1806. The family settled in Montgomery county, where the fires of the great revival were still burning vividly and brightly.

It is farther mentioned that the father of this family became an ardent supporter of the revival and of camp-meetings; that he espoused the cause of the young Church which grew out of that great event, and was a pious member of that body when he died. Having learned to love the practice of worshiping God in his own beautiful temples, under the arched canopy of green leaves and running vines, it is not surprising to learn that the McCorkle family went to the first camp-meeting that was held in the new country after their arrival. This is mentioned as having been held at Spring Creek Church, in Robertson county, in the summer of 1807. It was the practice in those days to commence the camp-meeting on Friday, and that day was always observed as a day of fasting and prayer; so that, on the occasion referred to, our young Archy started to the meeting, fifteen miles away, on foot, without his breakfast. At this meeting he embraced the Saviour as he is offered in the gospel; and from that day till the end of a long life, the transcendant beauty that was first revealed to the new-born soul never was effaced from his mind. It is true that at various periods of his young life he was despondent and gloomy; that he lived in the lived in the neglect of his Christian duties, and that, in consequence, he became discouraged about his religious condition and prospects. But, upon a renewal of his vows, and upon recommencement of all his duties as a follower of the Lord Jesus, his skies would become brighter--the old light, like the original flame which first illuminated his soul, would again scatter the rifted clouds of gloom, and make his heart glow with the fervor of divine love. This is simply the history of almost every Christian life, repeated again and again as persons grow up from babes to full-grown men in Christ Jesus.

Mr. McCorkle relates the circumstance of having heard the famous Lorenzo Dow preach in Clarksville about the year 1812. He speaks of his appearance as somewhat remarkable. His eyes were the most striking feature of his face, being very dark and piercing; he parted his hair in the middle (fashion repeats itself), his hair being very long, reaching to the waist. His sermon was composed chiefly of a string of aphorisms, interspersed with crank sayings, which always arrested the attention, if it produced no other effect.

He speaks also of having heard the Rev. Gideon Blackburn preach in the same town, probably in the same year. He describes this renowned preacher as being finely formed, well knit together, of ruddy complexion, and a full black beard. His address was very pleasing, and gestures striking, but not violent. The sermon was addressed first to the understanding--to the reason of his hearers--and, in the conclusion, he called upon them to determine at once to seek God, and not to reject salvation, affirming that, according to well-known laws of mind, they would decide one way or the other on that occasion. In conclusion, he asked his congregation to make their choice, and he paused to await their decision; then, breaking forth with great vehemence, he exclaimed, "O Gabriel, stop! make not the record against this people until they decide aright!" and then, after another pause, he said, "The record is now made," and he dismissed the congregation.

About this same period, he speaks of having heard the Rev. Wm. Barnett preach a sermon at a camp-meeting near the line of Kentucky and Tennessee. His impression of the speaker was that he was a man of great force, and that his sermon produced a durable and marked effect on the minds of his audience. The aim seemed to be to move the heart at once, and bring it to action on the great subject of religion. With wonderful vehemence and fiery eloquence he swayed and moved a great congregation as the wind does the fields of waving grain. With a voice of great volume and compass, yet sonorous withal, he could be heard to the remotest corners of the grounds, and would fling his terrible anathemas at the sinner as he would flee the place to escape the impending storm. The Barnetts and the camp-meetings have disappeared together.

In his twenty-third year Mr. McCorkle was married to Miss Elizabeth L. Wear, the daughter of Hugh Wear, Esq., who lived in an adjoining county. All through the Memoir which now lies before me, whenever the circumstances rendered it proper to refer to his wife, Mr. McCorkle speaks of her in glowing terms as a Christian woman, a laborious and self-sacrificing mother, and, above all, as the best woman for a poor preacher's wife that ever came under his observation It affords me pleasure to bear testimony, also, to the universal esteem in which she was held by all the people in the community about Lebanon, where she so long resided, and where she was so well known to every one. Considering the hard lot that fell to all the early preachers in Missouri, and especially considering the long periods of almost helpless invalidism to which her husband was subjected, it was most fortunate indeed that such a woman became his wife. After a pilgrimage together of nearly half a century, he bore honorable testimony to her worth in all the relations of life.

