"It is turning away from angels' food to feed on garbage. Think of

spending a whole life in contemplating the grandest things, and working

for the most glorious ends, instructing the ignorant, consoling the

sorrowing, winning the wayward back to duty and to peace, pointing the

dying to Him who is the light and the life of men, animating the living

to seek from the highest motives a holy life and a sublime destiny! O it

is a life that might draw an angel from the skies! If there is a special

hell for fools, it should be kept for the man who turns aside from a

life like this, to trade, or dig the earth, or wrangle in a court of

law, or scramble for an office."

He looked at me as he spoke, with flashing eyes and curled lip.

"That is all true and very fine, Judge, but it sounds just a little

peculiar as coming from you."

"I am the very man to say it, for I am the man who bitterly sees its

truth. Do not make the misstep that I did. A man might well be willing

to live on bread and water, and walk the world afoot, for the privilege

of giving all his thoughts to the grandest themes, and all his service

to the highest objects. As a lawyer, my life has been spent in a

prolonged quarrel about money, land, houses; cattle, thieving,

slandering, murdering, and other villainy. The little episodes of

politics that have given variety to my career have only shown me the

baseness of human nature, and the pettiness of human ambition. There are

men who will fill these places and do this work, and who want and will

choose nothing better. Let them have all the good they can get out of

such things. But the minister of the gospel who comes down from the

height of his high calling to engage in this scramble, does that which

makes devils laugh and angels weep."

This was the substance of what he said on this point. I have never

forgotten it. I am glad he came to my room that night. What else he

said I cannot write, but the remembrance of it is like to that of a

melody that lingers in my soul when the music has ceased.

"I thank you for your sermon today--you never told a single lie."

This was his remark at the close of a service in Minna street one

Sunday.

"What is the meaning of that remark?"

That the exaggerations of the pulpit repel thousands from the truth.

Moderation of statement is a rare excellence. A deep spiritual insight

enables a religious teacher to shade his meanings where it is required.

Deep piety is genius for the pulpit. Mediocrity in native endowments,

conjoined with spiritual stolidity in the pulpit, does more harm than

all the open apostles of infidelity combined. They take the divinity out

of religion and kill the faith of those who hear them. None but inspired

men should stand in the pulpit. Religion is not in the intellect merely.

The world by wisdom cannot know God. The attempt to find out God by the

intellect has always been, and always must be, the completest of

failures. Religion is the sphere of the supernatural, and stands not in

the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. It has often happened that

men of the first order of talent and the highest culture have been

converted by the preaching of men of weak intellect and limited

education, but who were directly taught of God, and had drunk deep from

the fount of living truth in personal experience of the blessed power of

Christian faith. It was through the intellect that the devil seduced the

first pair. When we rest in the intellect only, we miss God. With the

heart only can man believe unto righteousness. The evidence that

satisfies is based on consciousness. Consciousness is the satisfying

demonstration.

"Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart

of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But

God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit. They can be revealed in no

other way."

Here was the secret he had learned, and that had brought a new joy and

glory into his life as it neared the sunset. The great change dated from

a dark and rainy night as he walked home in Sacramento City. Not more

tangible to Saul of Tarsus was the vision, or more distinctly audible

the voice that spoke to him on the way to Damascus, than was the

revelation of Jesus Christ to this lawyer of penetrating intellect,

large and varied reading, and sharp perception of human folly and

weakness. It was a case of conversion in the fullest and divinest sense.

He never fell from the wonder-world of grace to which he had been

lifted. His youth seemed to be renewed, and his life had rebloomed, and

its winter was turned into spring, under the touch of Him who maketh all

things new. He was a new man, and he lived in a new world. He never

failed to attend the class-meetings, and in his talks there the flashes

of his genius set religious truths in new lights, and the little band of

Methodists were treated to bursts of fervid eloquence, such as might

kindle the listening thousands of metropolitan churches into admiration,

or melt them into tears. On such occasions I could not help regretting

anew that the world had lost what this man might have wrought had his

path in life taken a different direction at the start. He died suddenly,

and when in the city of Los Angeles I read the telegram announcing his

death, I felt, mingled with the pain at the loss of a friend, exultation

that before there was any reaction in his religious life his mighty soul

had found a congenial home amid the supernal glories and sublime joys of

the world of spirits. The moral of this man's life will be seen by him

for whom this imperfect Sketch has been penciled.

Ah Lee.

He was the sunniest of Mongolians. The Chinaman, under favorable

conditions, is not without a sly sense of humor of his peculiar sort;

but to American eyes there is nothing very pleasant in his angular and

smileless features. The manner of his contact with many Californians is

not calculated to evoke mirthfulness. The brickbat may be a good

political argument in the hands of a hoodlum, but it does not make its

target playful. To the Chinaman in America the situation is new and

grave, and he looks sober and holds his peace. Even the funny-looking,

be-cued little Chinese children wear a look of solemn inquisitiveness,

as they toddle along the streets of San Francisco by the side of their

queer-looking mothers. In his own land, overpopulated and misgoverned,

the Chinaman has a hard fight for existence. In these United States his

advent is regarded somewhat in the same spirit as that of the seventeen

year locusts, or the cotton-worm. The history of a people may be read in

their physiognomy. The monotony of Chinese life during these thousands

of years is reflected in the dull, monotonous faces of Chinamen.

Ah Lee was an exception. His skin was almost fair, his features almost

Caucasian in their regularity; his dark eye lighted up with a peculiar

brightness, and there was a remarkable buoyancy and glow about him every

way. He was about twenty years old. How long he had been in California I

know not. When he came into my office to see me the first time, he

rushed forward and impulsively grasped my hand, saying:

"My name Ah Lee--you Doctor Plitzjellie?"

That was the way my name sounded as he spoke it. I was glad to see him,

and told him so.

"You makee Christian newspaper? You talkee Jesus? Mr. Taylor tellee me.

Me Christian--me love Jesus."

Yes, Ah Lee was a Christian; there could be no doubt about that. I have

seen many happy converts, but none happier than he. He was not merely

happy--he was ecstatic.

The story of the mighty change was a simple one, but thrilling. Near

Vacaville, the former seat of the Pacific Methodist College, in Solano

county, lived the Rev. Iry Taylor, a member of the Pacific Conference of

the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Mr. Taylor was a praying man, and

he had a praying wife. Ah Lee was employed as a domestic in the family.

His curiosity was first excited in regard to family prayers. He wanted

to know what it all meant. The Taylor's explained. The old, old story

took hold of Ah Lee. He was put to thinking and then to praying. The

idea of the forgiveness of sins filled him with wonder and longing. He

hung with breathless interest upon the word of the Lord, opening to him

a world of new thought. The tide of feeling bore him on, and at the foot

of the cross he found what he sought.

Ah Lee was converted--converted as Paul, as Augustine, as Wesley, were

converted. He was born into a new life that was as real to him as his

consciousness was real. This psychological change will be understood by

some of my readers; others may regard it as they do any other

inexplicable phenomenon in that mysterious inner world of the human

soul, in which are lived the real lives of us all. In Ah Lee's heathen

soul was wrought the gracious wonder that makes joy among the angels of

God.

The young Chinese disciple, it is to be feared, got little sympathy

outside the Taylor household and a few others. The right-hand of

Christian fellowship was withheld by many, or extended in a cold,

half-reluctant way. But it mattered not to Ah Lee; he had his own

heaven. Coldness was wasted on him. The light within him brightened

every thing without.

Ah Lee became a frequent visitor to our cottage on the hill. He always

came and went rejoicing. The Gospel of John was his daily study and

delight. To his ardent and receptive nature it was a diamond mine. Two

things he wanted to do. He had a strong desire to translate his favorite

Gospel into Chinese, and to lead his parents to Christ. When he spoke of

his father and mother his voice would soften, his eyes moisten with

tenderness.

"I go back to China and tellee my fader and mudder allee good news," he

said, with beaming face.

This peculiar development of filial reverence and affection among the

Chinese is a hopeful feature of their national life. It furnishes a

solid basis for a strong Christian nation. The weakening of this

sentiment weakens religious susceptibility; its destruction is spiritual

death. The worship of ancestors is idolatry, but it is that form of it

nearest akin to the worship of the Heavenly Father. The honoring of the

father and mother on earth is the commandment with promise, and it is

the promise of this life and of life everlasting.

There is an inter blending of human and divine loves; earth and heaven

are unitary in companionship and destiny. The golden ladder rests on the

earth and reaches up into the heavens.

About twice a week Ah Lee came to see us at North Beach. These visits

subjected our courtesy and tact to a severe test. He loved little

children, and at each visit he would bring with him a gayly-painted box

filled with Chinese sweetmeats. Such sweetmeats! They were to strong for

the palates of even young Californians. What cannot be relished and

digested by a healthy California boy must be formidable indeed. Those

sweetmeats were--but I give it up, they were indescribable! The boxes

were pretty, and, after being emptied of their contents, they were kept.

Ah Lee's joy in his new experience did not abate. Under the touch of the

Holy Spirit, his spiritual nature had suddenly blossomed into tropical

luxuriance. To look at him made me think of the second chapter of the

Acts of the Apostles. If I had had any lingering doubts of the

transforming power of the gospel upon all human hearts, this conversion

of Ah Lee would have settled the question forever. The bitter feeling

against the Chinese that just then found expression in California,

through so many channels, did not seem to affect him in the least. He

had his Christianity warm from the heart of the Son of God, and no

caricature of its features or perversion of its spirit could bewilder

him for a moment. He knew whom he had believed. None of these things

moved him. O blessed mystery of God's mercy, that turns the night of

heathen darkness into day, and makes the desert soul bloom with the

flowers of paradise! O cross of the Crucified! Lifted up, it shall draw

all men to their Saviour! And O blind and slow of heart to believe! why

could we not discern that this young Chinaman's conversion was our

Lord's gracious challenge to our faith, and the pledge of success to the

Church that will go into all the world with the news of salvation?

Ah Lee has vanished from my observation, but I have a persuasion that is

like a burning prophecy that he will be heard from again. To me he types

the blessedness of old China newborn in the life of the Lord, and in his

luminous face I read the prophecy of the redemption of the millions who

have so long bowed before the Great Red Dragon, but who now wait for the

coming of the Deliverer.

The Climate of California.

Had Shakespeare lived in California, he would not have written of the

"winter of our discontent," but would most probably have found in the

summer of that then undiscovered country a more fitting symbol of the

troublous times referred to; for, with the fogs, winds, and dust, that

accompany the summer, or the "dry season," as it is more appropriately

called in California, it is emphatically a season of discontent. In the

mountains of the State only are these conditions not found. True, you

will find dust even there as the natural consequence of the lack of

rain; but that is not, of course, so bad in the mountains; and with no

persistent, nagging wind to pick it up and fling it spitefully at you,

you soon get not to mind it at all. But of summer in the coast country

it is hard to speak tolerantly. The perfect flower of its unloveliness

flourishes in San Francisco, and, more or less hardily, all along the

coast. From the time the rains cease--generally some time in May

--through the six-months' period of their cessation, the programme for

the day is, with but few exceptions, unvaried. Fog in the morning

--chilling, penetrating fog, which obscures the rays of the morning sun

completely, and, dank and "clinging like cerements," swathes every thing

with its soft, gray folds. On the bay it hangs, heavy and chill,

blotting out everything but the nearest objects, and at a little

distance hardly distinguishable from the water itself. At such times is

heard the warning-cry of the foghorns at Fort Point, Goat Island, and

elsewhere--a sound which probably is more like that popularly supposed

to be produced by an expiring cow in her last agony than any thing else,

but which is not like that or any thing in the world but a foghorn. The

fog of the morning, however, gives way to the wind of the afternoon,

which, complete master of the situation by three o'clock P.M., holds

stormy sway till sunset. No gentle zephyr this, to softly sway the

delicate flower or just lift the fringe on the maiden's brow, but what

seamen call a "spanking breeze," that does not hesitate to knock off the

hat that is not fastened tightly both fore and aft to the underlying

head, or to fling sand and dust into any exposed eye, and which dances

around generally among skirts and coat-tails with untiring energy and

persistency. To venture out on the streets of San Francisco at such

times is really no trifling matter; and to one not accustomed to it, or

to one of a non-combative disposition, the performance is not a pleasant

one. Still the streets are always full of hurrying passengers; for,

whether attributable to the extra amount of vitality and vim that this

bracing climate imparts to its children, or to a more direct and obvious

cause, the desire to get indoors again as soon as possible, the fact

remains the same--that the people of California walk faster than do

those of almost any other country. Not only men either, who with their

coats buttoned up to their chins, and hats jammed tightly over their

half-shut eyes, present a tolerably secure surface to the attacks of the

wind, but their fairer sisters too can be seen, with their fresh cheeks

and bright eyes protected by jaunty veils, scudding along in the face or

the track of the wind, as the case may he, with wonderful skill and

grace, looking as trim and secure as to rigging as the lightest schooner

in full sail on their own bay.

