GOSPEL PIONEERING:Reminiscences of Early Congregationalism in CaliforniaCHAPTER I.

PERSONAL

I AM a son of Rev. Enoch Pond, D.D., professor and later president of the Bangor Theological Seminary, in Maine. My mother was Julia Maltby Pond, a sister of Rev. John Maltby, who for almost thirty years was pastor of the Hammond Street Church in Bangor. I was born February 22, 1830, at Cambridgeport, Massachusetts, but at two years of age removed with the family to Bangor.

Among the vivid recollections of my boyhood is that of being sent to school when three years old. I am sure of its being at that age, because I distinctly remember that when I became four years old I was admitted to the public school. None were admitted to a public school before the age of four years. That early schooling must have impressed me deeply, for I clearly recall the building in which our school occupied a room. Even the little seat in which I sat, somewhat removed from other seats, I seem to see, and my little self sitting in it. The name and the face and the gentle spirit of the teacher are still before me, and my victory in learning to read--all these are as vivid in my memory as any minor recollection of later years.

My mother entered Heaven when I was eight years old. This event had much to do with all that 11 10 I have become and all that I have been enabled to accomplish in subsequent years. All that is sweet in ideal motherhood was pictured for me in her quiet, loving, faithful life at home; and the picture is today as distinct, as attractive, as winning to "whatever is lovely, whatever is pure, whatever is of good report" as it was eighty years and more ago.

I cannot remember the time when, if ever, I was willing to be spoken of as little. I can almost see my mother's pleasant look when time after time I went to her bedroom as soon as I was dressed and asked, "How old am I?" "Five years old," was the unfailing reply. It seemed to me that I should never stop being five years old. At last the welcomed answer came, "Six years old," and I looked down at my shoes to see if they did not look like those of a big boy. And from that day I felt wronged if I was classed with little boys.

It seems to me that in that early childhood nothing absorbed my thinking so completely as a looking forward to manhood and planning as to what I should do when I became a man. One exhibition of this occurred one evening when my mother's maid was passing the room in which I slept and heard me sobbing bitterly. She hastened to my father's study and told him about it, and he was quickly at my side. "What is the matter with you, Willie?" he asked, and I managed to say in the midst of my sobs: "I don't want to be a minister!" My father's reply, "You need not be a minister if you don't wish to," immediately quieted me and I settled down to sleep.

The most far-reaching of all the events of my 12 11 childhood occurred when I was ten years old. There was special interest in religion, pervading the whole city. It reached even to us boys, and I was filled with a desire to become a Christian. I do not know how to account for it, but no other question that ever entered my mind stirred me more than did, at this early age, the one, "How to become a Christian." I wonder that I did not carry this question to my father. There was nothing in him to awe me or keep me at a distance. When, night by night, in the cold Maine winters, he came up to our chamber to see that his three boys were safe and warm, as he came to my bed and tucked me in, I could feel my heart fairly swell with love for him, but I never told him so. About ordinary matters I was bluntly outspoken, but in matters of the inner life, in expressions of affection for my dearest friends, or of this craving to be right with God, my lips were somehow sealed.

It would seem that in the home, in the prayer-meeting, in the Sunday School, something would certainly be said which would show the way plainly, but when our Sunday School superintendent, who had led many to Christ, pleaded with us to come to the Savior, it meant nothing to me. I thought of Christ as sitting at God's right hand in some glorious place called Heaven: how could I come to Him? In Bible terms we were bidden to repent, or to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, but these expressions meant nothing to me. I remember that once as I rode my father's horse along the road to bring in our cow from the pasture, I said to myself: "If it were said that by going to Jerusalem I could become a 13 12 Christian, I would find some way to get there"; but I knew well that this would not help me at all.

I do not remember how long this agony continued within me, but it was approaching winter when, at my daily task in the cellar of cutting up small potatoes for the cow's evening meal, my desperation became conclusive, and I said to myself something like this: "I don't know anything about it, and I can't find out. If Jesus wants me to be a Christian, He must make me one." I can now see what I did not see then, that my turning the matter over to Jesus Himself, and my thus reaching out for Him, implied my believing in Him and had in it a real faith, though I did not recognize it at the time.

Two or three days elapsed. As I looked back upon them, I perceived that my question how to become a Christian was no longer troubling me; indeed, those days had been brightened for me with a peace that was new to me, and I said to myself--the words are distinctly remembered across eighty years--"This is just what people tell about when they become Christians. I believe that I am a Christian--yes, I am a Christian."

With this there came a decisive change in my outlook upon the future. It was not long before I went to my father and said, "I want to become a minister," and he gave me his blessing, and from that time my work at school and much that took place outside of both school and home was linked with this one purpose, to become a minister.

Two years elapsed before I united with the church. During a portion of this period I was beset with 14 13 doubts about almost everything. I doubted the truth of the Gospel, the possibility of life beyond what we call death, the very existence of God. There was no conceit in this doubting, and consequently no comfort. At times the discomfort amounted almost to agony. I remember distinctly that on returning from school as I walked up one of the hills on which my home is founded, looking at an illfed horse descending the hill with a load of wood pressing upon him. I envied that horse--actually felt as if I would, if I could, exchange places with him. But after the decision was made to confess Christ and to unite with His Church, brought face to face with the alternative of believing or of lying and playing the hypocrite, I remember standing under one of the elms in our home grounds and manfully, boy though I was, just facing the doubts.--"What new light have you given me that my believing father has been blind to? What reasonable ground have I for doubting? Where are the reasons for doubt which you, a boy, have seen, and your father has not discovered?" Thus I came to see that I was not even using reason at all. I was saying to myself over and over and over again, first about one and then about another of the teachings, public and private, of my father, "What if--?" "What if the Bible is not trustworthy? What if Jesus was simply a man, or perhaps just the creation of a writer of fiction? What if there is no God?" I found that there was no reason, not even an attempt at reasoning in such a "What if," and that I had endured all those deadly doubtings with nothing to base them upon but a silly 15 14 "What if." Thus doubt was defeated for once and for all. I answered the Father of Lies, "Next time when you want to draw me into a morass of doubt, give me some substantial reason for doubting; and if you cannot do that, let me alone." That boyish conclusion has lasted me through all studies and all years.

I was graduated from Bowdoin College in 1848, after which I taught one year in Thomaston Academy and spent three years in Bangor Seminary.

Even before my graduation from college this impulse of which I have spoken to peer into my future led me sometimes to nothing better than a mere building of castles in the air, but more often to a serious and prayerful consideration of the two fields, the Home and the Foreign, and of my own adaptedness to one or the other. In the year spent in teaching, between college and the seminary, it had come to be a settled conviction that Christ was calling me to some foreign work. There never was with me any glamor about the foreign work. I loved New England. I really wanted to live there, work there, die there; but the facts of the case, coolly considered, would not admit of it. I was not my father's only son, and there was no one dependent upon me, either for sustenance or for companionship, save one, who, dearer to me than life itself, had promised to become my wife, and she from early childhood had looked forward to foreign missionary service with an anticipation of it and a consecration to it which almost amounted to prophecy. I had a good physical constitution, equal to the endurance of hardships. I had a fair facility in 16 15 the study of languages. There was absolutely nothing to prevent my going to foreign lands that would not excuse every young man; and my not going would be equivalent, as far as I myself was concerned, to deciding that there should be no foreign missions at all. It was to this compulsion of the facts that I yielded, and even at length entered into correspondence with the American Board about the matter.

The only deterrent in my heart from the foreign missionary work was this, that I must preach in some other than my native tongue. From that day to this I have never been able to explain this, unless my Master put it there to determine for me my final decision. For about two months before my graduation from the Seminary, there appeared in the "Home Missionary" a very urgent appeal for missionaries to California; and I think that scarcely fifteen minutes passed after the reading of that appeal before I said in my heart, "That is a call for me." All that had made me resolve to be a foreign missionary--the probable encountering of hardship, the distance from the old home, the encountering of physical difficulties such as not all young men could sustain--these existed in regard to California, as we then viewed it, and the preaching would be done in my mother tongue.

All this will be sufficiently amusing in these days in which the world is coming to see in California its very paradise. But then California was distant from New England, by the healthful and safe route, 17,000 miles. I sailed that distance in order to get 17 16 here. Then the reports received and believed by people generally and by me, were that it was a barren country, with nothing but its gold to reward adventure and toil.

But of this let me speak in a second chapter.

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CHAPTER II.

PRIOR IMPRESSIONS CONCERNING CALIFORNIA

I DESPAIR of success in setting forth these impressions as they remain fact-like and vivid in my own memory--mistaken impressions, without which I would probably never have come here. Let me fortify what I have to write by this brief quotation from a speech made in the Senate of the United States, about the date at which my purpose was formed to give to this state my life. The speaker was a man of note in those days, Senator McDuffie of South Carolina.--"Why, sir, of what use will this territory (i.e. California) be for agriculture? I would not for that purpose give a pinch of snuff for the whole of it!"

Now let my reader conceive of a people whose years, and the years of whose ancestors, had been spent where a month's drought in summer would reduce to despair all thought of a harvest either of fruits or of grains; such a people hearing about a country in which every summer was dry, without rain for six months, and what will they think about it? To the mass of New England people irrigation was substantially an unknown art. We might have read of the way in which from prehistoric days Egypt had been made fruitful by the overflow of the Nile; but in this there was no precedent for farming in California, or, so far as we knew, anywhere in the world except Egypt.

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Perhaps not all New England people were as ignorant as I was, but my first happy disappointment as to the land to which I had consecrated my whole life in the service of Christ was in finding the shores on either side of the Golden Gate, as in February we sailed in, dressed in living green, and the next was in finding on the table of the hotel to which we were conducted some fresh radishes. I said to myself, "These must have grown here; if so, why will not other things grow as well?"

The impression of California character then current in New England may be inferred from the fact that when a prominent Christian man in Bangor, having become financially embarrassed, started for California to recoup his fortunes, another Christian said to me in all soberness, "Don't you think he ought to be subject to church discipline?"--or from the fact that my pastor, who was also my uncle, was reported to have remarked when he heard I was coming here, "If men will go to hell, I don't know how far it is a Christian's duty to follow them!" I myself had such impressions that, just as if I were going to central Africa, I said to a good friend who was a watchmaker, "Get me a reliable watch; I don't care about the case, but I want good, trustworthy works, for I may be long out of reach of a watchmaker." And when he came on to New York to see me off, I asked him to purchase for me a trustworthy clock for the same reason. Even more amusing it may be now, that I said to the dear girl who was to be my wife, "We may be entirely out of reach of any physician, and I never should dare to dose you with 20 19 drugs, and I couldn't bear not to do anything for you if you were sick; I believe that I will buy a box of homeopathic remedies and a book"--which I did. Of course we had scarcely landed in San Francisco before all such impressions were removed; but in New England when we left, they were very real, and had the effect upon me to make me feel almost instantly upon reading the appeal of which I have spoken, that this was the land to which Christ was calling me.

I will only add that when at length eight of us home missionaries, six for California and two for Oregon, were gathered in New York and ready to sail, a farewell meeting was held for us, as if we were really foreign missionaries. This meeting was held at the then Fourteenth Street Presbyterian Church, and a charge was given us by its pastor, Rev. Dr. Asa D. Smith, afterwards president of Dartmouth College. One point in that charge has been in my memory and has fastened itself on my conscience from that day to this: it was, "Give thyself wholly to them" (1 Tim. 4:15), i.e. to the studies and various ministries connected with your calling of God. He forewarned us that there would probably be laid before us for consideration, by real though mistaken friends, "get-rich-quick" projects of various kinds, but especially in mining for gold, projects sure to make us rich without calling us away at all from pastoral service. For this appeal, which, as I remember, I somewhat resented at the time as needless and implying suspicion of our full consecration, I have reason to thank both Dr. Smith and the 21 20 Master Himself, for it saved me from some adventures, in themselves honest and innocent, which would in their results have wrecked me financially, and in so doing wrecked my ministry.

I am sure that it will be almost impossible for those who arrived in California even but a few years later than I did, and especially those who were born and grew up here, to make real to themselves the possibility that any such thoughts as I have expressed could ever have been cherished concerning the fairest, richest, healthiest, most delightful land that the sun shines upon. I found, indeed, after my arrival here that some people Eastward had already, even when I was responding in my heart to this appeal, discovered that California had a fertile soil, and in spite of the terrible drought, lasting through half a year, might have opportunities for the farmer as well as the miner. And in the course of the year, in the spring of which I arrived, convincing and surprising proof of this appeared in potatoes eight inches long and otherwise large in proportion, one of which would be sufficient to offer in portions for a half dozen guests, and in beets even more monstrous. Experiments were also made in valleys not too far from the ocean in the raising of wheat, with crops in some cases of forty bushels to the acre. But I have been giving personal reminiscences which, I am quite sure, represent the general thought in New England in 1852 respecting California.

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CHAPTER III.

OUR ARRIVAL AND THE DISPOSAL MADE OF US

IT was on February 23d, 1853, that the good ship "Trade Wind," with 68 passengers on board, was docked at the only wharf in the city front which could accommodate so long a vessel. This was an extension of Commercial Street, an inside street between Sacramento and Clay, and parallel with them. It was known as Long Wharf, but I dare say its outmost end was where East Street now runs. The tradition about it current at that time was that it helped materially to save to San Francisco its commercial supremacy. This tradition was that after a second fire which swept the site of San Francisco almost clean of its tents and shanties, Benicia believed that it would soon be chosen as the future metropolis. It was so sure of this, by virtue of its superior advantages, that the price of lots immediately rose, while stricken San Francisco ran out this long wharf, to enable the clippers to discharge their cargoes otherwise than by lighters. This brought the freight, and of course the business, to the present metropolis.

We had a really delightful voyage on a fine clipper ship built upon a model peculiar to those times and especially for the California trade, a model designed to secure for these ships the utmost speed consistent with safety. For there were, I suppose, fully 300,000 people in California, and virtually everything 23 22 for their use was imported. Some classes of goods, such as would bear heavy rates to freight and would occupy little space, could come in about a month's time by steamer to Nicaragua or the Isthmus of Panama, there to be unloaded and packed on the backs of mules for crossing the Isthmus; or, if sent by Nicaragua, to be transported first by wagons, then by a steamer on the Lake, and then again by wagons, to be reshipped on a steamer again for San Francisco. On either of these routes, but particularly on that by Panama, very many passengers suffered from fever; and the contrast between the health and vigor of our party and the woebegone appearance of those discharged from a steamer on the other side of our wharf, was a matter of general town talk.

Our voyage was not destitute of adventure. One day the cargo of the ship was on fire between decks. There was no visible flame, only little curls of smoke. It could easily have been quenched, were it not that the brave sailors who went down to try to remove the freight and reach the source of danger, were overcome by gas and rendered unconscious almost as soon as they went down. The danger became so imminent that the captain had the boats made ready, and even rafts prepared, so that if, by explosion or otherwise, the ship was rendered helpless, we might take to the open sea for a sail of 400 miles to the nearest shore. But there was no excitement. The women addressed themselves to restoring the sailors brought up unconscious, who were no sooner thus recovered than they went bravely back to the deadly task. The rest of us drew water up the vessel's sides, or did any 24 23 other work to which our captain summoned us, and at length the fire was quenched. Even now, the seriousness and the calmness with which the rescue work went on, continues to illustrate for me the power of faith to quell all fear.

One day in the Straits of Le Maire, between Terra del Fuego and the Falkland Islands, was especially eventful. We had doubled the Cape, and as it was in January--summer time in that Southern hemisphere--we had read fine print in the twilight of midnight, and now we were in sight of land on both sides of us. If any one wants to know what a relief and comfort it is to look at land close by, let him be out of sight of it for fifty-two days, as we had been and he will learn what never will be forgotten. Even now I can see the slopes of the Coast Range on Terra del Fuego, with the snow still lying upon them in the shady spots, and the peaks standing off from each other like two human neighbors sulking--see it as if my sight of it had been gained six months ago instead of seventy years.

We saw a clipper on the other side of the Strait and signalled her. She did not respond to our signals and thus had the advantage of us. If she arrived in San Francisco before we did, she could report the ship she had outsailed. If we came in ahead of her, we did not know whom we had beaten and would be silent about it. Our ship seemed to be making good time, but our unneighborly neighbor was going ahead of us until it was almost lost in the distance. But we discovered at length that we were the victims of a tide current making against us, which, however, 25 24 turned about noon and helped us on, till we overtook our rival, seeing her about five miles distant, and leaving her behind and out of sight while yet the evening twilight was clear. She arrived about two days after us and docked at the same wharf inside of our ship, and a passenger on her betrayed her to one of our passengers, telling him "how they beat that big ship in the Straits of Le Maire." Our passenger was ready with a fit reply.

The race with the other clipper did not exhaust the adventures of that day. In the afternoon my wife and I were sitting in the bow looking out over the sea, watching for the spouting of a whale. We were rewarded by seeing one some three miles ahead. Watching for another spout, we saw it not more than a mile ahead. Watching still, the big ship struck something which shook it from stem to stern. Passengers came up from the cabin to know whether we had struck a rock. But it was just the head of that whale, as we knew in an instant, for he threw his immense tail up in the air and disappeared, going down into the depths with a well-settled headache, I ween.

The quickest passage made by any clipper from New York to San Francisco up to the time of our sailing was that of the "Flying Cloud," in eighty-nine days and twenty-three hours. We wanted to beat her, and were encouraged to think that we might do so, when we found that notwithstanding the delay occasioned by our fire we had made Cape Horn in her time exactly--fifty-one days. But coming north, we were caught in a storm and had to lie-to for a week, and then in the doldrums (the space near 26 25 the equator between the southern and northern trade winds) we were caught for some eight days in a dead calm; so that our time was 103 days.

These reminiscences of the voyage may not seem to have much to do with the early history of Congregationalism in California. If I need to apologize for them, lay it to the garrulity of an old fellow who remembers the long past vividly and likes to talk about it, but cannot as well recall the deeds or experiences of the week before last.

It was a goodly company that sailed this way together. Eight of us were young ministers, the oldest thirty-three, the youngest (myself) twenty-two. All of us were blessed with wives and two of us with three children each. Then there was a Christian gentleman who rose to considerable prominence afterwards as a teacher in California; and he had a wife and two children. Our captain was a modest, earnest Christian, a fine officer and an even finer friend. We had our regular studies, our Sunday services, our club with its debates, and our weekly newspaper, and last but not least, our games for exercise; so that, forgetting the wretched two weeks spent in getting our sea legs on, I have often felt that if ill health should ever compel me to take my ease and rest for three months or more, I would meet the demand by taking again a voyage around Cape Horn.

I have already said that I was one of a band of eight missionaries. We were sent out by the American Home Missionary Society, under what was then called the Plan of Union between Congregationalists and Presbyterians of the New School. I will have 27 26 more to say about this hereafter. For the present, suffice it to add that the eight were equally divided between the two denominations; but two of the Congregationalists were destined to Oregon, so that in the California delegation the Presbyterians were four, the Congregationalists two, Rev. J. G. Hale and myself.

Before our arrival, the Home Missionary Society had appointed by mail a committee of five pastors, Congregational and New School Presbyterian, Brothers Benton of Sacramento, Hunt and Willey of San Francisco, Warren of Nevada City, and I think, Eli Corwin of San Jose, to advise us as to our locations. Of all these and of all that group of missionaries, I am now the sole survivor. I was the youngest among them. Among pastors already here, Mr. Willey was evidently the leader, partly by formal appointment, for I think that he was the representative of the A.H.M.S. in California, "serving for nothing and finding himself." I never can forget how he impressed me on my first sight of him, an impression which deepened as I came closer to him through somewhat familiar intercourse. He had a fine form, tall and straight, surmounted by a fine head, the face gleaming with intelligence and kindliness. I loved him at first sight, yet stood somewhat in awe of him. To begin with, he was the pioneer, the old-timer, I the newcomer. Sixty years did not remove from me this first impression; I the newcomer by his side, he the one that knew, I the one to learn.

This committee lost no time in fulfilling the task assigned them. We all were eager to get at work, and the expense of keeping us waiting, as prices then 28 27 ruled, would soon empty the treasury of the missionary society. I think that we who were to be advised were of one mind about accepting the advice. In our utter ignorance of the land to which we had come, what else was there for us to do? As for myself, I had settled it; the voice of the committee was to be for me as the very voice of Christ Himself.

I can even now see Mr. Willey as in giving this advice he named our respective destinations. Mr. Walsworth was to go to Marysville, Mr. Harmon to Sonora, the county seat of Tuolumne County and still a place of considerable importance; Mr. Bell to Columbia, a mining town, then full of life, now dead. It was near Sonora, and the wives of these two brethren were sisters. Mr. Pierpont was to go to Placerville, the county seat and principal city in what was then called the "Empire County," El Dorado. Mr. Hale was to go to Grass Valley and become a close neighbor of Mr. Warren. My name came last, and three places were suggested: Coloma, where gold was first discovered, now long dead, or Los Angeles or North San Francisco. This really meant the point last named, but the appointment was alternative because Rev. Isaac H. Brayton had come to the city a little in advance of us and was considering work in that field. I was to wait for his decision. I did thus wait for six weeks, not altogether patiently. Indeed, at one time I stopped waiting and started for Coloma, spending a Sunday in Sacramento with Brother Benton. But during that Sunday a rain fell so heavily that the road to Coloma was pronounced to be impassable. Within twenty-four hours, when for diversion I took 29 28 a steamer for Marysville to see where my Brother Walsworth was working, I found the busy little city submerged, people getting into boats from second story windows, and I turned back with the steamer's return, and finding that I could not get passage to Coloma for at least two weeks, I went to San Francisco. I have never seen the spot where I was then proposing to invest my life. If I were to see it now, I should, I suppose, find nothing there except the soil.

The irksomeness of this waiting was greatly alleviated by the generous hospitality of an earnest Christian family that had come from my home city of Bangor, and had been so prospered in business that on a hill which then seemed likely to become the court end of the city, they had built its finest residence. They made my wife and myself their welcome guests, and did not give us a chance to imagine that we were staying too long.

