The Early Life and Later Experience and Labors of Elder Joseph Bates

Introduction

LIFE sketches of great and good men are given to the world for the benefit of generations that follow them. Human life is more or less an experiment to all who enter upon it. Hence the frequent remark that we need to live one life to learn how to live. LELJB 13.1

This maxim in all its unqualified strength of expression may be a correct statement of the cases of the self-confiding and incautious. But it need not be wholly true of those who have good and wise parents to honor, and who have proper respect for all prudent and good people who have made life a success. LELJB 13.2

To those who take along with them the lamp for their feet, found in the experiences of those who have fought the good fight, and have finished their course with joy, life is not altogether an experiment. The general outlines of life, to say the least, are patterned by these from those who have by the grace of God made themselves good, and noble, and truly great in choosing and defending the right. LELJB 13.3

Reflecting young men and young women may take on a stock of practical education before they leave parental care and instruction which will be invaluable to them in future life. This they may do to a considerable extent by careful observation. But in reading the lives of worthy people, they may in their minds and hearts live good lives in advance, and thus be fortified to reject the evil and to choose the good that lie all along the path of human life. LELJB 13.4

Second to our Lord Jesus Christ, Noah, Job, and Daniel are held up before us by the sacred writers as patterns worthy of imitation. The brief sketches of the faith, patience, firmness, and moral excellence of these and other holy men of God found in the pages of sacred history have been and are still of immense value to all those who would walk worthy of the Christian name. They were men subject to like passions as we are. And were some of them at certain unfortunate periods of life overcome of evil? Erring men of our time may bless that record also which states how they overcame evil, and fully redeemed past errors, so that becoming doubly victorious they shine brightest on the sacred page. LELJB 14.1

In his Epistle to the Hebrews, Paul gives a list of heroes of faith. In his eleventh chapter he mentions Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, and the prophets, who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, and stopped the mouths of lions. The apostle calls up this cloud of witnesses to God’s faithfulness to his trusting servants as patterns for the Christian church, as may be seen by the use he makes of them in the first verse of the chapter which follows:— LELJB 14.2

“Wherefore, seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.” Hebrews 12:1. LELJB 15.1

The life of Elder Joseph Bates was crowded with unselfish motives and noble actions. That which makes his early history intensely interesting to his personal friends is the fact that he became a devoted follower of Christ, and a thorough practical reformer, and ripened into glorious manhood a true Christian gentleman, while exposed to the evils of sea-faring life, from the cabin-boy of 1807, to the wealthy retiring master of 1828, a period of twenty-one years. LELJB 15.2

Beauty and fragrance are expected of the rose, planted in the dry and well-cultivated soil, and tenderly reared under the watchful eye of the lover of the beautiful. But we pass over the expected glory of the rose to admire the living green, the pure white, and the delicate tint of the water-lily whose root reaches way down into the cold filth of the bottom of the obscure lake. And we revere that Power which causes this queen of flowers, uncultivated and obscure, to appropriate to itself all valuable qualities from its chilling surroundings, and to reject the evil. LELJB 15.3

So, to apply the figure, we reasonably expect excellence of character in those who are guarded against corrupting influences, and whose surroundings are the most favorable to healthy mental and moral development. In our hearts, pressing upon our lips, are blessings for all such. But he who, in the absence of all apparent good, and in the perpetual presence of all that is uncultivated and vile, with no visible hand to guard and to guide, becomes pure and wise, and devotes his life to the service of God and the good of humanity, a Christian philanthropist, is a miracle of God’s love and power, the wonder of the age. LELJB 15.4

It was during his sea-faring life, while separated from the saving influences of the parental, Christian home, and exposed to the temptations of sailor life, that the writer of the following pages became thoroughly impressed with moral and religious principles, and gathered strength to trample intemperance and all other forms of vice beneath his feet, and rise in the strength of right and of God to the position of a thorough reformer, a devoted Christian, and an efficient minister of the gospel. LELJB 16.1

J. W.