side, and remarked that the people were industrious. "Oh, yes," said
our brother; "because they burnt their fences last winter for firing."
Sure enough; what is the use of a fence in winter except to burn? And
then the wood is well seasoned. One church over there bought nearly
all the members of the other with flour and pork; and if you ask an
Indian in that region to-day to unite with your church, he says, "How
much flour you give me to join?" That's business.
But it was getting late, and we had four miles' rowing yet before us.
After a good hour's pull at the oars we reached the parsonage, just as
the sun was setting in purple and gold behind the blue hills of
Algoma. And there, as we sat watching the deepening twilight, brother
Scurr told me some of the trials of missionary life in that region.
Often walking miles through the wet grass and low places, in the
spring and fall, standing in his wet shoes while preaching, and then
returning--in the winter on snow-shoes, following the trail (for there
are no roads); in the summer, when the weather permits, by boat. When
the snow was deep, and the wind was howling around his house, he had
to leave his sick wife to keep his appointments miles away, and was
almost afraid to enter the house on his return, for fear she had left
him alone with his little ones in the wilderness. It was twelve miles
to the nearest doctor on the mainland; and the only congenial
companion for his wife was the missionary's wife on the Canadian side,
a mile and a half away. This good sister knew something of the shady
side of a missionary wife's life, as she lay for weeks hovering
between life and death.
One touching little incident brother Scurr told me that deeply
affected me. One dark night Deacon John Sebastian came and told him
his daughter, a fine girl of some sixteen years of age, was dying,
and wished to see him. The mother was a Roman Catholic; but the
daughter, who attended our church with her father, had accepted Christ
for her Saviour, and now desired to partake of the Lord's Supper with
us ere she departed. There in the farmhouse at midnight the little
company, with the mother joining, partook of the sacrament. All church
distinctions were forgotten, as the Protestant father and Catholic
mother sat with clasped hands, and with tear-bedimmed eyes saw their
loved one go into the silent land. I left the next morning, promising
to call again as soon as I could, and some time to hold meetings with
them when the men were at home from fishing in the winter.
I attended the dedication of a new church at Alba costing a little
over $1,000, all paid or provided for, $137 being raised on the night
of dedication, in sums from two cents, given by a little girl, up to
ten dollars, the highest sum given that night by one person. All our
people in the rural districts are very poor, but often generous and
self-denying. I know of one good mother in Israel who went without her
new print dress for the summer in order to give the dollar to the
minister at Conference. Think of that dollar dress, my good sisters,
when you are perplexed about whether you shall have yours cut bias, or
gored, or Mother Hubbard style, or--well, I don't know much about
styles; but "think on these things."
XIX.
THE NEEDS OF THE MINUTE-MAN.
The needs of the minute-man are as great as his field. If the army
sent its minute-men to the front as poorly equipped for battle as our
army of minute-men often are, it would be defeated. The man needs,
besides a home, a library and good literature up to date. Religious
papers a year or two old make good reading, and biographies of good
men are very stimulating. A full set of Parkman's works would be of
inestimable value in keeping up his courage and helping his faith. The
smaller the field, the greater the need of good reading; for on the
frontier you miss the society of the city, and its ministers'
meetings, and the great dailies, and all the rush of modern life that
is so stimulating. And yet you find men of all conditions and mental
stature. A man who can get up two good sermons a week that will feed
the varied types that he will meet at church needs to be a genius.
[Illustration: A MINUTE MAN'S PARSONAGE.
_Page 190._]
When a man has access to all the great reviews, to fine libraries,
public and private, and has the stimulation that comes from constant
intercourse with others, besides an income that will allow him to buy
the best books, when his services begin with forty-five minutes of
liturgy and song, backed with a fine pipe-organ, when he enjoys two or
three months vacation into the bargain, he must be a very small
specimen of a man if he cannot write a thirty-minute sermon; but when
all a man's books can be put on one shelf, when his salary barely
keeps the pot boiling, and he has fifty-two Sundays to fill, year in
and year out, it is no wonder that short pastorates are the rule. When
a man reaches his new field with no better start than many have,--the
majority without a college training, and some without even a
high-school education,--it is not long before some of his parish
will be asking a superintendent or presiding elder whether he cannot
send them a good man. "Our man here," he says, "is good, but he can't
preach for shucks." The new man comes, and in three months he is in
the same boat. And another comes; and after a little there is as much
money spent for the sustaining of these families as would keep a good
man.