At length the leash was loosened through Mr. Brayton's decision not to undertake the work in San Francisco, and I sprang to it as eagerly as ever a hound for a hunt. I looked my territory all over, and could find no hall nor even an empty store in which to make my beginning, and there seemed to be nothing to do but to build wherever I could find a site for a chapel or a church. Only one effort among the many of this sort which in the course of my ministry I have been called to make, equals this in the pleasant recollections with which it enriched me. Hon. R. H. Waller, Major A. B. Eaton, U.S.A., and S. M. Bowman, Esq., who consented to stand behind this young newcomer as trustees, and to see to it that 30 29 money contributed was wisely used and faithfully accounted for, will never, even in eternity, fade from my memory. After this long experience with men, I wonder at their kindness and courage and patient helpfulness. I think that not only these, but all others who stood by me with their subscriptions, have gone to their reward. Mr. Edward P. Flint, then very young, like myself, but at the head of one of the largest firms in the city, was the largest contibutor. I did not know him well, and went to his office with many an inward struggle and unspoken supplication. I came away with a song of gratitude on my lips and a subscription of two hundred dollars. I have found in "The Home Missionary" of September, 1853, an extract from my report, from which it appears that the building with its furnishings cost $5,300, toward which $4,500 was paid soon after dedication. I copy this extract from my report:

"The church was dedicated two and a half months from my first effort in connection with the enterprise, and five weeks from the first stroke of the spade upon its site."

The editorial comment upon it is: "We do not recall an instance of equal despatch in the erection of a really good church edifice, or one that better illustrates the truth that `where there's a will there's a way.'"

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CHAPTER IV.

CHANGES OF LOCAL SENTIMENT RESPECTING OUR OWN STATE, 1853-1855

IT may be that the impressions with which I came, and of which I have spoken, have colored my recollections of the conditions which I found existing on my arrival. It certainly was the case that some prophetic spirits had already "greeted from afar" what now we realize, and even all that we foresee. But certainly that which confronted me at first was the absence of any adequate conception of the part which California was to play in the world's future. In the first place, few, very few, among those whom I met had any intention or thought of remaining here. It seems to me that when a stranger was introduced to me, or I to him, conversation always began in this way: "How do you do, sir? Happy to see you; where do you come from? How long are you going to stay?"--And vivid before me still is the picture of the eyes opening with surprise when I replied, "As long as I live, sir." A state made up almost wholly of people eager to "make a pile and go home" could have little love from its inhabitants, little esprit de corps , little outlook ahead, and a careless estimate, if any estimate at all was attempted, of its possible future. A marked change of outlook took place that first year. San Francisco began to loom up in the thought of the people. I remember vividly a lecture by Rev. Dr. Speer, a returned missionary from South 32 31 China, who was the pioneer in missionary effort for the Chinese here. In this speech he declared with much emphasis, "There are to be five great cities on this earth: London, New York, San Francisco, Shanghai and Constantinople." It opened my eyes at once, and I am sure that I was far from being alone in this. I said to myself, "That is true."

Then the permanent agricultural resources of the state were beginning to be realized. When I came, the basis of everything financial in the state was the gold mines; but before even my first year was spent, the wealth of golden grain was coming slowly into view. I have already referred to El Dorado County as having the title of the "Empire County." If this expression was used as to political or any other conditions, it was as distinctly understood to refer to El Dorado County as the same term used respecting a state is still understood to mean New York. Legislation was controlled here, so far as necessary, in the interest of miners and mining. No such law as that which has closed most profitable hydraulic mining in the interest of agriculture, would have been proposed, much less considered and passed, in those early days.

But a new view, the now controlling view, began to be discussed. The transitoriness of the mines, with the probability of their being worked out, was assumed. But the future of the state, as founded on its agricultural possibilities, especially in view of adequate irrigation, brightened our eastern sky and led on towards a settled population and a substantial growth.

This led to a new sense of political responsibility. 33 32 The method of voting at that time invited fraud. I went to the polls and after standing in line a good while announced my name and it was written down. Then, unless some one challenged my vote, it was deposited. This gave abundant scope for the appeal, "Vote early; vote often ." But nobody seemed to care except those who hoped to fatten at the public crib. The voters, nine-tenths of them, were transients, "not going to stay."

As early as 1854 people began to care. The Democratic Party's nominations were supposed to be equivalent to an election, and the party consequently became utterly corrupt, so that the people, thoroughly aroused, threw it out and elected the candidates of a new party known by the name of the "Know Nothings." It was in some degree a secret society, and in its conclaves it provided for such watchfulness at the polls and such carefulness in the countings as gave them the victory. And the state made a step forward which has never been retraced.

This new outlook for the state led to a new interest in education. My earliest recollection of public school work in San Francisco gathers about Col. T. J. Nevin, a Congregational Christian who, when I began my services in San Francisco, surprised me by appearing in the congregation and undertaking to build up a Bible class there. He had some peculiarities, which weighed too much with me, and I did not esteem him as I now do. But his heart was set on providing education for the children--few indeed, then, in San Francisco. The state had very large resources for this purpose in land given it by the national 34 33 government when the state was received into the Union; but it had little money for the purpose, and little appreciation of its importance. The city made small appropriations and seemed to pay them grudgingly. But Colonel Nevin's energy in connection with this change in general feeling respecting this state as one to live and work for, wrought a change for the better whose fruits appear today in provisions for universal education as generous and complete as can be found anywhere in the world.

I have found in the "Home Missionary" of May, 1854, an appeal written by myself but signed by a committee of the presbytery (New School) and the association, which seems to me to set forth quite clearly and vividly the views and aspirations to which we had come at that date, and with which I conclude this survey of what I may call the social, moral, and political environment in which Congregationalism was beginning its work in California, except so far as these views may appear in the story of subsequent years:

"San Francisco, Jan. 31st, 1854.

"To the Executive Committee of the American Home Missionary Society:

"The undersigned, at a joint meeting of the Presbytery of San Francisco and the Congregational Association of California, were appointed a Committee to lay before you facts relating to the destitution of this state, and the claims which it presents upon your continued benevolence. They have consented to discharge this duty, not because they have ever discovered in your counsels anything bearing even the appearance of a disposition to ignore those claims. They would do injustice to their own and to the universal 35 34 feeling of their brethren, did they fail at the outset, to express the deep gratitude which is felt for the large-hearted liberality with which you have met the calls hitherto made upon your treasury. We know that those calls have been large; we know that only candor and broad views could have ever made them seem otherwise than extravagant to those who have never actually experienced the state of things which made them necessary.

"In endeavoring to present to you these facts, we feel embarrassed by a consciousness that our knowledge is very incomplete. Only a few of them, probably, compared with the whole number actually existing, have ever come within the range of our ascertainment. For they must come to us; except in rare cases we cannot go after them. Burdened, to the full extent of our strength and time, in our particular and immediate fields of labor, it is impossible for us to act as explorers and pioneers. And it is so easy for even truly Christian men in California, breathing its atmosphere of worldliness, to forget temporarily their higher interests; and they are so generally undetermined to make this state, and still more, any particuular locality in the state, a home, that nowhere, perhaps, in our whole land, are such explorations so necessary as here, if we would learn truly and fully the extent and pressure of its destitutions. While, then, we tell you what we know, we would assure you of the probability, amounting almost to a certainty, that there is a great deal more which we do not know; for the intelligence which comes to us, comes in such a way as to provoke the frequent exclamation, `What shall we hear next?"

"It is but a short time since one of our brethren was surprised by an application from the town of Petaluma to come and organize there a Congregational Church. He went, organized a church of twelve excellent members, and is of opinion that a 36 35 man ought to be sent there at once to minister to them. And yet, Petaluma had hardly been mentioned before that in our conversations about the disposition of our little forces. Other brethren have been surprised in like manner by liberal propositions from different towns of aid in erecting churches, provided a Presbyterian or Congregational minister could come among them.

"We mention these things simply to show how such intelligence comes to us; while, from our knowledge of California and Californians, we know that those places of which we hear may not be the most necessitous, but that in other places there may be, though we know it not, even a greater number of the sheep now sinking into deadly slumbers, whom the voice of a shepherd would arouse and gather into a fold and make to become richly productive for the Kingdom of their Saviour.

"The area of this state is about 180,000 square miles. Connected with the denominations which are associated in your society there are, all told, fifteen ministers in active service. That is, we have one minister on the average to 12,000 square miles, an area larger than the whole state of Vermont. In the southern part of the state there is an area of counties consecutively adjacent amounting to 70,000 square miles, and larger, therefore, than all New England, in all of which there is not a single minister of those denominations in active service. At the north there is a district as large and in the same destitute condition. And even through the center of the state are seven extensive counties in the same situation.

"Nor are these extensive regions deserts in any sense of the term. Not only are they capable of sustaining a population, they are actually being populated. Many of these counties contained, according to the census of 1852, a population of from six to ten thousand each. Some of the important agricultural and 37 36 mining towns are there. In the southern district is San Diego, with its beautiful harbor, the next to that of San Francisco on the coast of California. Here also is Los Angeles, one of our most beautiful agricultural towns, with a population recently estimated at 4,000. The trade of these two towns with San Francisco is sufficient to maintain two large steamers in constant service. In this southern district is also Mariposa, a town central to a large and increasingly important mining and agricultural region, where already a considerable population is gathered and the weekly press set up. This southern district contained at the time of the last census a population of 35,000.

"In the northern district mentioned is the important seaport Cresent City, a place which has been very rapidly increasing in importance. A minister should have been there before this time. It is the only convenient outlet to a considerable region rich both in mineral and agricultural resources; and its permanency and continued growth are deemed unquestionable by all those who are acquainted with it. A steamer has for several months been plying between that port and this, sustained by the trade of that port alone; and by a recent act of our legislature that town is made the county seat of Klamath County. The region around Humboldt Bay should also receive at once the attention of a laborious, energetic, and persevering man. It is a station where hard work would be called for and would be rewarded. There are already two or three towns of importance. A newspaper has recently been started at one of them, depending on the population for its support.

"But throughout the more thickly settled center of the state destitutions are even more numerous. In Tuolumne County two men are imperatively needed. In a population of at least 20,000 Rev. Mr. Harmon is laboring alone. At Murphy's, a very important town containing a population of at least 2,000, a 38 37 church might at once be gathered, and immediate success would almost surely attend a judicious and energetic effort. At Jamestown and Columbia another man should be stationed at once. Taking Sonora as a center, with a radius of fifteen miles, you would encompass a rich mining region thick with settlements and bright with promise to the Christian laborer.

"In Calaveras County, in the midst of a mountain region rich in gold, is a valley whose picturesque beauty and evident and tested fruitfulness charm every visitor. It is called Ione Valley. It is destined to be a rich agricultural district, and will have the best of markets close at hand. A permanent population is gathering rapidly upon it, and a town of some importance already exists. Those brethren who have visited it express themselves very strongly as to the importance of at once stationing a minister there. Without a doubt a church might almost immediately be gathered.

"Placer and Sierra Counties, containing together a population, according to the last census, of 15,639, and having the important mining centers Ophir, Auburn and Downieville, each of which places would furnish abundant work for one man, are without a single laborer. El Dorado County, with a population of 40,000, has but one. Georgetown, Diamond Springs and Mud Springs are all places of size and note, and are destitute.

"It would be to trespass too much upon your valuable time to mention all points of importance which we might mention, or to say in regard to these all that might be said. We know not what other opportunities a diligent exploration might bring to light. But in regard to the places which we have mentioned, we can say this confidently that in no part of the Atlantic States with which we are acquainted would such openings be allowed to remain unentered. They are posts of labor too important and too promising to be 39 38 neglected. If we should ask you for an immediate ree¨nforcement of a dozen men, we should not ask as many as the necessities of the case imperiously demand. Can you not give us something like that number?

"We do not ask for great scholars, though the more of scholarship men have the better, here as elsewhere. The case demands men of piety, of energy and of common sense; men who will exhibit these qualities both in the pulpit and out of it. And if there are such men to be had and they want fields where their devotion and their energy and their tact will be tested--fields, too, where their labors will be crowned with speedy and increasing usefulness--let them come to California.

"We feel deeply that it would be in your hearts to give us all that the case demands. We have had proof that we need to use no pleading with you; and we know and think we fully appreciate the fact that the ready heart and the open hand cannot always go together. That you have a large field to cultivate, that from various quarters of our country appeals like this are reaching you continually, and that you often pray for more laborers in so great a harvest we are sure. And that the very heavy draft which a few laborers make on your treasury is a special obstacle in the way of your work upon this coast, this too we feel.

"In attempting to remove this obstacle, we are not at all disposed to copy the example of those who, in attempting to benefit California, have done her so vital an injury by sending to the East highly inflated accounts of what could be done here in furnishing the needful funds. We have reason to be grateful that the officers of the American Home Missionary Society have never been thus led astray. We will do what we can . We shall be able, if God prospers us as He has done, to do considerable. In a country where everything is so changeable, it is difficult to 40 39 say how much. But we think it should be noted that if the effort draws heavily it draws briefly in each individual case. At least it has done so thus far. On the Atlantic Slope you support a missionary for twelve years, here for twelve months, and then you begin to be repaid. This has certainly been true thus far. If but little has been paid into your treasury directly thus far, much has been paid for your cause; and an increasing portion of the pecuniary effort which has thus far been expended in the erection of churches, and the speedy assumption of our independence of your aid, will go in the future to the same cause through the treasury.

"But to us in the midst of the field, it seems very evident that the addition of so large and so important a region to the sphere of labor of the American Home Missionary Society ought to be the signal for a large increase of its revenue. The churches have the opportunity of erecting through your agency a Christian state on the shores of the Pacific. It has cost nearly nine hundred thousand dollars in more than thirty years to make a Christian nation of the Sandwich Islanders. The money and the time are not to be mentioned in comparison with the achievement. But we will venture the prediction altogether fearlessly that if the Christian public will act energetically and pray earnestly for California, they will have a Christian nation here for a fourth that sum in a fourth of that time, which will exert ten times the influence for Christianity which those Islands now do.

"We institute the comparison, not for the sake of disparaging the achievement which has lately been announced; far from it. None hailed the announcement with more joy than we; and if it had cost nine hundred millions , instead of thousands, it would still have been infinitely worth more than its price. But we would have the work which is going on in this land viewed in its true light. It is really, even 41 40 if not nominally, the founding and rearing of a new Christian state, and one whose influence will tell for truth the world over. This did not become a Christian state when the arms of a Protestant nation conquered it, or the money of that nation bought it; it did not become such when crowds of men, claiming the name of Christian, came to dig God's gold and profane His day, His book, His name, in all these hills and valleys. It will become a Christian state when sufficient Christian teachers come here to gather Christian churches and to bring up to sacred and believing recollection the doctrines and the Cross of Christ.

"And it is for the churches of the East to bring this to pass or not. It does seem to us in the midst of our toils joyous beyond expression--save in the view, continually thrust before us, of priceless opportunities gliding by with none to grasp them--that the churches at home with a privilege before them like that which this country is presenting, must grasp it and fill your treasury and bid you thrust the laborers upon the field.

"Let no one think California is safe. She is not safe . If you were here, you would see it so. With a heathen population rushing in upon us; with a recklessness of old restraints a chief characteristic of our people; with all forms of old error from the four quarters of the globe germinating rapidly or towering high, giants already in stature while young in years; with a general disregard of the Sabbath; with a public press corrupt and profligate; and, finally, in our isolation from all established Christian states, California is not safe. And our hope for her, God's purposes aside, is just as great as our hope is that Christians at the East will appreciate her importance and her necessities, and will embrace the privilege they have of starting here a fountain, the streams of which shall make glad the city of our God.

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"If it were necessary, we might mention several peculiarities of this field which entitle it in justice to a large share in the charities of the East. The contributors to the American Home Missionary Society are getting rich from California. Wages are rising; produce sells at a higher rate; and the production and consumption of California are the cause of it. Many of your merchants live in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, but do business here and enjoy Californian profits; and if they occasionally experience Californian losses, they are nevertheless growing rich from California. Indeed, it is a common assertion that only California gold has saved our country from a widespread bankruptcy.

"But with such facts as these, you, gentlemen, are familiar. We pray you to do for us all that you can. Without a reinforcement equal at least to that which arrived last spring, the cause must suffer very much; unless Christians at the East sustain you in such an arrangement, it seems to us certain that they will fail decidedly to meet the demands of their Master upon them.

"With much gratitude and respect,

"Yours in the Gospel,

"WM. C. POND,

"S. S. HARMON,

"J. G. HALE, "Committee of the Association and Presbytery."

To this appeal the following response was made:

"The views expressed in the foregoing communication accord with those of the Executive Committee, and only strengthen their convictions of the importance of this missionary field. The past strange history of this new state, its present prosperity and prospective growth, the energetic but reckless character of its population, its commanding position in reference to the heathen world, all point to the missionary work 43 42 undertaken there as one of unsurpassed urgency and interest. Nowhere else perhaps in the world will prompt and vigorous effort be rewarded with such speedy and abundant harvests; nowhere else will neglect and delay be followed with such loss and disaster.

"In this appeal they hear the voice of the great Captain of their salvation summoning His people to go up and possess the land. Encouraged by past success, and in confident reliance upon the liberal support of the churches, they propose to make a favorable response to this call."

I am confident that two paragraphs in my manuscript were omitted in the publication of this appeal. One of them related to San Francisco and its harbor and its great commercial future; the other to its future as an educational center for the world. Of course I cannot repeat word for word what I wrote; but I remember saying that in view of the climate, the location midway between the Occident and the Orient, and the wealth which would be accumulated here, a generous share of which would go to sustain educational institutions, there would arise around this Bay universities that in their youth would rival the oldest and richest in the world. The former paragraph may have been omitted as unnecessary, the latter as too visionary. I myself do not expect to live to see that vision even approaching fulfilment. I do remember that somewhere in the appeal I affirmed that the time was surely coming when not New York but California would be the "Empire State" in our Union--which also was omitted perhaps as too incredible. But I believed it then and I believe it now. Indeed, no one with open eyes can doubt it.

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I realize full well how different would now be the impression as to points which should be occupied, from that presented in this appeal. Of the thirteen towns mentioned, only four are now occupied, and of the nine others there is not one for which an appeal would now be made. But what I have been endeavoring in this chapter to set forth, is not things as they now are, but as they were, or seemed to be, seventy years ago. My impression is that at that time Los Angeles and San Diego would have been the last ones provided for.

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CHAPTER V.

UNION VERSUS UNITY

UNION and unity are not synonymous terms. It was unity that Jesus prayed for. Unity is vital and spiritual. Union may be only artificial and superficial. When unity develops union by a natural, spontaneous growth, taking it on as a body made alive by the one Spirit within, then union is most desirable and beautiful and practical; but when union is brought to pass by diplomatic manipulations, when it is held together by mutual contracts, mutual material interests, carefully drawn compromises in doctrine or in plans of action, then is it often poisonous to unity, developing debates, dissensions, excisions. And it is because some of my reminiscences illustrate this that I have entitled this chapter Union versus Unity.

Let me not be misunderstood. Unity is not uniformity. It is almost the antipodes of uniformity. Harmony is not monotony. Unity in diversity is a law of divine operation in both God's physical and His spiritual realms. The rich music of the forest swayed by the wind is a combination of the notes of each several leaf. And the music of the spheres is that of even apparently counteracting forces operating together for one great end.

The Church of Christ is His body, not the corpse of a dead Saviour, but the body of one alive and life-giving evermore. But it is not one member, as Paul so significantly teaches us, but many; and each one 46 45 has its own office, through the faithful exercise of of which "all the body fitly framed and knit together through that which every joint supplieth, according to the working in due measure of each several part, maketh increase of the body unto the building up of itself in love." This is a picture of genuine unity, whether in the local church or in any group of coo¨perating churches, or in that church universal, the real Kingdom of God, organized invisibly in Jesus Christ who is the Head.

I have referred several times in previous chapters to the fact that Presbyterians (New School) were connected with us under a "Plan of Union." Both this expression, "New School" and the existence of this "Plan of Union," may belong to a history now too ancient to be familiar to a majority even of my brethren in the ministry, and I venture to explain them. This "Plan of Union" dates back more than one hundred and fifty years. It was in 1766 that the Presbyterian Synod (no General Assembly having yet been created) and the General Association of Connecticut agreed to meet in an annual convention in order to unite their endeavors to "spread the Gospel and preserve the religious liberties of the churches."

This continued until, in the dark days of the war with the mother country, these gatherings became almost impossible; but in 1792 the Union was renewed, and since a General Assembly had now come into existence, it took a more definite form in what might be called a diplomatic agreement, first with the General Association of Connecticut, and afterwards 47 46 with those of New Hampshire, Vermont and Massachusetts. According to this agreement, these associations might send to the General Assembly three commissioners each, and these were allowed a vote on all questions that arose. It was further agreed in 1801 that a Congregational church might have a Presbyterian pastor without his withdrawing from the Presbytery, and a Presbyterian church might have a Congregational pastor without his withdrawing from the Association. And I can almost see the genial smile with which the Presbyterian historian wrote: "By the operation of this Plan of Union, in thirty-six years fully two thousand Congregational churches became Presbyterian, modified by sending a `committee man' to the Presbytery, and in many cases these committee men grew naturally into genuine and excellent ruling elders."

But this commingling of Congregational blood wrought dissension among the Presbyterians. The Westminster Confession and Catechism could not be accepted by a large proportion of the pastors, especially in New York and the states west of it, except "for substance of doctrine," and much of their preaching, aimed as it was at leading sinners to repentance, had to tone down the ultra-Calvinistic doctrines respecting election and reprobation as elements in the Divine sovereignty, till they were in clear contravention of the wording, if not the "substance of doctrine," of the standards. Albert Barnes in Philadelphia and Lyman Beecher in Cincinnati were arraigned before their presbyteries and deposed, but afterwards were reinstated upon appeal to the General Assembly.

