A SOUTHERN SAWMILLA SOUTHERN SAWMILL.Page 91.
"You are going the wrong time of the year," was the reiterated warning of friends who heard that I was to make a Southern trip. Experience proved them to be as far astray as if they had warned one from going North in June; for the May of the South is the June of the North. Nature was revelling in her fullest dress, making a symphony in green,—all shades, from the pale tint of the chinquapin and persimmon, to the deep indigo of the long-leafed pine, and the tender purple green of the distant hills,—a perfect extravaganza of vegetable growth.
The weather was delicious; from the south and east came the ocean air, and from the north and west the balsam-laden ozone of the mountains, every turn inthe road revealing new beauties. The cool Southern homes, with their wide verandas covered with honeysuckle, and great hallways running right through the house, often revealing some of the daintiest little pictures of light and shade, from apple or china tree varied with the holly, the Cape jasmine, and scuppernong vines, the latter often covering a half-acre of land, while chanticleer and his seraglio strutted in proud content, monarch of all he surveyed. High on a pole hung the hollowed gourds, homes for the martins and swallows. The mistress sat at her sewing in the shady porch, while out beyond, under a giant oak, with gracefully twined turban and brilliant dress, the sable washerwoman hung out her many-colored pieces, making altogether a scene of rural beauty seldom surpassed.
What joy to sit in the ample porch and look over the great cotton-fields with their regular rows of bluish green, variegated by the tender hue of the youngcorn, and a dozen shades of as many species of oak, while the brilliant tulip-tree and the distant hills, now of softest blue, contrasting with the rich, red ochre of the soil, make up a picture never to be forgotten. Cooled by the breezes that sweep through the porch, one dozes away an hour of enchantment. The negroes with their mules, in the distance, in almost every field, add to its piquancy, and often, floating on the wind, come wild snatches in weird minor notes the broken rhythm of their old Virginia reel, performed with the rollicking exuberance of the race.
The reader must not suppose that all Southern homes answer to the above description. Thousands of houses are without a porch or any shade save that which nature gives. The chimneys are built on the outside, sometimes of stone, sometimes of brick or of clay, while layers of one-inch slats hold the chimney together; but, as a rule, so prodigal is nature that a vine of some kind willentwine around their otherwise bare and severe outlines, and make them, like some dogs, homely enough to be handsome.
Although these poorer houses are devoid of all artificial attempts to beautify, they are frequently built near a great oak and the dense china-tree for shade, while wild fruits of many kinds grow promiscuously about. In every hedgerow, and within a stone's throw of nearly every country home, will be found partridges, wild pigeons, and all sorts of small game, with plenty of foxes to keep it in reasonable bounds, while every household has a number of hounds and curs for the foxes. But with all the varied beauty of the scene, the New Englander constantly misses the well-kept lawn,—for here bare ground always takes the place of grass,—and there are no village green and fine shaded roads, and that general neatness which distinguishes the rural scenes of "the Pilgrim land."
A few words about the people. They are as warm-hearted as their climate;the stranger is greeted with such invitations as these: "Come in;" "Take a chair;" "Have some of the fry;" "Have some fresh water." They are up with the sun—family prayer by five,A.M.; breakfast half an hour later; dinner at one; supper at seven; to bed by dark. The churches are plain, costing seldom more than eight hundred or one thousand dollars; doors on all sides opposite each other to allow for a good circulation of air. A pail of water stands on a form near the pulpit. The church generally stands in a grove or the forest itself.
The people are very fond of preaching. The whole family, from the oldest to the youngest, go; and one may often see the mother at the communion with a little one at the breast. Sometimes eleven or more of a family will occupy a wagon filled with oak-splint chairs.
It takes one back thirty years ago to the West, as one stands at the church-door and sees the people flocking in through winding roads in the woods, thesunlight and shadow dancing upon the moving teams that shine like satin in the bright morning air. The dogs are wild with delight as they start a covey of partridges, and make music in the deep shadows of the woods. Here a group of young men and maidens are drinking at the spring.
The preacher often is a jack-of-all-trades—sometimes a doctor, getting his degree from the family medicine-book; and strange to say, though an ardent believer in faith-cure, and with marvellous accounts of cures in answer to prayer, yet prescribing a liver invigorator when that organ is in trouble. Some of these men are natural orators, and with their bursts of eloquence often hush their hearers to holy awe and inspiration. They have one book, and believe it. No doubts trouble them. Higher criticism has never reached them. Mosaic origin of the Pentateuch is unquestioned. Moses and no other, to them, wrote the five books, including the account of his own burial.They know nothing of pre-exilic Psalms or Greek periods of Daniel; but all preach Jesus, no matter whence they draw their text. In an instant they make a short cut for Calvary.
One brother, over eighty years of age, walks fifteen miles, and preaches three times. Some of his sermons take two hours in delivery, without the aid of a scrap of note; and the talk for days after is on the sermon. No quarterlies, monthlies, or weeklies lie at home to divert. No lecturer strays to that region. Here and there is a village house with an organ or a piano, and, of course, a paper.
I am speaking of the rural South,—and nearly all the South is rural, nearly all American, even the cities, with few exceptions, and the operatives are Southern, and mostly from the farms; so that one may find a city whose operatives live in another State, across a river, in a community numbering nearly seven thousand souls, and most of them keeping pigs and a cow (or, rather, not keeping them,for they roam at their own sweet will down grassy, ungraded streets). In such a place one meets old ladies of quite respectable appearance, with the little snuffing-stick in their mouths, or a pipe; and here one small grocery shop may sell two hundred dozen of little tin snuff-boxes in a month! There are cities in the South where you will find as fine hotels and stores as any on the continent. But from any such city it is only a step to the most primitive conditions.
Let me describe a characteristic night scene near a large city. My friend met me at the depot with his little light wagon and diminutive mule, and we started for the homestead. Our road lay between banks of honeysuckle that saturated the air with its rich perfume; wild-goose plum, persimmon, bullice, and chinquapin (the latter somewhat like a chestnut, but smaller), huckleberries on bushes twelve feet high, called currants there, lined the road on either side. The house was surrounded by thedébrisof former corn-cribsand present ones; stables were scattered here and there in picturesque confusion. One end of the house was open, and had been waiting for years for its chimney; there was shrubbery of every kind all about. I had the usual hearty welcome and supper, and then attended the inevitable meeting in the grove.