But it is after the sun has gone down from the cloudless sky, and the

sea has recalled its breezes to slumber for the night, that the

fulfillment of the law of compensation is made evident in this matter.

The nights are of silver, if the days be not of gold. And all over the

State this blessing of cool, comfortable nights is spread. At any

season, one can draw a pair of blankets over him upon retiring, sure of

sound, refreshing slumber, unless assailed by mental or physical

troubles to which even this glorious climate of California cannot

minister.

The country here during this rainless season does not seem to the

Eastern visitor enough like what he has known as country in the summer

to warrant any outlay in getting there. He must, however, understand

that here people go to the country for precisely opposite reasons to

those which influence Eastern tourists to leave the city and betake

themselves to rural districts. In the East, one leaves the crowded

streets and heated atmosphere of the great city to seek coolness in some

sylvan retreat. Here, we leave the chilling winds and fogs of the city

to try to get warm where they cannot penetrate. Warm it may be; but the

country at this season is not at its best as to looks. The flowers and

the grass have disappeared with the rains, the latter, however, keeping

in its dry, brown roots, that the sun scorches daily, the germ of all

next winter's green. Of the trees, the live-oak alone keeps to the

summer livery of Eastern forests. Farther up in the mountain counties it

is very different. No fairer summer could be wished for than that which

reigns cloudless here; and with the sparkling champagne of that clear,

dry air in his nostrils, our Eastern visitor forgets even to sigh for a

summer shower to lay the dreadful dust. And even in the valleys and

around the bay, we must confess that some advantages arise from the

no-rain-for-six-months policy. Picnickers can set forth any day, with no

fear of the fun of the occasion being wet-blanketed by an unlooked-for

shower; and farmers can dispose of their crops according to convenience,

often leaving their wheat piled up in the field, with no fear of danger

from the elements.

Still we do get very tired of this long, strange summer, and the first

rains are eagerly looked for and joyously welcomed. The fall of the

first showers after such a long season of bareness and brownness is

almost as immediate in its effects as the waving of a fairy's magic wand

over Cinderella, sitting ragged in the ashes and cinders. The change

thus wrought is well described by a poet of the soil in a few

picturesque lines:

Week by week the near hills whitened, In their dusty leather cloaks;

Week by week the far hills darkened, From the fringing plain of oaks;

Till the rains came, and far breaking, On the fierce south-wester tost,

Dashed the whole long coast with color, And then vanished and were lost.

With these rains the grass springs up, the trees put out, and the winds

disappear, leaving in the air a wonderful softness. In a month or two

the flowers appear, and the hills are covered with a mantle of glory.

Bluebells, lupins, buttercups, and hosts of other blossoms, spring up in

profusion; and, illuminating every thing, the wild California poppy

lifts its flaming torch, typifying well, in its dazzling and glowing

color, the brilliant minds and passionate hearts of the people of this

land. All these bloom on through the winter, for this is a winter but in

name. With no frost, ice, or snow, it is more like an Eastern spring,

but for the absence of that feeling of languor and debility which is so

often felt in that season. True it rains a good deal, but by no means

constantly, more often in the night; and it is this season of smiles and

tears, this winter of flowers and budding trees, in which the glory of

the California climate lies. Certainly nothing could be more perfect

than a bright winter day in that State. Still, after all I could say in

its praise, you would not know its full charm till you had felt its

delicious breath on your own brow; for the peculiar freshness and

exhilaration of the air are indescribable.

Sometimes in March, the dwellers on the bay are treated to a blow or two

from the north, which is about as serious weather as the inhabitant of

that favored clime ever experiences. After a night whose sleep has been

broken by shrieks of the wind and the rattling of doors and windows, I

wake with a dullness of head and sensitiveness of nerve that alone would

be sufficient to tell me that the north wind had risen like a thief in

the night, and had not, according to the manner of that class, stolen

away before morning. On the contrary, he seems to be rushing around with

an energy that betokens a day of it. I dress, and look out of my window.

The bay is a mass of foaming, tossing waves, which, as they break on the

beach just below, cast their spray twenty feet in air. All the little

vessels have come into port, and only a few of the largest ships still

ride heavily at their anchors. The hue separating the shallow water near

the shore from the deeper waters beyond is much farther out than usual,

and is more distinct. Within its boundary, the predominant white is

mixed with a dark, reddish brown; without, the spots of color are

darkest green. The shy has been swept of every particle of cloud and

moisture, and is almost painfully blue. Against it, Mounts Tamalpais and

Diablo stand outlined with startling clearness. The hills and islands

round the bay look as cold and uncomfortable in their robes of bright

green as a young lady who has put on her spring-dress too soon. The

streets and walks are swept bare, but still the air is filled with

flying sand that cuts my face like needles, when, later, overcoated and

gloved to the utmost, I proceed downtown. Such days are Nature's

cleaning days, very necessary to future health and comfort, but, like

all cleaning-days, very unpleasant to go through with. With her

mightiest besom does the old lady sweep all the cobwebs from the sky,

all the dirt and germs of disease from the ground, and remove all specks

and impurities from her air-windows. One or two such "northers" finish

up the season, effectually scaring away all the clouds, thus clearing

the stage for the next act in this annual drama of two acts.

This climate of California is perfectly epitomized in a stanza of the

same poem before quoted:

So each year the season shifted, Wet and warm, and drear and dry,

Half a year-of cloud and flowers, Half a year of dust and sky.

After the Storm.

(Penciled in the bay-window above the Golden Gate, North Beach, San

Francisco, February 20, 1873.)

All day the winds the sea had lashed, The fretted waves in anger dashed

Against the rocks in tumult wild Above the surges roughly piled--No blue

above, no peace below, The waves still rage, the winds still blow.

Dull and muffled the sunset gun Tells that the dreary day is done; The

sea-birds fly with drooping wing--Chill and shadow on every thing--No

blue above, no peace below, The waves still rage, the winds still blow.

The clouds dispart; the sapphire dye In beauty spreads o'er the western

sky, Cloud-fires blaze o'er the Gate of Gold, Gleaming and glowing, fold

on fold--All blue above, all peace below, Nor waves now rage, nor winds

now blow.

Souls that are lashed by storms of pain, Eyes that drip with sorrow's

rain; Hearts that burn with passion strong, Bruised and torn, and weary

of wrong--No light above, no peace within, Battling with self, and torn

by sin--

Hope on, hold on, the clouds will lift; God's peace will come as his own

sweet gift, The light will shine at evening-time, The reflected beams of

the sunlit clime, The blessed goal of the soul's long quest, Where

storms ne'er beat, and all are blest.

Bishop Kavanaugh in California.

He came first in 1856. The Californians "took to" him at once. It was

almost as good as a visit to the old home to see and hear this

rosy-faced, benignant, and solid Kentuckian. His power and pathos in the

pulpit were equaled by his humor and magnetic charm in the social

circle. Many consciences were stirred. All hearts were won by him, and

he holds them unto this day. We may hope too that many souls were won

that will be stars in his crown of rejoicing in the day of Jesus Christ.

At San Jose, his quality as a preacher was developed by an incident that

excited no little popular interest. The (Northern) Methodist Conference

was in session at that place, the venerable and saintly Bishop Scott

presiding. Bishop Kavanaugh was invited to preach, and it so happened

that he was to do so on the night following an appointment for Bishop

Scott. The matter was talked of in the town, and not unnaturally a

spirit of friendly rivalry was excited with regard to the approaching

pulpit performances by the Northern and Southern Bishops respectively.

One enthusiastic but not pious Kentuckian offered to bet a hundred

dollars that Kavanaugh would preach the better sermon. Of course the two

venerable men were unconscious of all this, and nothing of the kind was

in their hearts. The church was thronged to hear Bishop Scott, and his

humility, strong sense, deep earnestness, and holy emotion, made a

profound and happy impression on all present. The church was again

crowded the next night. Among the audience was a considerable number of

Southerners--wild fellows, who were not often seen in such places,

among them the enthusiastic Kentuckian already alluded to. Kavanaugh,

after going through with the preliminary services, announced his text,

and began his discourse. He seemed not to be in a good preaching mood.

His wheels drove heavily. Skirmishing around and around, he seemed to be

reconnoitering his subject, finding no salient point for attack. The

look of eager expectation in the faces of the people gave way to one of

puzzled and painful solicitude. The heads of the expectant Southerners

drooped a little, and the betting Kentuckian betrayed his feelings by a

lowering of the under-jaw and sundry nervous twitchings of the muscles

of his face. The good Bishop kept talking, but the wheels revolved

slowly. It was a solemn and "trying time" to at least a portion of the

audience, as the Bishop, with head bent over the Bible and his broad

chest stooped, kept trying to coax a response from that obstinate text.

It seemed a lost battle. At last a sudden flash of thought seemed to

strike the speaker, irradiating his face and lifting his form as he gave

it utterance, with a characteristic throwing back of his shoulders and

upward sweep of his arms. Those present will never forget what followed.

The afflatus of the true orator had at last fallen upon him; the mighty

ship was launched, and swept out to sea under full canvas. Old Kentucky

was on her feet that night in San Jose. It was indescribable. Flashes of

spiritual illumination, explosive bursts of eloquent declamation,

sparkles of chastened wit, appeals of overwhelming intensity, followed

like the thunder and lightning of a Southern storm. The church seemed

literally to rock. "Amens" burst from the electrified Methodists of all

sorts; these were followed by "hallelujahs" on all sides; and when the

sermon ended with a rapturous flight of imagination, half the

congregation were on their feet, shaking hands, embracing one another,

and shouting. In the tremendous religious impression made, criticism was

not thought of. Even the betting Kentuckian showed by his heaving breast

and tearful eyes how far he was borne out of the ordinary channels of

his thought and feeling.

He came to Sonora, where I was pastor, to preach to the miners. It was

our second year in California, and the paternal element in his nature

fell on us like a benediction. He preached three noble sermons to full

houses in the little church on the red hillside, but his best discourses

were spoken to the young preacher in the tiny parsonage. Catching the

fire of the old polemics that led to the battles of the giants in the

West, he went over the points of difference between the Arminiau and

Calvinistic schools of theology in a way that left a permanent deposit

in a mind which was just then in its most receptive state. We felt very

lonesome after he had left. It was like a touch of home to have him with

us then, and in his presence we have had the feeling ever since. What a

home will heaven be where all such men will be gathered in one company!

It was a warm day when he went down to take the stage for Mariposa. The

vehicle seemed to be already full of passengers, mostly Mexicans and

Chinamen. When the portly Bishop presented himself, and essayed to

enter, there were frowns and expressions of dissatisfaction.

"Mucho malo!" exclaimed a dark-skinned Senorita, with flashing black

eyes.

"Make room in there--he's got to go," ordered the bluff stage-driver,

in a peremptory tone.

