In a former chapter I was just starting for the copper regions. Come with me, we will board the train bound for Marquette.
For some miles our way ran through thick cedar forests; then we reached a hard-wood region where we found a small village and a number of charcoal kilns; a few miles farther on, another of like character. Then, with the exception of a way station or siding, we saw no more habitations of men until we reached the Vulcan iron furnace of Newberry, fifty-five miles from Point St. Ignace. The place had about 800 population, mostly employed by the company.
Twenty-five miles farther on we reached Seney, where we stayed for dinner. This is the headquarters for sixteen lumbercamps, with hundreds of men working in the woods or on the rivers, year in and year out. They never hear the gospel except as some pioneer home missionary pays an occasional visit. There are some 40,000 men so employed in Northern Michigan.
After another seventy-five miles we glided into picturesque Marquette, overlooking its lovely Bay, a thriving city of some 7,000 population, the centre of the iron mining region. Here we had to wait until the next noon before we could go on.
Our road now led through the very heart of the iron country. Everything glittered with iron dust, and thousands of cars on many tracks showed the proportions this business had attained. We have been mounting ever since leaving Marquette, and can by looking out of the rear window see that great "unsalted sea," Lake Superior.
We soon reached Ishpeming, with its 8,000 inhabitants. A little farther on wepassed Negaunee, claiming over 5,000 people, where Methodism thrives by reason of the Cornish miners. After passing Michigamme we saw but few houses.
Above Marquette the scenery changes; there are rocks, whole mountains of rocks as large as a town, with a few dead pines on their scraggy sides; we pass bright brown brooks in which sport the grayling and the speckled trout. Sometimes a herd of deer stand gazing with astonishment at the rushing monster coming towards them; then with a stamp and a snort they plunge headlong into the deep forest. Away we go past L'Anse, along Kewenaw Bay, and at last glide between two mighty hills the sides of which glow and sparkle with great furnace fires and innumerable lamps shining from cottage windows, while between lies Portage Lake, like a thread of gold in the rays of the setting sun; or, as it palpitates with the motion of some giant steamboat, its coppery waters gleam with all the colors of the rainbow.
Just across this narrow lake a royal welcome awaited us from the pastor of the First Congregational Church of Hancock. This fine church is set upon a hill that cannot be hid. The audience fills the room, and pays the closest attention to the speaker. They had the best Sunday-school I ever saw. Everything moved like clockwork; every one worked with vim. In addition to the papers that each child received, seventy-five copies of theSunday School Timeswere distributed to the teachers and adult scholars. The collection each Sunday averaged over three cents a member for the whole school, to say nothing of Christmas gifts to needy congregations, and memorial windows telling of the good works in far-off fields among the mission churches. It was my privilege to conduct a few gospel meetings which were blessed to the conversion of some score or more of souls who were added to the church.
Thirteen miles farther north, and we were in the very heart of the Lake Superiorregion. It had been up-hill all the way. We went on the Mineral Range narrow gauge railway; but at broad-gauge price, five cents a mile, and no half-fare permits; so we were thankful to learn the little thing was only thirteen miles long.
Here we are in Calumet. At the first glance you think you are in a large city; tall chimney stacks loom up, railways crossing and recrossing, elevated railways for carrying ore to the rock-houses, where they crush rock enough to load ten trains of nearly forty cars per day, for the stamping-works of the Calumet and Hecla Company. You cannot help noticing the massive buildings on every hand, in one of which stands the finest engine in the country—4,700 horse-power—that is to do the whole work of the mines. Everything about these great shops works easily and smoothly.
At the mine's mouth we look down and see the flashing of the lights in the miners' hats as they come up, twelve feet at a stride, from 3,000 feet below; hear thesinging as it rolls up from the hardy Cornish men like a song of jubilee. Come to the public school and listen to the patter of the little feet as nearly 1,600 children pour out of their great schoolhouse, and you will be glad to know there are good churches here for training the little ones. Calumet, Red Jacket, and its suburbs cannot have much less than 10000 inhabitants.
But here comes the minister of the Congregational church, with a hearty Scotch welcome on his lips as he hurries us into the snug parsonage, and makes us forget we ever slept in a basswood house partitioned with sheets. Here, too, we stayed and held a series of meetings. This is one of the few frontier churches that sprung, Minerva-like, full armed for the work. Never receiving, but giving much aid to others, it has increased. Here, too, I found another best Sunday-school. In this school on Sunday are scattered good papers as thick as the snowflakes on the hills; and the 300 scholarshave packed away in their hearts over 52,000 verses of the Bible, that will bring forth fruit in old age. It is rich, too, in good works—one little girl gave all her Christmas money to help build the parsonage. Over a hundred of the young people came out in the meetings, and signed a simple confession of faith; fifty of them went to the Methodist church, the rest remained with us.
From this place we go to Lake Linden, on Torch Lake, where are the stamping-works of the Calumet and Hecla mines. This company have some 2,000 men in their employ, and expend some $500,000 per year on new machinery and improvements. Everything in this place is cyclopean; ten great ball stamps, each weighing 640 lbs., with other smaller ones, shake the earth for blocks away as their ponderous weight crushes the rocks as fast as men can shovel them in. Each man works half an hour, and is then relieved for half an hour. Over 300 carloads of ore are required daily to keepthese monsters at work, day and night the year round, except Sundays. A stoppage here of an hour means $1,000 lost. One stands amazed to see the foundations of some new buildings—bricks enough for a block of houses, 2,000 barrels of Portland cement and trap-rock are mixed, the whole capped off with Cape Ann granite. Two wheels, 40 feet in diameter, are to swing round here, taking up thousands of gallons of water every minute.
