LEAVES/fc/w#eLOG of a SKY PILOT BEING THE LIFE OF WILLIAM G.PUDDEF00T ■J I ■ mmm m ■ II MM I I I ,',.'.' I I i. ■ l; HP Class BX Gofjyiight N° . COPYRIGHT DEPOSfT. LEAVES FROM THE LOG OF A SKY PILOT IMoICuiua- LEAVES FROM THE LOG OF A SKY PILOT BY WILLIAM G. PUDDEFOOT THE PILGRIM PRESS BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO r'Hifra COPTEIGHT, 1915 Bt WILLIAM G. PUDDEFOOT TBI 4 & UtL 17 191! ©CU418093 THE PILGRIM PREM BOSTOX )*) TO MY WIFE WITHOUT WHOSE HELP THESE PAGES WOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN WRITTEN AN INTRODUCTION BY REV. JOSEPH B. CLARK, D. D. When it so happens that a man, in whom the elements of intellect, individuality and vision have happily mixed, can be prompted to tell the story of his life, — and that life a winning strug- gle against headwinds and cross-currents, — the result is almost certain to be a human document of more than ordinary charm and value. Such is the man and such his story which a friend of more than thirty years is privileged to introduce to the reader — even though fully aware that any introduction of William George Puddef oot to the reading public is an act of pure supererogation. Readers who have listened to Mr. Puddefoot on the platform will discover at once that he writes very much as he talks — with the same overmastering rush and glow that are so cap- tivating to an audience, and they will not be sorry to find themselves yielding to the same "joy of motion" which they felt in listening to his spoken words. As to the literary style of this life story it is all sufficing to say it is "Puddefoot's own," and, as such, possesses a double charm; the charm [ vii ] Leaves from the Log of a Sky Pilot of transparent simplicity that no art could bet- ter, since "Simplicity is the highest art" — and the added charm of a winsome personality, which, unconsciously to its owner, breathes from every page, and is as inseparable from the story, as the perfume of a rose from. its flower. In common parlance, Mr. Puddefoot is re- garded as "a self-made man." A more accurate statement would be "a self-developed man," and few men have received from the past a more generous equipment of materials and tools for self-development. From his mother ("the most Christlike woman I have ever known," says her son) he derives his deep spiritual instincts. From his father, a liberal in politics and religion, the only disciple of Cobden and Bright in a village of Tories, he inherits his breadth of view, his scorn of tradi- tions outgrown, and his fearless advocacy of what he believes to be true. His passionate love of debate is known of all, and it is no surprise to learn that his paternal grandmother, a rank Tory, would sit up in her sick bed until midnight, in her eightieth year, battling the errors of her radical son; while, as to the author's humorous temperament, one has only to study the mirth- provoking features of his maternal grandfather, the astronomer, to detect the source of the Pud- defoot humor. From this store of inherited in- stincts and qualities, Puddefoot has developed, along the line of least resistance, the man we [ viii ] Introduction know today — the not unfamiliar type of a twen- tieth century Christian. From his childhood up he has been a reader of books — or rather, a devourer and absorber of their contents. His library is rich in the latest researches of science, and the newest discussions in theology, sociology and political economy by accredited scholars. The contents of such books, once read, seem to enter into his blood, become his inalienable possession, and astonishingly ready at a moment's notice for effective use. From this varied array of tools and his ready command of their use, it may be safely assumed that Mr. Puddefoot is a child of the age in which he lives — not a rationalistic age, as it is some- times miscalled — but, accepting President King's amendment, a "realistic age, demanding of all formulas, old or new, the verification of experi- ence." Creeds professing to solve eternal prob- lems are not to be taken by him on trust, with- out re-examination at the bar of experience to test their reality. Being the son of a radical father, he must begin at the root, and being in all things an independent thinker, he must em- ploy his own method of investigation. He is the last man to set his faith by the steeple clock, if he can find a dial set by the sun. Mr. Puddefoot is not deeply disturbed to find himself at variance, on many points, with his brethren. That variance began early in life. The boy often expelled from Sunday school for [ix] Leaves from the Log of a Sky Pilot insisting that the world was not made in six cal- endar days is now the man of seventy, still in- sisting that some things may be true which the present age is as slow to accept as the Sunday schools of sixty years ago were slow to believe the testimony of the rocks. Such an attitude provokes controversy, but no controversy has made Mr. Puddefoot a dogma- tist; no discussion, however warm, has left his heart less tender or brotherly. Yet it would be against nature to suppose that the little heretic of ten, who has lived to see the whole Christian world converted to his theory of creation, should not take courage and hope from such an event and a certain faith in the future, which prompts his frequent good-natured reply to his doubting friends: "Wait and see!" "Wait and see!" A unique man, gifted with fine abilities and yet finer faiths — a man with the heart of a boy and the vision of a seer — an optimist, because a Christian, looking always for new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness — "a fellow of infinite jest" and of infinitely seri- ous purpose — a lover of nature and of art, but no less a lover of his brother man — an ardent seeker after new light, but never getting by the North Star — rare master of assemblies who never lacked a hearing — transparently simple by nature — sine cera in thought, word and deed — a lovable man — the ideal friend. M CONTENTS INTRODUCTION I. My Ancestry and Early Yeaks II. I Go to London . III. Boyhood Days in England . IV. In My Merry and Busy Teens V. The Voyage and Settlement in Canada VI. First Adventures in a New World . VI I. I Become a Rover .... VIII. Old-Time Revivals and Camp Meetings IX. My Religious Experience . X. Still a Rover — Restless and Mischievous XI. How I Became a Minister . XII. Some Memories of the Pastorate XIII. A City Mission XIV. The General Missionary . . . XV. My Avocations ..... XVI. Earlier Experiences .... XVII. God's Country XVIII. Triflino Incidents that Led to Something XIX. My Contact with Drummond, Archbishop Ire land and Brierley ..... XX. The Strange Power of Words ... XXI. What I Know about Audiences and Books . XXII. Watchman, What of the Night? [xi] PAGE vii 15 23 83 42 51 59 68 76 86 94 104 118 120 128 188 146 156 164 176 185 194 ILLUSTRATIONS Portrait of W. G. Ptjddefoot Henry Andrews the Astronomer The Village Green, Westerham, Kent, Eng. The House Where General Wolfe Was Born View of Westerham Church and the Home of Mr Puddefoot ....... Mr. Puddefoot Before He Entered the Ministry Portrait of Mrs. Puddefoot .... Mr. Puddefoot's Home in Framingham Frontispiece PAGE 4 12 100 152 166 [xliij LEAVES FROM THE LOG OF A SKY PILOT CHAPTER I MY ANCESTRY AND EARLY YEARS Let me say at once that although English born I care less than a fig for genealogy. I have no doubt that I came straight through from the dawn of life. I am convinced there was no spe- cial creation in our family and I take Emerson's words straight: "I am owner of the sphere, The seven stars and solar year, Of Caesar's hand and Plato's brain, Of Lord Christ's heart and Shakespeare's strain." There is nothing to boast of in this, for does not the blood of Judas, Jezebel and all the riff- raff since the planet started making humans come in, too? Sure! And at times it seems as if I had the whole crew at work in me. My father was the first and only radical in the family. He belonged to the party of Cob- den and Bright and, so far as I can remember, was the only tradesman in our village that was not a Tory. His father died before I was born, and from what I know of him, which came from my own father, he was what in these times would be called a "sport." [8] Leaves from the Log of a Shy Pilot My grandmother on my father's side was a remarkable woman. I remember her sitting up in bed, when past eighty, arguing with my father on politics. My grandfather's family came from Proudfoot. Captain Proudfoot of the King's Guards married Jennie Cameron of the Clan Cameron, who had a child by King James, and from that child our own family came on my father's side. On my mother's side I had a great-grand- father who was an astronomer and official cal- culator to the Board of Longitude. He was the author of many curious books and had a large correspondence with scientific men. My mother was the most Christlike woman I ever knew, but very timid. Her whole life was bound up in her husband and children, four of whom she lost when they were very young. Timid as she was physically, she would have gone to the stake on a question of morals. I know that she kept a fine piece of satin uncut for years because my father had won it by a bet. Betting was very common in those days and rarely rec- ognized as a snare of the devil. Few only, like my mother, with quickened moral sense, were ready to protest against the practice as a vice. Such, briefly told, is the story of my forebears for two generations. Back of that I know little and, as already confessed, care little. Whatever good they bequeathed to me, I accept with thanks; whatever of evil I cheerfully forgive, [4] Henry Andrews Astronomical Calculator to the Board of Longitude and the Celebrated Author of Moore's Almanack My Ancestry and Early Tears since in all probability they rather than I will have to answer for it. Be that as it may, nothing can now alter the fact that with a full comple- ment of inherited tendencies, good and bad, I was born in Westerham, Kent, England, May 31, 1842 — which seems longer ago than it ought to. It may seem incredible to the reader, as it was to my mother, that I have a clear recollection of events in my life at the age of eighteen months. But as I told her things that no one could have told me, she had to admit that I remembered them. I was taken by my nurse to an infant school kept by Miss Payne. It was a grand old brick pile with quaintly-shaped tiles on its many- gabled roof. It was surrounded by a brick wall, the top of which was so round that it was impos- sible for the boys to get hold or climb over. As I was the youngest child in the school I was the pet, and the little girls fairly fought to see who should have the baby at recess, and tugged at my arms until I cried out. But one day I got even with them by spilling a bottle of ink over a shirt one of them was making for her brother. An accident, of course ! but I was tied to the table leg and at noon my nurse was told, "Miss Payne's compliments to Mrs. Puddefoot, but she cannot take charge of Master Puddefoot as he runs the whole school." I believe I am the youngest graduate of that school. [*] . i Leaves from the Log of a Sky Pilot I have very vivid memories of the old market town and its environments. The house in which I was born was not old — that is, not more than three hundred years. It had a square front and behind the front a roof of many peaks. Our dining-room had an immense fireplace, so large that we could go under the mantel and sit down on seats arranged on either side. Looking up we could see flitches of bacon and hams, and beyond them the stars. On either side were cup- boards that met at the back of the chimney. My father had a window built which ran across the whole width of the room and looked into the garden. A high garden wall ran for a short distance down the walk and on the top of the wall was a fine bust of Venus. I must have had a vigorous constitution, for although I caught most of the children's diseases as others caught them, they passed over me lightly — some of them skipping me altogether, which was a source of regret, for I wanted all that were going. I remember waking early one morning and finding myself covered with red spots, which pleased me mightily. I waked my eldest brother to show him my new spots, "Why," said he, "you have the measles." I jumped out of bed, as he supposed, to show my mother. But I pulled off my nightgown and ran out into the garden. A heavy white frost was on the ground. I ran capering down the walk, shouting to the neighbors to see the spotted [6] My Ancestry and Early Years leopard. My mother, in an agony of fear, was after me with one of the servants. It took some time to catch me, but when I was caught, my mother gave me first treatment which brought out some new red spots that were not measles. For books I had a small collection filled with pictures, one of them a natural history which I never tired of looking at. Most of the notes were by Cuvier and Buffon. I must have been a strange compound of noise and quiet — sitting by the hour and watching the great clouds sail by or the gradual deepening of the twilight. I can remember the smell of the road after a sum- mer tempest and how I delighted in the crash of the thunder and yet would go down on my knees and talk to the violets. Once I found myself back of "The George and Dragon" and was tempted to throw a stone at a bantam cock. After several trials I hit him and then swore my first oath. It startled me. I looked up in the sky, expecting to see God's eye — but the sky was serenely blue — and then I let loose all the swear words I could remember with such energy that a poor woman who was passing on the London Road looked up in amaze- ment. The reaction came and I felt that I was a lost soul. I had been told so repeatedly, but now the dreadful thought took hold of me. My mother belonged to the Independents, and their religion, as dispensed in the middle of the nine- teenth century, was not of the comforting kind. [7] Leaves from the Log of a Shy Pilot But my father was a broad man, and his words on religious subjects were caught up and treas- ured by me. My first evening outdoors after supper I shall never forget. I cannot describe its wild tumult of pleasure — the subtle influence of the long twi- light, the sense of freedom, the game of fox and hounds — I the fox, the other boys the hounds. I was fat and a poor runner, but how I enjoyed it ! the rush through the paddock, the dash down Meadows Mead, the hiding in the churchyard, and when almost caught, slipping into the dark entry of a poor man's house, the rush of the hounds as they passed by, my quiet walk home and the convulsive hug of my mother, who re- joiced at my victory and safe return. My father was high constable, overseer of the poor, highway rate collector and a church warden. One paper came to him each week addressed, "George Puddefoot, Agent." It was the Sussex Express, and in my innocence I used to read the address, "George Puddefoot, A Gent" and was greatly exalted thereby, for we had "gentry," "common tradesmen" and "the poor." But my father was more than "a gent." He was one of God's noblemen. Every Tues- day and Thursday through the winter I was sent to the homes of the very poor to invite them to bring their pails to our house; then would my father stand beside the huge copper boiler, filled with rich beef soup, and ladle their cans brimful. [8] My Ancestry and, Early Tears While strict in discipline, he was always kind and companionable with his children. In the winter evenings he would gather us around the big fireplace. The shutters were closed, the bar that held them thrown across and the pinner fastened. The chintz curtains, hanging from a semi-circle of iron rods, were drawn around us to shut off the draught, and there gazing into the fireplace piled up with blazing roots of trees, he would bid us watch the soldiers, as he called the sparks. So good a father ought to have had a better son than I, for I remember once when my mother had company she found me throwing her best china up that same chimney. Once I set fire to the house because my brother angered me and then, catching up the cat, dropped her over the banisters to see if it were true that cats always fell on their feet. The mewing of the cat roused the family and saved the house. I was put to bed without ceremony. Luckily my father was away and I escaped the awful thrashing which comes before the softening influence of time. Was I a tender-hearted boy? I think so; yet twice I did a mean, cruel trick, pushing Georgie, my playmate, into the river for no reason at all, and doing the same to my real chum, Newton Brand, moved both times by what seemed to me an irresistible impulse. What sea pirate be- queathed me that satanic impulse? and could it have been I that set fire to the heather which Leaves from the Log of a Shy Pilot ruined a valuable fir plantation? The Lord of the Manor offered £50 for the arrest of the mis- creant, and I overheard my father telling Mother that he was hot on his scent. Ah, had he known it he was hot indeed ! Years after, when we were in Canada and Mother in her grave, I told him and he almost fainted. By this time I was ten years old and going to a "man's school" — a man who thrashed me twice a day and told my mother how he loved me. "I wish he would hate me, then," I said. The school was kept in the very house where I was born, for we had moved to another and a better home. Sometimes the master would make me hold a piece of oak above my head or lock me into the very pantry where, as a boy of five, I used to eat the ends of the candles as far as I could reach on tiptoe. He was a good man for the times and even merciful compared with some other masters, who pounded the boys' heads against heavy posts. Once at least he made a mistake. Creeping up behind me, just as I had made up my mind to be a good boy, he gave me a fearful cut which caused me to cry out, "You fool, you!" He saw he was wrong; something in my eye told him that. "Never mind now, Master Puddefoot. We will let that go for the next time." I squared the account within an hour and we both laughed. But not all our whippings were laughing mat- [10] My Ancestry and. Early Years ters. They were so severe that the lady living next door to the school would beg the master to flog his boys in another room — their cries made her so unhappy. Yes, Solomon's rod was profoundly reverenced in my boyhood, and be- cause it seemed to have Scriptural sanction, it was held to be a cure-all for youthful depravity of every form. If whipping makes good boys, surely we ought to have become angels, but to the best of my recollection quite the opposite was true. On Saturdays I was often invited to the vic- arage to play with a young lad of my own age who was not allowed to play with the village boys. How well I can see that vicarage, with its well-kept close, the great yew tree with its scarlet berries, the halls and rooms lined with books, the listed doors that closed without noise and the shy boy, who seemed to be listed like the doors. I must have been a vociferous lad, for the schoolmaster, taking tea at our house on the eve of emigrating to Australia, so stirred me with stories of the antipodes, that I shouted with delight. "Dear, dear," said the poor man, "if that boy lives to be twenty he will have voice enough to address ten thousand people." Forty years later I thought of that when I stood before an audience of ten thousand and proved the old man a prophet. Can a boy ever forget his first fish? My older [ii] Leaves from the Log of a Shy Pilot brother took me with him to a stream near Hever Castle. Boylike I flung my line in a way to put every fish to flight, yet with boy's luck, pulled out a big trout and sent it two rods over my head. "We shall have great sport," said my brother; but that was the only fish that morning. Later we found a perch pond where the fish bit so eagerly that I did nothing but cut bait — for my brother. But the memory of that day! My first fish* Hever Castle, Henry the Eighth and Anne Boleyn, the long walk home in the twilight — ■ it is a golden picture to this hour in my memory. Sometimes on Sundays my father would take me to walk; through Spring Shaws, where the Darent takes its rise from seven springs, past the old dogmill which once ground food for the hounds, along the walk slippery with fallen beech mast, past the great tulip tree, and the quiet reaches where immense speckled trout, con- scious of their safety, would leap for the flies. Then we would meet the keeper, with a brace of hounds and a rifle slung over his shoulder, and he would put on a grave look and talk of trespassing. I would look into my father's face with alarm, but I soon saw that it was a joke, and that the high constable was a privileged person. Poaching was common. Poor men would risk liberty and life for a hare or leveret, and with good reason, for many of them lived on bread [12] The Village Green, Westerham, Kent "My First Playground" The Birthplace of General Wolfe My Ancestry and Early Tears and boiled turnip tops for weeks together, with- out the taste of meat. One desperate poacher was so feared that the metropolitan policeman left him alone though sent with instructions to take him. One day this poacher and my father met; then I saw the effect of kindness and the winter soup. Said the man : "I know, Mr. Pud- defoot, you have a warrant out for me. Give me the warrant and I will commit myself and save you twenty miles of travel." And so he did, and went to Maidstone alone! And now the leaven of what little I had read began to ferment. I had been down a coal mine with Dickens in Household Words, and seen trees a million years old and I must needs air my newfound knowledge in the Sunday school class. I thought to extend the bounds of knowl- edge, but my teacher, who looked upon all Bible dates as inspired, took a different view and re- garded me with horror. I was threatened with expulsion and given another chance; but leaven when it once begins to work is hard to check, and a boy of ten is too young to be a coward or hypo- crite. I could not believe the story of creation and could not be silent, and hence it happened that under the pretense of being a mischievous boy, but really for heresy, I found it convenient to absent myself from Sunday school at the age of ten. I left suddenly — in fact, I was expelled. Such are a few of my memories of a childhood that was sheltered and happy beyond the lot of [13] Leaves from the Log of a Sky Pilot many — blessed by the presence of a loving, saintly mother, of a wise, just, broad- visioned father, safeguarded in a home of comparative comfort and plenty, lacking but never missing the pride of wealth and pomp of social prestige — a domestic garden in which, like its old-fash- ioned flowers, I was let grow as God made me to grow, with little restraint save that of love and only such pruning as I needed and for which I am now and forever grateful. The village in which I was born has parted with its charm for me. It is not deserted like Goldsmith's village. Far from it and far worse ! For the East Londoner comes in his big van, or in one of its sixteen daily trains, and makes hid- eous what was once so calm, so sweet, so bright. The charm has fled. It has become cosmopoli- tan. But to me it is a memory, sacred and sweet, and to that memory I dedicate this opening chapter. [14] CHAPTER II I GO TO LONDON When I was about ten years old an uncle who was a Scripture reader in London paid our family a visit and recommended a boarding school there to my parents. It professed to fit boys for any trade or vocation and seemed to be just the place for me. I was sure of it my- self, for it meant London. It was called The Westbourne School. The headmaster was allowed to take twelve boarders, most of whom were proteges of ladies or children of widows living on small annuities. It was not exactly a "Dotheboys Hall," but it was one of that kind, only a trifle less cruel. My mother went with me as far as London Bridge, but beyond that point I had many miles further to go before reaching the School, and I wonder now, looking back, how my timid mother ever let me go the rest of the way alone. I was given, a sixpence for not crying when I left home by a Mrs. Richards who lived next door to us. I had directions from my mother to get off at the Royal Oak and then walk a mile and a half to Victoria Terrace. By that time it was evening and I shall never [15] Leaves from the Log of a Sky Pilot forget the awed feeling as I walked up the stone steps into what seemed to me one of the many mansions. The master who met me was a canny- Scotchman, with one child of his own and two nieces, and I was made to think I was extremely lucky to get in, as there was just room for one more boarder. My room was at the top of the house in the front garret; six little iron bedsteads and a wash-stand were the only furniture. Chairs were not needed, as we had our trunks to sit upon. This was the boarding house, but the school was a mile away across the brick fields; beyond the brick fields were the dairy farms and the open country. It was not exactly the London I had pictured. A canal ran near the schoolhouse; also the Great Western Railway, with the widest tracks ever built, and even then it was running locomotives at sixty miles an hour. One of these monster engines, The Lord of the Isles, I saw at Chicago at the World's Fair in 1893, and it seemed to me as good as ever. For exercise we had high poles, set on a swivel, with hanging ropes and chains and around these poles we whirled at a great rate. Part of the playground was fenced for a garden, where the boarders studied botany in summer, but we did not have to weed this garden, as Mr. Squeers' boys did, according to Dickens, "when the frost was so hard that the pump stuck fast." We had an underground playground for rainy [16] I Go to London weather, the school being built on brick piles, and at one side lived an old man and his wife, who were allowed to sell taffy bull's-eyes and lolly- pops to the boys. Many a bull's-eye the old lady gave me because my rosy cheeks and plump hands made her think of her early home. At this time I was very stout and big for my age and needed to be, for there were over three hundred scholars and I had a round dozen of fights just to find out who was who. Still I was no real fighter, knowing nothing of boxing, but was not deficient in courage. Before leaving home I had fought one big fellow with one hand while I held the papers I had to distribute on Saturday in the other. I might have had a bad flogging for this had not a neighbor followed me home and told my father that I was in the right. I never fought except when forced to, and I received many blows for each one I gave, but I aimed to make that one a settler and, as a rule, it was. My humorous side kept me out of many fights, and I was a favorite with most of the boys. I could tell them stories to which they would rather listen than play marbles, and at the boarding house on wet Saturdays I painted woodcuts for them all day. Our meals were small, too small for growing boys. More than once I picked up orange peel and devoured it to satisfy my hunger. For breakfast we had a round and a quarter of bread and a mug of coffee; for lunch just a round of [17] Leaves from the Log of a Shy Pilot bread and no more. Six o'clock found us hungry as hounds for the dinner which was good for quality but quite insufficient in quantity. The big plum pudding was always welcome, because it was so filling. Often and often I traded my marbles with the day scholars for a piece of pie. The period between dinner and bedtime was given to study. At the close of each school day I generally went to the top of the class, because the last exercise was parsing, which I found easy, but during most of the day I was at the foot for talking, which was even easier. I was the only boy in school who was studying Latin, and it was lonesome work and did not amount to much. Nearly every Saturday we were taken to Westminster Abbey by a pupil- teacher who had a mania for copying inscrip- tions from tombstones. The boys hated it and would rather have played leap-frog any time. Once we went to see the House of Lords, and I was into the "throne seat" before any one could haul me back. The look of horror on the teach- er's face and the stern words from the man in charge made me laugh outright, for which I had my ears boxed. I never cared for dignitaries or pomp. Once when Napoleon, Eugenie, Prince Albert and the Queen went by in a carriage I stuck to my game. I don't think I would have run a mile when a boy to have seen all the crowned heads of Europe; and this feeling has never left me. I detest man worship. [18] / Go to London It seems strange that I never mentioned the way we lived at school when I went home for the holidays. The joy of going home, I sup- pose, made me forget it. When money was sent to me I spent most of it for bread and cheese and divided with my roommates. This low liv- ing brought on influenza and scurvy and it was many months before I became free from their bad effects. Indeed, I was thirty before the marks of scurvy left me. The master was fright- ened and gave me money to go out and see if the cookshops would not tempt my appetite. Once a month I dined with my Uncle Clark, and I remember when I was strong enough to go how I longed for a shoulder of mutton roasted over a batter pudding and browned potatoes. When the day came my uncle had the very dish I had longed for, and then I could not eat it. That winter the snow was remarkable for a county that scarcely ever had any snow but for a day. It was four feet deep on the level and the people were taken from the poorhouses to clear the roads to London. I remember some small patches left until the first of June, north of the hedge rows, the dense foliage protecting them. Before the leaves had grown the sun would produce a replica of the quickset hedge in snow, and a very beautiful sight it was. On going back for my last term our home doctor ordered more food and a glass of beer for dinner, for which my father paid extra. This [19] Leaves from the Log of a Sky Pilot fare was kept up two weeks and the price of it three months. Glad was I when one evening my eldest brother called to take me home for good. I was then thirteen. My school days are not a very pleasant mem- ory. In the Sunday school connected with the day school my teacher used to pull my ears and rap my head against the next boy's. I'm afraid I hated that man. He did not understand boys. But there was another who did. One Sunday a dashing major just home from India came into the school and was given my class to teach. I wondered much that a great officer should stoop to this. He took his seat, gave a rapid look at the class and said, as he fixed his eyes on me, "I make you captain." That fixed me. I had to be good then. "Here," said he, "is a sixpence for sweets. Don't spend it on Sunday, Captain, but tomorrow divide with the class." One day I heard him say to the superintendent, pointing to me, "That boy's my hope." The superin- tendent gave a doubtful shrug which hurt a little, but the Major's words stayed by me. I don't think two days went by in my school life without a whipping; not because I deserved it always, but because it was the fashion. Boys were whipped most brutally. The master used a short ash ruler and when we held out our hands we fairly cowered before the blow, and in our hearts was murder. Such cruelty led to lying. I remember one night we were smoking when [20] I Go to London we heard the master coming up. I hastily- knocked the tobacco out of my pipe, swished the soap about in the water and began to blow bub- bles. But the master smelled the smoke. "What's this?" he said, "smoking?" "No, we were blowing bubbles with an old pipe and it's awful strong." That was an awful lie, surely, but such was my fear of him that though a Christian-trained boy, I lied like an Oriental heathen and with such conviction that the master turned and went down. The only comment of the boys was, "My ! but that was a close call!" If I learned little else at Westbourne I did become a master at sneaking and deceit. My London brother was married at this time and