In the glare of the setting sun everything seemed indescribably wretched; but it was May, and night came on apace. The stars in the deep blue glowed like gems; and then the queen of night on her sable throne threw her glamour over the scene, and the stencil-marked ground became a fairy scene. High perched upon a mighty oak the mistress of the grove rained music on the cool night air,—first a twitter like a chaffinch, then an aria worthy of Patti, then the deep notes of the blackbird, then a whip-poor-will, then a grand chorus of all the night-birds.
A short breathing-spell, and off on another chorus, and so the whole night through. When we awoke the musicstill poured from that wondrous throat of the American mocking-bird. How calm, how peaceful, was the scene, how pure the air! The lights went out from neighboring cots, and the heavenly hosts seemed to sing together once more the song of Bethlehem—but alas! Herod plots while angels sing. Not far off is another little house with its small outbuildings. This night it is occupied by a mother and three children. The father is away attending a religious meeting. The servant who usually sleeps in the house when the man is away gives a trifling excuse and sleeps in the shed. Before retiring she quietly unfastens the pin which holds the shutter. At midnight the mother is awakened from her troubled sleep and sees the shadow of a man, and then another shadow, and still another. The children shrink to the back of their bunk. Oh, what a triple crime was enacted under that peaceful sky! Morning came. The mocking-bird still sang, and cheered the returning husband.But alas, it was a mocking song for him; for instead of pleasant welcomes, he found his wife delirious, and his children cowering like hunted partridges in a neighbor's house. The frenzied husband, soon joined by friends made furious by the atrocious crime (so common in the South), soon hunted the ravishers of the little home; and when the moon arose the next night, the beauty of the scene was marred by three black corpses swinging from a bridge.
The first impression a man has of the North-west is like Pats in St. Patrick's Cathedral,—"Begorra, it's bigger inside than out."
Take the map, and see what a little thin strip the upper peninsula of Michigan makes. Now start on the best train at St. Ignace in the morning, and it is eight at night before you reach the copper regions or the Gogebic Range. When I lived in St. Ignace, and the connections were poor, it took two days to travel from that port to Calumet. If we went by water we had to sail forty miles east before we doubled Point Detour; and then we threaded our way among scenes of beauty equal to the Thousand Islands of the St. Lawrence. Every mile of the way is alive with historic interest. InSt. Ignace lie the bones of Father Marquette; across the Straits, Mackinaw City, where the terrible massacre occurred, spoken of by Parkman; midway, is Mackinaw Island, called by the Indians The Great Turtle.
Here to-day on the Island are the old block forts, and here the little iron safe in which John Jacob Astor kept his money when in the fur-trade. Full of natural beauty, to-day the past and present crowd one another. Here are Indians, half-breeds, and Americans, and modern hotels. There are no mosquitoes; for the Island is but three miles in diameter, and the wind blows too strong for them. Here you may find the lilac in full bloom on the Fourth of July, and in the fall delicious blue plums that have not been hurt by the black knot. The daylight is nearly eighteen hours long in midsummer. The people are sowing oats when the southern farmers in the State are thinking of cutting theirs. In April, near Grand Rapids, I picked the arbutus.In early May, at Vanderbilt, I picked it again, and saw pure white snow in patches in the woods. Later in May I saw it again north of the Straits of Mackinaw, and in June I found it in the Keweenak Peninsula. At Hancock I saw a foot of snow compressed under the cordwood, and some between buildings not exposed to the sun. On account of the lateness of the season, pease escape the bugs, which are elsewhere so destructive; and thousands of bushels of seed are sent every year to the upper Peninsula.
But to return to St. Ignace. It is so unlike any other American town, that I did not wonder at an old lady of over ninety, who was born there, speaking of her visit to Detroit as the time when she went to the States. Here the old Catholic church dates back to the early days of French settlement. The lots run from the water-front back. Your Frenchman must have a water-front, no matter how narrow. So the town was four miles long, and composed mostly of one street, which followedthe water-front; and although there were four thousand people living there in 1884, and we had a mayor, the primeval forest came right into the city.
The only house I could get was new,—so new that we moved in while the floors were still wet. The lumber in it was green, and we could not open the sashes for months; but before winter came, the shrinkage caused the windows to rattle like castanets. To get our furniture there, we had to cross the railway tracks twice,—once the regular road, and then the branch which ran to the great furnace at the point. And yet so new was everything in this old town, that our street had not been graded, and our wagons had to cross land where they sunk up to the axles. A few miles up the road the deer, the wolves, and black bear lived; and no less than eleven deer were seen in the road at one time near Allenville. We moved in the month of June, and put up our base-burner, and started the fire.
The climate is delicious from June to October; the air and waters are as clear as crystal. You can see fish forty feet below you, and the color of the pebbles at the bottom. There is an indescribable beauty about these northern shores; the tender green of the larch-fir, or tamarack, the different shades of blue-green among the cedars, the spruce, hemlock, and balsam, mixed with the lovely birch, and multi-colored rocks, make up some of the loveliest scenery on the continent. Little islands, so small that but one or two trees can find root, up to the islands that take hours to steam by, while the streams team with trout and grayling, the lakes with white-fish, muskalonge, and mackinaw trout and herring. Thousands of men are engaged in the fisheries, and millions of dollars are invested.
You sit at your door, and can see the home and people of old France, with their primitive canoe, and at the same time see propellers of three thousand tons' burden glide stately by.
It does not take long to build a new village on the prairie,—the hardest work, the clearing of the ground, is already done; but here in the dense forest it is a different thing, even when the railway runs through it. First the men go in, and begin to clear the ground. It is virgin soil, and not an inch of ground but has something growing. Giant maples—some of them bird's-eye, some curly—are cut down and made into log heaps; black walnuts are burned up, that, made into veneer, would bring thousands of dollars.
Such was the state of things within twelve years. To-day it is different. The settler will take a quarter section, bark the trees to find the desired kind, cut them down, and leave for another section.Rich companies came in, and began to devastate the forests to make charcoal, until the State had to make a law that only a certain number of acres in the hundred may be cut.
In some few cases women will go with their husbands, and sometimes one woman will find herself miles and miles away from another. I visited one such house; and while the good woman was getting the dinner ready, I strolled about and took notes. On the rude mantel-shelf, I saw some skulls, and asked what kind of an animal they belonged to. She said,—
"Oh! them's beavers' skulls. My! I wish we had some beavers here now; I would make you some beaver-tail soup."
"Why, did you have them here since you came?"
