_HIS PLACE AS A WORKER._
"Quit you like men."
The people of a city or country in which is some great natural wonder
or some magnificent work of man become so accustomed to its grandeur
that only the largest-minded of them continue to appreciate its
excellence and gain culture from it. This is not true of men. A man
who has the qualifications to instruct and the power to inspire his
deemsmen will have renewed power, and will gain a stronger influence
over all of them, as age brings matured wisdom. Few greater blessings
can come to a community than to have a strong man working like leaven
in the midst of it, and few posts of honor are more to be coveted than
to be a part of all that is best in one's environment.
Eli Jones has decidedly influenced his township, and he has the
satisfaction of feeling in his old age that he is without enemies and
in possession of a numerous company of friends, the "uncle" of all who
know him. He has had the good fortune--or, better, the good
judgment--to know just what his place was. He has done each duty,
never wishing that he might have found something greater to do, and
now his services combined into one whole make a record which men of
great fame often fail to gain.
One of the best tests of a man's power is his influence over the
young. There is a time in early life when there is a longing for real
help, when a young person feels groping in the dark for the right
road, which he wants, but cannot find. Eli Jones has been at hand to
throw, by his counsel and Christian advice, light on the right path,
and many a man and woman stands to-day fixed firmly in a good place
and on a high road to a better because he spoke a good word or reached
out his hand when there was need of just that word or encouragement.
His love of education and his fondness for books have made themselves
felt. He has been one of the foremost in founding and sustaining two
schools--"Oak Grove Seminary" and the "Erskine High School." The
latter partly owed its existence to him. He has started and built up a
number of libraries, and he has wished to leave coming sons and
daughters supplied with a fountain from which to draw. Not a few of
the college graduates who have gone out from China received their
first impulses to higher aspirations from him, in one way or another.
In temperance work he has taken his part. He began to speak for total
abstinence as a boy, which has been his theme ever since, and he took
active part in securing a majority for the Prohibition amendment in
the State of Maine.
For many years he was an active member of the "Sons of Temperance,"
and as Grand Worthy Patriarch of that organization he did much
permanent good in the State. In this work he was intimately associated
with Ex-Governor Sidney Perham, Neal Dow, John Kimbal of Bangor, D.
B. Randal, the aged patriarch of the Methodist Church, and others of
the ablest advocates of the Maine law.
It was once a law of the State that the selectmen of each town should
appoint some suitable man to fill his cellar with various liquors, and
whose sole right it should be to sell such articles. For one year Eli
Jones was appointed to act as liquor-agent for the town. Strange
picture, that of a well-known Quaker minister and prominent advocate
of total abstinence holding the office of drink-dispenser to his
townsmen! It can be imagined with what feelings the toper would enter
his yard, make known his desire, and what words of advice he would
receive instead of the foaming glass.
It is needless to say that no cellar was stored that year, and during
his term of office the community abstained.
In 1852, at the time of his first visit to England and Ireland, but
few Friends in those countries had heartily espoused the cause of
total abstinence. Since that time a great change has taken place. "To
hail from Maine is _now_ no discredit to the visitor. _Then_ a
specimen from Maine was looked upon with some distrust."
It will not be out of place to refer here to his connection with the
origin of the "United Kingdom Alliance." Its essential declarations
are as follows: "1. That it is neither right nor politic for the state
to afford legal protection and sanction to any traffic or system which
tends to increase crime, to waste the national resources, to corrupt
the social habits, and to destroy the health and lives of the people.
2. That the traffic in intoxicating liquors, as common beverages, is
inimical to the true interests of individuals and destructive of the
order and welfare of society, and ought therefore to be prohibited. 3.
That the history and results of all past legislation in regard to the
liquor traffic abundantly prove that it is impossible satisfactorily
to _limit_ or _regulate_ a system so essentially mischievous in its
tendencies.... 7. That, rising above class, sectarian, or party
considerations, all good citizens should combine to procure an
enactment prohibiting the sale of intoxicating beverages, as affording
most efficient aid in removing the appalling evil of intemperance."