In 1818 Mr. McCorkle, with his young wife, moved to Alabama, whither some of their friends had gone some time previously. They did not prosper well in their new home, and before they had been there a years they started on a long journey to the new Territory of Missouri. They arrived in the fall of 1819, and in the following spring the family located in a permanent home, near to the New Lebanon Church, in Cooper county. In this locality Mr. McCorkle spent the prime of his life. This neighborhood was his home; but, as we shall see presently, his sphere of labor extended over a large area of country--to every point of the compass he was sent in the early years of his ministry; and when he became older, and the master of his own movements, he traveled far and near, and was one of the most laborious and useful ministers of the gospel that ever belonged to the Church in the day and country in which he labored. I now approach the period of my own personal recollections of the man, and of his style and manner of preaching.

It would be very interesting to trace the history of the experience of Mr. McCorkle for the year preceding his connection with the Presbytery, but our limits forbid us to do so. Suffice it that, under a strong conviction of his duty in the premises, he presented himself to the McGee Presbytery at the fall session of 1820, then sitting in the town of Booneville. His brother-in-law, Laird Burns, and the late Rev. Caleb Weedin, joined Presbytery at the same session.

The difficulties that were to be overcome by Mr. McCorkle before he could fully enter upon his work were so formidable that almost any other man would have hesitated long, if he did not abandon the idea altogether of committing himself to the work of the ministry. At this juncture Mr. McCorkle was almost twenty-six years old, with a growing family to support, and with very little means wherewith to accomplish that object. Some of the members of his wife's family, also, opposed the project of his undertaking to make a preacher, as they believed he could not succeed in the profession. But, as may be observed all through the Memoir to which I have referred, it was a conspicuous trait in his character to first inquire very carefully as to what his duty was, and then to go forward and discharge it resolutely, and refer the consequences to his great Master. With the unvarying support and encouragement of his wife, he did go forward; and, although the circumstances were exceedingly discouraging, he entered at once upon the active duties of his great calling--traveling on the circuit, in mid-winter, with that indomitable pioneer, the Rev. R. D. Morrow.

In the summer of the year following his connection with the Presbytery, he was directed to travel with Mr. Morrow in South-eastern Missouri.

To give the young preachers of the present day some idea of the labors of the early preachers in this State, I find in the Memoir that the Presbytery had appointed four camp-meetings, in the section of country referred to, which were to be held by Mr. Morrow and two or three of the young candidates. These were to take place early in the summer, and were distant from Lebanon about two hundred miles. After these meetings were over, the preachers were to return, and go up West and North to hold other meetings at a later period of the season--making the distance between the two sections of the country about three hundred to three hundred and fifty miles. Mr. McCorkle went on the Southern tour with Mr. Morrow, and at least one hundred miles of the country was through an uninhabited wilderness. The travelers had to prepare their own meals, sleep in the open air on their saddle-blankets, and tie up their horses on the grass. These were a few of the obstacles that had to be overcome by our early preachers in the discharge of their high calling. And what a sublime exhibition of moral courage and genuine heroism does all this afford! It required a degree of self-abnegation and of sacrifice that finds no parallel in the ranks of the ministry at this day. Perhaps it is true that the ministry of the present time are not required to make sacrifices in that form, and this may account for the difference which I have suggested.

Mr. McCorkle relates this little incident in reference to our lamented and ever-beloved Brother Morrow: At the first meeting held on occasion referred to, on Monday evening, as the usual services were about to close, Mr. Morrow made a demonstration that was new to all of his friends. Mr. Morrow was eminently of a calm and philosophical temperament. He very rarely became excited, or made any unusual exhibition of his feelings. But on the evening referred to, it is related that he came tremendously exalted in his religious experience; that he talked in heavenly strains of that great salvation which he had offered to the people in the previous sermon; that he uttered sublime and wonderful things of that heavenly land to which he was journeying; that his face was all aglow and divinely illuminated with that light which only emanates form the eternal throne; and thus for an hour he talked, while the whole audience stood spell-bound before the enraptured countenance of the good and holy man.

