" Sin was a reality with Jack,
and the pardon of sin the most wonderful of all facts. He never tired of
telling it; it opened a new world to him, a world of light and joy. Jack
White in the class-meeting or prayer-meeting, with beaming face, and
moistened eyes, and softened voice, telling of the love of Jesus, seemed
almost of a different race from the wretched Piutes of the Sierras and
sagebrush.
Jack's baptism was a great event. It was by immersion, the first baptism
of the kind I ever performed--and almost the last. Jack had been talked
to on the subject by some zealous brethren of another "persuasion," who
magnified that mode, and though he was willing to do as I advised in the
matter, he was evidently a little inclined to the more spectacular way
of receiving the ordinance. Mrs. White suggested that it might save
future trouble, and "spike a gun." So Jack, with four others, was taken
down to Santa Rosa Creek, that went rippling and sparkling along the
southern edge of the town, and duly baptized in the name of the Father,
and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. A great crowd covered the bridge
just below, and the banks of the stream; and when Wesley Mock, the Asaph
of Santa Rosa Methodism, struck up--
O happy day that fixed my choice
On thee, my Saviour and my God,
and the chorus--
Happy day, happy day, when
Jesus washed my sins away,
was swelled by hundreds of voices, it was a glad moment for Jack White
and all of us.
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