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At length, in the General Assembly of 1837, the Conservatives, finding themselves a majority, small but solid, at one fell stroke, in the interest doubtless of truth and for the glory of Christ (!), exscinded three synods in New York and one in Ohio, virtually excommunicating the whole membership; and when in the next year these synods, elders and all, in rebellion against this lawless despotism appeared by their commissioners at the General Assembly, they were refused admission. And so it came to pass that another Presbyterian Church appeared, composed of these exscinded synods and others who sympathized with them. If I remember correctly, this body called itself "The Constitutional Presbyterian Church," but it was popularly known as the "New School," whence the other party came to be known as "Old School"; and so in the little villages of the West you would find two Presbyterian churches where one could scarcely live, utterly out of fellowship with each other.

And here in passing let me say that in all this we have an illustration of the truth set forth in the title to this chapter, larger and sadder than any which my reminiscences can give. But these later and lesser ones are also worth studying.

The "Old School" Assembly broke away from the already ancient Plan of Union. The "New School" body adhered to it, and did its foreign missionary work with us through the American Board, and its work in our own country through the American Home Missionary Society. Accordingly the General Association of California and the body known as the New School Presbytery held their annual meetings 49 48 at the same place and time. All the business was transacted in what we called "joint meetings," at which we considered the subjects or projects that came up for consideration precisely as if we all belonged to one denomination. And it was only after all the business before us had been fully considered and acted upon, that each body met in its own session and went through the form of adopting whatever had been adopted, and entering the whole on the records without further discussion.

One could hardly conceive of a plan of union more nearly perfect than this. But it was an artificial union. We were tied together, and the knot held for several years, but with what effect? Mutual jealousy, which often came close to the destruction of unity. From our New School Presbyterian brethren would come up the complaint that the other party to the Union was planning to "Congregationalize the state." It may be that a similar complaint arose from our side of the house, but I never heard of it. It was the understanding on which these two denominations worked together that any company of Christians proposing to organize a church and to seek the aid of the A.H.M.S. for its support, was to choose freely and without influence from any outside quarter whether it would be Presbyterian or Congregational.

Yet it was a recent tradition in 1853, and one never denied at that time, that when a representative of the A.H.M.S. went to San Jose to organize a church, he found a body of New England Congregationalists there and that they proposed to make it Congregational. He labored with them long, saying 50 49 that "a strong government was necessary in these frontier fields." To his urgency the little company yeilded so far as to allow the little church to bear the name of Presbyterian, but with no session and no ecclesiastical relation to the Presbytery. And this continued to be the case for more than ten years. It was also a tradition that this same missionary went to Santa Cruz to organize a church, and began the same process of persuasion, but without success. He was told that if he could not aid them in organizing a Congregational church, he might go home. It is due to their obstinate stand for their right to be what they preferred to be, that we owe the useful life of our church in that city during now much more than half a century.

As I look back on that first of my service in the ministry, I am surprised that no break in the apparent unity took place, notwithstanding such occurrences of which I have just now written. For in the East the discussion of our mutual relations, in view of the fact that in the work of the Home Missionary Society it was found that two-thirds of the funds came from Congregational sources and two-thirds went to Presbyterian undertakings, and in view of other facts to which I will soon allude, had become, while always courteous, decidely warm.

Some pastors and laymen living in New York and the states west of it, made the discovery to which New England Congregationalists had somehow been blinded, that their polity was worthy to be upheld, and among these were Henry C. Bowen, a prominent merchant of New York, and Rev. J. C. Holbrook of 51 50 Dubuque, Iowa. The former with others likeminded ventured to organize in New York City the Tabernacle Church, an invasion of Presbyterian territory so monstrous that the death of this Congregationalist intruder was in many quarters expected to occur within its first year. I remember distinctly hearing this matter discussed at my father's table, to which Congregational ministers were often invited. Then a further and still bolder innovation occurred, in the establishment of a Congregational newspaper in that city under the name of "The Independent." There were two Presbyterian papers, one Old School and the other New School, the former "The Observer," the latter "The Evangelist." How could there be room for another, Congregational? But Dr. Leonard Bacon, Dr. Joseph P. Thompson, and young Richard S. Storrs were to be the editors, and Henry Ward Beecher was to be a weekly contributor; and such a combination of ability, vitality and influence put the paper in a place of power at once. Its chief Western correspondent was the brother whom I have already named, Rev. J. C. Holbrook.

I remember reading the first issue of this paper and being captivated by it. I remember also that the first article on the first page was always signed by the initials J. C. H. There was a frankness and courage, as well as candor and clearness, about these articles which caused them to be invariably the first ones read by me. As I remember them, they all centered in this one claim, the right of a minister to be a Congregationalist and to stand for Congregationalism in what was then called the Far West, and the right 52 51 and duty of Congregationalists to give the newer regions of our country the blessings that our polity was fitted to convey. He demonstrated the fitness of our polity for pioneer work by showing the success which had attended the churches already established. He showed the ease with which our polity yields itself to the use of Christians of various denominations desiring to establish in a new town one strong union church instead of three or four rival churches sick and half starved. He illustrated the readiness with which such churches found fellowship among us and were aided by us, the liberty of thought among us, opening the way for a welcome to whatever light might break forth out of God's Word. These elements of Congregationalism and others were dwelt upon in such a way as not only to show that no other polity is so good as this for frontier work, and that therefore it ought to have at last a fair chance; but also to turn the tide of feeling, East as well as West, to the fact that it is more reasonable and more useful to stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free, than it is to stand fast for for doctrinal "traditions of men," for the "five points of Calvinism" or any other system of man-made philosophy of religion. At the same time Dr. Holbook valiantly defended the substantial orthodoxy of Congregational churches and pastors in the West, as against the insinuations that had bred distrust of them even in New England, as though they insisted on being Congregational in order that they might not be disturbed in their heterodox teachings.

It was a real revolution which was thus produced 53 52 among New England Congregationalists. Students graduating from Andover Seminary were no longer advised to become Presbyterians if they came West. The tradition which had been quite generally acquiesced in, that the proper western boundary of Congregationalism was the Byram River, a small stream running along the western line of Connecticut, was discarded, and Congregationalists were urged that by right and by virtue of a call of solemn duty we should claim that "the boundless continent is ours."

I said above that considering this aroused sentiment among Congregationalists in the East, I am surprised that no break occurred in our union or our seeming unity, in view of such contraventions as I referred to of the unwritten but real agreement between the two parties in the "Plan of Union." Being in San Francisco, I probably should have discovered a rising discontent, if any had existed, in Congregational quarters. Indeed, it is a surprise to me now in looking back to realize that even so staunch and ardent a Congregationalist as I had come to be was undisturbed by them.

I remember, however, being sternly rebuked by the pastor of the church in San Jose, himself afterwards a zealous Congregationalist, because as correspondent of our Boston weekly I had referred to the strange state of things here--a Presbyterian church with no session and no relation to the Presbytery. As to myself, I can with absolute truthfulness affirm that I was careful to do what seemed to me to be honorable under the Plan of Union. Although both of the churches which I organized before we were set free 54 53 from the shackles of that plan, became Congregational, I am sure that it was not through any persuasions of mine. I stated the option which the brethren had and gave them the opportunity of using it; and in our joint meetings I was conscious of a purpose to speak and act as if we were not two but one.

I remember with undying interest the first meeting of our Association which I attended. It was held at Nevada City, and almost all, perhaps all, of our ministers were present. The journey was a long one. We left San Francisco by steamboat in the afternoon and reached Sacramento the next morning. We staged it from there to Nevada City, about ninety miles. The first thirty or more were across the Sacramento Valley, as yet unbroken by the plough. The abundant rains that had flooded the valley in the winter had left the soil in good condition for the production of its native flowers. The surface was not flat but wind blown through the years into low and long ridges; so that, as I looked out over the expanse from the top of the stage, they seemed like the waves of a flowery sea. I think I have never since seen anything of the sort quite so beautiful. No desert land was that. Ascending at length the foothills, and ever and anon invited to walk out of pity for weary steeds, I saw here and there a miner with his cradle and his pan practising the infant art which by and by I was to see turning the course of rivers, piercing the mountains, bringing low high hills with the tremendous force of the water brought from far and dropping ninety feet or more.

Nevada City interested me greatly. It is an 55 54 interesting city still. It and its near neighbor, Grass Valley, have survived the uncertainties of mining better, I think, than any others of the once hustling mining towns. We found there a newly finished and furnished church building, patterned after the standard New England village edifice. It had cost eight thousand dollars. It had its church bell which called together audiences such as it was a privilege and pleasure to address. There were cordial welcomes to such hospitalities as pioneer conditions would admit of; and the discussions were concerning great enterprises in the domains of morals, education and religion. Among them was a prohibitory liquor law, upon which the people were somehow to vote at the next election, and a college. We were not so numerous then as to render it impossible to give every one a chance to speak frankly and fully of the work he had in hand, and to intersperse with these reports prayers one for the other. The only part which I, the youngest of them all, ventured to take, was to preach on one evening and to express congratulations in response to a report from Mr. Bell that he would soon leave Columbia to undertake the gathering in Oakland of a Presbyterian Church. There were special reasons for my doing this which need not be recited here.

The next gathering of ministers of these two denominations thus (one would say) happily yoked together, which has left any special reminiscence with me, had for its intent the beginning of practical endeavors for the establishment of a Christian college, the very one which at length developed into the College of California and was afterwards transferred to 56 55 the state and is now its University. We were selecting a number of Christian men, mainly laymen, I believe, to constitute its first board of trustees, and I looked on somewhat amused at the carefulness exercised to have exactly one-half of them Presbyterians and one-half Congregationalists. Major A. B. Eaton, U.S.A, one of God's noblemen both by nature and grace, an elder in the Howard Church, was named as a Presbyterian. Now he had been my chief counsellor and helper in my work, and had said to me more than once, "It seems strange that though I am a Congregationalist in principle and preference, it always falls to my lot to work in Presbyterian churches." So when my Presbterian brethren were putting him forward as one of their representatives, I said, as a piece of pleasantry, "Look out, you Presbyterians, Major Eaton is a Congregationalist!" It seems to me that if I had touched a lighted match to a can of powder, there could have been no greater commotion. I don't remember how it ended, but I can never forget the rebuke administered to me by Mr. Willey. The words were few and not discourteous, for I cannot conceive of him as guilty of discourtesy; but I know that I wilted under them and learned a new lesson which subsequent years have wrought into the very texture of my thought about Union as contrasted with Unity.

We continued to hold these joint meetings and to ratify the action taken at them at separate meetings without further discussion till 1860, when a discussion arose respecting the American Home Missionary Society, of which no trace appears in the minutes, but 57 56 which changed materially the attitude of the two bodies towards each other. The resolution as adopted by us was reported by Rev. B. N. Seymour and Rev. E. S. Lacy, and read as follows:

"Whereas, there is in California a great and pressing need of ministers of the Gospel, and

"Whereas, our chief help in times past for their supply and support has been the A.H.M. Society, and

"Whereas, we have still mainly to rely upon that Society in the future for assistance, therefore

"Resolved, that California owes to the American Home Missionary Society a debt which will bind us to it with tenderest ties:

"2. That we feel perfectly satisfied with its catholic basis of operation, its impartial and even-handed distribution of funds among us as committed to its care, and its capacity to meet all the needs of a Home Missionary Society in this state; and we cordially commend it to our churches and people as worthy of entire confidence and hearty support."

Such a report read now sixty-one years after its adoption, certainly looks harmless enough. Possibly, however, even now one scrutinizing it carefully would see in its preamble a recital of facts so manifest as scarcely to need assertion, and even to suggest that the gratitude expressed was of the sort defined as "a lively sense of favors yet to come." Then, studying its resolutions one possibly would feel a certain strong, emphatic pulse which the subject matter hardly justifies.

The fact is that the report was the outcome of a long and warm debate in which we Congregationalists affirmed unanimously the facts stated in the 58 57 resolutions; while our Presbyterian brethren with almost equal unanimity, without distinctly denying the truth of the statements made, opposed their adoption. The debate, as I remember it, began on a Saturday afternoon and was continued well into the evening, and the resolutions were finally adopted by a decisive majority, made up, however, as the Presbyterians affirmed, by the fact that the First Congregational Church in San Francisco was represented in the joint meeting by its pastor and no less than ten delegates. I doubt whether I then understood their real reasons for opposing so harmless a deliverance as this seems to be. I certainly do not understand them now. Certainly there was no partiality shown by the A.H.M.S. to Congregationalists or Congregationalism. Dr. Warren in a paper prepared for the meeting of our General Association at the close of its first decade, states that of the twenty-three missionaries sent out by the Society "while it worked under the Plan of Union," fifteen were Presbyterians and eight were Congregationalists. And I am sure that the funds expended were in about the same proportion. However, the vote having been taken too late in the evening for the two bodies to meet separately, according to our custom, and go through the formal process of entering on their records the action taken at the "joint meeting," each body adjourned to meet on Monday morning.

We had our usual joint meetings on Sunday, not for business but for worship and preaching, and assembled on Monday, each body by itself, to complete the business. While this was going on in our 59 58 meeting, a deputation from the Synod appeared asking that they be excused from adopting the endorsement of the A.H. M.S. which had been passed by the joint meeting. I was moderator that year and was presiding. While others seemed to hesitate, I saw in this request an open door for us to liberty; for the Plan of Union had really put us in bondage. The intense and prolonged discussion of Saturday had shown us clearly that union was not fostering unity, but rather was destroying it; that each of the two bodies chafed under its invisible but severe restraint; that no Congregationalist could represent the Home Missionary Society in California without being accused of Congregationalizing the state, however cautious he might be to avoid sectarian action. Accordingly, I stepped out from the chair and asked the deputation if they had carefully weighed their request; if they had seen that it broke a precedent hitherto inviolate and sacred, and that hereafter no decision reached in the joint meeting would control the action of either body. They replied, as I hoped they would, that they had considered all this. Whereupon I earnestly urged that we relieve our brethren from any such obligations, and this was carried. And though we continued to meet at the same time and place and had union meetings for worship, my recollection is that no "joint meeting" for business was ever held again.

I suppose that New School Presbyterian churches were still aided by the A.H.M.S. till 1869, when the schism ceased and the New School and Old School bodies came together, agreeing to prosecute their missionary work both Home and Foreign through the 60 59 denominational Boards, and the A.H.M.S. was left to represent and act for the Congregational churches alone. Since then there has been a growing unity between these great bodies of Christian people. So far as I know there has been no real chafing between them, and the comity of which we Congregationalists have always been the advocates has been reciprocated by our Presbyterian brethren in several marked instances. And if I may be allowed to leap over intervening years in a few words of glad and grateful reminiscence, I will say that no sweeter fellowship has ever in my experience existed between two neighboring churches than grew up between the Trinity Presbyterian and Bethany Congregational churches in San Francisco in the closing years of my pastorate. We observed Thanksgiving Day together, the Trinity pastor preaching at Bethany one year and the Bethany pastor at Trinity on the next; and the size of the audiences was such as showed how much we liked to meet together. We observed the Week of Prayer together year after year and worked together in evangelistic campaigns, and I am sure that each church rejoiced in the prosperity of the other. It was unity without the bonds of union.

A few words more respecting the bearing of this unity through liberty upon the meetings of our General Association, now better named our State Conference. One thing that I observed with surprise at the very beginning of this close reunion with our Presbyterian brethren was the apparent amusement with which in talking about recent meetings of Presbytery or Synod they would tell how some brother 61 60 "threw hot shot" at another, or of some sharp repartee that in some intense debate was lodged like an arrow in some debater's breast. Occasionally I have attended these meetings, and may have been strangely unfortunate in those upon which I have fallen, but I cannot remember even so much as one in which I failed to find some trace at least of this peculiarity, whereas in these sixty-seven years in which I have been absent from but two or three of the meetings of our Association, I have never but once heard an angry word uttered, and that was when a talkative brother was called to order because he was exceeding the time allotted him.

It is not because we have been better men, more peaceable and courteous than our neighbors, far otherwise; but because we have a better system, the very life-blood of which is in the ancient saying, "In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, and in all things charity." We exercise no lordship over one another; we differ, discuss, resolve, but never with the whip-hand in any one's possession, or even in that of the Conference itself.

The present outreach for union of Christians of every sort in one ecclesiastical organization is blind to the lessons of the past, and not attent to the teachings of the New Testament. It was not such a union that Christ prayed for. He prayed for unity , and to this we are approaching like different divisions in one great army of the Lord, not required to call any man master, but dwelling and working each in the place and the way appointed him by the indwelling Lord, 62 61 and thus coming into "the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace."

Since writing the above, my eye has fallen upon the following testimony from our first and truly great pioneer, Rev. A. J. Benton, D.D., given at the meeting of our General Association in 1870:

"Our Congregationalism has proven itself a polity promotive of harmony and good will. It has here felt no quarrel. It has produced no unpleasant frictions. It has been disturbed by no jealousies. It has witnessed none but the most generous rivalries. Not a harsh measure has been adopted. Not a single unkind word has been spoken. Not an unworthy feeling has been indulged. Nowhere has a root of bitterness been planted. Each has given the other his liberty and has greatly enjoyed his own. Simple loyalty to the Master and sympathy for the cause have been the chains of gold which have bound ministers and members and churches together; and, so tied, they are still working on harmoniously toward the glorious hopes of all Christendom."

63 62

CHAPTER VI.

THE GREENWICH STREET CHURCH IN SAN FRANCISCO

CHAPTER III. closed with an account of the beginning of the work assigned to me and the erection and dedication of the house of worship which came to be known as "The Greenwich Street Church." A recital of the reminiscences which cluster about it would perhaps not seem to be important enough to be given here, were it not that it exemplifies one marked phase of early church history in California. From this one you may learn the fortunes not of all but of many of our undertakings, in seeking to establish here the kingdom of God.

I had, in my simplicity, and in accordance with all that I had known respecting the organization of new churches in New England cities, supposed that when the edifice was ready for occupancy, if not before that, I should learn of a colony, large or small, going with me as a nucleus; at any rate, if I was to be a sort of Moses, I would have an Aaron and a Hur. Accordingly I went to the brother who doubtless suggested that this field should be occupied, and whose church would naturally count any church that I might gather, as its first-born child, to ask who were going with me into the new work. The reply was, "I don't know of any one. You will have to do as the rest of us have done." This was conclusive, but it was not quite true; for he himself, whether sent for, as some 64 63 say, or coming of his own accord, as I always heard, certainly found a group of men prepared to welcome him and to support him; and Mr. Willey, coming from Monterey to the Howard Presbyterian Church, either found it already organized or the colony all ready to be thus organized. I was called to go to the work alone. Dr. Benton went in like manner to Sacramento, but with this advantage, that he was first on the ground, and people desiring a church had no one to go to but him. Still my predicament was not unlike that of most of our pioneers.

Another excuse for some dismay transpired during that first week after that really triumphal dedication service. I began at once a canvass of the field. If I must hunt up my material, I must do it at once, for it would break the spell badly and almost doom the enterprise if for my first regular service I should have no audience. So with all speed I made my way from house to house, only to come to the end of the week with the conviction that at least four-fifths of our neighbors could not speak English, while I could speak nothing else. Also the very great majority of the residents in that part of the city were Romanists. I remember, however, that I cheered myself with the thought that Christ sent me there and would certainly stand by me. I remember also the word of great cheer that came to me from Major Eaton, saying, "I shall be there," although I knew that it probably would be only for that Sunday. If I remember correctly, sixty persons were present, and I felt that the first crisis had been successfully passed. A Sunday School was organized immediately after the morning 65 64 service, with an equally encouraging attendance. At length a church was organized with thirteen members. They were good, downright, earnest people, and at our first communion season the harvest began with the reception of two members on confession of faith, and several others I think by letter.

Of course we were dependent on the American Home Missionary Society for almost all the income, and in those days the "cost of living," with flour at $10.00 for a sack of fifty pounds, and other things (except salmon!) in proportion, and with the rent of five small rooms whose walls were of cotton cloth covered with flimsy wall paper, accounted low at $60 per month, a pastor had to economize closely to live on $200 per month. But there came among us very soon a noble Christian, a retired sea-captain, who had engaged in the sale of bricks, and as a boom in building permanent business structures had now broken out in San Francisco, he was doing a large and very profitable business. From the day on which he joined the church, he put his very life-blood into it; and when, much less than a year after the enterprise was started, he heard that we were dependent on a missionary society, he declared that this must not be. "I am going to take it off from that society," he said, and he did it at an expense to himself of $125.00 per month. In that same year a parsonage was built on the rear of the church lot, to be paid for in installments of $75.00 per month, and in the next year the leased lot, for which, however, thanks to the third gentleman in my board of trustees, Mr. S. M. Bowman, we were charged only the nominal sum of $1.00 per annum, 66 65 so as to give the lease a legal standing, was purchased. Of course in all this we had aid from friends in other churches, but our current expenses we met unaided. The responses of our members to appeals for service were met with a spirit which filled the young pastor's heart with good cheer. We had then a city Tract Society which undertook to divide the inhabited portion of the city into districts, asking each church to assume the care of one district. There were monthly meetings for reports, and Greenwich Street Church, though youngest and smallest of them all, seemed generally to be second to none in the number of visits made and tracts distributed.

There were thus for us two happy, growing, fruitful years, till one morning San Francisco was startled, and for the time almost benumbed, by the news that the great banking firm of Page, Bacon & Co. had closed its doors. It was a stroke such as never before or since that day any infant city of (say) 50,000 people has had to endure. This bank had been shipping to New York each fortnight from $2,500,000 to $3,000,000 worth of gold dust, more than twice as much as all other banks combined. It had the unlimited confidence of the whole State. Every other bank in the city also closed its doors, though three of them opened again in two days. Several never opened again, among these two savings banks into which many wage earners had been pouring their savings. There seemed to be a complete break-down of mutual confidence.* Building ceased. A large majority of 67 66 wage-earners must have been thrown out of employment. And it was among these almost wholly that our membership was found. Our good Deacon Higgins had made large contracts with brick-makers based on the business of the closing year, and while these contracts bound him, and the bricks were furnished, he found for them no sale. One after another of our members announced that they were compelled to leave the city. It was on July 4th, 1855, at the house of one of our deacons at which my wife and I and Deacon Higgins and his wife were invited to dine, that Deacon Higgins said, "I must go to sea again." The other deacon, a carpenter, responded, "And I must go to Oroville," a then new mining town nearly two hundred miles north of us, where new buildings were greatly in demand; and a third person not a member of the church but a great helper and one of our trustees, said, "My business is ruined. I am going back to Lowell."

