California Sketches Part 15

Yes, strange as it may seem, this man who wrestled with doubts that wrung his soul with intense agony, and walked in darkness under the veil of unbelief; had a healthful influence upon me because the att.i.tude of his soul was that of a reverent inquirer, not that of a scoffer.

The admirable little treatise of Bishop McIlvaine, on the "Evidences of Christianity," cleared away some of his difficulties. A sermon of Bishop Kavanaugh, preached at his request, was a help to him. (That wonderful discourse is spoken of elsewhere in this volume.)

A friend of his lay dying at Redwood City. This friend, like himself; was a skeptic, and his doubts darkened his way as he neared the border of the undiscovered country. McCoy went to see him. The sick man, in the freedom of long friendship, opened his mind to him. The arguments of the good Bishop were yet fresh in McCoy's mind, and the echoes of his mighty appeals were still sounding in his heart. Seated by the dying man, he forgot his own misgivings, and with intense earnestness pointed the struggling soul to the Saviour of sinners.

"I did not intend it, but I was impelled by a feeling I could not resist. I was surprised and strangely thrilled at my own words as I unfolded to my friend the proofs of the truth of Christianity, culminating in the incarnation, death, and resurrection, of Jesus Christ. He seemed to have grasped the truths as presented, a great calm came over him, and he died a believer. No incident of my life has given me a purer pleasure than this; but it was a strange thing! n.o.body could have had access to him as I had--I, a doubter and a stumbler all my life; it looks like the hand of G.o.d!"

His voice was low, and his eyes were wet as he finished the narration.

Yes, the hand of G.o.d was in it--it is in every good thing that takes place on earth. By the bedside of a dying friend, the undercurrent of faith in his warily and n.o.ble heart swept away for the time the obstructions that were in his thought, and bore him to the feet of the blessed, pitying Christ, who never breaks a bruised reed. I think he had more light, and felt stronger ever after.

Death twice entered his home-circle--once to convey a budding flower from the earth-home to the skies, and again like a lightning-stroke laying young manhood low in a moment. The instinct within him, stronger than doubt, turned his thought in those dark hours toward G.o.d. The ashes of the earthly hopes that had perished in the fire of fierce calamity, and the tears of a grief unspeakable, fertilized and watered the seed of faith which was surely in his heart. The hot furnace-fire did not harden this finely-tempered soul. But still he walked in darkness, doubting, doubting, doubting all he most wished to believe. It was the infirmity of his const.i.tution, and the result of his surroundings. He went into large business enterprises with mingled success and disappointment. He went into politics, and though he bore himself n.o.bly and gallantly, it need not be said that that vortex does not usually draw those who are within its whirl heavenward. He won some of the prizes that were fought for in that arena where the n.o.blest are in danger of being soiled, and where the baser metal sinks surely to the bottom by the inevitable force of moral gravitation.

From time to time we were thrown together, and I was glad to know that the Great Question was still in his thought, and the hunger for truth was still in his heart. Ill health sometimes made him irritable and morbid, but the drift of his inner nature was unchanged. His mind was enveloped in mists, and sometimes tempests of despair raged within him; but his heart still thirsted for the water of life.

A painful and almost fatal railway accident befell him. He was taken to his ranch among the quiet hills of Shasta County. This was the final crisis in his life. Shut out from the world, and shut in with his own thoughts and with G.o.d, he reviewed his life and the argument that had so long been going on in his mind. He was now quiet enough to hear distinctly the Still Small Voice whose tones he could only half discern amid the clamors of the world when he was a busy actor on its stage.

Nature spoke to him among the hills, and her voice is G.o.d's. The great primal instincts of the soul, repressed in the crowd or driven into the background by the mob of petty cares and wants, now had free play in the nature of this man whose soul had so long cried out of the depths for the living G.o.d. He prayed the simple prayer of trust at which the gate flies open for the believing soul to enter into the peace of G.o.d. He was born into the new life. The flower that had put forth its abortive buds for so many seasons, burst into full bloom at last. With the mighty joy in his heart, and the light of the immortal hope beaming upon him, he pa.s.sed into the World of Certainties.