all the tips I got I spent for cakes, wine and bread and cheese. These I smuggled up to our room, and when the house was quiet I pulled the beds together and by means of a broom rigged the bedclothes up, tent-style, and we imagined we were Arabs in the desert and never stopped until the last crumb was swallowed and all the wine drunk. How it was we were not found out I never could imagine. And thus it happened that, at the too early age of thirteen, when other boys were beginning their education in earnest, I was done with all schools except one — the school of experience. Looking back on that period of my life it seems to me a wonder, a miracle of grace and divine [21] Leaves from the Log of a Sky Pilot leading that with my small stock of self-knowl- edge and my bitter memory of wrongs, I did not grow up to become at last a menace to society and a dishonor to my Maker and my parents. [22] CHAPTER III BOYHOOD DAYS IN ENGLAND Nearly two decades after the friction match had been invented an old man used to stand on the corner of the London Road and the High Street, Westerham. His dress was of the old style. He had on knee breeches and garters, a gaberdine for a coat and a beaver hat brushed the wrong way to show that it was not silk. In his hands he held a bunch of matches. These matches were about six inches in length, about five-eighths of an inch broad, very thin and pointed at the ends. These ends had been dipped in brimstone, and as he stood he sang in a trembling, falsetto voice : "Come, buy my fine matches, Come, buy them of me. They are dry and barsell And all very good; Besides they are made Of the very best wood." What barsell meant I do not know, but there were people then as now who would not buy any new thing. I have heard my father say how often in days gone by, when sudden sickness came in the night, he had struck his knuckles with flint and steel to get a spark into the tinder [23] ft) Leaves from the Log of a Shy Pilot box, and then thrust in the match. Then he would run through the dark streets for the doctor. Tonight, if there is need, I pull the chain and my room is as light as day. I take down my telephone and call the doctor, and by the time I am dressed I hear his automobile at the door. When I was a boy there were four kinds of candles. The very poor burned rushlights, which cost a farthing each. A rush was used for the wick. Then we had eights, i. e., eight to the pound. The better class had sixes, and the shoe- maker and the tailor had double sixes, having two wicks. Of course the rich used wax candles. I saw the introduction of camphene lamps. These were followed by what was called portable gas, i. e., naphtha, and then in turn by gas from coal. All of these, lamps and gas, were intro- duced in our village by my father. The by- products that came from the gas were used to kill weeds, or by adding twelve gallons of water to the liquor it was used as a fertilizer. Today the by-products almost pay for the gas. My father used to get the naphtha in twenty- gallon cans, and when the cans were empty he returned them. One day he found a small hole in the top of the can and tried to stop it with melted sealing wax. The can promptly exploded and took off one side of his whiskers and the hair off one side of his head, besides blistering his skin. [24] Boyhood Days in England In May came the festival of the sweeps who were arrayed in fantastic garbs, one inclosed in evergreens with a space to show his face. This was about the only frolic these poor folks had. The first of May was May-bough day. The country boys, dressed in their Sunday best, in- vaded the town, with hazel boughs decked with cowslips, primroses and polyanthus. They would stop opposite each house and sing : "This the day, the first of May, Please remember the May-bough. Whoop!" The girls carried garlands made with two hoops crossed and ornamented with flowers. In- side was a doll. They sang: "This the day, the first of May, Please remember the garland." Then they curtsied. At the end of the village lived two old maiden ladies, the Misses Davetts, and here each boy and girl was given a penny. At noon all assembled in front of the nurseryman's shop and he would throw out some two or three bushels of hazel nuts, for which the youngsters scrambled. All this was to make ready for the third of May, which was the yearly fair. The night be- fore the gipsies would arrive and begin to raise their tents. In the morning was the cattle-show. By noon the streets were cleared and the fun would begin in earnest, with roundabouts, swings, Womball's menagerie, the learned pig Toby, [25] Leaves from the Log of a Sky Pilot giants and dwarfs, country bumpkins grinning through a horse collar and bobbing for oranges floating in a tub of water. Another lot vied with each other in quick eating of hot hasty pud- ding. Fortune-telling by the gipsies and often a donkey race w r ould be introduced. The last donkey won the prize. As each rider exchanged donkeys, the effort was made by every one to beat his own donkey. At another season came the General Wolfe Fair, in honor of the conqueror of Quebec, who was born in Westerham. Men would climb greasy poles, catch greased pigs, and old women would wade through Long Pond for a new shift. The lumber-room in my father's house was a veritable mine of treasures. Stowed away in it was almost every conceivable article — old bel- lows with brass noses, great-grandfather's big telescope and microscope, books, pictures, old mahogany boxes, etc. Here I was put when I was a bad boy and became acquainted with every- thing in the room. It was a pleasurable punish- ment. One day I managed with a file to cut a key to fit the largest of the boxes and found a guinea, a sovereign, several half-sovereigns and crooked sixpences, groats and threepenny bits, also a twopenny copper piece which was after- wards used as a two-ounce weight. Before that there were threepenny bits that weighed three ounces. The old crown was a five-shilling piece. One new coin was introduced when I was a boy. [26] Boyhood Days in England It was named a florin and was worth two shillings. I read everything I could find, even to Dr. Ure on the cotton industry of England. Milton's "Paradise Lost" filled me with loud-sounding words that I did not know how to pronounce, much less did I understand their meaning. I found one book that was a prize — Marryat's "Pirate and Three Cutters." I was so absorbed in this book that I stayed long beyond my time and my father suddenly opened the door to see that I was not in mischief — for I had spoiled two of the clocks my grandfather made to get the wheels for a wagon. When he saw me with a book he said : "What is that you are reading?" "Oh, it is splendid!" I said. "Let me see it. Why, it's a novel!" "Well, is it not true?" I cannot describe my sorrow at finding that anything written should not be true. I did not then know that in ancient times writings were thought to be sacred; I only know that it was a long time before I got over my grief. No big words worried me. I made an attempt once in reading out loud about the gigantic abo- rigines of Patagonia at pronouncing the word "gigantic." I used the hard sound of g, and called the aborigines the abrogeens. "What?" said my father in a voice that made me jump. I pronounced the words again, and my father [27] Leaves from the Log of a Sky Pilot laughed as he told me the right pronunciation. I never forgot it. In fact, every time that I have pronounced a word wrong I can remember the place and the person who set me right. The old burying ground was our favorite playground, for here were tombstones of all heights over which we played leapfrog. Some- times when the sexton unearthed an old skull we used it to play ball with. Many graves were filled until no more bodies would go in. In St. Johns Wood the graves were ten or more bodies deep. These graveyards are now flower gardens. It was a superstition among us boys that if we went round the church twelve times and touched every corner we should see the devil looking out of the vestry window. One night we had gone round some five or six times and on looking in at the vestry window we were sur- prised and scared half to death, for old man Weller, the clerk, poked his head out. We tum- bled over the vaults and tombstones at a fearful gait. When the old clerk died his daughter took me to see him and told me to touch his face so that I should not dream about him. When I was a boy I had to keep a large stone j ar filled with water from the town pump. The well was deep and it was hard work to pump it. I had a yoke that went over my shoulders from which hung chains that had hooks for the pails. The washing water came from the river Darenth. which ran at the foot of Water Lane. [28] Boyhood Days in England At the bottom of the lane there were stone steps. With great difficulty I dislodged one of the stones and knocked off the back part of it so making a little cupboard, in which I hid a pipe, tobacco and matches, for I had learned to smoke when eleven years of age. In fact, there was not a road leading out of Westerham where I did not have a hidden store for "my lady nico- tine." Sometimes my mother suspected me and asked me to give her a kiss. I said, "In a min- ute," dashed into the garden and ate an onion. "You naughty boy," she said. Our garden was filled with delicious fruit — damsons, great greengages, cherries of black hearts, gooseberries as large as walnuts and black currants the size of small marbles, elderberry trees, and all kinds of flowers. We never stored any of the garden stuff in cellars — we did not need to. We cut the celery, dug the potatoes and when we cut off a cabbage head we split the stalk and from this would grow the nicest crisp little cabbage heads. This garden was my favorite place on Sunday afternoon when not walking with my father. Let me tell of one thing more — the Shilling Post. Three years before I was born people had to pay very high for postage. Frederic Harri- son speaks of the widow of a member of Parlia- ment who used to frank their letters for them and save some eighteenpence. The people evaded these high rates. When [29] Leaves from the Log of a Shy Pilot John Smith was going to London, to let Mrs. John know he was safe he would address his letter to Mr. J. S. All well, Care of Mrs. John Smith, Westerham, Kent. The postman would say, "There is a shilling due." Mrs. Smith said, "I do not want it." She had the information in the address. Rowland Hill stopped all this when he introduced the penny postage. When I lived in Framingham I had an eleven-pound parcel of shrubs and flow- ers sent by the Westerham Nursery for less money than a letter cost in my boyhood going to any part of England beyond a hundred miles. Many old customs were in full fling when I was a boy that are now forgotten. The fifth of November was one of them. At that time the boys would bring hop vines enough to make a bonfire higher than the houses. This was made in the middle of the village green and so great was the heat that the fat melted from the beef hung in the butcher's shop behind heavy wooden shutters. The boys shouted: "November ! November ! The fifth of November, The gunpowder treason and plot. I don't see no reason Why gunpowder treason Should ever be forgot. Hurrah !" [30] Boyhood Days in England It was a wild and dangerous night and I was not allowed outside. Many boys and men were seriously burned when squibs held against them as they ran often made dangerous wounds. An act of Parliament stopped all this wild fun and I remember how vexed I was when my father as High Constable ordered the boys to take away the hop vines. In those days we had a daily stage coach to London, excepting Sundays, and two huge car- rier vans that went twice a week, one putting up at the Half Moon borough, the other at St. Catherine's Wheel. The great horse in the van could draw five tons. Following the hind wheel was a little wheel which was attached by chains to the hub of the wheel, so that whenever the van stopped in going up a steep hill the hind wheel fell back on the little one. If we went by rail we had to walk to Edenbridge and took the train for London nearly six miles farther from London than when we started. Today there are sixteen daily trains from Westerham. The bounds of the parish were marked every eleven years, and a number of boys accompanied their elders so that there would be some to take the place of those who died. All sorts of tricks were played with the boys, such as putting them in a sack and rolling them into a stream. I was the only boy in my company and nothing was done to me except lifting me up and bumping me gently against a giant oak at Cudham. At [81] Leaves from the Log of a Sky Pilot each of the boundaries a large W was chiseled into a tree. We met many companies from adja- cent towns. I walked twenty-one miles the first day, over hedges and ditches ; and sixteen miles the next. In one case we went right through the mansion of Mr. Bailey, the richest commoner then in England. To me the trip was delightful beyond expression. Once I found a thrush's nest in a wattled fence and gazed at the eggs with intense pleasure but did not touch them. I do not think walking the bounds is kept up today. I remem- ber we passed one field that contained one hun- dred acres. It was most irregular in shape, sometimes narrowed to a few rods. It showed how the early farmers fought with nature, man here gaining and there losing ground. It was reckoned that England had one hundred thou- sand miles of useless hedgerows and that if it were cultivated with the scientific skill of the Hollanders it could support one hundred million of people. For inns we had in Westerham a Tom and Jerry, which sold beer, the Grasshopper Inn, St. George and The Dragon, The King's Arms, The Ward Arms and The General Wolfe. [82] CHAPTER IV IN MY MERRY AND BUSY TEENS School days were over for me, and in my thirteenth 5~ear I stood face to face with the world. All trades were open, for thus far I had developed no marked tastes to guide my parents or myself in a choice. Near my father's home was a carpenter's shop and in the carpenter's family was a daughter for whom I had a boy's fondness; we had been playmates and had ex- changed vows of fidelity. In all our games we had been loyal comrades and we expected to be so forever. Thus the choice of a trade was made easy. I was duly bound; the indentures were made by which I was apprenticed for seven years. Al- though the shop was very near to my home, I became an "indoor" apprentice, costing my father over £150 sterling. But alas for love's young dream ! A big, ugly, pock-marked fellow came to town who could spend threepence at a time for candies, and the young damsel dropped me. Her younger sister appeared to take her place in my affections, but I refused to be com- forted. It was not my only lesson in the nckle- [38] Leaves from the Log of a Sky Pilot ness of the fair sex before finding my true life companion. At the time when I began to learn my trade all the boards were cut at the shop. The square timbers were placed over a pit and two men, professional sawyers, cut the boards to the re- quired thickness. It was a slow, tedious process. My master (all bosses are called masters in Eng- land and, indeed, the husbands of the poor were always called masters by their wives) was a jack of many trades and a master of them all. Ke could do anything with tools from building a fence to making an organ. We started the work of the day at half-past six in the morning. Breakfast followed at eight, lunch at eleven and dinner at one. At six o'clock the day's work was done. The mechanics who lived in the next village brought their lunch with them and in the ten minutes allowed managed to consume their bread and cheese with a pint of small beer. Their comforts were few. For the most part they lived in cellars or down in the areas of tenement houses and received for wages about five dollars a week. All tradesmen in those days wore aprons. The carpenter's was plain white, fringed with white and was rolled up and twisted round the waist when he was not at work; the blacksmiths had leather aprons, the shoemakers striped linen and sometimes sheepskin; the grocers had white aprons, fastened with a small heart-shaped piece [84] In My Merry and Busy Teens of brass. Such distinctions made clanship nat- ural and easy. My master and I did not get along well to- gether. We were continually having words, and my unruly member was, even then, a source of trouble. One day I was carding horsehair and found my hands bleeding. I ventured to suggest that a roller turned with a handle would do the work easier and quicker than I was doing it. "Ah!" said he, "it takes a lazy boy to invent." I found out afterwards that such a machine had been made and that a lazy boy using it could do more in an hour than the smartest boy could do in a day by the old method. Still in spite of these differences I enjoyed the life. One day I had a forced half -holiday and I enjoyed it with fear and trembling — not but that holidays were frequent, sometimes a great cricket match or a donkey race gotten up by the gentry would be the occasion. Then the greater part of the village went to the commons. Great tents were pitched and a fine lunch provided for the players. Bands of music played between games and when "The Lords" came or "The Gentlemen of all England," then we all quit work and had a big time. But this particular half-holiday deserves a place by itself, as it was forced upon more than fifty men besides myself. A certain butcher who had to drive his beeves through his house to the slaughter pen had trouble with an ox that bolted [85] Leaves from the Log of a Sky Pilot just as he reached the door. Fortunately for us, it was the dinner hour when the fun began. The bullock was frisky and game and fifty fel- lows armed with sticks who gave chase with whoops of delight failed to tranquilize him. I threw my stick, a long one, at the steer and he kicked it against a grocery window, but as it struck flat no glass was broken. Away went the ox and away went I. I was fortunate enough to capture the butcher's pony, which gave me a good start of the crowd until the pony and I and the ox were alone on the road. The ox, which by this time was mad, made a rush for us. I whipped over the fence in a jiffy and the pony was knocked over; had the brute's horns been straight the pony would have been ruined ; as it was, he gave the ox a parting kick with his heels and made for home. Efforts to lasso the animal were a failure. One man threw his plug hat down to attract the animal's attention, and it did, for he ran his horn through it and started down the road. An ox with a plug hat on his head made the people delirious with joy. After being twice wounded he was finally shot dead by the gamekeeper and the crowd dragged the dead body back to the slaugh- ter house. A great treat of beer followed, the crowd going in at one door and out through another. I managed to go in and out three times before I was discovered and then started hur- riedly for home, expecting the worst for my [86] In My Merry and Busy Teens forced holiday. But happening to tickle my master with the story of the hunt, I escaped without even a scolding. I would gladly have taken a licking rather than have lost that day of fun. Sometimes we worked miles away from home, lodging in some tavern or some country hamlet. How I loved to watch the clodhoppers after sup- per, when they would dance on the flagstone floor of the taproom with heavy nailed boots that weighed seven pounds a pair, and that after a hard day's work on the farm. At this time we were putting up a greenhouse for Darwin, whose name was not known then outside of scientific circles. I take pride in remembering my humble part in building Darwin's conservatory where he studied his famous chapter on Natural Selection. It was about this time that the Crimean War came to an end and England was wild with joy. It fell to me to rip out three hundred flagstaffs for the celebration, and that used me up. On our own village green we held a big feast ; barrels and barrels of ale were broached, and oxen and sheep roasted whole, while the tradesmen and gentry waited upon the poor. Trestles and benches were borrowed from the taverns for miles around to make tables and seats, and as the wagoners could neither write nor read, I had to go and mark all the borrowed articles with their owners' names. But when it came to cutting evergreens, the [87] Leaves from the Log of a Sky Pilot call of the woods was too strong for me. I went off and left my job. That was a fatal truancy. My master was in high dudgeon. "Did the trees need marking, too?" he asked. I hung my head and had no answer. This brought on the quarrel that finished my apprenticeship, but such was the general delight in the return of peace that my father lost the money he had paid for me without a murmur. It was evident that I was not born to be a carpenter, and my indentures at the end of one year were canceled. My eldest brother at this time was working on the Atlantic Cable in London and I thought it would be a fine thing to work on the Cable, too. My uncle, who was timekeeper for the com- pany, got me a job to wind bobbins of copper wire and take out the kinks, making the wire ready for soldering. We used to get up at 5 a. m., walk up Cheswell Street and past Bun- hill Fields, through places of great historic inter- est. An hour's walk brought us to the tavern, where we had hot coffee and ate our breakfast, which we had brought with us. It was nine at night when we reached home, too tired to un- dress, and sometimes I slept on the floor. For this work I receive $1.50 per week. At one time the Prince of Wales paid a visit to see the Cable made. I felt a contempt for the full-grown men, bowing and scraping before a boy like myself. I fear I am a poor English- man. Certainly I was never born to toady to [88] In My Merry and Busy Teens rank. My job on the Cable did not last long. One of the master mechanics invented a machine that did all the boys' work and we were dis- charged. Something over twenty inventions were born out of the making of this Cable. The great factory employed twelve fitters, eleven carpenters and two bricklayers. The last-named were Irishmen and very witty. While the Prince was on his visit the proprietor asked one of his bricklayers the day of the month. "And it plaze your Honor, if ye give me your watch I'll take it to a place where they put the date on a ticket for yez." Mike got a big tip for that. My parents had now removed from Wester- ham to London and lived on Upper Baker Street, near Regent's Park. I had found a position at Pickford & Co.'s great carrying establishment and was having a gentleman's life, reporting for business at nine o'clock and leaving at four. My work was light — only copying and posting let- ters — and I had a lovely walk to and fro across the Park. One day on my walk I had the pleasure of saving a woman from drowning. She had thrown herself into the water, but when it soaked through her clothes she screamed for help. I walked boldly into my father's shop, dripping wet, and he was ready to talk loud when he saw me ; but I stopped that with a wave of the hand. "I have just saved a woman from drowning." Then he was ready to make a hero of me. But [89] Leaves from the Log of a Sky Pilot it was not much to do, for I was as good a swim- mer as any spaniel. My gentlemanly job soon failed me and I became an errand boy. No more short days! I had to be at the shop at seven, clean all the horses and run errands (sometimes twice a day to Lower Thames Street — twenty-four miles), but I loved it. I hated cleaning things, but I loved the walks through the great city. I knew every stone for miles, and I think I could have told what was in the shop windows from the Marble Arch to Temple Bar. And I knew all the short cuts — up an alley, through a bar- room into another alley and so save a quarter of a mile. I grieve to say that while in this business I fell into bad company, boys of my own age. We used to unscrew the brass knobs of house bells and shy them through the windows; of course the houses were new and unoccupied. Some- times I was nearly caught for I laughed so that I could not run until downright fear of the "bobby" at my heels made me scamper to cover. In later years I have met grave doctors of divinity who confessed to similar pranks at my age. Their confessions have been very comforting. It was at this time that my father, whose kind heart sometimes betrayed him, fell in with a pious rascal and I was sent to live with him. The business was made to appear double its real [40] In My Merry and Busy Teens value. My father became the partner of this designing rascal, and his losses and debts nearly ruined him. Meanwhile my brother had gone to Canada and sent back such rosy reports that we decided to follow him. f u CHAPTER V THE VOYAGE AND SETTLEMENT IN CANADA We joined the great army of emigrants, steamed away from Liverpool in March, 1859, and after thirteen days came into the port of New York with the Persia right after us, al- though she had left three days later than our vessel. She was the fastest ship afloat at that time and made the trip in about ten days. Our own ship, the Kangaroo, of 1,500 tons burden, I thought immense, though I had seen the Great Eastern lying at Blackwall before leaving. Those of my readers who have read Dickens's "American Notes" will remember his chagrin on seeing his stateroom. How as he recalled the highly colored lithograph he had seen in the agent's office in London and compared it with the actual article, he sat down on a horsehair slab and watched his friends' distorted counte- nances as they tried to make their faces small to get in at the door. That stateroom was a little box, but he had it all to himself. Now imagine the steerage. Before the anchor was weighed there were two or three large bar- rels of sea biscuit on deck free to all, but as soon [42] The Voyage and Settlement in Canada as we started they mysteriously disappeared. We had to furnish our own mattresses and we were laid in rows like so many herring. I had always lived in a good home and in the county of Kent, spoken of in Caesar's Commen- taries as the civilest place in the island, and now thrust amidst all sorts and conditions of men! I shall never forget the first dinner — the pota- toes with their jackets on; the meat in huge pieces thrown pellmell into large pans ; the great dirty hands thrust into the food; the men poising a potato on their half-shut hands much as an egg sets in an egg-cup, and then with a smart tap on top and a swift movement of the hand catch- ing the peeled potato underneath. I was a healthy young fellow of seventeen, but this scene took away my appetite. How- ever, I soon adjusted myself to the new condi- tions. I made acquaintance with the cook and by helping him with the cabin dinners I received in return many tidbits which I carried to my mother and younger brother. My mother was sick the whole way across, while I had an appe- tite of a young wolf and made five meals a day and when the weather was rough, six. There were terrible characters on board. One man who had tried to commit suicide when cross- ing the Pacific Ocean tried again on this trip, but was prevented and he had to be put in irons. An Irishman kept drunk nearly all the time and he would purposely annoy me by sitting close [43] Leaves from the Log of a Sky Pilot to me and saying, "I would rather be hung in the United States than die a natural death in Eng- land." Another man of gigantic stature prayed half the night, wishing the ship would sink and he be drowned. One burly navvy from Lan- cashire said to him one night, "I tell thee, mate, you'll go to the devil quicker than that if thou doesn't shut up thy clatter." It was bad enough when the sea was smooth, but when the storm came and we were all bat- tened down and trunks were shot across the steerage floor at every roll and the odors of that middle passage made life almost unbearable, it did take some fortitude to stand the strain. Here was an old woman telling her beads — "O Mary, Mother of God, save me from my sins for Jesus' sake. Amen" ; and this repeated by the hour until it seemed as if pandemonium had broken loose. As the storm subsided the hatches were raised and men tried the deck. One old man came up to wash his breakfast tins, but foimd himself sitting on the deck and his soup plate clasped to his breast and the remains running down his body. The blank look on his face sent me into a spasm of laughter, but I quickly helped the old man to his feet and washed his tins and cleaned him up and so atoned for my untimely mirth. One day as we were crossing the Grand Banks I saw the captain throw his cigar away and in [44] The Voyage and Settlement in Canada an instant place a speaking trumpet to his mouth, for there, close enough to toss a biscuit on board, was a huge square-rigged bark. Had she struck us she would have smashed us like an eggshell. But as it was, the captain roared, "When did you leave New York?" "Day afore yesterday," was the answer, and she was lost in the soft fog as suddenly as she appeared. That day we passed icebergs as high as a house that came tumbling by us in the most rollicking manner. Toward sunset, miles away appeared an iceberg as large as a town. What a mag- nificent sight! The words of Wordsworth came to my mind : "The city now doth like a garment wear The beauty of the morning, silent, bare. Ships, towers, domes, theaters and temples lie Open unto the fields and to the sky." Only this was sunset and the f airy colors that came and transformed this mighty floe could only be described by the vision of the apocalyptic seer of the New Jerusalem. Night came on and then the fair vision floated out of sight and a dense fog shut us in. The wheels of the ship stopped. Her hoarse whistles echoed back from all quar- ters. "What does this mean?" I asked of an old tar. "It means icebergs, lad." Far down in the bottom of the ship I could hear the hammers of the engineers making repairs. Right glad was I when her wheels once more began to turn. Leaves from the Log of a Sky Pilot Next morning I was up early. The fogs were gone and the pure air of the new world was filling my lungs. But what a glad sound was that I heard as we neared Fire Island Light, "Land ahead!" and now with straining eyes we watched. The seagulls flew around us and the dolphins bared their backs of gold and oh, what rapture as we neared Staten Island! the deli- cate greens of the trees just faintly showing and the smell of Mother Earth; the landing at Castle Garden and the strange crowd that met us. What a chance for the churches of Lower New York, but they were blind! How many young girls and boys could they have saved at that early day, but they had no vision ! And now, if my memory serves me right, our train was drawn by horses from Canal Street to Twenty-second Street, when a little wood-burn- ing engine with an enormous smoke-stack backed down and was fastened to the train by two chains. The cars were much longer than Eng- lish cars. There were no draw bars in those days, and it was dangerous to pass from one car to another as the cars swayed to and fro. The rails were very light and our train at times seemed as if it would jump the track. There was a stove at either end, and in winter you could see the steam arising from the snow on the wood- box while little icicles formed on the other end of the stick. We stopped frequently to wood up. It took [46] The Voyage and Settlement in Canada two days to reach Buffalo, and we traveled over seven companies' roads. The conductor had nothing to distinguish him but a narrow leather band around his hat, which he put on when he reached the train. After we left the city large numbers of people paid on the cars, and I have heard that the conductors retired early in those days. It was years before I saw a conductor in uniform. I was in Windsor, Ontario, when this gorgeous creature came for the tickets. At first I thought him to be an officer of the army. As our train passed through the city of New York we saw women milking cows and at work in their gardens where today stand the great skyscrapers of