MILLS' SECOND TOUR.
In the year 1814 Mr. Mills having obtained the assistance of some of
the eastern Bible societies, and having chosen as companion the Rev.
Daniel Smith, started on another tour through the South and West.
They went laden with Bibles and the prayers of Christian friends.
They went through Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Missouri.
In all these states they found the people "exceedingly destitute of
religious privileges," and a "lamentable want of Bibles and
missionaries." They found "American families who never saw a Bible,
or heard of Jesus Christ." There was only one minister to ten
thousand people if equally placed; but there were districts
containing from twenty to fifty thousand "without a preacher." These
men were light-bringers to this "valley of the shadow of death," as
Mills called it. They found English soldiers, French Romanists,
colored slaves, our own dear countrymen, greedy for the bread of
life.
They traveled more than six thousand miles; they passed through a
variety of climates; they endured "perils in the city, perils of the
wilderness, perils on the rivers and on the sea," that they might
cast that bread upon the waters which you and I are finding after
many days.
Mills arrived for the second time in New Orleans, soon after the
celebrated battle of January 8, 1815, and cheered many hearts by his
coming. He visited the soldiers in prison, the sick and wounded in
the hospitals; kneeling on the bare floor where they lay, he prayed
and talked with them, sang for them, and gave them Bibles; he
preached in camp. The Philadelphia society had given him a quantity
of French Bibles. The people were clamorous for them. They thronged
the distributor's door, and remained even after the notice had been
given that no more could be had until the following day. They came
sometimes from great distances. In one week a thousand copies were
given away. In one instance a Romish priest assisted in this work.
The bishop acknowledged the deplorable state of the people, and
preferred their having the Protestant version to none at all.
When these adventurers in Christ's kingdom visited St. Louis, they
found it a place of two thousand inhabitants,--"a tumble-down French
village,--built mainly of wooden slabs and poles set vertically, and
well daubed with mortar mixed with straw, though there were many log
houses." In a school-room they delivered the first Presbyterian or
Congregational sermons ever preached on the west side of the
Mississippi. They were gratefully received, and had crowded
audiences. The people would gladly have supported either one could he
have stayed.
But the immediate duty of these explorers for souls was to return to
the churches which had sent them out, to report what they had
discovered, and to beg that men be sent to these waste places which
were waiting to be made to blossom. All New England was roused to
effort by their appeal, and the next year ten or twelve men responded
to the summons.
In 1848 the word "gold" was whispered in California and heard all
over the world. The gold-hunters pressed forward from every corner of
the earth. It was not thought a hard thing to turn one's back on
home, friends and country, for the sake of gold, though that
glittering promise was, to most of those who searched, like the bag
at the end of the rainbow, and all the riches of this world "make
themselves wings." "The promises of God are sure," and the riches
which He bestows are everlasting; and yet to the call, gold and
glory, young men answer by the thousand, while to the cry, Christ and
a crown, they respond by the dozen! "Choose ye this day whom ye will
serve."