There were already eight passengers inside, and the top of the coach was

covered as thick as robins on a sumac-bush. The Bishop mounted the step

and surveyed the situation. The seat assigned him was between two

Mexican women, and as he sunk into the apparently insufficient space

there was a look of consternation in their faces--and I was not

surprised at it. But scrouging in, the newcomer smiled, and addressed

first one and then another of his fellow-passengers with so much

friendly pleasantness of manner that the frowns cleared away from their

faces, even the stolid, phlegmatic Chinamen brightening up with the

contagious good humor of the "big Mellican man." When the driver cracked

his whip, and the spirited mustangs struck off in the California gallop

--the early Californians scorned any slower gait--everybody was

smiling. Staging in California in those days was often an exciting

business. There were "opposition" lines on most of the thoroughfares,

and the driving was furious and reckless in the extreme. Accidents were

strangely seldom when we consider the rate of speed, the nature of the

roads, and the quantity of bad whisky consumed by most of the drivers.

Many of these drivers made it a practice to drink at every

stopping-place. Seventeen drinks were counted in one forenoon ride by

one of these thirsty Jehus. The racing between the rival stages was

exciting enough. Lashing the wiry little horses to full speed, there was

but one thought, and that was, to "get in ahead." A driver named White

upset his stage between Montezuma and Knight's Ferry on the Stanislaus,

breaking his right-leg above the knee. Fortunately none of the

passengers were seriously hurt, though some of them were a little

bruised and frightened. The stage was righted, White resumed the reins,

whipped his horses into a run, and, with his broken limb hanging loose,

ran into town ten minutes ahead of his rival, fainting as he was lifted

from the seat.

"Old man Holden told me to go in ahead or smash everything, and I made

it!" exclaimed White, with professional pride.

The Bishop was fortunate enough to escape with unbroken bones as he

dashed from point to point over the California hills and valleys, though

that heavy body of his was mightily shaken up on many occasions.

He came to California on his second visit, in 1863, when the war was

raging. An incident occurred that gave him a very emphatic reminder that

those were troublous times.

He was at a camp-meeting in the San Joaquin Valley, near Linden--a

place famous for gatherings of this sort. The Bishop was to preach at

eleven o'clock, and a great crowd was there, full of high expectation. A

stranger drove up just before the hour of service--a broad shouldered

man in blue clothes, and wearing a glazed cap. He asked to see Bishop

Kavanaugh privately for a few moments.

They retired to "the preachers' tent," and the stranger said:

"My name is Jackson--Colonel Jackson, of the United States Army. I have

a disagreeable duty to perform. By order of General McDowell, I am to

place you under arrest, and take you to San Francisco."

"Can you wait until I preach my sermon?" asked the Bishop,

good-naturedly; "the people expect it, and I don't want to disappoint

them if it can be helped."

"How long will it take you?"

"Well, I am a little uncertain when I get started, but I will try not to

be too long."

"Very well; go on with your sermon, and if you have no objection I will

be one of your hearers."

The secret was known only to the Bishop and his captor. The sermon was

one of his best--the vast crowd of people were mightily moved, and the

Colonel's eyes were not dry when it closed. After a prayer, and a song,

and a collection, the Bishop stood up again before the people, and said:

"I have just received a message which makes it necessary for me to

return to San Francisco immediately. I am sorry that I cannot remain

longer, and participate with you in the hallowed enjoyments of the

occasion. The blessing of God be with you, my brethren and sisters."

His manner was so bland, and his tone so serene, that nobody had the

faintest suspicion as to what it was that called him away so suddenly.

When he drove off with the stranger, the popular surmise was that it was

a wedding or a funeral that called for such haste. These are two events

in human life that admit of no delays: people must be buried, and they

will be married.

The Bishop reported to General Mason, Provost-marshal General, and was

told to hold himself as in duress until further orders, and to be ready

to appear at headquarters at short notice when called for. He was put on

parole, as it were. He came down to San Jose and stirred my congregation

with several of his powerful discourses. In the meantime the arrest had

gotten into the newspapers. Nothing that happens escapes the California

journalists, and they have even been known to get hold of things that

never happened at all. It seems that someone in the shape of a man had

made an affidavit that Bishop Kavanaugh had come to the Pacific Coast as

a secret agent of the Southern Confederacy, to intrigue and recruit in

its interest! Five minutes' inquiry would have satisfied General

McDowell of the silliness of such a charge--but it was in war times,

and he did not stop to make the inquiry. In Kentucky the good old Bishop

had the freedom of the whole land, coming and going without hinderance;

but the fact was, he had not been within the Confederate lines since the

war began. To make such an accusation against him was the climax of

absurdity.

About three weeks after the date of his arrest, I was with the Bishop

one morning on our way to Judge Moore's beautiful country-seat, near San

Jose, situated on the far-famed Alameda. The carriage was driven by a

black man named Henry. Passing the post-office, I found, addressed to

the Bishop in my care, a huge document bearing the official stamp of the

provost-marshal's office, San Francisco. He opened and read it as we

drove slowly along, and as he did so he brightened up, and turning to

Henry, said:

"Henry, were you ever a slave?"

"Yes, sah; in Mizzoory," said Henry, showing his white teeth.

"Did you ever get your free-papers?"

"Yes, sah--got 'em now."

"Well, I have got mine--let's shake hands."

And the Bishop and Henry had quite a handshaking over this mutual

experience. Henry enjoyed it greatly, as his frequent chucklings evinced

while the Judge's fine bays were trotting along the Alameda.

(I linger on the word Alameda as I write it. It is at least one

beneficent trace of the early Jesuit Fathers who founded the San Jose

and Santa Clara missions a hundred years ago. They planted an avenue of

willows the entire three miles, and in that rich, moist soil the trees

have grown until their trunks are of enormous size, and their branches,

overarching the highway with their dense shade, make a drive of

unequaled beauty and pleasantness. The horse-cars have now taken away

much of its romance, but in the early days it was famous for moonlight

drives and their concomitants and consequences. A long-limbed

four-year-old California colt gave me a romantic touch of a different

sort, nearly the last time I was on the Alameda, by running away with

the buggy, and breaking it and me--almost--to pieces. I am reminded of

it by the pain in my crippled right-shoulder as I write these lines in

July, 1881. But still I say, Blessings on the memory of the Fathers who

planted the willows on the Alameda!)

An intimation was given the Bishop that if he wanted the name of the

false-swearer who had caused him to be arrested he could have it.

"No, I don't want to know his name," said he; "it will do me no good to

know it. May God pardon his sin, as I do most heartily!"

A really strong preacher preaches a great many sermons, each of which

the hearers claim to be the greatest sermon of his life. I have heard of

at least a half dozen "greatest" sermons by Bascom and Pierce, and other

noted pulpit orators. But I heard one sermon by Kavanaugh that was

probably indeed his master-effort. It had a history. When the Bishop

started to Oregon, in 1863, I placed in his hands Bascom's Lectures,

which, strange to say, he had never read. Of these Lectures the elder

Dr. Bond said "they would be the colossal pillars of Bascom's fame when

his printed sermons were forgotten." Those Lectures wonderfully

anticipated the changing phases of the materialistic infidelity

developed since his day, and applied to them the reductio ad absurdum

with relentless and resistless power. On his return from Oregon,

Kavanaugh met and presided over the Annual Conference at San Jose. One

of his old friends, who was troubled with skeptical thoughts of the

materialistic sort, requested him to preach a sermon for his special

benefit. This request, and the previous reading of the Lectures,

directed his mind to the topic suggested with intense earnestness. The

result was, as I shall always think, the sermon of a lifetime. The text

was, There is a spirit in man; and the inspiration of the Almighty

giveth them understanding. (Job xxxii. 8.) That mighty discourse was a

demonstration of the truth of the affirmation of the text. I will not

attempt to reproduce it here, though many of its passages are still

vivid in my memory. It tore to shreds the sophistries by which it was

sought to sink immortal man to the level of the brutes that perish; it

appealed to the consciousness of his hearers in red-hot logic that

burned its way to the inmost depths of the coldest and hardest hearts;

it scintillated now and then sparkles of wit like the illuminated edges

of an advancing thundercloud; borne, on the wings of his imagination,

whose mighty sweep took him beyond the bounds of earth, through whirling

worlds and burning suns, he found the culmination of human destiny, in

the bosom of eternity, infinity, and God. The peroration was

indescribable. The rapt audience reeled under it. Inspiration! the man

of God was himself its demonstration, for the power of his word was not

his own.

"O I thank God that be sent me here this day to hear that sermon! I

never heard any thing like it, and I shall never forget it, or cease to

be thankful that I heard it," said the Rev. Dr. Charles Wadsworth, of

Philadelphia, the great Presbyterian preacher--a man of genius, and a

true prose-poet, as any one will concede after reading his published

sermons. As he spoke, the tears were in his eyes, the muscles of his

face quivering, and his chest heaving with irrepressible emotion. Nobody

who heard that discourse will accuse me of too high coloring in this

brief description of it.

"Don't you wish you were a Kentuckian?" was the enthusiastic exclamation

of a lady who brought from Kentucky a matchless wit and the culture of

Science Hill Academy, which has blessed and brightened so many homes

from the Ohio to the Sacramento.

I think the Bishop was present on another occasion when the compliment

he received was a left-handed one. It was at the Stone Church in Suisun

Valley. The Bishop and a number of the most prominent ministers of the

Pacific Conference were present at a Saturday-morning preaching

appointment. They had all been engaged in protracted labors, and,

beginning with the Bishop, one after another declined to preach. The lot

fell at last upon a boyish-looking brother of very small stature, who

labored under the double disadvantage of being a very young preacher,

and of having been reared in the immediate vicinity. The people were

disappointed and indignant when they saw the little fellow go into the

pulpit. None showed their displeasure more plainly than Uncle Ben Brown,

a somewhat eccentric old brother, who was one of the founders of that

Society, and one of its best official members. He sat as usual on a

front seat, his thick eyebrows fiercely knit, and his face wearing a

heavy frown. He had expected to hear the Bishop, and this was what it

had come to! He drew his shoulders sullenly down, and, with his eyes

bent upon the floor, nursed his wrath. The little preacher began his

sermon, and soon astonished everybody by the energy with which he spoke.

As he proceeded, the frown on Uncle Ben's face relaxed a little; at

length he lifted his eyes and glanced at the speaker in surprise. He did

not think it was in him. With abnormal fluency and force, the little

preacher went on with the increasing sympathy of his audience, who were

feeling the effects of a generous reaction in his favor. Uncle Ben,

touched a little with honest obstinacy as he was, gradually relaxed in

the sternness of his looks, straightening up by degrees until he sat

upright facing the speaker in a sort of half-reluctant, pleased wonder.

Just at the close of a specially vigorous burst of declamation, the old

man exclaimed, in a loud voice:

"Bless God! he uses the weak things of this world to confound the

mighty!" casting around a triumphant glance at the Bishop and other

preachers.

This impromptu remark was more amusing to the hearers than helpful to

the preacher, I fear; but it was away the dear old brother had of

speaking out in meeting.

I must end this Sketch. I have dipped my pen in my heart in writing it.

The subject of it has been friend, brother, father, to me since the day

he looked in upon us in the little cabin on the hill in Sonora, in 1855.

When I greet him on the hills of heaven, he will not be sorry to be told

that among the many in the far West to whom he was helpful was the

writer of this too imperfect Sketch.

Sanders.

He belonged to the Church militant. In looks he was a cross between a

grenadier and a Trappist. But there was more soldier than monk in his

nature. He was over six feet high, thin as a bolster, and straight as a

long-leaf pine. His anatomy was strongly conspicuous. He was the boniest

of men. There were as many angles as inches in the lines of his face.

His hair disdained the persuasions of comb or brush, and rose in tangled

masses above a head that would have driven a phrenologist mad. It was a

long head in every sense. His features were strong and stern, his nose

one that would have delighted the great Napoleon--it was a grand organ.