the world. The weather was warm and everything was bursting with life from vegetables to man. I was very sorry not to see some wild Indians and a few bison, but I saw Niagara by moonlight. Everything was so new — the rail fences, the log houses and the primeval forests ; the farmers in blue denims, with one leg of their pants stuck in their boots, the other left any way it hap- pened ; the women with bare feet working about the house or hoeing corn. I thought of it later when in Canada a farmer said to me, "Well, Bub, you have reached a free country, now you can walk barefooted if you like." I said the beggars could do that in my country. I noticed the feverish haste with which great forests were disappearing. Black walnuts were [47] Leaves from the Log of a Sky Pilot sent to the log heap to be burned to ashes to raise potatoes at fifteen cents a bushel, carrots and parsnips for ten cents a bushel, butter at ten cents a pound ; a good chicken brought ten cents ; cord wood was seventy-five cents a cord ; a house could be rented for three dollars a month; men working on the track received fifty cents a day and the mechanic with one dollar a day could own his own house. As we drew near to Buffalo the weather grew colder, and by the time we reached Ingersoll, Canada, between Toronto and London, it seemed as if the season had dropped back a month. That was in 1859, and there was a frost every month in that year. We had three entire sets of china which came safely over four thousand miles, and in six miles of travel from Ingersoll to Thamesford every set was smashed. Years after an old druggist who was a lover of china offered my mother thirty dollars for one saucer that she had saved from the wreck. The forests seemed interminable. The roads were narrow and the ruts deep. If a tree fell it was cut off so near to the ruts that often our wagon would go right over the trunk. Yet there was something indescribably beautiful about the tender green foliage, so different from the heavy gray-greens of England. The streams and lakes were lovely, and to go by a turn in the road and disturb a hundred or more wild ducks who would [48] The Voyage and Settlement in Canada fly up with a whir of wings, that was startling. The best farm we passed was owned by a tailor from London who had never seen a potato grow until he reached Canada. The beauty of this new country Was marred by the slovenly work of man. Buggies were never washed, harnesses were seldom cleaned, drygoods boxes, tin cans and paper were thrown about everywhere, as bad as Boston Common after a picnic. In spite of all this, I loved my new home. There was freedom of a sort and a license that almost made freedom a farce. I was surprised to find superstitions still alive that were long since forgotten at home. We were able to rent a fine log house with an open fire- place, four acres of land, with a young bearing orchard, a new barn and outhouses for one dol- lar a month, because it was haunted by the ghost of the former owner, a man named Brock. We got rid of a few of the ghosts in a week, i. e. } a colony of big rats, then we had peace until the September gales came. At first they were slight, and we heard exquisite music, but when the real thing came, we heard shrieks which made us sit up and listen, but I never believed in ghosts. The next day we examined the chimney and found that a tin pail had been inserted to govern the draught and this was the cause of the noise. We let it stay and enjoyed the music, but our rent went up next year. Evidently we had laid [49] Leaves from the Log of a Sky Pilot "the hant." Some of the bravest men were stopped one night. A great rock stood in front of the gate and the rays of the moon fell on it so that it resembled a white figure. Presently- one of the men threw a stone and struck the rock ; then a great laugh was raised and old man Brock's ghost was a thing of the past. Hallow- e'en and all such barbaric customs were in full blast, as they are today, when men and boys de- light to do unlawful acts. Nearly all these silly delights are kept alive by business that finds some absurd toy to sell. Christmas was little thought of, Easter un- known except to Episcopalians, but the twenty- fourth of May was Canada's great day. On my asking what it meant, "Why, do you not know it is the Queen's birthday?" "Well," I answered, "what about it?" "You an English- man and not know that?" "Why," I said, "we never made any fuss about it." And that is a fact. As I think of those days there seems to be a bright halo around them that did not appear at the time. Ah, it was youth that did it. The magic Mother's Bread — yes, it was good, but it was the boy's appetite that did the business, and I suspect as we grow older we forget the un- pleasant and remember only the golden glow of youth. [50] CHAPTER VI FIRST ADVENTURES IN A NEW WORLD Whether it was the New World or youth or the two combined, everything had an inde- scribable charm in Canada. The tender greens of the trees, so much lighter in shade than the deep gray-green of those in my English home; the new forms of life; the beautiful blue robins which Canadians and the people of the United States call "bluebirds"; the magnificent thrush which these people called a "robin"; the changed names of flowers of endless variety; and later the humming-birds and the fireflies; the intense heat of the summer and the equally intense cold of winter; and, above all, the happy-go-lucky character of the people just suited a youth like me in his eighteenth year. Yet there were times when the unfinished aspect of nearly everything would contrast sharply with my garden home in Kent. Everything in Canada at this time was prim- itive. The churches were plain outside and in- side. The men of the congregation sat on one side, the women on the other. On the men's side [51] Leaves from the Log of a Sky Pilot of the aisle there was a perfect fusillade of tobacco-spitting, and I have seen the old min- ister roll his quid in his mouth while praying, or take it out and refresh himself with a new one from a piece of black plug; and more than once I have seen men who would not whistle on Sunday go home drunk from the sacrament. At eventide, after supper, the mechanics would get together and jump, wrestle and pitch quoits. If a stranger came to the village he would be invited to try his skill, and if he beat them at all their games, some would say to him, "But we can lick ye," and then a bloody fight would terminate an otherwise peaceful contest. These rough and tumble fights were terrible, often costing a man his eye or a thumb. In fact, there was a savagery among these people that I supposed had long been left to brutish beasts. In the larger towns, on election days the rival factions, headed by brass bands and with many of the men drunk, finished the day with a free fight. I remember one amusing incident illustrating the primitive character of the people. A car- riage-maker came to my brother in great per- plexity, saying that an Englishman had ordered a new carriage and wanted his "Christ" painted on it. "Don't you mean his crest?" "Oh, thunder, yes, perhaps. But what is it, anyway?" [«] First Adventures in a New World My brother told him what a crest was and advised him to send to Toronto for information. As I was doing nothing I began to feel ashamed at being a burden to my father, who was greatly reduced in financial ability, and while I expected at this time to become a lawyer, I was ready, meanwhile, for anything that might open, and so it happened that I was apprenticed to a shoemaker — the last trade I ever expected to work at, but at which I did work for over twenty years. My first boss was a clean, pious little Eng- lishman, a member of the Church of England, and very strict. His house was pleasantly sit- uated overlooking a beautiful sheet of water and a garden sloping to the south. It was a model garden, and I tasted tomatoes for the first time. I never taste them now without a view of that garden and a vision of my youth. Up to the time I left home I had not, to my knowledge, seen any churches except the Estab- lished church and our own Independent church. Of course I must have seen many in London, but I knew little of them. But here in Canada all of them blossomed out and among them, at that early day, a colored Methodist church. I do not remember ever hearing or reading of a "protracted meeting," but here they were com- mon, and no circus ever attracted me more than this form of religious service. I was eighteen and bursting with animal life. Excitement of [58] Leaves from the Log of a Sky Pilot any kind was like wine. I slept in a room pa- pered with white frost, and for three years never wore an overcoat or flannels, yet I never felt the cold and never knew what a mosquito was. But these revival meetings were too much for me. Being a born mimic, I could make my boss and his family laugh with an exact transcript of these meetings and especially of the antics of the darkeys, but they were not pleased at what they deemed my flippant treatment of serious things, and when I got to staying out late and at last was locked out for the night, my boss thought it was time for us to part ; so my indentures num- ber two were broken and I was free to seek another job. It was not long before I apprenticed myself to another shoemaker, who was the very reverse of the former. He drank and gambled and did not go home until morning. For me, who en- joyed an evening out, this was most inconven- ient, for he kept a fierce bulldog in the yard and I did not dare go home until the master did. My term of service with this boss lasted six months. At the end of that time I ran away, breaking indentures number three. As I could not yet do work good enough for a journeyman I was apprenticed once more, and this time to the seventh son of a seventh son, whose father was also seventh son of a seventh son, and he could and did cure all the boys' warts but mine. He used to boast of being an Oberlin [54] First Adventures in a New World man. He had married an alderman's daughter and lived in a large double house for which he paid no rent and he dodged the tax-gatherer. The house was sadly out of repair. The room in which I slept ran right through from front to rear. The windows were broken and it con- tained four beds for seven men and part of the time one rabbit. At this place it was either a feast or a famine. Several men were boarders only, who worked at the stores in town. My boss did what was called "job work." There was one wholesale factory in town and it had the first wax-thread machine ever invented for sewing counters and straps, we having to sew the sides by hand. A man who could make a dollar a day was considered a first-class me- chanic, while laborers received from sixty to seventy-five cents a day. Board was two dollars a week, and in small towns hotels were of the swell rank that could run a free bus and get one dollar. Common taverns charged twenty-five and fifty cents a day and ministers, as a rule, paid nothing. We apprentices used often to go out at night in the fall of the year and come home late when the boarders were in bed. Then we would un- load our apples which we had taken on the road — people, as a rule, did not call that stealing — then we would roll the cold apples into the beds of the sleeping men. At first they would swear; afterwards they would sit up and eat, then [55] Leaves from the Log of a Sky Pilot smoke, and I can see those points of glowing light on the paper as I write. One wet, muddy night I put on an old hat* took off my shoes and stockings and with an old cane started out, as an old man, to beg. A pretty young lady, on her way to prayer meeting, gave me ten cents and talked with the boys for making fun of a poor old man who was very weary. I felt ashamed, yet bought some whisky, at that time ten cents a quart, and we sat down and drank it, nearly choking with laughter. I felt so emboldened with my success that I proposed to go to the house where we lived and beg a supper. The mistress let me in when she heard my sad story. I had walked from Port Huron. My children were all dead but one and I was on my way to die with my youngest daugh- ter. Would she excuse my not taking off my hat, as my eyes were weak and the light hurt them? She gave me a good supper, on the very chair where I had sat less than an hour before. While I ate the boys were cutting up and mak- ing fun of me, until the woman bundled them out with a sound lecture. I was profuse in my thanks and left the house without discovery. In the yard was a small house where I was success- ful in getting a paper sack full of bread, meat and vegetables. But this was too much for the boys, who set up a shout that brought my mis- tress out and the trick was discovered. At first she hardly knew whether to be mad or merry, [56] First Adventures in a New World but the adventure ended with a laugh all around. After this I went to the manager of the the- ater and tried to get on the stage ; but he would not have me without more experience, yet I feel sure I should have succeeded. I was a mimic and had a good memory. I remember learning thirty-five long verses after supper to recite the same evening, and did it without trouble. But no doubt my failure to get on the stage was all for the best. Sometimes instead of getting two suppers we had hardly one. I remember one night we had worked late and felt hungry. I said to the boys, "Let's make a raid on the pantry!" They were ready to follow. We had to go out at the front door of the shop and through another door to get into the dwelling house. The pantry was back, near the workshop, but as the plaster was off we could see the boss in the shop and had to be wary. Unfortunately, as I finished a piece of pie the plate slipped and in an instant the boss was at the cracks with a lamp and his eye glued on the place. I promptly blew out his light and skipped for bed in terror. It took him some time to get out of the factory without a light, and when he stood over me, frothing with rage, I was sleeping so soundly that he was stag- gered. I gave a sudden start and asked what was wrong. I dare not write his reply, but so thoroughly had I feigned sleep that the man went off cursing and never touched me. [57] Leaves from the Log of a Sky Pilot But his suspicion lingered, and I felt it was time for number four indentures to cease. The master objected and so I had my first and last lawsuit. I pleaded my own case and my plea was starvation. I think the folks in court will never forget that case. The recorder was with me from the start, but had to curb my enthusi- asm more than once, but I made good my plea. Some fine meat was brought up by the boss to show how well he fed us. The way I pretended to jump for that meat made every one laugh. The indentures were declared forfeit, and so I started as a full-fledged journeyman after being apprenticed four times. I don't think I was a bad boy in the worst sense of the word, but I must have been rather mischievous. [58] CHAPTER VII I BECOME A ROVER Aftee thrice breaking my indentures as an apprentice, with the loss of time and experience involved, I was graduated at length into a poorly-equipped journeyman; but I had learned to make a boot or shoe throughout. Years later I was one of two in a large factory that could do it. There were cutters, sewers and trimmers, who could only cut, sew or trim, but not one of them could make a whole boot or shoe. Other trades suffered in the same way by division of labor. In the early days there was something fasci- nating about the work, especially in the long winter nights when candles with double wicks or kerosene lamps were used to work by. There were artists among the men, who took pride in their work and tried to embellish it to the ut- most. These men were called "dons" and had a reputation all over the county where they tramped. When a man took his bench into a new shop he had to pay his "block" — that is, treat all round — and in those days every man drank more or less, and among the dons there were many hard drinkers. As these tradesmen were [59] Leaves from the Log of a Sky Pilot extensive trampers, they were often most enter- taining in conversation, and a vast amount of miscellaneous information could be heard in any shop. We had good singers, too, and at times a famous quartet. Being, as I have said, only a half-fledged jour- neyman, I could only get work when times were brisk, so that I was often on the tramp. At first I often had only just enough money to take me to my destination ; sometimes I had five cents over, which I would spend for a cigar. One old man said to me, "Billy, a rolling stone gathers no moss." I replied, "And a setting hen never gets fat," and off I went. I was fairly lucky in finding work until the severe winter of '64<, when I found myself stranded, without a penny, in Guelph, and after a wretched night and scant breakfast, I left my kit and walked over thirteen miles to Fergus, where my father lived. I can never forget that winter and the New Year's Day. Men drove into the horse-sheds with the mail and were found frozen to death on their seats. Many died. The cows bellowed as they ran through the streets and dogs skipped along on three legs, whimpering with the cold. That night at my father's house I slept on a lounge with my feet under the elevated oven of a great cookstove and could hardly keep warm. In the morning it was thawing and men went out in their shirtsleeves to work, returning at night with noses and ears frostbitten. [60] I Become a Rover In the middle of that hard winter I found work in a shop with some dozen men. The great stove was large enough for a four-foot stick of wood and was kept full; but I have often seen leather laid on a stick near the stove to dry when one end of the sole would be steaming and the other end with an icicle hanging to it. It was cold, and I soon left for Toronto, where I found work in a wholesale establishment. It was there that the news came of the assas- sination of Lincoln. I shall never forget the effect on my shopmates, who had cursed him every day. They were changed men in an in- stant and cried like children. Flags were at half-mast and shops closed during the funeral. As usual, we had to take our work out, and so banded together and rented an old rookery near by. Often we worked all night, especially on Friday, as we had to get our work in on Sat- urday morning or wait till past 9 a. m. on Mon- day. Up to midnight all would go well; what with sundry gallons of beer, some sandwiches and unlimited pipes of tobacco, we managed to peg away. Yet some would sleep in spite of everything. I have seen a man drop off while his hammer was raised, only to waken by its fall- ing on his toes. For myself, I was a regular night-hawk. For six weeks at a time I worked all night every Tuesday and Thursday and up to ten o'clock every other night but Saturday, and all to get $20 to lend to a friend against his [oi] Leaves from the Log of a Sky Pilot wife's sickness; and yet I paid only $2.50 a week for board, from which it will be seen that wages were pretty low. While working in Toronto I was married to my excellent wife, who has lived with me over forty-nine years up to date (1915), and a rare good wife she has been. In some senses I was a hard young customer. I played in the band and often went to the theater and got home at midnight. We soon moved to the country and in less than three months I went to Black Rock to encounter the Fenians. I had once before been in service at La Prairie and years after received a silver medal from the Queen's mint. It came to my wife, who evidently was supposed to be a widow. But my term of military service was not long. I was urged by friends to join the army, and old soldiers said I was sure to go to the top. But I hated the army then, and I hate all war and everything that leads to war. I believe with Ben Franklin, "There never was a good war nor a bad peace." Of course, as a young man of twenty-five I found the utter lack of responsibility and the mere following of orders had a certain charm. Food, clothing and lodging assured and some few dollars to spend meant something, but not enough to induce me to become a hired killer of men. No, no, let those who make the quarrels be the only ones to fight. Then another thing, I found the men had all the hard knocks and the [62] I Become a Rover head officer all the glory. I have slipped down in the mud after standing guard for eighteen hours and slept while holding my rifle, at a time, too, when the Fenians were expected every moment. Returning from camp to the city I fell upon hard times. Work was scarce and now I had a child as well as a wife to support. One day our boss called the men into the office and told them he would have to discharge a large number of hands unless he could get up a new brogan shoe at a twelve per cent, reduction in wages. If we would accept that, he would keep us at work all winter and put the wages back in May. We accepted it, but when May came the wages did not go up. I went to the boss and said: "I'm going to quit." "Why so, William?" "You said the wages would be put up in May and it is now June and you have done nothing about it." "But I will," said he, and directed the book- keeper to pay me the advance. He was a good man through and through. When I returned to the shop I said: "Well, boys, I have the raise and the old rates are back." They laughed incredulously and thought it was one of my jokes. But when the next man went in with his work they believed and the whole shop went wild with joy. A so- ciety was formed without delay and I was elected [63] Leaves from the Log of a Sky Pilot president. This was before the Crispin Society, and I am not sure but it was the first society of its kind in Upper Canada. In a few weeks another demand was made by the men for a raise in wages and I was commis- sioned to negotiate with the boss. He was com- pliant and gave us the advance asked for by the men. But in less than three weeks business had picked up so fast that the men wanted another advance. I tried to reason with them, but it was no use. In some way Mr. Hamilton found out that I had reasoned with the men and he received me kindly, but he was not ready to comply with this new demand. His drummers had already taken orders, the prices were set and it would make trouble all round. I reported to the men. They at once ordered a strike and the boss again raised the wages. I began to feel that men could tja-annize as well as masters, for these men actu- ally wanted to strike over a case of shoes that were being made for a special order because they had one or two more lifts in the heels than the others. This sort of thing sickened me and I decided to set up for myself. Buying a dozen pairs of shoes, a pound of each kind of nails, a quart of each kind of shoe pegs, one kip skin, one cow- hide and several sheepskins, I started for Omagh, a small town thirty miles away. There I had to walk three miles to get my boot-tops stitched by a machine. Omagh was a typical Canadian [64] I Become a Rover village with a few shops and a Disciples church and outlying farms. Now I began to realize what life was. We lived in a three-roomed cottage. Our bedroom was protected by a cow-shed or I doubt if we could have lived that winter.- In the fall there were two feet of water in the cellar coated with a green scum ; by winter this was solid ice. The kerosene used to congeal around the lampwick when it was turned down; our breath would be solid in the morning and the snow sifted through upon the bed. I used to stand on the stove while breakfast was getting ready and burn the soles of my boots. The nearest doctor was four miles away. One day he came to our corners and saw my wife. Calling me aside he said : "Young man, do you want to bury your wife?" "No," I said. "We haven't been married four years." "Well, you must get out of this at once." Here was a dilemma. The only possible place open was a farmhouse a mile away. But what about my trade? It was the only thing to do* The new house was square, logged, morticed, weather-boarded outside, lathed, plastered and papered inside and was a delightful home, ex- cept my shop, which was of logs without weather- boards and often my wax threads would snap like tow with the cold. In March a terrible snowstorm set in which lasted three days. The fourth day was fine. [65] Leaves from the Log of a Shy Pilot That day I had to go for the doctor. I expected a nurse, but she was already engaged. I hastily went to the opposite neighbor's, bor- rowed a horse and begged the good woman to stay with my wife. Then I whipped up my horse and luckily found the doctor just a mile from the comity town and sent him off in good shape. When reaching home later in the day I heard a duet in progress — tenor and soprano — and on opening the door I was met by the nurse with the new singers. My eldest daughter, now at the mature age of three years, did not know what to make of them, for hitherto her only companion had been a fine-bred spaniel, Old Dido, by the help of whose tail she had learned to walk. The old dog walked about as demurely as a trained nurse and would let her sleep with her neck for a pil- low, let her pull her long ears or do what she; would. But what were these little things that had taken possession of her cradle? When about a week old Mrs. Little found her shaking the cradle at a furious rate, and the good woman had to take Fan upon her lap and tell her stories. The night the twins were born the great storm began and the snow continued to fall for sixty hours. We were literally snowbound for two weeks, living on eggs, bread and butter and potatoes. But we were too young to know that we were hard up. There were many weeks when we did not see a sixpence. [66] I Become a Rover When summer came I found work in the fields, haying and harvesting ; up at four o'clock in the morning and toiling in the sun until dark. It was strenuous work and my total wages for the season footed up less than $2 a week. Be- fore winter I was offered a foreman's position at Oakville, my old home, and there occurred the momentous change in my life. [67] CHAPTER VIII OLD-TIME REVIVALS AND CAMP MEETINGS Fifty years ago revivals were expected every winter in the churches and every summer in the woods — that is, among the Methodists. The winter revivals were called "protracted meet- ings," and were often kept up for two months until the people became exhausted. Then the inevitable reaction set in. No doubt this was why the Methodist Church believed so strongly in backsliding, while Calvinist churches held to the perseverance of the saints. The different methods of the two produced the results so di- verse one from the other. I have already mentioned in passing my inter- est in these religious gatherings ; they fascinated me. It was not at first a religious interest, but rather what would be called in these days a psy- chological attraction, though probably I had never heard the word at that time. The summer Camp Meeting was by far more picturesque than the winter revival. The great forests were lighted at night by fires built upon huge piles of stone — rude altars, in fact. From [68] Old-Time Revivals and Camp Meetings miles around came the farmers and their fami- lies, bringing with them chairs, tables, mattresses and cooking stoves ; tents were pitched to cover them. A large platform was erected for the speakers, with mourners' benches in front and other seats for those who were hungering for perfect love. This fascinating doctrine had a real charm for thousands. I can hardly describe the power with which it took hold of me in later years when reading Madam Guyon's Life by Upham. There were times when I wished for sudden death, feeling that I could not keep up a sinless life. I suppose this was the same feeling that Con- stantine and others had who put off baptism to the last minute, that they might be sure of heaven. And yet I was skeptical about the genuineness of these professors of sinlessness. The slight smattering of science I had then acquired was perhaps what saved me from becoming the vic- tim of the delusion that they were without sin. One man I remember well who spoke of having lived a sinless life for eleven years; but when I asked him if he did not consider lying a sin he got most sinfully mad. "Why," I remarked, "if I got as mad as that I should call it sin." This man at evening meetings held strongly for complete holiness, and would begin to shake and have tremors all over his body. This he called "Holy Ghost power." Little as I knew, even then, of psychological phenomena, I realized [69] Leaves from the Log of a Sky Pilot that while the man may have been honest, he was ignorant of natural laws. I have seen a noted evangelist counting the men and women who rose for prayer at his call for inquirers. He saw them all over the house where I saw not one. In my ignorance I said, "This man is a liar and a hypocrite," but I be- lieve now he was in a semi-hypnotic condition and really believed, as did many other reverend gentlemen on the platform, that people rose who were only expected to rise. At this time I was in the ministry, and my early skepticism as to the reality of much so-called religious emotion as- sailed me with great vigor, for I was utterly unsusceptible to hypnotic influence. As a youth I was the only boy in school that the lecturer on mesmerism could not put to sleep. This may sound a bit egotistic but it is a fact, and it may have saved me from becoming a fanatic. But this is a digression from my Canada Camp Meeting. Of course, not all were seekers after holiness. Many were there, like myself, out of curiosity and for amusement; some for downright sin. Whisky in flasks and in hidden places in the woods was plentiful and cheap. At the time I am describing it was not thought incompatible with religion to take an occasional "nip." Indeed, I remember one good elder who rented his farm to keep a tavern near the church, where the old Scotch minister always had a glass before preaching; and I recall that one good [70] Old-Time Revivals and Camp Meetings class leader seldom came home from the county town without risking his life by reckless driving brought on by whisky drinking. I followed the marks of his wheels more than once in the white frost on the high bridge, and they had gone so close to the edge that they actually missed some planks that were an inch or two shorter than the others. But whether at a revival or camp meet- ing or at a raising, no voice was louder or more in earnest than this man's. That these services did much good I think must be admitted, for in spite of backslidings and relapses, many men and women began a new life which left the world better. There was always a good supply of ministers, local preachers and exhorters, for the Methodists of that day showed great wisdom in encouraging all the talent in the Church. There would be sunrise prayer meetings, morning praise service and preaching; again, preaching in the after- noon and evening. The evening services gen- erally culminated in a religious frenzy when the height of the meetings had been reached. It was a standing joke that many men had been converted as many years in succession as they had attended camp meetings. The last meeting of the kind I attended in Canada was held more than thirty years ago. I mean, of course, the last genuine one, and not .such ghosts of the past as may still be seen at various summer resorts, kept up to retain the [71] Leaves from the Log of a Sky Pilot property. Strange as it may seem, that last Camp meeting was much more primitive than the first one of over forty years ago. It was held by the Free Methodists, and many of the ministers were very illiterate, some of them scarcely able to read; but they knew the Bible almost by heart and were most eloquent. In their interpretation of the Scriptures they were literalists. Heaven and hell were not states of mind, but the genuine article. One man I remember thanked God for the rain that came through the shingles of the par- sonage, and he felt that he was enduring hard- ness as a good soldier when I felt he was making a virtue of his laziness in not patching his roof. Women would "have the powers," and shriek after shriek