Out of 1,000 business houses, 300 failed. There were 197 petitions of insolvency.--Atherton's "Intimate History of California," p. 171.

I had long realized that I was not doing such work as I came to California to do. I saw that a large proportion of the attendants on our services came past other churches to get to us, that almost any young man not favored as I was for pioneer work could have done what I was doing, and I was sustained in occupying a place so comfortable and so much "like home" only by the fact that I had heard in the advice of that committee the voice of the Lord. It may be that I acted rashly, without due consultation with others or due waiting on the Lord, but before I reached home that evening, my mind was made 68 67 up and I presented my resignation to the church on the following Sabbath, in order to go out somewhere on the frontier.

I recommended that the church be dissolved, its property sold, its little debt of $800 be paid and the balance restored to the A.H.M.S. But the brother who was then the agent of that society protested. According to statements made to me by the few who still clung to the hope that the church could recover its strength, this brother told them that he would see that they had pastoral care, and that if he could not be with them himself he would surely send a suitable substitute. They were led to expect that he would himself be with them quite regularly. He did preach for them on one Sunday. The next Sunday, without sending the substitute or giving them any notice of his own absence, he accepted an invitation to supply another church, and the little company came together to wait in vain and then disperse. Thus deserted, the church at length died, and some years after, I met the debt through a compromise settlement, by paying $250 from my own slender purse.

Disappointments substantially similar to this have occurred again and again in the history of our Congregational church, and equally in those of other denominations. Men whose presence and influence led to the founding of these churches "went home" (the term used for a return to the East), or else caught what was called a "fever" (the "Frazer river fever" or the "Washoe fever" or some other one which raged less fiercely or on a smaller domain and thus failed to become historical), and were off to the 69 68 new field, scarcely stopping to say good-bye. Villages quite substantially built with expensive brick buildings were thus left quite desolate, and churches died, or ministers, discouraged by such desertions and the uncertainty of returns for hard pioneer service, left for fairer fields, and their places could not be filled. At an annual convention of Baptist churches held in 1867, no less than fifty-five churches were reported to be extinct. In the same year thirteen Presbyterian churches were reported upon in the same manner, among Congregationalists only four. It should be remembered in connection with such facts that those who wrought here were almost without exception young men, sometimes more eager than wise, and that for us all the circumstances in which we wrought were unprecedented. Lessons of experience were yet to be learned, and experience is a pitiless teacher whose lessons are beaten into us by hard blows.

70 69

CHAPTER VII.

TEN YEARS ON THE FRONTIER

AS SOON as it became known that I was leaving San Francisco and desired to go to the frontier and the mines, I received from my ship-mate and dear friend, Rev. John G. Hale, of Grass Valley, a letter in which he called my attention to Downieville, forty miles beyond Nevada City, north-easterly. It was the county seat of Sierra County, which, though small in area, was then, perhaps, the largest gold-producing county in the State. It was studded with mining camps, several of which, by virtue of their size and amount of business and probable permanency, deserved to be regarded not as camps but as towns. Downieville was situated at the forks of the North Fork of the Yuba river, itself a branch of the Feather river, which in turn was a branch of the Sacramento. The bed of this stream and of its branches had been exceedingly rich in gold, and so had also been the flats made by it, as it raced along in its crooked defile in the deepest canyon of the Sierra Nevada. Mr. Hale knew of one or two Christian men living there who, he believed, would welcome me and coo¨perate with me. He finally proffered, if I would visit the place, to go with me, provided I would come and do a Sunday's preaching for him. I welcomed the suggestion, fulfilled the conditions, and on Monday morning we started. The journey was by stage to Forest City, a village of Sierra County, from which Downieville was, even by 71 70 the longest way, only six miles further on, but into the depths of that canyon no stage had ever yet come. A rough road had indeed been made, down which the "mountain schooners," alias wagons, immense in size and strength, could safely go, drawn by six or eight mules, where hauling was necessary, held back by chained wheels where down the specially steep pitches the only safe way was to slide. These wagons returned empty, since the only export from Downieville was gold dust, otherwise they could never have been drawn up over such a road.

The rate of travel was such that I had plenty of time to study not only the country, but what was more to my purpose, the men in it. I was particularly observant of a Methodist minister stationed at Forest City, whose ways of approaching men and talking with them, of being at home with them, divesting himself of the professional and the ecclesiastical, were better for me than many a seminary lecture on the minister as a man among men. We went purposely incognito, and I never had a chance to thank him for the lessons I received.

After spending the night at Forest City, we concluded to foot it to Downieville. We might have gone on an express (mule), train, but the charges were steep and we verily thought that we could outtravel the train. It was a memorable walk, with abundant experience, which we might have escaped but rather coveted, of making a pathless tramp through the chapparal, the result of which was that I entered the town, which was to be my home, with pantaloons so torn that it was quite a relief to find, 72 71 at my very entrance on the village, a clothing store at which I could provide for myself decent apparel. Mr. Hale knew of Dr. George C. Chase, and I found him,--a graduate of Dartmouth College, a well-trained physician and a thoroughly consecrated Christian. His office became my head-quarters, and he was able to make me acquainted with a few others more or less like-minded. The distances could not be large, for the little vale consisting of three small flats formed by flooded mountain streams gave only crowded quarters for a town. So I made acquaintance rapidly, and heard many encouraging responses to the suggestion that I come to live among them as a preacher. One prominent man assured me that I would get along all right if I "wasn't too hard on people's peccadilloes." And I thought that he spoke the thought of many others not so frank as he. The principal places of business were the gambling saloons. Of course each one of these had its shining bar and its facilities for every kind of deadly vice. Prostitution was absolutely shameless, and legitimate business was also evidently brisk and profitable. There were several homelike looking houses, though only one, I believe, that could boast of plastered walls.

After getting well rested, Mr. Hale commenced his return to Grass Valley, and somewhat stirring events followed. On Friday afternoon, in the largest and finest gambling house, a professional gambler shot a respected miner, killing him instantly. The miner was not himself a gambler, but it was often necessary for a man to enter a gambling house in order to find the men he wished to do business with. The 73 72 murderer was spirited away, and several years elapsed before he was arrested. I was invited to conduct the funeral, which would be held on Sunday morning. On Saturday I was invited to dine with the leading family in the village, the husband and father being the expressman and banker. He was not at home, but his wife, his mother, his sister and his confidential clerk made up a pleasant circle as we sat at the table, Suddenly, however, in the midst of the meal, every one of them rose excitedly from their seats and rushed to the front door, and I was left alone. When they returned, their apology was that some criminal under arrest who had said that if he ever found Sam Langton (the husband of the family) on the trail, he would shoot him, had broken from the jail and was at large. Of course the visit was a brief one, as I did not know how to minister peace of mind to strangers under such anxieties.

The next morning the town was so crowded that one could hardly move in the narrow streets. I stood on a wine box at the very street corner at which the saloon stood in which the murder took place, and after prayer and the reading of Scripture I raised the question, Who is responsible for such a tragedy as this? I spoke calmly but frankly, and arraigned the dispensers of "fire water" and the promoters of such amusements as started hot blood, and finally said that, speaking in ignorance of the conditions in this community in which I was an utter stranger, and accusing none, yet speaking what would be pertinent and timely in a certain community with which I was well acquainted, I would affirm that if there was a 74 73 jury-man who in violation of his oath and in contradiction of the facts, had set a murderer free, he was responsible; that if there was a judge who had so charged a jury as to bring about a failure of justice, he was responsible. I went on to affirm that law-abiding citizens were entitled to the protection of the law, through its prescribed forms, by all means, if possible, but in any event they were entitled to its protection.

This caused me at the outset of my work to be dubbed "The mob-law minister." Arrangements were made for me to preach in the evening in an unfinished and weather-beaten building designed for a church, but now used as a hall for some lodges. It was seated as lodge rooms generally are, with benches along the sides and a broad open space in the center. When I reached the place I was surprised to find every seat occupied. On going to the platform and facing the audience, my eyes fell upon a man sitting on the front seat half way towards the other end of the room. To this day I do not know what there was in the pale face, or those keen blue eyes or that almost colorless hair, to hold my gaze, but it was held, and so strongly that now after more than sixty years I see him there. I came afterwards to know that he was the managing partner in that large gambling room in which the murder was committed, and, I believe, the political boss of the county. And with this information came the additional statement that he had said that he was going to that meeting and "If that fellow gets off any more of such stuff I will shoot him." It was probably to this that I owed the presence of the crowd. What I might have done, young-blooded as I was, if 75 74 I had known of the threat, I cannot tell, but as it was, I sought to turn to spiritual uses that which had occurred, by speaking from the text, "What is your life?"

The Mr. Langton of whom I have spoken, and who owned most of the "express" mule trains centering in Downieville, gave me the great help of a free pass in visiting some important mining towns in the northern part of the county, all of which I hoped to reach with some healthful moral influence and with the saving gospel of Christ. And I made my way back to San Francisco, attended the sessions of the Association and Presbytery, and as soon as possible afterwards my wife and I, with the good motherly wife of that one of my deacons who was going to Oroville but had most kindly decided to go instead with us to Downieville, started for our new field and home. I look back upon that journey with admiration for those two ladies. The steamer to Marysville was comfortable, the stage ride from there to Camptonville was endurable, the mule ride of twenty miles from Camptonville to Downieville, upon a rough, narrow trail, on which at scores of points a mule's misstep would mean a fatal fall,--made by ladies neither of whom ever before had sat on a saddle, and this without a murmur either on the way or afterwards,--it meant for me Christian heroism . We all three became well used to this is the years following, and the mule that in most quarters has an ill name which he does not deserve, became to us an object of sincere respect, I might almost add, of real affection, so careful they were, so sure-footed, so 76 75 intelligent, so brave to move right on, no matter how narrow the trail or how steep the cliff above it and below.

We had sent on ahead our furniture, including a piano, and our stores for full four months, and when we reached the place it had arrived and had been stored for us in a little three-roomed cottage on a rather roomy flat made long ago by a tremendous slide from the steep and lofty bank, and already for some reason dubbed by the town as "Piety Flat." I started out at once to find larger quarters, but when I returned, disgusted at my failure, I found that my two ladies had taken possession and were already unpacking the goods. So I submitted with what grace I could command, and we lived in peace and comfort, two families in three rooms, till I could build my home on a portion of the flat to which I was able to get some sort of a title, and my good deacon did the work and then built for himself, next door.

We found on this flat an octagonal structure, the walls about eighteen feet high, which had just been put up and had been dubbed "The Downieville Amphitheater." In this, it had been advertised that there would be on the next Sunday afternoon a bull and California lion fight. The proprietor welcomed his new neighbors very cordially and remarked to me that he wished he had known we were coming, for he would have brought along another bull and given the church a benefit! On Sunday morning we repaired to the old hall of which I have spoken, and I conducted my first regular service. There was no such crowd as I saw on the previous occasion; the 77 76 audience numbered twenty-two. In the afternoon the hillside was almost black with men sitting and waiting to see the fight. I don't know how many paid their way in, but I was credibly informed that the man could not contrive to make either the lion or the bull come out of the corners to which they had slunk away, as distant as possible each from the other.

Meanwhile a group of Christian men had come to see us and to bid us welcome. The piano had been set up and was found to be in perfect tune, notwithstanding its long, rough ride. We had books enough for all our callers, and we sang together the dear old familiar hymns, till our little house was surrounded by men listening, possibly some of them with moistened eyes. I preached also in the evening, but to a still smaller congregation. On the next Sunday we moved to quarters more snug and cozy, the office of the justice of the peace, who was a Methodist church member and willing so far to help us, though a little anxious about its bearing on his own popularity. After awhile we were able to rent a comfortable little hall, at which we were content to stay till we could build a church. It was a day of small things, to human view, and no skill of mine could make it otherwise. I widened the work somewhat by holding services at outstations, always preaching three times on Sunday. A church was organized within a few months after my arrival, small in numbers but spiritually rich in its material. While it had scarcely thirty members, it undertook the erection of a comely edifice which would cost about $4,000. My part in this undertaking was, as usual in pioneer fields, to provide the 78 77 funds. The cost would be much greater than our members could supply, though there was not one stingy spirit among them. Citizens were solicited, but the great majority had no interest in religion and very little in a town in which they were tarrying for the little time which they imagined would be necessary to "make their pile," so as to start for home! But the whole region was canvassed. Down into deep mines I went when the "boss" was kindly enough disposed to allow me and to be my guide. And I really made friends with men whom I had never seen before, through my gratitude for a subscription of two dollars more or less, which they would authorize the boss to pay and charge to them.

At length the building was erected as to its exterior, and a beauty it was. We proposed to occupy it, in spite of its unfinished interior, and take a rest for awhile. Every bill was paid as it fell due, which to our town's people was a great surprise and won us their good will. The day came on which I could give notice that the next Sunday's services would be in the new church. But on Friday the whole business part of the town was burned, and the last building to fall was our church. My own home escaped. How vividly I remember the service held there for prayer and conference as to whether we would abandon the undertaking or would try again. Members, in their own loss and poverty, pledged generously. Even while the flames were consuming the building, one Christian miner had reached my home from his camp on the mountains four miles away, with the words leaping from his lips, "A hundred dollars, Mr. 79 78 Pond, for another church." The resolve was to try it again, and as soon as I could get away I commenced a canvass among our churches, going as far as San Francisco for aid. The Congregational Union had then begun its beneficent work, now carried on under the name of the Church Building Society, and it came to our help with a pledge of $500. Again the miners and friends, business men in villages in the vicinity at which I was maintaining outstations, were called upon, and the response was more hearty because of sympathy with us in our loss. But we did not aim this time at a fair exterior. We could build of bricks and stone a basement structure, make it cozy and comfortable within, and wait for awhile to erect upon it, of the same materials, such a meeting-house as would befit the place. It was a great day when we dedicated this chapel. A sufficient amount was subscribed at the dedication and speedily collected, to enable us to draw our $500 from the Union and to be free of debt except $500, which, not then due, remained of expense incurred in the erection of the burned edifice and for which the notes of the church had been accepted by our several creditors, payable in five years without interest. These notes were all paid when due, though most of our creditors had scattered widely, and I do not remember that a single one of them pressed us to pay. Quite a gathering of ministers came to help us dedicate the building, among them Rev. E. S. Lacy, of the First Congregational Church in San Francisco. One of them in reporting the service spoke of the building as being "like the religion that would be taught there, very lowly 80 79 but substantial without, very cozy and comforting within."

One who has never passed through a similar experience can hardly know the sense of relief, or the joy, with which I commenced a real pastoral work again at home with my flock in our cozy fold; also, at home once more in my study, with my books which for so long had almost seemed to eye me reproachfully for my neglect of them; conscious also that the hard experience had won for me a place not only in Downieville but in the whole county, which would, I hoped, enable me to have a hearing wherever in it I might go to spend a night, whether on Sunday or on a week-day.

This hope was fulfilled. Sometimes in unoccupied theatres, sometimes in the dining-rooms of the hotels or of miners' boarding houses, sometimes in miners' cabins, I carried the message. Once in a great while the audience would approach one hundred. Once it numbered only seven. But that service was a remarkable one, for as a result of it, directly or indirectly, my church in Downieville received more members on confession of faith than, so far as I know, were ever added to any church in all my pastoral work as the result of a single service. It was more than twice as many as were present that day.

There is a passage in the prophecy of Ezekiel which for more than half a century has touched a tender chord of sympathy in my heart: "The word of Jehovah came unto me saying, `Son of man, behold I take away from thee the desire of thine eyes with a stroke.'...So I spake unto the people in the 81 80 morning, and at even my wife died" (Ezek. 24:15-18). On June 3rd, 1860, nearly five years after we entered Downieville, a similar word of Jehovah-Jesus came to me. In scarcely twenty-four hours after we began to think my wife's case dangerous, she left the frame in which she had lived during twenty-eight years and had well served from early childhood to that day the Lord her Saviour. She left it to be clothed upon with her new body, celestial and eternal. In our company on the Trade Wind she was the first to be taken and the youngest of us all. It would be aside from the purpose with which these Reminiscences are written, to give a biography of her or even to picture her in the rare beauty of her person or the far rarer beauty of her character. But it will help to show some of the finer qualities of mining communities and of many of the miners themselves in those days if I venture to speak of the way in which the news of her departure was received. She had been my very efficient help-meet in my work as a pastor, but with a modesty and quietude and an absence of any apparent prominence, such that I had no conception of the place she had unconsciously gained in the hearts of all sorts of people. The crowded audience at her funeral was made up not only of our own town's people but of miners who had tramped from villages four or five miles away, on trails rough and steep. The town bell was tolled on this occasion for the first time. All places of business were closed, not even excepting the saloons. The hush along the narrow streets was significant of a general sense of sorrow and of loss. There was then in what is now the State of Nevada 82 81 a company of volunteer soldiers enlisted in Downieville in view of an impending Indian war. On their return, the captain told me that the news of her death "threw a pall on the whole camp." It was a lesson which has helped me ever since in measuring the power of "unconscious influence."

It was good for me to be thus afflicted, great though my loss and sorrow was. No other fact in my whole life, except my conversion, had so much to do with the making of my character or with the spirit and the manner of my ministry. My heart lingers still about that "stroke" so heavy from my Father's hand. I remember the heart searchings which led to an absolute reversal in some respects in the current of my life, so that if I am able to extend sympathy to others, if I have learned in any good measure to look through others' eyes, if I have made a personal, living, present Christ the center, the very core of my preaching and have brought that Best of Friends into closer relations with other hearts, I owe it in great measure to her who "being dead yet speaketh."

She was thoughtful of me and the little ones whom God had given us, leaving us a legacy whose value cannot be expressed in gold. Her younger sister had married a brother in the ministry, the youngest member of our class both in college and in the Seminary. I was next to him with only three months between us. He had become as dear to me as any brother could be. Six months before my wife's death he had been welcomed to the place prepared for him in Heaven. Six weeks before that their only child had 83 82 preceded him, so that our sister was left in unspeakable loneliness.

A few moments before my wife was taken, she said to me, with a sweetness in her tone that even to this day seems to have in it an echo from the open gate of Heaven: "If you think well of it, I would like to have Helen come out to care for our children." I replied that I would "do my utmost to bring it to pass." Thus she provided the best of mothers for the children and a help-meet of immeasurable value who continued with me for fifty-two years.

Although through the arrival of families the population of our village increased for about two or three years after my own arrival, I noticed with some dismay that the number of votes thrown at elections decreased steadily, and mines which were accounted by experts to be good for fifty years were found to be exhausted in five years. But my hope concerning it held out. I remember when others' hearts were failing them that I preached a Thanksgiving sermon on "The duty of Downieville to prosper." Our church was crowded to hear it, but even those who were pleased by my enthusiasm almost laughed at my proofs. Our little church grew both in attendance on its services and in membership. It became self-sustaining.

Although, up to the time when South Carolina fired on Fort Sumter, our county, and especially our town, had been almost as intensely pro-slavery as if it lay south of Mason's and Dixon's line, and I had been honored by another soubriquet, "the Abolition Preacher," yet I was nominated as County Superintendent of Public Schools and was elected, and 84 83 afterwards twice ree¨lected, and thus the whole county became still more thoroughly my parish and I seemed thus to have a man's full measure both of opportunity and of work upon my hands. But not only the town but the whole county was declining, its mineral resources decreasing, with no others to fall back upon. At length the members of the church were compelled to scatter, and at the end of ten years of service I resigned. The few who remained were wise enough to have the church properly dissolved, its property sold, the Building Society reimbursed for its gift of $500 in the sum of $623.63, and $150 went to the American Home Missionary Society.

And so in the shifting conditions of early California life I saw nearly thirteen years of hard work resulting, unbelief would say, in two total failures. But let us see. That little mountain church disbanded, sent its life currents into other churches and has in these been made immortal. Its scattered members carried gospel blessings wherever they went. I think easily and with no attempt to remember all, how one household furnished two pillars for the Presbyterian church in Virginia City; how one other laid the foundation of our church (since deceased) in South Vallejo; how another fostered and doubtless, under God, preserved the infant life of the First Congregational Church in Los Angeles; how, not counting the pastor and his wife, representatives of that little church were among the founders of Bethany Church in San Francisco; how, bringing forth fruit in old age, another pair are known as the father and mother of Grace Church at Fitchburg; how one of my Downieville boys, converted 85 84 there, became a chief founder of our First Congregational Church in Alameda, and how another was for almost a third of a century a chief pillar in our First Church in Oakland and a legal counsellor, giving gratuitous service to almost every Congregational church in Northern California that needed service of that sort, and to our Theological Seminary, of which he was the treasurer for more than a quarter of a century. I am quite sure that I have not told all that might be told along that line. But I have told enough to illustrate my idea. And what has come of the failures of other pioneers would furnish, not perhaps in like abundance but each according to its measure, similar indications that their churches did not live, and did not even die, in vain.

I cannot leave that mountain town and frontier service without one or two other reminiscences showing what sort of people were found there. Our quite roomy house was home for many outside our own circle. They came and went; they sat down at our table with utmost freedom; they lodged with us often up to the utmost capacity of our accommodations, but no one of them ever allowed himself to be a burden upon us either in household care or in expense. I recall one exception, but he was not a miner and not a resident of Downieville, but a Yankee from my own home town in New England. Whenever they had been with us even for a day or two, something was left in Mrs. Pond's hands or hidden where she would be sure to find it,--while, accustomed as they were to cook for themselves in their cabins, they would give a lift on the housework that made things go more 86 85 easily than when we were alone. There was so much of this, and it was done with such delicacy and without affectation, that Mrs. Pond had her first siege of home-sickness when we were newly settled in the pleasant city of Petaluma, and it was so severe that I promised her that if she continued to desire it, she should visit the old home again as soon as the melting snow would render the journey possible for her. But before that time came, Petaluma had become home-like and the journey never was taken.

