The Minute Man of the Frontier Part 14

The awful cheapness of human life, the grim jokes upon the most solemn things, could only be matched in the French Revolution. I saw in one store, devoted to furniture and picture-frames, a deep frame with a gla.s.s front, and inside a knotted rope, and written underneath, "Deputy-sheriff's necktie, worn by ---- for murdering Mollie ----" on such a date. This was for the sheriff's parlor.

Hard times have made a great change since I walked those streets. The roar of traffic has given place to the howl of hungry wolves that have prowled among the deserted shanties in midday in search of food; and the State has had to supply food and clothing to the poor, while my man, who had made his thousands, was studying the cuneiform inscription, in Egypt. It ought to make him think, when he sees the mummies of dead kings being shipped to England to raise turnips, that some day he will have a funeral all his own.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BREAKING NEW GROUND.

_Page 262._]

XXVII.

BREAKING NEW GROUND.

_"This is the forest primeval."_

A grand sight is the forest primeval when the birds fill all its arches with song, or we sweep through them to the music of sleigh-bells. A pleasant sight is the farmer, surrounded by his wife and children, with well-kept farm, ample barns, and well-fed stock.

But what wild desolation once reigned where now these fine farms are seen! The great trees stretched on for hundreds of miles. The hardy settler came with axe and saw and slow-paced oxen, cleared a little s.p.a.ce, and built a log hut. For a little time all goes well; then thistles, burdocks, mulleins, and briers come to pester him and increase his labors. Between the blackened log-heaps fire-weeds spring up. The man and his wife grow old fast. Ague shakes their confidence as well as their bodies. Schools are few, the roads mere trails.

Then a village starts. First a country store; then a saloon begins to make its pestilential influence felt. The dance thrives. The children grow up strong, rough, ignorant. The justice of the peace marries them. No minister comes. The hearts once tender and homesick, in the forest grow cold and hardened. At funerals perhaps a G.o.dly woman offers prayer. Papers are few and poor. Books are very scarce. In winter the man is far off, with his older boys, in the lumber-camps, earning money to buy seed, and supplies for present wants. The woman pines in her lonely home. The man breaks down prematurely. Too many of these pioneers end their days in insane asylums. It is the third generation which lives comfortably on pleasant farms, or strangers reap that whereon they bestowed no labor.

This may seem too dark a picture. Song and story have gilded the pioneer life so that its realities are myths to most people. It is better when a colony starts with money, horses, books, etc.; but it is hard enough then. Few keep their piety. I visited a community where nearly every family were church-members in their early homes; but, after twenty years, only one family had kept up the fire upon the altar. It is hard to break up such fallows. How different had a minister gone with them, and a church been built!

The missionary has different material altogether to work on in the natural born pioneer. I visited one family which had a black bear, two hounds, some pet squirrels, cats, and a canary; over the fireplace hung rifles, deer-horns, and other trophies of the chase. The man was getting ready to move. At first his nearest neighbors were bears and deer; but now a railway had come, also schools and churches. He said, "'Tain't like it was at fust; times is hard; have to go miles for a deer; folks is getting stuck up, wearing biled shirts, getting spring beds and rockers, and then ye can't do nothin' but some one is making a fuss. I shall cl'ar out of this!"

And he did, burying himself and family in the depths of the woods. The homesteader often takes these deserted places, after paying a mere trifle for the improvements.

Homesteaders are numerous, generally very poor, and are apt to have large families. One man, who had eight hundred dollars, was looked upon as a Rothschild. Many families had to leave part of their furniture on the dock, as a pledge of payment for their pa.s.sage or freight-bill. But, homesteaders or colonists, all must work hard, be strong, live on plain fare, and dress in coa.r.s.e clothing. The missionary among these people must do the same. A good brother told me that, on a memorable cold New Year's Day, he went into the woods to cut stove-wood, taking for his dinner a large piece of dry bread. By noon it was frozen solid; but, said he, "I had good teeth, and it tasted sweet." Another lived without bread for some time, being thankful for corn-meal. Those who live far from the railways are often brought to great straits, through stress of weather and the wretched roads. Little can be raised at first; the work must be done in a primitive way.

As it is with the farmer, so it is with the missionary. The breaking of new ground is hard work. Everything at first seems delightful. The people are glad, "seeing they have a Levite for their priest." They promise well. The minister starts in with a brave heart, and commences to underbrush and cut down the giant sins that have grown on such fat soil. But as they come down, he, too, finds the thistles and mulleins; jealousies, sectarian and otherwise, come in and hinder him, and it is a long, weary way to the well-filled church, the thriving Sunday-school, and the snug parsonage.

