Part 9

"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.

"On the 26th of May, three years ago, a pastor in Central California was called five hundred miles into the southern part of the State to assist in organizing a Pilgrim church. A good part of the proposing members being from his own flock, their appeal was urgent, and was acceded to. An infant organization of a few persons was brought together, and christened the Pilgrim Church of Pomona. The organization was effected in a public hall, loaned for the occasion; the church's stipulated tenure of the premises expiring at precisely 3 P.M., in order that the room might be put in order for theatrical occupancy at night. The accouchment was therefore naturally a hurried one. The constituting services had to be abbreviated. Among the things cast out was the sermon, which the visiting pastor from the north had come five hundred miles to preach. Well, sweet are the uses of adversity! Never, apparently, did loss so small gain work so great. On the lack of that initiatory sermon the Pilgrim Church of Pomona has most wonderfully thriven. The church was poor at the outset. It possessed no foot of ground, no house; only a Bible, a dozen hymn-books, and as many zealous members. Over this featherless chick was spread the brooding wing of the American Home Missionary Society. 'It was a plucky bird,' said the wise-hearted pastor, already on the ground. 'Here's a case where the questionable old saw, "Half a loaf better than no bread," won't work at all. If this new well is to be driven, it must be driven to the vein. If there is to be but surface digging, let there be none. If the American Home Missionary society will supply us with six hundred dollars for the first six months, we'll make no promises, but we'll do the best we can.' Well, the G. O. S.--Grand Old Society--responded, and gave the six hundred for the desired six months. At the expiration of that period the Pilgrim Church of Pomona, located upon land and in a house of its own, bade its temporary foster-mother a grateful good-by; and, as it did so, put back into her hand two hundred of the six hundred dollars which had been given. What has been the outcome? That noble church, headed by a noble Massachusetts pastor, has become in the matter of home missions at least--but not in home missions only--the leading church of Southern California. It has to-day an enrolment of two hundred and twenty; has contributed this year three hundred and fifty dollars to your society. Alert in all activities of its own, it is a stimulus to all those of its neighbors. It had not yet got formally organized--the audacious little strutling!--before it had made a cool proposition to the handful of Pilgrim churches then existing in Southern California for the creation of a college; secured the location in its own town; itself appointed the first board of trust; and named it Pomona College. It never waited to be hatched before it began to crow; and to such purpose that it crowed up a college, which now owns two hundred acres of choice land, has a subscription-list of twenty-five thousand dollars for buildings, besides a present building costing two hundred and five thousand dollars. It has in its senior class eleven students, in its preparatory department seventy-one; and in a recent revival interest numbers a goodly group of converts; and, finally, the general association of Southern California, at its meeting within a month, committed its fifty churches fully to the subject of Christian education, to the annual presentation of the advantages and claims of Pomona College, and to an annual collection for its funds. All this, brethren, out of one of your flowing wells in three years."

XXI.

THE SABBATH ON THE FRONTIER.

We hear a good deal of talk about the American Sabbath, so that one would think it was first introduced here; and, indeed, the American Sabbath is our own patent. Not but what Scotland and rural England had one somewhat like it; but the American Sabbath _par excellence_ is not the Jewish Sabbath, or the European Sabbath, but the Sunday of Puritan New England, which is generally meant when we hear of the American Sabbath. But the American Sabbath of the frontier can never become the European Sabbath without getting nearer to the New England type; for in Europe people do go to church in the morning, if they attend the beer-gardens in the afternoon. The Sabbath of the frontier has no church, and the beer-garden is open all day.

Some reader will wonder what kind of a deacon a man would make who worked on Sunday. Well, he might be better; but, remember, that for one deacon who breaks the Sabbath, there are ten thousand who break the tenth commandment, which is just as important. The fact is, you must do the best you can under the circumstances, and wait for the next generation to go up higher. It is no use finding fault with candles for the poor light and the smell of the tallow. There is only one way: you must light the gas; and it, too, must go when electricity comes. You might as well expect concrete roads, Beethoven's Symphonies, and the Paris opera, as to have all the conditions of New England life to start with under such environments. Man has greater power to accommodate himself to new conditions than the beasts that perish; nevertheless, he is subject to them, at least for a time.

I know some will be thinking of the Pilgrim Fathers, staying in the little Mayflower rather than break the Sabbath; but we must not forget, that, as a rule, the frontiers are not peopled with Pilgrim Fathers. It is true, the wildest settlers are not altogether bad; for you could have seen on their prairie schooners within the last year these words, "In God we trusted, in Kansas we busted;" which is much more reverent than "Pike's Peak or bust," if not quite so terse.

This is not meant for sarcasm. These words were written in a county that has been settled over two hundred and fifty years, and has not had a murderer in its jail yet, where the people talk as if they were but lately from Cornwall, where the descendants of Mayhew still live,--Mayhew, who was preaching to the Indians before the saintly Eliot.