A marked and kind Providence enabled me to sell the house which I had built in Downieville for enough to pay what I still owed upon it. And the sale of furniture, including our piano, enabled us to meet the travelling expenses of the family to San Francisco and to provide for us for a little while. But it was not the custom nor the disposition of our Christian people or our fellow citizens to let us go so nearly empty-handed. The evening before our house was to be dismantled, an unexpected crowd appeared at our front door. It took possession of the premises upstairs and down. It provided both program and refreshment. It had divided itself into two classes, one being the church-members, the other, friends outside the church. There were two charades in the program, the first now forgotten by me but prepared by the second class, resulted in placing in the hands of Mrs. Pond a purse heavy with $250 in gold. The second, presented by the first class, came in with a package wrapped in a greenback tied tightly . It was said to stand for one word of five syllables. No one was able to guess the word, which at length was made known 87 86 to us as in-a-bill-I-tie (inability),--a modest and witty explanation of the fact that their gift to me could not equal the one given to Mrs. Pond. But it was $150, and the two gifts enabled us to provide plainly but comfortably the furniture for the rented quarters into which we entered at Petaluma.

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CHAPTER VIII.

PERILS BY THE WAY

IT is written (Ps. 33:17) that "a horse is a vain thing for safety"; and we in Sierra County, where for several years all of our traveling, and for the entire ten years of my residence there, almost all of it, was either on foot or in the saddle, were wont to endorse the saying. Not so with the mule. We had the best of saddle mules and were proud of them. We extolled the safety of the mule; occasionally boasted of their speed. We had one in Downieville with the reputation of "a mile in three minutes." But the main virtues were that he was cautious, sure-footed, picking his way skillfully over the rough places, never unbalanced, no matter how narrow the path or how steep the cliff above or the precipice below. Furthermore, in making steep ascents, he moves without apparent effort, whereas a horse gives a jerk with every upward step. The mule's disposition has been slandered as obstinate and sometimes malignant. After ten years of companionship with him, I testify to his general amiability as well as reliability.

There were two exceptions to his good behavior, which I cite as illustrating the possibility of tragedies in such Gospel pioneering as I was called to undertake. I had two outstations, one at Goodyear's Bar, supposed to be four miles from Downieville down the river. The other was at Monte Cristo, a famous mining camp, four miles up the steep ascent of the 89 88 northern bank of our great canyon. My services were held on alternate Sunday afternoons.

On one Sunday I was unfortunate in the animal I rode: he was big, heavy, ungainly, and I think ill-natured. On my return ride, descending a little especially steep pitch, he threw himself down flat, and in recovering his upright position he left me on the ground with my left foot caught in the stirrup and with the large Mexican spur inserted in the surcingle. If I could have had one instant before he moved I could have released myself, but in moving he dragged me, and the simple movement by which release was to be had, became impossible. Thus I was dragged along in the narrow trail with my head within two inches of his right hind hoof. If that hoof had descended upon my head, the blow could not have been otherwise than fatal. My chance for safety lay in one characteristic, of which all along I had had clear evidence: he was willing to stop. I was enabled to keep calm and to speak to him soothingly, and at length he stopped. One instant and a movement of myself forward one inch released my foot, and I was safe and uninjured. This could not be said of my torn and dirty clothes; and that I might be decent on the platform at the evening service, I did the only Sunday trading in my whole career.

The other adventure was in connection with a meeting of what we called our mountain association. The number of churches and ministers in the association was very small; and though it would call, coming and going, for a mule-back ride of one hundred and ten miles, I determined to be there. The 90 89 place was Oroville, then a young mining village; but having been chosen as the county seat of Butte County, it was a point of present and prospective importance. The development of fine agricultural resources in that country has saved it from the fate of our mining towns. Rich in golden oranges and purple olives and every sort of fruit that can grow anywhere, it has had a healthy growth, without ever having a "boom."

It was arranged that I should take an early start, and after a ride of twenty miles be joined at Camptonville by my well-beloved brother in the ministry, Rev. B. N. Seymour, who, by the way, was the founder of our church in Oroville.

It was a delightful meeting. Each one of us pastors was too far from any other to admit of much fellowship, and we were hungry for it. It was the first meeting of the sort ever held in Oroville, and this added to the interest of it. My own recollections of it are vivid and delightful.

Starting for our return on Friday, we had arranged to spend the evening and hold a service at Forbestown, a mining village about midway of my journey home. We reached Camptonville, the field of Brother Seymour's labors, in good season, and while we rested it began to snow. Brother Seymour and his good wife entreated me not to go farther; but when I thought of my three Sunday services unprovided for, and with no possibility of sending any word ahead by telegraph or otherwise, I persisted that I must go on. I made what speed I could as long as the trail continued to be visible, but the fall of snow was heavy, and at 91 90 length a wind arose and drifted it. Progress became very slow and daylight was becoming dim. I was somewhat familiar with the slope of the ridge, and I had at length to give up all hope of reaching Downieville. But there was a rude hostelry halfway between Camptonville and Downieville, which I knew--or thought I knew--could not be far away.

But the storm became more severe, and my mule, descrying a little cluster of evergreen trees, went for it, and finding himself comparatively comfortable there, declined to go farther. I dismounted and trod down the snow for a short space in advance, and endeavored thus to bring him along; till I said to myself that I must not exhaust myself in this way, but must leave the mule and save myself. The snow was up to my arm-pits. My only way of advancing was by throwing my weight upon the snow in front of me, thus lowering it so that I could step over it. I persevered in this, guided only by my recollection of the contour of the ridge, and at length the light in the window of the Mountain House was visible. I took courage and made for it, reaching it just ready in my fatigue, to fall on the floor. The people knew me well and received me most kindly. Two men, taking a mule from their own stable, retraced my steps and found my mule and brought him in.

There I remained over Sunday and went on to my home on Monday in company with a mule-train, which got as far as the Mountain House on Monday morning. Two men traveling on foot on the ridge parallel to that on which I traveled perished in the snow.

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CHAPTER IX.

THREE YEARS AT PETALUMA--1865-1868

HAVE I any right to bring my reminiscences of these years into what purports to cover only the Early Days of Congregationalism? i doubted this at first, but when on recurring to the records I find that the close of 1865 showed us to have in all of California only 29 churches with an aggregate membership of 1231, while the close of 1920 shows 246 churches and an aggregate membership of 34780, I feel safe in accounting those three years as belonging to the childhood if not to the infancy of our Fellowship. And it may be that these reminiscences of my brief pastorate in that delightful rural city will present an aspect of our work so different from those connected with pastorates in the metropolis and afterward on the frontier and in the mines, as to be really necessary to complete the picture I am trying to portray.

I came from my mountain home to San Francisco under agreement to serve as a temporary supply for the First Presbyterian Church in San Francisco, till it should secure a settled pastor. But before I had spent even one Sabbath with that people, I felt it my duty to ask release from my engagement, that I might enter upon service at Petaluma, where, as I was told, such service as I could give, was greatly needed. The General Association had held its session in San Francisco during that week of my arrival, and when this was ended I went first by a little steamer up the little 93 92 crooked inlet of the Bay to within two miles of the city. There I boarded a train made up of one or at most two cars such as were in use on street railroads. These were drawn by a dummy engine, upon a track made of three-by-four scantlings covered by strap iron. I was not greatly impressed by all this as a foretoken of a thriving, up-to-date community. It was possibly fortunate for me that nobody met me at the depot, lest some such lucubrations, safe enough to express now, might have escaped my lips prematurely. I availed myself of the only bus to go to the American Hotel, and having daylight before me I set out to see the town, but especially the church buildings. The first one that I visited was handsomely located on the top of a small hillock, high enough to give a view in all directions, high enough also, I thought, to hinder attendance on the services. The last one that I came to was finely located on a large corner lot; plenty of room, I said, for expansion, but my hope that I should not find this the Congregational church was silently but quite forcibly expressed. It was painted, but the paint was faded and falling; the steps were ragged; the cupola, in which I saw a church bell, had its slats loosened and awry. It looked friendless enough to call forth my sympathy.

Returning to the hotel, I enquired about the churches, and found that this was the building in which I was to preach. I had already committed myself for three months and retreat was mpossible. And I do not remember that I wished to retreat. It seemed clear to me that I was following my Leader and that He would see me safely through. 94 93 I had been made aware that the church and congregation had been thrown into two hostile camps, through conduct ill-advised, to put it mildly, of my predecessor. Some families had already withdrawn, and others might go. As I moved about I scarcely heard one member speaking kindly of another. The Sunday School was small, but even at that, it was suffering for lack of sufficient teachers. I scarcely wonder that my wife became homesick for the mountains and the mines. On about my third or fourth Sunday I ventured to preach on Evil-speaking, and was evidently entertaining my hearers, but failing of my purpose. Suddenly I closed my manuscript and the Bible and spoke as I had no intention of speaking,--with a bluntness, a " thou-art-the-man " directness which prevented the possibility of any one applying the sermon to another than himself. I believe that I was inspired to say those words--that I might almost have used respecting them the "Thus-saith-the-Lord" of the prophets of old. And He who inspired the utterance gave to it, perhaps, a certain tone of love; and at any rate saw to it that it was well received. Those who had erred most sorely, confessed most humbly, and the tide that was sweeping the church to its ruin was turned.

I took one comfort to myself from the beginning; it was this, that whatever might be my perplexities in other directions, I need not be troubled about the finances. Laymen were caring for this, and at the end of the first month and the second, my salary was paid in full, and with a reassuring comfort to me. But about that time one of my deacons said to 95 94 me, "I am afraid that we are running behind." But I listened with a stolid air, as though that was no part of my concern. But when the other deacon, on the next day, made a like remark and added that he would be glad to know that the deficit did not exceed $1000, I became too much startled not to act. The business of the church was being so conducted that even the deacons did not know its condition, but were " afraid ." Upon inquiry it transpired that the church treasurer, who was also a banker in a small way, had been advancing the money for all expenses, and was charging the church one per cent a month for these advances, and that the deficit amounted to $1800, and this for a church of less than fifty resident members, and all for what is significantly, if not elegantly, called "dead horse." When this became known, of course there was righteous indignation a plenty, and perhaps some that was not quite righteous. There were abundant declarations from the very reliable sustainers, that they had paid their pew-rents and their subscriptions promptly, and they would not pay a cent more. Happily, one of the trustees, known to be a very close man, said in my hearing that he would give fifty dollars to have that debt paid. There was a suspicion, just or unjust, that he made the proffer because he did not believe that its condition could ever be fulfilled. But I seized upon it as my opportunity. I went to the treasurer and assessed him at $215, and to another brother more able, and assessed him $250, and both responded cheerfully. Then came upon my book the other trustee's $50, and we had more than one-fourth of the whole amount pledged reliably. Suffice it to 96 95 say that before my three months were ended for which I had committed myself, the debt was paid, and I think that the righteous indignation had changed to brotherly love.

I had come to love the church, and wished to remain with it quite as warmly as the church wished that I would, and so a call was extended and accepted, and I was installed.

A few months after this, Mrs. Pond and another lady who had united with the church on confession, conspired to repair and repaint the meeting-house, and after their expedition in search of funds, they returned in good cheer. "Everybody welcomed us, said that the work ought to be done, were glad we had undertaken it." And it was done.

Then, without any special effort, visible at any rate to human eyes, a gentle spiritual interest arose. In the choir was a boy just emerging into manhood, but still singing alto, upon whom my eyes turned often as I preached, and my heart still oftener. Young as he was he was the confidential clerk of one of the leading merchants of the city. He appeared at one of our mid-week meetings, and rose to say that he meant hereafter, with Christ's help, to live for Christ, and it seemed to him supremely good to have thus "something worth living for." He was John L. Stephens, a member afterwards of the first class to graduate from our Seminary. With a classmate, David Watkins of blessed memory, he went immediately after graduation to the city of Guadalajara, Mexico, and established there the mission of the American Board, which has continued to this day.

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I am quite sure that no other of our foreign missions ever fruitened so quickly as this one did. Before the brethren had learned the language well enough to preach in it, a goodly number of earnest converts gathered about them, so that a church, if I remember correctly, was organized while still our brethren had it for their first duty to learn to speak Spanish fluently. By tracts and a little newspaper which they could issue with the aid of a translator, the city was being sufficiently turned upside down to bring upon them the wrath of the priests. But priestly denunciations and threats neither daunted these modern apostles nor seemed even to hinder their success. The time came when the church was so strong and well equipped that Stephens went forth to another city and gathered about him some children and taught them, and preached to such others as came to hear, till the priest preached a sermon which roused the mob spirit, and Stephens was dragged from his quarters and left dead and mutilated in the street. But the leader of the mob, when he saw what was done, was himself pierced to the heart by the sword of the Spirit, and was converted and became, like Saul of Tarsus, a "preacher of the faith of which he had made havoc."

But I am running far in advance of my theme. I remember with an interest deep and sweet that period of quiet inquiry in which not Stephens only but about a dozen more were added to the church.

I remember with much less satisfaction an evangelistic campaign which soon after stirred the whole town. Rev. A. B. Earle, who had come to high 98

WILLIAM C. POND, AET. 50

99 97 repute in New England as an evangelist, visited California, and his meetings in other cities were reported to have been attended with such abundant success that we in Petaluma sought his aid. The largest auditorium in the city was engaged, and it was thronged. The usual round of afternoon services for testimony, for confession of sin and for consecration, were held, not without a certain consciousness of the turning of a crank. Once or twice I was forced to rise and say something like this: "God desireth truth in the inward parts." But I went into the work with all the energy at my command. When the meetings closed, I used every means I could devise, with an intensity of prayer like that of Jacob which changed Jabbok to Peniel and his own name to Israel. To each of the three leading churches, the Baptist, Methodist and Congregational, an almost exactly equal number were added, 120 in all. Three months afterwards I asked the pastor of the Methodist Church how many remained as substantial Christians. His reply was, "Not one." I had no opportunity of asking this question in regard to the Baptist Church because the pastor, a most estimable man, was soon dismissed, and following this the church was reported as having greatly declined. Some who came with us remained staunch, but the quiet interest which preceded the campaign added much more to the strength of the church than did that which came with observation.

I still believe most heartily in evangelistic effort, but not of that sort in which hypnotism masquerades as the very Spirit of God. I believe that some are called of God especially to this form of service, and 100 98 it is a high and holy calling. But the essential to true success in it, is that the evangelist be baptized with the Holy Spirit, and in the fulness of his gladsome consecration, come to say with Paul, "I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me." The old self-pleasing, selfseeking, self-trusting self dead, and Christ occupying its place so fully that every thought is brought into glad captivity to Him!

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CHAPTER X.

THE PACIFIC

NOT the ocean, but the little weekly newspaper bearing that name, and which I am sure has lived longer than any other newspaper on the Pacific Coast. The "California Christian Advocate" followed close after, and I do not know how many months behind, but "The Pacific" is certainly its senior. It was in existence when I reached San Francisco, having been started by Rev. John W. Douglas, the comrade of Dr. Willey in his journey to this new, strange land, and with his coo¨peration and that of Rev. J. A. Benton of Sacramento and Rev. T. D. Hunt of San Francisco. Its little dingy editorial office was the rendezvous for all the New School Presbyterian and Congregational ministers who either lived in San Francisco or came to it. Some traditions talked about then, though less than two years old, seemed to a new comer like ancient history:--How because of a scarcity of white paper in the new city, they had been obliged to send out one or two issues on coarse brown paper; how the paper had lived through divers financial vicissitudes, for printing was expensive, and those, its editors mainly, who were responsible for the bills, had shallow purses, never well filled. The one tradition which most impressed me was that this paper in an article written by Dr. Willey, with proof behind him which could be produced if necessary and could not be gainsaid, disclosed the existence of a plot to divide 102 100 this State in order to create out of its Southern portion a slave State. I cannot tell the story in detail, but this disclosure spoiled the plot and was viewed at the time as having saved us from that calamity.

One of the unfailing features of the annual "Joint Meetings," was the " crisis in the affairs of `The Pacific.'" Bro. Douglas, whatever fitnesses he might have, or not have, for newspaper or other work, certainly had skill in developing a crisis, and thus bringing those of us to terms who would not let the paper die, and we expected to take our medicine, no matter what it was or how bitter. Indeed it became a sort of standing joke as we greeted each other, "What's the crisis this time?" I remember that once he declared that a religious paper could not be sustained here and that he had felt obliged to change it accordingly. To which I responded that I had noticed the change and spoken of it privately; a "less religious paper," I had said, "than the New York Tribune," and if it was not to be a religious paper, there seemed to be no special reason why religious people should be asked to help it. Whereupon Dr. Willey hushed my intemperate speech in his mildly authoritative way: "It is a religious paper, and it is going to be such, and it must not die." At length Bro. Douglas, weary of his task, and perhaps of the roughness and homelessness of life on the frontier, left us for the East, and if I remember correctly, passed over before many years to the other side.

It was a good day for us all when Bro. Warren resigning his pastorate at Nevada City came down to take charge of the paper. One of his optimistic 103 101 announcements was that there would be no more "crises." And there were none during the four years of his administration, but at what loss to himself, the noble soul was telling none of us. But he made it a live paper. His style was admirably journalistic, fresh, glowing, often inspiring. The paper was always on the side of righteousness, courageously so, intensely so. He resigned in order to become Home Missionary Superintendent, and carried into that work the same energy, optimism and tireless devotion with which he had carried the load of the newspaper. The wrong we did was to let him do the lifting and the pulling so entirely alone.

Yet he was not alone. For many years, and I am quite sure that the term of service covered all the four years of Dr. Warren's administration, Rev. S. V. Blakeslee pulled the laboring oar. He was the associate editor and the canvasser. He kept the subscription list growing. He fully believed in what he called "This Sterling Weekly." I remember how in the express office at Downieville I used to see a pile of "Pacifics" uncalled for, and looking them over was surprised at the names written upon them. Bro. Blakeslee would visit us, take the pile and carry the uncalled-for papers to these careless subscribers, and, undaunted and persuasive, come away with the subscription continued and paid in advance. We came to realize how great the debt was that we owed him, fulfilling a task no other man among us could have been persuaded to undertake.

The "crises" of the former years became, however, the "problems" of the following ones, and various 104 102 devices were proposed for putting the paper on a sound financial foundation. At one time it was proposed and undertaken to raise an endowment for it of $10,000, but it never, I think, got beyond a resolution recommending it. Increasing the list of subscribers was an often recurring suggestion, but it met the same sad fate with the more pretentious one.

For several years Dr. J. W. Clark, of precious memory, was chairman of the board of trustees, and contrived to pay the bills, himself assuming the labor of folding and mailing the issues, that the bills might be reduced. And when he could do this no longer, Deacon S. S. Smith came to the rescue in the same unselfish way, Rev. John Kimball being the managing editor, and between them bills were paid whatever the receipts might be. For many years Drs. Benton and Mooar and one other, edited the paper gratuitously, and so long as this was done, I think that there were no deficits.

I have not attempted to state these recollections in their historic order, and I cannot close without recurring to one event which lives more vividly in my memory than any other relating to our paper. It occurred at the meeting of the General Association in 1863. It should be premised that at several preceding meetings we had attempted to make a sort of budget of expenses and divide the amount to be raised equally between ourselves and our Presbyterian brethren; and at no time, unless my memory deceives me, did our brethren find it convenient or possible to bring in their quota. At the above meeting, and while the Association was in the act of receiving subscriptions to meet 105 103 its portion of the debts of the paper, a committee from the Synod entered bringing this proposition: that the Association assume the sole proprietorship of "The Pacific" together with its liabilities, or that the Synod would do the same. I judge that each member present felt the impulse to give them the paper and thus relieve ourselves of a burden. One brother made a motion to that effect, and it was seconded, but I rose and asked for time; we would be rid of a load, but what would become of the paper? This was on a Saturday afternoon, and this matter was made a special order for Monday at 10 a.m. By that time we had recovered from our surprise and were all of one mind. The motion was lost, and it was voted unanimously, that we would take the paper and would pay its bills. And now for 58 years it has been the representative of our Congregational churches and the chief organ of our mutual fellowship, covering the three States of Washington, Oregon and California. It has fulfilled its duties with varying skill and ability, has earned and heard a grumble now and then, but we would soon find and feel its value if we were compelled to miss it for awhile.

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CHAPTER XI

THE PACIFIC THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY

ITS present title is "The Pacific School of Religion," and its resources are sufficient to support a large and very able faculty. It is, like all other educational institutions, in need of more funds and probably always will be as its undertakings increase. And the same spirit which moved us at the outset to propose a Union Seminary sustained by all sorts of truly Christian people, has now, while it is amply endowed and owing no man anything but love, declared the school to be undenominational, and has invited to its Faculty good and able men from among the Baptists, Disciples, and Methodists, and has even elected representatives of these denominations as members of its Board of Trustees.

As far back as 1858, at the second meeting of our General Association (the previous meetings for fellowship, of which several had been held, not being regarded as large enough to bear a name so dignified), a committee, of which Rev. E. S. Lacy was the chairman, presented a vigorous report on the education of young men for the ministry, the first sentence of which gives the germanent idea of the whole: "The distance stretching between us and the theological institutions of the East renders it necessary that we take measures for rearing a ministry of our own." The measures, however, suggested for meeting this necessity, did not include a seminary all our own.

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I find in the minutes of the annual meetings of 1859 and 1860 intense expressions concerning the woeful lack of both churches and pastors in our State, but no action proposed with reference to supplying the need, except by appealing to young men in Eastern seminaries. But the suggestion in Mr. Lacy's report of 1858 was like a seed germinating in our hearts, as appears in the Report on Education presented at the session in 1860 by Brothers Ira P. Rankin, E. G. Beckwith and E. P. Flint. The second resolution is as follows. "Resolved that we deem it of vital importance that, at the earliest day possible, facilities be provided within our own limits for the education of a competent Christian ministry for the service of our own churches."

In 1861 a resolution was adopted recommending "a continued and increasing interest in the College of California . . . as a special aid in training young men of our churches for the ministry of the Word."