So it goes on, year after year. Sectarian jealousies and sectarian
strivings are as bad for the spiritual development of a country as
saloons. So that we find to-day, in little towns of two thousand
inhabitants, ten or eleven churches, all of them little starveling
things, "No one so poor to do them reverence;" while the real frontier
work is left with thousands of churchless parishes.
If a man properly fitted out for his field could go at first, it would
often stop the multiplication of little sects whose chief article of
faith is some wretched little button-hook-and-eye or feet-washing
ceremony. In the beginning, such is the weakness of the new community,
a union church is inevitable, there not being enough of a kind to go
around; and nothing but a lack of Christianity will break that church
up.
For an example, here is a superintendent with a field a thousand miles
by four hundred. He hears that a new town is started up in the
mountains, a hundred and fifty miles from the railway. The stage is
the only means of reaching it; no stopping on the road but twenty
minutes for meals. After a tedious journey he reaches the place, and
finds the usual conditions,--saloons, gambling-houses by the score,
houses of every description in the process of erection.
He goes up to the hotel man, and asks whether he can procure a place
for preaching. He is given the schoolhouse. He announces preaching
service, and begins. The people crowd the little building; they sit or
stand outside. Here are members of a dozen sects, and a solitary
feet-washer feeling lonely enough. The work crowds him; and he wires
to headquarters at New York,--a strange telegram,--"For the love of
God, send me a man." Just as the telegram arrives, a man who has just
come from England steps into the office. He is examined, and asked
whether he would like to go beyond the Rocky Mountains. He is the
right stuff. "Anywhere," is the answer; and as fast as limited express
can take him he hurries to the new field. He finds a great crowd
outside the schoolhouse, a revival going on, and he has hard work to
reach the minister. A church is organized, and it is to be a union
church. What a calamity to have the brethren living together in unity!
To have Christ's prayer answered that they may be one! It's dreadful.
But never mind; the Devil, in the shape of sect that holds its
deformity higher than Christ, soon makes an end of that; so that the
real-estate agent advertises good water, good schools, and good
churches.
The only way I see out of this anti-christian warfare is to send a
well-balanced, well-paid man to start with. In the case just stated,
the man was a good one, and held the fort, and managed skilfully his
united flock.
There are times when the best men will fail, as they do in business.
The place promises great growth, and peters out; but in these small
towns, where the growth will never be large, your faithful man often
does a mighty work. His flock are constantly moving away, but new ones
are constantly coming; and so his church is helping to fill others
miles away, and it will not be until he is translated that we shall
see how grand a man he was.
I remember one man with his wife and family presenting himself one day
to the Superintendent of Missions. He had just left a pretty little
rose-covered parsonage in England. The only place open was a very cold
and hard field. The forests had been destroyed by fire. The climate
was intense, either summer or winter; but he said, "I will go. I do
not want to be a candidate."
And off he went with his family. In the winter his bedroom was often
so cold that the thermometer registered 20° below zero; and in spite
of a big stove, the temperature was at zero in mid-day near the door
and windows. One of his little ones born there was carried in blankets
to be baptized in the little church when it was 2° below zero. I used
to send this man small sums of money that were given me by kind
friends. All the money promised on this field from three churches was
twenty dollars a year, and part of that paid in potatoes. The last
five dollars I sent him came back. He said he felt it would not be
right to take it, as he had just accepted a call to a Presbyterian
church. He felt almost like making an apology for doing so, as he
said, "My boys are growing up, and they can get so little schooling
here that I am going to move where they can at least get an
education." And then he was going to have seven hundred dollars a
year. I sent the money back, saying that, as he was moving, he would
probably need it. The answer that came said he had just spent his last
two cents for a postage-stamp when the five dollars came.
I suppose there are at least ten thousand minute-men on the field
to-day, working under the different home missionary societies. Most of
them have wives, and with their children will make an army of fifty
thousand strong, the average of whose salaries will not exceed five
hundred dollars per year. And on this small sum your minute-man must
feed, clothe, and educate his family; and how much can he possibly use
to feed his own mind?--the man who ought to be able to stand in the
front ranks at all times, in order to gain the respect of the
community in which he should be the leader in all good works.
XX.
THE MINUTE-MAN IN THE MINER'S CAMP.
When the first minute-men went to the Pacific slope, they had a long
and dangerous voyage by sea round Cape Horn; and on their arrival they
had to live in a tent, pay a dollar a pound for hay, and a dollar
apiece for potatoes and onions. To-day it is a very different thing to
reach the mining-camps. No matter how high the mountains are, your
train can climb them, doubling on itself, crossing or recrossing; or
when the way is too steep, cogging its way up.