"Oh, yes! plenty of them. When I got lonesome—and that was pretty much every day—I used to go and watch them build their dams. I don't know how they did it; but I have seen them sink a log so that it would stay put, and notcome up. I tried it dozens of times, but could not do it. I had lots of time, nothing to read, and the nearest town fifteen miles away. I used to think I should go mad sometimes, and even a land-hunter coming from outside was a godsend. Indeed, I remember one coming here, and he took sick, and died in spite of all we could do. We had neither boards nor planks, nothing but logs. So we slipped two flour-barrels over him, and he looked real nice. We buried a little boy too. I keep the graves clear of weeds, and plant flowers about them, and often sit there with my work and think of those early days."
"How long ago was that?" I asked.
"Four years ago! Why, you know there wan't no railway then; but now,—why, I got Zeke to cut down the trees, and I can see the trains go by with parlor cars and sleepers. There'll be one pretty soon if it is on time." And sure enough, in a few minutes a long train thundered by.
Sometimes a train stopped near us, and hundreds of men from the south of Ohio came with their dogs, guns, and men-servants, and went hunting and fishing; and, strange as it may seem, you can find ten times as many deer to-day as you could forty years ago. The settling of new lands has driven them into closer quarters, and the game-law does much good. The State fish-hatcheries supply the streams with fry; and at times the men sent out to stock the streams get misled by the settlers, who show them the different streams, and only too late they find they have put the whole stock of young fry into the same stream. The average conscience is not yet fine enough to see anything but a joke in this.
But to the building of our village. Often at first no house has more than one room. The men are making their homes, and will stop to cut out a piece of the log, and make a place for a little child's doll. Cupboards, too, are made in the same way.
Water is one of the indispensable necessities; and, as a rule, the town will be built on a stream, or near a spring. Sometimes wells have to be dug over a hundred feet deep. Arrow-heads, and implements of the chase, and bones of men and extinct races of animals, turn up.
In one town I visited, before the wells were dug, the water for drinking was brought in barrels on flat cars, while melted snow answered for washing.
"But what did you do when that was gone?" I asked.
"Well, the maple-sap begun to run, and then the birch, which was better; but lor! you couldn't iron nothin'."
I passed a little log house standing out of line with the street; and I thought it was a chicken-coop, and asked why it was built that way.
"My!" said the woman with a laugh, "that ain't a chicken-coop; that's our first meeting-house. Us women built that. We had one or two old men to help, and the children; and we women did the rest.We were quite proud of it too. It cost fourteen dollars complete. For the minister's chair we cut down a barrel, and covered it with green baize."
A minister writes, "My room is one end of the garret of a log house, where I can barely stand erect under the ridgepole. My study-table and bookcase I made from rough boards. As I sit writing, I look forth from a window two by three, upon a field dotted with stumps, log huts, and charcoal kilns, and skirted with dense forests."
While I was visiting this section, a woman showed me her hands cracked with the frost. The tears came to her eyes as she said, "I tell ye it's pretty hard lines to have to milk cows when it is forty below zero." No man can imagine the arduous work and the awfulness of life in a northern winter. What is a joy to the well-dressed, well-fed man, with his warm house and the comforts of a civilized community, is often death to the poor minute-man and settleron the frontier. I have sat by the side of the minute-man, and heard from him a story that would bring tears to the eyes of the most cynical.
One man I shall never forget, a good hardy Scotchman, with a brave little wife and four children. His field was near Lake Superior; his flock poor homesteaders and Indians. The winters have a hundred and fifty days' sleighing; the frost sometimes reaches 50° below zero, and is often for days together 30° below; so that when it suddenly rises to zero, one can hardly believe it is freezing. Here is his story:—
"We were twelve miles from a doctor; and towards spring two of our children complained of sore throats. It proved to be diphtheria. We used all the remedies we had, and also some herbs given us by an old squaw; but the children grew worse, and we determined to go back to the old settlement. My wife carried the youngest, and I the next one. The other children walkedbehind, their little legs getting scratched with the briers. We had twelve miles to go to reach the steamer. When we got there, one of the little ones died; and before we reached home the other expired. We buried our two treasures among the friends in the cemetery; and after a while I said to my wife,—
"'Shall we go back to the field? Ought we to go?'
"Her answer was, 'Yes.'
"We went back. Our old parishioners were delighted to see us; and soon we were hard at work again. Winter came on, and God gave us another little one. You may be sure he had a double welcome; but as the cold became intense, our little lamb showed signs of following his brothers. I tried to keep my wife's spirits up, while I went about my work dazed. At last the little fellow's eyes seemed so large for his face, and he would look at us so pitifully, that I would break down in spite of myself.
"He died; and the ground was frozenover six feet deep, and we had to bury him in a deep snow-bank that nearly covered our little shanty. My wife would go out nights when she could hear the wolves howling, and stand with an old Paisley shawl over her head, while I was miles away preaching to a handful of settlers in a log cabin; and when I would return I would find her there keeping watch, and sometimes I would have hard work to get her into the house. Pardon these tears, my brother, but come they will."
He need not have said it; my own were running, though my head was turned away.
Yes, we weep, and hold on to our money, while brave men and women, with their little ones, suffer for the lack of it, and lay down their lives for those who come after them. How men and women can live in fine homes, and spend ten times as much on luxuries as they give to the Lord, and still sing they love his kingdom, is more than I can understand—except it be they don't mean what they sing.
The first thing one notices after passing the great iron dock are the odd names on some of the signs. There is the "Golden Rule" livery stable, with its attendant saloon. On its left, quaintly linking the past with the present, is an old log house, built in past century style, with its logs hewn, tongued, and grooved, but used at present as a printing-office, with the latest style of presses. One can easily imagine the time when beside its huge fireplace the half-breed and the Indian squatted, smoked their pipes, and told their stories; for it is not four years since that was so. Outside, nailed to the logs, is a coon-skin, and underneath it the legend, "Hard Cider." From this primitive place issues the democraticFree Press. A little farther on, and we notice "Dr. ——, horse doctor and saloon keeper." A very few more steps brings us to the Home Saloon, the Mansion House, the Clarendon, and the Young Canadian.
Besides these, there are twenty other saloons, with and without names; you will not be surprised when I tell you that, on my first visit here, I found a poor man had cut his throat after a heavy spree. The shame he felt at the thought of meeting wife and children (who were on their way, expecting to find a home) was too much for him, and hence suicide. So when wife and little ones arrived they found only a dying husband and father.
Not long after this a young man, the only support of his parents, went out into the dark night from a dance, dazed with drink. He fell on the track, and the morning express crushed him to death. Brother Newberry, going to condole with the parents, found the poor father bedridden by an accident, and the mother, who was furious with drink, held by two men. Down on the dock, one evening, a poor man fell into the lake. He had been drinking to drown his sorrows (a man having run away with his wife). The bystanders, among whom washis own son, seemed stupidly indifferent to his fate; and when they did arouse themselves it was only to bring up his dead body. This they laid in the freight shed, while the son went coolly to work on a vessel close by, and brutal men made jests of the misery of the dead man's married life.