As Mr. McCorkle lived in the same neighborhood with the Rev. Finis Ewing for a number of the early years of his ministry, I beg leave to quote from the Memoir the following paragraph:

"I may here remark that during this season, while at home on the Sabbath, it was my privilege to sit under the ministrations of God's word by the Rev. Finis Ewing, as he preached to this (Lebanon) congregation regularly when not at camp-meetings, which to me was a great privilege. I could sit and drink in a sermon that had both light and heat in it, without tiring, for almost any length of time. And such to me was Mr. Ewing's preaching at all times; even when I was a boy in Tennessee, he interested me more than any other man could do. He seemed to understand the workings of the human heart better than any man I had ever heard. And much of his preaching was characterized by following the various windings of the heart under influences both good and evil--hence the deep interest I always felt under his preaching. And I always regretted that his Life, written by Dr. Cossitt, does not contain some of the deeply interesting incidents of his which came under my own observation."

In the fall of 1821 the McGee Presbytery convened at New Lebanon, and Mr. McCorkle, with several others, was licensed to preach. He was then directed to continue his literary studies under Mr. Morrow, who was to teach in the neighborhood, and to attend the theological lectures by Mr. Ewing. And under these auspices he was brought forward and qualified for his life-work in the great calling of the ministry. The circumstances were favorable enough, if it could have been that the wants of his family should not require so much of his attention. It seemed, nevertheless, that that excellent woman, his beloved "Betsy," was equal to any emergency, and that she could always manage to get along very well, and let her husband go to school, ride the circuit, and preach, with only occasional visits to his home. So it was he did avail himself of these opportunities, and in course of time he became an excellent scholar and a very able theologian. Being taught by Morrow and Ewing, he was sound as a dollar on the peculiar theology of the infant Church with which he was connected.

Mr. McCorkle was one of the noble band which was brought into the ministry by that fostering mother of the Church in the West, the McGee Presbytery, and which was instructed and qualified for its work at Lebanon, by Messrs. Morrow and Ewing. A half a score or more entered upon their ministerial career about the same time, and under the same auspices, and they nearly all became men of renown in their calling. How well I remember them, though then but a boy, when they would come to Presbytery or to camp-meeting. Covering the period of a dozen years, there came up to Lebanon, from time to time, the following-named young men, and each one was a host in himself: There was J. W. Campbell, tall, stalwart, serious, and strong--now "the old man eloquent." There was F. M. Braley--calm, serene, sunny-eyed, and gentle--now in heaven, with the scores whom he led to Christ. There was J. B. Morrow--rugged, strong, full of vitality and humor, capable of a world of work, which he freely bestowed for the good of his race. He still lingers, with his feet touching the cold waters of the dark river. There were Robert and Henry Renick--both still living--the former feeble and worn out with toil--the latter, one of Nature's own orators, with zeal and powers vouchsafed to but few of his own or any other day. There was Henderson--calm and sedate, yet resolute for the duties of the hour, and skillful to apply means to the end. He is still living. There was Robert Sloan--quiet, sober, serious, faithful, and diligent. He is now with the Master he so long served. There was D. M. Kirkpatrick--he of the noble presence, portly, dignified, and eloquent. He was the first pioneer from the ministry to the goodly land. There was S. C. Ruby--small of stature, precise in his manners and dress, and a fairly good preacher. He is still living--has been many years a respectable physician. There was Laird Burns, of imposing personal appearance, but phlegmatic and superficial. There was Caleb Weedin--tall and spare in person, and staid and sober in manner. He came to be a noble preacher in Kentucky, where he spent most of his ministerial life. And there was old Uncle Jimmy Wear, whose only epitaph should be, "He was a good man." Then there was the subject of this sketch--small of stature, nervous of temperament, and with a smouldering volcano in his heart. We will see more of him as we proceed.

The school of the prophets closed with the meeting of the spring Presbytery. All the young men were assigned to large circuits, some of them embracing half a dozen counties. At one of the camp-meetings in Mr. McCorkle's circuit, there occurred the following incident, which is related at length in his Memoir: Up to noon on Monday, there was no appearance of any good being accomplished--every things was forbidding--the Church cold, and sinners unconcerned. At the noon service Mr. Ewing preached the funeral of a man who had lived and died in the neighborhood, and before the sermon closed the disconsolate widow, who was not a Christian, became deeply concerned about her situation, and got up, weeping bitterly, went to the stand, and fell down before the preacher, and, with her arms around his feet, cried aloud for mercy. The scene sent a thrill through the whole congregation. The preacher closed his sermon, invited the poor woman to kneel to her God, and pray for mercy, and then invited other sinners to come and join her, when nearly every unconverted person in the congregation came forward. A great meeting followed.