would come from them. One woman who was shouting like a Sioux Indian had a little girl at her side, and she was frightened almost into fits. When the husband calmly asked whether Isabel were in the throes of agony for her own soul or for the success of the meeting, he smiled as a good sister informed him it was for the latter. And yet, in spite of all those vagaries and excesses, I have no doubt that many, like Adam, heard the voice of the Lord God speaking in the garden in the cool of the day. Perhaps the most unique of all revival meet- ings took place in Toronto over forty years ago. It was an exotic. I had a number of county [72] Old-Time Revivals and Camp Meetings jurymen in charge — men who craved some city excitement at a minimum rate and who asked me to show them the town. I suggested the the- ater, but that was too high, twenty-five cents be- ing the lowest price for admittance, and my men did not believe in luxury. So off to Sayer Street I took them, where they got off for a cent apiece and their full of fun. The preacher was a young colored man and quite finely got up. Before the meeting proper began he coughed several times and then said: "Bredrin, befo' this yeah meeting begins there's two dollahs and seventy cents to be raised to pay de balance on dis overcoat. Sister Snow gib me fifteen cents on de way, so dat dere's relly ony two dollahs and fifty-five cents." The collection was taken, and while the stewards made their round the minister, evidently taking me for a Christian helper, invited me to share the pulpit. By a great effort I declined, for I must confess I was strangely tempted. Then he asked me the time and fixed the church clock, which had stopped. By this time the stewards had returned, and on counting the money found that there was still a lack of fifteen cents. So round they went again. My jurymen were up in the gallery with several ungodly white boys. They shot down enough pennies to make the deficit good, and the services proceeded. The audience was of mixed colors, black predominating. One could easily [73] Leaves from the Log of a Sky Pilot imagine himself in Africa. There were men direct from that country, runaway slaves, old mammies with big bandanna handkerchiefs bound picturesquely around their heads, but very few mulattoes. "Bredrin and sistahs," began the preacher, "I've been prayin' for Gawd to bless dis yeah meetin' for ober six weeks. Now if des no more movement tonight I'se goin' to ax Gawd to cuss ye. I'm goin' to talk about de angel and de waters of Bessesdy. Now des going to be a movement of de waters heah pretty quick, and youse don't want to be backward about coming forward, cos the waters won't move forevah. "Des a big, black Negro back dere, jes' a-breaking his sister's heart, and his old mammy done pray for him continaly" — and here the same mammy had "the powers"; down the aisle she came, her big turban shaking, her eyes roll- ing, and before I knew what was coming she gave a yell and a jump and over on the floor she tumbled, her heels flying. I glanced at my jurymen and they were in ecstasies. A general movement now took place, and the mourners came forward in groups, and at last the big black himself. He was a study — his eyes rolling in frenzy and the perspiration flowing in streams down his thick neck. In a moment he was un- conscious but soon revived, and then jumped, shouting, "Glory! glory!" until the place be- came a pandemonium. [74] Old-Time Revivals and Camp Meetings My country visitors stayed to the last, and went back to the hotel and talked until midnight. In remote regions of America, where the people would die without some excitements, the old Camp Meeting may still be found. But in longer-settled communities all but its name has passed away. You may attend such a meeting every day for a week and not see a mourner's bench nor hear a professional exhorter nor a shriek of "Holy Ghost power," nor even the announcement of an inquiry meeting. But you will be edified by the best sermons of the best pulpit orators of the Church, and the meetings will be as orderly in every particular as the reg- ular Sabbath worship. |TS] CHAPTER IX MY RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE I have dwelt at some length upon the camp meetings of fifty years ago partly because they were a feature of the times but chiefly because they are to me a grateful memory and because to one of them I owe a great deepening of my spiritual life. I was as atheistic as a young man could well be, and in my first visit to a camp meeting I put the whole thing down as superstition, and I had fair cause to do so. The preaching was so literal: hell fire was real fire; heaven was a place with golden streets, up somewhere above the firmament, with two other heavens above that. The Bible was used not only "for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness," but also for natural history, geography, ethnology, astronomy and chronol- ogy—and what the preacher taught the people believed. I well remember telling a shopmate about the stars and planets, and although he was not at that time a Christian, he stopped me and said quite sharply, "I do not believe it is right to dive 'nto such things." This was the very position the [76] My Religious Experience church had taken from the time when Paul saw- things unlawful to utter to that very day — a position that has made martyrs for the truth and driven some men into rank infidelity. Popular ignorance was appalling; and worse than that, stubbornly refused to be enlightened. While working in a large shop with many men, all of whom were Roman Catholics, I heard one of them affirm that the moon was no larger than a common dinner plate, and he quoted a learned archbishop, who had made the statement in a lecture on astronomy. This was too much for me. I laughed aloud and foolishly launched into an exposition on astronomy. I was still speak- ing when I saw a large skiving knife very near my throat in the hand of a man who was work- ing behind me. The man at my side warded off the blow and saved my life. "Pshaw," said he, "don't ye see he's but a boy?" "I don't care a . If he talks like that again I'll kill him, so I will." The old man at my side whispered, "My son, you had better get your kit out of this, for your life is not safe." I saw the force of his warning and before night I moved to another shop. This took place less than fifty years ago. It may sound egotistic, but it is true, that I was much further advanced in all the scientific thought of the day than most men who were not [77] Leaves from the Log of a Sky Pilot professors, and there are some professors even today that are still in the backwoods. I do not mean to charge the leaders of the Church with willful dishonesty, but unconsciously they often lied to save the truth and some are still doing it. But I had been reading. When I was seven- teen Darwin's great work came out. Smith and others had been unearthing Babylon. Lyall's books on geology and kindred works had made a profound impression. The peace of the Church was deeply disturbed. It was a great time to be alive. Robertson, Kingsley and Maurice were prophets who saw some of the signs of the times aright. But to me Stanley was the crown jewel when he sood by Bishop Colenso, against arch- bishops, canons and deans. The chief marvel of those days was that the ancient, moss-covered Church of England, "Es- tablished" in more senses than one, hoary with tradition, cumbered with much nonsense about altars, candles and vestments, was the first to awake and has been most sensitive from the be- ginning to the dawning of the light. The Hib- bert and Bampton Lectures worked wonders. And what a change has followed on both sides of the sea! I hear papers in our rural confer- ences, far from the railway, that not only pass without dissent, but are voted to be printed. Twenty years ago the reader would have been told not to masquerade as an orthodox teacher, but go where he belonged. [78] My Religious Experience But years before this great revolution of Christian thought began my own mind was in reaction from the Calvinistic training of my boy- hood. As a child I believed all that was told me (until I could read), and so strongly was the supernatural side presented that for years the early characters of the Bible were more than human to me. The very crimes of these worthies were glossed over and it was called sacrilegious to allude to any of them in tones of censure. The theology was tinged with despair, and I was made to feel that I was a child of sin, a vessel of wrath fitted for destruction. One picture, I remember, in a book of poetry showed a man in chains, bathed in a sea of flame and underneath were the words, "Hell, the abode of dark despair." I ventured to suggest that the man would burn up. My dear old Calvinistic mother was shocked, and although she had never read Wesley's remarks on asbestos as a material that God had mercifully provided to show that fire could not destroy everything, she gave me to understand that all things were possible to the Almighty. My first doubts were born right there. Not long after I was reading in Household Words a description of a coal mine, proving the great age of the seams by the remains of ancient for- ests, and my doubts grew apace concerning the age of the world. Here the conflict began in earnest. I took my newly-acquired knowledge [79] Leaves from the Log of a Shy Pilot to the Sunday school, as already told, and was met by rebukes so severe that I graduated at once. At a very early age I was an omnivorous reader, and as we sold the leading periodicals in my father's store, I had my mind full of the most miscellaneous literature of the day — Punch, Diogenes, Illustrated London News, Dick- ens 3 Household Words, Chambers' publications (choice) and story papers thrown in. Had I been allowed to play more and read less I might have grown up a good little orthodox boy. There is not a single position which I took in Sunday school and for which I was severely reprimanded that the Church does not hold to- day through her best pulpits. This is not ego- tism; it is too serious for that. Thousands of young people today stand in the same dilemma as I did then, and my soul cries out with Goethe, "Let the light enter." My callow skepticism soon hardened into infi- delity that kept me for many early years. One great fact, however, stood firm. My mother's Christian life, with all the narrowness of the time, was saintly, while my boasted freedom did not bring a peaceful heart. The first check came from the twelfth chapter of Ecclesiastes, while I was walking in the fields one Sabbath morn. My philosophy was good for youth and health, but not for old age and the inevitable beyond. The wish came that I could believe when I [80] My Religious Experience thought of the words, "Faith cometh by hear- ing and hearing by the Word of God." I went home at once and from that afternoon attended church for three years morning, afternoon and evening. The preaching aided me little, sometimes ex- asperated me, but the minister's character and some few good women were great helps. Bunyan came like a very evangelist, and in a revival I jumped from skepticism into ultra- Calvinism, and that in a Methodist church. I looked upon my first love, science, with contempt and fought like a fly in a spider's web. I rummaged among the old Puritan divines. I became a preacher and although God blessed my efforts in the con- version of men and women, more than half my studies and preaching were directed towards proving the truth of the Bible and the errors of Huxley & Co. I smelled heresy a mile away and was ready to join the hunt with whip and spurs. I continued in this mood for ten years or more. In the midst of a revival in Michigan in the early eighties "Briggs' Biblical Study" fell into my hands and now my soul was among the lions. It was not his conclusions that troubled me, but his facts. It killed nearly all my sermons, yet men and women rose every night for prayers. But for the lives of Kingsley and McLeod I should have been in despair. I reflected that the saintly Baxter of Kidderminster was among the [81] Leaves from the Log of a Sky Pilot higher critics and Luther, too. In the midst of my broodings this thought flashed into my mind : If a thing is true it will never lead away from God. And never since my conversion have I had such peace and freedom as came from that thought. Then I learned the great lesson that truths are not conflicting. Since that day the Bible has become a new book. I no longer scurry through Judges and Kings like a boy running by a haunted house in the dark, whistling to keep his courage up. And oh, what goodly company I have found in Robertson Smith and Cheyne, Driver and Mon- tefiore, Harper and Drummond — yes, and Dar- win and Tyndale — Tennyson and Browning; and I rejoice in the Heartbeats of Mazoomdar. In all of them I hear deep calling unto deep; they have quickened my spiritual life as I real- ize more vividly than ever the immanence of God and his ever-living Word that "is not bound," but can be still heard by every listening Samuel. The growing attention of the modern church to the poor, the sick and the afflicted, the works of the Salvation Army and the writings of Car- dinal Manning help my faith. The Parliament of Religions has been an inspiration. The Peo- ple's Palace and the People's Church, the college settlements and the growing desire of the Church to work in sociological fields are feeders of my faith and worth more than all the so-called har- [82] My Religious Experience monizing of science and religion that was ever attempted. Time has mellowed my early religious preju- dices. I have lent my church building to the Catholics and preached in Catholic churches; I have had delightful visits with Archbishop Ire- land and have sat at Canon Freemantle's table at Canterbury; I can begin to see good in all things and can make allowance for the most humble follower of Christ and even feel in sym- pathy with those who cannot see eye to eye with me. Still I believe many battles of faith are yet to be fought, especially as to the Bible, the person of Christ and the miracles, but the Church has become teachable and I have no fears of the outcome. In this chapter I have been conscious of mix- ing up the past with the present. I don't see how it can be otherwise: the past and the pres- ent are one. I continually live in my past. I am oftener a boy than a man; my whole life is a unit. Taste, smell, sight of the past mingle with the present. In analyzing my spiritual life I find the past ever present. I hear the hymn, "By cool Si- loam's shady rill," and I am eighteen, an infidel, sitting in a Baptist parsonage, a young girl playing the organ while I sing Siloam. Peace follows the memory. I go back centuries and sing, "Jerusalem the golden," with the old monk and get great pleasure out of it and don't believe [88] Leaves from the Log of a Sky Pilot a word of it, literally. I am in great trouble and sorrow and I sing, "The Son of God goes forth to war," and my soul receives strength. My soul gets among the lions as I read Haeckel and Shaler and I sing, "Far, far away, like bells of evening pealing," arid I am back at my father's house in an instant. What does it all mean? What subtle psycho- logical power does the work? I am in Broadway and the bells of Grace Church begin to chime. Presto! New York has vanished and I am in Meadows Mead in Kent; the lark has dropped to her nest for the night, the nightingale begins to fill the air with rapturous melody. I see the owl float from the church tower, silhouetted against the right glow of the twilight. I have on a pinafore and a young mother walks by my side. The twilight deepens. The London lights send up a faint aurora; the great yew trees become black, the village sleeps, when suddenly comes a warning cry — "Look out!" Phew! a close call from a cable car on "dead man's curve." Never mind! I have had my vision. I have had thousands of visions for my whole life from cradle to this passing moment. At times, too, I am in deep gloom, shutting me in like a fog; my despondency goes as deep as my joys fly high, but both extremes are exceptions. I think I have some of the mystic temperament that comes from my Quaker ancestors. The [84] My Religious Experience camp meeting appealed strongly to that vein; the deep gloom of the forest, made more intense by the altar fires; the wild, hearty singing of the hymns ; the intense earnestness and simplicity of the somewhat rude people — all had a wonder- ful effect upon my feelings. I felt they were far away from me in many things but near in spirit. I owe to them my first deep spiritual convictions, and no later conflicts with doubt, no hours of black despair to which I may have been prone have ever lifted my feet from the rock of faith on which they were first planted in the woods of Upper Canada. [85 CHAPTER X STILL A ROVER— RESTLESS AND MISCHIEVOUS I was always about ten years younger than my age ; at twenty-six, though father of a fam- ily, I was still in feeling and often in action like a boy of eighteen. I took a notion one day to shave my beard. My child was frightened and would not kiss me, and my wife almost cried. "You look like a boy," she said. I have been a Nazarite ever since. Though past seventy today I still lack the white crown of age, though the beard is gray. A discriminating friend remarks that this might seem to show I had used my jaws more than my brain, to which I reply that perhaps the gray matter some of my breth- ren wear on the outside has in my case struck in. I had all of a boy's restlessness. Since my marriage I have lived in twenty-four houses and moved twenty-three times. My good wife has been nearly distracted. Once in Toronto the drayman backed up to the door on time! Un- precedented! We were at breakfast. I gath- ered up the dishes in one sweep of the tablecloth and, strange to say, without breaking a dish. My wife's face was a study that spoke volumes. [86] Still a Rover — Restless and Mischievous I meekly took the things out and allowed them to be washed, while I piled the rest of the furni- ture into the wagon. The stove had to be handled with great wads of rags, for it was hot; but we managed to get settled for dinner in our new home. Two things I chiefly wanted in moving: one, a place to keep a dog; and the other, water to swim in. I was a water-dog, and would swim from the island to Toronto just for pleasure. One Sunday morning before I was married I purposely walked down to the dock with my old clothes on, and strolled right over the end into the bay. People were horrified and thought it was a case either of drunkenness or suicide. I dived at once under the dock, came out on the other side and swam ashore. I could see the people all at work, as excited as ants on an ant- hill; some were getting ropes and some were lying flat, peering into the water. My shop- mates who had been with me seemed distracted. I gave a yell. The boys looked back and saw me, and for a moment were filled with rage; then they gave chase. Had they caught me I would have taken another but involuntary bath ; but I took to my heels, dodged the policeman and made for my boarding-house, where I hur- riedly changed my clothes. Then I strolled forth to meet the boys, who by this time were laughing. I was fond of a joke of this kind, but hated a practical joke that would in any way hurt [87] Leaves from the Log of a Sky Pilot others. Of course, I did some things I was ashamed of as soon as they were done. For example, I was strolling one day about dinner time with a pal, and spied the cook of a fine house putting two pies on the edge of an area window to cool. "Leonard," said I, "let's have a pie." He laughed, but was too cautious to help. But I got one of the pies, which he helped me to eat — between laughings — for, the pie being hot, we nearly choked ourselves. Then we crossed the street and walked up and down, watching for cooky. Presently she appeared at the window, and the blank look on that woman's face was fairly uncanny. I wanted to go over and confess, but Leonard pleaded so hard that I did not go, but went home feeling mean. And now you see, my friendly reader, what a disor- dered mind I had. However, I find I am in good company, for Cardinal Manning has him- self recorded that he was one of three boys, two of whom became bishops, who once robbed the vinery at Combe Bank. Their crime was the more heinous, as they seized upon the vine's last bunches, which the cardinal told the late Mr. Spottiswoode had been specially reserved for a dinner party! About this time I moved to Detroit and worked in a large factory. But word had reached some of the men that I was a "scab." Invited to join the Crispin Society, I said I would join anything that would be helpful, but [88] Still a Rover — Restless and Mischievous the man said we must wait until the "scab" busi- ness was cleared up. Soon the word came that I was no "scab," but had left the society to be- come a boss. This cleared the way for my elec- tion; but being by this time well enough estab- lished, I declined to become a Crispin. My religion was put to a sharp test more than once. The man who ran the pegging machine used the same long pegs in the shanks of the boots as in the heavy foreparts, and this he did with new lasts. I noticed a queer smile on his face when this dozen was handed to me to trim and finish, and soon found out what it meant when I tried to get the last out. Men began to laugh, and that dozen required three times as much time as an ordinary dozen would have done; but, remembering some of my own practical jokes, I never showed by word or act that I was at all put out. A little old man, a Roman Catholic French- man, came to me toward the end of the work, and, looking up into my face, said, "Shopmate, are you a Christian?" "Well, yes, I am trying to be." "I thought so," he said. The man at the pegging machine was a fine- looking fellow from Massachusetts, and I could see from my own experience that he felt mean. I said to him, "You made a mistake, didn't you?" "Yes, I did, and I'm sorry." [89] Leaves from the Log of a Sky Pilot Soon after, as a result of that trick, he had to leave the shop ; so strict was the society that he was forbidden to do anything but attend his machine, and had much idle time on his hands. Then I took my hand machine — a Northampton hand-pegging machine — up into the factory. The men did not like that either, but I told them they must choose between that or idleness. They began to see, and so did I, that practical jokes do not pay. Soon after this I was sent to Massachusetts to learn how to run the steam pegging machine. It was my first visit to New England and a revelation I can never forget. New England seemed to me more like old England than old England itself. After some twenty years on the frontier it was like going home. The old Eng- lish names of cities, towns and streets met me everywhere. The very people looked like those I remembered in my childhood. The great fire had swept away most of the business portion of Boston, and I saw the new post office, and its granite columns, out of which the intense heat had split great flakes of solid stone. My second visit to Boston came years later, and the city was as greatly changed as I myself had become. The burned district was rebuilt. Some English characteristics survived and will always survive, but foreign faces had multiplied, the Irish brand being specially prominent. I have no prejudice against the Irish, though they [90] Still a Rover — Restless and Mischievous present some contrasts of character that are startling. It was soon after returning from Boston, after my first visit, that I was sent with another man — a French Canadian Roman Catholic — to Alpena to help out a good customer with his summer work. The first night on the steamer I had an upper berth, and nearly cracked my neck trying to say my prayers on my knees. What was my surprise and shame to see my companion kneeling on the floor and pursuing his devotions as if in church! And yet he thought nothing of swearing or getting drunk. At Tecumseh, to which place I had made an- other of my many moves, I began to realize what it meant to keep the faith. My employers were both church members; yet when I reached the place, instead of securing the work promised I was given the poorest job in the factory. But I was young and strong and made good wages — from eighteen to twenty dollars a week. I used to say to my wife I was afraid it was too good to last; and yet, at this very time, there were men talking of a strike who were earning thirty dollars a week. It was at Tecumseh that I employed a "striker." A "striker" is an assistant who pegs, sews and lasts a boot, which it is then my busi- ness to trim and shape. But on the first Mon- day after getting my striker I missed him, and after dinner he came in, drunk. [»i] Leaves from the Log of a Sky Pilot "Oh! oh!" said he, and "Oh! oh!" said I. "Louis, my boy, you are not working for a man who can do only half of the work. If you can't work on Mondays say so, and I will." This brought him to his senses, and until the factory broke up he was a model of sobriety. His wife told me that she had a new husband. "He don't swear nor drink any more, and I have a Brussels carpet and have hired a piano." But I had not done with Louis. Among all classes of men chaffing goes on in the shoeshops. It was called "rigging." Louis thought he was smart enough to "sew me up," but he lived to see me keep him going, and another man besides. So on one occasion I "rigged" him unmercifully before the whole factory. Nothing but the fear of losing his job kept him from cursing me, and I felt guilty. I said to myself, "You are a pretty Christian to do this, and tonight is the prayer meeting." I quietly asked Louis to forgive me, and he struck my outstretched hand with his hammer. It hurt, but my soul hurt more. In an instant my apron was off and in a loud voice I said, "Boys!" All the work stopped. "Boys, I have worked among you and you all know I profess to be a Christian." (They were nearly all Roman Catholics.) "And I feel this morning I have done a very un-Christian act, and I want to ask Louis's forgiveness right before you all." The effect on one man who was a backslider [92] Still a Rover — Restless and Mischievous was marvelous; he burst into tears, and soon after that came back to the church. The others were "tickled to death," as we say, and rubbed it in ; but I felt much happier and told the whole story at the prayer meeting that night. It was so out of the stereotyped style that it put the new minister, who was a flaming fire, into a white heat. f98] CHAPTER XI HOW I BECAME A MINISTER One thought was ever in my mind, and that was that, should I be converted, I must become a minister. Another was that I was not fitted for it. But even at the boarding school I always had an audience. The story-telling always fell to me. In the shoeshop it was the same. On the train, although I loved to sit and think and made up my mind to keep quiet, I had to talk and invariably had an audience; and this is my experience today. Sometimes I have talked six hours on a stretch and have been much exhausted at the journey's end. At Omagh, there were several men who made my little shop a regular place to loaf in at night and on wet days. They would sit until 10 and 11 p. m., and though the roads were in terrible condition, they would demand another story or song. My good wife used to wish them far enough, as there was only a thin wooden parti- tion between the shop and the house. I am not sure but my conversion was delayed by the haunting thought, "I must preach if con- verted." Yet several ministerial brethren tell me today that this is a common experience, and I [94] How I Became a Minister remember one poor man who went to Whitefield with this troublesome question. "What is your trade?" said Whitefield. "I'm a -tinker." "Then stick to your pots and pans," said the great evangelist. I am not yet sure that this almost universal experience is not of God. It is true that not all are prophets. But is it not true, also, that the discouraging of so many from doing what they could has brought leanness to the Church and multiplied the army of idlers that rob it of power? I am becoming convinced that the call was to all, "Let him that heareth say, Come." I often heard people say, "You ought to be a preacher," and so it came about that when I became a class leader I began to exhort as I found occasion. Very soon our room became too small for the class and we had to adjourn to the school hall. Strangely enough, instead of rejoicing the other classes became angry, and when I turned in my first report the Presiding Elder was much pleased and injudiciously praised it, saying it was the first properly writ- ten report he had received. He never repeated that mistake. My class petitioned the minister to give me a license to become a local preacher, or at least an exhorter. His reply was, "It won't do; if he gets to exhorting he will want to preach, and he is too old and has too large a family." His [M] Leaves from the Log of a Sky Pilot real reason, however, was that he did not dare do it on account of jealousies in the church. Looking back I do not blame the man, for I have had experience since. While class leader I was appointed superin- tendent of the Sunday school. These official relations to the church steadied me mightily. I was less restless and quit my boyish pranks, for I began to feel for the first time my account- ability for others. At this time I was sent as a delegate to a Sunday school convention in Adrian and saw Frank Beard use the crayon and blackboard. I was captivated with the possibil- ities of this method of instruction and went home to practice drawing what I had seen. The walls of my shop were soon covered with crayon sketches. The very drum of my stove was used as a blackboard. To turn the picture of an apple into a hog, with a few touches of the chalk, was a favorite illustrated parable, and it carried an effective moral in a community of hard cider drinkers, where drink often led to violence and crime. Just at this time, also, what was known as the Red Ribbon or Rejmolds Movement sprang up. While Reynolds was no orator, he had a strong personality and hundreds of Red Ribbon Lodges came into existence like magic. Sometimes when the expected speaker failed to turn up, local talent was engaged, and among others I was called upon to speak. I surprised the house, [96] How I Became a Minister myself included. It is a mystery to me even now how it is that the words came. I can appre- ciate Henry Clay's saying that he just launched away and trusted the Lord to bring him through. All these steps were leading straight toward the pulpit. At the opera house I gave my first chalk-talk of any consequence and at its close it was moved and carried that I be indorsed as a temperance speaker by the W. C. T. U. By some strange process it got to be noised about that I was a converted drunkard and the good sisters had picked me out of the gutter. This may have been a good advertisement, but I hated that kind of notoriety. Even good old Dr. Eddy once introduced me in that unsavory character and was greatly surprised when I told him I had been a Christian for ten years and was never a drinking man. But a more terrible experience of the sort was awaiting me in Milwaukee a few years later, when I was introduced to a large audience as a former soldier in the Crimean War and the Indian Mutiny — a common drunkard who before his conversion could neither read nor write. I was struck dumb and whispered to my next neighbor on the platform: "He is telling the story of another man." "Gracious," he said, "and we have sent it with your picture all over Wisconsin where you are to speak." When I rose to speak I don't know what the [97] Leaves from the hog of a Shy Pilot people before me thought, but I know how I felt. I said: "Two Irishmen in a cemetery were looking at a stone with this inscription, 'Here lies a lawyer and an honest man.' 