To give you an idea of the zest with which the liquor traffic is carried on, let me say that three days after the ferry-boat "Algomah" was stuck fast in the ice-drift, and while it was yet dangerous to cross the strait by sleigh, a saloon was built on the ice about a mile from shore to catch the teamsters as they passed with freight. When I saw it five days later, it had been removed nearer the shore; so that it was built and taken down and put up again all within a week.
But come with me out of so baneful an atmosphere. Let us cross the Strait of Mackinaw on the ice by moonlight. What a scene! It is a wild midnight, the moonat the full, a light snow falling; and although it is here only six miles to the other side, you cannot see the shore, as the snow thickens. There are miles upon miles of ice, driven by the fierce gale, sometimes into the depths, again mounting the crest of some mighty billow, groaning and cracking up into all shapes and sizes, swirling as if in some giant whirlpool, transfixed and left in all its awful confusion. It is glittering with beauty to-night; yet so wild, so weird, so awfully grand and solemn, that we involuntarily repeat, "Lord, what is man that thou art mindful of him?"
The sleighs look, in the distance, like a little dog-train. Now you are gliding over a mile of ice, smooth as glass, while all around it is heap upon heap; then you pass through gaps cut by the road-makers, who have left little pine-trees to guide you; and though the ice in places is packed thirty feet deep, you feel a sense of comfort and safety as you pass from the bleak sweep of the wind intothe thick cedars on the shore, and nestle down as if in the shadow of His wing.
The next crossing is by early morn. The sun comes cheerily up from out a great cloud of orange and vermilion, while here and there are crimson clots and deep indigo-colored clouds rolling off to follow the night. I cannot describe the beauty of this scene; that needs a poet; but I can tell you of the odd side. Away we go behind two Indian ponies, snorting and prancing as if they, too, enjoyed the beauty of the scene. But look! not forty yards away is the "Algomah." After being resurrected from the ice with dynamite, she has begun her regular trips. Bravely she ploughs through two feet of blue ice; and when she comes to the high ridges backs up and charges them again and again. After hours of faithful work, she makes St. Ignace after sundown, seven miles from the spot she left at sunrise.
You will not be surprised, perhaps, to find your missionary from Northern Michigan turning up at Olivet, Southern Michiganwhere the Lord graciously baptized the meetings with his Holy Spirit. I collected seventy-two dollars towards a little church, to be called Olivet Chapel; and, better still, quite a number decided to be Christians. Best of all, thirteen young Christian students gave themselves to God, and will be ready when the time comes for the work of Christian missions.
At Ann Harbor I was most cordially welcomed by Brother Ryder and his church, and received from them hopeful assurance of help for our church at Sugar Island; so the time was not thrown away in going South. At Newberry, Brother Curry has been offered the use of the new church built by Mrs. Newberry of Detroit. So the Lord is opening the way. If we could only get one or two of those ministers who were seen "out West" sitting on the four posts of the newly surveyed town, waiting to build churches, we could furnish parishes already inhabited. Seney, Grand Marais, Point Detour,Drummond Island, and many more, are growing, with no churches.
The last time I visited Detour, a large mill had been finished and was running. The owners would give a lot, and help build a church. There are some good people living there. They gave me a cordial welcome and the best bed. I was very tired the first night and slept soundly; so I was surprised in the morning when the lady asked me if I was disturbed. On my saying "No," she said that on account of the rats her husband had to pull up the ladder, as they were sleeping on shakedowns; but she was glad I was not disturbed. The next night they kindly lent me a little black-and-tan terrier; so I slept, was refreshed, and started for home, promising I would send a missionary as soon as possible.
In making a visit to one Home Missionary, I found him living in a little board house, battened on the outside, but devoid of plaster. His study-table was a large dry-goods box, near the cook-stove, and on it, among other things, a typewriter. It looked somewhat incongruous; and on mentioning this, the good brother said, "Oh that is nothing; wait until it is dark and I will show you something else."
And sure enough, soon after supper he hung up a sheet, and gave me quite an elaborate entertainment with the help of a stereopticon. It seemed very strange to be seated in this little shell of a house, in such a new town among the pine stumps; and I could hardly realize my position as I sat gazing at the beautifulscenes which were flashed upon the sheet.
Across the road was a dance-house; and we could hear the scraping of the fiddler, the loud voice calling off the dances, and the heavy thump of the dancers in their thick boots. Afterwards the missionary gave me a short account of his trials and victories on coming to the new field, and it illustrates how God opens the way when to all human wisdom it seems closed.
When he tried to hire a house, the owner wanted a month's rent in advance; but a short time after called on him and gave him the house and lot with a clear deed of the property for one dollar! At the same time he told him that there were lots of cedar posts in the woods for his garden fence, if he would cut them, and added that maybe some one would haul them for him. The missionary chopped the posts, "some one" hauled them for him, and up went the fence.
The missionary felt so rich that he asked the price of a fine cooking-stovethat this man had loaned him. "Oh," he said, "Igaveyou that." The next thing was to find a place suitable to worship in—often no easy thing in a new town. At last a man said, "You can have the old boarding-house." This was said with a sly wink at the men standing by. So into the old log house went our friend, with his wife; and after a day's work with hoe, shovel, and whitewash, the place was ready. The whitewash was indispensable; for though the men had deserted it, there was still a great deal of life in it.
When the men saw the earnestness of the missionary they turned in and helped him, and became his friends; and in the old log boarding-house were heard the songs of praise instead of ribaldry, and prayers instead of curses, while Bibles and Sunday-school leaflets took the place of thePolice Gazette.
The other field in which this brother works would delight Dr. Gladden's heart: 350 people, 17 denominations, all "mothered"by a Congregational church; and I don't know of another church under the sun that could brood such a medley under its wings. When the church was building, one might have seen a Methodist brother with a load of boards, a Presbyterian hauling the shingles, a Baptist with some foundation-stones, and a Mormon hewing the sills—not a Mormon of the "Latter-Day swindle variety," though, but a Josephite. In this place our brother had many a trial, however, before getting his conglomerate together.
The head man of the village offered to give a lot if the church would buy another; and in the meanwhile his charge was five dollars each time they used the hall. But the next time our brother went, the man gave both the lots; the next time, he said he would not charge for the hall; and finally he gave the lumber for the church. The church was finished, and a good parsonage added; and to-day fashionable summer resorters sit under its shadow, and never dream of the wild lawlessness that once reigned there.
