Eli and Sibyl Jones Part 18

His love of education and his fondness for books have made themselves felt. He has been one of the foremost in founding and sustaining two schools--"Oak Grove Seminary" and the "Erskine High School." The latter partly owed its existence to him. He has started and built up a number of libraries, and he has wished to leave coming sons and daughters supplied with a fountain from which to draw. Not a few of the college graduates who have gone out from China received their first impulses to higher aspirations from him, in one way or another.

In temperance work he has taken his part. He began to speak for total abstinence as a boy, which has been his theme ever since, and he took active part in securing a majority for the Prohibition amendment in the State of Maine.

For many years he was an active member of the "Sons of Temperance,"

and as Grand Worthy Patriarch of that organization he did much permanent good in the State. In this work he was intimately a.s.sociated with Ex-Governor Sidney Perham, Neal Dow, John Kimbal of Bangor, D.

B. Randal, the aged patriarch of the Methodist Church, and others of the ablest advocates of the Maine law.

It was once a law of the State that the selectmen of each town should appoint some suitable man to fill his cellar with various liquors, and whose sole right it should be to sell such articles. For one year Eli Jones was appointed to act as liquor-agent for the town. Strange picture, that of a well-known Quaker minister and prominent advocate of total abstinence holding the office of drink-dispenser to his townsmen! It can be imagined with what feelings the toper would enter his yard, make known his desire, and what words of advice he would receive instead of the foaming gla.s.s.

It is needless to say that no cellar was stored that year, and during his term of office the community abstained.

In 1852, at the time of his first visit to England and Ireland, but few Friends in those countries had heartily espoused the cause of total abstinence. Since that time a great change has taken place. "To hail from Maine is _now_ no discredit to the visitor. _Then_ a specimen from Maine was looked upon with some distrust."

It will not be out of place to refer here to his connection with the origin of the "United Kingdom Alliance." Its essential declarations are as follows: "1. That it is neither right nor politic for the state to afford legal protection and sanction to any traffic or system which tends to increase crime, to waste the national resources, to corrupt the social habits, and to destroy the health and lives of the people.

2. That the traffic in intoxicating liquors, as common beverages, is inimical to the true interests of individuals and destructive of the order and welfare of society, and ought therefore to be prohibited. 3.

That the history and results of all past legislation in regard to the liquor traffic abundantly prove that it is impossible satisfactorily to _limit_ or _regulate_ a system so essentially mischievous in its tendencies.... 7. That, rising above cla.s.s, sectarian, or party considerations, all good citizens should combine to procure an enactment prohibiting the sale of intoxicating beverages, as affording most efficient aid in removing the appalling evil of intemperance."

This was a union against intemperance on a most uncompromising platform, and its work during the last quarter of a century has been enormous. The simple facts of Eli Jones's connection with this organization are as follows: As he was returning from Dublin yearly meeting to London he found himself in company with Nathaniel Card, a Friend of Manchester, England. Their conversation turned upon temperance, for our friend had not been silent on this subject during his stay in Ireland. Nathaniel Card became much interested, and wished to take an American temperance paper, as well as to have a copy of the Maine prohibitory law. He was given the address of Neal Dow, and a correspondence was opened. About eighteen months after this conversation, Eli Jones being in Manchester, three gentlemen called on him. Nathaniel Card was one of them, who as speaker said, "We are the officers of the British and Foreign Temperance Alliance, and whatever results come from its formation _began_ with our conversation on our return journey from Ireland."

Many English Friends have been connected with this organization, and Eli Jones had the opportunity at the time of his later visits to England to attend some of the meetings and to hear the beneficent results of its far-reaching influence.

His work for the advancement of peace has been lifelong. He has strained his eyes to catch glimpses of a better era, in which the literal and spiritual teaching of Christ shall be fulfilled in a universal brotherhood of men and nations; and he has lived to see already "a flood of prophesying light." When over eighty years old he was sent as a delegate to the Friends' Peace Conference at Richmond, Indiana, in 1887, and his voice was often heard discussing with younger men and women the wisest course for binding nations into families by bonds of love, so that rust may dull the carnal weapons of war,

"And the cobweb be woven across the cannon's throat, To shake its threaded tears in the wind."

He has always looked with joy on the advance of the human race, and he has had uncompromising faith in actual and triumphant progress.

Nothing has made his crowning years more bright than the thought, ever present with him, that the good is gaining a gradual ascendency, and that man's lot, already a happy one, is becoming more happy. He has seen nations that have sat in darkness rising to stand in the joy-bringing light, and he has trusted the future will bring mature fruit. This buoyant hope has not only made his life joyous, but has pervaded all the messages of his later years, and he has shown that optimism which every true Christian must feel, for his Master "doeth all things well."