Fourteen years ago I attended fifty-one funerals in twenty-one months. This large number was due to the fact that toward the south and west the nearest minister was ten miles off, north and east over twenty miles; and though there were only some 450 souls in White Cloud, we may safely put down 3,000 as the number who looked to this point for ministerial aid in time of trouble.
The traveller by rail passes a few small places, and may think that between stations there is nothing but a wilderness, for such it often appears. He would be surprised to learn that one mile from the line, at short intervals, are large steam-mills with little communities—forty, fifty, and sixty souls.
Here and there are many of the Lord's people, who, overwhelmed by the iniquity they see and hear, have hung their harps upon the willows, and have ceased to sing the Lord's song. They feel that if some one could lead, they would follow; and the call for help is imperative, if we take no higher grounds than that of self-protection. Hundreds of children are growing up in ignorance, and will inevitably drift to the cities. It is from these sources that the dangerous classes in them are constantly augmented.
It is hard to believe that in our day, in Michigan, should be found such a spiritual lack as the following incident reveals. One night just as I was falling asleep, a knock aroused me. A man had come for me to go some five miles through the woods to see a poor woman who was dying. The moon was shining when we started, and we expected soon to reach the place. But we had scarcely reached the forest when a storm broke upon us. The lightning was so vivid that the horsecame to a stand. The trees moaned and bent under the heavy wind, and threatened to fall on us. No less than seven trees fell in that road some few hours later. Our lantern was with difficulty kept alight, so that we made but little progress; for it was dangerous to drive fast, and, indeed, to go slow, for that matter. We spent two hours in going five miles. As we were fastening the horse, I heard cries and groans proceeding from the house, and was met at the door with exclamations of sorrow, and, "Oh, sir, you are too late, too late!"
This was an old, settled community of farmers; some eight or ten men and women at the house, some of whom have had Christian parents, and yet not one to pray with the poor woman or point her to the Lamb of God.
Did they think I could absolve her? Did they look upon a minister as a telegraph or a telephone operator, whom they must call to send the message?
We often read of the overworked citypastor, and the contrast of his busy life with the quiet of his country brother. But the contrast does not apply to the home missionary who has a large field, as most of them have. Let me give some incidents of one week of home missionary experience. On Saturday, a funeral service. Sabbath, two Sunday-schools and preaching. Monday, I visited a poor Finnish woman, suddenly bereft of her husband, who had been fishing on Sunday in company with three others—a keg of beer which they took with them explained the trouble. Tuesday, attended the funeral, closing the service just in time to catch the train to reach an appointment nine miles off. Friday, received a telegram to come immediately to a village, where a man was killed in the mill. While there, waiting for the relatives, expected on the next train, another telegram came from home, calling me back instantly.
Yet we cannot stop, for the work presses. Did we not know that the Lordis above the water floods, we should be overwhelmed.
I am tempted to write a few lines about a family that came to Woodville just before Christmas. It consisted of a mother, son-in-law, three daughters, and two sons. Before they had secured a house their furniture (save a stove and a few chairs) was burned. They were very poor, and moved the few things they had left into two woodsheds, one of which was lower than the other, so that after the end of one was knocked out there was a long step running right across the house. Now, fancy a family of six in here in winter time, with no bedsteads, a table, and some broken chairs and stove, and you can imagine what sort of a home it was. The widow felt very despondent, hinted about being tired of life, and mentioned poison. One morning, after drinking a great quantity of cold water, she turned in her bed and died. The coroner's jury pronounced it dropsy of the heart, and waived apost-mortemexamination.
I felt much drawn toward the children during the funeral service, and spoke mainly to them. They seemed to drink in every word, and I believe understood all.
Three weeks later a daughter lay dying of diphtheria. She called the doctor, and told him she was going home to live with Jesus, and was quite happy. One week from that time a son followed, twelve years of age. He also went quite resigned. I shall never forget the scene presented at this time; the dark room, the extemporized bedsteads, the wind playing a dirge through the numerous openings, the man worn out with night-work and watching, stretched beside the coffin, the dead boy on the other bed, two more children sick with the same disease. People seemed afraid to visit them. I gave the little ones some money each time I went. The little four-year-old, a pretty boy, said,—
"You won't have to give any for Willie this time, I have his."
Death seemed to have no terrors for the little ones. I talked to them of Jesus, and told them he was our Elder Brother and God was our Father. The little boy listened as I talked of heaven, and seemed very thoughtful. In another week, to a day, I was there again. The little fellow was going too; and now he said,—
"I want you to buy me a pretty coffin, won't you? and put nice leaves and flowers in it. I am going to heaven, you know, and I shall see my brother. Jesus is my brother, you know."
And so he passed away like one falling to sleep. I could not but think of the glorious change for these little ones, now "safe in the arms of Jesus." From a hut to a mansion, from hearing the hoarse, gruff breathing of the mill to the chanting of the heavenly choirs, from the dark squalor and rags to see the King in his beauty, to hunger no more, to thirst no more, neither to have the sun light on them nor any heat, to be led to living fountains of waters, to have all tearswiped from their eyes—who would wish them back?
I remember in one case a man whose wife had run off with another man, and had left him with two boys, one an idiot. The poor little child was found dead under the feet of the oxen, and when the funeral took place the man with his remaining son came through the woods and across lots to the cemetery, while a man with the coffin in a cart came by the road. The only ones at the funeral were these two and the carter, with myself.
I visited one home where nine out of eleven were down with diphtheria. Two young girls in a fearful condition were in the upper rooms; nothing but horse-blankets were hung up in the unplastered rooms, but they did not keep out the snow. The father and the man who drove were the only ones beside myself at this funeral. In one family four died before the first was buried.