At the fall Presbytery Mr. McCorkle reported that there had been upward of one hundred conversions on his circuit, and that he had received in money all of eight dollars. May God forgive the niggardly Church that would receive such labor, and such blessings resulting from it, and make so paltry a return therefor!

In May, 1823, in company with Sloan and Weedin, Mr. McCorkle was ordained at the house of Major Cummins, in Saline county.

He again entered upon his missionary labors as circuit-rider--laboring on from year to year, traveling far and near, preaching everywhere that a place could be had, furnishing his own horse, and being clothed chiefly by the handy-work of his own devoted wife, and receiving comparatively no pecuniary compensation for his work. No man but one who was deeply pious and conscientious, and who was always ready and willing to respond to the calls of duty, would have long continued in such a course of unremitting toil with such poor reward. Yet he and his colleagues of the Lebanon School did it, even on to the end of their lives. Such entire consecration has been very rarely witnessed in this or any other Church.

Several years after his ordination Mr. McCorkle changed his residence to another neighborhood in the same county, and there laid the foundation of a large and prosperous Church, which now has a good house of worship and a permanent pastor. I refer to New Salem Congregation. After several years' sojourn in this locality, he returned to his old home near Lebanon. On one other occasion he removed from this place, and again came back. It seemed that the old Church and its surroundings had singular attraction for him. He was the preacher for this congregation, at different times, for many years; and during that period it enjoyed many seasons of great prosperity, and at other times it would experience adverse vicissitudes. His residence at Ridge Prairie, in Saline county--where now resides his son, "Uncle Sam," who writes so well for the little folks in the papers of the Church--resulted in establishing permanently our cause in that section of the country. Wherever he lived he laid deep foundations for the cause of his Church and of general Christianity. Our space will not allow us to follow all the details of his ministerial work during the years that transpired up to his removal from Missouri to Texas.

Mr. McCorkle, after the first six or eight years of his ministry, lost his health in great measure, and for many years thereafter his means of usefulness were greatly abridged. His physical organization was peculiarly susceptible to external influences, and his temperament very excitable. His chief source of trouble was in the irritable condition of the nervous system. How he ever lived to reach the great age of seventy-two was miraculous to his friends.

Finding his health a good deal impaired, and finding that the growing wants of his family required more of his personal attention, he went from the circuit to the school-room. This pursuit he followed, both in Missouri and Texas, for many years. He became a most excellent and successful school-teacher. His mind was naturally analytical and logical, and he could demonstrate his views to his classes with great clearness. While engaged in the business of teaching, he rendered the Church valuable service by instructing several candidates for the ministry, who have since become a power in the Church. He took great interest in the young men who were looking forward to the ministry. Frequently he would have them with him on the circuit, and teach them theology while on horseback, riding from one appointment to another. Circuit-riding has been a famous school in which to bring men forward in the ministry. They would learn a little to-day, and to-morrow have an opportunity to present their newly-acquired ideas to a congregation of people. Thus they could make available at once all the results of their theological studies and instructions. One of the happy results of this mode of making preachers was that it taught the young men to think; they were obliged to cogitate and work out for themselves the problems of theology. They could not refer at pleasure to some standard authority or to an old preacher for information. And in this way many great minds have been developed. A. method of systematic thinking is of more value to a young man than are many books. I approve of a high standard in the education of the ministry, and am in favor of all the facilities that can be of value to the young student; but any appliance or method of teaching that relieves the learner from the necessity of thinking deeply for himself, is calculated to dwarf the intellect and make mediocre men out of materials that were intended for giants. Superficial attainments are the curse of the Church and the country. Men will not take time to study when they can learn something that they suppose will answer the purpose by reference to books--to the work of some one else. And herein lies the source of the failure of so many of our preachers as permanent pastors. They have no resources; they are incapable of producing original matter for the pulpit every week, and are content to rehash the old stale platitudes which the congregations know as much about as they do. Preachers too often presume on the supposed ignorance of their hearers. They too often imagine that because men do not give much time to theological matters, therefore they don't know any thing about them; whereas the truth is, if the preacher attempts to feed them on hash, they will detect it at once, and will feel no farther interest in the sermon. Some will sleep, others study up their worldly affairs, and others again will begin to consider the matter of employing a new preacher. This little history is repeated in almost every congregation in the Church, and will continue to be until our preachers learn to think better, and rely more upon their own investigations than many of them now do.