You said at once, on looking at him, Here is a man that fears neither

man nor devil. The face was an honest face. When you looked into those

keen, dark eyes, and read the lines of that stormy countenance, you felt

that it would be equally impossible for him to tell a lie or to fear the

face of man.

This was John Sanders, one of the early California Methodist preachers.

He went among the first to preach the gospel to the gold-hunters. He got

a hearing where some failed. His sincerity and brainpower commanded

attention, and his pluck enforced respect. In one case it seemed to be

needed.

He was sent to preach in Placerville, popularly called in the old days,

"Hangtown." It was then a lively and populous place. The mines were

rich, and gold-dust was abundant as good behavior was scarce. The one

church in the town was a "union church," and it was occupied by Sanders

and a preacher of another sect on alternate Sundays. All went well for

many months, and if there were no sinners converted in that camp, the

few saints were at peace. It so happened that Sanders was called away

for a week or two, and on his return he found that a new preacher had

been sent to the place, and that he had made an appointment to preach on

his (Sanders's) regular day. Having no notion of yielding his rights,

Sanders also inserted a notice in the papers of the town that he would

preach at the same time and place. The thing was talked about in the

town and vicinity, and there was a buzz of excitement. The miners,

always ready for a sensation, became interested, and when Sunday came

the church could not hold the crowd. The strange preacher arrived first,

entered the pulpit, knelt a few moments in silent devotion, according to

custom, and then sat and surveyed the audience which was surveying him

with curious interest. He was a tall, fine-looking man, almost the equal

of Sanders in height, and superior to him in height. He was a Kentuckian

originally, but went from Ohio to California, and was a full-grown man,

of the best Western physical type. In a little while Sanders entered the

church, made his way through the dense crowd, ascended the pulpit, cast

a sharp glance at the intruder, and sat down. There was a dead silence.

The two preachers gazed at the congregation; the congregation gazed at

the preachers. A pin might have been heard to fall. Sanders was as

imperturbable as a statue, but his lips were pressed together tightly,

and there was a blaze in his eyes. The strange preacher showed signs of

nervousness, moving his hands and feet, and turning this way and that in

his seat. It was within five minutes of the time for opening the

service. The stranger rose, and was in the act of taking hold of the

Bible that lay on the cushion in front of him, when Sanders rose to his

full height, stepped in front of him, and darting lightning from his

eyes as he looked him full in the face, said:

"I preach here today, sir!"

That settled it. There was no mistaking that look or tone. The tall

stranger muttered an inarticulate protest and subsided. Sanders

proceeded with the service, making no allusion to the difficulty until

it was ended. Then he proposed a meeting of the citizens the next

evening to adjudicate the case. The proposal was acceded to. The church

was again crowded; and though ecclesiastically Sanders was in the

minority, with the genuine love for fair-play which is a trait of

Anglo-Saxon character, he was sustained by an overwhelming majority. It

is likely, too, that his plucky bearing the, day before made him some

votes. A preacher who would fight for his rights suited those wild

fellows better than one who would assert a claim that he would not

enforce. Sanders preached to larger audiences after this episode in his

"Hangtown" pastorate.

It was after this that he went out one day to stake off a lot on which

he proposed to build a house of worship. It was near the Roman Catholic

Church. A zealous Irishman, who was a little more than half drunk, was

standing by. Evidently he did not like any such heretical movements,

and, after Sanders had placed the stake in the earth, the Hibernian

stepped forward and pulled it up.

"I put the stake back in its place. He pulled it up again. I put it

back. He pulled it up again. I put it back once more. He got fiery mad

by this time, and started at me with an ax in his hand. I had an ax in

my hand, and as its handle was longer than his, I cut him down."

The poor fellow had waked up the fighting preacher, and fell before the

sweep of Sanders's ax. He dodged as the weapon descended, and saved his

life by doing so. He got an ugly wound on the shoulder, and kept his bed

for many weeks. When he rose from his bed he had a profound regard for

Sanders, whose grit excited his admiration. There was not a particle of

resentment in his generous Irish heart. He became a sober man, and it

was afterward a current pleasantry among the "boys" that he was

converted by the use of the carnal weapon wielded by that spunky parson.

Nobody blamed Sanders for his part in the matter. It was a fair fight,

and he had the right on his side. Had he shown the white feather, that

would have damaged him with a community in whose estimation courage as

the cardinal virtue. Sanders was popular with all classes, and

Placerville remembers him to this day. He was no rose-water divine, but

thundered the terrors of the law into the ears of those wild fellows

with the boldness of a John the Baptist. Many a sinner quaked under his

stern logic and fiery appeals, and some repented.

I shall never forget a sermon he preached at San Jose. He was in bad

health, and his mind was morbid and gloomy. His text was, Who hath

hardened himself against him, and hath prospered? (Job ix. 4.) The

thought that ran through the discourse was the certainty that

retribution would overtake the guilty. God's law will be upheld. It

protects the righteous, but must crush the disobedient. He swept away

the sophisms by which men persuade themselves that they can escape the

penalty of violated law; and it seemed as if we could almost hear the

crash of the tumbling wrecks of hopes built on false foundations. God

Almighty was visible on the throne of his power, armed with the even

thunders of his wrath.

"Who hath defied God and escaped?" he demanded, with flashing eyes and

trumpet voice. And then he recited the histories of nations and men that

had made the fatal experiment, and the doom that had whelmed them in

utter ruin.

"And yet you hope to escape!" he thundered to the silent and awestruck

men and women before him. "You expect that God will abrogate his law to

please you; that he will tear down the pillars of his moral government

that you may be saved in your sins! O fools, fools, fools! there is no

place but hell for such a folly as this!"

His haggard face, the stern solemnity of his voice, the sweep of his

long arms, the gleam of his deep-set eyes, and the vigor of his

inexorable logic, drove that sermon home to the listeners.

He was the keenest of critics, and often merciless. He was present at a

camp-meeting near San Jose, but too feeble to preach. I was there, and

disabled from, the effects of the California poison-oak. That deceitful

shrub! Its pink leaves smile at you as pleasantly as sin, and, like sin,

it leaves its sting. The "preachers' tent" was immediately in the rear

of "the stand," and Sanders and I lay inside and listened to the

sermons. He was in one of his caustic moods, and his comments were racy

enough, though not helpful to devotion.

"There! he yelled, clapped his hands, stamped, and--said nothing!"

The criticism was just: the brother in the stand was making a great

noise, but there was not much meaning in what he said.

"He made one point only--a pretty good apology for Lazarus's poverty."

This was said at the close of an elaborate discourse on "The Rich Man

and Lazarus," by a brother who sometimes got "in the brush."

"He isn't touching his text--he knows no more theology than a

guinea-pig. Words, words, words!"

This last criticism was directed against a timid young divine, who was

badly frightened, but who has since shown that there was good metal in

him. If he had known what was going on just behind him, he would have

collapsed entirely in that tentative effort at preaching the gospel.

Sanders kept up this running fire of criticism at every service, cutting

to the bone, at every blow, and giving me new light on homiletics, if he

did not promote my enjoyment of the preaching. He had read largely and

thought deeply, and his incisive intellect had no patience with what was

feeble or pointless.

Disease settled upon his lungs, and he rapidly declined. His strong

frame grew thinner and thinner, and his mind alternated between moods of

morbid bitterness and transient buoyancy. As the end approached, his

bitter moods were less frequent, and an unwonted tenderness came into

his words and tones. He went to the Lokonoma Springs, in the hills of

Napa county, and in their solitudes he adjusted himself to the great

change that was drawing near. The capacious blue sky that arched above

him, the sighing of the gentle breeze through the solemn pines, the

repose of the encircling mountains, bright with sunrise, or purpling in

the twilight, distilled the soothing influences of nature into his

spirit, and there was a great calm within. Beyond those California hills

the hills of God rose in their supernal beauty before the vision of his

faith, and when the summons came for him one midnight, his soul leaped

to meet it in a ready and joyous response. On a white marble slab, at

the "Stone Church," in Suisun Valley, is this inscription:

Rev. John Sanders.

Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivereth him

out of them all.

The spring flowers were blooming on the grave when I saw it last.

A Day.

Ah, that blessed, blessed day! I had gone to the White Sulphur Springs,

in Napa County, to get relief from the effects of the California

poison-oak. Gay deceiver! With its tender green and pink leaves, it

looks as innocent and smiling as sin when it woos youth and ignorance.

Like sin, it is found everywhere in that beautiful land. Many antidotes

are used, but the only sure way of dealing with it is to keep away from

it. Again, there is an analogy: it is easier to keep out of sin than to

get out when caught. These soft, pure white sulphur waters work miracles

of healing, and attract all sorts of people. The weary and broken down

man of business comes here to sleep, and eat, and rest; the woman of

fashion, to dress and flirt; the loudly-dressed and heavily-bejeweled

gambler, to ply his trade; happy bridal couples, to have the world to

themselves; successful and unsuccessful politicians, to plan future

triumphs or brood over defeats; pale and trembling invalids, to seek

healing or a brief respite from the grave; families escaping from the

wind and fog of the bay, to spend a few weeks where they can find

sunshine and quiet--it is a little world in itself. The spot is every

way beautiful, but its chief charm is its isolation. Though within a

few hours' ride of San Francisco, and only two miles from a

railroad-station, you feel as if you were in the very heart of nature

--and so you are. Winding along the banks of a sparkling stream, the

mountains--great masses of leafy green--rise abruptly on either hand;

the road bends this way and that until a sudden turn brings you to a

little valley hemmed in all around by the giant hills. A bold, rocky

projection just above the main hotel gives a touch of ruggedness and

grandeur to the scene. How delicious the feeling of rest that comes over

you at once!--the world shut out, the hills around, and the sky above.

It was in 1863, when the civil war was at its white heat. Circumstances

had given me undesired notoriety in that connection. I had been thrust

into the very vortex of its passion, and my name made the rallying-cry

of opposing elements in California. The guns of Manassas, Cedar

Mountain, and the Chickahominy, were echoed in the foothills of the

Sierras, and in the peaceful valleys of the far-away Pacific Coast. The

good sense of a practical, people prevented any flagrant outbreak on a

large scale, but here and there a too ardent Southerner said or did

something that gave him a few weeks' or months' duress at Fort Alcatraz,

and the honors of a bloodless martyrdom. I was then living at North

Beach, in full sight of that fortress. It was kindly suggested by

several of my brother editors that it would be a good place for me.

When, as my eye swept over the bay in the early morning, the first sight

that met my gaze was its rocky ramparts and bristling guns, the poet's

line would come to mind: "'T is distance lends enchantment to the view."

I was just as close as I wanted to be. "I have good quarters for you,"

said the brave and courteous Captain McDougall, who was in command at

the fort; "and knowing your penchant, I will let you have the freedom of

a sunny corner of the island for fishing in good weather." The true

soldier is sometimes a true gentleman.

The name and image of another Federal officer rise before me as I write.

It is that of the heroic soldier, General Wright, who went down with the

"Brother Jonathan," on the Oregon coast, in 1865. He was in command of

the Department of the Pacific during this stormy period of which I am

speaking. I had never seen him, and I had no special desire to make his

acquaintance. Somehow Fort Alcatraz had become associated with his name

for reasons already intimated. But, though unsought by me, an interview

did take place.

"It has come at last!" was my exclamation as I read the note left by an

orderly in uniform notifying me that I was expected to report at the

quarters of the commanding-general the next day at ten o'clock.

Conscious of my innocence of treason or any other crime against the

Government or society, my pugnacity was roused by this summons. Before

the hour set for my appearance at the military headquarters, I was ready

for martyrdom or any thing else except Alcatraz. I didn't like that. The

island was too small, and too foggy and windy, for my taste. I thought

it best to obey the order I had received, and so, punctually at the

hour, I repaired to the headquarters on Washington Street, and ascending

the steps with a firm tread and defiant feeling, I entered the room.

General Mason, provost-marshal, a scholar and polished gentleman,

politely offered me a seat.

"No; I prefer to stand," I said stiffly.

