penitent man. The sermon that day was different from the ones the
people were used to hearing; not that it was better, for all Mr. Lamb's
sermons were of a high order, but it had an element that was unusual,
an element of great tenderness. The text was: "Go, tell His disciples
and Peter." Peter's past, traitorous conduct was graphically pointed
out, but so also was his weeping. "We cannot think too harshly of our
sins," said the preacher, "but we may think too exclusively of them.
Peter thought of his sins, but he also thought of His Saviour, and when
he saw his Risen Lord, the erring but penitent disciple said: 'Thou
knowest that I love Thee,' and the Master forgave all and sent him out
to service."
The God whom the Minister was accustomed to preach about was a
splendid, strong, but rather pitiless Being; now they heard of a
loving, pitiful Father who was ever seeking those who had turned from
Him, and who was more than ready to receive them as they turned again
home. All He wanted was to hear from their own lips, "Father, I have
sinned." That confession opened Heaven's wardrobe for the man made
disreputable by wandering.
At the close of the evening service George accepted Mrs. Lamb's
invitation to "slip in and have a cup of cocoa." "Just the three of
us," she added. "You know the way; walk right in." Hurriedly she
passed on to give kindly greetings to a few strangers she had noticed.
For nearly two hours George and the Minister sat in the glow of the
firelight. It was a great relief to the disheartened man to be with
those who knew all, and who yet loved him, and who, by their faith in
him, gave him a little more faith in himself and in God.
Referring to his drinking habit, he said, "Sometimes I feel I'd rather
drop dead in my tracks than touch it again; and then there are other
days when it seems as if some slumbering devil had awakened within me,
and I'm so crazy for it that I'd give the whole of Canada, if I had it,
for another drink." Then, after a pause, he continued, "I suppose a
man shouldn't try to blame his sin on others, but one of the earliest
things I can remember, Mr. Lamb, is being held in my mother's arms and
putting my hands around the beer jug while she gave me a drink. Many a
night, when I was 'knee-high to a grasshopper' as we say, I have clung
to her skirt, as she dragged me from bar to bar, around High Street and
George Street in old Glasgow. I guess my father and mother were drunk
every Saturday night for five years. One night I can remember as clear
as if it was only yesterday. It was the time of the Glasgow Fair, and
I was wishing they'd go home. I must have been about six years old,
and my sister Janet was two years younger, and then there was a baby
they called Bobbie. Mother had Bobbie fastened around her with an old
shawl. She and father had been on a spree all the evening. Father was
leaning against a lamp-post, just drunk enough to say the fool things
that amuse some of them folks who don't think anything about the big
price somebody is paying for that kind of fun. Maybe you think it's
queer of me to talk that way, when God knows I've been guilty enough
myself. Well! let me finish my story, anyway. My mother was dead
drunk, sitting on the curbstone near him, and maybe Bobbie was
stupefied with liquor like I had been many a time. Once in a while
she'd rouse up, and press her hands against her maddened head and
shriek all kinds of curses. Police! why, Mr. Lamb, the Glasgow police
couldn't have handled the crowds that was drunk them days. I've seen
hundreds of drunken men and women in one night around Rotten Row and
Shuffle Lane, and other streets near the corner of George and High
Streets: so long as they didn't get too awful bad the police let them
alone. Mother was a very devil when she got fighting. I've heard
father brag about what she could do in that line. When she used to
roll up her sleeves for a fight, she was like a maddened beast. I tell
you, there isn't much in the fighting line I haven't seen; but it makes
me kind of shudder yet when I think of how she'd punch, and kick, and
scratch, and all the time she'd be using language that would make a
decent man's blood run cold. You were saying something about 'sacred
memories around the word "mother"' in one of your sermons, but that was
the kind of mother I had, Mr. Lamb.