A WINTER SCENE IN NORTHERN MICHIGANA WINTER SCENE IN NORTHERN MICHIGAN.Page 127.
The next new place I visited was well out into Lake Michigan, and yet sheltered by high bluffs clothed with a rich growth of forest trees, so that, notwithstanding its northern latitude, six degrees below zero was the lowest the mercury reached, up to the middle of February. This is saying much in favor of its winter climate, when we consider the fact that in the rest of the State it has often been from zero down to forty below for nearly a month at a time.
I do not remember such another month in years,—wind, snow, fires, intense cold, and disease, all combined. However, in spite of everything, the people turned out remarkably well, and I managed to preach twenty-eight times, besides giving talks to the children.
It took twelve hours of hard driving to make the forty miles between home and the appointment, and we were only just in time for the services. I was surprised to see the number present; but what looked to me like impassable drifts werenothing to people who had sat on the top of the telegraph-poles, and walked in the up-stairs windows off from a snow-bank, as they actually did four winters previously. The church here has a good building, heated with a furnace, and owns a nice parsonage where the minister lives with his wife and four children. Although it stormed every day but one, the meetings were blessed by the conversion of some, and the church rejoiced with a new spirit for work.
I next visited E——, a place seven years old, which ran up to fifteen hundred inhabitants in the first three years of its existence. It had about twelve hundred inhabitants, and ours was the only church-building in the place. When the pastor first came, there was neither church to worship in nor house to live in, save an old shingle shanty into which they went. It was so close to the railway that it required constant care in the daytime to keep the children safe, and not a little watching at night to keep the rough charactersout. Quite a change for the better has taken place, and a bell now rings each night at nine o'clock to warn saloons to close.
It was a hard winter, and the storms came thicker than ever, blockading all railways, and making the walking almost impossible. Service on the first evening after the storm was out of the question, and for days after the walks were like little narrow sheep tracks. There are a great many things to contend with in these new mill towns under the best of circumstances; but when you add to the saloons and worse places, the roller skating-rink, a big fire, and diphtheria, you have some idea of the odds against which we worked.
In two places I visited, a fire broke out; and one could not but notice the ludicrous side in the otherwise terrible calamity that a fire causes in these little wooden towns in winter. The stores, built close together, look like rows of mammoth dry-goods boxes. When once fire gets a start, they crackle and curl uplike pasteboard. At one fire a man carefully carried a sash nearly a block, and then pitched it upon a pile of cordwood, smashing every pane. Others were throwing black walnut chairs and tables out of the upper story; while I saw another throwing out a lamp-glass, crying out as he did so, "Here comes a lamp-glass!" as if it were a meritorious action that deserved notice.
At the other fire I saw a man wandering aimlessly about with a large paper advertisement for some kind of soap, while the real article was burning up. I could not but think how like the worldling he was—intent upon his body and minor things while his soul was in danger; and also how like is the frantic mismanagement at the breaking out of a fire to the sudden call of death to a man in his sins. To add to the misery of these houseless people during this intense cold, diphtheria was carrying off its victims, so that the schools were closed for the second time that winter. These things were used readily as excuses by those who did not wish toattend the meetings. Yet the skating-rink was in full blast. But with all these impediments, the conversions in the meetings, and the quickening of the church to more active life, more than repaid for all the trouble and disappointment.
We often hear of "the drink curse" in these places, and it is not exaggerated; but there is one crime in these new towns of the north that to my mind is worse, and a greater barrier to the conversion of men and women. It is licentiousness. One little place not far from where I was preaching boasts of not having a single family in it that is not living openly in this sin. Although this is the worst I ever heard of, it is too true that our woods towns are thus honeycombed.
About the only hope the missionary has in many cases is in the children, even though he begins, as did one pastor that I know of, with two besides his own. He started his school in a deserted log shanty where it grew to be forty strong, and in spite of obstacles it grew. It was hardwork sometimes, when the instinct of the boy would show itself in the pleasures of insect hunting with a pin along the log seats. Yet there the missionary's wife sat and taught. They soon had a nice church, paid for within the year.
I did not expect to find within six miles of a large city such a state of things as existed in Peter Cartwright's time in Michigan, but I did; and lest I should be called unfair, I will say I found there a few of the excellent of the earth.
Let me describe the meeting-place. It was in an old hall, the floor humped up in the middle; there was an old cook-stove to warm it, while a few lanterns hung among faded pine boughs gave out a dim light. A few seats without backs completed the furniture. Here it was that a good brother, while preaching, had the front and rear wheels of his buggy changed, making rough riding over roads none too smooth at their best. Another from the Y. M. C. A. rooms of the neighboring city had his buffalo robes stolen and everybuckle of the harness undone while he was conducting services.
Knowing these things, I was not surprised at finding a rough old Roman Catholic Irishman trying to make a disturbance; but a kind word or two won him over to good behavior. Much less tractable were the young roughs, who reap all the vices of the city near by, and get none of its virtues. I had to tell them of the rough places I had seen, and that this was the first place I had been where the young men did not know enough to behave themselves in church. Promising without fail to arrest the first one that made a disturbance, I secured quiet. Of course I had to make friends with them afterwards and shake hands. Oh, how hard it is to preach the gospel after talking law in that fashion; but, friends, think how much it is needed. As a little bit of bright for so black a setting, let me say, that on the second night some kind friends substituted a box-stove for the cook-stove, lamps for lanterns, and an organ to help in the praise.
Rather a strange heading! I know it; but I have lost an hour trying to think of a better; and is not society composed (figuratively speaking) of cockle, chess, and wheat? In old settled parts and in cities we see society like wheat in the bulk. The plump grain is on top, but there are cockle and chess at the bottom. On the frontier the wheat is spread on the barn floor, and the chess and cockle are more plainly seen. As the fanning-mill lets the wheat drop near it and the lighter grains fly off, so in the great fanning-mill of the world, the good are in clusters in the towns and settled country, while the cockle and chess are scattered all over the borders. Of course in screenings, there is always considerable real wheat, though the grains aresmall. Under proper cultivation, however, these will produce good wheat. These little grains among the screenings are the children, and they are the missionaries' hope.
In my pastoral work I have met with all kinds of humanity,—here a man living a hermit life, in a little shanty without floor or windows, his face as yellow as gold, from opium; there an old man doing chores in a camp, who had been a preacher for twenty-five years; here a graduate from an Eastern college, cashier of a bank a little while ago, now scaling lumber when not drunk; occasionally one of God's little ones, striving to let his light shine o'er the bad deeds of a naughty world.