"The General will see you in a few minutes," said he, resuming his work,

while I stood nursing my indignation and sense of wrong.

In a little while General Wright entered--a tall and striking figure,

silver-haired, blue-eyed, ruddy faced, with a mixture of the dash of the

soldier and the benignity of a bishop.

Declining also his cordial invitation to be seated, I stood and looked

at him, still nursing defiance, and getting ready to wear a martyr's

crown. The General spoke:

"Did you know, sir, that I am perhaps the most attentive reader of your

paper to be found in California?"

"No; I was not aware that I had the honor of numbering the

commanding-general of this department among my readers." (This was

spoken with severe dignity.)

"A lot of hotheads have for sometime been urging me to have you arrested

on the ground that you are editing and publishing a disloyal newspaper.

Not wishing to do any injustice to a fellowman, I have taken means every

week to obtain a copy of your paper, the Pacific Methodist; and allow me

to say, sir, that no paper has ever come into my family which is such a

favorite with all of us."

I bowed, feeling that the spirit of martyrdom was cooling within me. The

General continued:

"I have sent for you, sir, that I might say to you, Go on in your

present prudent and manly course, and while I command this department

you are as safe as I am."

There I stood, a whipped man, my pugnacity all gone, and the martyr's

crown away out of my reach. I walked softly downstairs, after bidding

the General an adieu in a manner in marked contrast to that in which I

had greeted him at the beginning of the interview. Now that it is all

over, and the ocean winds have wailed their dirges for him so many long

years, I would pay a humble tribute to the memory of as brave and

knightly a man as ever wore epaulettes or fought under the stars and

stripes. He was of the type of Sidney Johnston, who fell at Shiloh, and

of McPherson, who fell at Kennesaw--all Californians; all Americans,

true soldiers, who had a sword for the foe in fair fight in the open

field, and a shield for woman, and for the noncombatant, the aged, the

defenseless. They fought on different sides to settle forever a quarrel

that was bequeathed to their generation, but their fame is the common

inheritance of the American people. The reader is beginning to think I

am digressing, but he will better understand what is to come after

getting this glimpse of those stormy days in the sixties.

The guests at the Springs were about equally divided in their sectional

sympathies. The gentlemen were inclined to avoid all exciting

discussions, but the ladies kept up a fire of small arms. When the mails

came in, and the latest news was read, comments were made with flashing

eyes and flushed cheeks.

The Sabbath morning dawned without a cloud. I awoke with the earliest

song of the birds, and was out before the first rays of the sun had

touched the mountaintops. The coolness was delicious, and the air was

filled with the sweet odors of aromatic shrubs and flowers, with a hint

of the pine-forests and balsam-thickets from the higher altitudes.

Taking a breakfast solus, pocket-bible in hand I bent my steps up the

gorge, often crossing the brook that wound its way among the thickets or

sung its song at the foot of the great overhanging cliffs. A shining

trout would now and then flash like a silver bar for a moment above the

shaded pools. With light step a doe descending the mountain came upon

me, and, gazing at me a moment or two with its soft eyes, tripped away.

In a narrow pass where the stream rippled over the pebbles between two

great walls of rock, a spotted snake crossed my path, hurrying its

movement in fright. Fear not, humble ophidian. The war declared between

thee and me in the fifteenth verse of the third chapter of Genesis is

suspended for this one day. Let no creature die today but by the act of

God. Here is the lake. How beautiful! how still! A landslide had dammed

the stream where it flowed between steep, lofty banks, backing the

waters over a little valley three or four acres in extent, shut in on

all sides by the wooded hills, the highest of which rose from its

northern margin. Here is my sanctuary, pulpit, choir, and altar. A

gigantic pine had fallen into the lake, and its larger branches served

to keep the trunk above the water as it lay parallel with the shore.

Seated on its trunk, and shaded by some friendly willows that stretch

their graceful branches above, the hours pass in a sort of subdued

ecstasy of enjoyment. It is peace, the peace of God. No echo of the

world's discords reaches me. The only sound I hear is the cooing of a

turtledove away off in a distant gorge of the mountain. It floats down

to me on the Sabbath air with a pathos as if it voiced the pity of

Heaven for the sorrows of a world of sin, and pain, and death. The

shadows of the pines are reflected in the pellucid depths, and ever and

anon the faintest hint of a breeze sighs among their branches overhead.

The lake lies without a ripple below, except when from time to time a

gleaming trout throws himself out of the water, and, falling with a

splash, disturbs the glassy surface, the concentric circles showing

where he went down. Sport on, ye shiny denizens of the deep; no angler

shall cast his deceitful hook into your quiet haunts this day. Through

the foliage of the overhanging boughs the blue sky is spread, a thin,

fleecy cloud at times floating slowly along like a watching angel, and

casting a momentary shadow upon the watery mirror below. That sky, so

deep and so solemn, woos me--lifts my thought till it touches the

Eternal. What mysteries of being lie beyond that sapphire sea? What

wonders shall burst upon the vision when this mortal shall put on

immortality? I open the Book and read. Isaiah's burning song makes new

music to my soul attuned. David's harp sounds a sweeter note. The words

of Jesus stir to diviner depths. And when I read in the twenty-first

chapter of Revelation the Apocalyptic promise of the new heavens and the

new earth, and of the New Jerusalem coming down from God out of heaven,

a new glory seems to rest upon sky, mountain forest, and lake, and my

soul is flooded with a mighty joy. I am swimming in the Infinite Ocean.

Not beyond that vast blue canopy is heaven; it is within my own ravished

heart! Thus the hours pass, but I keep no note of their flight, and the

evening shadows are on the water before I come back to myself and the

world. O hallowed day! O hallowed spot! foretaste and prophecy to the

weary and burden-bowed soul of the new heavens and the new earth where

its blessed ideal shall be a more blessed reality!

It is nearly dark when I get back to the hotel. Supper is over, but I am

not hungry--I have feasted on the bread of angels.

"Did you know there was quite a quarrel about you this morning?" asks

one of the guests.

The words jar. In answer to my look of inquiry, he proceeds:

"There was a dispute about your holding a religious service at the

picnic grounds. They made it a political matter--one party threatened

to leave if you did preach, the other threatened to leave if you did not

preach. There was quite an excitement about it until it was found that

you were gone, and then everybody quieted down."

There is a silence. I break it by telling them how I spent the day, and

then they are very quiet.

The next Sabbath every soul at the place united in a request for a

religious service, the list headed by a high-spirited and brilliant

Pennsylvania lady who had led the opposing forces the previous Sunday.

Winter-Blossomed.

I think I saw him the first Sunday I preached in San Jose, in 1856. He

was a notable-looking man. I felt attracted toward him by that

indefinable sympathy that draws together two souls born to be friends. I

believe in friendship at first sight. Who that ever had a real friend

does not? Love at first sight is a different thing--it may be divine

and eternal, or it may be a whim or a passing fancy. Passion blurs and

blinds in the region of sexual love: friendship is revealed in its own

white light.

I was introduced after the service to the stranger who had attracted my

attention, and who had given the youthful preacher such a kind and

courteous hearing.

"This is Major McCoy."

He was a full head higher than anybody else as he stood in the aisle. He

bowed with courtly grace as he took my hand, and his face lighted with a

smile that had in it something more than a conventional civility. I felt

that there was a soul beneath that dignified and courtly exterior. His

head displayed great elevation of the cranium, and unusual breadth of

forehead. It was what is called an intellectual head; and the lines

around the eyes showed the traces of thought, and, as it seemed to me, a

tinge of that sadness that nearly always lends its charm to the best

faces.

"I have met a man that I know I shall like," was my gratified

exclamation to the mistress of the parsonage, as I entered.

And so it turned out. He became one of the select circle to whom I

applied the word friend in the sacredest sense. This inner circle can

never be large. If you unduly enlarge it you dilute the quality of this

wine of life. We are limited. There is only One Heart large enough to

hold all humanity in its inmost depths.

My new friend lived out among the sycamores on the New Almaden Road, a

mile from the city, and the cottage in which he lived with his cultured

and loving household was one of the social paradises of that beautiful

valley in which the breezes are always cool, and the flowers never fade.

My friend interested me more and more. He had been a soldier, and in the

Mexican war won distinction by his skill and valor. He was with Joe Lane

and his gallant Indianians at Juamantla, and his name was specially

mentioned among those whose fiery onsets had broken the lines of the

swarthy foe, and won against such heavy odds the bloody field. He was

seldom absent from church on Sunday morning, and now and then his

inquiring, thoughtful face would be seen in my smaller audience at

night. One unwelcome fact about him pained me, while it deepened my

interest in him.

He was a skeptic. Bred to the profession of medicine and surgery, he

became bogged in the depths of materialistic doubt. The microscope drew

his thoughts downward until he could not see beyond second causes. The

soul, the seat of which the scalpel could not find, he feared did not

exist. The action of the brain, like that of the heart and lungs, seemed

to him to be functional; and when the organ perished did not its

function cease forever? He doubted the fact of immortality, but did not

deny it. This doubt clouded his life. He wanted to believe. His heart

rebelled against the negations of materialism, but his intellect was

entangled in its meshes. The Great Question was ever in his thought, and

the shadow was ever on his path. He read much on both sides, and was

always ready to talk with any from whom he had reason to hope for new

light or a helpful suggestion. Did he also pray? We took many long rides

and had many long talks together. Pausing under the shade of a tree on

the highway, the hours would slip away while we talked of life and

death, and weighed the pros and cons of the mighty hope that we might

live again, until the sun would be sinking into the sea behind the Santa

Cruz Mountains, whose shadows were creeping over the valley. He believed

in a First Cause. The marks of design in Nature left in his mind no room

to doubt that there was a Designer.

"The structure and adaptations of the horse harnessed to the buggy in

which we sit, exhibit the infinite skill of a Creator."

On this basis I reasoned with him in behalf of all that is precious to

Christian faith and hope, trying to show (what I earnestly believe)

that, admitting the existence of God, it is illogical to stop short of a

belief in revelation and immortality.

The rudest workman would not fling The fragments of his work away, If

every useless bit of clay He trod on were a sentient thing.

And does the Wisest Worker take Quick human hearts, instead of stone,

And hew and carve them one by one, Nor heed the pangs with which they

break?

And more: if but creation's waste, Would he have given us sense to yearn

For the perfection none can earn, And hope the fuller life to taste?

I think, if we most cease to be, It is cruelty refined To make the

instincts of our mind Stretch out toward eternity.

Wherefore I welcome Nature's cry, As earnest of a life again, Where

thought shall never be in vain, And doubt before the light shall fly.

My talks with him were helpful to me if not to him. In trying to remove

his doubts my own faith was confirmed, and my range of thought enlarged.

His reverent spirit left its impress upon mine.

"McCoy is a more religious man than either you or I, Doctor," said Tod

Robinson to me one day in reply to a remark in which I had given

expression to my solicitude for my doubting friend.

Yes, strange as it may seem, this man who wrestled with doubts that

wrung his soul with intense agony, and walked in darkness under the veil

of unbelief; had a healthful influence upon me because the attitude of

his soul was that of a reverent inquirer, not that of a scoffer.

The admirable little treatise of Bishop McIlvaine, on the "Evidences of

Christianity," cleared away some of his difficulties. A sermon of Bishop

Kavanaugh, preached at his request, was a help to him. (That wonderful

discourse is spoken of elsewhere in this volume.)

A friend of his lay dying at Redwood City. This friend, like himself;

was a skeptic, and his doubts darkened his way as he neared the border

of the undiscovered country. McCoy went to see him. The sick man, in the

freedom of long friendship, opened his mind to him. The arguments of the

good Bishop were yet fresh in McCoy's mind, and the echoes of his mighty

appeals were still sounding in his heart. Seated by the dying man, he

forgot his own misgivings, and with intense earnestness pointed the

struggling soul to the Saviour of sinners.