'Faith,' said one of them, 'there must be two men in that grave.' But in this case there's only one — and it is not I." "But it will make a great ad.," said one brother, trying to comfort me. "Yes," I said, "and a proud thing for my family." I have suffered many things from public in- troductions. Once at a state convention the moderator, a layman, introduced me in this wise : "The next speaker I do not know. His name is Puddefoot." Coming forward after this in- spiring introduction I remarked, "Well, I don't know the moderator any better than he knows me, so we start even." But to return! It was two months after my indorsement by the W. C. T. U. that I found myself one day at the end of the Mackinaw division of the Michigan Central Railroad. Gay- lord has just become the county town. It was so new that the stumps were in the streets; the church lot was full of them. The schoolhouse was unfinished and the only place for a meeting was over a grocery. On the way up I had spent nearly all my money, for I did not know then how big a state Michigan was and I began to be despondent. "Here," I said, "I have left my [98] How I Became a Minister wife and four children and my shop to take care of themselves and have only a few cents in my pocket." While in this mood I took out a vol- ume of Whedon's Commentaries. It opened at a bookmark and on the bookmark was this motto, "The Lord will provide!" I shut the book and began to whistle as if I owned the earth. The room where I was to speak I found occu- pied with a lawsuit over a stolen trace or tug. The owner of the building seemed unwilling to entertain me, and both he and the people had forgotten there was to be any meeting. The few cents in my pocket I gave to some small boys to advertise my lecture and the little room was crowded. One home missionary brother, Abram van Auken, with his wife came seven miles through the woods. The owner of the building invited me to his home, telling me that I could take a freight train at five o'clock next morning, but before we went to bed he said : "Why, your talk is better than your lecture. You don't need to go on the freight; the pas- senger overtakes it and starts hours later." The Lord was providing. Then came Brother van Auken to say: "I have been talking to the people to give you a call." "A call? What do you mean?" "Why, to become their pastor. Don't you know you ought to be preaching?" "Yes," was my reply. [99] Leaves from the Log of a Shy Pilot "Then why are you not?" "Well," I said, "I am ready when the Lord opens the way." "Then he will open it pretty soon. Do you know Superintendent Warren?" "No," I said. "Well, he is the missionary superintendent of Michigan. I will write him at once and you will hear." I found out that the Home Missionary So- ciety was the same as the Methodist Church Extension Society, and though I knew little about Congregationalism, I discovered that I had been rocked in a Congregational cradle and that my mother belonged to an Independent chapel and was, in fact, an English Congrega- tionalism The Lord was opening all the doors. By direction of Superintendent Warren I took my church letter to the First Congregational Church of Tipton and started for White Cloud to 'preach the last two Sundays in August. Never in my life was I so sure of doing the right thing. Not a moment did I hesitate, sell- ing out all my stock and tools except my bench kit, selling my house and lot, in fact, burning all the bridges behind me. After paying off a mort- gage on my home I had $150, the most money I had ever owned up to that time. I will not say that I had none of the natural fear of a novice, that after two or three sermons I might run dry and break down. [100] William G. Puddefoot Aged 38 Mow I Became a Minister "That is what I am afraid of myself," said a brother who had earnestly urged me to the step. However, it was too late to turn back. I had put my hand to the plow and I started for my new field. Less than two years after I was preaching to four hundred people, and the pre- siding elder of the Saginaw District offered me some of the best churches in his parish. But a telegram from the superintendent decided me to stay with the Church of my adoption. I have never regretted it. It is more than thirty-five years since I left my bench and I have never been out of harness for a single day. After being three years in my first church I thought I was called to city mission work, but tried to dismiss it from my mind, for really I did not relish the idea at all and soon gave it up. But I accepted a call to Rockford, Mich., and had hardly got settled when a request from the Home Missionary Society took me to Vermont and Maine on a speaking campaign for home missions ; and when I returned I found the peo- ple justly vexed at my long absence. My stay at Rockford was brief, for I listened to a call from the Society to the work of general mission- ary in the northern part of the state. While I was in this service our homes were in St. Ignace and Traverse City. While in St. Ignace I met with almost the first great sorrow of my life. My father had [101] Leaves from the Log of a Shy Pilot come to pay us a visit and in passing from the boat to the dock he walked off the unguarded gangplank and was drowned. It was a terrible blow to us all. We were moving at the time and the family had to leave me behind to find the body. The current is swift in the Straits of Mackinaw and my vain search had to be aban- doned. In the midst of my sorrow I was called by the Society to a missionary campaign in New York State, and while I was there news came that the body had been found, and my poor wife was left alone to attend the funeral. I can never forget those tragic days. My father was buried in an unknown (to me) Indian graveyard north of the Straits of Mackinaw. We did not know at the time that there was a beautiful little ceme- tery on the Island of Mackinaw for persons drowned in the Straits. While acting as general missionary for North- ern Michigan and living in Traverse City I was called to the pastorate of the Congregational church in that city and accepted. But again, as at Rockford, my frequent absences at the call of the Society for speaking tours at the East were unwelcome. It was a self-supporting church and felt that it had the right to all the minister's time. The church was supplied in my absence. Once a month the Episcopalians came with their liturgies and prayer-books, my own people joining with them, but my church was not satisfied. Neither was I, and the demand for [102] How I Became a Minister campaign work continuing, I was led to believe that this was probably my destined service rather than the pastorate of a single church. My ap- pointment at just this time to the field secre- taryship of the Eastern United States decided the matter. I accepted the call and held that position for more than twenty years — twenty years of constant journeying, incessant speaking and delightful fellowship with the churches and pastors of the East. In another chapter I shall set down some memories of my pastoral and missionary work in Michigan. [108] CHAPTER XII SOME MEMORIES OF THE PASTORATE In Congregational usage the first step to the pastorate is a formal license to preach, based upon the qualifications of the candidate. My examination for licensure was an unexpected picnic. I was at that time the narrowest man on earth. To give an idea of my wretched condition, I said to one brother, "I would rather be the worst man that ever lived, doing all the crimes in the world and trust at the last minute to the blood of Jesus than to have lived the most saintly life and trust in myself." I was like Spurgeon, who believed that the mistakes of the Bible were inspired. I was thirty-seven and had been preaching two months when I met the council at Big Rapids for examination. My preparation for such an ordeal was scant enough. The Bible I knew fairly well, but before we had proceeded far an old-fashioned Presbyterian minister asked me if I would please answer questions in my own words instead of in the words of the Bible. There were seven ministers and two women present. I had not calculated on anything of this kind and [ 104 ] Some Memories of the Pastorate was surprised and a little embarrassed when I was asked to preach a sermon. "Have you not a manuscript with you?" "No, nor anywhere else. But if I must, I will. You will now please imagine yourselves a lot of unregenerate sinners and I will do the same." I took for my text Philip's question to the eunuch, "Understandest thou what thou read- est?" After preaching fifteen minutes I re- marked that there was a good deal more that might be said, but "this taste of the cheese will help you to judge of the whole." I was then asked to retire, and when called back I was given a license to preach for two years, which I promptly lost. But as I was ordained in the January following that did not much matter. My library at this time was the slimmest imaginable. It consisted of a Bible, Webster's Unabridged Dictionary and three volumes of Whedon's Commentaries. To these I soon added Spurgeon's Commentaries, but when I read in these that "Whedon was no expositor, furiously anti-Calvinistic and as meek as he was furious," I was in despair. That took away half my library, for, in those days, Spurgeon was to me almost a demigod. On our way to White Cloud we changed cars at Grand Rapids, and then, for the first time, I began to see what was before me. Our train of two cars was nearly filled with big men in [105] Leaves from the Log of a Sky Pilot Mackinaw shirts, their boots armed with iron spikes called "corks." All the men carried pocket pistols and they were never long out of sight. After we had passed a few stations the country- grew wilder. In the villages, as we passed, I saw streets full of stumps and rushes sprouting up through sawdust roads. Beer barrels and whisky signs were everywhere. Wherever we stopped long enough the men piled out of the cars and came back pretty full of spirits. My courage gradually sank and I began to feel that some other man should have taken my job. Then for ten dreary miles our road led through what seemed a national cemetery of dead pines, killed and blackened with fire. It was disheartening. Reaching White Cloud I expected some good deacon to meet me, but I had left the last of his kind ten miles behind. I found a church of six members, only one of them a man, almost ful- filling the prophecy that seven women should take hold of one man ; but one of the five women lived thirty-four miles away, and there was no help from her except by absent treatment. There were two villages with 700 people, but the roads, radiating from these centers like the spokes of a wheel, led to camps and mills where 2,000 men were at work. We were on the very edge of the wilderness, and though sixteen trains passed through White Cloud daily, I have seen black bears licking the tub for kitchen leavings at our own back door. [106] Some Memories of the Pastorate I was a very green minister, with everything to learn about men and how to help them. I was not such a ninny as to suppose I could get along without books, though I soon learned that sermons came from life as well as from books. But my ambition was for a library, and I began by making a case of shelves from boards begged from a friend. I made it so large I could not get it upstairs and had to knock it apart and take boards up one at a time. When it was all together again and I had set up my entire li- brary on one-half shelf, I had a good laugh. It was the most poverty-stricken library one could imagine. This was on Monday, and the very next day I had word from an unknown friend in Massachusetts that a box of books was on the way, freight prepaid. Some of them were pretty old theology, but I could, at least, tell my people what folks used to believe. My predecessor at White Cloud had said to me when leaving: "I hope you will have good success here, but I'm afraid you won't. You know you can't have a prayer meeting." "But," I said, "my friend, there will be a prayer meeting with an average of six — W. G. Puddefoot, Mrs. Puddefoot and four little Puddefoots." At our first meeting there were seventeen. The people were good to us — the kindest-hearted people on earth. Nevertheless, I was often cast down. The fact is, I was too close to the work to see what I was doing. The little church was like [107] Leaves from the Log of a Shy Pilot a spring in the desert, saving the lives of trav- elers who otherwise would have perished of thirst. Looking back from this distance I have the right perspective. I once paid fifty cents to see a great picture, and I was angry with myself at my own folly. The paint seemed to be laid on with a trowel. As I was leaving the gallery I turned to look at it again and I saw a river in motion. It was so real that it would not have surprised me to see a boat leap out of the canvas. It was the same picture, but now I had the right perspective; before I had been smelling paint. So it was with my first pastorate. I was too close. I realized only that I sowed in tears and forgot the joy of the reaping. I have found my old flock scat- tered from Massachusetts to California and, in every instance, so far, doing well. Strong drink is the great curse of the lumber frontier yet, strange to say, the drink seller is often one of the best friends of the missionary. Our saloonkeepers paid their quarterly church dues with the rest. My first money came from a good woman who kept a saloon. I suppose some of my readers will say, "No 'good woman' would keep a saloon." Perhaps not today in White Cloud, and all because of the better moral sentiment that has come from the mission church. One man who kept a hotel and sold spirits told me he was to build a new hotel that would have no bar. [108] Some Memories of the Pastorate "Good!" said I. "No," said he, "I'm going to build the saloon at the other end of the lot." Well, that was one step to the good, and an- other was that his children came to church and Sunday school and joined our Band of Hope. The father and mother were glad of it. Funerals were frequent — one a week on the average. One day I received a telegram : "Man killed in the mills. Come on next train." On reaching the place I found a poor Swede mother with eleven children. She wore a heavy veil and I could not see her face, only the tears that trickled down the veil. She could not speak English nor understand it. I felt that I was the foreigner and that she was thousands of miles from home. What could I say to comfort her? What would I not have given to speak one word of her language! But I put my hand in my pocket and found a big silver dollar — my all. This I put into her hand and said: "Good-by. God bless you." She seized my hand, kissed it and baptized it with her tears. I felt as rich as if I owned the county. As I walked away a big Scandinavian thanked me for coming to the woman's help and left two dollars in my hand. Some investments pay a hundred per cent. Later when my wife packed a basket with food for me to take to that desolate home I found the woman sweeping the snow from before her cabin door. She did not know me, but by the help of [109] Leaves from the Log of a Sky Pilot the children she was told where the food came from, and placing her two hands on my shoulders she sobbed in broken English, "Goot man! goot man!" What are high salaries or the world's goods beside such thanks from the poor? I have the satisfaction of remembering that one funeral sermon at Alryton resulted in the closing of a saloon. The death had been trag- ical; it was that of wife and mother. I found her, a handsome woman, lying on what proved her deathbed. It was zero weather — no fire. There were three young children, and a babe in the arms of the dying mother. All I could get from her was : "I am so lonely. Oh, if he would not leave me. I am so lonely." I started out to find the husband, who was known to be a hard drinker. As calmly as possible I said: "Your wife is very lonely and needs you." "I have to make a living for the family," he said. "I will take care of that," I replied. "I am not a pauper," was his retort. "You will be a murderer if you don't go home at once." Just then the saloonkeeper was passing and I said to him: "Do you want money so badly that you will sell this man drink while his wife and children are starving with hunger and cold?" "God, no!" said the man. "Then in God's name, don't!" [no] Some Memories of the Pastorate The husband went home, pulled the chicken feather mattress from under his dying wife and fell asleep on it. When he awoke he found his wife dead on the slats of the bed. What I said at the funeral I do not know — not much of comfort, I am sure. I never saw such a company of mourners. One must go back to Oliver Twist and Fagin to match them. One woman there helped to fire my message. She was in rich attire and jewelry hung about her in profusion. She was the wife of the saloon- keeper. As I was leaving the house two rough men were talking and I heard one say, "Bill, another talk like that would fetch me." The next day a woman called out to me: "Elder, you had better take care, Mrs. has a bone to pick with you." "All right," I said, "I will pick it while it is fresh." Just then I met the woman and she burst into tears, talking rapidly. "It was all true," she said, "and I should not have cared, but I was the only saloonkeeper's wife present. If my husband don't quit that business I will quit him." And she did, going to her home in Virginia. A few months later I met the man in Bay City selling lung-testers and making fifteen dol- lars a day. "I haven't forgotten that funeral," he said. "I've shut up the saloon. You had something to do with that. And I'm going to see my wife." [in] Leaves from the Log of a Shy Pilot Sometimes more is accomplished by funerals than by a regular service. In the midst of my sermon at that funeral there was a dog fight and I had to stop preaching to play the sexton. fin] CHAPTER XIII A CITY MISSION Near the end of my third year at White Cloud I met a man at conference who at once drew and repelled me. He had considerable power, which was constantly discounted by over-state- ment. Speaking of the needs of the lumbermen in the cities, he charged the churches with sys- tematically neglecting them. That they were neglected was sure, but not systematically, only ignorantly — and this is true today. Coming home from the meeting he said to me, "Brother, the Lord wants you in the city." The idea was not welcome to me. Besides, I had no money for such a move and said so. He threw down the collection of the preceding evening upon the car seat. "This is the Lord's money, not mine," he said. "Take what you need." With this inducement I agreed to give it a trial for three months and started for Saginaw with many misgivings. I felt I was not the man for city work. I spoke in the streets and at the Y. M. C. A. and preached in a room rented by the committee for a reading-room. I did not like the situation and felt I was not suited for the work, but the [118] Leaves from the Log of a Sky Pilot brethren thought I was, and I resigned my pas- torate and accepted the position. It was a mistake, and I look back upon the next three months as the saddest of my mission- ary life. Our home was unhealthy and my whole family came down with the ague. I preached every week in the room provided and not a soul to speak to that I wanted. Some of the people were good and sensible, but those who came to the mission were mostly cranky persons from the different churches who came to vindicate their views, and the men we were after did not appear. And why should they? Who was going to leave a brilliantly- lighted billiard-room, with jovial mates, for a dingy place with old papers and a few poor vol- umes? When the Lord sent his servants into the highways and hedges to call the poor it was to a feast and not a fast. But when men who) profess to follow their Lord start a mission it is done on such a beggarly scale that there are none so poor as to do it reverence. Things are better today, I grant, but until Christians are willing to spend as much to save men as men spend to get lost, it will be slow work. On Sunday I used to visit the various mission Sunday schools of the city and here the same trouble met me — lack of wise leaders. Young Arabs would have regular fights and end by bolting out of the window and running roar- ing home with bleeding noses. Their mothers [114] A City Mission concluding that the mission was a failure lost all respect for it. There was just one bright spot in my work. Every Sunday afternoon I drove out to the "Merrill Boom," some four miles from the city and preached to the men in the big room of the boarding-house. The first Sunday Mr. Merrill went with me and I was surprised to see the old gentleman crying through the service. On the way home I learned he was deeply affected by the good order of the men. He had expected trouble, but had never mentioned it to me. It was a unique audience — mostly big strapping fellows from everywhere. Sometimes a man would come downstairs and walk deliberately through the room, saying nothing, but tramping across to the other door. One Sunday I used my microscope and took for my text, "Go to the ant, -thou sluggard!" It was a sight to see the big fellows come up in file and look at the insects magnified, while I kept up a running comment on the subject, throwing in little chunks of advice. I said: "Look at those eyes; they mean business. All summer these ants are on the lookout for winter. But there are six-foot ants with two legs who work just as hard and then land the whole sum- mer's work into the saloonkeeper's hands and the lap of the harlot." "God, that's so!" said a man. Others laughed, but it told. [115] Leaves from the Log of a Shy Pilot One fellow thought to make a point against the preacher. "Butterflies have a good time," he said, "and don't lay up anything." "True," I said, "and they don't need it, for they die before the winter comes. And it would be a mighty fine thing for some men if they could do the same and come out all right in the spring." Here was a splendid field, but not for a city missionary with only a short hour on Sunday to cultivate it. One man with all his time was needed, and the little I could do was simply frit- tering away strength to little purpose. Yet I was expected to do all the missionary work of a whole great city — the work of ten men at least. I felt my work in the city to be a failure and that I was working at the wrong end. One-half the labor I put into those three months concen- trated upon a single parish and an organized church would have been manifold more produc- tive. There must be city missionaries, and many more where there is often but one, nevertheless I did not hesitate a moment when a recall to the pastorate came to me from Rockford. After my battle with the slums and after the ragged scenery of a devastated pine region, Rockford and its surroundings were a dream of quiet and beauty. Yet there were other con- trasts not so agreeable. At White Cloud I had been almost a father to the Church and town. I examined the teachers, gave the Fourth of July oration — in fact, did everything that no one else [116] A City Mission could do or wanted to do. But now I found deacons, good as gold but hard as steel, men who knew and magnified their prerogative. For me this was like putting a harness and kicking strap on a colt. Only I did not kick; I found a better way. The church was soon filled morning and eve- ning. The good Baptist minister said to me one day: "I don't know where all the young people have gone. We have closed our church in the evening. I hope you have them." "We have not been trying to poach on your preserves," I said, "but we have a hundred and fifty young men and women at our evening service." The Baptist deacon, who heard the statement, remarked, "But you only tell stories." "That is so," I replied, "and there was a mighty successful preacher some hundreds of years ago who used to do the same, for we read, 'Without a parable spake he not unto them.' " The Seventh Day Adventists came in and set up their tent. I did not care, but the Methodist minister was hot for battle. I said to him, "My brother, 'where no wood is the fire goeth out.' " But nothing could stop him, and the result was an Adventist church. Their people were wise, never losing their temper in debate and very cunning in the use of proof-texts for their cult. One young lady of my congregation was much [117] Leaves from the Log of a Sky Pilot impressed, and at the request of her mother I had a talk with her. I said: "I suppose you know that if we go round the world from east to west we would gain a day; but if we went from west to east we would lose one. Now don't you see if the Seventh Day Adventists were to go eastward and still keep the same day, by the time they came home they would be keeping the same day with ourselves and yet would never have changed their own? Of course we could do the same by going west- ward and be keeping yours when we came back. But you see there are too many of us!" The young lady had a hearty laugh and confessed herself out of that muddle. There are some minds that will pick a truth off the point of a joke who will take it in no other way. Mr. Beecher once remarked, "I never dodge a joke in preaching if it will serve to nail a truth." It was while at Rockford that I was called by the Home Missionary Society to spend six weeks in Northern New England on an educa- tional campaign for home missions. It was my first visit to the New England churches, and if the story I had to tell was a surprise to them, their interest and enthusiasm were a greater sur- prise to me. A returned missionary, fresh from the wilds of Africa, would not have created a greater sensation. Yet I was only telling the every-day story of missionary life a few hundred miles west of New England. I have noticed the [118] A City Mission same thing in Southern Michigan, where I have spoken. "Can it be," I have been asked, "that such things are true in our own state?" This visit had to be followed by other and longer trips until my church began to complain — and justly. In the pastor's absence his place was supplied in a chance way, not always satis- factorily, and it became to me more and more evident that my days as a local pastor were com- ing to an end. Moreover, I was tired. Three new sermons every Sunday and two Sunday schools had worn me out. But when my dea- cons charged me with bad faith and that I had been "hired" to serve them, I am afraid I broke loose. "You think you have a hired man?" I said. "I may not be a prophet, but a; hired man I will not be." So they gave me a reception and I gave them the balance of my salary and we parted. Thus I was free to accept the appointment of the Society as gen- eral missionary for the state of Michigan. This would enable me to gain fresh missionary experi- ence and leave me at liberty to travel East and West on speaking campaigns. [119] CHAPTER XIV THE GENERAL MISSIONARY The general missionary is still a pastor, not of one church, but of many churches ; and most of his experiences are pastoral. In a state as large as Michigan my life became at once one of intense activity. The distance from Detroit to the far end of Ontonagon was greater than from Detroit to New York; and while my work was mostly in the Northern part of the state, I was not infrequently called off to Southern Michigan and New York State. At such times I was away for weeks at a time, speaking twice or thrice daily except Saturdays, which I reserved for rest. Much of my work consisted in finding new fields, helping weak churches and organizing new ones. My general plan was to stay at a place three Sundays and preach in the inter- vening weeks. At Olivet I held a series of meet- ings, where some ten or a dozen students of the college gave themselves as missionaries to the home or foreign field. In many places there was no church building, and the preaching was in schoolrooms. Once I preached in a stable and, again, over a saloon kept by one of Barnum's [120] The General Missionary old clowns. It was here that a grandmother with her grandchild walked eleven miles to hear the sermon. It was a live time in the state. Some forty thousand lumbermen were in the woods and mill towns, and eighty thousand a year were pouring into the newer parts and taking up home- steads. In one town I slept two weeks in what was called "the old camp." It was rather rough, and today a similar experience would kill me. Oh, the loneliness of some of the people, espe- cially the women! At one place where I stayed I noticed a number of skulls around the house on the mantel shelves and in odd corners. I asked the good woman what they were. "Them? Them's beaver skulls. I wish we had one today. I'd make ye some beaver-tail soup. Laws ! when we fust come here they was thick as blackberries. Don't know but fer them I'd 'a' gone crazy. There wasn't no woman within fifteen miles on us — unbroken forests and no roads. I used to go and watch the beavers build their dams. One way and another we got along. We had no reading and went to bed right after supper to kill time. One day a man came through here looking up land. I tell ye, it was a godsend to hear something from the outside. We kinder hoped he would settle, and he did. Then he took sick and died. We did the best we could; made him a coffin out of two apple barrels, laid a board inside, nailed it down, and we pushed him in and buried him. See them [121] Leaves from the Log of a Shy Pilot flowers ? Well, he's under them. Things is bet- ter now; we can go to church. I had Zeke cut a slashing through to the new railroad, and now I can see the trains. There's one coming pretty- soon, fer I know the time, I tell ye. My, how I did watch fer the fust train ! I most f ergot to get dinner. But Zeke didn't care. He was most as excited as I was, and we stood there like chil- dren; and when it came creaking along we jumped and yelled like a couple of kids. But they wa'n't no sich trains as this one a-coming, with her sleepers and diners. My soul, no! a couple of passenger cars and a whole lot of flat cars and a caboose. The trainmen 'casionally threw out a paper and we read every word — advertisements and all; but there ain't no beavers no more, only deer, and I'm sick of venison." I have let this woman tell a long story, for it is typical of much life on the frontier and it shows the value of home missions. The little mission church, humble though it be, not only brings in a new moral climate, but also furnishes a meeting place in the wilderness for men andj especially for women, who otherwise would die of loneliness and despair. Thousands have said with this poor woman: "Things is better now. We can go to church." In this same lonely cabin I found specimens of sea coral picked up in the woods. "Zeke" thought they were petrified honeycomb, and was [122] The General Missionary greatly astonished to be told that ages ago the ocean had rolled over his forest farm. The skeptic was a common figure in the wil- derness, and many a tussle have I had with him under the pines. One old fellow I remember well. He was a good violinist, and played for all the dances in the neighborhood. He was at all the meetings after fresh food for his unbe- lief. His doubts were as old as Thomas: How can a man believe what he cannot see and under- stand? If the Bible is true where did Cain find his wife? How could Jonah live three days in the whale's belly? One night the little schoolhouse was packed, the stove red hot, the front windows steaming with melted frost, the rear ones like Greenland. My text was, "What shall I do to be saved?" and I used a familiar illustration, a shipwrecked man cast away on a raft, and starving. The man is a South Sea Islander, and as the rescuing boat draws near he cries out : "I am starving! What shall I do?" A loaf of bread is thrown to him. "Eat that bread." "Bread? What's bread?" "Never mind. Eat it if you want to be saved." "But I don't know what bread is. How can I eat it?" "Bread is made of flour. Eat it." "But I don't know what flour is." "Why, flour is made of wheat. Eat it, I say!" [128] Leaves from the Log of a Sky Pilot "But what's wheat?" "You noodle ! Wheat is a little grain that you put in the ground, and it rots and dies, then springs up." "Oh, I can't believe that nonsense — rots, dies and springs