It was my custom for nearly a year to preach on a week-night in a little village near my home, sometimes to a houseful, oftener to a handful. Few or many, I noticed one man always there; no matter how stormy or how dark the night, I would find him among the first arrivals.He lived farther from the meeting than I, and it was not a pleasant walk at any time. One was always liable to meet a gang of drunken river-men spoiling for a fight; and there was a trestle bridge eighty rods in length to walk over, and the ties in winter were often covered with snow and ice.
Then after reaching the schoolhouse the prospect was not enchanting; windows broken, snow on the seats, the room lighted sometimes with nothing but lanterns, one being hung under the stove-pipe. Under these circumstances I became very much interested in the young man. He never spoke unless he was spoken to, and then his answers were short, and not over bright; but as he became a regular attendant on all the means of grace,—Sunday-school, prayer-meetings, and the preaching of the Word,—I strove to bring him to a knowledge of the truth, and was much pleased one evening to see him rise for prayers. As he showed by his life and conversationthat he had met with a change (he had been a drunkard), he was admitted into the church, and some time after was appointed sexton.
One night, on my way to prayer-meeting, I saw a dark object near the church which looked suspicious. On investigation it proved to be our sexton, with his face terribly disfigured, and nearly blind. Some drunken ruffian had caught him coming out of the church, and, mistaking him for another man, had beaten him and left him half dead. I took the poor fellow to the saloons, to show them their work. They did not thank me for this; but we found the man, and he was "sent up" for ninety days.
Soon after this in my visits I found a new family, and I wish I could describe them. The old grandmother, weighing about two hundred pounds, was a sight,—short, stocky, with piercing eyes, and hair as white as wool. She welcomed me in when she heard that I was "the minister," and brought out her hymn-book,and had me sing and pray with her. She belonged to one of the numerous sects in Pennsylvania. She said it was a real treat to her, as she was too fleshy to get to church, and with her advancing years found it hard to walk. I found out afterward, however, that this did not apply to side-shows. From her I learned the young man's history. He had lost his parents when young; but not before they had beaten his senses out, and left him nearly deaf; and he was looked upon as one not "right sharp." Afterwards he was concerned in the murder of an old man, and was sent to State prison for life. He was brother to the old woman's daughter-in-law, an innocent looking body. There were several children, bright as dollars.
The old lady informed me that she had another son in town whom I must visit. I did so; and found him living with his family in a little house (?), the front of which touched the edge of the bank, the back perched on two posts, with adeep ravine behind, where the water ebbed and flowed as the dams were raised and lowered. I made some remarks on the unhealthiness of the location; and the man said, "It's curious, but you can smell it stronger farther off than you can close by!" I thought, what an illustration of the insidious approaches of sin! He was right, so far as the senses were concerned; but his nose had become used to it. I was not surprised to be called soon after to preach a funeral sermon there. One of the daughters, a bright girl of twelve years, had died of malignant diphtheria. It was a piteous sight. We dared not use the church, and the house was too small to turn round in, what with bedsteads, cook-stove, kitchen-table, and coffin. On the hillside, with logs for seats, we held the service.
It was touching to see the mute grief of some of the little ones; one elder sister could with difficulty be restrained from kissing the dead. She was a finegirl in spite of her surroundings, and in her grief, in a moment of confidence, said her uncle had murdered a man down South, and it preyed on her mind; but she was afraid to tell the authorities, for the uncle had threatened to kill her if she told. This confession was made to the woman she was working for; and though I did not think it unlikely, I treated it as gossip. But with the facts related in the former part of this chapter before me, I have no doubt that she spoke the truth. One murderer has gone to meet the Judge of all the earth; the other is in State prison for life.
The cockle and chess are gone; but the wheat (the children) are left,—bright, young, pliant, strong,—what shall we do with them? Let them grow more cockle instead of wheat, and chess instead of barley? Or shall they be of the wheat to be gathered into the Master's garner? If you desire the latter, pray ye the Lord of the harvest that he will send more laborers into the harvest.
I once saw an old farmer in Canada who offered ten dollars for every thistle that could be found on his hundred acres. I have seen him climb a fence to uproot thistles in his neighbor's field. When asked why he did that extra work, he said, because the seeds would fly over tohisfarm. Was he not a wise man?
Perhaps no greater danger threatens our Republic to-day than the neglect of the children—millions of school age that are not in school, and in the great cities thousands who cannot find room. Is it any wonder that we have thirty millions of our people not in touch with the church?
In the Rev. Harvey Hyde's "Reminiscences of Early Days," occurs the following interesting notes:—
"In the spring of 1842 I made a horseback journey across the State (Michigan), from Allegan to Saginaw, up the Grand River Valley, past where now Lansing boasts its glories, but where then in the dense forests not a human dwelling was to be seen for many miles, on to Fentonville. Coming on Saturday night to a lonely Massachusetts tavern-keeper, I found a hearty welcome to baked beans and brown bread, and preached on the Sabbath in his barroom to his assembled neighbors—the first minister ever heard in the neighborhood. Arriving at Saginaw, after a ride for miles through swamps, with from six to ten inches ofwater, sometimes covered with ice, at the close of a March day I found myself on the east side of the broad river, with not a human being or dwelling in sight, darkness already fallen, and only twinkling lights on the other side. It seemed a cold welcome; but after much shouting and waiting, kind friends appeared. Man and horse were cared for, and two pleasant years were spent there.
"My nearest ministerial neighbor of any denomination was twenty-five miles off on one side, and as far as the North Pole on the other. To a funeral or a wedding a fifteen-mile ride was a frequent occurrence. Many scenes come back to memory, some provocative of sadness, some of mirth. We were raising the frame of our new church-building one Monday afternoon, when a stranger came with a call to ride twenty-five miles alone through an unknown wood-road without a clearing for sixteen miles, to cross the Kalamazoo River by ferry at midnight, with the ferryman asleep on the other bank, and themosquitoes abundant and hungry—to preach, and commit to the grave the bodies of eight men, women, and children who had been drowned on the Sabbath by the upsetting of a pleasure-boat. Such a sight have my eyes never looked upon, where all felt that God had rebuked their Sabbath-breaking. This was near Lake Michigan.