We must remember, too, that the good men who first settled at Plymouth could do things conscientiously that your frontiersman would be shocked at. Think, too, of good John Hawkins sailing about in the ship Jesus with her hold full of negroes, and pious New Englanders selling slaves in Deerfield less than a hundred and ten years ago; of the whipping-post and the persecuting of witches; and that these good men, who would not break the Sabbath, often in their religious zeal broke human hearts. No living man respects them more than I do. You cannot sing Mrs. Hemans's words,

"The breaking waves dashed high,"

without the tears coming to these eyes; and one sight of Burial Hill buries all hard thoughts I might have about their stern rule. They were fitted for the times they lived in, and we must see to it that we do our part in our time.

In my first field I well remember being startled at a tiny girl singing out, "Hello, Elder!" and on looking up there was a batch of youngsters from the Sunday-school playing croquet on Sunday afternoon. "Hello!" said I; and I smiled and walked on. Wicked, was it not? I ought to have lectured them? Oh, yes! and lost them. Were they playing a year after? Not one of them. And, better still, the parents, who were non-churchgoers, had joined the church.

The saloons and stores were open, and doing a big business, the first year; but both saloons and stores were closed, side-doors too, after that. Some of the saloon-keepers' boys, who played base-ball on Sunday, were in the Sunday-school and members of a temperance society. These saloon-keepers, and men who were not church-members, paid dollar for dollar with the Christians who sent missionary money to support the little church; and not only that, but paid into the benevolences of the church from five to twenty-five dollars. There is no possible way so good of getting men to be better as to get them to help in a good cause. I know men who would not take money that came from the saloon; but I did. I remembered the words, "The silver and the gold are mine," and Paul's saying, "Ask no question for conscience' sake." We might as well blame the Creator for growing the barley because of its being put to a bad use, as to blame a man for using the money because it came from a bad business. Men ought to use common sense, even in religious things.

When a man hitches up his horse on Sunday morning and drives fifty miles that day and preaches four times, we admire his zeal. There are some who will not blame him if he hires a livery rig, who would condemn him if he rode on the street-cars or railway. I well remember a good man, who was to speak in a church a few miles away, saying to me, "How shall we get there?" I said, "The street-cars go right past the door."

"Oh! I can't ride in a street-car."

"Why? Make you sick?"

It never came into my head that the man meant he could not ride on Sunday in a street-car.

"I will tell you," said he, "what we will do. I will get a livery rig."

I was much amused, and bantered him, and said,--

"I don't know about breaking the Sabbath fifty per cent. I am willing to plead limited liability with a hundred others in the street-car."

Just then a man drove up with a buggy who had been sent for us. It seemed to take a load off my friend's mind. Now, there are men who would condemn a man for this, and say he should walk; and I know men who walk ten and twelve miles on Sunday. If that is not work I do not know what is. This month I saw an article in a paper condemning the young people who had to ride on Sunday to reach their meeting. The writer would not have them travel, even in an emergency. I wonder when the Pilgrims would have reached us on that basis. It is a far cry from the Mayflower to the Lucania. Is the Sabbath greater than its Lord? I was told of one preacher who was so particular that he sent word that no appointment must be made for him that involved street-car or railway travel. So a horse was driven ten miles to fetch him, and ten miles to take him back. When the horse reached his stable that night he had travelled forty miles to keep this man from breaking the Sabbath. Who gave these brethren the right to work their horses this way, and break the Sabbath? If Moses had a man stoned to death for gathering sticks on the Sabbath, what right have you to be toasting your shins over a register that your man-servant must keep going evenly or catch it? In short, what right has any man to tamper with one of the commandments to suit himself, and place the remainder higher than love to his neighbor?

So long as the frontier Sabbath is what it is, it will be lawful to do good on the Sabbath day. Far be it from me to undervalue the Sabbath. I value it highly, but I value freedom more. The man who rides in his carriage to church has no right to condemn my riding in the street-car, and he who rides in the street-car has no right to judge the man on the train. "Who art thou that judgest another man's servant?" "One man esteemeth one day above another; another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind." "Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage."

XXII.

THE FRONTIER OF THE SOUTH-WEST.

The South-west is different from all other parts of the country. The Anglo-Saxon is everywhere else in the ascendant. Here the Latin races are dominant. It is astonishing to find so many oldest churches all over the country. The superlative is a national trait. We have either the oldest or the youngest, the greatest or the smallest, or the only thing in the world. However, it is almost certain that the oldest church and house are to be found in Santa Fé. The Church of San Miguel was built seventy years before the landing of the Pilgrims, and the house next to the church fifty years. It is the oldest settled, is the farthest behind, has the most church-members per capita, and is the most ignorant and superstitious part of the land. In one part Mormonism holds sway. In the other, Roman Catholicism of two centuries ago is still the prevailing religion.