In 1862 and 1863 the records reveal nothing said or done along this line. It is in 1864 that my reminiscences begin. I was chairman of the Committee on Education. Our report dwelt earnestly and somewhat at length on an awakening of interest in our public schools, and on the levying of a tax which would double the amount theretofore expended in sustaining them; urging the establishment of public high schools, or, if this could not be done, of academies supported by private beneficence. But the suggestion fraught with the most practical results was this: "The fact that three out of the four alumni of our college are contemplating preparation for the ministry 108 106 suggests that the time is coming and now is when a theological seminary should be a matter of definite consideration with reference to practical action." Pursuant to this suggestion the Bay Association was appointed as a standing committee to have this matter before their thoughts and to report progress from year to year. This led at the next meeting (1865) to the introduction and adoption of an elaborate report from a committee consisting of Revs. I. E. Dwinell and George Mooar and delegate James M. Haven proposing among other things this: that in view of the utter impossibility that any one denomination could establish a seminary, a committee be appointed to correspond with representative men of other denominations inviting them to unite with us in this effort. It seemed clear that by far the larger part of the studies pursued would be upon truths and duties upon which all denominations would be agreed, and that each denomination could safeguard its own young men and all its other interests by appointing a lecturer, or even a professor, whose theme should be the specialties of his own people. This committee consisted of the Revs. Dwinell, Beckwith and Pond and Deacons T. B. Bigelow and Jacob Bacon.

This committee wrote in accordance with these instructions; and it perhaps represents the distance which Christ's followers have traveled towards unity, however far we may still be from it, to say that to our quite elaborate and very courteous communication, only one reply at all favorable was received. This one, which came from Rev. Frederick Buel, who then represented the American Bible Society upon this 109 107 coast, stated that while the Presbyterians could not participate in founding such an institution, he thought if we would found one, and if they had any young men lookng towards the ministry, they might send them to us.

It is in somewhat curious antithesis to this that before we had graduated our first class, a Presbyterian seminary was started, and the only young man of that denomination who had ventured into our little circle was withdrawn from us under threat of losing the aid of the Presbyterian Education Board.

The next meeting of the Association (that of 1866) was held at Sacramento, and this committee submitted its report. I shall never forget that hour. I have known no parallel to it at any meeting except the one at Cloverdale when we undertook to be no longer dependent on the National Home Missionary Society. In both cases we were awestruck at the immensity of the undertaking as compared with our resources, our churches being so few and almost all of them so feeble. Yet in both cases there came that sacred hush in which we instinctively recognize the presence and power of the Spirit of God. In response to our earnest and inwrought prayer, He bade us go forward, and we obeyed.

Legal advice had been secured as to the way to organize our corporation, and it came into existence forthwith under the name of "The Congregational Theological Seminary of California." This was afterwards changed, under legal advice, to the even more cumbrous title of "The President and Board of Trustees of the Pacific Theological Seminary."

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It is interesting and pathetic to follow in the records of the Trustees the efforts made to secure a financial basis broad enough and firm enough to justify establishing even the smallest superstructure adapted to our undertaking. We began by making each member of the Board a solicitor, with reference to raising an endowment fund of $50,000. This failing, Dr. Dwinell, proposing to take, on his own account, a journey eastward, was made our agent to gather funds there. But his health gave way, and he was forced to return empty handed. The first annual report of the treasurer showed liabilities amounting to $350 and no assets. Let us not wonder at this, still less censure either the churches or the Board. There were in September, 1866, thirty-two Congregational churches in the whole of California. Only three of these had a membership of 100 or more. Our strongest church, on which almost all the others leaned, was the First in San Francisco, with 352 members. The total membership was 1428, with 127 non-resident. There was not a single wealthy man, according to present standards, among them all.

At length success began to dawn. What was called an endowment of $25,000 was made up, mainly, I think, through the influence of Rev. Dr. Stone, so that we might establish a professorship of Biblical Literature and begin our work.

Strictly speaking, however, it was not an endowment, seeing it was made up almost wholly of notes given without substantial security, with an understanding that while interest was paid the notes would not be collected. This was, however, the only sort of 111 109 endowment possible to be made, and the men who contributed to it are not to be criticised but to be honored. They were comparatively young men, and their firms young. They had little or no capital that was not urgently needed in the conduct of their large business. They did what they could. I remember personally only two of the subscribing firms. Each of these pledged $4000, and both of them paid their subscriptions a hundred cents on the dollar. Some others must have done the same, since at one time the Board was considering the investment of $10,000. I cannot forbear to mention these two: Flint, Peabody & Co., and L. B. Benchley & Co. Mr. Edward P. Flint, of the former firm, continued with us longer than any others. It is more than sixty-eight years since I first met him, a very young man, yet the leading partner in a firm said to be doing a larger business, or at any rate having more ships consigned to it, than any other in the city. But then, and ever since, the work of the churches has been foremost with him, and no good enterprise connected with them seems to have escaped his notice or failed to receive his coo¨peration. "Planted in the house of Jehovah,"He flourished in the courts of our God,"Still bringing forth fruit in old age,"Full of sap and green." Ps. 92:13, 14."Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord:"From henceforth, yea, saith the Spirit,"They rest from their labors,"For their work follows with them,"Celestial and eternal like themselves."

Rev. 14:13.

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Deacon Benchley was the first treasurer of the Seminary, and for many years the admirable superintendent of the Sunday School of our First Church in San Francisco, a man whom one loved to meet, so cordial personally, so interested in whatever pertained to the progress of the Kingdom of God, so forward in every good work that I have known him to experience the trials which beset those thus forward, as being the one to be grumbled at. If anything had gone wrong, the question arose, "Why did not Deacon Benchley attend to it?" A broken promise of some church, or to some church, or to a mission, or the Seminary, was somehow viewed as Dea. Benchley's promise, or at any rate one for whose fulfilment he was responsible. And I dare say he sometimes found such a position irksome to be occupied, but I never knew him to be ruffled by it. I think that he just went right on doing what he could, and years ago he doubtless heard the Master say, "Well done."

By faith in that endowment, we ventured upon our first step forward as a real Seminary. Early in January, 1869, we elected as our Professor of Sacred Literature, Rev. Joseph A. Benton. This brother, more than twenty years before, listening to an inward call from God, had left behind him the opportunity to serve as pastor one of the most attractive churches in Massachusetts, to come at his own risk and charges to California. He was the founder and for nearly twenty years the pastor of our church in Sacramento, and at this time was pastor of our Second Church in San Francisco.

No less a scholar for having been a pioneer, he 113 111 was courageous enough to accept our invitation, and in March, 1869, the fourth floor of a small building on Montgomery Street having been rented, a Junior class of three was formed, two of whom, David F. Watkins and John L. Stephens, were afterwards pioneer missionaries of our American Board in central Mexico, with headquarters at Guadalajara. I think that no other mission of our Board ever equalled that in the speed it made in securing the attention of the people or in leading them in large numbers to the Lamb of God. And therefore no mission, perhaps, ever stirred such a bitter opposition from the priesthood. To that murderous hate young Stephens fell a victim and a martyr, as in a previous chapter I have said. But the work went on, and the leader of the mob that slew him and mutilated his dead body, impressed in some way (like Saul of Tarsus at the stoning of Stephen, finding it hard to kick against the goads) became a very apostle of the faith he had sought to destroy, and more than filled the place his rage had made vacant.

I wish I could reproduce for others the vivid picture on my memory of that fourth-story loft. It was for the three students home, study, seminary library, recitation room and place of earnest and united prayer, but with an equipment in material things anything else than inspiring. But here walked and worked with them a teacher who did not despise the day of small things, faithful, patient, reticent, but deep down in his heart grandly enthusiastic,--more than a shepherd, a father, to his little flock, living and enduring as seeing things that were invisible.

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As we approached a second year in our work, so that another professor was needed, Rev. Dr. Stone consented to go East and endeavor to provide for the endowment of this professorship. He was gone but a little while, for on April 15, 1870, he had returned and reported $18,683.40 assured and a virtual promise from the Broadway Tabernacle Church in New York of at least $10,000, and an undertaking to make it $25,000 as a complete endowment. This promise, which may not have been so absolute as Dr. Stone understood it to be, was at any rate never fulfilled. But the apparent success of Dr. Stone's mission filled us with good cheer, and Rev. Dr. George Mooar was called to the professorship of Biblical Theology, and accepted the invitation.

I cannot pass on without speaking the tribute my heart craves the privilege of paying this modest, unassuming, noble man, in his department one of the best read and most learned men of our or any other generation, expressing his views and the reasons for them with great clearness and simplicity and modest grace, so that I cannot remember an instance of his speaking, even in the three-minute remarks at our ministers' meetings, without feeling fed with just the right word in just the right place. Called to pass through severe afflictions, he bore himself so bravely, so quietly in submission to the Heavenly Father, that to look in his face or to walk silently by his side was for me a fresh inspiration, a fresh aspiration. At length he was not, for God took him.

The members of our first class were ill-prepared for a course of study such as was prepared for them, and 115 113 those who offered themselves for a second class were at a like disadvantage. This suggested the establishment of an academy where men who evidently could not take a college course might have a special and less expensive preparation for seminary duties. It was believed that such an academy would be more than self-sustaining, so that the income from it would help meet our seminary expenses.

About this time there was in Oakland a real estate boom, and there was also on the sightly summit of a knoll, about a mile from the center of the city, a large and comely building erected for a seminary for young ladies. Rev. E. B. Walsworth had resigned his pastorate in Marysville to undertake the founding and conducting of this seminary. If I remember correctly, it was he who had purchased the knoll and a considerable tract around it and had erected the building, expecting that the sale of lots would materially help him to meet his bills. He had found the undertaking too heavy for him, and the attention of our trustees was called to the spot as affording us a fine building, sufficient to accommodate both the academy and the seminary, and with this a fine campus, while the lots, which the seminary itself would make desirable, would enable us to pay for the whole property and get our campus and our building free.

Over a prospect so inviting all the members of the Board but one became enthusiastic. That one stubbornly declared, without at all undertaking to consider probabilities of success, that it was no part of the business of a theological seminary to speculate in real estate, or, indeed, in anything. To gently punish 116 114 this obstinacy, it was decided to take the vote by yeas and nays, and have it thus recorded, the only instance during the nearly thirty years of my service as secretary of the Board in which this was required; and the "nay" appears as that of the secretary himself.

As a matter of fact, a good many lots were sold, especially to friends of the seminary, whether with profit to them or not, I have never ventured to inquire. But a great many were not sold, and the debt incurred in the purchase of the property began ominously to increase through our inability to pay the interest. I have a vivid recollection of those days. The records as I read them even now seem to throb with the heart-aches. Dr. Mooar was sent East, so the record says, "to raise $30,000 as the least sum that will meet immediate and urgent necessities." But these necessities were not met. The academy, instead of helping us, showed an annual deficit of $800, and loan upon loan was made for "pressing needs."

Rev. Eli Corwin had been appointed financial agent, and had gathered a few subscriptions, one or two of which were afterwards made useful to us, but he soon resigned and went East, where he did good work till God called him. One day it occurred that Deacon L. B. Benchley, of blessed memory, took me riding to see some of the work that he was doing, and availed himself of that opportunity to suggest that I take up the work which Brother Corwin had laid down. I do not remember that I had thought of such a thing before, but his words came to me as a call from the Master himself. I am not quite sure that all of the Directors saw any hope in the suggestion, 117 115 but it was adopted and I accepted the invitation. It was not exactly a new work with me, for it had fallen to my lot before, when any subscription for "The Pacific," or for any other matter of general interest, seemed likely to fall through, to have it turned over to me; but nothing approaching this in size or difficulty had ever been required of me. I was sure that before going Eastward, I must be able to show that we in California cared enough about the seminary to give for it generously. The amount agreed upon as necessary was $35,000, and subscriptions were to be sought, collectible only when the whole amount had been subscribed. Then instead of waiting till I could reach individuals able to make large subscriptions, I determined to appeal to the churches and ask for gifts large or small, believing that thus I would not only raise a considerable amount in small gifts, but would give to any individuals on whom I would call for larger offerings, a statement of the facts much more complete and effective than could possibly be given in a private conversation. I had 2000 subscription cards printed, each one perforated at one corner. I cut a large number of lead pencils into three parts and attached a pencil to each card.

I began my work at the Sacramento Church, with the cordial and effective backing of Dr. Dwinell. Before the hour for service, one or more of these cards was suspended from the book-rack in every pew, and in closing my address, attention was called to these, and on Monday I went about accompanied by Dr. Dwinell, and had the subscriptions entered on my book, and I left the city with $1,700 pledged, and 118 116 thanked God and took courage. In this way I tried to make an appeal to every Congregational church, large or small. I did not reach Humboldt County, which was, I now think, a mistake. The churches there were then few and very small, the region difficult of access, the expense involved would be quite large, but there was one good brother in that county who could, and I now believe would, have helped us with a large donation. And I did not reach Ventura or Los Angeles, because I was taken sick at Santa Barbara and brought down to the very gate of death. I was most tenderly nursed by kind friends, all whose faces were new to me less than a week before. As soon as I was sufficiently recovered to bear the journey, I was obliged to return home. I was disappointed in not visiting Ventura; but as to our little pioneer church in Los Angeles, I was proposing to visit that, rather to express sympathy with it in its struggle to exist, than to ask from it any aid.

When this work was complete we had $13,000 pledged in California. It does not seem like a large sum now, but then it was simply wonderful. We had at that time in California, North and South, about fifty churches, not one of them a strong church even according to the standards of that day; the two strongest, the first in San Francisco and the first in Oakland, loaded with debt almost to the water's edge. There were in these fifty churches just three men who might be regarded as rich, Mr. Russ of Ferndale, Mr. George Locke of Lockeford, and Mr. Edward Coleman of Grass Valley, accrediting him with the wealth of himself and his brother. Each of the two 119 117 latter gave $1000. The one first named was the one whom I failed to see because I was prevented from reaching Humboldt County.

The second was a farmer whose home was at Lockeford in San Joaquin County. I think that every one who knew him called him "George." Any term more deferential did not seem to fit him well. He was for several years a regular attendant at the meetings of our General Association, but always, in person, in garb, in manners, apparently a backwoods farmer. But sit down and talk with him on almost any really worthy theme, and you would find beneath all this external roughness a mind as clear, a purpose as honest and a heart as true as any that was ever wrapped in broadcloth or made to express itself in the manners of a Chesterfield.

I met him in Stockton. He was, I think, purchasing lumber. At any rate he was in a lumber yard, and we sat down on a pile of it and talked. He listened intently to my plea, and, if I correctly remember, asked how much I wanted him to pledge. There was a quick beating at the heart, with a fear lest I should spoil it all, but I summoned courage and said, "A thousand dollars." He really seemed to be pleased, and wrote his name for that amount. Then he took me to his home, gathered some friends for an evening meeting, and with his effective backing my simple tale brought $200 more.

Edward Coleman was every inch a gentleman. I met him at his mine in Grass Valley, with his miner's garb upon him. He at once evinced sympathy with our undertaking, and he little knew how comforted 120 118 and strengthened I was when his name went down for $1000. Another scene in a later year comes up to mind, when he was no longer a miner but a San Francisco capitalist, and Prof. Benton and I called upon him at his home. His brother was with him, and I think that they were expecting us to call. At any rate they were ready to meet us and we had scarcely need to tell our errand before we received a pledge for $50,000. His dying gift was $50,000. Oh! it is good to see men like these, who count their wealth a sacred trust, and ask concerning it: "Lord, what wilt thou have me do?"

I felt that with such practical testimony borne on the ground to the need and value of a theological seminary, I could go East with courage. I thought also that California stood so nearly alone among Western states, and having so many special points of interest, would of itself win favor to my cause and make my work comparatively easy. I was furthermore endorsed by the College Society, and at length, aided by an appropriation from it. I had $22,000 to raise in order to make subscriptions available. I hoped to get it within four months. But it took nine months of the hardest and most cross-bearing toil that ever fell to my lot. I began in Winchester, a suburb of Boston, where my dear friend, Edwin C. Bissell, who had been pastor of the Green Street Church in San Francisco, was the pastor. I continued the use of my subscription cards, hangingthem in the book-racks. The response was very generous, as I afterwards looked back upon it, but not up to my glowing and reasonless anticipations. It would take more than 121 119 eighteen such responses to send me home with my goal reached. As I look back upon the canvass, I am not surprised that it took so long or that the work was so hard. Even before it was finished, I began to be surprised that pastors so cheerfully opened their pulpits to me (for I had scarcely a single idle Sunday), and that such a multitude of people in very moderate circumstances opened their purses to help me. New England Christians seemed to me, unlike us in Calfornia, to take the whole country and the whole world as their field.

A good many incidents live in my memory. I will give two of them:

In one of the mountain towns of Massachusetts there lived an old bachelor named Hitchcock, who, by extreme industry, skill and economy, had amassed a fortune, which in his old age he was distributing mainly to young colleges. I went to see him and told him my errand, and came away with a courteous refusal. A good deal depressed, I went to my room at the hotel, endeavoring by prayer to restore my courage while I whittled pencils and adjusted them to subscription cards for my next Sunday's work. At length I was called down to find that Mr. Hitchcock had called upon me. And the outcome of this second interview was a promise of $5,000. But he would not put his name down in the subscription book or give me anything more than his orally uttered word. I felt that for so large a sum I must have something more, both to back up my statement that such a promise had been made, and, not less, to give me some hold on his estate, if he should die before the effort was 122 120 completed. I had heard that if he lost a copper cent, he would not count hours wasted if used in the search for it. I thought I would try him with a postal card, and while on the train returning from his village, I thought of an innocent yet practical question which he could answer in a few words, and enclosed in my letter a postal card addressed to myself, on which he could write the answer. He did not let the postal card be wasted, and I had in his answer what I regarded as ample evidence of his promise. As a matter of fact, he did die suddenly, before I had finished my job, but I received the $5000 in full.

The other had a different conclusion: I called upon Hon. Rufus S. Frost of Chelsea, and was most courteously received, and was rewarded with a subscription of $100 and with a promise to do something for me much better than that. "I am president of the Congregational Club," he said, "and I will call upon you for an address at its next meeting." I went away gladdened to the very bottom of my heart. An address there would tell, much more fully and effectively than I could possibly state it in private conversation, the story of our need, and would tell it to at least one hundred and fifty of the very men whom I most desired to meet.

I prepared myself carefully, and was seated where Mr. Frost could not fail to see me, but two very noted Congregational magnates of England were to speak, and I was quite sure that they would occupy all the time, or if they did not, Mr. Frost might shrink from calling out such a one as myself after the two great men had spoken. He did not forget me, but in a 123 121 most cordial way introduced me. I went upon the platform and responded: "Brethren, names, like dreams, often go by contraries. Your president is frosty only in name, etc."; and I could feel it all through me that I had captured the club. What gave my little bon mot power was that their president was well known and universally beloved. I told my story of California easily, and I was so kindly greeted by member after member, as the club broke up, that I felt that there was an open door before me, and that very shortly I could return to my home and to the little infant church that was waiting for me. But when I rose the next morning, the papers were black with the news of a financial disaster which put the whole East in peril. The great banking firm of Jay Cooke & Co., and with this the Northern Pacific Railway, had collapsed. As a friend told me the next morning, "We are, all of us, standing like a row of bricks on end; if all can stand together we are safe; if one topples, the whole will go." And there was nothing for me to do but wait. Some would have said, "Go home and come again at a better time." But I had met that temptation time and again, and had my answer ready, "I will stay till this work is done, if it keeps me here my life long." At last my way was cleared, I could collect my subscriptions, both in the East and in California, and begin again the dearest service life affords on earth--the service of a pastor.

But when these subscriptions had been collected, the institution was not founded. I had remitted a very large amount that had been paid to me in sums 124 122 large or small, and it had been used, partly in the purchase of additional property, and afterwards some $12,000 was used in erecting an additional building for the accommodation of the students in theology, so that the larger building could be given exclusively to the academy, in the belief that the academy would yield so large an income as would make this investment sound and remunerative. Disappointed in this, we found the unpaid debt beginning to grow with interest unpaid and current expenses still exceeding income. A disaster also had occurred, which rendered our chief investment unprofitable, and if I correctly understood the case, it finally became a dead loss.

At length we reached the point at which we were compelled to ask our professors, Drs. Benton and Mooar, to release us from any further obligation to pay them their salaries. We knew that their resignation would mean the temporary closing of the seminary, and in the end the failure of the enterprise. But we knew that Dr. Benton had private resources well earned and carefully husbanded, the source of which we of the early days could easily imagine. We trusted also that Dr. Mooar could live without a salary, though how this came about, we could not have told. Time proved that our confidence at this point was not misplaced, but this does not diminish one iota from the debt of gratitude we owe to these brave brethren who stood by the apparently sinking ship, doing their duty as diligently as ever and without a whimper of complaining.

I cannot forget the day when on entering the office of our treasurer, Mr. James M. Haven, he said to 125 123 me, "Don't you think that the time has come for us to sell our property and pay our debts?" My reply was, "Not as long as assets clearly exceed liabilities," but with a fear in my heart that this could not mean a long delay.

And here again my heart forbids me to go on without paying a tribute of affection and respect to one of the noblest Christian laymen California has ever known. He was a gift to all the churches from our little mountain church in Downieville. Having entered there upon the practice of law, he removed at length to San Francisco, and having, even though residing at a point so distant from the center, been elected a member of the Board of Trustees at the very inception of our work, he not only continued in it till called to service higher yet in heaven, but he was its attorney and its treasurer for more than thirty years. His professional services given freely to our churches in Central California were equivalent, I suppose, (though of course it is only a personal estimate made from a very partial knowledge of his doings) if appraised at usual prices, to more than $25,000. I found one day, upon his table, papers which showed that he was the attorney of one of the most prominent of the British firms in San Francisco. The head of that firm was a warm personal friend to me, and when I congratulated him on his choice of an attorney, he replied, "We were on the point of importing from England an attorney whom we could trust. We found Mr. Haven, and we are satisfied."

Man's necessity is God's opportunity,--it is an old adage and a good and true one. God opened our 126 124 way to improve that desperate opportunity, by causing Dr. Dwinell one day to be coming from Sacramento with Moses Hopkins, a brother and heir of Mark Hopkins, one of the "Big Four,"--Stanford, Crocker, Huntington and Hopkins--who built the Central Pacific Railroad. The death of the magnate had made his brother a millionaire. Somehow the way was opened for Dr. Dwinell to tell him about our institution and especially about the academy.

