Source:
The Kansas Methodist,
August 4, 1881
The First Kansas Conference
by
Baxter C. Dennis
Speaking of Rev. James S.
Griffing, Rev. Dennis writes:
…Of the young men, not full members of the
organization, a word may be in order. And
the name first suggested to my mind is one well known throughout the state,
specially through the older portion, who was one of the first men on the ground,
and has not been the man to leave it yet, but through peace and war, through
fire and flood, through famine and plenty, taking the winters with their winds,
and the summers with their sunshine, he has moved right on, doing the work
committed to him without ostentation or display, ready at each conference
session to make his report of work performed without a blush, and who still
stands in his place, ready and able for whatever the Church requires at his
hands.
When Bro.
Goode was appointed to take charge of that western work, he cast about him for a
young man with pluck, determination and courage to go with him to his new field.
Incidentally or Providentially, he came across a young man in
Indianapolis, on the top of a Church building, working with his own hands,
preparing himself a place wherin to preach the word amongst the people to whom
he had been appointed, a little mission in the suburbs of that city.
At once Bro. G[oode] reached the conclusion, “there’s my man.”
Without further ado, proposals were made, and taking time only to adjust
matters with his ecclesiastical superiors, he soon was on his way to his distant
field of labor. That young man was James
S. Griffing. The wisdom of that selection
has been proven in his faithful, persistent, earnest and successful service all
over Kansas, for more than twenty-five years. Another
young man has always had it to say that he was the first man on whom ordaining
hands were laid in Kansas, but has always had a misgiving in saying much about
it, in view of the fact that [but] for the very severe affliction of Bro.
Griffing for over a year, in which it was feared we might lose him altogether
from the work, he, Bro. G[riffing] would have had that distinguished honor, as
he so fully deserved, being first upon the ground. But Providence laid him aside for the time, and another took the
honors, simply because some one must be
first. Through the prayers offered in his
behalf, and by the blessing of God, [Brother Griffing] was preserved to the
Church, and to the Kansas work, and his record remains.
And never in all his ministry, did he stand higher in the eyes of the
“old guard” of Kansas than he has recently, in taking his stand with the
black man, having for his flock a company of black people with a colored man for
his presiding elder, himself a member of a colored district conference…