It is a curious fact; but in this latter respect the North-east and the South-west almost join hands; for Lower Canada sent us Old France, and the South-west remains Old Spain. Here, as a man travels through Western Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, only his Pullman car, and especially his Pullman porter, makes him realize that he is in America. In the eastern part of Texas the buzzards fill the air as they are hovering over the dead cattle. In the western part the dead cattle dry up and are blown away. Meat keeps indefinitely. There are no flies there, few insects, and the flowers are almost odorless, perhaps on account of the lack of insect-life. The very butcher-signs look strange. Instead of the fat, meek ox on a sign, we have a mad bull charging a Spanish matador.

Here comes a Mexican with a fifty-dollar hat on his head, and fifty cents would almost buy the rest of his clothes. He marches by with the strut of a drum-major. The best streets and the finest houses are often not homes. The plains look as if they would not keep a cow alive; and yet here in the South-west we find some of the finest grazing-lands in the world, although it takes twenty-five acres to feed a cow. But what of that? the acres are unlimited. The black-tailed antelope are seen running from your train; while the prairie-dog sits, like all small things, barking impudently, or, with a few electric twists of his little tail he dives below, where a rattlesnake and an owl keep his house in order, i.e., keep the population down so that the progeny would not kill all the grass, and so starve at last; with himself would go the cattle; so the economy of nature keeps up its reputation everywhere. As some have said, when salmon are scarce hens' eggs become dear; for the otter takes to the land and kills the rabbits, and the weasel, finding his stores low, visits the hen-coops--and up goes the price of eggs.

The minute-man in the South-west has a big field. He is often hundreds of miles from his next church. He preaches to the cowboys one day, to the Digger Indians or the blanket variety the next. He is off among the miners, and sometimes in less than four hours he must change from the cold mountain air to the heat which requires two roofs to the house in order to keep it cool enough. He eats steak that has come one thousand miles from the East, although ten thousand cattle are all about him. He passes a million cows, and yet has to use condensed milk for his coffee or go without.

He finds himself in the midst of the grandest scenery on the continent. In his long journey he often finds himself sleeping on the plain outside the teepees of his red brother, rather risking the tarantulas, lizards, and rattlers that may come, than the thousands of smaller nuisances that are sure to come if he goes under cover. He is in the midst of a past age; and as he visits the pueblos, he would not be surprised to see De Soto come forth, so Spanish are his surroundings. The adobe building prevails everywhere, cool in summer, warm in winter, and in this climate well nigh indestructible.

The priesthood are centuries removed from those of the East. Here he will meet with men living in the Middle Ages, beating their backs with cactus until the blood streams, and often dying under self-inflicted blows. We often hear of America having no ruins, no ancient history. This may be so in regard to time; but in regard to conditions we are in the time of Boadicea of the ancient Briton, and in the South-west are ruins of buildings that were inhabited when William was crowned at Westminster. So great are the States of the South-west that the counties are larger than New England States; and you may be stuck in a blizzard in northern Texas, while people in the southern portion are eating oranges out-doors with the oleanders for shade-trees.

I will close this chapter with a description given me in part by the Rev. E. Lyman Hood, who was Superintendent of Missions in the South-west until he was broken down by his arduous toil.

One evening he found himself at the opening of an immense cañon, on the lofty tops of which the snow was perpetual. Sheltered beneath its mighty walls, flowers of semi-tropical luxuriance flourished, and birds of gorgeous plumage flitted here and there; while humming-birds, like balls of metal, darted among the flowers. A little silver streamlet ran down the cañon until lost in the blue distance; and here our minute-man stood lost in reverent admiration. The sun was going down in pomp of purple and gold; and the little stream changed its colors with the clouds, until in a moment it became black; a cold wind came down the cañon, the flowers closed their petals, and with a twitter here and there the birds went to roost. And then our minute-man looked up aloft, where the sun still gilded the great cañon's shoulders until they glowed like molten metal, and kissed the forehead of an Indian who stood like a statue waiting the sun's setting. Another moment and it was gone, and our Indian stood like a silhouette against the sky, when he at once wheeled toward the east, and, stooping, lit a fire; then drawing his ragged blanket around him, prepared to watch all night until the sun came up in the eastern horizon, watching for the return of his Saviour Montezuma. And thus far he has watched in vain.

A strange fact,--a poor tribe still waiting and watching for a Saviour in a land where there are over twenty million church-members, some of whom ride past him in their palace-cars to take a palatial steamer, and travel thousands of miles to find a soul to save. Over twelve denominations striving in Mexico to win souls, and scarcely a thing done for the hundreds of thousands of Mexicans in our own land, and over forty tribes of Indians. And all this in the year of our Lord 1895.

XXIII.

DARK PLACES OF THE INTERIOR.