"It must have been near Sunday morning when somebody helped to get us
home. Janet and me had been sleeping in the gutter, and I can remember
the time they had getting father and mother up the stairs in the
'Close.' Somebody slipped near the top, and there was a heap of us
jammed against the wall at the turning of the stairs. But we children
were used to bruises, and we learned to keep quiet, or we'd only get
more for our trouble. I likely cried myself to sleep on the rotten old
floor, and I suppose I'd never have remembered any more about it if it
hadn't been for Bobbie. In the morning the poor wee chap was dead. He
must have died through neglect; pretty close to murder I call it. Did
the death make any difference to the parents? Not likely! At least I
never remember them any different. I was ten years old when my mother
died, and she died through stumbling in a drunken fight; her head
struck the curb-stone, and she never spoke again. After her death I
was taken care of in one of the Orphanages until I was sent to Canada,
But what I often wonder about, Mr. Lamb, is whether God will be hard on
those of us who've had parents like that, and who've been brought up
where we didn't get a fair chance. God only knows what we kids had to
see and hear and suffer. People don't make any allowance for bad
blood, and bad food, and bad treatment, except in cattle. I wonder if
God does? Yes, I know I'm having a chance now, and yet God must pity
even me when He knows how I've been handicapped for these years; but
some of those boys live and die right there, and they don't get even
the chance I've had. It's easy for folks who know nothing about it to
say the people should get out of such places; but some of them are like
heathen, they don't know there's anything better. What did I know
about a different kind of life? Where could I have gone? Who would
have wanted me? How could a street youngster get out of the place,
where a good many of his meals were picked off the streets and out of
the ash-barrels, and he never had two coppers ahead? And there were
thousands like I was. I think about these things once in a while, when
I'm alone in the shop, and I've sometimes thought it was well-nigh a
crime to allow children to be born in such hell-like places. And there
are some people have no right to be fathers and mothers at all."
It was only rarely that George unburdened his mind to such an extent;
but Mr. Lamb gave him "right-of-way" that night, and many perplexities
were expressed with a candour that gave the Minister a larger sympathy
with the handicapped man, and a resolve to deal more tenderly with men
of George's type who had such terrific battles to keep the body under.
At the close of the conversation the evening prayer especially
commended George to the Father's care, and while the encouraged man was
walking back to his dwelling-place with thankful heart, Mr. and Mrs.
Lamb were kneeling together, and in earnest petition were placing their
home and all they might ever possess at the service of the One in whose
hands things commonplace may be mighty with blessing.
The missioner has been permitted to visit again the Manse where George
did a bit of carpentering. It was a great pleasure to find that George
was one of those invited to the evening meal. During the after-supper
conversation he spoke confidentially to the visitor of the mistress of
the Manse. "She's the greatest little woman in this country. God
knows I'd have still been on the down-grade but for her; she never let
me go. She told me one night how she'd told God that she couldn't go
to heaven and leave me outside, and thank God He's taking her at her
word."
The midnight chat which ministers are accustomed to have on such
occasions revealed the story of George's many and sore temptations and
hard battles, and of how the unfailing faith and patience of one in the
Manse had heartened the discouraged man, had led him into active
service, and had brought a new sense of responsibility and possibility
to many of the church members who were beginning to practise Paul's
injunction: "If a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual
restore such an one in the spirit of meekness, considering thyself,
lest thou also be tempted."
THE SUPERINTENDENT'S VISIT
"Hope to visit your field Wednesday, February nineteenth--arrive
M---- Station midnight, eighteenth. Andrew Ransom."
The Western minister had been "house-cleaning" his study, and in
separating the valued from the useless he ran across the above
telegram, which had been buried away for several years. He handled it
almost reverently and then put it away in his Home Mission folder for
future reference. The story connected with it was told one night as
the missioner sat after the evening's service in the quiet of the
prairie manse, exchanging reminiscences of one of the greatest and best
loved men that ever crossed the prairie provinces--Andrew Ransom, the
great Home Missionary Superintendent.
Within fifteen minutes from the time the student missionary received
the above message, the people in McLean's general store, in Stevenson's
boarding-house, and in Mallagh's blacksmith's shop had heard the good
news, and all knew that Wednesday the nineteenth would be a great day
for those whose homes the old Doctor could visit, and for the people
who could get into the little church at night.
[Illustration:
1. A Prairie Shack. 2. A Copper Miner's Shack.
3. A Bachelor's Shack.
4. A Shack on the Hillside. 5. A Mountain-side Shack.]
Those who had met and heard Dr. Ransom before, vied with each other in
recalling events connected with his former visits. They remembered his
appeal for their "fair share" of money to help build the little church.