"Passing across the State, exchanging one Sabbath with Rev. O. S. Thompson of St. Clair, after retiring to rest for the night, I was aroused by a cry from Mrs. Thompson; and descending with speed, found that, hearing steps on her piazza, she had discovered the door ajar, and a huge bear confronting her on the outside. She slammed the door in his face, and cried for help. I looked outside, examined the pig-pen, to find all safe; no bear was visible. Returning to bed again, I was dropping to sleep, when a more startling shriek called me to look out of the window; and I saw the bear just leaping the fence, and making for thewoods. This time he had placed his paws on the window at Mrs. Thompson's bedside, and was looking her in the face; and the prints of his muddy feet remained there many days. On the following Monday we were greeted by a bride and groom, who, with their friends, had crossed the river from Canada to get married. One being a Catholic, and the other a Protestant, the priest would not marry them without a fee of five dollars, which they thought too much. I married them, and received the munificent sum of seventy-five cents.
"I have had too sorrowful proof that prayers, even from the pulpit, are not always answered. On one occasion our house of worship was borrowed for a funeral by another denomination. Going late, I slipped in behind the leader at prayer as quietly as possible, to hear the petition that 'God would make the minister of this church a perfect gentleman, and surround his church with a halo ofcheveau-de-frise.' The first I am surewas not answered; I am not sure about the others.
"Of personal hair-breadth escapes from sudden death my wife kept a record until she got to fifteenthly, and then stopped. Twice from drowning, twice from being run over by a loaded wagon, the last time the hind wheel stopping exactly at my head, but utterly spoiling my best silk hat, and showing the blessing of a good stout head."
The place where this man reined up his horse in the swamp, and had to call for a ferry, and where neither dwelling nor human being was in sight, is to-day for twenty miles almost a continuous city along the river bank. Everything is changed except the black flies and mosquitoes, which are as numerous as ever. Now, one other thing, and a curious fact too. You might dig all day and not find a worm to bait your hook, where to-day a spadeful of earth has worms enough to last the day; and this is true of all new countries. I have sent thirty-fivemiles for a pint of worms—all the way from St. Ignace to Petoskey; and however much the worms may have had to do with the vegetable mould of the earth, it is only where human beings live that the common angle-worm is found.
The incident of the wedding calls to mind one I heard of by a justice of the peace, a rough drinking-man, who before the advent of our minute-man performed all the marriage ceremonies. A young couple found him at the saloon. His first question was, "Want to be married?"—"Yes."—"Married, two dollars, please,—nuff said."
A few miles above this place the first minister who went in was so frightened the next morning that he took to his heels, leaving his valise behind. The landlady, a Roman Catholic, put the boys up to pretend they were going to shoot him, and so fired their revolvers over his head; he felt it was no place for him, and away he went. Indeed, it was as well for him that he did go; for often, afterthey were drunk, what was commenced in fun ended in real earnest. However, I will say this for the frontiersman, rough as he often is, he respects a true man, but is quick to show profound contempt for any man of the "Miss Nancy" order.
Ireland is not the only country that suffers from absentee landlords. The difference in the lumber-camps is often determined by the foreman. I have known places where the owners of a large tract of land were clergymen, and the foreman was an infidel. His camp was a fearful place on Christmas Eve. Twelve gallons of whiskey worked the men up until they acted like demons. In the morning men were found with fingers and thumbs bitten off, eyes gouged out, and in some few cases maimed for life. In other places I have known a good foreman or boss to hitch up the teams and bring enough men down on Sunday evening to half fill the little mission church.
There ought to be in all the lumber-camps a first-class library, and suitableamusements for the men; for when a few days of wet weather come together, there is nothing to hold them, and away they go in companies of six, seven, and a dozen, and meet with others from all directions, making for the village and the saloons; and then rioting and drunkenness make a pandemonium of a place not altogether heavenly to start with. I have known men who were religious who had to retire to the forest to pray, or be subjected to the outrageous conduct of their fellow workmen.
One man whom I knew kicked his wife out-of-doors because she objected to having dances in their home. She was his second wife, and was about to become a mother, but died, leaving her little one to the tender mercies of a brutal father. I remember preaching a rather harsh sermon at the funeral; but some years after I found the sermon had a mission. I met the man some hundreds of miles north. When he saw me he said he had never forgotten the sermon, and added, to mysurprise, that he was a Christian now, and living with his first wife!
How men can lead such lives, involving the misery of others, and often compassing their death, and afterwards live happily, I cannot understand, except for the fact that often for generations these people have been out of the reach of Christian civilization, and so far as morals are concerned have been practically heathen. Yet, after all, I am not sure but that, in the day of judgment, they will be judged less harshly than those who have neglected to send the gospel to them.
I had been exploring nearly every part of the Upper Peninsula where there was any chance of an opening for Christian work; had visited thirteen churches, and held meetings with most of them; had a few conversions and two baptisms. I found the villages and towns on the Chicago and North-Western Railway nearly all supplied. There was one place with 1,500 people, and another with 2,000. The former had a Baptist church with about twenty members, and a Methodist Episcopal with about fifteen. The Baptists were building. The rest were more or less Lutheran, Catholic, and Nothingarian.
Surely there is need of mission work here,but—There are large new-fashioned mills here, with forty years' cutting ahead of them at the rate of fifty millionfeet of lumber per year. I had excellent audiences here and at Thompson, six miles away, where there was no church. Between these two places is Perryville, with 200 people and no church. Both are lumbering-towns.
Another town of importance is Iron Mountain, which then had 2,000 people; two Methodist churches, one Swedish, the other English-speaking. The place was alive with men and full of sin. Where are the right men to send to such places? If one sits in his study and consults statistics, they are plenty; but when you come down to actual facts, they are not to be found. "The Christian League of Connecticut" has much truth in it, but not all the truth. Without doubt their unwise distribution has much to do with "the lack of ministers;" but it is still a lamentable fact that the laborersarefew. Not with us alone. The oft-repeated saying that "the Methodist church has a place for every man, and a man for every church," is to be taken with a grain of salt. I meet men everyweek who tell me they have five, seven, nine, and even eleven charges. We have a thousand just such places.
Now, if churches will put up with the fifth, seventh, ninth, or eleventh part of a man, they can have "a church for every minister, and a minister for every church." This unchristian way of pushing and scrambling in our little villages goes a long way to explain the dearth of men on the frontier; and the seizing on "strategic points" in a new country often presents a sad spectacle.
I was much perplexed about one place. Our minister was the first on the ground; the people voted for a union church and for him; yet two other churches organized. When I visited the place I found our brother with a parsonage half built. There was nothing but the bare studding inside—no plaster, winter coming on, and his little ones coughing with colds caught by the exposure. Then, to crown all, the house was found to be on the wrong lot, which broughtthe building to a stand-still; after that two other denominations rushed up a building—one only a shell, but dedicated. There was only a handful of hearers, and our minister preached more than two-thirds of the sermons there. We had the best people with us; and yet it was plain to me there was one church more than there ought to be. Had we not been first there, and things as they were, I should say, "Arise, let us go hence!"
