one bed; but they took off the top of the bedding, and put one tick on
the floor. "That's for me," I thought. Not a bit of it. I was to have
the place of honor. So, hanging some sheets on strings stretched
across the room, they soon partitioned off the bed for me. Then, after
reading and prayers, the man said, "Now, any time you are ready for
bed, Elder, you can take that bed." But how to get there? First I went
out and gave them a chance; but they did not take it. I thought
perhaps they would go and give me a chance; but they did not. So I
began to disrobe. I took a long while taking off coat and vest; then
slowly came the collar and neck-tie; next came off my boots and
stockings. Now, I thought, they will surely step out; but no; they
talked and laughed away like two children. Slipping behind the sheet,
and fancying I was in another room, I balanced myself as well as I
could on the feather bed, and managed to get off the rest of my
clothes, got into bed, and lay looking at the moonbeams as they
glanced through the chinks of the logs, and thinking of New England
with her silk bed-quilts and bath-rooms, till, as I mused, sleep
weighed down my drowsy eyelids, and New England mansions and Michigan
log huts melted into one, and they both became one Bethel with the
angels of God ascending and descending.
I visited Lake Linden, and found the people ready for organization as
soon as they could have a pastor. A brother had just left for this
field; and I thought it safe to say that we should have a
self-supporting church there at no distant day. We did. While staying
there a man came after me to baptize two children. I went, and one
would think he had been suddenly transferred to Germany. Great
preparations had been made. I noticed a large bowl of lemons cut up,
and the old ladies in their best attire. I was requested to give them
a baptismal certificate, and to sign the witnesses' names, as they
said that was done by the minister. It was a delicate way of telling
me they could not write.
But that was not the strangest part of the ceremony. The father and
mother stood behind the witnesses, the latter being two men and two
women. The women held the children until all was ready, then handed
them to the men, who held them during baptism. I preached to them a
short sermon of five minutes or so, and then, when I had written the
certificate, each witness deposited a dollar on the table. The father
was about to hand me five dollars; but I made him give four of it to
the children. They would not take a cent of the witness money; that
would be "bad luck," they said. It was a new experience to me. The
people had no Bible in the house. As I had left mine at the village, I
had to use what I had in my heart. Here again, I thought, what work
for a colporteur?
A great work might be done by one or two men who could travel all the
time with Bibles and other good books, and preach where the
opportunity offered. We might not see the result, but it would be just
as certain; and though the people might not stay here, they will be
somewhere. There are many places where neither railway, steamboat, nor
stage ever reaches, and yet the people have made and are making homes
there. They went up the rivers on rafts, and worked their way through
the wilderness piecemeal. Missionary Thurston carried his parlor
stove slung on a pole between himself and another man.
At one place, while preaching, I noticed a man fairly glaring at me.
At first I thought he was an intensely earnest Christian, but he "had
a devil." After meeting he told the people, "If that man talks like
that to-night, I'll answer him right out in meeting." He came, and
behaved himself. Some time after he had to leave town on account of a
stabbing-affray, and I lost sight of him for a while. Long after I was
in another place, one hundred and twenty miles away; and while talking
with our missionary there, I saw a man coming from a choir-practice. I
said, "Is that their minister?"
"No; he is our new school-teacher."
"Why," I said, "that is the very man I was talking to you about, who
was so wroth with the sermon."
"Oh, no! you are mistaken; he is a very pious young man--opens school
with prayer, and attends all our meetings; and I know it is not put on
to please the trustees, for they are not that kind of men." But it
_was_ the same man, minus the devil, "for behold he prayeth."
At another place I preached in a little log schoolhouse. Close to my
side sat a man who would have made a character for Dickens. He had
large, black, earnest eyes, face very pale, was deformed, and, with a
little tin ear-trumpet at his ear, he listened intently. I was invited
by his mother to dine with them. I found, living in a little house
roofed with bark, the mother and two sons. One of the boys was
superintendent of the Sunday-school. I was surprised at the first
question put by my man with the ear-trumpet,--
"Elder, what do you think of that sermon of ----'s in Chicago? I have
always been bothered with doubts, and that unsettled me worse than
ever."
Who would have thought to hear, away up in the woods, in such a house,
from such a man, such a question? I tried to take him away from ----
to Christ. After dinner he opened a door and said, "Look here."