up! What shall I do? I'm starving." "Was not that man foolish?" I said. But not half so foolish as some of you. You say, 'What shall I do to be saved?' and when told to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ you begin asking where Cain got his wife from. It is none of your business, anyway; better leave Cain's wife alone. Lots of trouble comes from worry- ing about other people's wives." Several people rose for prayers, but not my old fiddler. But after the meeting, as I was walking away, I heard sounds of distress. "Who's there?" I said. "Me." "Who's me?" "Ah, Elder," said my fiddler, "y ou got me tonight. When I was a boy some fool man lent me Paine's 'Age of Reason'; and ever since when I have felt serious I have shaken it off by thinking of Cain's wife and Jonah. But tonight I'm going to take Jesus Christ, and I don't care if I never find out about Cain's wife." That man was afterwards Sunday school su- perintendent and deacon. Now I admit that wasn't a very high grade [124] The General Missionary of preaching, but it did the business. A high grade in that schoolhouse would have been as useful as a high type of combined, mower and reaper among the stumps. Plain talk is good for skeptics, and I found it just as good for quarreling Christians. At one place, after preaching two weeks with crowded houses but no results, I said plainly: "There is something wrong here. I feel as if I were butting against a stone wall." At the evening service the senior deacon rose and said : "I went home angry this morning. I did not like what the Elder said about a stone wall ; but I took a nap this afternoon and dreamed I was turned into a stone wall and was keeping the people back, and when I woke I made up ; my mind to get out of the way." When he sat down the whole church seemed to be on their feet, and people were shaking hands who had not spoken for fifteen years. The deacon's daughter was on her feet for prayers, and there was no trouble after that. The people closed their stores every afternoon to give their clerks a chance to attend the meetings. It was at this place that a woman came to me in tears. She and her husband had once been in the church, but had forsaken it, and now they wanted to come back. "Why not?" said I. "Well," said the woman, blushing deeply, "we [125] Leaves from the Log of a Sky Pilot moved our fence over a few rods onto the next farm." "Well, why not move it back?" "But," she replied, "we are ashamed. When we moved the fence the owners of the farm lived miles away, and now they have come back to live there." I may have been wrong in my advice, but I said, "Tell them you made a mistake." Soon after this a good brother of the red-tape brigade made a very flattering report of my suc- cess in getting people straightened out, but qual- ified it with the remark, "He lacks in details." I laughed at this qualification. "What are you laughing at?" he said. "Why, my good brother, it was the details that made all the trouble." He saw the point and joined in the laugh. Not all will agree that my settlement of the fence detail was just right, but it saved a deal of trouble and harmed no one. Looking back from this distance upon my general missionary service, I have come to feel that no equal period of my life has been more developing. I was brought into touch with men and women of every sort and condition and gained knowledge and experience that were fit- ting me unconsciously for the wider service of field secretary and missionary campaigner. Be- fore entering finally upon the latter service I did try once more, for a brief time, a local pastorate [126] The General Missionary at Traverse City. But the demands of the So- ciety continued; New England and the Middle States laid their claims upon me, and it soon became evident that I must do either one thing or the other — stick to my church or abandon the pastorate altogether and give myself wholly to the home missionary service. I chose the latter alternative, and have never regretted my choice. f 127 CHAPTER XV MY AVOCATIONS Believing in the wisdom of the old saying that all work and no play is bad for the boy, I began to look around for suitable avocations, and finally settled upon two — raising hens and paint- ing pictures. The former relieved the tedium of shoemaking, while the latter has proved an unspeakable solace in the wandering life of a field secretary and campaign speaker. In my earlier years I think I followed the apostle's injunction, "Whatever thy hand find- eth to do, do it with thy might." When I kept dogs they had to be thoroughbreds. Spaniels, bull terriers, black and tan or of whatever sort, they must be thoroughbreds. So when I took up chickens I would have no mongrels. A set- ting of dark Brahma eggs was my first venture. To my untrained eye the chickens were beauties, but as I studied the poultry papers and the cuts of fine breeds, I soon discovered that while my birds were thoroughbreds they were poor sticks at the best. An old Irish lady raised one lot for me, and when I went to pick a few for shipment she noticed I was very particular. [128] My Avocations "Sure," said she, "I thought they were all thoroughbreds." "Yes," I said, "and most all the people in town are white, but they are not all beauties." "Och, begorra! You are right there, I see, I see!" One day I chanced upon a very fine lot of partridge Cochins and bought them at the mar- ket price. But I knew that they were fancy fowls, and that with hen fanciers they would bring a better price. Farmers would stop and want to purchase a cockrel, but when I named my price, five dollars for one bird, they would almost make their horses jump out of the shafts. Very soon I had scraped twenty dollars to- gether. I sent it to the Sharpless Estate in Pennsylvania, and received the last of their stock, a cockrel and hen. The hen was a beauty, but the cockrel, to my dismay, had bronze wings ; and how was I to raise steel-gray pullets from such a bird? But that was where I was green; he sired the finest steel-gray, well-marked pullets in the country, but his cockrels were like himself. I began to get quite a name in the hen world. Growers advertised their stock as "Puddefoot strain." Also, I was much in request as a judge in poultry shows. One gentleman I met at Detroit had a great name on dark Brahmas, and I found he had been put with me to judge the Asiatics. Singularly enough, he afterwards be- [129] Leaves from the Log of a Sky Pilot came a successful evangelist and I became a missionary. The first year in the new business I sold four birds for fifty dollars. One pair I sent to a man in Ohio, who so magnified the birds he had to compete with that I was in great doubt of the result. But when he saw my birds he was so proud and confident that he wrote me that if he did not get the first prize the judge would be a fool. He got what he expected. By this time my pastime began to look like a profitable business ; and like the man in the par- able, I pulled down my coops and built bigger — a model henhouse : walls eighteen inches thick, filled with tan bark; double windows near the ground, so that the winter sun would sweep and flood the floor, while the summer sun could not shine in. I had little chicks in January, under glass nurses that I made up myself — little fields of oats in oyster cans for them to peck at, a kerosene lamp under a tin reservoir of tin, be- neath which I hung strips of Canton flannel to keep them warm. And now I began to get good prices, Colonel Lamb of Chicago giving me thirty dollars for a single pullet. I almost felt conscience-stricken at such prices; but when I heard that Mrs. Lamb had said to her husband, "I don't see how that little Englishman sells so cheap," then I felt conscience-stricken the other way for not charging enough. Once I wrote to a banker in Illinois that I [130] My Avocations had twenty pullets, all show birds, and a splen- did cockrel, which I would let him have for $100. I received his check by return mail, but as I had to keep the birds a month I did not dare cash it. In the meantime an agent of Colonel Lamb offered me fifty dollars for the cockrel and one pullet. I said they were sold. "Why, you fool, put in two others; the man won't know." "But I do," said I. "You will never get rich raising poultry," said he. "But I can keep honest," I replied. I had many calls to go to country shows, not only as a judge of poultry, but of dogs, singing birds, rabbits and pets in general. Some of my experiences were amusing, for at that time peo- ple had a very vague idea of all such things. All the cows looked like calves and the horses like ponies. Every animal was light weight, and I doubt if any one thing helped the farmers to better their stock more than the improved poul- try brought about by the hen fanciers. I have seen it stated more than once that the poultry and egg trade amounts to more than the cotton crop, and that this advance has been made by more than doubling the size of the birds and the output of eggs by careful breeding. At one fair I found an old man and his wife who were anxious to see me. They had a won- derful singing bird which we call a "mule"; that [131] Leaves from the Log of a Sky Pilot is, a cross between a canary and a linnet. As it was impossible to breed from such crosses they were called "mules." The old people had entered their bird as a canary. "That won't do," I told them. "It is neither canary nor linnet, but a mule; you can't breed from it." "Did you ever hear the like of that?" said the old lady. "We've been tiying for years to get some young birds ; he is such a singer." "Well," I said, "you must enter him as a singing bird." Then they showed me a fine pointer ; but like the bird, he too was a cross, part setter. Again the old lady was astonished and exclaimed, "You have hit it exactly." "You must enter him as a hunting dog." They did so ; and as there were no other birds or dogs in either class, the old couple were in great glee at getting two first prizes. I tried many experiments in feeding, and watched my poultry family most carefully. In the winter I fed them over five hundredweight of clover hay and hung up cabbages just high enough to make them stretch and develop their breasts. I found out the clover feed by accident. One pullet laid an egg in a bare box, and I made her a clover hay nest. To my surprise I found it gone before night. I made another of the same sort, and right away the cock called his whole [132] My Avocations seraglio, and they quickly despatched nest num- ber two. I concluded my brood knew what they wanted. The work was fascinating. I could have made large money had I chosen, for I loved the busi- ness. But when I was called to the ministry I met with a difficulty. People seemed to think it not right for a minister to get such prices. It threatened to interfere with the poverty so neces- sary for the cultivation of humility in the pastor- ate. Therefore, while it seemed all right to me, I had to drop it for the work's sake. It may be that Carlyle spake, like the psalmist, "in haste," when he made his celebrated comment on "the people of these Islands," but I think he came pretty close to a general truth. It has always seemed strange to me that people should listen to what I said as a minister and care nothing for the same thoughts when uttered as a layman ; also, that I might do many things as a Christian layman without reproach which were considered wrong to do as a minister. And so I turned my poultry over to the lay element and attended strictly to the crowing. My love for drawing and painting began as far back as I can remember. I used to cover the flyleaves of books, mostly with dogs' heads and other animals, long before I could write. I remember one Sunday at church I felt that I could make the letter "M." As soon as I reached home I went into Father's shop, which [133] Leaves from the Log of a Sky Pilot was dark, the shutters being up, and found a pen and made the "M," much to my delight, on the flyleaf of an old Congregational hymn-book. I had all the outline pictures I wanted, as we sold them. They were designed especially for children. My paints were the kind then used — cakes as hard as a beggar boy's heart — but I had great pleasure in painting with them. The love of color was so strong that I preferred playing with girls, because they always had little colored squares of cloth. The fawn colors particularly attracted me. At boarding school in London I painted all the woodcuts for the boys. It seems strange today, as I look back, that my father never hinted at my studying to be an artist, especially as he was a fine draughtsman himself, and nearly all his folks were artists. In fact, we used to say, "It runs in the blood, like wooden legs." But when I left school at thirteen I dropped all painting and drawing. After my marriage I did paint some twenty roses and pinned them up in our sitting-room, which was also kitchen and workshop. I did no more drawing or painting until I became a Sunday school superintendent. Then I chanced, as I have said, to see Frank Beard use the chalk and blackboard at a Sunday school convention. I was fascinated with the possibil- ities of that method of teaching great truths, especially to the minds of children. I began by drawing a big circle, and around the outside of [134] My Avocations the circle a pack of ravening wolves. The circle was safe ground, but "don't get outside of the circle or the wolves will have you." Poor as it was, the youngsters were intensely interested and remembered the lesson. Soon I procured colored crayons, and my work improved. Following Beard's method, I would draw at one stroke a circle and then turn it into an apple, and the apple into a fat pig. Another circle became a hippopotamus or a lion — all foreshortened, of course — and these rude drawings I made serve to illustrate some moral truth. My chalk talks became popular, and I was called on to give public lectures with my blackboard and crayons. In less than three months I was called to the pastorate, where I used the chalk more than ever. Then I began a few pictures in oil, but soon gave it up; it was too dirty. But water colors were clean and I could work fast with them. I made pictures for all the children of the church, and hung them on the Christmas tree. Then, finding that the parents liked them, I made pic- tures for all my members. One Christmas in Traverse City I found out just the day before that forty new scholars had joined the Sunday school. So I went to work and finished four pictures an hour for ten hours. They were not large, of course, but no two were alike. The children were greatly tickled. After becoming a field secretary I found little [135] Leaves from the Log of a Sky Pilot time at first for painting. The calls were continuous. I spoke eighty-six times in three months, traveling day and night, until it seemed as if my hat was on my head all the time. I never ceased to feel its pressure. My friends were alarmed and sent me over the ocean on a brief vacation. Coming home I had learned a lesson. I must have a hobby of some sort to relieve the strain of work, and painting was my choice. Pictures multiplied astonishingly, and I was at a loss what to do with them until it oc- curred to me that I might turn them into money for missionary parsonages. The plan took well. Wherever I spoke in the East the pictures were in evidence and the object of the sale explained. The demand was large and my brush was kept busy continually. I look back at the results with gratitude and without boasting. After paying off mortgages upon seven parsonages, my pictures kept one missionary and his wife and four children for nearly two years ; another in the New West for a year at $100; another in Pennsylvania for a year; another for some months among the anar- chists of Chicago. Hundreds of dollars thus realized went to various charities, such as old people's homes, hospitals and private cases of extreme need. In this way I raised $650 for Oklahoma. Altogether I have distributed over $2,000, derived wholly from pictures which the kind-hearted people bought not on their merits, [136] My Avocations as works of art, but for the good causes they represented. It made me very happy to turn my modest gift to a benevolent use, while at the same time I was finding a needed recreation. Wherever I went on missionary tours I carried my paints and worked in my bedroom at the hotel. Often a ten-minute picture brought five dollars for some good cause, and these quick pictures were often better than those more highly elaborated. Sun- sets with swamp foregrounds were special favor- ites and sold well. Occasionally I had a funny experience. One picture, bought by a New York artist, and representing a mountain, a house and some small, scrubby bushes, brought a good price. "I don't care for the rest of the picture," said the artist, "but I like the natural position of those sheep." The sheep were the little bushes ! [137] CHAPTER XVI EARLIER EXPERIENCES In trying to write the story of my life I rec- ognize a certain lack of chronological order. I have kept a diary for over twenty-nine years, but only to note what I left out in addresses or what I used. This, with the state of the weather, is about all I took account of. I am now writing much as I talk in a friend's house, one subject bringing up another. About a week ago I saw a short notice by Dr. C. F. Dole of an admirable book. Its title was "Spiritual Reformers in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries," by Prof. Rufus M. Jones of Haverford College. The notice sent me to the book, and in reading it I was much struck with some of the experiences of the mys- tics, especially that of Jacob Boehme, which carried me back to my twentieth year. I had become acquainted at that time with a Church of England clergyman in London, Can- ada. We were standing outside of the house on one of those rare nights when the heavens declare the glory of God. "Ah," said my friend, "the study of astronomy would make a man either [138] Earlier Experiences more devout or an infidel." Now I was no hypo- crite, and I at once said it would make me an infidel. My friend was unfeignedly shocked, and said: "Oh, my son, it grieves me to hear you say that. I want you to promise me one thing." "I will if I can." "Then promise me to pray." I felt sorry that I had promised, but the next day I began to keep the promise, and prayed three times a day. In the house were two shop- mates, the boss and his wife, all backsliders. I could not talk with them about my prayers, but I can now say that I had a very remarkable experience. I had a new heaven and a new earth. The birds, the flowers, in fact, all nature was changed. Only the words of Wordsworth filled my case : "A sense sublime Of something far more deeply interfused Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns And the round ocean and the living air And the blue sky." I attended at that time a Methodist church and kneeled, as was the custom, during prayers ; but no one spoke to me. Yet I was longing for help and sympathy, for some one that I could open my heart to. I must now tell the story of my eight years' membership in an atheist club, which put an end for that period to my enjoyment of prayer. [139] Leaves from the Log of a Sky Pilot About this time I went to see my mother in Ingersoll, Canada. She was delighted at the change in me, although I did not tell her of my unusual experiences. The next-door neighbors were from my native town of Westerham, Kent, England. The father was a remarkable man, very large and stout. I remembered that when he was in England his habits were so regular one could have told the time by them. He was the trusted man of the large grocery and liquor store in Westerham, and once a week he would drive off in style and visit the country customers in smaller towns. He lived sumptuously on his journey and also on his return. His wife and stepdaugh- ter reverenced him; and although the wife was a semi-invalid, she would have his favorite food and fuss with him as if he were a poor, weak man. The two women were saintly. The two sons were very handsome young men, ten and twelve years, respectively, my senior. All at once the father was missing. What could be the matter? So good a man to go! It seemed terrible to me, for I had great fear of him. Once when I was a very small boy he picked me up and spanked me. I was too afraid to cry, for as I looked up at him he seemed in place of God to me. The family came and lived with us for some weeks, and at last I began to realize that my divinity had feet of clay. A letter came from the missing husband, who [ 140] Earlier Experiences had turned up in Canada, sending for his family; and so our friends left us. Through their going my eldest brother emigrated, and at last we fol- lowed. When this family reached New York they sang : "God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform; He plants his footsteps on the sea And rides upon the storm." Two days after their arrival in Canada the eld- est son was drowned in a millpond. At the din- ner in Ingersoll of which I have spoken the father made a long grace, and I, in my altered mood, closed my eyes and covered them with my hands. On looking up I met the steady gaze of the son, and it withered me. After dinner the young man, who had now become a doctor, called me to the back door and said, "Are you going to make a fool of yourself?" With an oath, like Peter, I replied, "No!" And down I went into the valley of destruction for eight years. I used to sing in the choir with this son and was much attached to him. He had come home from the University a skeptic; in fact, he was an atheist, but being so much older he had great power over me. There were other friends in different parts of the country who were atheists too. One of them was a genial, rollicking Englishman whom I de- lighted in. After I was converted I wrote to him telling of the change that had come to me. [141] Leaves from the Log of a Sky Pilot I had borrowed five dollars of him, and said in my letter, "If this reaches you let me know, and I will send you the money." He answered me and said he was glad I had become a Christian for the sake of the money, but he had not found this Jesus I had spoken of. There were others in this circle of atheists, one of them much older. I could tell the story of their unprofitable experi- ences, which, indeed, had much to do with my return from atheism — as much, perhaps, as any- thing else except reading the Bible, which I did with thoroughness. To this day I very seldom stop when I read Genesis until the last chapter. It is the same with Job and the first thirty-nine chapters of Isaiah. To sit down and read little snippets, as some do, would be like getting a letter from my wife and reading only the postscript. When my mother was living in Toronto she used to attend the Bond Street Congregational Church, of which I think Dr. Marvin was the pas- tor. A lady friend by the name of Eilbeck used to go with her, and I attended with them at the prayer meetings. Some years after my mother was dead I received a letter from Miss Eilbeck asking me if I was the Puddefoot she had been reading about and if I was the same one who went with my mother and herself to Bond Street Church. When I told her I was she wrote and said, "The last words your mother said when coming out of the prayer meeting were, 'What [ 1*2 ] Earlier Experiences would I give if my boy would grow up to be a preacher like that!' " Some years later I received a letter from Dr. Thomas Sims, now of Melrose, Mass., asking me to give a lecture in Bond Street Congregational Church in Toronto, of which he was then pastor. I arrived in Toronto on Saturday, and in the morning Dr. Sims asked me to preach for him. Just as I was about to announce my text my mother's words came over me with such power that I could hardly proceed, but after a moment I told the story of my mother's wish. That "one touch of nature" made us all akin. On Monday night my old employer, now a wealthy manu- facturer, came to my lecture. He gave me the use of his coachman and carriage, and I was taken about the city to call on my old friends. One lady asked me if I was the same person that boarded with them many years ago. On my say- ing yes, she said, "Well, God moves in a mysteri- ous way his wonders to perform." Life is certainly a great mystery, at times almost making one a fatalist. When in Traverse City, Mich., it was my custom to drive down the bay to a small settlement and preach to the peo- ple who collected in a friend's house, Mr. Mor- gan, the livery keeper, furnishing a horse free. One night I was driving Mrs. Morgan's favorite horse. I had to turn into the dark forests, as the road was choked with snow and huge blocks of ice. All of a sudden my horse dashed up a [148] Leaves from the Log of a Sky Pilot bank among the pines. The next instant a span of great horses, with a sleighload of lumbermen, came by on the full gallop. Had my horse not swerved I should not be writing this. While pastor in Traverse City I had a vaca- tion which led me to Boston. Dr. B. F. Ham- ilton invited me to preach for him. Among his parishioners was Mr. Frank A. Day, who said: "I want you to distribute two hundred dollars for me among the poor home missionaries that you know, and as I get paid for using people's money, I want you to take ten dollars for yourself." Soon after I was at Saratoga when I met Mr. R. L. Day, who said to me: "I see you have inveigled two hundred dollars out of my son Frank, and now you have inveigled the whole family. Where are you going to live?" "Some- where in New England," I answered. "You had better come to South Framingham." "Any house to rent?" I asked. "Yes, I have some." "What is the rent?" "I will let you have a house rent free." "I will take it." "All right," he said; "the lease begins today, and don't bring any furniture. Give it all to the home missionaries." About this time my church entertained the churches of three conferences. I took some of the poorest of the brethren down to the parson- age and told them to help themselves. At first they were too much astounded to understand me, [144] Earlier Experiences but when they did one said, "Do you mean I can have this elegant base burner?" And an- other, "Can I have the range?" And still an- other, "Can I have the bookcase?" "Yes, yes," I said; "clean the whole business up," and I told them of Mr. Day's generosity. That was the easiest move I ever made. When I reached the station at South Framingham there was my good friend, John Condon, with "The Ark," as we called the covered carriage, and in a few minutes we were in our furnished house, with provisions to last a week. Yes, God moves in a mysterious way. It was mysterious that I should have those few short weeks in Beulah land, and then be sent like the scapegoat for eight years into the wilderness. But so it was. [145] CHAPTER XVII GOD'S COUNTRY For twenty busy years, while acting as field secretary for* the whole United States, I made my home in New England, in the very heart of God's country, twenty miles west of Boston. Here my children have grown and been edu- cated, here the closest friendships and fellow- ships of our lives have been found. It would be base neglect and ingratitude for me to close these rambling sketches, without attempting to pay some suitable tribute to the spot that has done so much for me and mine. Approaching the Hudson River from the West, my first impressions are always physical. The landscape always fascinates me. I shall never forget when I first left the lumber woods of Northern Michigan and saw the maples of New York state in full leaf. The sight of them nearly brought tears to my eyes, and when I awoke the next morning in the Mohawk Valley no early morning newspaper could tempt me. Soon we were climbing the Berkshires. The ride up the Connecticut Valley afterward seemed like a vision, the cattle standing knee- deep in the lush grass, the white farmhouses with [146] God's Country their green blinds, the ever-changing hues of the river, gleaming in its cahn nooks like molten gold, and anon rippling in silver wavelets. Un- til that evening I had never dreamed of such a glut of beauty. Presently Ascutney loomed into view, a solid block of cobalt; then other moun- tains, reflecting the colors of the Apocalypse; "all the hills did melt." When I could bring my eyes down from the hills, I was deeply impressed by the prevailing neatness of the villages, con- trasting so sharply with what I had left behind. Of course I am writing of conditions that pre- vailed over a quarter of a century ago. Great changes have taken place in the West since then. The muddy streets are now paved with bricks, the wooden sidewalks have given way to con- crete, and the dark places are as light as elec- tricity can make them. The dwellings of the people have responded to the march of improve- ment. Pretty homes and even stately mansions have, in many towns, replaced the shacks and cabins of the past, and coming from the West today I do not feel all the sensations of my first approach to New England. So much for the physical side. But how shall I tell what New England has done for me, the entree it has given me to many of the finest homes in the world — the sanctity which age brings and which seems to consecrate the home — the opportunity I have had in never-to-be-for- gotten interviews with the ripest scholars of the [ 1*7 ] Leaves from the Log of a Shy Pilot land. As I look back, it seems to me something almost equivalent to a college course. How I reveled in the masterpieces of classic art hang- ing on the walls of New England homes! I swallowed whole libraries at a gulp. The very titles of the books were an inspiration. The quiet, low-toned voices impressed me; even on the trains there were no loud shouts across a dozen seats. I have seen the venerable president of Wil- liams College standing in the aisle as the train swayed along the curves of the Fitchburg Rail- way, until the person addressing him had taken his seat, and there I learned a lesson in New England courtesy. Pres. Mark Hopkins made me think without even speaking to me. It would be invidious to mention the names of men and women who have honored me with entertainment in houses such as I had never dreamed of, for beauty and comfort. In fact New England, to me, was like a new world. From the woods of northern Maine to the shores of Rhode Island I have delightful memories, yet (why it is I do not know) Massachusetts has a moral grandeur that stirs me above all other parts of this land or of any other land. To this day I cannot stand on Burial Hill at Plymouth without tears. I feel linked to those Pilgrims as if I were to the manner born. The past twenty-five years have made great changes in the Bay State, some of which bring a mo- [148] God's Country mentary sadness, but only for a moment. For I remember the past is secure; it can never be changed nor forgotten and that past has still a mighty hold on the present. When people tell me of the preponderant foreign element in Bos- ton, I say I do not care. Boston has a quieter and more orderly Sunday than any city of its size in the country, and so long as Plymouth Rock and Burial Hill remain each generation, whether native or foreign, will have but one national anthem and they will sing it together: "Our country, 'tis of thee, Sweet land of liberty, Of thee we sing." Who can read the wonderful life-story of Mary Antin, which has been called "An Amer- ican Miracle," without feeling in his heart a flush of joy and hope? I can see that little Russian Jewess dancing in that cul de sac of a Boston street, dancing in sheer joy like one of Corot's nymphs, over her vision of freedom fulfilled. Listen to Mr. Rosentheim when Goldie asks him, "Would you send me to high school?" "Sure as I am a Jew," he replies, with a glow of inspiration in his deep eyes. "Only show yourself worthy, Goldie, and I'll keep you in school till you get to something; for in America everybody can get to something if he only wants to. I would send you further than high school — to be a teacher, maybe! Why not? In Amer- [149] Leaves from the Log of a Sky Pilot ica everything is possible. But you will have to work hard, Goldie, like Mary Antin. You will