Everybody said the amount could not be raised until Dr. Ransom came,
but after he had painted his word-picture of their glorious
heritage--after he had pleaded that that heritage should never become
"the wild and woolly West"--after he had shown the Gospel as the
"antiseptic influence" in the life of the great Westland--after he told
them what they got their land for and what it was worth that day, and
after that strong voice, with its downright sincerity, had been lifted
in prayer, everybody in the dining-room of the boarding-house knew the
amount was raised.
And then that hand-clasp, and that identification of himself with the
poorest settler's problems, and sorrows--who could forget these things?
"D'ye mind," said Dick McNabb, "the time he was here just after Alex.
McLaren's son was killed on the railway? Well, sir, I'll never forget
seeing them two old men standing with hands clasped. The Doctor looked
as if it might 'a been his own boy what was killed. "McLaren," he
said, "I'm sorry for you. I once lost a boy, and I know what it
means;" then he whispered something, and Alex. wiped away the tears as
he still clung to the old Doctor's hand, and I guess they stood that
way for two or three minutes."
"Well, sir, you bet Grant Sinclair won't miss Wednesday night," put in
Dan McLean from behind the counter. "D'ye mind when Dr. Ransom was
here, Grant couldn't walk at all! Say! will I ever forget that day in
the Fall when he fell off the fence on to the scythe he was carrying?
The gash was a foot long, and there was no doctor within thirty miles,
and the road wasn't as good as it is now, and it ain't anything to
write home about even yet. Bill Grayson was the only one who had the
grit to sew the gash up, and it was fourteen hours before the doctor
got here. Nobody thought Grant would get over it; he lost so much
blood. He'd been on his back about two months, I mind, when Dr. Ransom
came. It was one of them dirty days when it don't know whether to snow
or rain, but the old Doctor had heard about Grant and was bound to get
out there. The folks said he did him more good than the regular doctor
did. Jim Sinclair and the boys had rigged up a pair of crutches so's
to get Grant a-moving around, but they didn't make a very swell job of
it. Well, sir, about three weeks later the slickest pair of crutches
you ever set eyes on come out here with some express of mine. They was
addressed to Grant and marked 'Rush.' Mind you, they come from
Toronto, and they fitted Grant as if he'd been measured for them.
Jimmy said after they got the crutches he remembered the old Doctor
kind o' spanning the quilt along Grant's side while he was talking, but
he never paid no particular attention to it, but he says that's how he
must 'a got the measure."
The days between the thirteenth and the nineteenth were spent by Mr.
Stewart, the student missionary, in covering the district, so that all
the scattered settlers should know of Dr. Ransom's visit. On Tuesday
morning he borrowed an extra robe, and, hitching up his team of
bronchos, started on his journey to M---- Station. The roads were
heavy, and twenty-five miles was a hard journey through the unpacked
snow. By mid-afternoon he reached the railway, and soon had his ponies
comfortably stabled in a near-by barn.
About midnight he tramped through the deep snow to the dimly-lighted
station. The night operator reported the train as an hour late, with
the additional information that she would probably lose a little more
time on the grade which lay about ten miles away.
Shortly before two o'clock the welcome whistle was heard, and in a
minute or two the midnight express slowed down for M----. The tall
figure of the Superintendent was behind the brakeman, on the steps of
the day-coach, and there was a wave of recognition before the cordial
hand-clasp and words of greeting could be given. "We'll just wait till
she pulls out," said the Superintendent, as Mr. Stewart started to move
away after the exchange of greetings. "Yon operator has the tongue."
His duties performed at the baggage car, the operator returned to the
office dragging a heavy trunk along the plank platform. "Man! but
that's a great muscle you have," said the Doctor genially, and in less
than a five-minute conversation he knew the man's name, Old Land home,
length of time in Canada, and church relationship. As he gripped the
hand in bidding good-night, he got in a message that the operator has
never forgotten. In recalling the visit to the writer many months
later, he said, "He's a gran' man that: he'd be a wechty man gin he
lived in Edinburgh. He mak's you think."