These remarks have not been suggested by any thing that was developed in the character or habits of Mr. McCorkle. As an original thinker, he was above the average of his contemporaries. Taking him altogether, he was rather an original character in very many respects.

Mr. McCorkle relates the following as his observations on the meeting of the Synod at Lebanon in 1830: This was the second session of that body held in the State. The Synod met in October, and there was a camp-meeting at the time. He says three things deserved especial notice: First, A very unusual snow-storm for that season of the year. Second, The organization of New Lebanon Presbytery. Third, A tremendous rattle of big powder-guns shot from the pulpit--the shooters, in their anxiety and hurry to load well with powder, forgot the balls; hence a tremendous sound, and nobody killed. This observation has probably been made before by ministers attending the judicatures of the Church, where there is generally a great effort to preach big sermons, and where there is almost always a failure.

In the following year Mr. McCorkle was appointed Local Agent for the American Sunday-school Union, and he acquitted himself with so much credit that, in the next year, the sphere of his duties was enlarged, and he became the General Agent of the Union for all Central and Western Missouri. He continued in this business several years, and gave the first impulse to the cause of Sabbath-schools in all this section of country. He became very fond of the business, was active and energetic in the discharge of his duties, received good pay for his time and work, and seemed, altogether, to have achieved distinguished success in this new field of labor. It was somewhat akin to his experience as circuit-rider, this thing of traveling far and near to preach and establish Sunday-schools. He loved to travel and preach--to see new communities, and leave with them the treasures of the gospel-message, or books of the Sunday-school. His nervous energy prompted him to constant labor, besides his strong convictions of duty. He was restless and discontented in idleness. And thus, for years together, he kept up his contest for God and the right, employing whatever means seemed best adapted to the end of achieving victory for the banner of the cross--sometimes as circuit-rider, then as pastor, then as Sunday-school Agent, and all the time battling with bodily disease, poverty, and a thousand other discouragements that beset his pathway at almost every step.

In 1856 Mr. McCorkle, feeling that his heath was permanently impaired, moved with his family to Texas, and settled at White Rock, Titus county. At the time, many of his friends thought it was a most unwise thing to start upon that long journey in his enfeebled condition; but his health improved very much on the road, and after his arrival in the country. Indeed, it gave him a new lease of life, and so far restored his strength and energies that he was able to preach and teach school for many years.

Thus, after thirty years' residence in Cooper county, he struck his tent and bent his footsteps toward the sunny South. For nearly the whole of this period of thirty years he had been a most zealous and laborious minister of the cross. It would be interesting to follow him in all his mental and physical trials and sufferings, and see how strong was his confidence in the Master whom he served, and to witness with what unshaken trust he referred all the events of his life to the guidance of Infinite Wisdom. Some day, perhaps, the Memoir to which I have so often referred with be published in full. This little tribute to his memory is designed to be merely a sketch of his life and labors.

We come now to consider the character of the man whose pathway we have followed until we find him in the "sear and yellow leaf"--we come to attempt an analysis of his mental characteristics, and then to make a resume of his life, and set forth therefrom, as far as we may, the example that we can recommend others to follow.

Mr. McCorkle possessed natural intellectual endowments of no ordinary character. His mind was quick to perceive, apt to analyze, and logical in its operations. He was far better read in his profession and in general literature than most of his contemporaries. I have heard him, in the pulpit, draw largely upon his general reading for matter to illustrate the positions taken in his sermon. I once heard him, in the town of Booneville, preach a sermon on that great event in modern history, the French Revolution, which enthroned reason as the only god for intelligent men to worship, when the worship of the true God was practically abandoned throughout the kingdom. It was a very impressive and powerful sermon.