Not long since I sat in a nicely furnished room taking my dinner. My
host was talking through a telephone to a man miles away, and then,
with a good-by, came back to the table. I said, "That is a great
contrast with your first days here." He laughed, and said, "Yes. The
boats came up to where there are now great blocks of buildings; and
when I preached on Sunday afternoon, I always had a bull and a bear
fight to contend with around the corner. I remember one time," he
said, "when the bull broke loose, and ran down the street past where I
was preaching. I saw at a glance that I must close the meeting, and so
pronounced the benediction; when I opened my eyes not a living soul
was in sight except my wife."
At another time he approached two miners who were at work; and he told
them he was building a little church, and thought they might like to
help. "Yes," said one of them, "you ain't the first man that's been
around here a-beggin' fer a orphan asylum. You git!" And as this was
accompanied with a loaded revolver levelled at him, he obeyed. They
were good men, but thought he was a gambler, as he had on a black
suit. When they afterwards found out that he was all right, they
helped him. Gambling in all mining-camps was the common amusement.
Some little camps had scarcely anything in sight but gambling-saloons,
all licensed.
This has continued even as late as July, 1895. The first preacher in
Deadwood stood on a box preaching when all around him were saloons,
gambling-houses, and worse. He was listened to by many in spite of the
turmoil all around him, and the collection was of gold-dust. It was
accidentally spilled on the ground, when some good-hearted miner
washed it out for him. The good man was shot the next day as he was
going over the divide to preach in Lead City. The miners had nothing
to do with it; but they not only got up a generous collection, but
sent East and helped the man's family.
Often a preacher has his chapel over a saloon where the audience can
hear the sharp click of the billiard-balls, the rattle of the dice,
and the profanity of the crowd below. One day a man who was rapidly
killing himself with drink recited in a voice so that all in the
little church could hear him:--
"There is a spirit above,
There is a spirit below,
A spirit of joy,
A spirit of woe.
The spirit above
Is the spirit divine,
The spirit below
Is the spirit of wine."
It was hard work under such circumstances to hold an audience. From
the room where the man preached twelve saloons were in sight, and the
audience could hear the blasting from the mines beneath them. The
communion had to be held at night, as the deacons were in the mine all
day. And yet those that did come were in earnest, I think. The very
deviltry and awfulness of sin drove some men to a better life who
under other conditions would never have gone to church. Many men were
hanged for stealing horses, very few for killing a man; while many a
would-be suicide has been saved by the efforts of a true-hearted
minute-man. No one but a genuine lover of his kind can do much good
among the miners. In no place is a man weighed quicker. The miners are
a splendid lot to work with, and none more gallant and respectful to a
good woman in the world.
The free and easy style of a frontiersman is refreshing. You never
hear the question as to whether the other half of your seat is
engaged; although, if you are a minister in regulation dress, you will
often have the seat to yourself. I remember once, when travelling in a
part of the country where both lumbermen and miners abounded, a big
man sat down by my side. He dropped into the seat like a bag of
potatoes. After a moment's look at me, he said, "Live near here?"
"Yes, at ----."
"Umph! In business?"
"Yes; I have the biggest business in the place."
"I want to know. You ain't Wilcox?"
"I know that."
"Well, don't he own that mill?"
"Yes; but I have a bigger business than any mill."
"What are you, then?"
"I am a home missionary."
The laugh the giant greeted this with stopped all the games and
conversation in the car for a moment; but I was able to give him a
good half-hour's talk, which ended by his saying, "Well, Elder, if I
am ever near your place, I am coming to hear ye, sure."
I was often taken for a commercial traveller, and asked what house I
was travelling for. I invariably said, "The oldest house in the
country," and that we were doing a bigger business than ever. "What
line of goods do you carry?" the man would ask, looking at my grip.
"Wine and milk, without money and without price. Can I sell you an
order?"
At first the man would hardly believe I was a preacher. I remember
talking for an hour on the boat with one young man, and after leaving
him I began to read my Bible. He saw me reading, and said, "Oh! come
off, now; that's too thin."
"What is the matter?" I said. "Do you mean that the paper is thin? It
is; but there's nothing thin about the reading."
He at once whispered to the captain; and after the captain had
answered him, he came over and apologized. "Why did you not tell me
you were a minister?"
"I had no reason to," I said. "Did I say anything in my talk with you
of an unchristian nature?"
"No; but I should never have known you were a minister by your
clothes."
"No; and I don't propose that my tailor shall have the ministerial
part of my makeup."
Time was when every trade was known by the clothes worn, and the
minister is about the only one to keep his sign up. It is just as well
on the frontier for him to be known by his life, his deeds, and his
words. The young man above had been a wide reader; and for two hours
that night under the veranda of our hotel I talked with him, and
afterwards had some very interesting letters from him.
