Born: New Harmony, Indiana, 1853.
Died:
This man is a good preacher, with continuing experiences. He grew to manhood in White County, Illinois, with such educational advantages as the public schools of the period afforded, but all the time since he has read and studied. He joined the M. E. Church at sixteen, but two years thereafter united with the church of Christ at West Salem, Illinois. He taught school and preached in Edwards County for ten to thirteen years, served four years as evangelist in Virginia, then, for a period of eleven years, with the churches at Fisher, Farmer City, Delavan, Champaign and others in that section. Went to an abandoned farm in southern Illinois to solve the old-age problem. But he is still active and useful as a preacher.
Here are a few of his pick-ups:
He has found a new church, indigenous to southern Illinois, calling themselves "Social Brethren." One of their preachers, in explaining to his congregation the words of Jesus, "Suffer little children to come unto me," said: "The Lord allowed little children to suffer that they might come unto him." Another one of these preachers read the words, "prepare you victuals," in Josh. 1:11, "prepare your vehicles," and explained it by saying, "Grease the axles, tighten the nuts, etc."
One of the accredited ministers of a strong church in southern Illinois said, "The only Bible in the world was hid in the cornerstone of a temple," but he did not know what temple. Again, the same preacher, in explaining 1 John 1:9, "His seed remaineth in him," said, "Jesus and John the Baptist did not marry; their seed remained in them." In the course of a public discussion between Mr. Stark and Min. John Ralph, Baptist, the latter said: "Mr. Stark seems to think that I am an ‘ignoramemus.'" David Morse, a prominent Cumberland Presbyterian preacher, said in a funeral sermon, "Everything that lives shall live again in human form."
Mr. Stark is a fine character.