There, in a little workshop, was a diminutive steam-engine, of nearly
one-horse power, made entirely by himself; the spindles, shafts,
steam-box, and everything finished beautifully. The shafts and rods
were made with much pains from large three-cornered files. He was
turning cant-hook and peevy handles for a living, and to pay off the
debt on their little farm. The brother had a desk and cabinet of his
own make, which opened and shut automatically. I was delighted. They
were hungry for books and preaching. Are not such people worth saving?
These conditions existed over twelve years ago, but they are as true
to-day in all parts of the newer frontiers. Meanwhile some of the
above churches have become self-supporting, and are supporting a
minister in foreign lands.
XVI.
BLACK CLOUDS WITH SILVER LININGS.
In a former chapter I was just starting for the copper regions. Come
with me, we will board the train bound for Marquette.
For some miles our way ran through thick cedar forests; then we
reached a hard-wood region where we found a small village and a number
of charcoal kilns; a few miles farther on, another of like character.
Then, with the exception of a way station or siding, we saw no more
habitations of men until we reached the Vulcan iron furnace of
Newberry, fifty-five miles from Point St. Ignace. The place had about
800 population, mostly employed by the company.
Twenty-five miles farther on we reached Seney, where we stayed for
dinner. This is the headquarters for sixteen lumber camps, with
hundreds of men working in the woods or on the rivers, year in and
year out. They never hear the gospel except as some pioneer home
missionary pays an occasional visit. There are some 40,000 men so
employed in Northern Michigan.
After another seventy-five miles we glided into picturesque Marquette,
overlooking its lovely Bay, a thriving city of some 7,000 population,
the centre of the iron mining region. Here we had to wait until the
next noon before we could go on.
Our road now led through the very heart of the iron country.
Everything glittered with iron dust, and thousands of cars on many
tracks showed the proportions this business had attained. We have been
mounting ever since leaving Marquette, and can by looking out of the
rear window see that great "unsalted sea," Lake Superior.
We soon reached Ishpeming, with its 8,000 inhabitants. A little
farther on we passed Negaunee, claiming over 5,000 people, where
Methodism thrives by reason of the Cornish miners. After passing
Michigamme we saw but few houses.
Above Marquette the scenery changes; there are rocks, whole mountains
of rocks as large as a town, with a few dead pines on their scraggy
sides; we pass bright brown brooks in which sport the grayling and the
speckled trout. Sometimes a herd of deer stand gazing with
astonishment at the rushing monster coming towards them; then with a
stamp and a snort they plunge headlong into the deep forest. Away we
go past L'Anse, along Kewenaw Bay, and at last glide between two
mighty hills the sides of which glow and sparkle with great furnace
fires and innumerable lamps shining from cottage windows, while
between lies Portage Lake, like a thread of gold in the rays of the
setting sun; or, as it palpitates with the motion of some giant
steamboat, its coppery waters gleam with all the colors of the
rainbow.
Just across this narrow lake a royal welcome awaited us from the
pastor of the First Congregational Church of Hancock. This fine church
is set upon a hill that cannot be hid. The audience fills the room,
and pays the closest attention to the speaker. They had the best
Sunday-school I ever saw. Everything moved like clockwork; every one
worked with vim. In addition to the papers that each child received,
seventy-five copies of the _Sunday School Times_ were distributed to
the teachers and adult scholars. The collection each Sunday averaged
over three cents a member for the whole school, to say nothing of
Christmas gifts to needy congregations, and memorial windows telling
of the good works in far-off fields among the mission churches. It was
my privilege to conduct a few gospel meetings which were blessed to
the conversion of some score or more of souls who were added to the
church.
Thirteen miles farther north, and we were in the very heart of the
Lake Superior region. It had been up-hill all the way. We went on the
Mineral Range narrow gauge railway; but at broad-gauge price, five
cents a mile, and no half-fare permits; so we were thankful to learn
the little thing was only thirteen miles long.
Here we are in Calumet. At the first glance you think you are in a
large city; tall chimney stacks loom up, railways crossing and
recrossing, elevated railways for carrying ore to the rock-houses,
where they crush rock enough to load ten trains of nearly forty cars
per day, for the stamping-works of the Calumet and Hecla Company. You
cannot help noticing the massive buildings on every hand, in one of
which stands the finest engine in the country--4,700 horse-power--that
is to do the whole work of the mines. Everything about these great
shops works easily and smoothly.