It made me think of the plague in London,and the man tolling the bell and crying, "Bring out your dead." Scarlet fever, small-pox, and typhoid were epidemic for some time, and it was then the people began to appreciate the services of the minute-man.
Some cases were rather odd, to say the least. One night a boy was lost. I suggested to his mother that he might be drowned, and that the pond ought to be searched. Her reply was amazing: "Well, if he's drownded, he's drownded, and what's the use till morning." Here was philosophy. Yet at the funeral this woman was so punctilious about the ceremonies that, seeing a horse which broke into a trot for a few steps, she said "it didn't look very well at a funeral to be a-trottin' hosses."
Sugar Island is about twelve miles from Sault Ste. Marie. It is twenty-four miles long and from three to twelve wide. Its shape is somewhat like an irregularly formed pear. Seven-tenths of its people are Roman Catholic; quite a number of them came from Hudson's Bay, and what others call a terrible winter is to them quite mild.
One Scotchman, who lived there thirty years, had never seen a locomotive or been on board of a steamboat, although numbers of the latter might be seen daily passing his house all summer long,—little tugs drawing logs, and the great steamers of the Canadian Pacific Railway, with their powerful engines, and lighted by electricity. He came by way of Hudson's Bay, which accounts for his neverhaving seen a locomotive; and he rather prided himself on never having been on board a steamboat. Like many of the trappers of an early day, he married an Indian woman. Quite a number of the descendants of these old pioneers live on the island. Some of them formed part of Brother Scurr's membership and congregation; one of them was a deacon, and a good one too.
But now for our journey. It was eight miles to our first appointment, and we went by water. Mrs. Scurr and the two children, with a little maid, made up our company, so that our boat was well filled. My hands, not used to rowing, soon gave out, and Brother Scurr had to do nearly all of that work. It was a hot, bright morning in the latter part of June—a lovely day—and we soon passed down the river into Lake George, and after two hours' steady pulling, made a landing opposite a log house just vacated by the settlers for one more convenient.
This was our sanctuary for the morning.Here we found a mixed company—settlers from Canada, "the States," Chippewas, etc., men, women, and children. Some of them came four, five, and eight miles; some in boats, some on foot. One old Indian was there who did not know a word of English, but sat listening as intently as if he took it all in.
After the sermon, nearly all present partook of the Lord's Supper. There were not so many there as usual; for one of the friends had just lost a little child by diphtheria, and two more lay sick; and such is the difficulty of communication that it was buried before Brother Scurr had heard of its death. This kept many away.
We now took to our boat again, and, after rowing three miles, thought we espied a beautiful place to dine; but we had reckoned without our host. Mosquitoes and their cousins, the black flies, were holding their annual camp-meeting, and about the time we landed were in the midst of a praise service. It wasat once broken up on our arrival; and, without even waiting for an invitation, they joined in our repast. This was considerably shortened, under the circumstances, and we were glad to take to the water again. A word about the insect world in this region. They are very different from those farther south, being as active in the daytime as in the night. Perhaps, because of shorter seasons, they have to be at it all the time to get in their work.
Another good pull at the oar and a little help from the wind brought us to our second stage, the Indian village. On the hillside stood the schoolhouse where we were to preach. The view from this spot was lovely. Lake George lay flashing in the sunshine, and beyond the great hills stretched as far as the eye could reach, and seemed in the distance to fold one over the other, like purple clouds, until both seemed mingled into one.
We had a somewhat different audiencethis time, only four white men being present; but all could understand English, except our old Indian friend of the morning, who was again present, and for whose benefit the chief's son arose after I was through, and interpreted the whole discourse, save a little part which he said he condensed as the time was short. I was both astonished and delighted. The people told me he could do so with a sermon an hour long, without a break. Most of the company, as a rule, understand both languages, and keep up a keen watch for mistakes. It is a wonderful feat. The man's gestures were perfect; he was a natural orator. I asked him if he did not find it much harder to follow some men than others. He said, "Ough! Some go big way round before they come to it; they awful hard to follow."
We took leave of our Indian friends with mingled feelings of hope as to what they might be, and of pity for what they were.
I noticed a lot of new fence-rails around the fields on the Canada side, and remarked that the people were industrious. "Oh, yes," said our brother; "because they burnt their fences last winter for firing." Sure enough; what is the use of a fence in winter except to burn? And then the wood is well seasoned. One church over there bought nearly all the members of the other with flour and pork; and if you ask an Indian in that region to-day to unite with your church, he says, "How much flour you give me to join?" That's business.
But it was getting late, and we had four miles' rowing yet before us. After a good hour's pull at the oars we reached the parsonage, just as the sun was setting in purple and gold behind the blue hills of Algoma. And there, as we sat watching the deepening twilight, brother Scurr told me some of the trials of missionary life in that region.
Often walking miles through the wet grass and low places, in the spring andfall, standing in his wet shoes while preaching, and then returning—in the winter on snow-shoes, following the trail (for there are no roads); in the summer, when the weather permits, by boat. When the snow was deep, and the wind was howling around his house, he had to leave his sick wife to keep his appointments miles away, and was almost afraid to enter the house on his return, for fear she had left him alone with his little ones in the wilderness. It was twelve miles to the nearest doctor on the mainland; and the only congenial companion for his wife was the missionary's wife on the Canadian side, a mile and a half away. This good sister knew something of the shady side of a missionary wife's life, as she lay for weeks hovering between life and death.