Often he fares like the early farmer. The pioneer preacher is seldom seen in the pretty church, but a man of a later generation. The old man is alive yet, and perhaps his good wife; but they are plain folks, and belong to another day. Sometimes they look back with regret to the very hardships they endured, now transfigured and glorified through the mists of years. Should the reader think the picture too dark, here are two condensed ill.u.s.trations from Dr. Leach's "History of Grand Traverse Region." Remember, this was only a few years ago, and where to-day seventy thousand people dwell, on improved farms, and in villages alive with business, having all the comforts, and not a few of the luxuries, of civilized life.

In those early days, Mr. Limblin, finding he had but one bushel and a half of corn left, and one dollar and a half in money, prevailed on a Mr. Clark to take both corn and money to Traverse City, thirty miles away, and get groceries with the money, and have the corn ground, Mr.

Clark to have half for the work. One ox was all the beast of burden they had. Mr. Clark started with the corn on the back of the ox; about half-way he exchanged for a pony and sled for the rest of the road, leaving the ox with the Indians till his return. On his way back, a fierce snowstorm hid the sh.o.r.es of the bay from view.

Presently he came to a wide crack in the ice; his pony, being urged, made a spring, but only got his fore hoofs on the other side. Mr.

Clark sprang over and grasped the pony's ears, but, as he pulled, his feet slipped, and down he came. His cries brought the Indians, who rescued him and the pony. Exhausted, he crawled back to their camp.

But, alas! the corn-meal and groceries were at the bottom of the bay.

A sad scene it was to see his poor wife's tears on his arrival home.

Rev. Peter Daugherty, now of Wisconsin, was the first missionary in these parts. He once missed his way; and night coming on, he saw that he must sleep in the woods. The air was chill. Not daring to build a fire for fear of the damage it might do to the dry woods, he cast about for a shelter. Spying two headless barrels on the beach, with much trouble he crawled into them, drawing them as close together as he could, and so pa.s.sed the night. He got up very early and finished his journey. But do we have such places yet? and does the missionary still have to expose himself? Yes, friends, there are scores of such places in every frontier State and Territory; and strong men are needed more than ever to break up new ground, and cause the desert and solitary places to be glad and blossom as the rose. Send us such men!

XXVIII.

SOWING THE SEED.

The land is bound to grow its crop. The more the land has been enriched, the greater will be that crop, of useful grain or rank weeds. And the only way to keep the weeds from gaining the victory is by sowing good seed and pulling the weeds. A friend in Detroit once called my attention to the luxuriant weeds in a fenced lot we were walking by. In the vacant lot close by, the weeds were stunted. In the fenced lot a market gardener once lived. He had enriched the soil.

Our country is to have a rank growth of something. Rich in the blood of many nationalities, with freedom well-nigh to license, what will the harvest be if left without spiritual husbandry? Dr. Mulhall's "Dictionary of Statistics" tells us how the crop looks now. The ratio of murders to each million inhabitants has stood as follows in the countries named: England, 711; Ireland, 883; France, 796; Germany, 837; and the United States, 2,460. Only Italy and Spain exceed us. Do we wonder why the foreigner is worse here than at home? The answer is easy. He has left the restraints of a watchful government; our liberty is for him license. On the frontier he is exposed to the worst influences, and for years has no religious instruction nor even example. Is it strange that death reaps such a harvest? The sowers go forth to sow. In due time that seed ripens to the harvest.

The _Police Gazette_ is sowing dragon's teeth most diligently. The log shanties of the lumbermen are often papered with them. Nice primers these for "young America"! Sober Maine sends streams of polluted literature out here, with cheap chromo attachments, and the Sunday-school lesson in them for an opiate. The infidel lecturer is sowing his seed on the fruitful soil of runaway guilt. The callow scientist is dropping seed long since _dropped_ in another way by real scientists. The whole country is sown with newspapers of all grades, and the crop is coming up. What shall the harvest be?

"Be not deceived, whatsoever a nation soweth, that shall it also reap."

In a very large number of new settlements all the above agencies are in active operation before the missionary arrives; and, oh, what a field he finds! The farmer on the new farm cannot use the drill and improved implements for the uneven places and stumps, but must needs sow by hand, and sometimes between the log piles, a little here and a little there, and then, between times, spend his strength underbrushing.