At the mine's mouth we look down and see the flashing of the lights in
the miners' hats as they come up, twelve feet at a stride, from 3,000
feet below; hear the singing as it rolls up from the hardy Cornish
men like a song of jubilee. Come to the public school and listen to
the patter of the little feet as nearly 1,600 children pour out of
their great schoolhouse, and you will be glad to know there are good
churches here for training the little ones. Calumet, Red Jacket, and
its suburbs cannot have much less than 10000 inhabitants.
But here comes the minister of the Congregational church, with a
hearty Scotch welcome on his lips as he hurries us into the snug
parsonage, and makes us forget we ever slept in a basswood house
partitioned with sheets. Here, too, we stayed and held a series of
meetings. This is one of the few frontier churches that sprung,
Minerva-like, full armed for the work. Never receiving, but giving
much aid to others, it has increased. Here, too, I found another best
Sunday-school. In this school on Sunday are scattered good papers as
thick as the snowflakes on the hills; and the 300 scholars have
packed away in their hearts over 52,000 verses of the Bible, that will
bring forth fruit in old age. It is rich, too, in good works--one
little girl gave all her Christmas money to help build the parsonage.
Over a hundred of the young people came out in the meetings, and
signed a simple confession of faith; fifty of them went to the
Methodist church, the rest remained with us.
From this place we go to Lake Linden, on Torch Lake, where are the
stamping-works of the Calumet and Hecla mines. This company have some
2,000 men in their employ, and expend some $500,000 per year on new
machinery and improvements. Everything in this place is cyclopean; ten
great ball stamps, each weighing 640 lbs., with other smaller ones,
shake the earth for blocks away as their ponderous weight crushes the
rocks as fast as men can shovel them in. Each man works half an hour,
and is then relieved for half an hour. Over 300 carloads of ore are
required daily to keep these monsters at work, day and night the year
round, except Sundays. A stoppage here of an hour means $1,000 lost.
One stands amazed to see the foundations of some new buildings--bricks
enough for a block of houses, 2,000 barrels of Portland cement and
trap-rock are mixed, the whole capped off with Cape Ann granite. Two
wheels, 40 feet in diameter, are to swing round here, taking up
thousands of gallons of water every minute.
XVII.
SAD EXPERIENCES.
Fourteen years ago I attended fifty-one funerals in twenty-one months.
This large number was due to the fact that toward the south and west
the nearest minister was ten miles off, north and east over twenty
miles; and though there were only some 450 souls in White Cloud, we
may safely put down 3,000 as the number who looked to this point for
ministerial aid in time of trouble.
The traveller by rail passes a few small places, and may think that
between stations there is nothing but a wilderness, for such it often
appears. He would be surprised to learn that one mile from the line,
at short intervals, are large steam-mills with little communities--forty,
fifty, and sixty souls.
Here and there are many of the Lord's people, who, overwhelmed by the
iniquity they see and hear, have hung their harps upon the willows,
and have ceased to sing the Lord's song. They feel that if some one
could lead, they would follow; and the call for help is imperative, if
we take no higher grounds than that of self-protection. Hundreds of
children are growing up in ignorance, and will inevitably drift to the
cities. It is from these sources that the dangerous classes in them
are constantly augmented.
It is hard to believe that in our day, in Michigan, should be found
such a spiritual lack as the following incident reveals. One night
just as I was falling asleep, a knock aroused me. A man had come for
me to go some five miles through the woods to see a poor woman who was
dying. The moon was shining when we started, and we expected soon to
reach the place. But we had scarcely reached the forest when a storm
broke upon us. The lightning was so vivid that the horse came to a
stand. The trees moaned and bent under the heavy wind, and threatened
to fall on us. No less than seven trees fell in that road some few
hours later. Our lantern was with difficulty kept alight, so that we
made but little progress; for it was dangerous to drive fast, and,
indeed, to go slow, for that matter. We spent two hours in going five
miles. As we were fastening the horse, I heard cries and groans
proceeding from the house, and was met at the door with exclamations
of sorrow, and, "Oh, sir, you are too late, too late!"