A Virginian in California.

"Hard at it, are you, uncle?"

"No, sah--I's workin' by de day, an' I an't a-hurtin' myself."

This answer was given with a jolly laugh as the old man leaned on his pick and looked at me.

"You looked so much like home-folks that I felt like speaking to you.

Where are you from?"

"From Virginny, sah!" (pulling himself up to his full height as he spoke). "Where's you from, Ma.s.sa?"

"I was brought up partly in Virginia too?"

"Wbar'bouts, in Virginny?"

"Mostly in Lynchburg."

"Lynchburg! dat's whar I was fotched up. I belonged to de Widder Tate, dat lived on de New London Road. Gib me yer han', Ma.s.sa!"

He rushed up to the buggy, and taking my extended hand in his huge fist he shook it heartily, grinning with delight.

This was Uncle Joe, a perfect specimen of the old Virginia "Uncle," who had found his way to California in the early days. Yes, he was a perfect specimen--black as night, his lower limbs crooked, arms long, hands and feet very large. His mouth was his most striking feature. It was the orator's mouth in size, being larger than that of Henry Clay--in fact, it ran almost literally from ear to ear. When he opened it fully, it was like lifting the lid of a box.

Uncle Joe and I became good friends at once. He honored my ministry with his presence on Sundays. There was a touch of dandyism in him that then and there came out. Clad in a blue broadcloth dress-coat of the olden cut, vest to match, tight-fitting pantaloons, stove-pipe hat, and yellow kid gloves, he was a gorgeous object to behold. He knew it, and there was a pleasant self-consciousness in the way he bore himself in the sanctuary.

Uncle Joe was the heartiest laugher I ever knew. He was always as full of happy life as a frisky colt or a plump pig. When he entered a knot of idlers on the streets, it was the signal or a humorous uproar. His quaint sayings, witty repartee, and contagious laughter, never failed.

He was as agile as a monkey, and his dancing was a marvel. For a dime he would "cut the pigeon wing," or give a "double-shuffle" or "breakdown"

in a way that made the beholder dizzy.

What was Uncle Joe's age n.o.body could guess--he had pa.s.sed the line of probable surmising. His own version of the matter on a certain occasion was curious. We had a colored female servant--an old-fashioned aunty from Mississippi--who, with a bandanna handkerchief on her head, went about the house singing the old Methodist choruses so naturally that it gave us a home-feeling to have her about us. Uncle Joe and Aunt Tishy became good friends, and he got into the habit of dropping in at the parsonage on Sunday evenings to escort her to church. On this particular occasion I was in the little study adjoining the dining-room where Aunt Tishy was engaged in cleaning away the dishes after tea. I was not eavesdropping, but could not help hearing what they said. My name was mentioned.

"O yes," said Uncle Joe; "I knowed Ma.s.sa Fitchjarals back dar in Virginny. I use ter hear 'im preach dar when I was a boy."

There was a silence. Aunt Tishy couldn't swallow that. Uncle Joe's statement, if true, would have made me more than a hundred years old, or brought him down to less than forty. The latter was his object; he wanted to impress Aunt Tishy with the idea that he was young-enough to be an eligible gallant to any lady. But it failed. That unfortunate remark ruined Uncle Joe's prospects: Aunt Tishy positively refused to go with him to church, and just as soon as he had left she went into the sitting-room in high disgust, saying:

"What made dat n.i.g.g.e.r tell me a lie like dat? Tut, tut, tut!"

She cut him ever after, saying she would n't keep company with a liar, "even if he was from de Souf." Aunt Tishy was a good woman, and had some old-time notions. As a cook, she was discounted a little by the fact that she used tobacco, and when it got into the gravy it was not improving to its flavor.

Uncle Joe was in his glory at a dinner-party, where he could wait on the guests, give droll answers to the remarks made to call him out, and enliven the feast by his inimitable and "catching" laugh. In a certain circle no occasion of the sort was considered complete without his presence There was no such thing as dullness when he was about. His peculiar wit or his simplicity was brought out at a dinner-party one day at Dr. Bascom's. There was a large gathering of the leading families of San Jose and vicinity, and Uncle Joe was there in his jolliest mood.