have to study hard — put your whole mind to it." Heredity is a powerful force, but environ- ment, I believe, is a greater. The uplift that comes to a young foreigner, almost from the moment of landing in America, especially if he lands in New England, is beyond the power of a pessimist to grasp. It is like a new birth. Lo! a public library, free to all; museums, free to all; public schols, free to all! Aspirations surge through the souls of immigrant boys and girls as such opportunities open on every hand, and above all their freedom. I was a young immi- grant myself and have felt it all. Tens of thou- sands of immigrant children feel all that Mary Antin felt, but lack her gift to tell it. You can- not close the eye and ear that unconsciously take in the visions of promise and the golden oppor- tunities that greet the incoming immigrant ; and as long as America keeps her public schools, her free libraries and museums, and treats her peo- ple, native and foreign, with equal justice, the future is safe. I recall with wonder my experiences with the colleges and universities of New England. It took my breath away when I first went to Yale. Who was I, that left my last school at fourteen, and took so little away, to be standing before professors and students to make an address! But I soon got over that trouble, for I had what [150] God' 8 Country Emerson says America lacked — "abandonment" ; and so from Bangor, Me., to Pomona, Cal., I have repeatedly addressed college students. I do not know how many times I have visited these seats of learning, but I have always found a welcome for which I have been equally grateful and surprised. Nothing gives me more joy than to meet some bronze-faced man and hear him say: "Pudde- foot, I am one of your Andover or your Dart- mouth boys," or "Puddefoot, my father took me to hear you when I was a boy." In one such case as I turned to greet the speaker I saw a gray-haired college president, and my mind was carried back to that college meeting when his son and ten other young men became Christians and decided to study for the ministry. Again and again I have been amazed to find how far some humble candle of mine has thrown its beams. But it occurs to me that I am not sticking to my text. Too many of my texts have been points of departure and too many of my ser- mons, I fear, are like the colored brother's who announced that his discourse would be " 'basted' on to the following text." To sum up all my thoughts on New England, I find no better words to express them than those of a great poet : How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, and thy tabernacle, O Israel. As the valleys are they spread forth, as gardens by the river s side, as [151] Leaves from the Log of a Sky Pilot the trees of lign aloes, which the Lord hath planted, and as cedar trees beside the waters. I am at home in every state and I love them all. Each has its own attraction, but the crown jewel, to me, is the Old Bay State. God bless her! After writing a large part of my autobiogra- phy, a friend suggested that I had not mentioned my wife and I was reminded of John Stuart Mill who wrote his autobiography and never men- tioned the fact that he had a mother. I hesitate to write about my wife. No man ever felt the pathos of Carlyle's words over his wife's grave more keenly than I did, and I thanked God when I read them that my wife was still alive. Her real portrait is found in Proverbs, Chapter 31: 10-29 verses. One winter we had to live on two dollars and a half a week and the whole family had to sleep in the kitchen, and yet in the spring we owed no man anything. It is true everything was very cheap except kerosene, which was seventy- five cents a gallon, but our lamp held only a half pint, which lasted a week, and very pretty it looked with a piece of crimson cloth stitched to the wick. We bought a quarter of beef, which cost two and one-half cents a pound and a hand- some little pig weighing one hundred pounds which cost two dollars. All vegetables also were cheap, eggs, ten cents a dozen; butter, ten cents a pound ; and as for milk you could hardly sell it. [152] Mrs. W. G. Puddefoot God's Country Nearly all of us had a cow. Oh, how my wife laughed at my milking. She would push me away and show me how to do it, but I never learned. The animals loved her, the cow, the cat and the chickens. In fact the cow would follow her like a dog and once nearly into a dry- goods store. The flowers flourished under her care. She yearly trimmed her hat until like Holmes' one-hoss shay it went to pieces. Hard times ? I wish they were here once more with my young wife by my side. When I look back at those pioneer days among the lumber towns, what should I have done without her? Sickness came — diphtheria eleven times, and more than once I expected to be bereaved; but out of it all my wife came nursing all the little brood. There were times I was where neither telegram nor letter could reach me and it was on one of these trips back of the "Soo," I found on my return the whole family down with diphtheria. My wife used to have anxious times when I began to preach. One evening I announced for my text, "A golden bell and a pomegranate," and instantly she covered her face with her hands and I knew that she was praying for me. After the sermon she told me she could not see how I could make anything out of such a text. But her confidence was serene after that experience. "Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing and obtaineth favour of the Lord, and a prudent [153] Leaves from the Log of a Sky Pilot wife is from the Lord." If we live until next April the fifth, we shall have been married fifty years and I would like to live it all over again. When we left Traverse City, Mich., the ladies of the church put on record a letter of warm appreciation, in the course of which they said: "With her, simply to live is to let her light shine, and its pure radiance wins every one within its reach to aspire after a better life, a life full of loving and charitable impulses, as hers is." . . . "Only eternity will tell the good her unselfish example has wrought." I have been blessed by two good women — my mother and my wife. The memory of one and the presence of the other have been to me like Aaron and Hur when they held up Moses' arms during the battle. Once I came home and found my house quarantined, scarlet fever and small- pox were everywhere. Churches and schools were closed, but the saloons were in full blast. It was at such times that my wife's energies were in full play and when we left the town the people reminded me of Rev. John Fawcett's people. They stood around crying as he was about to leave them. When he saw them he said : "Why, my people, do you love me so much? Then I will never leave you." He went into his study while his people merrily unpacked his goods and wrote, "Blest be the tie that binds." The weight of years and what she has passed through on her pilgrimage have told on her, but [154] God's Country she still has the willing spirit. Dr. G. A. Gor- don's books, with Brierley's, are her favorite reading and The Congregationalist with Rev. I. O. Rankin's prayers and Dr. Brown's exegesis of the Sunday school lessons are much prized by her. [155] CHAPTER XVIII TRIFLING INCIDENTS THAT LED TO SOMETHING A boy swinging his hands as he walked along The Strand in London, accidentally struck an old gentleman's fob pocket. The old gentleman caught the boy's hand and said, "Here, you young rascal, you are trying to steal my watch." The boy replied indignantly, "I was not. I was swimming the Hellespont." He had been read- ing of Leander and Hero that morning and in his imagination The Strand became a river. The old gentleman was so struck with the boy's im- agination that he took him to the Blue Coat Boys School and paid for his education. The boy was Samuel Taylor Coleridge. It has occurred to me that some things which seemed of no moment at the time led to momen- tous changes in my life. When I went to Adrian in 1879 to see Frank Beard give his chalk talks, so that I might better illustrate the Sunday school lessons, I little dreamed that in six months' time I should be preaching. But this came about directly from seeing the possibilities in the use of the blackboard. [156] Trifling Incidents that Led to Something When I had been preaching some eighteen months I made my maiden speech before the State Conference in Charlotte, Mich. The young man who spoke before me came from White Rock, Mich., and I came from White Cloud. As I ascended the platform good old Dr. Zachary Eddy said, "What does Warren want with these country ministers on a night like this?" I had been speaking about ten minutes when I said, the opportunities in these new towns were immense, for the streets were filled with boys and girls: evidently the parents had not read Malthus. Then Dr. Eddy laughed aloud and started the whole conference. In a few minutes Dr. Warren pulled my coat tail. "Is my time up?" I said. "Yes, I am sorry." "So are we," said Dr. Eddy. When the session was closed that evening Rev. J. Morgan Smith came to me and said, "The Olivet people wish me to speak for them next Sunday, would you supply my pulpit for Sun- day?" "Yes," I said, never thinking about the undertaking. I had a half sheet of paper with some notes I had dotted down on the text, "Re- joice in the Lord alway; and again I say, Re- joice." On the train was Dr. Gallup, the Sun- day school superintendent. Pie said: "I am sorry that I cannot hear you tomorrow. I am just convalescing from a severe illness and my doctor will not allow me to go," adding, "I pre- sume you will address a different kind of an [157] Leaves from the Log of a Sky Pilot audience than you are accustomed to, probably the most cultured in Michigan." Still I did not worry. At the depot I was met by good Deacon Avery who took me to his fine home. In the eve- ning Mr. Hollister called for me and went with me to the church and introduced me to the New York artist who played the organ. I was asked to choose the hymns, and when I had selected them I said, "I suppose you can play all the tunes that are set to the hymns?" He smiled and said he thought he could. Still it did not dawn on me what I had undertaken, but the next morning Mr. Hollister took me into the audi- ence room of the church and then for the first time I felt small. I ascended the platform which seemed to me half as big as my church, and there I read the order of service in a glass case. As the people came in I thought of what Dr. Gallup had said to me, and if fine clothes made culture I felt that I was in for it. Gentlemen with gold-headed canes, judges and other high dignitaries entered, while silks and satins kept up a continued swish down the aisles. What troubled me most was that between every thing I said there were interludes that made me nerv- ous, as I did not know when to start in again. However, it came at last to the sermon and I felt as Paul did when he came to the three tav- erns, I thanked God and took courage. Before I began I told them that a gentleman [158] Trifling Incidents that Led to Something had said that I should preach to a very different audience from that to which I was accustomed to and probably the most cultured congregation in Michigan. "Now," I said, "it has occurred to me that you would listen to a very different minister from the one you are accustomed to hear, so we will start even." I shall never for- get the smile that greeted my announcement, and especially the old people who leaned back in their pews with complacency. The older folks were delighted with my ser- mon for I was so narrow that I could have slipped through a crack in the sidewalk; while the young people were in raptures at the moss- back from the lumber woods, and after a few weeks I received a check and my wife a letter and a box for the children for my services as supply. I did not know that such a custom existed. I have written the above as it happened be- cause so many people I have heard tell the inci- dent in so many different ways. Something like this occurred at Montclair, N. J., but I will omit the details. I have had all kinds of audiences, in the lumber camps, in hospitals and state prisons. Once I had 1,200 men before me in the state prison of Indiana at Michigan City. It was a rainy morn- ing and I complimented them on so many com- ing on such a stormy morning and so promptly too. They applauded long enough to give me [159] Leaves from the Log of a Sky Pilot time to think, but it was not all funny. I gave them a stiff talk on Zacchseus and restitution. I never had a more attentive audience nor saw a prison so well conducted, not a firearm in any officer's hands, simply a cane and the order complete. I could not help noticing at the Reformatory in Concord, Mass., where all the inmates are young men, how high seemed the average order of intelligence. But of all audiences to draw a man out, give me the students of our colleges and seminaries. They are like a hair trigger. The least hint and they catch the point. I remember once speaking to some 400 young men who were singing when I came in, "I am clinging to the cross." I said, "Boys, are you clinging to the cross to keep it from slipping from your shoulders, or are you just hanging on to it?" For a moment they were surprised. I said: "If you mean the latter it is not orthodox. 'If any man will follow me let him take up his cross.' You see," I said, "it is your own cross you must carry." The next time they sung they began, "The Son of God goes forth to war." I said, "That is better." I never realized my responsibility more than when talk- ing to students and I have had more than one come to me for help, when in confessing their sins, some of these surprised me. But such men when they do change become soldiers of the cross indeed. [160] Trifling Incidents that Led to Something Of course in thirty-five years of service among all sorts and conditions of men I have had many strange experiences. Some of them people find it hard to believe but, as I often say, they won't be lost if they cannot believe all that I tell them, but one thing is sure : The unbelievable parts are the truest to the facts. I remember when I first spoke at Harvard Church, Brookline, Dr. Thomas met me at his robing-room. "Why," he said, "you have not even a white necktie on. Won't you sit in my pew until I call you?" "Yes, anywhere will answer," I replied. The music was splendid. Dudley Buck's "Hear, O Israel," was played and sung superbly and I was in the seventh heaven. No wonder, I thought, the old prophet said, "Go bring me a minstrel and I will proph- esy." I remember as I mounted the pulpit stairs, I said, "I love music, but friends, I have so important a message this morning that I could have made kindling wood of your 'Kist of whistles.' " The music certainly gave me wings and I sup- pose I must have forgotten myself, for in the midst of my talk I knocked a vase of flowers off with my right hand and caught it with my left and kept on talking as if nothing had happened. A man in the audience shouted and clapped his hands, causing the whole audience to turn their heads. How like lightning does the mind work ! I had hardly put the vase down when I thought [161] Leaves from the Log of a Shy Pilot of Charles Kingsley, when speaking in Denver, Colorado, he caught an insect, examined it for a moment and then let it loose again, but all the time he kept on speaking. As my memory is at work many amusing things come back to me. I was speaking in Newburyport, where the State Association of Massachusetts was holding its meeting. It was getting late and a clam chowder was in the im- mediate future when the Moderator, Dr. Jen- kins, said in a loud clear voice, "You have a minute." "I will make a minute of it," I replied. The reply so pleased the audience that I had fifteen minutes allowed me. Some years after a gentleman said to me: "Mr. Puddefoot, I have often wished to ask you a question. When Dr. Jenkins said you had a minute and you said, 'I will make a minute of it,' did it come on the spur of the moment or had you it laid by for such an occasion?" I think I told him, "I had it in cold storage for some time." Then I laughed and said, "How could a man hold such an answer ready to a question he could not possibly foresee?" I have often been called to immerse people and one minister wrote to me and said: "Do come and be John the Baptist for me. I have two women to immerse and they are both six feet high, the water is deep and rapid and I can- not swim." I went, and so pleased were the people with my dexterity that this minister wrote [162] Trifling Incidents that Led to Something again: "There are two more women wish you to immerse them." I wrote in answer that I could not come as I had a bad cold. He wrote back to say that the women would not allow a man to immerse them who was afraid of a cold. I answered that "I had another reason now, as I never baptized fools." The first time I baptized any one by immersion was in Lake Michigan. The old lady who took me home in her buggy said, "You did that beautifully!" I answered: "That was my first attempt." She was much surprised, but I spoiled it all by telling her I was a good swimmer and that accounted for it. [168] CHAPTER XIX MY CONTACT WITH DRUMMOND, ARCHBISHOP IRELAND AND BRIERLEY Some years ago I was invited to address the Baptist Social Union in Boston. Among other things, I remarked that I had no words to ex- press my contempt for a woman who preferred a pug dog to a sweet little baby. I had used the expression before and I had no idea what a dust it would raise. The next morning I started for New York and had hardly left the house when a Boston Globe reporter called for an interview. I left New York for Newark, N. J., and soon after a reporter from the New York World wished for an interview. I gave him ten minutes and that ten minutes' interview filled two columns of the World, and I was pictured as a man with side whiskers and mustache, and as feminine as Leonardo's St. John and about as much like myself as the son of thunder was like that effem- inate creature in his picture of the Last Supper. I received letters of thanks and congratulation from all over the countiy, from doctors, business men and others. One such letter came from [ 164 ] Drummond, Archbishop Ireland and Brierley Charles Francis Train, dated at "The Palace" — that is, a fifteen-cent room at the Mills Hotel. It began, "Citizen Puddefoot." Another was from Joaquin Miller, thanking me warmly, though I had hard work to read it, as the writing was of the Horace Greeley, Rufus Choate and Dean Stanley type. All the letters I received were full of thanks for what I had said at the Baptist Social Union, all but one from a child- less woman who was decidedly abusive, but one sting does not hurt among so much honey. Lil- lian Russell, who wrote a two-column letter to the paper, thought a woman could love dogs and babies too. I replied that I was glad Lillian loved babies, for I knew she was fond of husbands. To this day I cannot understand why so com- mon a remark should have gone into the press from Maine to California, while statements of real pith and moment get scant publicity. I suppose it was the silly season. I do not know who wrote the interview, but I often think of the words: "A mad potato on the whirlwind flies." Far pleasanter and more fruitful were my interviews with Prof. Henry Drummond in those red-letter days when we sat under the shade of the trees in the Chautauqua grounds at the back of my home in Framingham. I told him of my battle to keep the faith, how I loved scientific works but dreaded to read them and [165] Leaves from the Log of a Sky Pilot how I still ran past some of the books of the Old Testament as a boy does when passing a haunted barn, whistling to keep my courage up. He gave me a list of books to read, among them, Spencer's First Principles of Ethics, Gei- kie's Geology and the English Nature series. I felt safe under such a guide and I read them all with great pleasure and profit. At one of the Chautauqua meetings, as he was about to begin his address on the Old Testament, a brother on the platform asked him whether the first chapter in Genesis coincided with science. "No!" said Drummond. "Not on general principles?" suggested the inquirer. "Not on any principles," said Drummond. "The Bible is a religious book and not a scientific book." "Will you give us what you regard as one of the mistakes of the Bible, Professor?" "I do not think it would be profitable to go into such a discussion." "Well, won't you give us one case?" urged his inquisitor. "Well, then, the hare chewing the cud." "It appears to," was the reply. "Yes," said Drummond, "it appears to" — and turning to me with a quaint smile and just the smallest wink of his left eye, he gave us his splendid address without further interruption. In one of our talks he said to me, "When [166] Drummond, Archbishop Ireland and Brierley I went to Africa I took five gold watches with me to give to the kings I might meet, and I brought them all home — not one of them had a pocket. The only one who had anything on was an old king who had picked up an English tour- ist's castaway straw hat. His kinky hair pro- truded in places and acted as hatpins. I could not get them to go more than a mile for love or money. They said: 'What's the use?' " Sure enough, what was the use? These people went one better than St. Paul, when he said, "Having food and raiment be content," for these people were content without the raiment. They took no thought for the morrow as to what they should eat or drink or wherewithal they should be clothed. Discontent is the mother of improve- ment, but these tribes were content — no taxes to pay, no debtor's prisons, nor any other kind, no trouble to build houses, no hired girl or cook leaving them all of a sudden. In fact they en- joyed perfect freedom. How can such tribes as the Dyaks of Borneo be reached? They have no words in their language for love or duty. My first meeting with Archbishop Ireland was on the Lake Shore Road, on my way to Chicago. The porter began making up the berth opposite mine and the occupant of that section came over to my seat. I was reading Hutton's Contemporary Thought and Thinkers. I looked up and saw a man of strong person- ality who smiled at me as he took his seat. I [167] Leaves from the Log of a Sky Pilot said to him, "I begin to think our newspapers make good with their pictures of well-known individuals, and if I mistake not you are Arch- bishop Ireland." " Yes," he said and we entered into a lively talk. He noticed my books and inquired of me what they were about. On my answering he took Hutton's work and was soon interested. After reading a few pages he said, "This is fine read- ing." I mentioned several other books which I thought he would like to read, but he said: "The fact is, I have no time to read." However, I gave him a list of books and he thanked me. The next day he invited me to dine with him in the dining car. At the evening meal I invited him to sup with me. "Oh," said he, "that would never do." "Yes, yes," I said, "I am a bishop too, just a little one." He laughed and we spent a delightful time after supper. Indeed, we felt as if we had been acquainted for years. At our parting in Chicago, he said, "If you ever come to St. Paul you must call on me." The next time I was in St. Paul I called a't the palace and had a delightful visit with him. When it became known that I was a friend of the Archbishop I soon had calls to lecture to the Knights of Columbus. So that I have green ribbons and gold seals galore and once on St. Patrick's eve I spoke to seventeen hundred in the basement of the Roman Catholic Church. I never had any trouble with Roman Catholic [168] Drummond, Archbishop Ireland and Brierley priests on my fields. Once I received a very kind letter from a priest in Maryland, who had read my article in the Springfield Republican on the Menace of Race Prejudice, thanking me heartily for my words. At another time at Ebensburg, Pa., I was introduced to the priest of the town, who on hearing my name asked if I was the same Puddefoot who wrote that article, and when I assured him that I was, the good man said, "My housekeeper is away and I cannot ask you to dine with me, but you and your friends of the Conference can have rooms at my house." How true it is that "a soft answer turneth away wrath, but grievous words stir up anger." In common with many readers in England and America I have found valuable light and leading in the works of the late Rev. Jonathan Brierley, and I was moved one day to confess to him the extent of my obligation. I inclosed in my letter a copy of the following "Allegory," which I wrote some years ago for the Spring- field Republican and which I am moved to re- print in view of the possibility that it may help others, as I happen to know it has already in spoken or written form helped a number of per- sons. I append the reply I received from Mr. Brierley, because it reveals the wonderful way in which he was led by the divine spirit. [169] Leaves from the Log of a Sky Pilot THE UPLANDS OF GOD (An Allegory of Life) Walking in a great forest I became aware that I had lost my way, and although I was born there, I had hitherto friends who had guided me through its intricate thickets— but now I had struck out for myself and at my first venture I was lost. At first I did not feel alarmed, for there were so many beautiful things which charmed me, and it was not until the red light faded in the west and the damp chill of the eve- ning struck me that I began to fear. As it grew darker a storm arose. The giant oaks groaned as if in pain; large branches of the trees were broken off, some of them falling quite close to me, and added to these dangers I heard the sul- len growls of wild beasts. Many times I had heard them before and had enjoyed the storm, the lightning and the heavy roll of thunder min- gled with the fierce howls of the wolves, but that was when my guides were with me and could protect me. However, the night passed and at the first blush of dawn I was bent on finding my way out of the forest. I followed the broadest paths only to find myself going in a perpetual circle. At last I spied a very narrow path which was well-nigh choked with brambles, but I plunged in and after many scratches and occasional falls [170] Drummond, Archbishop Ireland and Brierley I found myself in a lovely valley. On either side rose lofty hills covered with the varied hues of the forest trees. Little streams came dancing down into the sunlight, while hidden orchestras of birds in the liquid notes of the early morn seemed praising God for a daybreak, and here I lived in great content for many years. It was here that Bunyan's shepherd boy found the heart's-ease, and here I found it, too. I knew every turn of the way, the flowers, the birds and every wind of the crystal streams which flowed uncontaminated by the city's filth. Ah, it was indeed a sweet place wherein to live ; no storms, no wild beasts were there and heaven seemed sure as death. My horizon was so narrow that it was as clear-cut as a house against a primrose sky. One day while visiting an old man, he took from a quaint desk a book. It was a guide-book to the regions above among the hills. The good man said, "I have often thought that I would like to follow the directions in this book, but I am too old, and fears come with age ; but I think if I were as young as you I would venture." I took the book and began to read, and while I read my valley receded and I found myself high up the hillside, only to find there were still higher hills to climb. I felt a little sadness creep into my heart as my valley was lost to view, but I was partly revived by the pure air and the ex- quisite view that billowed away in waving colors [171] Leaves from the Log of a Shy Pilot until lost in the softened pearly gray of an indis- tinct horizon. The mountain air gave fresh vigor to my thoughts, and the longer I read the higher I mounted, until at last my horizon had vanished, and try as I would, I could not distinguish earth from sky, and in spite of its grandeur I felt almost sorry that I had read the book. And while I mused the mists arose so thickly that my view was gone and I could barely see my feet. What could I do? I dared not move. I wished that I were back in my valley, but, alas, I could not go back, and if I could I must ever remember what I saw upon the mountain's side, and then I understood what the Cherubim and the flaming sword meant. No going back when once a new truth comes into the soul. The words of an old book came to me, "Stand still and see the salvation of God." So I stood, but soon the mists became rolling clouds, forked lightning zigzagged through their rifts, and I started upward and renewed my climbing. Pres- ently I looked down upon the clouds, no longer dun-colored and threaded with the lightnings, but like a sea of mother-of-pearl. I felt a great relief as I drank in the glory of the scene. This lasted but a short time, for I began to suffer from the thin air, which, while it braced me, pierced me, too. Luckily, I had bread with me, and after eating I felt much relieved and did not mind the cold so much. I was much surprised that I seemed to be the [ 172 ] Drummond, Archbishop Ireland and Brierley only one upon the mountain, but I was mistaken ; there were quite a number, but owing to the immense spaces they were far apart, and I think this clear, free air caused them to shrink from publicity, and they were apt to hide in sheltered nooks while enjoying the enlarged view. I now felt quite lonesome, and realized that no scenery, however grand, compensated for the loss of my kind. As I was in this mood I heard a groan, and tried to find out whence it came. I cried out and, to my joy, I was answered. Walking quickly toward the place, I found a man in distress. He had once lived in my valley and had started as I had, but had forgot to take bread with him, and having experienced such difficulties as I had, the lack of food had brought him low. I gave him some of my bread and brought him water from a spring. His look of gratitude and thanks sent comfort to my heart as I heard these words: "If ye do the will ye shall know of the doctrine," and my horizon was clear once more. I sometimes think of the valley with a certain fondness, but I have never wished to leave the uplands of God. Some I have known who have tried to live in the valley again, but they are not happy. They know too much for the valley folks, and are suspected, and they dare not know more and be free. As for myself, I will never despise the vale that once sheltered me, but from this on "my help cometh from the hills," "and the strength of the hills is His also." [173] Leaves from the Log of a Sky Pilot me. brierley's reply My dear Sir and Brother: Your letter has reached me here and I have read it with the greatest interest. I am glad indeed to know that my works have been helpful to you. I get sim- ilar assurances from various parts of the world and they are among my greatest rewards as a writer. I see that you have been through the fire. You history corresponds remarkably with my own. Born into a deeply religious but very narrow circle, I soon found myself in revolt against many of the current ideas and for a time went in for negation and infidelity. That, how- ever, brought no peace. I realized later the truth of Christianity and that it was "tremendously true," as Chalmers said. I joined the Congregational church and became an active Christian writer, went to col- lege and was for some years in the active pastorate. A failure of health brought my resignation and I then went to the Continent, where I resided for some four years. There, in immediate con- tact with the intellectual movement of France and Germany, specially in relation to philosophy and Biblical science, I had to revise my views all along the line. But I kept in touch with the vital essence of the gospel and I rejoice to realize now, in my seventieth year, that I have a dearer, stronger [174] Drummond, Archbishop Ireland arid Brierley faith in God and in this supreme revelation in the gospel than I ever had before. I realize it as something beyond mere reason, as