This was an old, settled community of farmers; some eight or ten men
and women at the house, some of whom have had Christian parents, and
yet not one to pray with the poor woman or point her to the Lamb of
God.
Did they think I could absolve her? Did they look upon a minister as a
telegraph or a telephone operator, whom they must call to send the
message?
We often read of the overworked city pastor, and the contrast of his
busy life with the quiet of his country brother. But the contrast does
not apply to the home missionary who has a large field, as most of
them have. Let me give some incidents of one week of home missionary
experience. On Saturday, a funeral service. Sabbath, two
Sunday-schools and preaching. Monday, I visited a poor Finnish woman,
suddenly bereft of her husband, who had been fishing on Sunday in
company with three others--a keg of beer which they took with them
explained the trouble. Tuesday, attended the funeral, closing the
service just in time to catch the train to reach an appointment nine
miles off. Friday, received a telegram to come immediately to a
village, where a man was killed in the mill. While there, waiting for
the relatives, expected on the next train, another telegram came from
home, calling me back instantly.
Yet we cannot stop, for the work presses. Did we not know that the
Lord is above the water floods, we should be overwhelmed.
I am tempted to write a few lines about a family that came to
Woodville just before Christmas. It consisted of a mother, son-in-law,
three daughters, and two sons. Before they had secured a house their
furniture (save a stove and a few chairs) was burned. They were very
poor, and moved the few things they had left into two woodsheds, one
of which was lower than the other, so that after the end of one was
knocked out there was a long step running right across the house. Now,
fancy a family of six in here in winter time, with no bedsteads, a
table, and some broken chairs and stove, and you can imagine what sort
of a home it was. The widow felt very despondent, hinted about being
tired of life, and mentioned poison. One morning, after drinking a
great quantity of cold water, she turned in her bed and died. The
coroner's jury pronounced it dropsy of the heart, and waived a
_post-mortem_ examination.
I felt much drawn toward the children during the funeral service, and
spoke mainly to them. They seemed to drink in every word, and I
believe understood all.
Three weeks later a daughter lay dying of diphtheria. She called the
doctor, and told him she was going home to live with Jesus, and was
quite happy. One week from that time a son followed, twelve years of
age. He also went quite resigned. I shall never forget the scene
presented at this time; the dark room, the extemporized bedsteads, the
wind playing a dirge through the numerous openings, the man worn out
with night-work and watching, stretched beside the coffin, the dead
boy on the other bed, two more children sick with the same disease.
People seemed afraid to visit them. I gave the little ones some money
each time I went. The little four-year-old, a pretty boy, said,--
"You won't have to give any for Willie this time, I have his."
Death seemed to have no terrors for the little ones. I talked to them
of Jesus, and told them he was our Elder Brother and God was our
Father. The little boy listened as I talked of heaven, and seemed very
thoughtful. In another week, to a day, I was there again. The little
fellow was going too; and now he said,--
"I want you to buy me a pretty coffin, won't you? and put nice leaves
and flowers in it. I am going to heaven, you know, and I shall see my
brother. Jesus is my brother, you know."
And so he passed away like one falling to sleep. I could not but think
of the glorious change for these little ones, now "safe in the arms of
Jesus." From a hut to a mansion, from hearing the hoarse, gruff
breathing of the mill to the chanting of the heavenly choirs, from the
dark squalor and rags to see the King in his beauty, to hunger no
more, to thirst no more, neither to have the sun light on them nor any
heat, to be led to living fountains of waters, to have all tears
wiped from their eyes--who would wish them back?
I remember in one case a man whose wife had run off with another man,
and had left him with two boys, one an idiot. The poor little child
was found dead under the feet of the oxen, and when the funeral took
place the man with his remaining son came through the woods and across
lots to the cemetery, while a man with the coffin in a cart came by
the road. The only ones at the funeral were these two and the carter,
with myself.
I visited one home where nine out of eleven were down with diphtheria.
Two young girls in a fearful condition were in the upper rooms;
nothing but horse-blankets were hung up in the unplastered rooms, but
they did not keep out the snow. The father and the man who drove were
the only ones beside myself at this funeral. In one family four died
before the first was buried.