One touching little incident brother Scurr told me that deeply affected me. One dark night Deacon John Sebastian came and told him his daughter, a fine girl of some sixteen years of age, wasdying, and wished to see him. The mother was a Roman Catholic; but the daughter, who attended our church with her father, had accepted Christ for her Saviour, and now desired to partake of the Lord's Supper with us ere she departed. There in the farmhouse at midnight the little company, with the mother joining, partook of the sacrament. All church distinctions were forgotten, as the Protestant father and Catholic mother sat with clasped hands, and with tear-bedimmed eyes saw their loved one go into the silent land. I left the next morning, promising to call again as soon as I could, and some time to hold meetings with them when the men were at home from fishing in the winter.
I attended the dedication of a new church at Alba costing a little over $1,000, all paid or provided for, $137 being raised on the night of dedication, in sums from two cents, given by a little girl, up to ten dollars, the highest sum given that night by one person. All ourpeople in the rural districts are very poor, but often generous and self-denying. I know of one good mother in Israel who went without her new print dress for the summer in order to give the dollar to the minister at Conference. Think of that dollar dress, my good sisters, when you are perplexed about whether you shall have yours cut bias, or gored, or Mother Hubbard style, or—well, I don't know much about styles; but "think on these things."
The needs of the minute-man are as great as his field. If the army sent its minute-men to the front as poorly equipped for battle as our army of minute-men often are, it would be defeated. The man needs, besides a home, a library and good literature up to date. Religious papers a year or two old make good reading, and biographies of good men are very stimulating. A full set of Parkman's works would be of inestimable value in keeping up his courage and helping his faith. The smaller the field, the greater the need of good reading; for on the frontier you miss the society of the city, and its ministers' meetings, and the great dailies, and all the rush of modern life that is so stimulating. And yet you find men of all conditions and mentalstature. A man who can get up two good sermons a week that will feed the varied types that he will meet at church needs to be a genius.
A MINUTE MAN'S PARSONAGEA MINUTE MAN'S PARSONAGE.Page 190.
When a man has access to all the great reviews, to fine libraries, public and private, and has the stimulation that comes from constant intercourse with others, besides an income that will allow him to buy the best books, when his services begin with forty-five minutes of liturgy and song, backed with a fine pipe-organ, when he enjoys two or three months vacation into the bargain, he must be a very small specimen of a man if he cannot write a thirty-minute sermon; but when all a man's books can be put on one shelf, when his salary barely keeps the pot boiling, and he has fifty-two Sundays to fill, year in and year out, it is no wonder that short pastorates are the rule. When a man reaches his new field with no better start than many have,—the majority without a college training, and some without even a high-school education,—itis not long before some of his parish will be asking a superintendent or presiding elder whether he cannot send them a good man. "Our man here," he says, "is good, but he can't preach for shucks." The new man comes, and in three months he is in the same boat. And another comes; and after a little there is as much money spent for the sustaining of these families as would keep a good man.
So it goes on, year after year. Sectarian jealousies and sectarian strivings are as bad for the spiritual development of a country as saloons. So that we find to-day, in little towns of two thousand inhabitants, ten or eleven churches, all of them little starveling things, "No one so poor to do them reverence;" while the real frontier work is left with thousands of churchless parishes.
If a man properly fitted out for his field could go at first, it would often stop the multiplication of little sects whose chief article of faith is some wretched little button-hook-and-eye or feet-washingceremony. In the beginning, such is the weakness of the new community, a union church is inevitable, there not being enough of a kind to go around; and nothing but a lack of Christianity will break that church up.
For an example, here is a superintendent with a field a thousand miles by four hundred. He hears that a new town is started up in the mountains, a hundred and fifty miles from the railway. The stage is the only means of reaching it; no stopping on the road but twenty minutes for meals. After a tedious journey he reaches the place, and finds the usual conditions,—saloons, gambling-houses by the score, houses of every description in the process of erection.
He goes up to the hotel man, and asks whether he can procure a place for preaching. He is given the schoolhouse. He announces preaching service, and begins. The people crowd the little building; they sit or stand outside. Here are members of a dozen sects, and a solitaryfeet-washer feeling lonely enough. The work crowds him; and he wires to headquarters at New York,—a strange telegram,—"For the love of God, send me a man." Just as the telegram arrives, a man who has just come from England steps into the office. He is examined, and asked whether he would like to go beyond the Rocky Mountains. He is the right stuff. "Anywhere," is the answer; and as fast as limited express can take him he hurries to the new field. He finds a great crowd outside the schoolhouse, a revival going on, and he has hard work to reach the minister. A church is organized, and it is to be a union church. What a calamity to have the brethren living together in unity! To have Christ's prayer answered that they may be one! It's dreadful. But never mind; the Devil, in the shape of sect that holds its deformity higher than Christ, soon makes an end of that; so that the real-estate agent advertises good water, good schools, and good churches.
The only way I see out of this anti-christian warfare is to send a well-balanced, well-paid man to start with. In the case just stated, the man was a good one, and held the fort, and managed skilfully his united flock.
There are times when the best men will fail, as they do in business. The place promises great growth, and peters out; but in these small towns, where the growth will never be large, your faithful man often does a mighty work. His flock are constantly moving away, but new ones are constantly coming; and so his church is helping to fill others miles away, and it will not be until he is translated that we shall see how grand a man he was.
I remember one man with his wife and family presenting himself one day to the Superintendent of Missions. He had just left a pretty little rose-covered parsonage in England. The only place open was a very cold and hard field. The forests had been destroyed by fire. The climate was intense, either summer or winter; but hesaid, "I will go. I do not want to be a candidate."