He became so much interested that he promised to give us $50,000, provided we met his gift with an equal amount. Dr. Dwinell made haste to bring the good news to our board. We found that some other conditions had been added to that first stated, and that they were such as could not be fulfilled, and Drs. Benton and Dwinell were sent to him to secure a withdrawal of these, so that we could put the matter to our friends and our churches squarely; $50,000 for $50,000. Meanwhile the rest of the Board continued in prayer that our request might be granted. It was; and we fell at once to the task of fulfilling the condition. The amount was divided among us, Dr. Benton taking the heaviest load. I remember that my portion was $2,000, and thanks to Mrs. A. J. Stiles who had been in other matters my great helper, I was able almost at once to bring in a pledge for my share. But some were less fortunate. Dr. Benton's load was too heavy for him. Thirteen thousand dollars must be found, and we seemed to have reached the end of our line.

I can never forget the sensations which crept over me as I sat in the Board at its oft-repeated meetings. 127 125 Those of you who, in New England, have seen the black cloud of an approaching thunder-storm rolling up over the sky, and have felt the attendant quiver in your hearts and frames, can know how I sat there, dreading what, without a word said, I seemed to know was coming. And it came at last. "Brother Pond must go out; we will take care of his services and see that the young church suffers no loss;" and I could not say no, though the darkness into which I was entering was absolute. I asked them to adjourn to meet shortly again and I would consult with my church and give my answer. It was a rather harsh one, but one which previous experience made me feel to be necessary if I was at all to succeed. I said, "While this is going on, I must be Czar; nothing financial must be undertaken without my consent; I must have your full co-operation, and if I need your companionship in appealing to any one, you must give it to me; moreover I must be at liberty to confess our faults in the past and as your agent to say everywhere that if, after this effort is successful, a note of this corporation is given for even so much as twenty-five cents, the subscribers may come back upon us and collect their subscriptions."

And this pledge was given. I do not quite understand even to this day the blessing that followed. The cloud broke into clear sunshine. I was cordially received everywhere. I began as before, with subscription cards, and at the church close to the seminary. The response of $700 from a company so small and a church so young, surprised and cheered me. Then I began to ask the churches as such to subscribe with 128 126 the understanding that their subscriptions would go into the endowment fund and as long as six per cent interest was paid upon them, the principal might remain intact, and notes were drawn and signed stating clearly this obligation. It proved to be a substantial endowment. I believe that not even one church has defaulted in the interest, while all but two have paid the principal. The successes were weekly chronicled in a rather stirring article in "The Pacific," and the enthusiasm became widespread. The $13,000 was raised. But then it was discovered that $5,000 which had been subscribed before for scholarships ought not to be counted as a part of our $50,000, as indeed it ought not, and thus the amount came to $18,000, and when this was reached, other assets were thrown out as not proper to be counted in this particular effort. So that at length the amount became $23,000, and was raised. The privilege was accorded to me of calling upon Mr. Hopkkins and showing him that the condition was fulfilled, and of receiving from him in cash and a good note the $50,000 which he had promised. All debts were paid. The endowments were re-established, and our patient professors began again to receive their salaries,--which, however, in view of the pledge that no debts should be incurred, were to be the income from the respective endowments, whether more or less. The academy was also placed upon a more safe financial basis, and was afterwards sold, if my memory serves me well, for about $50,000.

And here my story ends. I am glad and grateful to know that what I raised with no little toil and trouble sinks into comparative insignificance as seen 129 127 side by side with what has come since in large gifts running up into the tens of thousands from wealthy friends in response to the appeals of others, till now the assets exceed $800,000, and the future of the beloved seminary seems to be clear of all financial peril. "Unto him that hath shall be given," but, thank God, we were delivered from the sequel of that text, for from that which had not there was not taken that which it had.

130 128

CHAPTER XII.

THE ORIENTALS IN CALIFORNIA

I DO not know how early the immigration of Chinese to California began. They were here when I arrived. My route from the city's center to my home took me through an incipient Chinatown. I looked in at the windows when walking through in the evening, to see in the bowls of oil, on which corks perforated with little wicks were floating, the lamps of Bible times. Missionary work among them had already begun. Rev. William Speer, compelled by ill health to return from his field in South China, was serving under the Presbyterian Board, and Rev. S. V. Blakeslee, commissioned by the American Missionary Association, had gathered a small class whom he hoped to reach with Christian influences through teaching them the English language. Few men have left upon my memory so fair a picture of an ideal Christian as did Mr. Speer. Evidently strong and well trained intellectually, courteous, witty, companionable, but unflinching in his loyalty to truth and right and Christ, he was honored by us all and seemed easily to procure the means for erecting on the corner of Stockton and Sacramento Streets a substantial and quite roomy mission house. I think that he followed the methods to which he had become accustomed in China,--methods which presupposed in the worker quite thorough acquaintance with the Chinese language; and I remember well looking at him and 131 129 thinking of him with a sort of brotherly envy because he was thus provided. Mr. Blakeslee, on the other hand, wrought without that advantage, undertaking in a small way what has led to our largest successes in leading Orientals to Christ. But unfortunately he had invented a sort of phonetic English which he was sure would be a real royal road for a Chinese to a knowledge of our language, and he clung to this with too much tenacity, so that his few pupils, eager to learn the language as it is, rather than as it ought to be, soon forsook him,--for which we have reason to thank them, since it brought him to our help in sustaining "The Pacific," where, as I have said in a previous chapter, his service was such as no other man among us could have discharged.

It seems strange to me now that more than ten years should have elapsed before this idea which Mr. Blakeslee conceived came to be recognized by Christians generally. I remember distinctly the real sadness with which I used to pass by the Chinese quarter in Downieville, almost swarming with them, and felt so utterly helpless as to letting in upon their darkness the light of Christ. "Close by me," I often said in substance to myself, "yet as far off practically as though they were in China,--souls for whom Christ died!"

At length, in 1867 or thereabouts, Rev. Otis Gibson, a returned missionary from China, was put in charge of the Methodist Mission, and found himself no better off, through his knowledge of the Chinese language, than we who knew it not at all, because he did not come from South China, the region from 132 130 which our Chinese came, and could neither speak nor understand the dialect spoken here. And he saw the way open which we had failed to see. His proposal to organize Chinese Sunday Schools, and after that, Chinese evening schools, at which Chinese could learn English, was so presented as to call forth an immediate response. Indeed these Sunday schools became a real fad. The one conducted by young people in the First Congregational Church (then located at California and Dupont Streets, close by Chinatown), was so large as to need to be held in the auditorium, and became one of the spectacles to be shown to tourists, and thus was known and written about East as well as West. The Third Church, of which I became pastor in 1868, had already, I think, established such a school. There was a large woolen mill at no great distance from us on one side, and large shoe factories on the other side, each employing many Chinese, so that our school was as large as we could well accommodate in our audience room or could provide teachers for at the rate of a teacher for each pupil. It was an inspiring sight. As it was held immediately before the evening service, I could take no active part in it, and was proud of my church which could do so large and good a work without me.

At length the American Missionary Association turned its face this way again. Gen. C. H. Howard, a brother of Gen. O. O. Howard, who was the District Secretary of the American Missionary Association at Chicago, visited San Francisco to enquire whether there was room for Congregational work among the Chinese, and if so, whether we desired it 133 131 to be undertaken. Sufficient encouragement was given, and Rev. John Kimball was appointed superintendent, and very soon evening schools were started in Sacramento, Oakland, Santa Cruz and Los Angeles. At length Mr. Kimball called upon me to inquire whether an evening school might not make our Chinese Sunday school more useful. I welcomed the idea, and my people all seemed equally to welcome it. I nominated a young lady as teacher who had recently united with the church on confession, and who proved to be the right person in the right place. I had no expectation of immediate results. I had heard for so many years of the very slow progress and the very little fruit in the work in China that I supposed that it would take two or three years before Chinese conservatism could be overcome and conversions reward our labor. My surprise therefore was great when after not more, I am sure, than three months, our teacher came to me and said that eight of her pupils seemed to have given themselves to Christ, and that they desired to be baptized and received to the church.

I proposed, however, to converse with them one by one, and in the case of the first one sent me, did not call for an interpreter. The conversation was far from satisfactory to me. The man seemed to have no conviction of sin at all and consequently no conscious need of a Saviour. I reported this to the teacher and she replied, "I have learned a lesson." But by this time Jee Gam had been called into the work and declared that the candidate had misunderstood my questions and had failed to make his own meaning plain to me. But this man left for China before our preliminary 134 132 examinations were completed, and when he returned, his interest in Christ, or desire to be a Christian, had died out completely. Assisted by Jee Gam, my conversations with the other seven were surprisingly satisfactory, and when I went to the homes where some of them were employed, I found that their conduct was as becometh believers. By two of the ladies to whom I appealed the testimony was expressed in identical words: "If Jee Lee is not a Christian, there are no Christians." "If Chin Sing is not a Christian, there are no Christians." Distrusting still my own impressions, I requested Rev. Dr. Loomis, the Superintendent of the Presbyterian Mission, to come and converse with them, with full liberty, if he should judge them to be intelligent and sincere in their profession, to invite them to unite with his own Chinese church; and he kindly came over to our church to see them. Of course I knew nothing of what had passed between him and them, the conversation being in Chinese, but Jee Gam told me that he cordially invited them to unite with his church, and that they replied, "Your church is nearly three miles away; we were converted in this church, we love our teachers, we would like to be baptized and received here." When I heard this, I saw that our Saviour was committing these souls to our care, and that we ought not to refuse the responsibility. I had no apprehension whatever of any objection being raised to receiving them, in view of the special precautions that had been taken and the satisfactory conclusions reached. And the unanimous vote of the Standing Committee in their favor confirmed me in this view. But I was to be 135 133 disappointed. By a very large majority it was voted to propound and admit them, but in deference to the minority and in order that they might have, as was requested, opportunity to enquire for themselves as to the fitness of these candidates, the matter was laid over for two months. It is strange, but true, that during those two months not one of the objectors, so far as I could learn, went near a single one of these candidates or made any inquiry about them, but when the period of probation expired they were armed, among other things, with a statement from the missionary whom I had called in, to the effect that it would be impossible for me to ascertain whether these candidates were sincere, or knew what they were doing. Whereupon their probation was extended for six months longer, and the guns were turned upon the pastor himself. It was the only church quarrel in which I ever had a part. But it resulted, without any effort on my part at self-defence, in such an uprising of public sentiment against those who would forbid men of a particular race, as such, to be at home in a church of Christ, that at the end of six months, the church had become far more anxious to receive them than they were to be received. For as soon as it was thus made sure to me that what I saw to be a vital element in the teachings and the work of Christ, would at last be accepted by the church and acted upon without discord, I wished to withdraw from the battle-field, and presented my resignation. The last ministerial act which I performed in the church was to baptize these brethren and receive them.

I trust that it will not seem egotistical if I mention 136 134 one incident in connection with their consent to be received which stands in somewhat close connection with what is to follow. The reception took place after my pastoral relationship to the church was dissolved. The Standing Committee had caused these brethren to be gathered together in order to be advised that they would be welcomed on the next Sunday, but found them unwilling to come. The church had come to feel itself so discredited that the committee sent for me to endeavor to persuade them to come. And I myself was disturbed by their refusal. When I had exhausted my persuasions, one of them said to me, "But you will not be our pastor." Quick as a flash I replied, "I will be your pastor," and thereupon they consented. I had no sooner said those words than the thought thrust itself in upon me, "How can this be?" And I saw no way in which my promise could be fulfilled. Yet I could not withdraw it. Somehow this was impossible. And I rested in the assurance that the Spirit of God spoke through me and He would make the apparently impossible come to pass. And it did come to pass.

Having been duly installed as pastor, by a council, a second one was called to advise the church as to the acceptance of my resignation, and at my earnest request they advised this. While a day or two later I was in my study boxing my library, a brother who had spoken for me very effectively before the Council, called and asked me to ride with him. Upon my consenting, he took me to a point from which I could overlook a new district of the city, and asked if it was not a hopeful place for a mission Sunday school. 137 135 I was able to tell him that I had already noted this, hoping that the time would soon come when we could propose to our church to establish such a school. "We will start one then," he said, and in two weeks it held it first session. A small room was rented which soon overflowed, so that the primary department was held under the open sky in the back yard. One day while engaged in some service in my own yard, my mind was running on those words concerning Mary of Bethany, "Who also sat at Jesus' feet and heard his word." "What a perfect motto for a Sunday school!" I exclaimed, and then, "What a beautiful name to go with it is Bethany!" Able to visit the Sunday school the next Sunday, I spoke of this to the teachers and pupils, and with much enthusiasm both motto and name were adopted. I had already accepted the invitation of the Trustees of the Pacific Theological Seminary to become its Financial Agent, so that I could see little of this work, but it soon appeared that larger quarters must be had. There was very little wealth at command, but enough so that by very generous giving a chapel was erected on a leased lot, and Bethany Sunday School moved into it, and soon flooded its new quarters.

All this had taken place through the coo¨peration of about thirty members of the church of which I had been pastor,--members who had fully decided to leave that church, and most of whom lived in this new neighborhood, fully one and a quarter miles from their former house of worship, a distance believed to be large enough to prevent competition. They had expected to scatter, but there was no church near them 138 136 with which they chose to unite. It is not strange that the question soon arose whether they might not establish a church, and this was done on February 23rd, 1873, on the twentieth anniversary of my landing in San Francisco,--a coincidence unsought and at the time not even recognized, but which has since then often recurred to my memory and blessed me. Thirty-two of us joined hands in the prayer of consecration and of fellowship in Christ.

After this, my service to the Seminary absorbed my time and strength for a solid year. An account of this may be found in the chapter concerning the Seminary. It seems to me remarkable that that infant church, undertaking no public worship except the Sunday School and the mid-week meeting, held together for twelve months without a single deserter, till, my task completed, I was able to return to them, my pastorate beginning with March 1st, 1874.

The pertinency of all this to the subject of this chapter will now appear. As I journeyed Eastward to prosecute my canvass in New England, I became possessed with the idea that the American Missionary Association was considering an abandonment of its work for the Chinese in California. I hardly know why my mind dwelt on this idea so much and with such real power, but I determined that when I reached New York I would call at the office and find out whether my impression represented a real fact. I found that it did, and I presented, with all the emphasis I could command, the reasons for its continuance,--not as a competitor with missions already existing, but as occupying fields unoccupied. There 139 137 were many of these in the smaller cities where colonies of Chinese numbering from (say) 150 to 1,500 could be found with no one caring for their souls.

Several months after this, I found myself, as I approached the end of a week, destitute of any appointment for the coming Sunday. A very dear friend, Rev. B. N. Seymour, who had been my nearest ministerial neighbor when I was pastor in Downieville, was now pastor in a church not far from Boston, and I wrote him that I was coming to him for a rest. He met me at the railroad station, and with a little embarrassment said that he was not to be in his own pulpit on the morrow, and that Rev. Mr. Woodworth, District Secretary of the American Missionary Association, was to preach, and he himself had promised to preach elsewhere. "Oh well," I replied, "I will go with you; I want to hear you." With still more embarrassment he said, "We have but one extra bed, and I have invited Mr. Woodworth to occupy it. Could you sleep with him?" "If he is willing to sleep with me," I said, "I will promise not to trouble him." And so it was arranged, and so it came to pass. Mr. Woodworth had doubtless heard of the conversation with a secretary in New York, and we had scarcely settled ourselves in bed when he began to pump me on the subject of their mission among the Chinese. And he did not need to pump hard, for I was brim full of it myself. He said that the work had been started at his earnest instigation and he could not bear its being abandoned. It was well on in the small hours before we slept, but his concluding words were, "Brother Pond, you must take up the 140 138 work when you return." And I frankly told him that I would like to do so, for I saw in it possibilities which were very inviting. In consequence of this I was invited to speak of these possibilities at the annual meeting of the Association in Newark, which I did.

At length my hard job was fulfilled and I started for home. I spent but two days in New York, on one of which I called again at the office of the American Missionary Association. I was cordially welcomed and I had hardly got quietly seated when the Secretary said to me, "We want you to superintend our work for the Chinese in California, but Mr. Kimball, though he is somewhere on this side the Rockies and cannot attend to the work, yet has forgotten to resign, and we do not like to discharge him." I replied that I would like to make the attempt to bring to pass what I had pictured as being possible, and that whenever he should hear from Mr. Kimball he might write to me. The office was then on Reade Street just below Broadway. I went up to Broadway and turned down that street to get a look at the then famous hostelry, the Astor House, and there, coming down the steps, was Mr. Kimball. The cordial greeting was scarcely completed before he said to me, "Brother Pond, I am here in the East and cannot return for a good while, and you ought to take my place as Superintendent of the work for the Chinese." I replied, "If you think so, it can be arranged in less than twenty minutes," and we walked around to the office. He wrote his resignation and withdrew. The few details needing to be settled were arranged, and the next morning I started for home, and two days after I reached 141 139 home, my commission arrived, and the promise which leaped to my lips in talking with my Chinese brethren, began to be fulfilled.

I had something yet to do in collecting the subscriptions which had been made, conditioned on the full amount of $35,000 being subscribed, and while on the journeys thus made necessary, I visited several missions already in existence,--at Sacramento, Santa Cruz, Oakland and Los Angeles, and started one in Santa Barbara.

Not long after I had returned, Jee Gam laid before me a scheme for a headquarters in San Francisco, close by the Chinese Quarter, which would afford a refuge for our brethren, a school in the English language, a place for Sunday services and a "Theological Seminary." This last seemed to me rather premature, but the rest expressed our immediate and pressing necessity, for our few Chinese brethren were indeed, as one of them said, "like orphans without a home." I promised to write about it to the office in New York, and if the plan was approved there, we would undertake to carry it out.

The reply was a hearty approval. I think that I remember the words in which it was expressed: "This is just what we have always wished to see done." While I was waiting for this reply, my own appreciation of the project had so grown upon me that I was eager to enter upon it. So a building was soon found, admirably located, which with some alterations would answer our purpose, and I rented it at $75 per month. At that time Congress had just passed the Exclusion Law, to take effect six months 142 140 after it received the President's signature. During these six months, the immigration of Chinese was almost precisely equal to the whole number in the United States when the bill became a law. The consequence was that our rooms were packed by the newcomers eager to learn the English language. Teachers could hardly move about in the crowd. As many as 130 were reported in attendance for several months. This called for a large number of teachers, so that the expense became very great. Nothing had been said to me, either in my commission or in any other way, about a definite and limited appropriation for this work. In my inexperience in such matters, I had assumed that whatever expense was unavoidable in carrying out what the home office had approved, would be supplied. I have never in my life been more startled than I was when after all this was moving well, I received a letter stating that the appropriation for this work was $5,000 per annum , that it was nearly exhausted and that it could not be increased. What could I do? It was evident that appeals to the A. M. A. would be in vain. On the other hand, retreat meant such disappointment and disaster as would wreck our whole work. I had not expected to have anything to do with raising funds. My part was to be simply to use as carefully and usefully as possible funds supplied from the East. And I was already overloaded with tasks of that sort in connection with the Seminary and our infant Bethany Church.

At length an appeal to the Lord Jesus brought me courage, and I said, "If I have to raise $1,200 in 143 141 subscriptions of five and ten dollars, I will raise it somehow." And God answered my prayer, leading me to success by a way that I knew not.

Our general Association for that year, 1874, was held with the First Church in Oakland, and Mrs. Pond and I were assigned as guests to Mr. and Mrs. Wedderspoon, English people of wealth, for reasons highly complimentary to my wife, but such as made us go to them with some bashful timidity. But never were we more happily disappointed. Friendship sprang up almost instantly. And my work for the Chinese was made by them to be an almost absorbing topic of conversation. Hence it came to pass that when I began to plan for my campaign, I determined to go to Mr. Wedderspoon first. "Possibly," I said to myself, "his firm will subscribe $100." So I wrote him a rather long letter stating the case, and handing it to him in his office, asked him to read it at his leisure at home, and said that I would call for his answer the next day. I did this, and was received most cordially. "And how much did you say you would need?" "Fifteen hundred dollars," I replied. "Oh, we will get that. Get a little better subscription book and I will go out with you." Now the firm of which he was the resident partner had in charge large operations in the interior and were consequently great buyers of all sorts of merchandise from mining machinery to dry-goods. I purchased and prepared a quite handsome subscription book, and after putting down the name of his firm for $100, he went with me. A tap of his hand on a man's shoulder seemed sufficient to call forth a subscription,--one other of $100, a goodly 144 142 number at $50 and still more at $25, till, in one afternoon, if I remember correctly, the whole amount needed was subscribed and most of it deposited in bank.

The momentum of this effort enabled me for several years, in spite of an intense and growing hostility to the Chinese, to gather a very helpful amount from San Francisco merchants for our Mission. From that time also our financial operations were grounded in faith that the Lord would provide. After receiving notice from the American Missionary Association as to the amount of their appropriation for a coming year, I never asked that it be increased. Believing in the leadership of Christ and that if one asks for that leadership he will have it and have it made clear to him, we entered doors which Christ opened, and occupied any new field to which He called us. And though after the appropriation was exhausted and we had to meet the bills of nearly six months by our own efforts, though this seemed to be utterly impossible, still month by month all bills were punctually met, and when we closed our books for the fiscal year, there was always except in two instances a small balance on hand. In one of these cases the deficit was $6.00, in the other it was $30.00, the result of the forwarding by mistake to New York for the general work of the American Missionary Association, of precisely that amount which was really intended as a special for us. Thus year by year the Master's promise was fulfilled. The mountain was "taken up and cast into the sea."

The saving grace of God has attended our lowly 145 143 work from its beginning until now. Our workers sent me month by month detailed reports, and according to my recollection there was never a month in which no one of them could speak of a soul saved. At no time did these reports indicate what might be called a flood-tide of the Spirit, but a quiet stream was flowing all the while.