It made me think of the plague in London, and the man tolling the
bell and crying, "Bring out your dead." Scarlet fever, small-pox, and
typhoid were epidemic for some time, and it was then the people began
to appreciate the services of the minute-man.
Some cases were rather odd, to say the least. One night a boy was
lost. I suggested to his mother that he might be drowned, and that the
pond ought to be searched. Her reply was amazing: "Well, if he's
drownded, he's drownded, and what's the use till morning." Here was
philosophy. Yet at the funeral this woman was so punctilious about the
ceremonies that, seeing a horse which broke into a trot for a few
steps, she said "it didn't look very well at a funeral to be
a-trottin' hosses."
XVIII.
A SUNDAY ON SUGAR ISLAND.
Sugar Island is about twelve miles from Sault Ste. Marie. It is
twenty-four miles long and from three to twelve wide. Its shape is
somewhat like an irregularly formed pear. Seven-tenths of its people
are Roman Catholic; quite a number of them came from Hudson's Bay, and
what others call a terrible winter is to them quite mild.
One Scotchman, who lived there thirty years, had never seen a
locomotive or been on board of a steamboat, although numbers of the
latter might be seen daily passing his house all summer long,--little
tugs drawing logs, and the great steamers of the Canadian Pacific
Railway, with their powerful engines, and lighted by electricity. He
came by way of Hudson's Bay, which accounts for his never having seen
a locomotive; and he rather prided himself on never having been on
board a steamboat. Like many of the trappers of an early day, he
married an Indian woman. Quite a number of the descendants of these
old pioneers live on the island. Some of them formed part of Brother
Scurr's membership and congregation; one of them was a deacon, and a
good one too.
But now for our journey. It was eight miles to our first appointment,
and we went by water. Mrs. Scurr and the two children, with a little
maid, made up our company, so that our boat was well filled. My hands,
not used to rowing, soon gave out, and Brother Scurr had to do nearly
all of that work. It was a hot, bright morning in the latter part of
June--a lovely day--and we soon passed down the river into Lake
George, and after two hours' steady pulling, made a landing opposite a
log house just vacated by the settlers for one more convenient.
This was our sanctuary for the morning. Here we found a mixed
company--settlers from Canada, "the States," Chippewas, etc., men,
women, and children. Some of them came four, five, and eight miles;
some in boats, some on foot. One old Indian was there who did not know
a word of English, but sat listening as intently as if he took it all
in.
After the sermon, nearly all present partook of the Lord's Supper.
There were not so many there as usual; for one of the friends had just
lost a little child by diphtheria, and two more lay sick; and such is
the difficulty of communication that it was buried before Brother
Scurr had heard of its death. This kept many away.
We now took to our boat again, and, after rowing three miles, thought
we espied a beautiful place to dine; but we had reckoned without our
host. Mosquitoes and their cousins, the black flies, were holding
their annual camp-meeting, and about the time we landed were in the
midst of a praise service. It was at once broken up on our arrival;
and, without even waiting for an invitation, they joined in our
repast. This was considerably shortened, under the circumstances, and
we were glad to take to the water again. A word about the insect world
in this region. They are very different from those farther south,
being as active in the daytime as in the night. Perhaps, because of
shorter seasons, they have to be at it all the time to get in their
work.
Another good pull at the oar and a little help from the wind brought
us to our second stage, the Indian village. On the hillside stood the
schoolhouse where we were to preach. The view from this spot was
lovely. Lake George lay flashing in the sunshine, and beyond the great
hills stretched as far as the eye could reach, and seemed in the
distance to fold one over the other, like purple clouds, until both
seemed mingled into one.
We had a somewhat different audience this time, only four white men
being present; but all could understand English, except our old Indian
friend of the morning, who was again present, and for whose benefit
the chief's son arose after I was through, and interpreted the whole
discourse, save a little part which he said he condensed as the time
was short. I was both astonished and delighted. The people told me he
could do so with a sermon an hour long, without a break. Most of the
company, as a rule, understand both languages, and keep up a keen
watch for mistakes. It is a wonderful feat. The man's gestures were
perfect; he was a natural orator. I asked him if he did not find it
much harder to follow some men than others. He said, "Ough! Some go
big way round before they come to it; they awful hard to follow."
We took leave of our Indian friends with mingled feelings of hope as
to what they might be, and of pity for what they were.