And off he went with his family. In the winter his bedroom was often so cold that the thermometer registered 20° below zero; and in spite of a big stove, the temperature was at zero in mid-day near the door and windows. One of his little ones born there was carried in blankets to be baptized in the little church when it was 2° below zero. I used to send this man small sums of money that were given me by kind friends. All the money promised on this field from three churches was twenty dollars a year, and part of that paid in potatoes. The last five dollars I sent him came back. He said he felt it would not be right to take it, as he had just accepted a call to a Presbyterian church. He felt almost like making an apology for doing so, as he said, "My boys are growing up, and they can get so little schooling here that I am going to move where they can at least get an education." And then he was going tohave seven hundred dollars a year. I sent the money back, saying that, as he was moving, he would probably need it. The answer that came said he had just spent his last two cents for a postage-stamp when the five dollars came.
I suppose there are at least ten thousand minute-men on the field to-day, working under the different home missionary societies. Most of them have wives, and with their children will make an army of fifty thousand strong, the average of whose salaries will not exceed five hundred dollars per year. And on this small sum your minute-man must feed, clothe, and educate his family; and how much can he possibly use to feed his own mind?—the man who ought to be able to stand in the front ranks at all times, in order to gain the respect of the community in which he should be the leader in all good works.
When the first minute-men went to the Pacific slope, they had a long and dangerous voyage by sea round Cape Horn; and on their arrival they had to live in a tent, pay a dollar a pound for hay, and a dollar apiece for potatoes and onions. To-day it is a very different thing to reach the mining-camps. No matter how high the mountains are, your train can climb them, doubling on itself, crossing or recrossing; or when the way is too steep, cogging its way up.
Not long since I sat in a nicely furnished room taking my dinner. My host was talking through a telephone to a man miles away, and then, with a good-by, came back to the table. I said, "That is a great contrast with your first days here." He laughed, and said, "Yes. The boatscame up to where there are now great blocks of buildings; and when I preached on Sunday afternoon, I always had a bull and a bear fight to contend with around the corner. I remember one time," he said, "when the bull broke loose, and ran down the street past where I was preaching. I saw at a glance that I must close the meeting, and so pronounced the benediction; when I opened my eyes not a living soul was in sight except my wife."
At another time he approached two miners who were at work; and he told them he was building a little church, and thought they might like to help. "Yes," said one of them, "you ain't the first man that's been around here a-beggin' fer a orphan asylum. You git!" And as this was accompanied with a loaded revolver levelled at him, he obeyed. They were good men, but thought he was a gambler, as he had on a black suit. When they afterwards found out that he was all right, they helped him. Gambling in all mining-campswas the common amusement. Some little camps had scarcely anything in sight but gambling-saloons, all licensed.
This has continued even as late as July, 1895. The first preacher in Deadwood stood on a box preaching when all around him were saloons, gambling-houses, and worse. He was listened to by many in spite of the turmoil all around him, and the collection was of gold-dust. It was accidentally spilled on the ground, when some good-hearted miner washed it out for him. The good man was shot the next day as he was going over the divide to preach in Lead City. The miners had nothing to do with it; but they not only got up a generous collection, but sent East and helped the man's family.
Often a preacher has his chapel over a saloon where the audience can hear the sharp click of the billiard-balls, the rattle of the dice, and the profanity of the crowd below. One day a man who was rapidly killing himself with drink recited in avoice so that all in the little church could hear him:—
"There is a spirit above,There is a spirit below,A spirit of joy,A spirit of woe.The spirit aboveIs the spirit divine,The spirit belowIs the spirit of wine."
"There is a spirit above,There is a spirit below,A spirit of joy,A spirit of woe.The spirit aboveIs the spirit divine,The spirit belowIs the spirit of wine."
It was hard work under such circumstances to hold an audience. From the room where the man preached twelve saloons were in sight, and the audience could hear the blasting from the mines beneath them. The communion had to be held at night, as the deacons were in the mine all day. And yet those that did come were in earnest, I think. The very deviltry and awfulness of sin drove some men to a better life who under other conditions would never have gone to church. Many men were hanged for stealing horses, very few for killing a man; while many a would-be suicide has been saved by the efforts of a true-hearted minute-man. Noone but a genuine lover of his kind can do much good among the miners. In no place is a man weighed quicker. The miners are a splendid lot to work with, and none more gallant and respectful to a good woman in the world.
The free and easy style of a frontiersman is refreshing. You never hear the question as to whether the other half of your seat is engaged; although, if you are a minister in regulation dress, you will often have the seat to yourself. I remember once, when travelling in a part of the country where both lumbermen and miners abounded, a big man sat down by my side. He dropped into the seat like a bag of potatoes. After a moment's look at me, he said, "Live near here?"
"Yes, at ——."
"Umph! In business?"
"Yes; I have the biggest business in the place."
"I want to know. You ain't Wilcox?"
"I know that."
"Well, don't he own that mill?"
"Yes; but I have a bigger business than any mill."
"What are you, then?"
"I am a home missionary."
The laugh the giant greeted this with stopped all the games and conversation in the car for a moment; but I was able to give him a good half-hour's talk, which ended by his saying, "Well, Elder, if I am ever near your place, I am coming to hear ye, sure."
I was often taken for a commercial traveller, and asked what house I was travelling for. I invariably said, "The oldest house in the country," and that we were doing a bigger business than ever. "What line of goods do you carry?" the man would ask, looking at my grip. "Wine and milk, without money and without price. Can I sell you an order?"
At first the man would hardly believe I was a preacher. I remember talking for an hour on the boat with one young man, and after leaving him I began to read my Bible. He saw me reading,and said, "Oh! come off, now; that's too thin."