"I did not intend it, but I was impelled by a feeling I could not

resist. I was surprised and strangely thrilled at my own words as I

unfolded to my friend the proofs of the truth of Christianity,

culminating in the incarnation, death, and resurrection, of Jesus

Christ. He seemed to have grasped the truths as presented, a great calm

came over him, and he died a believer. No incident of my life has given

me a purer pleasure than this; but it was a strange thing! Nobody could

have had access to him as I had--I, a doubter and a stumbler all my

life; it looks like the hand of God!"

His voice was low, and his eyes were wet as he finished the narration.

Yes, the hand of God was in it--it is in every good thing that takes

place on earth. By the bedside of a dying friend, the undercurrent of

faith in his warily and noble heart swept away for the time the

obstructions that were in his thought, and bore him to the feet of the

blessed, pitying Christ, who never breaks a bruised reed. I think he had

more light, and felt stronger ever after.

Death twice entered his home-circle--once to convey a budding flower

from the earth-home to the skies, and again like a lightning-stroke

laying young manhood low in a moment. The instinct within him, stronger

than doubt, turned his thought in those dark hours toward God. The ashes

of the earthly hopes that had perished in the fire of fierce calamity,

and the tears of a grief unspeakable, fertilized and watered the seed of

faith which was surely in his heart. The hot furnace-fire did not harden

this finely-tempered soul. But still he walked in darkness, doubting,

doubting, doubting all he most wished to believe. It was the infirmity

of his constitution, and the result of his surroundings. He went into

large business enterprises with mingled success and disappointment. He

went into politics, and though he bore himself nobly and gallantly, it

need not be said that that vortex does not usually draw those who are

within its whirl heavenward. He won some of the prizes that were fought

for in that arena where the noblest are in danger of being soiled, and

where the baser metal sinks surely to the bottom by the inevitable force

of moral gravitation.

From time to time we were thrown together, and I was glad to know that

the Great Question was still in his thought, and the hunger for truth

was still in his heart. Ill health sometimes made him irritable and

morbid, but the drift of his inner nature was unchanged. His mind was

enveloped in mists, and sometimes tempests of despair raged within him;

but his heart still thirsted for the water of life.

A painful and almost fatal railway accident befell him. He was taken to

his ranch among the quiet hills of Shasta County. This was the final

crisis in his life. Shut out from the world, and shut in with his own

thoughts and with God, he reviewed his life and the argument that had so

long been going on in his mind. He was now quiet enough to hear

distinctly the Still Small Voice whose tones he could only half discern

amid the clamors of the world when he was a busy actor on its stage.

Nature spoke to him among the hills, and her voice is God's. The great

primal instincts of the soul, repressed in the crowd or driven into the

background by the mob of petty cares and wants, now had free play in the

nature of this man whose soul had so long cried out of the depths for

the living God. He prayed the simple prayer of trust at which the gate

flies open for the believing soul to enter into the peace of God. He was

born into the new life. The flower that had put forth its abortive buds

for so many seasons, burst into full bloom at last. With the mighty joy

in his heart, and the light of the immortal hope beaming upon him, he

passed into the World of Certainties.

A Virginian in California.

"Hard at it, are you, uncle?"

"No, sah--I's workin' by de day, an' I an't a-hurtin' myself."

This answer was given with a jolly laugh as the old man leaned on his

pick and looked at me.

"You looked so much like home-folks that I felt like speaking to you.

Where are you from?"

"From Virginny, sah!" (pulling himself up to his full height as he

spoke). "Where's you from, Massa?"

"I was brought up partly in Virginia too?"

"Wbar'bouts, in Virginny?"

"Mostly in Lynchburg."

"Lynchburg! dat's whar I was fotched up. I belonged to de Widder Tate,

dat lived on de New London Road. Gib me yer han', Massa!"

He rushed up to the buggy, and taking my extended hand in his huge fist

he shook it heartily, grinning with delight.

This was Uncle Joe, a perfect specimen of the old Virginia "Uncle," who

had found his way to California in the early days. Yes, he was a perfect

specimen--black as night, his lower limbs crooked, arms long, hands and

feet very large. His mouth was his most striking feature. It was the

orator's mouth in size, being larger than that of Henry Clay--in fact,

it ran almost literally from ear to ear. When he opened it fully, it was

like lifting the lid of a box.

Uncle Joe and I became good friends at once. He honored my ministry with

his presence on Sundays. There was a touch of dandyism in him that then

and there came out. Clad in a blue broadcloth dress-coat of the olden

cut, vest to match, tight-fitting pantaloons, stove-pipe hat, and yellow

kid gloves, he was a gorgeous object to behold. He knew it, and there

was a pleasant self-consciousness in the way he bore himself in the

sanctuary.

Uncle Joe was the heartiest laugher I ever knew. He was always as full

of happy life as a frisky colt or a plump pig. When he entered a knot of

idlers on the streets, it was the signal or a humorous uproar. His

quaint sayings, witty repartee, and contagious laughter, never failed.

He was as agile as a monkey, and his dancing was a marvel. For a dime he

would "cut the pigeon wing," or give a "double-shuffle" or "breakdown"

in a way that made the beholder dizzy.

What was Uncle Joe's age nobody could guess--he had passed the line of

probable surmising. His own version of the matter on a certain occasion

was curious. We had a colored female servant--an old-fashioned aunty

from Mississippi--who, with a bandanna handkerchief on her head, went

about the house singing the old Methodist choruses so naturally that it

gave us a home-feeling to have her about us. Uncle Joe and Aunt Tishy

became good friends, and he got into the habit of dropping in at the

parsonage on Sunday evenings to escort her to church. On this particular

occasion I was in the little study adjoining the dining-room where Aunt

Tishy was engaged in cleaning away the dishes after tea. I was not

eavesdropping, but could not help hearing what they said. My name was

mentioned.

"O yes," said Uncle Joe; "I knowed Massa Fitchjarals back dar in

Virginny. I use ter hear 'im preach dar when I was a boy."

There was a silence. Aunt Tishy couldn't swallow that. Uncle Joe's

statement, if true, would have made me more than a hundred years old, or

brought him down to less than forty. The latter was his object; he

wanted to impress Aunt Tishy with the idea that he was young-enough to

be an eligible gallant to any lady. But it failed. That unfortunate

remark ruined Uncle Joe's prospects: Aunt Tishy positively refused to go

with him to church, and just as soon as he had left she went into the

sitting-room in high disgust, saying:

"What made dat nigger tell me a lie like dat? Tut, tut, tut!"

She cut him ever after, saying she would n't keep company with a liar,

"even if he was from de Souf." Aunt Tishy was a good woman, and had some

old-time notions. As a cook, she was discounted a little by the fact

that she used tobacco, and when it got into the gravy it was not

improving to its flavor.

Uncle Joe was in his glory at a dinner-party, where he could wait on the

guests, give droll answers to the remarks made to call him out, and

enliven the feast by his inimitable and "catching" laugh. In a certain

circle no occasion of the sort was considered complete without his

presence There was no such thing as dullness when he was about. His

peculiar wit or his simplicity was brought out at a dinner-party one day

at Dr. Bascom's. There was a large gathering of the leading families of

San Jose and vicinity, and Uncle Joe was there in his jolliest mood.

Mrs. Bascom, whose wit was then the quickest and keenest in all

California, presided, and enough good things were said to have made a

reputation for Sidney Smith or Douglas Jerrold. Mrs. Bascom, herself a

Virginian by extraction, had engaged in a laughing colloquy with Uncle

Joe, who stood near the head of the table waving a bunch of peacock's

feathers to keep off the flies.

"Missus, who is yer kinfolks back dar in Virginny, any way?"

The names of several were mentioned.

"Why, dem's big folks," said Uncle Joe.

"Yes," said she, laughingly; "I belong to the first families of

Virginia."

"I don't know 'bout dat, Missus. I was dar 'fore you was, an' I don't

'long to de fus' families!"

He looked at it from a chronological rather than a genealogical

standpoint, and, strange to say, the familiar phrase had never been

heard by him before.

Uncle Joe joined the Church. He was sincere in his profession. The proof

was found in the fact that he quit dancing. No more "pigeon wings,"

"double-shuffles," or "breakdowns," for him--he was a "perfessor." He

was often tempted by the offer of coin, but he stood firm.

"No, sah; I's done dancin', an' don't want to be discommunicated from de

Church," he would say, good-naturedly, as he shied off, taking himself

away from temptation.

A very high degree of spirituality could hardly be expected from Uncle

Joe at that late day; but he was a Christian after a pattern of his own

--kind-hearted, grateful, simple-minded, and full of good humor. His

strength gradually declined, and he was taken to the county hospital,

where his patience and cheerfulness conciliated and elicited kind

treatment from everybody. His memories went back to old Virginia, and

his hopes looked up to the heaven of which his notions were as simple as

those of a little child. In the simplicity of a child's faith he had

come to Jesus, and I doubt not was numbered among his little ones. Among

the innumerable company that shall be gathered on Mount Zion from every

kindred, tribe, and tongue, I hope to meet my humble friend, Uncle Joe.

At the End.

Among my acquaintances at San Jose, in 1863, was a young Kentuckian who

had come down from the mines in bad health. The exposure of mining-life

had been too severe for him. It took iron constitutions to stand all day

in almost ice-cold water up to the waist with a hot sun pouring down its

burning rays upon the head and upper part of the body. Many a poor

fellow sunk under it at once, and after a few days of fever and delirium

was taken to the top of an adjacent hill and laid to rest by the hands

of strangers. Others, crippled by rheumatic and neuralgic troubles,

drifted into the hospitals of San Francisco, or turned their faces sadly

toward the old homes which they had left with buoyant hopes and elastic

footsteps. Others still, like this young Kentuckian, came down into the

valleys with the hacking cough and hectic flush to make a vain struggle

against the destroyer that had fastened upon their vitals, nursing often

a vain hope of recovery to the very last. Ah, remorseless flatterer! as

I write these lines, the images of your victims crowd before my vision:

the strong men that grew weak, and pale, and thin, but fought to the

last inch for life; the noble youths who were blighted just as they

began to bloom; the beautiful maidens etherealized into almost more than

mortal beauty by the breath of the death-angel, as autumn leaves,

touched by the breath of winter, blush with the beauty of decay. My

young friend indulged no false hopes. He knew he was doomed to early

death, and did not shrink from the thought. One day, as we were

conversing in a store uptown, he said:

"I know that I have at most but a few months to live, and I want to

spend them in making preparation to die. You will oblige me by advising

me what books to read. I want to get clear views of what I am to do, and

then do it."

It need scarcely be said that I most readily complied with his request,

and that first and chiefly I advised him to consult the Bible, as the

light to his path and the lamp to his feet. Other books were suggested,

and a word with regard to prayerful reading was given, and kindly

received.

One day I went over to see my friend. Entering his room, I found him

sitting by the fire with it table by his side, on which was lying a

Bible. There was an unusual flush in his face, and his eye burned with

unusual brightness.

"How are you today?" I asked.

"I am annoyed, sir--I am indignant," he said.

"What is the matter?"

"Mr. ----, the--preacher, has just left me. He told me that my soul cannot

be saved unless I perform two miracles: I must, he said, think of

nothing but religion, and be baptized by immersion. I am very weak, and

cannot fully control my mental action--my thoughts will wander in spite

of myself. As to being put under the water, that would be immediate

death; it would bring on a hemorrhage of the lungs, and kill me."

He leaned his head on the table and panted for breath, his thin chest

heaving. I answered:

"Mr.--is a good man, but narrow. He meant kindly in the foolish words

he spoke to you. No man, sick or well, can so control the action of his

mind as to force his thoughts wholly into one channel. I cannot do it,

neither can any other man. God requires no such absurdity of you or

anybody else. As to being immersed, that seems to be a physical

impossibility, and he surely does not demand what is impossible. My

friend, it really makes little difference what Mr.--says,or what I say,

concerning this matter. What does God say? Let us see."