"Well, Doctor," said Mr. Stewart as they neared the place where a bed
had been prepared, "you'll be glad enough to get right to rest."
"How far are we from your field, Mr. Stewart?"
"About twenty-five miles," was the reply.
"Well, then, if your team is fit, I think we'll not bother about bed
just now, but get out there." Despite the protests that were made in
the Doctor's interests, there was a kindly insistence that resulted in
the bronchos being immediately harnessed for the return journey. In
the month of February, with deep snow and zero weather, a twenty-five
mile drive between 3 and 8 a.m. is by no means a pleasure trip. As the
little animals ploughed their way through the drifts, the
Superintendent every now and again raised his mouth above his coat
collar to express his admiration. "A gr-reat team that--a gr-reat
team."
The day was dawning as on Wednesday the 10th the student missionary and
the eagerly-looked-for visitor, frost-covered and shivering, drove up
to Mackenzie's barn. Mackenzie and his wife were just getting on the
fires, and were not a little surprised at the early arrival of their
distinguished guest. Embarrassment could not, however, remain long in
any home where Dr. Ransom entered. Everybody but the indolent admired
and loved him, and there seemed to be no circumstance or combination of
circumstances but he could adapt himself to.
After breakfast Mr. Stewart was ready enough to get a few hours' rest,
and having conferred with Mrs. Mackenzie regarding the readiness of the
spare room for the Superintendent, he invited the latter to retire.
"Did you think I came out here to get a sleep, my boy? When would we
visit the field? No! no! thank you." Protests were again futile. "I
have to meet two Committees on Saturday, in Winnipeg, and you must get
me back to M---- Station in time for the 11.30 to-morrow morning. What
about a horse? Can we get right away?"
"Ain't the old Doctor a horse to work," said MacKenzie to Stewart while
hitching up his best driver.
Hurried but helpful and purposeful calls were made until it was time to
return for the evening service. The visit that stands out most clearly
in the Missionary's memory was one made at the noon-hour. Alex.
McDonald's place was the one spot in the whole district where no man
who had any respect for his stomach would ever dream of dining. Few,
indeed, cared even to enter the dirty little shack. And so it was not
to be wondered at that the Missionary was planning to pass McDonald's
on the up trip, and to reach one of those bright, clean centres of
hospitality that are usually to be found in even the most isolated
district. But "the best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley."
"Who lives in the shack on the hillside?" asked the Superintendent.
"A family named McDonald," was the reply, "but they never enter a
church---they live like pigs, and I think we had better leave calling
there until we see how our time holds out."
"We'll go there for dinner," was the almost brusque response of the
Superintendent. Stewart laughed incredulously.
"I don't think you could swallow a homoeopathic pill in that shack,
Doctor."
"We'll go there for dinner, Mr. Stewart. It'll do them good."
"No finer missionary stands in shoe-leather than Caven Stewart" was a
testimony that all who knew him heartily agreed with, but Stewart had
an absolute horror of dirt, and it was with feelings of distressful
anticipation that he dragged open McDonald's rickety apology for a
gate, and drove across the rough swamp to the dilapidated shack on the
hillside.
The barking of the dog brought faces to the little four-paned window.
"Drive slowly! Give them time, give them time," said the
Superintendent, as the faces quickly disappeared. A few fowls
fluttered from within the shack, and a family pet in the shape of a pig
grunted disapproval at being forced to take an outside berth. For
fully three minutes there was such a house-cleaning as the old shack
had not known for many a month.
Alex. McDonald, pulling a dirty corduroy coat around him, sauntered
over to where the visitors were getting out of the cutter. He
"guessed" that the Superintendent and the student could find
accommodation for their horse, and a bite for themselves during the
noon hour. "We ha'ena got much of a place," he said, as the
Superintendent lowered his head to enter the miserable shack.
Each member of the family received a cheery greeting from the magnetic
superintendent, who never seemed at a loss to say the fitting word.
Mrs. McDonald was profuse in explanations and apologies. "We wesna
expectin' onybody, and these dark mornings it seems to be noon afore
you can get turned round." The visitors entered sympathetically into
the various reasons why things "wesna just straight."