"What is the matter?" I said. "Do you mean that the paper is thin? It is; but there's nothing thin about the reading."
He at once whispered to the captain; and after the captain had answered him, he came over and apologized. "Why did you not tell me you were a minister?"
"I had no reason to," I said. "Did I say anything in my talk with you of an unchristian nature?"
"No; but I should never have known you were a minister by your clothes."
"No; and I don't propose that my tailor shall have the ministerial part of my makeup."
Time was when every trade was known by the clothes worn, and the minister is about the only one to keep his sign up. It is just as well on the frontier for him to be known by his life, his deeds, and his words. The young man above had been a wide reader; and for two hoursthat night under the veranda of our hotel I talked with him, and afterwards had some very interesting letters from him.
The town that same night was filled with wild revelry. It was on the eve of the Fourth of July, and newly sworn-in deputies swarmed; rockets and pistols were fired with fatal carelessness; and yet amidst it all we sat and talked, so intensely interested was the man in regard to his soul.
I close this chapter with a portion of Dr. McLean's sermon on the flowing well (he was the man our minute-man was talking with by telephone mentioned in the first part of this chapter) which will show how well it pays to place the gospel in our new settlement:—
"The first instance of which I myself happen to have had some personal observation, is of a well opened thirty years ago. Fifteen persons met in a little house, still standing, in what was then a community of less than fifteen hundred souls. They came to talk and counsel, for they were men and women in touch with God. They were considering the matter of a flowing well of the spiritual sort.There was the valley, opportunity; and there was the lack of sufficient religious ministration. The moral aspect of the place could not be better surmised than by the prophets word, 'Tongue faileth for thirst.'"They consulted and prayed, and said, 'We'll do it!' They joined heart and hand, declaring, 'Cost what it may, we'll sink the well!' And they did. But ah, it was a stern task. For many a day those fifteen and the few others who joined them ate the bread of self-denial. Delicately reared women dismissed their household help and did the work themselves. Enterprising, ambitious men turned resolutely away from golden schemes, and made their small invested capital still smaller. A few days later on (it will be thirty years the ninth of next December) eight men and seven women, standing up together in a little borrowed room, solemnly plighted their faith, and joyfully covenanted to established a church of Christ of the Pilgrim order."What has been the outcome of that faith and self-denial? It has borne true Abrahamic fruit. There stands to-day, on that foundation, a church of more than eleven hundred members. It has multiplied its original seventeen by more than the hundred fold, having received to its membership one thousand nine hundred and fifty-six souls, of whom one-half have come upon confession. It is a church which is teaching to-day seventeen hundredin its Sunday-schools; possesses an enrolled battalion of two hundred valiant soldiers of Christian Endeavor, which maintains kindergartens and all manner of mission-industrial work; and held the pledge, at a recent census, of thirteen hundred and twenty-two persons to total abstinence. It has a constituency of one thousand families. It reaches each week, with some form of religious ministration, two thousand five hundred persons, and has five thousand regularly looking to it for their spiritual supplies. To as many more, doubtless, does it annually furnish, in some incidental way, at least a cup of cold water in the Master's name. It is a church which has been privileged of God in its thirty years to bring forth nine more churches within the field itself originally occupied, and to lend a hand frequently with members, habitually with money in it, to four times nine new churches in fields outside its own. It is a church also, which, with no credit to itself,—for, brethren, only sink the well, pipe it, keep an open flow, and it is God who, from his bare heights and the rivers opened on them, will supply the water,—it is a church which has enjoyed the great blessedness of contributing its part to every good thing in a growing city which has grown in the thirty years from fifteen hundred to sixty thousand souls. This church, having been enabled to help on almost every good thing in its State, is recognized to-day throughout a widely extended territory as an adjunct andauxiliary of all good things in morals, politics, in charity, and the general humanities,—a power for God and good in a population which, already dense, is fast becoming one of the ganglion centres of American civilization. It is also laying its serviceable touch upon trans-oceanic continents and intervening islands of the sea. It has furnished ministers for the pulpit, and sent Sunday-school superintendents and Christian workers out over a wide area; it has consecrated already six missionaries to foreign service, and has two others under appointment by the board; and as for wives to missionaries and ministers, brethren, you should just see those predatory tribes swoop down upon its girls!"It is a true flowing well in the midst of a valley. Ah! those fifteen who met thirty years ago next October made no mistake. They were within God's artesian belt. Their divining-rod was not misleading. Their call was genuine; their aim unerring. They struck the vein. The flow of the rivers breaking out from bare heights did not disappoint them. And now behold this wide expanse of spiritual fertility! This church was not, in form, a daughter of the American Home Missionary Society. Its name does not appear upon your family record, and yet, in the true sense, it is your daughter. In its infant days it sucked the breasts of churches which had sucked yours. Its swaddling bands you made. It was glad to get them even atsecond hand. The other instance I have to quote is of but recent standing,—of not thirty years, but only three."On the 26th of May, three years ago, a pastor in Central California was called five hundred miles into the southern part of the State to assist in organizing a Pilgrim church. A good part of the proposing members being from his own flock, their appeal was urgent, and was acceded to. An infant organization of a few persons was brought together, and christened the Pilgrim Church of Pomona. The organization was effected in a public hall, loaned for the occasion; the church's stipulated tenure of the premises expiring at precisely 3 P.M., in order that the room might be put in order for theatrical occupancy at night. The accouchment was therefore naturally a hurried one. The constituting services had to be abbreviated. Among the things cast out was the sermon, which the visiting pastor from the north had come five hundred miles to preach. Well, sweet are the uses of adversity! Never, apparently, did loss so small gain work so great. On the lack of that initiatory sermon the Pilgrim Church of Pomona has most wonderfully thriven. The church was poor at the outset. It possessed no foot of ground, no house; only a Bible, a dozen hymn-books, and as many zealous members. Over this featherless chick was spread the brooding wing of the American Home Missionary Society. 