I am constantly asked, "When are you going to send us a man?" and we have places where there is only one minister for two villages. Ah, if the pastors hanging around our city centres only knew how the people flock to hear the Word in these new places, surely they would say, "Here am I, Lord; send me."
In one place I went to, there were two women who walked eight miles to hear the sermon. One of them was the only praying person for miles around, and for some years back the only one to conduct a funeral service, to pray, or to preach. Atthis place there was an old lady who came nine miles every Sunday on foot, and sometimes carried her grandchild. Think of that, you city girls in French-heeled boots! In another place of two hundred people, where there was no church, a little babe died. The mother was a Swede, only a little while out. Would you believe it, there was not a man at the funeral! Women nailed the little coffin-lid down, and women prayed, read the Scriptures, and lowered the little babe into a grave half filled with water.
In another new settlement I visited, they were so far from railway or stage that they buried a man in a coffin made of two flour-barrels, and performed the funeral rites as best they could. But these people have great hearts—bigger than their houses. When a brother minister was trying to find a place for me to stay, a man said, "Let him come with me."—"Have you room?"—"Lots of it." So I went. In a little clearing I found the most primitive log house I ever saw;but the "lots of room"—that was out-of-doors. The man and his wife told me that when they came there it was raining; so they stripped some bark from a tree, and, leaning it against a fallen log, they crept underneath; and for three days it rained. The fourth being Sunday and a fine day, the settlers mocked them for not building. On Monday and Tuesday it rained again; "but we were real comfortable; weren't we, Mary?" said the man.
Then he and Mary built the house together. There was only one room and one bed; but they took off the top of the bedding, and put one tick on the floor. "That's for me," I thought. Not a bit of it. I was to have the place of honor. So, hanging some sheets on strings stretched across the room, they soon partitioned off the bed for me. Then, after reading and prayers, the man said, "Now, any time you are ready for bed, Elder, you can take that bed." But how to get there? First I went out and gave them a chance; but they did nottake it. I thought perhaps they would go and give me a chance; but they did not. So I began to disrobe. I took a long while taking off coat and vest; then slowly came the collar and neck-tie; next came off my boots and stockings. Now, I thought, they will surely step out; but no; they talked and laughed away like two children. Slipping behind the sheet, and fancying I was in another room, I balanced myself as well as I could on the feather bed, and managed to get off the rest of my clothes, got into bed, and lay looking at the moonbeams as they glanced through the chinks of the logs, and thinking of New England with her silk bed-quilts and bath-rooms, till, as I mused, sleep weighed down my drowsy eyelids, and New England mansions and Michigan log huts melted into one, and they both became one Bethel with the angels of God ascending and descending.
I visited Lake Linden, and found the people ready for organization as soon as they could have a pastor. A brother hadjust left for this field; and I thought it safe to say that we should have a self-supporting church there at no distant day. We did. While staying there a man came after me to baptize two children. I went, and one would think he had been suddenly transferred to Germany. Great preparations had been made. I noticed a large bowl of lemons cut up, and the old ladies in their best attire. I was requested to give them a baptismal certificate, and to sign the witnesses' names, as they said that was done by the minister. It was a delicate way of telling me they could not write.
But that was not the strangest part of the ceremony. The father and mother stood behind the witnesses, the latter being two men and two women. The women held the children until all was ready, then handed them to the men, who held them during baptism. I preached to them a short sermon of five minutes or so, and then, when I had written the certificate, each witness depositeda dollar on the table. The father was about to hand me five dollars; but I made him give four of it to the children. They would not take a cent of the witness money; that would be "bad luck," they said. It was a new experience to me. The people had no Bible in the house. As I had left mine at the village, I had to use what I had in my heart. Here again, I thought, what work for a colporteur?
A great work might be done by one or two men who could travel all the time with Bibles and other good books, and preach where the opportunity offered. We might not see the result, but it would be just as certain; and though the people might not stay here, they will be somewhere. There are many places where neither railway, steamboat, nor stage ever reaches, and yet the people have made and are making homes there. They went up the rivers on rafts, and worked their way through the wilderness piecemeal. Missionary Thurston carried his parlor stoveslung on a pole between himself and another man.
At one place, while preaching, I noticed a man fairly glaring at me. At first I thought he was an intensely earnest Christian, but he "had a devil." After meeting he told the people, "If that man talks like that to-night, I'll answer him right out in meeting." He came, and behaved himself. Some time after he had to leave town on account of a stabbing-affray, and I lost sight of him for a while. Long after I was in another place, one hundred and twenty miles away; and while talking with our missionary there, I saw a man coming from a choir-practice. I said, "Is that their minister?"
"No; he is our new school-teacher."
"Why," I said, "that is the very man I was talking to you about, who was so wroth with the sermon."
"Oh, no! you are mistaken; he is a very pious young man—opens school with prayer, and attends all our meetings; and I know it is not put on to please thetrustees, for they are not that kind of men." But itwasthe same man, minus the devil, "for behold he prayeth."
At another place I preached in a little log schoolhouse. Close to my side sat a man who would have made a character for Dickens. He had large, black, earnest eyes, face very pale, was deformed, and, with a little tin ear-trumpet at his ear, he listened intently. I was invited by his mother to dine with them. I found, living in a little house roofed with bark, the mother and two sons. One of the boys was superintendent of the Sunday-school. I was surprised at the first question put by my man with the ear-trumpet,—
"Elder, what do you think of that sermon of ——'s in Chicago? I have always been bothered with doubts, and that unsettled me worse than ever."
Who would have thought to hear, away up in the woods, in such a house, from such a man, such a question? I tried to take him away from —— to Christ. After dinner he opened a door and said, "Look here."
There, in a little workshop, was a diminutive steam-engine, of nearly one-horse power, made entirely by himself; the spindles, shafts, steam-box, and everything finished beautifully. The shafts and rods were made with much pains from large three-cornered files. He was turning cant-hook and peevy handles for a living, and to pay off the debt on their little farm. The brother had a desk and cabinet of his own make, which opened and shut automatically. I was delighted. They were hungry for books and preaching. Are not such people worth saving?
These conditions existed over twelve years ago, but they are as true to-day in all parts of the newer frontiers. Meanwhile some of the above churches have become self-supporting, and are supporting a minister in foreign lands.