So the missionary starts without a church building, choir, organ, or even a membership, his pulpit a box in a vacant store, or in a schoolhouse or railway depot, or some rude log house of the settler; his audience is gathered from the four corners of the earth-- representatives of a dozen sects, backsliders in abundance, and those who have run away from the light of civilized life. Many among the latter have broken their marriage vows, and are now living in unlawful wedlock.

I remember once preaching on this evil to an audience of less than twenty, and was surprised at the close of the meeting to hear a woman say, "Did you know you gave Mrs. ---- an awful crack on the knuckles to-day?"

I said, "No!"

"Well, ye did, ye know."

Mentioning the circ.u.mstance with surprise to another, I received for an answer, "Well, she needn't say nothin'; she's in the same boat herself!"

Depressed in spirits, I told my troubles to a good lady who I knew was "one of the salt of the earth," and noticing a smile come over her face, I asked her what she was smiling at. She replied, "The third was as bad as the other two!"

Just here is one of the greatest hindrances the missionary has to contend with. I am not sure but it rivals the saloon. One missionary I visited told me that in one little hamlet, on his field, there was not a single family living in lawful wedlock. It is next to impossible to do anything with the parents in such cases. But there is one bright side to this dark picture. Almost without exception, they like to have their children attend the Sabbath-school. Here is prolific soil in which to sow good seed, and we cannot commence too soon.

We are living in rushing times. I have just read in a paper that one town in Ontonagon County, one year and a half old, has three thousand inhabitants, forty-five saloons, twelve hotels, two papers, forty-eight stores, two opera houses, and an electric plant! With villages springing up in every county, and the immense onflowing tide from foreign sh.o.r.es, the lone missionary on the frontier ofttimes would despair, but for the promise of the Master, the miracles of the past, and the joy of hope's bright harvest in the future. And so, "going forth weeping, bearing precious seed," he sows beside all waters, with full expectations that "He shall come again rejoicing, bringing His sheaves with Him."

That the reader may have an idea of the vastness of the field, and the distances between the workers, I will jot down a few facts. In 1887 there were thirty Congregational churches in the three conferences of Grand Traverse, Cheboygan, and Chippewa and Mackinac. These conferences had an average width of sixty miles, and stretch from Sherman, in the south of Grand Traverse Conference, for a hundred and fifty-eight miles, as the bird flies, to Sugar Island, in the north of Chippewa and Mackinac Conference.

No one can say we were crowded. My nearest neighbor was sixteen miles away, the next thirty, and the next forty; and, unless a change has come very lately, this is the only self-supporting church in the three conferences--and that because it was settled thirty years prior to many of the other churches. Ten years ago there were hundreds of miles of unbroken forests where to-day are crowded summer resorts and busy villages, filled with representatives of the most diverse nationalities under the sun. I have preached to a good-sized audience with not a single person in it that was born in the United States. And the cry is, Still they come. Now send on your harvesters!

XXIX.

"HARVEST HOME."

After all the hopes and fears and toil of the summer, the farmer's most beautiful sight is to see the last great load safe in the barn, the stock fattening on the rich, sweet aftermath, the golden fruit in the orchard, and the big, red, harvest moon smiling over all. This is a frequent sight, despite poor crops and bad weather. The successful farmer does not rely on one, but a variety of crops. Then, if the season is bad for corn, it will be good for oats or wheat. Some crop will repay his labor.

Here is a hint for the home missionary who goes forth to sow spiritual seed. If he expects to get a crop of Congregationalists, he will often lament over poor returns. Often the missionary finds himself in a miscellaneous gathering, like that of Pentecost in its variety, and no mere "ism" will crystallize them. One is of Paul, another of Apollos or Cephas, and he must "determine not to know anything among them save Christ and him crucified." He must drop minor points, and adopt that plan on which all can agree.

Here is a bit of experience. In a community of seven hundred souls, the following denominations were represented: Baptists, three kinds; Presbyterians, two kinds; Methodists, four kinds; Christians, "Church of G.o.d," Episcopalians, Roman Catholics, Seventh-day Adventists, Lutherans of all branches, Quakers, and Congregationalists. One day I found three married women making ready to keep house in what had been a large store, the only vacant place in which to live; their husbands were working and living in camp. I said, "I am glad to see you. I suppose you are all Christians?"

To my surprise, they all cheerfully responded, "Yes."

"Well, that is good news," I said. "And to what church do you belong?"