This was a union against intemperance on a most uncompromising
platform, and its work during the last quarter of a century has been
enormous. The simple facts of Eli Jones's connection with this
organization are as follows: As he was returning from Dublin yearly
meeting to London he found himself in company with Nathaniel Card, a
Friend of Manchester, England. Their conversation turned upon
temperance, for our friend had not been silent on this subject during
his stay in Ireland. Nathaniel Card became much interested, and wished
to take an American temperance paper, as well as to have a copy of the
Maine prohibitory law. He was given the address of Neal Dow, and a
correspondence was opened. About eighteen months after this
conversation, Eli Jones being in Manchester, three gentlemen called on
him. Nathaniel Card was one of them, who as speaker said, "We are the
officers of the British and Foreign Temperance Alliance, and whatever
results come from its formation _began_ with our conversation on our
return journey from Ireland."
Many English Friends have been connected with this organization, and
Eli Jones had the opportunity at the time of his later visits to
England to attend some of the meetings and to hear the beneficent
results of its far-reaching influence.
His work for the advancement of peace has been lifelong. He has
strained his eyes to catch glimpses of a better era, in which the
literal and spiritual teaching of Christ shall be fulfilled in a
universal brotherhood of men and nations; and he has lived to see
already "a flood of prophesying light." When over eighty years old he
was sent as a delegate to the Friends' Peace Conference at Richmond,
Indiana, in 1887, and his voice was often heard discussing with
younger men and women the wisest course for binding nations into
families by bonds of love, so that rust may dull the carnal weapons of
war,
"And the cobweb be woven across the cannon's throat,
To shake its threaded tears in the wind."
He has always looked with joy on the advance of the human race, and he
has had uncompromising faith in actual and triumphant progress.
Nothing has made his crowning years more bright than the thought, ever
present with him, that the good is gaining a gradual ascendency, and
that man's lot, already a happy one, is becoming more happy. He has
seen nations that have sat in darkness rising to stand in the
joy-bringing light, and he has trusted the future will bring mature
fruit. This buoyant hope has not only made his life joyous, but has
pervaded all the messages of his later years, and he has shown that
optimism which every true Christian must feel, for his Master "doeth
all things well."
He felt called above everything else to preach the gospel, but he was
sent to preach not only from the text which John the Baptist gave, but
also he has "spoken unto men to edification." He has held up the
perfect mark, the goal, "a life hid with Christ in God." Every power
of man, physical, moral, mental, spiritual, is to be developed and
expanded to its fullest extent, and then brought into strict obedience
to the will of God. We are not in our place until we yield the same
obedience to the celestial laws that we yield to the laws of
gravitation. Character--which implies integrity, purity,
unselfishness, love, patience, self-forgetfulness, and temperance--means
the truth we have received, made our own, and put in action. Hence Eli
Jones has spent his life telling all people to seek first of all the
kingdom of heaven, which is righteousness and peace and joy in the
Holy Ghost--to give their whole lives and beings to the Lord, and to
build up pure Christian characters. The strength and manliness of his
life have made his messages weighty, and the clearness of his thought,
with his abundance of strong English words forcibly arranged, has
caused his speaking on whatever subject to be effective. His speaking
has always been from the fulness of his heart and with all the energy
of his individuality. Never has he been known to speak weakly or
unemphatically. If he had no message, he kept his seat, and if he
rose to speak it was because he had something which he deeply felt and
which it was important for those present to hear.