To this day Caven Stewart remembers the deepened convictions that came
to him of the Superintendent's possibilities, as he watched him enjoy
his dinner. By various excuses Stewart had reduced his own portion to
the minimum when the pork and potatoes were dished up, and even then
more food went to his pocket than to his mouth. But not so with the
Superintendent. Not only did he have a liberal first supply, but
actually passed back his plate for more, meantime complimenting
McDonald on the gr-reat potatoes he grew and the fine pork he raised,
and incidentally remarking that the best potatoes and the finest pork
were easily spoiled in the hands of an incompetent cook. When he told
Mrs. McDonald that the dinner was just as he liked it--well-cooked and
plain--his place in her highest esteem was fixed. That he was a man of
excellent judgment she had no doubt.
McDonald's Old Land home was well-known to the Superintendent, and as
scenes familiar to both were recalled, geniality prevailed.
At the close of the meal the Doctor asked for "The Book." Anxious
looks were exchanged by the occupants of the shack, and ere long three
members of the family were uniting in the search. When at last, to the
great relief of the searchers, a dusty but unworn Bible was produced,
the Superintendent held it reverently in his outstretched hand.
Looking squarely at the head of the home, he said with a yearning that
no man could miss, "Eh, mon, but I'm sorry--sorry it's not worn more.
It's the best piece of furniture you have in the house. If any man
ought to have a well-worn Bible it's a Highland Scotsman." A few
verses were impressively read, and then for the first time in its
history the miserable shack contained a group kneeling in the attitude
of prayer.
There were no meaningless pleasantries when the little company arose.
It seemed as though the place was hallowed ground. A man and his Maker
had been in communion. The invitation to "cast thy burden upon the
Lord" had been heeded, and with an exquisite tenderness the anxieties,
the problems, the hopes and the fears of the little home were brought
to the Great Burden Bearer.
The parting was little short of affectionate. The last hand-clasp was
McDonald's. "McDonald, I can scarcely believe you've never darkened
the kirk door, and you an Aberfeldy man. I want you to give me your
word for it that next Sabbath morning you and the good wife and the
bairns will make a new start and be found worshipping God. Six months
from now I expect to hear from Mr. Stewart that you've been regular in
attendance at the house of God. McDonald! give me your word that
you'll not disappoint me--nor Him!"
No words came from McDonald's lips, but there were moistened eyes and a
lingering hand-clasp that made the Superintendent's heart glad.
When, nine months later, Stewart was leaving the field for college, and
was reporting conditions to the Superintendent, he wrote as follows:
"You will remember the visit I did not want to make at the McDonalds.
May God forgive me for my lack of interest and of faith! Since last
February McDonald, with some of his children, has never missed a
service. At the Communion in June, Rev. Mr. Rowatt came over from the
Fort and welcomed seven new members, John McDonald, his wife, and their
son Bruce being among the number. The Bible you helped them to
resurrect has been much 'thumbed' since then. I am thankful I stayed
the year on this field. To have seen the change that has taken place
in the shack on the hillside has done more for me than the whole year's
course in Apologetics."
THE COOKEE
It had been a bitterly cold drive across what was known as "The
Plains," and the student missionary was thankful when his pony reached
the shelter of the jack-pines. After a few miles of bush a small
"clearance" was reached. The low-roofed shack standing at the back of
it never looked more inviting than to-day; but though twenty-five miles
from the "highway of commerce," there were homes still more remote that
had been expecting a visit from the little preacher for some time, and
so, despite his pony's protest against driving by even poor shelter in
weather like this, he had regretfully to tell her she might not turn in
that road to-day. As was the missionary's custom in passing any
dwellings, he waved his greeting in the direction of the humble shack.
Before he had gone many yards the good-natured pioneer farmer was
outside shouting his "halloos," and, on being heard, signalled for the
preacher to stop. Making his way through the snow, he said, "Ain't you
going to give us a call to-day? Better come in and get thawed out;
soon be grubbing time."
"Not to-day, Mac, thanks," was the reply. "I've been to your place
pretty often, and I thought I ought to make the end of this road
to-day."