'It was a plucky bird,' said the wise-heartedpastor, already on the ground. 'Here's a case where the questionable old saw, "Half a loaf better than no bread," won't work at all. If this new well is to be driven, it must be driven to the vein. If there is to be but surface digging, let there be none. If the American Home Missionary society will supply us with six hundred dollars for the first six months, we'll make no promises, but we'll do the best we can.' Well, the G. O. S.—Grand Old Society—responded, and gave the six hundred for the desired six months. At the expiration of that period the Pilgrim Church of Pomona, located upon land and in a house of its own, bade its temporary foster-mother a grateful good-by; and, as it did so, put back into her hand two hundred of the six hundred dollars which had been given. What has been the outcome? That noble church, headed by a noble Massachusetts pastor, has become in the matter of home missions at least—but not in home missions only—the leading church of Southern California. It has to-day an enrolment of two hundred and twenty; has contributed this year three hundred and fifty dollars to your society. Alert in all activities of its own, it is a stimulus to all those of its neighbors. It had not yet got formally organized—the audacious little strutling!—before it had made a cool proposition to the handful of Pilgrim churches then existing in Southern California for the creation of a college; secured the location in its own town; itself appointed the firstboard of trust; and named it Pomona College. It never waited to be hatched before it began to crow; and to such purpose that it crowed up a college, which now owns two hundred acres of choice land, has a subscription-list of twenty-five thousand dollars for buildings, besides a present building costing two hundred and five thousand dollars. It has in its senior class eleven students, in its preparatory department seventy-one; and in a recent revival interest numbers a goodly group of converts; and, finally, the general association of Southern California, at its meeting within a month, committed its fifty churches fully to the subject of Christian education, to the annual presentation of the advantages and claims of Pomona College, and to an annual collection for its funds. All this, brethren, out of one of your flowing wells in three years."
"The first instance of which I myself happen to have had some personal observation, is of a well opened thirty years ago. Fifteen persons met in a little house, still standing, in what was then a community of less than fifteen hundred souls. They came to talk and counsel, for they were men and women in touch with God. They were considering the matter of a flowing well of the spiritual sort.There was the valley, opportunity; and there was the lack of sufficient religious ministration. The moral aspect of the place could not be better surmised than by the prophets word, 'Tongue faileth for thirst.'
"They consulted and prayed, and said, 'We'll do it!' They joined heart and hand, declaring, 'Cost what it may, we'll sink the well!' And they did. But ah, it was a stern task. For many a day those fifteen and the few others who joined them ate the bread of self-denial. Delicately reared women dismissed their household help and did the work themselves. Enterprising, ambitious men turned resolutely away from golden schemes, and made their small invested capital still smaller. A few days later on (it will be thirty years the ninth of next December) eight men and seven women, standing up together in a little borrowed room, solemnly plighted their faith, and joyfully covenanted to established a church of Christ of the Pilgrim order.
"What has been the outcome of that faith and self-denial? It has borne true Abrahamic fruit. There stands to-day, on that foundation, a church of more than eleven hundred members. It has multiplied its original seventeen by more than the hundred fold, having received to its membership one thousand nine hundred and fifty-six souls, of whom one-half have come upon confession. It is a church which is teaching to-day seventeen hundredin its Sunday-schools; possesses an enrolled battalion of two hundred valiant soldiers of Christian Endeavor, which maintains kindergartens and all manner of mission-industrial work; and held the pledge, at a recent census, of thirteen hundred and twenty-two persons to total abstinence. It has a constituency of one thousand families. It reaches each week, with some form of religious ministration, two thousand five hundred persons, and has five thousand regularly looking to it for their spiritual supplies. To as many more, doubtless, does it annually furnish, in some incidental way, at least a cup of cold water in the Master's name. It is a church which has been privileged of God in its thirty years to bring forth nine more churches within the field itself originally occupied, and to lend a hand frequently with members, habitually with money in it, to four times nine new churches in fields outside its own. It is a church also, which, with no credit to itself,—for, brethren, only sink the well, pipe it, keep an open flow, and it is God who, from his bare heights and the rivers opened on them, will supply the water,—it is a church which has enjoyed the great blessedness of contributing its part to every good thing in a growing city which has grown in the thirty years from fifteen hundred to sixty thousand souls. This church, having been enabled to help on almost every good thing in its State, is recognized to-day throughout a widely extended territory as an adjunct andauxiliary of all good things in morals, politics, in charity, and the general humanities,—a power for God and good in a population which, already dense, is fast becoming one of the ganglion centres of American civilization. It is also laying its serviceable touch upon trans-oceanic continents and intervening islands of the sea. It has furnished ministers for the pulpit, and sent Sunday-school superintendents and Christian workers out over a wide area; it has consecrated already six missionaries to foreign service, and has two others under appointment by the board; and as for wives to missionaries and ministers, brethren, you should just see those predatory tribes swoop down upon its girls!