Of medium height, possessing a very large head, penetrating, earnest
eyes, and impressive in his movements, his rising always gained him
attention. His voice, which in childhood had been imperfect, grew
clearer and more emphatic with use, and by constant attention to
careful enunciation he gained the power of distinct expression to such
a degree that after having on one occasion found it necessary to speak
continuously in the Newport meeting-house for three hours, he was told
by those in the farthest galleries that not a word had been lost. In
his most earnest appeals he is decidedly eloquent, and many there are
who have heard in his vigorous words that call which lifts souls from
dreamy thought to action. Not one of his sermons has been put on
paper, for he spoke as the words came to his mouth, and reporters were
not present; but there was a clearness and connection as marked as was
the strength of the individual parts, so that his utterances if
printed would be highly valued. If those men do us the greatest
service who give us the clearest view of our relation to God and our
duty to man, then we owe him gratitude, for he successfully helped
feet that were failing to find a surer foothold on the abiding base of
the Rock of Ages.
Further, he performed the true part of the citizen of a democracy, the
part of one who sees the brother and sister mark on every forehead.
Every person who hopes and prays for the highest success of the
principles of our government will have moments of trial for his faith
as he sees the multitudes of responsible citizens who exercise their
high privileges in town and State moved by no higher thought than the
accomplishment of a selfish aim; he will feel a deeper gloom still
when he learns in how many hearts respect for pure men and sacred
principles and reverence for the Ruler of men and nations have been
obscured by the mists of party schemes and personal self-love. Eli
Jones as a Quaker has clearly proclaimed the only basis on which a
democracy can build with a reasonable hope of a beautiful and
permanent structure. In a nation where every man is a legislator,
every man must
"Feel within himself the need
Of loyalty to better than himself,
That shall ennoble him with the _upward_ look;"
nor can he be a safe sharer in the rights of government who has not
intimate converse with the Voice which calls for an _inward_ look.
Through a life of over eighty years he has sought to act at the
ballot-box so that the largest number of human beings might feel the
good effects of his vote.
Again, his life is an interesting example of continuous development.
Though beginning early to obey the voice of duty in regard to public
speaking, he had reached nearly the age of forty before he was really
at work. Year after year since he has seen with clearer vision, and,
catching the teaching of the nautilus, he has made
"Each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut him from heaven with a dome more vast,"
and, feeling more truly each year the serious business of a denizen of
earth, he has doubled his diligence to quit himself like a man.
There has been a deep vein of humor running through his whole life,
and the genuine "mother wit" often found in New Englanders has shown
itself in him to a marked degree. His answers to difficult questions
always come at once, and have a keenness which goes to the marrow of
the subject. Those who have listened to his conversation and heard his
illustrative anecdotes need no example to call to their mind his
native humor, for it has continually shown itself. The uniformity of
his disposition should be spoken of. Calm and equable under trying
circumstances, he was a strong support to his beloved wife when in
feeble health she seemed almost weighed down, and he was especially
fitted by this quality for the perplexing difficulties which
necessarily beset a laborer in foreign lands.
His ripe years have been passed at the foot of China Lake near his
boyhood's home, and he has sat in the meeting as a father in the midst
of his family. Now and then called forth for short service, he has
loved to hasten back and to be at home.
At the time I write he is still permitted to dwell among us, and we
are fortunate in having before our eyes one who has the weight of many
years of experience and wisdom.
When riding with him around China Lake one lovely summer day some of
us younger members of the party pointed out a church-spire in the
distance, and asked him if it was not a beautiful picture--the spire
rising from the abundant green of the surrounding trees and pointing
to the cloudless blue sky. Slowly he said, "Yes, but it would be
better if we knew that all who sit there owned what is above the
spire;" and we felt, as we looked at his genial face lighted up as he
gazed aloft, that "his citizenship was in heaven" and that "for him to
die" would be "gain." There is a domain on earth which only the true
servant enters, and there is a realm of which we do not speak
definitely that opens its gates to admit those who hear the "Well
done!" of the great Master. Blessed indeed is he whose life has been a
preparation for the city where no sun is needed, but where the glory
of God is the light, and the lamp thereof is the Lamb.
* * * * *
Transcriber's note:
Variations in spelling, punctuation and hyphenation have been retained
except in obvious cases of typographical error.
Some mismatched double quotation marks were left as in the original.