I took up the Bible, and he turned a face upon me expressing the most

eager interest. The blessed Book seemed to open of itself to the very

words that were wanted. "Like as a father pitieth his children, so the

Lord pitieth them that fear him." "He knoweth our frame, and remembereth

that we are dust." "Ho, everyone that thirsteth, come to the waters."

Glancing at him as I read, I was struck with the intensity of his look

as he drank in every word. A traveler dying of thirst in the desert

could not clutch a cup of cold water more eagerly than he grasped these

tender words of the pitying Father in heaven.

I read the words of Jesus: "Come unto me all ye that labor and are

heavy-laden, and I will give you rest." "Him that cometh unto me I will

in no wise east out."

"This is what God says to you, and these are the only conditions of

acceptance. Nothing is said about any thing but the desire of your heart

and the purpose of your soul. O my friend, these words are for you!"

The great truth flashed upon his mind, and flooded it with light. He

bent his head and wept. We knelt and prayed together, and when we rose

from our knees he said softly, as the tears stole, down his face:

"It is all right now--I see it clearly; I see it clearly!"

We quietly clasped hands, and sat in silent sympathy. There was no need

for any words from me; God had spoken, and that was enough. Our hearts

were singing together the song without words.

"You have found peace at the cross--let nothing disturb it," I said, as

he pressed my hand at the door as we left.

It never was disturbed. The days that had dragged so wearily and

anxiously during the long, long months, were now full of brightness. A

subdued joy shone in his face, and his voice was low and tender as he

spoke of the blessed change that had passed upon him. The Book whose

words had been light and life to him was often in his hand, or lay open

on the little table in his room. He never lost his hold upon the great

truth he had grasped, nor abated in the fullness of his joy. I was with

him the night he died. He knew the end was at hand, and the thought

filled him with solemn joy. His eyes kindled, and his wasted features

fairly blazed with rapture as he said, holding my hand with both of his:

"I am glad it will all soon, be over. My peace has been unbroken since

that morning when God sent you to me. I feel a strange, solemn joy a the

thought that I shall soon know all."

Before daybreak the great mystery was disclosed to him, and as he lay in

his coffin next day, the smile that lingered on his lips suggested the

thought that he had caught a hint of the secret while yet in the body.

Among the casual hearers that now and then dropped in to hear a sermon

in Sonora, in the early days of my ministry there, was a man who

interested me particularly. He was at that time editing one of the

papers of the town, which sparkled with the flashes of his versatile

genius. He was a true Bohemian, who had seen many countries, and knew

life in almost all its phases. He had written a book of adventure which

found many readers and admirers. An avowed skeptic, he was yet

respectful in his allusions to sacred things, and I am sure his

editorial notices of the pulpit efforts of a certain young preacher who

had much to learn were more than just. He was a brilliant talker, with a

vein of enthusiasm that was very delightful. His spirit was generous and

frank, and I never heard from his lips an unkind word concerning any

human being. Even his partisan editorials were free from the least tinge

of asperity--and this is a supreme test of a sweet and courteous

nature. In our talks he studiously evaded the one subject most

interesting to me. With gentle and delicate skill he parried all my

attempts to introduce the subject of religion in our conversations.

"I can't agree with you on that subject, and we will let it pass" he

would say, with a smile, and then he would start some other topic, and

rattle on delightfully in his easy, rapid way.

He could not stay long at a place, being a confirmed wanderer. He left

Sonora, and I lost sight of him. Retaining. a very kindly feeling for

this gentle-spirited and pleasant adventurer, I was loth thus to lose

all trace of him. Meeting a friend one day, on J Street, in the city of

Sacramento, he said:

"Your old friend D--is at the Golden Eagle hotel. You ought to go and

see him."

I went at once. Ascending to the third story, I found his room, and,

knocking at the door, a feeble voice bade me enter. I was shocked at the

spectacle that met my gaze. Propped in an armchair in the middle of the

room, wasted to a skeleton, and of a ghastly pallor, sat the unhappy

man. His eyes gleamed with an unnatural brightness, and his features

wore a look of intense suffering.

"You have come too late, sir," he said, before I had time to say a word.

"You can do me no good now. I have been sitting in this chair three

weeks. I could not live a minute in any other position, Hell could not

be worse than the tortures I have suffered! I thank you for coming to

see me, but you can do me no good--none, none!"

He paused, panting for breath; and then he continued, in a soliloquizing

way:

"I played the fool, making a joke of what was no joking matter. It is

too late. I can neither think nor pray, if praying would do any good. I

can only suffer, suffer, suffer!"

The painful interview soon ended. To every cheerful or hopeful

suggestion which I made he gave but the one reply:

"Too late!"

The unspeakable anguish of his look, as his eyes followed me to the

door, haunted me for many a day, and the echo of his words, "Too late!"

lingered sadly upon my ear. When I saw the announcement of his death, a

few days afterward, I asked myself the solemn question, Whether I had

dealt faithfully with this lighthearted, gifted man when he was within

my reach. His last rook is before me now, as I pencil these lines.

"John A--is dying over on the Portrero, and his family wants you to go

over and see him."

It was while I was pastor in San Francisco. A--was a member of my

Church, and lived on what was called the Portrero, in the southern part

of the city, beyond the Long Bridge. It was after night when I reached

the little cottage on the slope above the bay.

"He is dying and delirious," said a member of the family, as I entered

the room where the sick man lay. His wife, a woman of peculiar traits

and great religious fervor, and a large number of children and

grandchildren, were gathered in the dying man's chamber and the

adjoining rooms. The sick man--a man of large and powerful frame--was

restlessly tossing and roving his limbs, muttering incoherent words,

with now and then a burst of uncanny laughter. When shaken, he would

open his eyes for an instant, make some meaningless ejaculation, and

then they would close again. The wife was very anxious that he should

have a lucid interval while I was there.

"O I cannot bear to have him die without a word of farewell and

comfort!" she said, weeping.

The hours wore on, and the dying man's pulse showed that he was sinking

steadily. Still he lay unconscious, moaning and gibbering, tossing from

side to side as far as his failing strength permitted. His wife would

stand and gaze at him a few moments, and then walk the floor in agony.

"He can't last much longer," said a visitor, who felt his pulse and

found it almost gone, while his breathing became more labored. We waited

in silence. A thought seemed to strike the wife. Without saying a word,

she climbed upon the bed, took her dying husband's head upon her lap,

and, bending close above his face, began to sing. It was a melody I had

never heard before--low, and sweet, and quaint. The effect was weird

and thrilling as the notes fell tremulous from the singer's lips in the

hush of that dead hour of the night. Presently the dying man became more

quiet, and before the song was finished he opened his eyes as a smile

swept over his face, and as his glance fell on me I saw that he knew me.

He called my name, and looked up in the face that bent above his own,

and kissed it.

"Thank God!" his wife exclaimed, her hot tears falling on his face, that

wore a look of strange serenity. Then she half whispered to me, her face

beaming with a softened light:

"That old song was one we used to sing together when we were first

married in Baltimore."

On the stream of music and memory he had floated back to consciousness,

called by the love whose instinct is deeper and truer than all the

science and philosophy in the world.

At dawn he died, his mind clear, and the voice of prayer in his ears,

and a look of rapture in his face.

Dan W--, whom I had known in the mines in the early days, had come to

San Jose about the time my pastorate in the place began. He kept a

meat-market, and was a most genial, accommodating, and good-natured

fellow. Everybody liked him, and he seemed to like everybody. His animal

spirits were unfailing, and his face never revealed the least trace of

worry or care. He "took things easy," and never quarreled with his luck.

Such men are always popular, and Dan was a general favorite, as the

generous and honest fellow deserved to be. Hearing that he was very

sick, I went to see him. I found him very low, but he greeted me with a

smile.

"How are you today, Dan?" I asked, in the offhand way of the old times.

"It is all up with me, I guess," he replied, pausing to get breath

between the words; "the doctor says I can't get out of this--I must

leave in a day or two."

He spoke in a matter-of-fact way, indicating that he intended to take

death, as he had taken life, easy.

"How do you feel about changing worlds, my old friend?"

"I have no say in the matter. I have got to go, and that is all there is

of it."

That was all I ever got out of him. He told me he had not been to church

for ten years, as "it was not in his line." He did not understand

matters of that sort, he said, as his business was running a

meat-market. He intended no disrespect to me or to sacred things--this

was his way of putting the matter in his simple-heartedness.

"Shall I kneel here and pray with you?" I asked.

"No; you needn't take the trouble, parson," he said, gently; "you see

I've got to go, and that's all there is of it. I don't understand that

sort of thing--it's not in my, line, you see. I've been in the meat

business."

"Excuse me, my old friend, if I ask if you do not, as a dying man, have

some thoughts about God and eternity?"

"That's not in my line, and I couldn't do much thinking now any way.

It's all right, parson--I've got to go, and Old Master will do right

about it."

Thus he died without a prayer, and without a fear, and his case is left

to the theologians who can understand it, and to the "Old Master" who

will do right.

I was called to see a lady who was dying at North Beach, San Francisco.

Her history was a singularly sad one, illustrating the ups and downs of

California life in a startling manner. From opulence to poverty, and

from poverty to sorrow, and from sorrow to death--these were the acts

in the drama, and the curtain was about to fall on the last. On a

previous visit I had pointed the poor sufferer to the Lamb of God, and

prayed at her bedside, leaving her calm and tearful. Her only daughter,

a sweet, fresh girl of eighteen, had two years ago betrothed herself to

a young man from Oregon, who had come to San Francisco to study a

profession. The dying mother had expressed a desire to see them married

before her death, and I had been sent for to perform the ceremony.

"She is unconscious, poor thing!" said a lady who was in attendance,

"and she will fail of her dearest wish."

The dying mother lay with a flushed face, breathing painfully, with

closed eyes, and moaning piteously. Suddenly her eyes opened, and she

glanced inquiringly around the room. They understood her. The daughter

and her betrothed were sent for. The mother's face brightened as they

entered, and she turned to me and said, in a faint voice:

"Go on with the ceremony, or it will be too late for me. God bless you,

darling!" she added as the daughter bent down sobbing, and kissed her.

The bridal couple kneeled together by the bed of death, and the

assembled friends stood around in solemn silence, while the beautiful

formula of the Church was repeated, the dying mother's eyes resting upon

the kneeling daughter with an expression of unutterable tenderness. When

the vows were taken that made them one, and their hands were clasped in

token of plighted faith, she drew them both to her in a long embrace,

and then almost instantly closed her eyes with a look of infinite

restfulness, and never opened them again.

Of the notable men I met in the mines in the early days, there was one

who piqued and puzzled my curiosity. He had the face of a saint with the

habits of a debauchee. His pale and student-like features were of the

most classic mold, and their expression singularly winning, save when at

times a cynical sneer would suddenly flash over them like a cloud-shadow

over a quiet landscape. He was a lawyer, and stood at the head of the

bar. He was an orator whose silver voice and magnetic qualities often

kindled the largest audiences into the wildest enthusiasm. Nature had

denied him no gift of body or mind requisite to success in life; but

there was a fatal weakness in his moral constitution. He was an

inveterate gambler, his large professional earnings going into the

coffers of the faro and monte dealers. His violations of good morals in

other respects were flagrant. He worked hard by day, and gave himself up

to his vices at night. Public opinion was not very exacting in those

days, and his failings were condoned by a people who respected force and

pluck, and made no close inquiries into a man's private life, because it

would have been no easy thing to find one who, on the score of

innocence, was entitled to cast the first stone. Thus he lived from year

to year, increasing his reputation as a lawyer of marked ability, and as

a politician whose eloquence in every campaign was a tower of strength

to his party. His fame spread until it filled the State, and his money

still fed his vices. He never drank, and that cool, keen intellect never

lost its balance, or failed him in any encounter on the hustings on at

the bar. I often met him in public, but he never was known to go inside

a church. Once, when in a street conversation I casually made some

reference to religion, a look of displeasure passed over his face, and

he abruptly left me. I was agreeably surprised when, on more than one

occasion, he sent me a substantial token of goodwill, but I was never

able to analyze the motive that prompted him to do so. This remembrance

softens the feelings with which these lines are penciled. He went to San

Francisco, but there was no change in his life.