an instinct of the soul. The heart, as Pascal says, has its reasons which are deeper than reason. Your allegory will be understood by all who have traversed that way. I know your forest, your valley and your mountain height. It is good to be up there. God bless you, dear brother, in all your re- maining years and in all your work for God. I seem to have a host of friends on your side. America interests me profoundly. It is evi- dently to be the theater of the greatest human movements. If the superman is ever to be born, that will be his birthplace. Ever heartily yours, J. Bbierley. [175] CHAPTER XX THE STRANGE POWER OF WORDS What I am about to say under this heading may seem too personal even for an autobiog- raphy. But, believe me! it is not said with the least swelling of pride; only with wonder and profound gratitude. When in Washington, D. C, some winters ago, a gentleman came to me smiling and said: "Mr. Puddefoot, I wish you would dine with me at my club." "That fits me down to the ground," I said. Then with a far-away look in his eyes he said, "Some years ago you spoke in Mt. Vernon Church and you said a few words that changed my whole life and made me what I am in missions." "I would like to know what they were, I will use them again." "They were very simple words," he replied. "You said, 'We have plenty of money for things we like. 3 " This man, until his lately lamented death, was one of our great missionary leaders, Mr. John B. Sleman. At another time when lecturing in an Indiana college I was met by a gentleman who said: "You do not know me, but I know you. Do [176] The Strange Power of Words you remember lecturing at the Chautauqua Assembly in Framingham many years ago?" "Yes." "Well, a word you spoke then led to my conversion." Now I did remember the occa- sion well. For the first time in my life I had had a very close haircut. In fact, my head was sandpapered, as we say, and my old friend, R. L. Day, just before I rose to speak, told the audience he would not be responsible for me, as I had evidently been with some Delilah who had sheared my locks. I was in a jovial mood and, to the best of my recollection, my talk was the most rollicking one I had ever given. Yet some- where it contained a word which the Spirit used to convert a man. After telling the following experience in a gathering where Joseph Cook was present, he said to me, "I am profoundly impressed by the story; it ought to be printed in pamphlet form and scattered broadcast." It never was, but I give it here to illustrate the singular power of a few simple words. Preachers should never lose faith in their message. Many an arrow of speech shot into the air at random may be found where the poet found his song, "in the heart of a friend." It was in January some few years ago when I arrived at a bustling New England town among the hills. I had scarcely taken my seat in the parsonage when the pastor and his wife began to tell me about a dreadful man in the [177] Leaves from the Log of a Sky Pilot place. "He is a doctor and a regular atheist. Yes, and he is taking his dear little wife along with him; and she is a member of our church' and passed through the skeptical period of Wellesley College. Yes, and he pitches into every minister that comes to town and he will pitch into you, and oh, here he is." Sure enough the doctor was on hand. After the introduction, and before he was seated, he said, "Mr. Puddefoot, what do you think of Balaam's ass speaking?" "Not very much," I replied. "I have heard a better voice." "Eh, what?" "I have heard a better voice." "Well, you are a queer kind of a preacher." "Yes, I am just a homemade one." The pastor and his wife had a pleasant sur- prised look, which soon faded away at the answer to the next question. "What do you think of a God that was afraid the people would build so high as to get into heaven?" "Well, I suppose that was as great a God as the people could imagine at that time, when they thought the sky was a solid firmament and the angels rolled the stars over the holes at night." "Why, you are a queer kind of a minister." Pastor and wife very solemn. Doctor all off his bearings for a moment, but returns to the charge. "Well, well, Mr. Puddefoot, apart from a whale's capacity to swallow a man, what do you think of a human being living three days and nights in a whale's belly?" "Oh, I pity a man [178] The Strange Power of Words who troubles himself about Jonah's keeping house in a whale, and missing the tender gospel of the story of a Jew with a wider outlook, who found that God not only cared for Jewry, but also for the heathen, for those who knew not their left hand from their right, think of that." "Well, I never did; but what do you think of David's being a man after God's own heart?" "I think he was." "You do?" "Yes, do you remember when Saul was sent to kill men, women, oxen and sheep — and how he saved Agag, and Samuel heard the bleating and low- ing and rent his mantle and slew Agag before the Lord?" "Yes, I know it all. I have read the Bible." "Well, suppose David had been given that job, don't you think he would have made a clean sweep of it if he had been told to do it?" "I believe he would." "Well, then, he would have been a man after God's own heart, would he not?" "What kind of a God do you call that?" "The kind they had in David's time. You must not read the 19th century's con- ception of God into David's period by your good light." Pastor and wife feel depressed. The next Sunday morning the doctor came around and took me for a ride, plied me with questions and afterwards came to church. Around at the par- sonage again after dinner and then another ride. "The people will talk, Mr. Puddefoot," says the parson's wife. "Let them," I said, "it will do [179] Leaves from the Log of a Shy Pilot them good to have something fresh to think about." Doctor at church again in the evening, people surprised, most unusual thing. Monday morning the doctor came to take me to the depot. "Mr. Puddefoot," he said, "I don't want to be an ungodly man. I have been through the university, my wife is with me, we can't take what the parson gives us. I was brought up by a good old Scotch Covenanting mother. I can't believe half the things she taught me. What's a man to do?" "I don't know whether I have wisdom enough to teach you, but what have you against Christ?" "Nothing." "Well, you listen to him and you won't be troubled about Balaam's ass talking for the rest of your life." To my surprise he turned his face toward me and I saw that he was weeping. We had now arrived at the station. "Good-by and God bless you," he said and he was gone. Before going into the ministry I kept a black- board in my shop. I did this for practice, as I had a good deal of blackboard work in the Sun- day school. One day I made a rural picture which my old friend, Henry Anderson, thought rather nice, and that was a good deal for him to say, as he did not care particularly for pictures. The next day I drew a large lion in its place and my friend exclaimed: "Why did you rub off the pretty country scene and put this big brute in its place?" [180] The Strange Power of Words "I don't know," I said; "perhaps I shall find out if I let it stay there." The next day a big young fellow from the country came in. He made me think of Tenny- son's shoemaker, whose young face was "like a codlin washed in dew." He caught sight of the lion, "My, but that's a great beast. Did you draw it?" "Yes, but did you ever hear of the lion of the Tribe of Judah?" "No," he answered. "Why, what church do you belong to?" "I don't belong to any." "Isn't it about time you did?" I asked. "I guess it is. I am eighteen and I came pretty near dying of typhoid." I made no com- ment on that, and immediately he inquired, "Can you mend them soles?" showing a rather dilapidated pair of boots. "Yes, I can, and you had better be looking after your soul." Two days after a great, grizzled-looking man came into my shop. "Say," he began, "don't you preach some- times?" "Yes, all the time," I said. "What do you mean?" "When I say I will have a job done I do it on time if I have to work till two o'clock in the morning." "But don't you ever preach in a church?" [181] Leaves from the Log of a Shy Pilot "Yes, I preached three times. I took different texts, but I preached the same sermon." "Well, our domine is away, and can you come Sunday evening?" "Yes, but how shall I get there?" "I will come Sunday afternoon with my buggy." He came and I went. But before we got out of town I felt that I was with a first-class hypo- crite. He told of his infidel wife, of his bad crops and a sick son, and complained bitterly of the way God treated him. Coming in sight of his house, he said: "I do believe my son has had a relapse, and there is the doctor's buggy"; and he gave the old horse a clip that made me jump and almost dislocated my neck. He introduced me to his wife and she certainly gave me a cool reception. When the doctor left, I heard a voice cry out, "I want that man to come in and pray with me." I thought the voice sounded familiar, and when I went in I recognized the sick son as the young fellow who had stared at my lion. "I want you to pray for me." "All right, and you pray for yourself. One of your prayers will be worth a dozen of mine." The lad did so and soon fell asleep. When the mother came in, tip-toeing, with his medicine — "Don't disturb him," I said. "He is all right — there's no relapse. I know his trouble, and I have given him a dose of the balm of Gilead." [182] The Strange Power of Words "Why, I never heard of such a medicine." "Well, it is the best thing in the world for his trouble. I was troubled that way myself once and it cured me." "I am afraid you are a joker," she said. "I didn't know that Christians joked." "They are the only ones that can," I said. " 'As the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of fools.' " "I wish I could hear you preach," said she. "I wish you could," I said. "But, Mother, you will be doing as divine a service watching your boy as you would listening to a sermon." When I returned to the house I asked after the lad. He was still sleeping and had no fever. Next morning while the man was doing his chores, as I thought, I began talking to the mother, when suddenly the young fellow came out of the chamber dressed and ready for breakfast. "Why, Jack," his mother exclaimed, "you look perfectly well." "I be, Mother, I be. I had a dream in the night that frightened me. A great lion was glaring at me; his mane seemed to be waving with light like fire. I crouched down and shut my eyes, expecting every moment he would spring upon me, but on opening them I saw no lion but a little lamb, and I thought of what this man said about the Lamb of God. Then I slept till morning — and now, Mother, I'm going [183] Leaves from the Log of a Sky Pilot to be a Christian and I want you to go with me." We were about to kneel for prayer when the old man, who, instead of going out to the barn, had been listening, came in and asked his wife to forgive him. "I want to be prayed for, too." After breakfast I left a happy family and went out into the garden and sang: "For the lion of Judah shall break every chain, And we will sing of salvation again and again." risi] CHAPTER XXI WHAT I KNOW ABOUT AUDIENCES AND BOOKS "Nature hath fram'd strange fellows in her time: Some that will evermore peep through their eyes And laugh like parrots at a bagpiper, And other of such vinegar aspect That they'll not show their teeth in way of smile. Though Nestor swear the jest be laughable." These words apply to the extremes only; but the extremes are in nearly all audiences. Some laugh first and think of the meaning after. Others turn the pathetic into a farce. Audiences are often like sheep, following the first one that jumps the fence. The stern person who sits as stolid as a statue is a terrible damper on a be- ginner, who is likely to waste all his strength in the effort to subdue him. My experience has led me to drop him. Get your audience, and you become a thousand-man power, and your solitary has to go with the flood. The intellect is no match for the emotions. All its vaunted strength goes down before the "one touch of nature that makes the whole world kin." This applies to all audiences no matter what subject is under discussion; but there is a great difference between an audience in church [185] | j Leaves from the Log of a Sky Pilot on Sunday and the same people who have paid to hear a lecture. What will cause smiles and even laughter on Sunday, simply because the thing said was in a pulpit and by a minister and on Sunday, too, will fall very flat to people who have paid twenty-five cents to come in on Monday. An audience wound up to the highest pitch of expectation is a hard one to face, but if you have a message that stirs your own soul, you need not care for king or kaiser. People used to say to me before I came to New England, "You will find a very different condition of things when you speak there — cold, intellectual, hard to touch," etc.; all of which is simply non- sense. On account of the general diffusion of knowledge, audiences are much the same in any center of population, but no better, warmer- hearted people to address can be found in the wide world than these same New Englanders. They do not send boxes and money to the front because of intellect so much as from warm hearts. I have heard applause oftener in New England than anywhere, when some topic of interest had been touched with vigor. For an audience, en rapport, compressed dy- namite, give me the college students. No dis- secting an argument is needed. Before half the sentence is out they have the whole. They seem to know what is coming and meet you half way. Young People's Societies of Christian Endeavor [186] What I Know about Audiences and Books make grand audiences. Here are youth, enthu- siasm and faith, unmixed with doubt. As long as the speaker is telling something of real life, the people are all interest, but tell them how many times Connecticut will go into Montana, and you will at once realize the significance of a yawn. The more intelligent the audience, the easier to reach them. All roads are open to a well- educated audience. From primitive man down through all the sciences to the last psychological novel, you have only to say, Cheops, and all Egypt is spread before them — Rameses, the Nile, waving palms, burning sands and the afterglow, discounting instantaneous photo- graphs. And should you say something not understood, they always respect a man who goes beyond their depth and are too self-respect- ing to admit they did not understand. They are quick to forgive a mistake, as well as to catch a point. My audiences have generally been of this character, and I have no ground of complaint. There was a time when it took but little to spoil my meeting — bad weather, the information that "our choir is in a transition state from chorus to quartet," or vice versa, or "our tenor has lost his mother-in-law," "our soprano has a bad cold," "our contralto has just been married," "sorry you could not come last week, our best families are at the seaside," or in the fall, "the best giver [187] Leaves from the Log of a Sky Pilot has just left for Florida," and, oh! hardest of all, "our audience is not up to the usual standard, for some reason or other." As it is a fine day you feel a load on your mind as being the inno- cent cause of the depleted numbers. All this was years ago. I can say now, "None of these things move me." "You won't have more than forty out this evening," said a sexton in a church that held 1,200; and when he saw over 400, he said, "Wal, I wonder what got into 'em!" But small or large, I do my best, country church or city, and never lash those present because of the absent ones. For a grand audience, with a good share of solid men, Portland, Me., and Toronto stand first in all the continent. To see a thousand people at church on Monday evening to hear an address on The Indian Work, as I did in Port- land, revives one's faith in humanity and leaves more than a hope for "poor Lo." Once a lecture bureau offered me $600 a month and four months' vacation, but there was so much commercialism connected with it that I declined. One good old minister said I ought to lay up something for a rainy day. I answered, "The Lord will provide, bread shall be given him, his water shall be sure." "Yes," he answered dryly, "the Lord may take care of you in the poorhouse." That rather hurt me, coming from an old pastor of mine. Never- theless, I rallied from it. [188] What I Know about Audiences and Boohs Often I have seen the last nickel, but never yet did I go hungry, that is, since I was a boy, and a boy is always hungry. It is strange to hear people sing, "How firm a foundation!" and yet go on toiling and grubbing for the bread that satisfieth not. It was this eagerness for things that perish among professing Christians that kept me out of the church so long. Every preacher is an ordained prophet. If he feels no prophetic stirring in his soul, then let him take to lecturing. But for myself, when I speak to the people, I want to speak with authority. With Luther I want "to sink myself deep down" and shout at the end of every sen- tence, "Thus saith the Lord!" not, "Thus saith the lecture bureau." As nearly as I am able to explain it, this is my instinctive preference for the pulpit over the lec- ture platform : I am the least of minor prophets and not exempt from errors. Some of my best friends greet me, "You old heretic!" They smile, by which I know they don't believe it, and I smile back, for I can still sing: "Jesus, thy name I love All other names above. Jesus, my Lord." It is at least thirty years ago that Dr. Leroy Warren, then superintendent of home missions in Michigan, asked me to write a list of books [189] Leaves from the Log of a Sky Pilot suitable for home missionaries. Since that time I have been asked many times by other ministers similar questions. An old proverb says, "The poor workman quarrels with his tools," but the best of workmen needs tools, and, as a rule, uses good ones. Now books are the minister's tools, and I found out early in my ministry that I must not only have books, but good ones. No man can rely on his own thoughts. The first book I bought was very helpful, Uhlhorn's "Conflict of Heathenism with Chris- tianity," followed by Allen's "Continuity of Christian Thought," Theodore Hatch on "The Influence of Greek Thought," Toy's "Judaism and Christianity." An epoch-making book for me was Canon Freeman tie's "The World as the Subject of Redemption." Robertson Smith's "Religion of the Semites" and his "Prophets of Israel," and Dean Stanley's books, followed, with Robertson's Sermons. But it was reading Dr. Josiah Strong's "Our Country" that gave me a plan which I have carried out with great satisfaction to myself. I noticed that he referred to Mackenzie's "Nine- teenth Century" and David A. Wells's "Recent Economic Changes" quite often. These works were great helps. I think every minister ought to read Mackenzie. Of course Lecky's "History of European Morals" is one of the great books, as are Dr. Andrew Dickson White's "A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in [190] What I Know about Audiences and Books Christendom," Principal Tulloch's "History of Religious Thought in Great Britain in the Nine- teenth Century." Prof. W. N. Clarke's "Sixty Years with the Bible" is a classic, and "The Divine Ideals of Jesus," his last work, is beyond praise. Scores of other books I got on the track of by following the same plan, i. e. } looking at the foot-notes in great books. I think for the average minister's library I know of no books which set one to thinking equal to the works of the late Jonathan Brierley of England, known as J. B. Many critics pro- nounced him the finest essayist of his time, rank- ing above Hutton of The Spectator. He seems to have an universal knowledge of history, and draws his facts and illustrations, from the foot- print of Buddha (which was large or small, according to the faith of the onlooker) down through all the ages of saints and philosophers, to the last statement of the scientist. The first of his books that I purchased was "Ourselves and the Universe," and it certainly opened up a new world in literature. I loaned the book to a lady of fine critical taste, and she was so taken with it that she went to Boston and bought a copy for herself, before finishing it. The Outlook says of Brierley's studies of the soul: "To the theological reviewer, weary of ponderous tomes containing so many, many pages and so very little original thought, this small volume is a pure delight. This book [191] Leaves from the Log of a Sky Pilot reaches us in its second edition — it deserves to go to the twentieth." The Evangelical Maga- zine says, "Working largely, as the author does, through intuition, he arrives at results which often surprise and delight us." The above quotations I heartily indorse. One never tires of Brierley. Some of these volumes I have read four times. Lay them away for six months and they come out as fresh as ever. There is such breadth and boldness that one feels that he is carried into the very uplands of God, but always in sight of his pole star, which is Jesus. I know of no set of books so suitable to those who are amazed and confounded by the rapid changes of religious thought, through the study of anthropology, and especially of arche- ology, which show the great length of time our world has been in the making, not only in the record of the rocks, but the lessons from the monuments. Many of these truths stagger the imagination, and persons who have been taught that the world is six thousand years of age feel amazed by the facts. One thing is sure : no scientific truth ever did or ever will hurt religion. That these facts may upset many doctrines of men is equally sure, and all those souls who are troubled by the recent and ever-occurring changes will find in Brierley a guide who will lead them in safety to the Master himself. The range of other books which might be sug- [192] What I Know about Audiences and Boohs gested is wide — too wide to be considered here. For a beginner, Farrar's "Messages of the Books" will be helpful as an introduction to a well-proportioned acquaintance with the Bible. It is a mildly liberal book, and teaches the order of the books. All spiritual biographies are good reading and do more to help one's spiritual growth than any other kind of literature, besides furnishing illustration from life. The story of Thomas Chalmers, who is the father of the mod- ern social ministries of the churches ; of Living- stone, the pioneer missionary; of Paton of the New Hebrides ; and other missionaries ; of Rob- ertson of Brighton and Bushnell of Hartford: make us acquainted with leaders of Christian thought. John Bunyan's autobiography is a great study. The lives of Moody and many others of that type are of great help to a hard- working minister. Dr. Gladden's books are most helpful. "The Sociological Teachings of the Bible," by Wallis, is a book for the times, as is Rauschenbusch's "Christianity and the Social Crisis." Of course Dr. Horace Bushnell's works should be in every minister's library. [193] CHAPTER XXII WATCHMAN, WHAT OF THE NIGHT? "Grow old along with me ! The best is yet to be." So sing I with Browning in my seventy- fourth year, for still I find "Tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in everything." "Therefore my age is as a lusty winter, frosty but kindly." Not but what I have my share of trouble, and doubts that come unbidden! Soon after my con- version I was reading Bunyan and received won- derful help from one sentence. He said: "There be seven things that yet trouble me. First, an inclination to unbelief." I forget the rest; that sentence comforted me. Could so great and good a man have such an inclination to unbelief? I felt as the French king did when met by a depu- tation of citizens who said there were thirteen reasons why the mayor did not come to welcome him. First, he was dead. "That will do, friends, and is quite sufficient." That was sufficient for me. At times I have cried with Job, "Oh, that I knew where I might find him!" Then again [194] Watchman, What of the Night? I have felt with the Psalmist, "Whither shall I flee from thy presence?" No one who thinks can be without doubts, but no one who thinks deeply and searches earnestly but will find "the Lord whom he seeks suddenly come to his temple." No one, old or young, should feel satisfied with the present. There are many wrongs to be righted, and yet when my memory goes back over seventy years I am glad when I remember the many wrongs that have been righted. I find myself growing more tolerant. I realize that nature never advances per saltwm, i.e., by jumps. "He that believeth shall not make haste." The improvements that have come — the prisons, the lunatic asylums, the homes of the poor, the grow- ing kindliness of the world — give me great hopes of more to follow. I well remember when a little boy in pinafores a prisoner was taken by my father. The man had stolen a duck from the King's Arms. I can see the beautiful colors of the bird now, and the strong man in dark corduroys, his great brown eyes and lashes filled with tears. He was taken to the village cage, and the next morning, in my Sunday best, I carried his breakfast down to the cage. I sat on the steps while he ate. The man was thankful, and did not try to run away, but what a lesson that was to me of love and pity! I have no doubt but my father took his cue from reading Dickens — the poorhouse that was built [195] Leaves from the Log of a Shy Pilot in a lovely spot, but without a window looking outward — now all this is changed. People do not pay a shilling now to see the poor lunatics chained to a post without any food from Satur- day until Monday. Talk about good old times compared with today, one can hardly believe the cruelties that existed in my younger years — the long hours of labor, the death rate among the poor, the hovels that many lived in. Miss Octavia Hall and our own Peabody began the good work with model homes and the People's Palace. In the East End of London are some of the signs of the good time coming, "When right not might shall rule mankind, and be acknowledged stronger." The proper impulse has been given. Wait a little longer. There are many of my dreams coming true. The Lever Brothers at Port Sunlight, the Cabury Brothers in England, the National Cash Register Co. in this country, the profit-sharing and a thousand reforms are here to stay. When I was a boy everybody drank. There was but one man in Westerham who was a total abstainer. He was called a tee- totaler. Today there are over twelve million total abstainers in Great Britain and many more on this side. Fifty years ago men went home drunk from the sacrament. To whistle on Sun- day was a greater sin than drunkenness. I have lived to see all this and much more changed for the better. I am as full of zest for [196] Watchman, What of the Night? more knowledge as ever, and I would walk a mile to see the metamorphose of a cicada. The last I saw made me think of Huxley with the salamander. He thought with a stronger glass he could see the artist at work. No glass would be strong enough, no fleshly eye could see, but with a spiritual eye there would be no need of a glass to know that the great spirit was at work. Many another of my dreams is coming true. Only this morning I noticed that a movement was on foot to build a model city in honor of the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers, absolutely up to date, and that would mean the fulfilling of the prophecy of Isa. 65 : 20, "There shall be no more thence an infant of days, nor an old man that hath not filled his days : for the child shall die a hundred years old." At least the child would have a chance to be born right. Of course I realize that it will take more than a model city to produce model men. I have passed many times little communities in Iowa where the people share in everything, all work- ing who can. They have five meals a day there, go to bed early, rise early and are wealthy; plain in their dress, plain in all their ways; no paint on their houses except on the ready-made sashes of their brick houses ; the gravestones are all of the same size and pattern, but there is such a lack of variety that the average man would shun such a life. No Brook Farms or Moore's Utopia will sat- [197] Leaves from the Log of a Sky Pilot isfy the soul; neither will a Jerusalem in the clouds. Nothing but the vision of the apocalyp- tic seer that saw the holy city coming down from God out of heaven adorned as a bride for her husband, and to hear the voice which said, "Be- hold the tabernacle of God is with men and he shall dwell with them," will answer to the soul's wants. The older I grow the stronger is my faith that the wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose. "That nothing walks with aimless feet; That not one life shall be destroyed Or cast as rubbish to the void When God hath made the pile complete; That God, which ever lives and loves, One God, one law, one element, And one far-off divine event To which the whole creation moves." In writing these rambling reminiscences I have experienced much pleasure. The many letters I have received from all over the country have added to the zest I have had in writing them. I have realized the truth which Emerson enforces in his essay on self-reliance: "Speak your latest conviction and it shall be the universal sense, else tomorrow a stranger will say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time, and we shall T 198] Watchman j What of the Night? be forced to take with shame our own opinion from another." I know I have left out much, and that in spite of a good memory. As I grow older my mind constantly reverts to the past. I would rather read an old story for the tenth time than begin a new one. Dr. Salter Storrs was reading "Lorna Doone" for the fourteenth time before he died. Dr. Reuen Thomas of Brookline told me that he was reading "Alwyn" for the eighth time. There are books that I have read in part for the fortieth time, and while there is much good reading today, it lacks the charm to me of the great masters of the nineteenth century. The books of an older period do not appeal to me. I feel like the lady who was shown a book by Sir Walter Scott. "No," she said, "I cannot read that today, although in my younger years I read it and listened to the reading by young ladies." The world is surely growing better, and I do not wish to grow so old as to have fears for the future. Wordsworth in his prime sings to my heart, and I have a vivid experience of his when he writes : "Hence in a season of calm weather, Though inland far we be, Our souls have sights of that immortal sea Which brought us hither, Can in a moment travel thither, And see the children sport upon the shore, And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore." [199] Leaves from the Log of a Sky Pilot That last line had a marvelous effect on Dr. Norman McLeod. I am thankful for a memory that can image the past and make it real. I see the lovelight in my mother's eyes and feel her kisses on my face and still hear her prayers for my soul when she prayed in secret in her room, and to this day they are stronger than hooks of steel to keep me from floundering in the muddy bogs of ma- terialism, and so my last words to my readers are : "Grow old along with me; The best is yet to be; The last of life, for which the first was made. Our times are in His hand Who saith : 'A whole I planned. Youth shows but half ; trust God, see all, Nor be afraid !' " [200] Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide Treatment Date: April 2006 PreservationTechnologies A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 1 1 1 Thomson Par* Drive Cranberry Township. PA 16066 (724)779-2111 mm mm mmm ;w;i HB ^^M mmm :t ■ ¥W: mmm mm HH THS :ii«-. HI. Hi H SH wmmm mmWA JliliM;-,! ::■:,';;: ■ ^^^H ■ ■H ■p n I ■ ifeifftl'-iv-i- ■ ■ I'M^fiitfiOT/iM J»l ^^■^M ■ffiffi n KOTM^ ■ M mm mn. mmi mm H mm ■ ■'.!r :'< ■ I ■ ! ! : i;Tjil ^ilci::^!. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS VMIIIIIIU 017 457 426 1 •