Mrs. Bascom, whose wit was then the quickest and keenest in all California, presided, and enough good things were said to have made a reputation for Sidney Smith or Douglas Jerrold. Mrs. Bascom, herself a Virginian by extraction, had engaged in a laughing colloquy with Uncle Joe, who stood near the head of the table waving a bunch of peac.o.c.k's feathers to keep off the flies.

"Missus, who is yer kinfolks back dar in Virginny, any way?"

The names of several were mentioned.

"Why, dem's big folks," said Uncle Joe.

"Yes," said she, laughingly; "I belong to the first families of Virginia."

"I don't know 'bout dat, Missus. I was dar 'fore you was, an' I don't 'long to de fus' families!"

He looked at it from a chronological rather than a genealogical standpoint, and, strange to say, the familiar phrase had never been heard by him before.

Uncle Joe joined the Church. He was sincere in his profession. The proof was found in the fact that he quit dancing. No more "pigeon wings,"

"double-shuffles," or "breakdowns," for him--he was a "perfessor." He was often tempted by the offer of coin, but he stood firm.

"No, sah; I's done dancin', an' don't want to be discommunicated from de Church," he would say, good-naturedly, as he shied off, taking himself away from temptation.

A very high degree of spirituality could hardly be expected from Uncle Joe at that late day; but he was a Christian after a pattern of his own --kind-hearted, grateful, simple-minded, and full of good humor. His strength gradually declined, and he was taken to the county hospital, where his patience and cheerfulness conciliated and elicited kind treatment from everybody. His memories went back to old Virginia, and his hopes looked up to the heaven of which his notions were as simple as those of a little child. In the simplicity of a child's faith he had come to Jesus, and I doubt not was numbered among his little ones. Among the innumerable company that shall be gathered on Mount Zion from every kindred, tribe, and tongue, I hope to meet my humble friend, Uncle Joe.

At the End.

Among my acquaintances at San Jose, in 1863, was a young Kentuckian who had come down from the mines in bad health. The exposure of mining-life had been too severe for him. It took iron const.i.tutions to stand all day in almost ice-cold water up to the waist with a hot sun pouring down its burning rays upon the head and upper part of the body. Many a poor fellow sunk under it at once, and after a few days of fever and delirium was taken to the top of an adjacent hill and laid to rest by the hands of strangers. Others, crippled by rheumatic and neuralgic troubles, drifted into the hospitals of San Francisco, or turned their faces sadly toward the old homes which they had left with buoyant hopes and elastic footsteps. Others still, like this young Kentuckian, came down into the valleys with the hacking cough and hectic flush to make a vain struggle against the destroyer that had fastened upon their vitals, nursing often a vain hope of recovery to the very last. Ah, remorseless flatterer! as I write these lines, the images of your victims crowd before my vision: the strong men that grew weak, and pale, and thin, but fought to the last inch for life; the n.o.ble youths who were blighted just as they began to bloom; the beautiful maidens etherealized into almost more than mortal beauty by the breath of the death-angel, as autumn leaves, touched by the breath of winter, blush with the beauty of decay. My young friend indulged no false hopes. He knew he was doomed to early death, and did not shrink from the thought. One day, as we were conversing in a store uptown, he said:

"I know that I have at most but a few months to live, and I want to spend them in making preparation to die. You will oblige me by advising me what books to read. I want to get clear views of what I am to do, and then do it."

It need scarcely be said that I most readily complied with his request, and that first and chiefly I advised him to consult the Bible, as the light to his path and the lamp to his feet. Other books were suggested, and a word with regard to prayerful reading was given, and kindly received.

One day I went over to see my friend. Entering his room, I found him sitting by the fire with it table by his side, on which was lying a Bible. There was an unusual flush in his face, and his eye burned with unusual brightness.

"How are you today?" I asked.

"I am annoyed, sir--I am indignant," he said.