"It is the old story," said an acquaintance of whom I made inquiry

concerning him: "he has a large and lucrative practice, and the gamblers

get all he makes. He is getting gray, and he is failing a little. He is

a strange being."

It happened afterward that his office and mine were in the same building

and on the same floor. As we met on the stairs, he would nod to me and

pass on. I noticed that he was indeed "failing." He looked-weary and

sad, and the cold or defiant gleam in his steel-gray eyes, was changed

into a wistful and painful expression that was very pathetic. I did not

dare to invade his reserve with any tender of sympathy. Joyless and

hopeless as he might be, I felt instinctively that he would play out his

drama alone. Perhaps this was a mistake on my part: he may have been

hungry for the word I did not speak. God knows. I was not lacking in

proper interest in his well-being, but I have since thought in such

cases it is safest to speak.

"What has become of B--?" said my landlord one day as we met in the

hall. "I have been here to see him several times, and found his door

locked, and his letters and newspapers have not been touched. There is

something the matter, I fear."

Instantly I felt somehow that there was a tragedy in the air, and I had

a strange feeling of awe as I passed the door of B--'s room.,

A policeman was brought, the lock forced, and we went in. A sickening

odor of chloroform filled the room. The sight that met our gaze made us

shudder. Across the bed was lying the form of a man partly dressed, his

head thrown back, his eyes staring upward, his limbs hanging loosely

over the bedside.

"Is he dead?" was asked in a whisper.

"No," said the officer, with his finger on B--'s wrist; "he is not dead

yet, but he will never wake out of this. He has been lying thus two or

three days."

A physician was sent for, and all possible efforts made to rouse him,

but in vain. About sunset the pulse ceased to beat, and it was only a

lump of lifeless clay that lay there so still and stark. This was his

death--the mystery of his life went back beyond my knowledge of him,

and will only be known at the judgment-day.

One of the gayest and brightest of all the young people gathered at a

May-day picnic, just across the bay from San Francisco, was Ada D--.

The only daughter of a wealthy citizen, living in one of the lovely

valleys beyond the coast-range of mountains, beautiful in person and

sunny in temper, she was a favorite in all the circle of her

associations. Though a petted child of fortune, she was not spoiled,

Envy itself was changed into affection in the presence of a spirit so

gentle, unassuming, and loving. She had recently been graduated from one

of the best schools, and her graces of character matched the brilliance

of her pecuniary fortune.

A few days after the May-day festival, as I was sitting in my office, a

little before sunset, there was a knock at the door, and before I could

answer the messenger entered hastily, saying:

"I want you to go with me at once to Amador Valley. Ada D--is dying,

and wishes to be baptized. We just have time for the six o'clock boat to

take us across the bay, where the carriage and horses are waiting for

us. The distance is thirty miles, and we must run a race against death."

We started at once: no minister of Jesus Christ hesitates to obey a

summons like that. We reached the boat while the last taps of the last

bell were being given, and were soon at the landing on the opposite side

of the bay. Springing ashore, we entered the vehicle which was in

readiness. Grasping the reins, my companion touched up the spirited

team, and we struck across the valley. My driver was an old Californian,

skilled in all horse craft and road-craft. He spoke no word, putting his

soul and body into his work, determined, as he had said, to make the

thirty miles by nine o'clock. There was no abatement of speed after we

struck the hills: what was lost in going up was regained in going down.

The mettle of those California-bred horses was wonderful; the quick

beating of their hoofs upon the graveled road was as regular as the

motion of machinery, steam-driven. It was an exciting ride, and there

was a weirdness in the sound of the night-breeze floating by us, and

ghostly, shapes seemed looking at us from above and below, as we wound

our way through the hills, while the bright stars shone like

funeral-tapers over a world of death. Death! how vivid and awful was its

reality to me as I looked up at those shining worlds on high, and then

upon the earth wrapped in darkness below! Death! his sable coursers are

swift, and we may be too late! The driver shared my thoughts, and lashed

the panting horses to yet greater speed. My pulses beat rapidly as I

counted the moments.

"Here we are!" he exclaimed, as we dashed down the hill and brought up

at the gate. "It is eight minutes to nine," he added, glancing at his

watch by the light of a lamp shining through the window.

"She is alive, but speechless, and going fast," said the father, in a

broken voice, as I entered the house.

He led me to the chamber of the dying girl; The seal of death was upon

her. I bent above her, and a look of recognition came into her eyes. Not

a moment was to be lost.

"If you know me, my child, and can enter the meaning of what I say,

indicate the fact if you can."

There was a faint smile and a slight but significant inclination of the

fair head as it lay enveloped with its wealth of chestnut curls. With

her hands folded on her breast, and her eyes turned upward, the dying

girl lay in listening attitude, while in a few words I explained the

meaning of the sacred rite and pointed her to the Lamb of God as the one

sacrifice for sin. The family stood round the bed in awed and tearful

silence. As the crystal sacramental drops fell upon her brow a smile

flashed quickly over the pale face, there was a slight movement of the

head--and she was gone! The upward look continued, and the smile never

left the fair, sweet face. We fell upon our knees, and the prayer that

followed was not for her, but for the bleeding hearts around the couch

where she lay smiling in death.

Dave Douglass was one of that circle of Tennesseans who took prominent

parts in the early history of California. He belonged to the Sumner

County Douglasses, of Tennessee, and had the family warmth of heart,

impulsiveness, and courage, that nothing could daunt. In all the

political contests of the early days he took an active part, and was

regarded as an unflinching and unselfish partisan by his own party, and

as an openhearted and generous antagonist by the other. He was elected

Secretary of State, and served the people with fidelity and efficiency.

He was a man of a powerful physical frame, deep-chested, ruddy-, faced,

blue-eyed, with just enough shagginess of eyebrows and heaviness of the

under-jaw to indicate the indomitable pluck which was so strong an

element in his character. He was a true Douglass, as brave and true as

any of the name that ever wore the kilt or swung a claymore in the land

of Bruce. His was a famous Methodist family in Tennessee, and though he

knew more of politics than piety, he was a good friend to the Church,

and had regular preaching in the schoolhouse near his farm on the

Calaveras River. All the itinerants that traveled that circuit knew

"Douglass's Schoolhouse" as an appointment, and shared liberally in the

hospitality and purse of the General--(that was his title).

"Never give up the fight!" he said to me, with flashing eye, the last

time I met him in Stockton, pressing my hand with a warm clasp. It was

while I was engaged in the effort to build a church in that place, and I

had been telling him of the difficulties I had met in the work. That

word and handclasp helped me.

He was taken sick soon after. The disease had taken too strong a grasp

upon him to be broken. He fought bravely a losing battle for several

days. Sunday morning came, a bright, balmy day. It was in the early

summer. The cloudless sky was deep-blue, the sunbeams sparkled on the

bosom of the Calaveras, the birds were singing in the trees, and the

perfume of the flowers filled the air and floated in through the open

window to where the strong man lay dying. He had been affected with the

delirium of fever during most of his sickness, but that was past, and he

was facing death with an unclouded mind.

"I think I am dying," he said, half inquiringly.

"Yes--is there any thing we can do for you?"

His eyes closed for a few moments, and his lips moved as if in mental

prayer. Opening his eyes, he said:

"Sing one of the old camp-meeting songs."

A preacher present struck up the hymn, "Show pity, Lord, O Lord

Forgive."

The dying man, composed to rest, lay with folded hands and listened with

shortening breath and a rapt face, and thus he died, the words and the

melody that had touched his boyish heart among the far-off hills of

Tennessee being the last sounds that fell upon his dying ear. We may

hope that on that old camp-meeting song was wafted the prayer and trust

of a penitent soul receiving the kingdom of heaven as a little child.

During my pastorate at Santa Rosa, one of my occasional hearers was John

I--. He was deputy-sheriff of Sonoma County, and was noted for his

quiet and determined courage. He was a man of few words, but the most

reckless desperado knew that he could not be trifled with. When there

was an arrest to be made that involved special peril, this reticent,

low-voiced man was usually intrusted with the undertaking. He was of the

good old Primitive Baptist stock from Caswell County, North Carolina,

and had a lingering fondness for the peculiar views of that people. He

had a weakness for strong drink that gave him trouble at times, but

nobody doubted his integrity any more than they doubted his courage. His

wife was an earnest Methodist, one of a family of sisters remarkable for

their excellent sense and strong religious characters. Meeting him one

day, just before my return to San Francisco, he said, with a warmth of

manner not common with him:

"I am sorry you are going to leave Santa Rosa. You understand me, and if

anybody can do me any good, you are the man."

There was a tremor in his voice as he spoke, and he held my hand in a

lingering grasp.

Yes, I knew him. I had seen him at church on more than one occasion with

compressed lips struggling to conceal the strong emotion he felt,

sometimes hastily wiping away an unbidden tear. The preacher, when his

own soul is aglow and his sympathies all awakened and drawn out toward

his hearers, is almost clairvoyant at times in his perception of their

inner thoughts. I understood this man, though no disclosure had been

made to me in words. I read his eye, and marked the wishful and anxious

look that came over his face when his conscience was touched and his

heart moved. Yes, I knew him, for my sympathy had made me responsive,

and his words, spoken sadly, thrilled me, and rolled upon my spirit the

burden of a soul. His health, which had been broken by hardships and

careless living, began to decline more rapidly. I heard that he had

expressed a desire to see me, and made no delay in going to see him. I

found him in bed, and much wasted.

"I am glad you have come. I have been wanting to see you," he said,

taking my hand. "I have been thinking of my duty to God for a good

while, and have felt more than anybody has suspected. I want to do

what I can and ought to do. You have made this matter a study, and

you ought to understand it. I want you to help me."

We had many interviews, and I did what I could to guide a penitent

sinner to the sinner's Friend. He was indeed a penitent sinner--shut

out from the world and shut in with God, the merciful Father was

speaking to his soul, and all its depths were stirred. The patient,

praying wife had a wishful look in her eyes as I came out of his room,

and I knew her thought. God was leading him, and he was receptive of the

truth that saves. He had one difficulty.

"I hate meanness, or any thing that looks like it. It does look mean for

me to turn to religion now that I am sick, after being so neglectful and

wicked when I was well."

"That thought is natural to a manly soul, but there is a snare in it.

You are thinking what others may say, and your pride is touched. You are

dealing with God only. Ask only what will please him. The time for a man

to do his duty is when he sees it and feels the obligation. Let the past

go--you cannot undo it, but it may be forgiven. The present and an

eternal future are yours, my friend.

"Do what will please God, and all will be right."

The still waters were reached, and his soul lay at rest in the arms of

God. O sweet, sweet rest! infinitely sweet to the spirit long tossed

upon the stormy sea of sin and remorse. O peace of God, the inflow into

a human heart of the very life of the Lord! It is the hidden mystery of

love divine whispered to the listening ear of faith. It had come to him

by its own law when he was ready to receive it. The great change had

come to him--it looked out from his eyes and beamed from his face.

He was baptized at night. The family had gathered in the room. In the

solemn hush of the occasion the whispers of the night-breeze could be

heard among the vines and flowers outside, and the rippling of the

sparkling waters of Santa Rosa Creek was audible. The sick man's face

was luminous with the light that was from within. The solemn rite was

finished, a tender and holy awe filled the room; it was the house of God

and the gate of heaven. The wife, who was sitting near a window, rose,

and noiselessly stepped to the bed, and without a word printed a kiss on

her husband's forehead, while the joy that flushed her features told

that the prayer of thirty years had been answered, We sung a hymn and

parted with tears of silent joy. In a little while he crossed the river

where we may mingle our voices again by and by. There is not money

enough in the California hills to buy the memory of that visit to Santa

Rosa.