L. L. CARPENTER.

      Was born in Norton, Summit county, Ohio, on the 10th day of December, A. D. 1832. His parents were poor and he grew up without many of the advantages of the more favored boys in the neighborhood.

      He, however, received a common school education, and his parents managed to send him to Mt. Union Academy, where he prepared himself so he was able to teach in a district school, saving the money that he earned in teaching, and helped by his parents, what they could, he entered Bethany College in the autumn of 1855, where he received instruction from Alexander Campbell, W. K. Pendleton, N. C. Milligan, Robert Richardson, and other members of the splendid faculty of Bethany College. It is the boast of Bro. Carpenter that he cannot remember the time when he did not hear the primitive gospel preached by such men as Alexander Campbell, the Greens, the Haydens, and that splendid army of pioneer preachers, who in an early day, sounded out the word all over the old Western Reserve in Ohio.

      On the 14th day of August, A. D. 1853, at the home church in Norton, he made public confession of faith in Jesus Christ, and surrendered his all to the loving Savior. The same day he was immersed into Christ by A. B. Green, and took his membership in the Church of Christ.

      In the spring of 1857, he went to Fulton county, Ohio, and began preaching the gospel in school houses, barns, groves, private houses, any where he could get the people together.

      From 1857 to 1861--four years--he had, with his own hands, baptized in that one county more than 1,000 persons, and organized seven congregations, which are now strong churches, wielding a mighty influence for primitive Christianity.

      On May 16, 1861, he was married to Miss Mary E. Funk, a young sister that he had baptized three years before. God gave them seven children; one is in the better land. Four boys and two girls are living; all are honored and respected citizens, and all are members of the church of Christ.

      In 1868 he removed to Wabash, Indiana, where he still resides.

      He was the first president of both the Ohio and the Indiana Sunday School Associations. He is identified with all the missionary enterprises of the church.

      For ten years he was State Sunday School Evangelist in Indiana. During these years he organized a large number of schools and then organized many of them into churches. He also held Institutes and Normals in nearly every county in the state.

      He was also state evangelist of the Indiana Christian Missionary Society for years. One peculiar feature of his work was the grouping of weak churches and locating ministers for each group. He also established quite a number of new churches. The First church in Fort Wayne is one of them.

      He was the first life member of the Foreign Missionary Society. He is a life member or director of every missionary organization of our people. He is also an enthusiastic worker in the Y. P. S. C. E.

      He was one of the founders of Bethany Assembly, the National Chautauqua of the Church of Christ, and for many years has been its president. He has quite a record as a church dedicator, having dedicated nearly 600 houses of worship, and raised more than $2,000,000 to pay for these houses. While but a small part of his time has been spent in evangelistic work, yet he has baptized more than 7,000 penitent believers. Although seventy years old he is as strong and able to work as at any period of his life. He is doing as hard work and as much of it, and standing his work [458] just as well as he ever did. He has traveled and preached in many of the states and territories of the Union, and in the King's Dominions. The older he grows the stronger is his faith in the word of God. He believes the old Jerusalem gospel with all his heart, and greatly delights to preach it. Although a preacher for forty-six years, he says that he has never had but one vacation, and that was when he had the typhoid fever. He says that he expects to make Wabash, Ind., his home until he goes to heaven.

[COC 458-459]