"It is a true flowing well in the midst of a valley. Ah! those fifteen who met thirty years ago next October made no mistake. They were within God's artesian belt. Their divining-rod was not misleading. Their call was genuine; their aim unerring. They struck the vein. The flow of the rivers breaking out from bare heights did not disappoint them. And now behold this wide expanse of spiritual fertility! This church was not, in form, a daughter of the American Home Missionary Society. Its name does not appear upon your family record, and yet, in the true sense, it is your daughter. In its infant days it sucked the breasts of churches which had sucked yours. Its swaddling bands you made. It was glad to get them even atsecond hand. The other instance I have to quote is of but recent standing,—of not thirty years, but only three.
"On the 26th of May, three years ago, a pastor in Central California was called five hundred miles into the southern part of the State to assist in organizing a Pilgrim church. A good part of the proposing members being from his own flock, their appeal was urgent, and was acceded to. An infant organization of a few persons was brought together, and christened the Pilgrim Church of Pomona. The organization was effected in a public hall, loaned for the occasion; the church's stipulated tenure of the premises expiring at precisely 3 P.M., in order that the room might be put in order for theatrical occupancy at night. The accouchment was therefore naturally a hurried one. The constituting services had to be abbreviated. Among the things cast out was the sermon, which the visiting pastor from the north had come five hundred miles to preach. Well, sweet are the uses of adversity! Never, apparently, did loss so small gain work so great. On the lack of that initiatory sermon the Pilgrim Church of Pomona has most wonderfully thriven. The church was poor at the outset. It possessed no foot of ground, no house; only a Bible, a dozen hymn-books, and as many zealous members. Over this featherless chick was spread the brooding wing of the American Home Missionary Society. 'It was a plucky bird,' said the wise-heartedpastor, already on the ground. 'Here's a case where the questionable old saw, "Half a loaf better than no bread," won't work at all. If this new well is to be driven, it must be driven to the vein. If there is to be but surface digging, let there be none. If the American Home Missionary society will supply us with six hundred dollars for the first six months, we'll make no promises, but we'll do the best we can.' Well, the G. O. S.—Grand Old Society—responded, and gave the six hundred for the desired six months. At the expiration of that period the Pilgrim Church of Pomona, located upon land and in a house of its own, bade its temporary foster-mother a grateful good-by; and, as it did so, put back into her hand two hundred of the six hundred dollars which had been given. What has been the outcome? That noble church, headed by a noble Massachusetts pastor, has become in the matter of home missions at least—but not in home missions only—the leading church of Southern California. It has to-day an enrolment of two hundred and twenty; has contributed this year three hundred and fifty dollars to your society. Alert in all activities of its own, it is a stimulus to all those of its neighbors. It had not yet got formally organized—the audacious little strutling!—before it had made a cool proposition to the handful of Pilgrim churches then existing in Southern California for the creation of a college; secured the location in its own town; itself appointed the firstboard of trust; and named it Pomona College. It never waited to be hatched before it began to crow; and to such purpose that it crowed up a college, which now owns two hundred acres of choice land, has a subscription-list of twenty-five thousand dollars for buildings, besides a present building costing two hundred and five thousand dollars. It has in its senior class eleven students, in its preparatory department seventy-one; and in a recent revival interest numbers a goodly group of converts; and, finally, the general association of Southern California, at its meeting within a month, committed its fifty churches fully to the subject of Christian education, to the annual presentation of the advantages and claims of Pomona College, and to an annual collection for its funds. All this, brethren, out of one of your flowing wells in three years."
We hear a good deal of talk about the American Sabbath, so that one would think it was first introduced here; and, indeed, the American Sabbath is our own patent. Not but what Scotland and rural England had one somewhat like it; but the American Sabbathpar excellenceis not the Jewish Sabbath, or the European Sabbath, but the Sunday of Puritan New England, which is generally meant when we hear of the American Sabbath. But the American Sabbath of the frontier can never become the European Sabbath without getting nearer to the New England type; for in Europe people do go to church in the morning, if they attend the beer-gardens in the afternoon. The Sabbath of the frontier has no church, and the beer-garden is open all day.
Some reader will wonder what kind of a deacon a man would make who worked on Sunday. Well, he might be better; but, remember, that for one deacon who breaks the Sabbath, there are ten thousand who break the tenth commandment, which is just as important. The fact is, you must do the best you can under the circumstances, and wait for the next generation to go up higher. It is no use finding fault with candles for the poor light and the smell of the tallow. There is only one way: you must light the gas; and it, too, must go when electricity comes. You might as well expect concrete roads, Beethoven's Symphonies, and the Paris opera, as to have all the conditions of New England life to start with under such environments. Man has greater power to accommodate himself to new conditions than the beasts that perish; nevertheless, he is subject to them, at least for a time.
I know some will be thinking of the Pilgrim Fathers, staying in the little Mayflower rather than break the Sabbath; butwe must not forget, that, as a rule, the frontiers are not peopled with Pilgrim Fathers. It is true, the wildest settlers are not altogether bad; for you could have seen on their prairie schooners within the last year these words, "In God we trusted, in Kansas we busted;" which is much more reverent than "Pike's Peak or bust," if not quite so terse.
This is not meant for sarcasm. These words were written in a county that has been settled over two hundred and fifty years, and has not had a murderer in its jail yet, where the people talk as if they were but lately from Cornwall, where the descendants of Mayhew still live,—Mayhew, who was preaching to the Indians before the saintly Eliot.
We must remember, too, that the good men who first settled at Plymouth could do things conscientiously that your frontiersman would be shocked at. Think, too, of good John Hawkins sailing about in the ship Jesus with her hold full of negroes, and pious New Englanders sellingslaves in Deerfield less than a hundred and ten years ago; of the whipping-post and the persecuting of witches; and that these good men, who would not break the Sabbath, often in their religious zeal broke human hearts. No living man respects them more than I do. You cannot sing Mrs. Hemans's words,