He felt called above everything else to preach the gospel, but he was sent to preach not only from the text which John the Baptist gave, but also he has "spoken unto men to edification." He has held up the perfect mark, the goal, "a life hid with Christ in G.o.d." Every power of man, physical, moral, mental, spiritual, is to be developed and expanded to its fullest extent, and then brought into strict obedience to the will of G.o.d. We are not in our place until we yield the same obedience to the celestial laws that we yield to the laws of gravitation. Character--which implies integrity, purity, unselfishness, love, patience, self-forgetfulness, and temperance--means the truth we have received, made our own, and put in action. Hence Eli Jones has spent his life telling all people to seek first of all the kingdom of heaven, which is righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost--to give their whole lives and beings to the Lord, and to build up pure Christian characters. The strength and manliness of his life have made his messages weighty, and the clearness of his thought, with his abundance of strong English words forcibly arranged, has caused his speaking on whatever subject to be effective. His speaking has always been from the fulness of his heart and with all the energy of his individuality. Never has he been known to speak weakly or unemphatically. If he had no message, he kept his seat, and if he rose to speak it was because he had something which he deeply felt and which it was important for those present to hear.

Of medium height, possessing a very large head, penetrating, earnest eyes, and impressive in his movements, his rising always gained him attention. His voice, which in childhood had been imperfect, grew clearer and more emphatic with use, and by constant attention to careful enunciation he gained the power of distinct expression to such a degree that after having on one occasion found it necessary to speak continuously in the Newport meeting-house for three hours, he was told by those in the farthest galleries that not a word had been lost. In his most earnest appeals he is decidedly eloquent, and many there are who have heard in his vigorous words that call which lifts souls from dreamy thought to action. Not one of his sermons has been put on paper, for he spoke as the words came to his mouth, and reporters were not present; but there was a clearness and connection as marked as was the strength of the individual parts, so that his utterances if printed would be highly valued. If those men do us the greatest service who give us the clearest view of our relation to G.o.d and our duty to man, then we owe him grat.i.tude, for he successfully helped feet that were failing to find a surer foothold on the abiding base of the Rock of Ages.

Further, he performed the true part of the citizen of a democracy, the part of one who sees the brother and sister mark on every forehead.

Every person who hopes and prays for the highest success of the principles of our government will have moments of trial for his faith as he sees the mult.i.tudes of responsible citizens who exercise their high privileges in town and State moved by no higher thought than the accomplishment of a selfish aim; he will feel a deeper gloom still when he learns in how many hearts respect for pure men and sacred principles and reverence for the Ruler of men and nations have been obscured by the mists of party schemes and personal self-love. Eli Jones as a Quaker has clearly proclaimed the only basis on which a democracy can build with a reasonable hope of a beautiful and permanent structure. In a nation where every man is a legislator, every man must

"Feel within himself the need Of loyalty to better than himself, That shall enn.o.ble him with the _upward_ look;"

nor can he be a safe sharer in the rights of government who has not intimate converse with the Voice which calls for an _inward_ look.

Through a life of over eighty years he has sought to act at the ballot-box so that the largest number of human beings might feel the good effects of his vote.

Again, his life is an interesting example of continuous development.

Though beginning early to obey the voice of duty in regard to public speaking, he had reached nearly the age of forty before he was really at work. Year after year since he has seen with clearer vision, and, catching the teaching of the nautilus, he has made

"Each new temple, n.o.bler than the last, Shut him from heaven with a dome more vast,"

and, feeling more truly each year the serious business of a denizen of earth, he has doubled his diligence to quit himself like a man.

There has been a deep vein of humor running through his whole life, and the genuine "mother wit" often found in New Englanders has shown itself in him to a marked degree. His answers to difficult questions always come at once, and have a keenness which goes to the marrow of the subject. Those who have listened to his conversation and heard his ill.u.s.trative anecdotes need no example to call to their mind his native humor, for it has continually shown itself. The uniformity of his disposition should be spoken of. Calm and equable under trying circ.u.mstances, he was a strong support to his beloved wife when in feeble health she seemed almost weighed down, and he was especially fitted by this quality for the perplexing difficulties which necessarily beset a laborer in foreign lands.

His ripe years have been pa.s.sed at the foot of China Lake near his boyhood's home, and he has sat in the meeting as a father in the midst of his family. Now and then called forth for short service, he has loved to hasten back and to be at home.

At the time I write he is still permitted to dwell among us, and we are fortunate in having before our eyes one who has the weight of many years of experience and wisdom.

When riding with him around China Lake one lovely summer day some of us younger members of the party pointed out a church-spire in the distance, and asked him if it was not a beautiful picture--the spire rising from the abundant green of the surrounding trees and pointing to the cloudless blue sky. Slowly he said, "Yes, but it would be better if we knew that all who sit there owned what is above the spire;" and we felt, as we looked at his genial face lighted up as he gazed aloft, that "his citizenship was in heaven" and that "for him to die" would be "gain." There is a domain on earth which only the true servant enters, and there is a realm of which we do not speak definitely that opens its gates to admit those who hear the "Well done!" of the great Master. Blessed indeed is he whose life has been a preparation for the city where no sun is needed, but where the glory of G.o.d is the light, and the lamp thereof is the Lamb.