The town that same night was filled with wild revelry. It was on the
eve of the Fourth of July, and newly sworn-in deputies swarmed;
rockets and pistols were fired with fatal carelessness; and yet amidst
it all we sat and talked, so intensely interested was the man in
regard to his soul.
I close this chapter with a portion of Dr. McLean's sermon on the
flowing well (he was the man our minute-man was talking with by
telephone mentioned in the first part of this chapter) which will show
how well it pays to place the gospel in our new settlement:--
"The first instance of which I myself happen to have had
some personal observation, is of a well opened thirty years
ago. Fifteen persons met in a little house, still standing,
in what was then a community of less than fifteen hundred
souls. They came to talk and counsel, for they were men and
women in touch with God. They were considering the matter of
a flowing well of the spiritual sort. There was the valley,
opportunity; and there was the lack of sufficient religious
ministration. The moral aspect of the place could not be
better surmised than by the prophets word, 'Tongue faileth
for thirst.'
"They consulted and prayed, and said, 'We'll do it!' They
joined heart and hand, declaring, 'Cost what it may, we'll
sink the well!' And they did. But ah, it was a stern task.
For many a day those fifteen and the few others who joined
them ate the bread of self-denial. Delicately reared women
dismissed their household help and did the work themselves.
Enterprising, ambitious men turned resolutely away from
golden schemes, and made their small invested capital still
smaller. A few days later on (it will be thirty years the
ninth of next December) eight men and seven women, standing
up together in a little borrowed room, solemnly plighted
their faith, and joyfully covenanted to established a church
of Christ of the Pilgrim order.
"What has been the outcome of that faith and self-denial? It
has borne true Abrahamic fruit. There stands to-day, on that
foundation, a church of more than eleven hundred members. It
has multiplied its original seventeen by more than the
hundred fold, having received to its membership one thousand
nine hundred and fifty-six souls, of whom one-half have come
upon confession. It is a church which is teaching to-day
seventeen hundred in its Sunday-schools; possesses an
enrolled battalion of two hundred valiant soldiers of
Christian Endeavor, which maintains kindergartens and all
manner of mission-industrial work; and held the pledge, at a
recent census, of thirteen hundred and twenty-two persons to
total abstinence. It has a constituency of one thousand
families. It reaches each week, with some form of religious
ministration, two thousand five hundred persons, and has
five thousand regularly looking to it for their spiritual
supplies. To as many more, doubtless, does it annually
furnish, in some incidental way, at least a cup of cold
water in the Master's name. It is a church which has been
privileged of God in its thirty years to bring forth nine
more churches within the field itself originally occupied,
and to lend a hand frequently with members, habitually with
money in it, to four times nine new churches in fields
outside its own. It is a church also, which, with no credit
to itself,--for, brethren, only sink the well, pipe it, keep
an open flow, and it is God who, from his bare heights and
the rivers opened on them, will supply the water,--it is a
church which has enjoyed the great blessedness of
contributing its part to every good thing in a growing city
which has grown in the thirty years from fifteen hundred to
sixty thousand souls. This church, having been enabled to
help on almost every good thing in its State, is recognized
to-day throughout a widely extended territory as an adjunct
and auxiliary of all good things in morals, politics, in
charity, and the general humanities,--a power for God and
good in a population which, already dense, is fast becoming
one of the ganglion centres of American civilization. It is
also laying its serviceable touch upon trans-oceanic
continents and intervening islands of the sea. It has
furnished ministers for the pulpit, and sent Sunday-school
superintendents and Christian workers out over a wide area;
it has consecrated already six missionaries to foreign
service, and has two others under appointment by the board;
and as for wives to missionaries and ministers, brethren,
you should just see those predatory tribes swoop down upon
its girls!
"It is a true flowing well in the midst of a valley. Ah!
those fifteen who met thirty years ago next October made no
mistake. They were within God's artesian belt. Their
divining-rod was not misleading. Their call was genuine;
their aim unerring. They struck the vein. The flow of the
rivers breaking out from bare heights did not disappoint
them. And now behold this wide expanse of spiritual
fertility! This church was not, in form, a daughter of the
American Home Missionary Society. Its name does not appear
upon your family record, and yet, in the true sense, it is
your daughter. In its infant days it sucked the breasts of
churches which had sucked yours. Its swaddling bands you
made. It was glad to get them even at second hand. The
other instance I have to quote is of but recent
standing,--of not thirty years, but only three.