Introduction

PREFACE

The author of this small volume makes no pretensions to literary ability. She had never contemplated writing a book; but the requests of kindred and friends for some account of her many experiences led her to commit the story to writing, and preserve it in this permanent form. She does not presume to think that she is a person of such importance that her autobiography is a necessity to, anybody; but having decided upon its preparation, it is but true to say that many a pleasant hour has been spent in going over the voluminous stores of memory, and gathering out such portions appear in this story.

No effort has been made to polish any statement of fact; but as memory has called it up, the recital has been made in the plain unvarnished language which the author has been accustomed to use all her life. She has spoken out of her heart just as it seemed to her at the time of writing. There may be inaccuracies here and there—the author could not be sure there are not—but she has striven to make them as few as possible. With this short prefatory statement, this book is commended to the kind consideration of kindred and friends and the few others whose eyes may chance to fall upon these pages. For the author by:

CHARLES C. ELSON
Lancaster, Ohio

INTRODUCTION

There is no more profitable kind of literature for us to peruse than biography. It is more direct than history, and for this reason is more likely to be read. Our colleges have departments of history, from which much good is derived. Would not biography be more profitable? But where is the college that teaches it?

Of men in public life we have some excellent biographies. Of churchmen, especially of ministers of the Gospel, we have a fair output. But the biographies of Christian women are much too rare.

This volume from the facile pen of our elect sister, Mrs. Ellen O’Bannon, will be prized because of her beautiful character, and because she was born in England, and had her early training in another branch of the Christian church; yet she has spent more than fifty-nine years of her active life in the Methodist Episcopal Church in the State of Ohio. So we get the exact truth from her faithful pen.

The children and grandchildren of Mrs. O’Bannon are highly favored being in possession of this book, which not only contains much invaluable family history, but gives the author’s experience in the varied vicissitudes of her life.

In the volume is much that will be data for the future historian. Too much that comes from the press in our age is highly colored, and in too many cases the truth is so caricatured that the true way seems the false and the false the true pathway. In this volume the truth is told with such artless simplicity of language, arid in such pleasing style that right thoughts and correct views of life are encouraged. In these recitals, there is much to stir the heart to nobler living. Some of the incidents touch very tender records of our souls, others irresistibly excite laughter. Though this volume tells of the many changes which have come in the church and society in the last seventy years, yet there is not a pessimistic sentence in the entire book. The whole trend of her writings is to elevate character, and to lift human beings up on the highway of holy living. The reader will find it a book he is loth to lay down until he reaches the end, and even then he will wish for more from the same gifted pen.

ISAAC F. KING
Columbus, Ohio