His method of discussing his subject in the pulpit was generally argumentative and logical. I say it was so generally, because he preached very many sermons wherein his object seemed to be to arouse people to action--assuming, for the occasion, that they already knew their duty. This, perhaps, was his great forte. There was a nervous energy and a vigor in his sermons of this description that rarely failed to produce immediate and visible results. His thought in the pulpit was concentrated and earnest. His whole soul was absorbed in the subject before him. There were but few episodes in his discourses: such concentration of thought would necessarily lead him to a methodical, consecutive manner of treating his subject; there could be no wandering from the main line of thought--no scatter-gun declamation upon every other matter in theology but that which was contained in the text. A man who thinks closely and feels earnestly will discuss the subject in hand, whatever it may be. It is difficult to describe his voice, with its multitude of cadences and inflexions. Sometimes it was tender and melting in its accents, and at other times it would assume a volume and power that would make the echoes ring, and it would fling out upon the passing breeze the loftiest strains of musical eloquence. I never heard him preach a sermon in a key long continued, nor did I ever hear him assume a tone that would be properly denominated bawling. I have heard a great deal of bawling in the pulpit; and it is a very unpleasant, not to say disgusting, habit. I do not mean to condemn preaching in a loud tone of voice. If the feelings of the preacher and the sentiments being uttered justify it, I love to hear it delivered even in thunder-tones.

The personal habits and life of Mr. McCorkle were of singular purity and uprightness. No more earnest and devout Christian was known in all the country. My own personal observations and his faithful Memoir all afford the most abundant evidence of the sincerity of his personal piety, and of his ardent devotion to the ordinary or daily duties of a Christian. No man of his day lived a more blameless life, or left behind him a more signal vindication of the power of grace in the heart, than did the subject of this sketch. Whatever of discouragements and drawbacks he may have suffered in his ministerial career, he never faltered in his private Christian duties. We learn from this brief history, and more especially from the more extended Memoir, that Mr. McCorkle was not only a very able minister of the gospel, but that he was a most faithful and consecrated one. It is true that, owing to the peculiar temperament of the man, he was often subject to great despondency and discouragement; but this very trait of his character would make him very active and effective in his duties when once relieved from the influence of his hypochondria. His peculiar temperament may be illustrated by the old idea of being always in the cellar or up in the garret. It was a good deal the case with Mr. McCorkle; but it is also true that he lived nearly all his life in the garret, and while in the atmosphere of the upper regions he was conspicuous for his ardor and zeal in the cause of his Master. The periods of depression were the exceptions to the rule of general zeal and devotion to his great work. He loved his work, and he went into it with a heartiness and purpose that were bound to result in great success; and the consequence was that hundreds of men were brought to seek the Saviour under his earnest ministry. I cannot institute a comparison between him and his contemporaries; but I feel safe in asserting that few, if any, of his colleagues accomplished more good in their day, taking the sum of their labors, than did Archibald McCorkle. The traces of his labors are still visible in many counties of Central Missouri. He served his generation faithfully, and that with no adequate return on this side the grave. He began poor, and lived poor all his life, the Church responding but feebly to its duty in the matter of pecuniary support. His eye was fixed on the eternal reward that lay beyond the sphere of his toil and labor. Yet he brought up a large family, educated them very well, and always had the ordinary comforts of life about him. God did not abandon him because the Church would not support him. His trust in the benevolence of the Master he served was never disappointed: he took care of him down to the end of a long life.

Of the large family of nine children which came to the household, six of them preceded him to the heavenly land, as did also his beloved wife, by only a few years, however.

The health of Mr. McCorkle, in his Texas home, continued good on down to his last short illness; and he continued to preach, as opportunity offered, till within a few weeks of his death. In his last illness, in the midst of the night, when no one but his nurse was awake, he was heard to utter the following prayer in the most earnest manner: "O my Heavenly Father, if my work is done, let me leave this sinful world, and be with thee: not my will, but thine, if it is thy will that I should labor and suffer longer, amen: thy will be done." In this, his last illness, he said he wanted to preach once more from the text, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature." He finally died, on the 21st of October, 1870, being nearly seventy-five years old. He died without a struggle or groan, and in, the beautiful language of the Saviour, "he slept." Peace to his ashes, and abundant grace to the survivors of his household!
[Source: Historical Memoirs: Containing a Brief History of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church in Missouri, and Biographical Sketches of a Number of Those Ministers who Contributed to the Organization and the Establishment of that Church, in the Country West of the Mississippi River. By Judge R.C. Ewing. Nashville, Tenn.: Cumberland Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1874, pages 150-176]