First and last we have had forty-nine missions. Not even one-half of these became permanent. We never had at one time more than twenty-three missions. But those that were planted and lived only a year or two, were not fruitless. Of but one do I think as a failure. One was discontinued because the mob drove all the Chinese from the town; some because the business which gathered Chinese in that locality was discontinued; some because through lack of funds we were compelled to let them die in order that those with brighter prospects might continue. It is impossible for us to know how many souls were led out of darkness into light. The Good Shepherd knows them all. But I am safe and quite within bounds in saying that there have been reported to me more than 3,500. Nomadic as they are,--as indeed all men are who are without families or homes--these have been scattered in our land from Alaska to Florida; a little army of them have returned to their native land, and many have found their final home in their Father's House on high. One chief source of satisfaction in the work has been in those who have returned to their native land, self-transported, self-supported missionaries, furnished already with the language as their very mother-tongue, 146 144 knowing by experience how much better is the living and life-giving Saviour than anything which their old customs and superstitions could afford, their simple words of testimony, uttered perhaps in the ancestral hall to which their fellow villagers would gather to hear reports from what they called "the Land of the Golden Mountain," were attended with saving power in some, even when they encountered in others an intense antagonism.

At length, in 1885, our brethren, in order to make this work in the old home villages more efficient and abiding, organized "The China Congregational Missionary Society." It was not in virtue of any conscious spurring by their Superintendent, but of their own accord, and his first knowledge of it came to him when there was brought to him a translation of their Constitution for him to revise. This is still in vigorous life, coo¨perating with the Mission of our American Board and really a part of its work, but sustained entirely by themselves. For many years Rev. C. R. Hager, M.D., was the sole missionary of the Board in South China, his headquarters at Hong Kong, wehre a large mission house with a commodious chapel was erected, in which, as one of our brethren wrote me, "When we go to church it seems as though we were in California again, so many of the people whom we see were once with us there." Twice each year, and sometimes oftener when special occasions called for it, Dr. Hager toured, much of the way on foot, from village to village, meeting the brethren, teaching them, and baptizing such as seemed ready for baptism. I remember its being reported to me 147 145 that on one occasion, in one village, he baptized one hundred in one day. At any rate several years ago, I saw in the report of the American Board the South China Mission, with its one or at most two missionaries, credited with a much larger number of communicants than any other mission,--a fact which finds its readiest explanation in the number and zeal of Chinese believers returning from California (mainly) and becoming witnesses there, through the power of the Spirit, to Him whom they had found to be a real Saviour.

I am well aware that in these reminiscences concerning our work for Orientals, I have passed quite beyond what we now account as the Early days of Congregationalism in this State. Indeed, the beginning of my own participation in it occurred subsequently to the limit which I had set for myself in this respect. Yet it seemed that my story would be sadly incomplete if it had nothing to say of this work; and having begun to write about it, there was found no stopping-place save that afforded by the close of my official relationship to it. My interest in it can never die, and my coo¨peration with it, so far as opportunity is afforded me, will continue as long as life and strength remain.

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CHAPTER XIII.

BETHANY CHURCH

I HAVE spoken of the way in which, with Christ for our Leader, we approached step by step toward the organization of a church. I have been hold that I ought to add a brief sketch of its history on to the time when under the weakening effects of advancing age, I was constrained to choose between continuing my pastorate and withdrawing from the care of the missions, or resigning the one in order to continue in the other.

It seemed to me that it would be easy to find a pastor who would do better work with the church than I could, but that it would be difficult to find one to take up the complicated duties involved in due care of the missions and fulfil them, until through experience quite costly he had learned how to do it. Accordingly I presented my resignation with an earnest request that it be accepted.

The peculiar circumstances under which the church was organized were such that we did not at once seek its formal recognition by its sister churches. We were quite sure that the outlook for it, as this appeared to some of our brethren, who had seen little if anything of the Master's leadership as our faith had discerned it, would be clouded by various doubts about it. For the same reason we were determined to ask no aid of the Home Missionary Society, nor 149 147 make in any other way an appeal for coo¨peration of any sort until the smoke of the conflict had entirely cleared away.

It became necessary for our members, during my canvass for the Seminary, to be content with only such service as could be rendered without a pastor, and with only such mutual fellowship as could be had through our cheery and flourishing Sunday School and our midweek meeting.

It was, however, expected that my work for the Seminary would be ended in a few months--six months at most--and my brethren determined to wait for me. But my work in the East, which in my sanguine inexperience I supposed could be completed in four months, covered no less than nine; and after my return there remained the collection of the conditional subscriptions made in California. It seems to me remarkable and a fact worth commemorating that this infant church maintained its mutual fellowship unimpaired and kept up in full vigor all that it had undertaken through a whole year.

On the first Sunday morning in March, 1874, its first preaching service was held with an audience numbering forty-three. I accepted the invitation which had been extended to me to serve as pastor on a salary of seventy-five dollars a month. This, with the rent of our lot and unavoidable incidental expenses, would call for an income of one hundred dollars a month. I can never forget the impression made upon me when I heard that this amount had been provided for; that ten dollars per month besides plate offerings at every service had been pledged by six or seven 150 148 young men whose incomes were the usual salaries of clerks or bookkeepers. I was for a few months still in receipt of a small salary as field agent of the Seminary, and from the American Missionary Association fifty dollars a month, so that with rigid economy I was able to meet my household expenses.

This pastorate continued for thirty-two years in unbroken and blessed harmony. The membership rose to about four hundred. The benevolent contributions in one of those years amounted to three thousand dollars. For twenty-five years, with six communion seasons in each year, there was not even one without additions on confession. It was stigmatized as a Chinese church, but turned this reproach into a blessing and a help. At length its membership was greatly reduced by the dismissal of 199 members who were to be organized as the Chinese Congregational Church of San Francisco. Quite a number were also dismissed on another occasion to unite with other believers in forming the Bethlehem Congregational Church, the outgrowth of a mission Sunday School maintained by us in a churchless region about one mile west of Bethany.

I venture to give an account of that first sermon, the inaugural of my pastorate, the subject of which was

"Bethany as the name of our church: To what does it pledge us?"

The text was in Luke 24:50: "He led them out as far as to Bethany and He lifted up His hands and blessed them." The points were five:

1. Bethany was a place where one sat at Jesus' 151 149 feet and heard His word: and this is what our church must be.

2. Bethany was a place where the dead was raised to life: and this is what our church should be; people dead in trespasses and sin are to be new-born into the Eternal Life.

3. Bethany was evidently a home for Jesus above any other village in the land-- His home: and this is what our church must be, the abiding place of Jesus--unseen by mortal eyes, but according to His promise with us every day even to the fulfilment of redemption.

4. Bethnay was the place of a lavish consecration, Mary and her "pound of ointment of pure nard, very precious" poured upon the feet of Jesus, filling thus the whole house with its rich odor. And this is what should characterize our service as members of this church: gladsome consecration of the best--of all--of what we have or are to Jesus; this spiritual fragrance filling all our house.

5. Bethany was the place of Jesus' parting benediction before he ascended and the cloud received Him--no bank of fog, but the ancient Shekinah, the only visible representative of God allowed on earth by Him till "the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us." And this benediction comes to every church in which God finds that which He found of old in Bethany.

I think that I may be pardoned if I claim that of all possible names for a church of Christ Bethany is the most significant and most sacred.

Our little cosy chapel had been built upon a rented lot. We had no definite lease of it, only the promise 152 150 of the owner that before he would sell it, he would give us the first chance to buy it. A fact this was which caused uneasiness of spirit for me, and probably for others. One day, entering the printing office of which our treasurer was bookkeeper, I was told that the owner of the lot had called upon him to say that he was offering the lot for sale at $1,500, and that we could have it at that price, but we must take it at once. "And did you say that we would take it?" I asked. The dear brother opened his eyes wide, and with a smile, replied, "How could I?" "Well," I replied, "if he calls again, and even if he adds three hundred dollars to the price, tell him that we will take it." Within three days he did call again to announce three hundred dollars added to the price; nor could he be dissuaded from this demand. He was a good man, and was not willing to be or to seem hard in his dealings with us; but for some reason he greatly needed that amount, and this price was really not excessive. He wanted the money at once, but I said, "Of course he must be able to give us a sound title, approved by our attorney." He did not find this so easy as he supposed, and thus a little time was secured for us; and as soon as the title was confirmed, the money was on hand, and for the time being the lot became mine. Upon the refunding of this in monthly installments, the title was of course transferred to the church, duly incorporated.

Now, viewed from a merely business standpoint, that promise to purchase could not be justified as a business transaction, for I had not the money and my people did not have it, nor could I have told where or 153 151 how it was to be raised. But from the standpoint of faith , it was safe, and it saved the church from a disaster which might and probably would have been fatal to it. Am I asked upon what could such faith be founded? I reply that I have spoken too briefly in another chapter concerning the "Gifts" of our ascended Lord through the Holy Spirit, of which Paul wrote so clearly and confidently in Romans, twelfth chapter, and again in I Corinthians, twelfth chapter, more in detail. This has so modified my thoughts and uplifted me in courage and good cheer that I feel that I must not close these Reminiscences without devoting a final chapter to this element of real Christian faith. Suffice it to say here that I see--I may even say I felt --in my counsel then given to our treasurer the Spirit of God speaking through me, just as I came afterwards to realize it in the promise I made to our Chinese brethren. (See p. 134.)

When I add that the money was provided in a very simple way by my finding a Christian brother whose name written on the back of my note made that note good at a bank for the entire amount, all mystery about the whole transaction disappears. But this was the first time in my life that I had ever asked this of any person, and the fact that I could do this did not occur to me till a short time after the responsibility was assumed; and I remember that my friend and helper said that it was the first time that he had endorsed a note. Yet there was not with me a moment of anxiety about the matter from beginning to end.

Soon after we commenced our Sunday services, we enlarged our chapel by adding at the rear of it two rooms, 154 152 one for the use of our ladies, when on various occasions, social or financial, they furnished us with refreshments, and the other to be on week days my study and on Sundays the primary class room. With the eye of our faith upon a larger building that would be needed and in some way would be provided, the dimensions of this addition were made to be such that the whole building could be turned and placed on the rear of our lot, with room in front of it sufficiently large for any congregation that we would wish for. We said one to another, "If that becomes too small for us, it will be time for us to swarm." A second story was afterwards added to this building, and then our tabernacle was regarded as complete.

For years we waited till the call of the Master came to us: "Arise and build." Then the question came whether it should be a temporary structure costing, say, four thousand dollars and involving us in no debt, or whether we should erect a permanent structure and incur a debt of four thousand dollars. We determined on the latter plan as being on the whole more economical; since the cheaper building would, if our hopes were realized, need to be removed or torn down whenever we outgrew it. We reached this conclusion the more readily because our income was exceeding our current expenses by about forty dollars a month, so that even if the larger and better building brought no increase of income, we could meet the interest on four thousand dollars and not run behind.

We secured subscriptions amounting to four thousand dollars, and received from a bank the promise of a loan of four thousand dollars. A Christian brother 155 153 served us so well as architect that all our people became enthusiastic over his designs. He also supplied us with an opinion from an experienced contractor that the building could be erected at a cost slightly less than eight thousand dollars, and a member of our church entered into contract with us correspondingly.

Thus far all had moved on with delightful smoothness. Now began trials of our faith.

When the four thousand dollars had been collected and used, we went to the bank to complete arrangements for the loan which its president had promised to us, and found that the directors had refused to fulfil that promise. They had given us no notice of their action. "They would not loan to a church on any terms.

Our treasurer came to me greatly troubled; but the same Unseen Friend whose guidance had led us thus far, was with me still and suggested a way of escape for us which put me so completely at rest in spirit that I slept peacefully that night and in the morning proceeded to carry out His suggestion. The result was that Mrs. A. J. Stiles, a mother in our Congregational Israel, even against the advice of her business agent, who declared that a loan to a church was always troublesome and unsafe, insisted that we should have not simply four thousand dollars but five thousand, if we needed it, and at an interest lower than the bank would have charged.

So the work went on with peace and comfort till a sorer trial of our faith appeared. Our contractor failed and was unable to finish the job. The result was that what, according to the estimate of our 156 154 architect and our contractor, should have cost us eight thousand dollars, cost us thirteen thousand dollars; and notwithstanding a giving much in excess of what had been pledged, we were in debt $6,500 instead of $4,000.

We were greatly pleased with our building. It was at once so substantial and so beautiful, both within and without, an object of interest not only to us but to citizens generally in our region, that despite our disappointments we lifted the load cheerily. But there were further expenses to be met: a furnace must be purchased and put in place: janitor service and other incidentals had much increased, and--worst of all--several of those brave young men who started our work as a church with such good spirit and generous offerings, were moving away. One went to Oregon; our good treasurer to Oakland; others to distant parts of the city, and one had lost his position and with it his whole income. Nevertheless, every bill of every sort, except the pastor's salary, was promptly paid. This was his own instruction to the treasurer: "Pay everything else first." The business manager of our chief creditor began to speak his glad surprise that a church should give him no chance to collect the interest; the treasurer was on hand with it on the morning of every day on which it became due. Nevertheless, in one way or another, the gracious unseen Provider made it possible for the pastor to be as prompt in paying his bills as he wished the treasurer to be with those of the church. To this day I am puzzled over this fact: how was it that every real need was met, and 157 155 that never once was I obliged to ask for a postponement of payday.

But this punctuality was not attained wholly through our income. Some of the money that made this possible came through loans on personal credit, and the debt was not decreasing, it was slowly increasing. One of the steadfast givers said to me: "If only we could see the debt diminishing, it would be easy to give and to sacrifice in giving"; and then added, "But--," and left the sentence unfinished. I myself was praying daily that we might be enabled "to clip off something month by month"; and I even seemed to cry out to the listening Jesus: "Did I not ask Thee to guide us, and even beg Thee to stop us if it seemed to Thee unwise for us to go on?" At length, one morning as I rose from my knees, I found that I had prayed that "the debt might be fully paid, not a shred of it left"; and I found myself ready to exclaim with that Israelitish nobleman, "If the windows of heaven might be opened, could this be?" I could see no signs of its probable fulfilment. I do not remember that I had faith to expect a granting of my audacious request.

About six weeks after this, Mr. Robert Balfour of the great British house of Balfour, Guthrie and Company, met me on the street, and tapping me on the shoulder, said: "There's something in our office to interest you; call in and see about it." "I'll go in now," I said. He replied, "Mr. Forman" (the other resident partner) "is very busy just now; come in tomorrow." On going in on the morrow, Mr. Forman showed me a letter from Mr. Williamson, one of the 158 156 founders of the house (the title of which in Liverpool is "Balfour, Williamson and Company"), in which he said: "We are greatly interested in Mr. Pond's good work, and we would like to have the firm give one thousand dollars, and I will give five hundred dollars and Mr. Alexander Balfour will give five hundred dollars, and I hope that this will stimulate giving by others."

I was startled--too much so to ask any payment. I went home thinking and saying to myself, "It is my work for the Chinese that has interested him, and I must use it for that"; nevertheless, almost praying that it might lead to the extinguishment of our debt, which was now about eight thousand dollars. When I reached home I told the good news to my wife, and her exclamation echoed mine: "I wish that could go toward our church debt." At length I resolved, realizing, as I did, that a failure of Bethany Church would be almost a deathblow to our missionary work, that I would call the next day on the gentlemen whom I have already named and tell them of our debt, how it was incurred, and assure them that if this donation could be devoted to that purpose, I believed that with such leverage I could raise the whole amount. They were agreed that "nothing could please Mr. Williamson better than that. --Write him a letter about it, and come and dine with us tomorrow evening and read your letter to us." I returned home, and my wife and I talked further, agreeing to tell the news to no one until all questions concerning it could be answered.

After that dinner I read my long, frank letter to 159 157 my friends, and they agreed so fully that it would be acceptable to their partners in England that they suggested that I go to work at once to raise the balance. I did so, and in about three months had received pledges sufficient so that if our own people would give three thousand dollars, the whole debt could be removed.

I made up a list of all of us of whom anything could be expected, omitting good Deacon Palache, a bookkeeper, and the only one among us all of whom I knew that he had money in the bank. He had $2,500, saved from his limited salary. I asked him to come to me in my study, naming an evening for it: "I had something to show him." He came, and I told him the whole story and then showed him my list and the amounts at which I had assessed each one --interrupted several times by his remark, "That's too much for him or her." When we reached the end and found that it totalled $2,500, and that his name was not down, he took the hint instantly and said, "I'll do it; I'll do it!" "Well, then," I replied, "if after I have told the story to the people, you will rise and, speaking not more than two minutes, will make your pledge, I believe that the three thousand dollars will be raised." He did it, and within twenty minutes the amount was subscribed, and in about five months from the morning when I offered that "inwrought" prayer, the debt was extinguished--"not a shred of it left."

It must have been close to the very day on which in San Francisco I offered that "inwrought prayer," when in Liverpool my friend was writing that letter. Indeed, I can easily picture to myself the unseen Jesus 160 158 who near me was prompting my petition, standing also near to him in Liverpool and dictating what he wrote.

I think that my readers will be interested to know how this Christian merchant became interested in my work. Nearly eight months before this good news came to me, I found one day that I needed two hundred dollars in order to meet the bills that day falling due. I was not in good mood for solicitation, and I said to myself, "I will go to Balfour, Guthrie and Company and get their subscription of fifty dollars, and will put my note in the bank for a hundred and fifty dollars." So I opened up my subscription book and did my errand, and my good friend took my book to enter the subscription. I noticed an elderly gentleman sitting in the office, and, imagining that I might be interrupting some business conversation, hoped in a few minutes to withdraw. But this gentleman asked, "What is it, Forman?"--"Our Chinese Mission," he replied, whereupon the gentleman began to question me. I answered very awkwardly and to myself unsatisfactorily. But in three or four minutes he turned to Mr. Forman and asked, "How much do you subscribe?"--"Fifty dollars," was the reply.--"Better make it a hundred," he said, and Mr. Forman obeyed. Before that could be written he added, "And put me down for fifty," and before this was written he said again, "and put Mr. Balfour of Liverpool down for fifty dollars. I know that he will like it." And so I went out with two hundred dollars and put no note in the bank.

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CHAPTER XIV.

EARLY CONGREGATIONALISM AND SOCIAL QUESTIONS

IN connection with my first sermon preached in California I was requested to lead in the pastoral prayer. In the course of it I asked that slavery , among other evils, might cease. The pastor meeting me the next, day suggested that if I must pray against slavery, I do it under another name,--oppression, for example, or cruelty. "The Lord will know what you mean," he said. Now, to tell the truth, notwithstanding an intense momentary revolt at the suggestion, I soon saw a reasonable side to it. I am speaking not for myself alone but for the whole worshipping assembly, and I must consider not only my personal wishes but theirs also. California, though admitted to the Union as a "Free" state, was, in politics and in the social atmosphere of its people, if not pro-slavery, at least bitterly hostile to any agitation against it; and I observed a silent recognition of this fact on the part of our little company of ministers, except when occasion called for utterance, and then they spoke distinctly. I have already referred to the fact that when I arrived it was a young tradition that an article in "The Pacific," of which I understood that Mr. Willey was the writer, led to the defeat of a plot to divide the State and make its Southern portion slave territory. That proposal some years afterwards was made publicly, and tentatively pressed, and 162 160 led to a Fourth of July sermon in my mountain parish which gained for me the soubriquet of the "Abolition Preacher." Others, I dare say, attained to like honor with its accompanying penalties, for we find that our Association did not wait till the bombardment of Fort Sumter had roused the Free States to fight for the Union and had turned public sentiment towards the abolition of slavery, but in 1854, when to be a Republican at all was to be a "Black Republican," and a pastor that dared to speak in his pulpit against slavery was declared on the hustings to have "mortgaged himself to the devil," the following preamble and resolution was adopted:

"Whereas, the great question of slavery is engaging the intense inquiry of the churches and the people of the land; and whereas, we have reason to believe that many are endeavoring to involve this State in this stupendous iniquity; resolved, that we bear testimony against this evil and as Christian ministers shall labor in our sphere and to our ability against its encroachments in our State and land."

After the Civil War began, there was at each of our meetings a committee on the "State of the Country," of which Dr. Benton was usually made the chairman; and the ringing tones in which he spoke for us of loyalty to the Union and the nation, and of slavery as the root of bitterness from which all our quarrels rose, make music still. I quote a brief extract from one of these resolutions adopted enthusiastically in 1862:

"Whereas, the institution of slavery has been the underlying cause out of whose activities have sprung 163 161 the more immediate occasions of this War, being the prolific cause of the alienation, jealousies, feuds and sectional strifes which have culminated in wanton and wicked rebellion against the truest and most majestic of all earthly governments--a government of freemen in liberty, therefore

"Resolved, that we respectfully tender to the President and his advisers our sympathy with them amid their perplexities, our assurance of regard amidst all obloquy, and our unwavering support through all difficulties and dangers.

"Resolved, that since the enemies of the Union are determined to wage the contest to the bitter end, we, under a righteous sense of duty to God, are in favor of carrying on against them a war which is war ....

"Resolved, that we are gratified at the Emancipation Scheme proposed by the President as a War Measure after January next, believing it to be called for by the emergencies of the case and in accordance with the demands of the age and of all ages."

Scarcely need I say, much less to quote as proof of my testimony, that as to intemperance, divorce, Sabbath breaking, gambling and the foulnesses always close by in gambling halls, we used equal plainness of speech. As far back as 1853 we were found proposing and urging the legal prohibition of the traffic in intoxicating drinks, and I think that no session of our Association failed to adopt some report pledging ourselves to do whatever we could to further the Temperance cause.

The first public school in California was opened in Monterey in 1849, with our Brother Willey as teacher. Afterwards, when he had removed to San Francisco, our churches joined with others in 164 162 marching the children of this city in a procession about 100 strong along the business streets, to emphasize an appeal for the opening of a public school. When I arrived I found a Congregational layman devoting his whole time, except that given to work in the church, to the establishment of public schools and making provision for their reliable continuance. It would be difficult to make any Californian whose residence in the State does not cover more than fifty years, conceive of the indifference which Col. Nevins encountered in pressing this work;--that is, as I think that I once heard it called, "riding his hobby." But I need not say that as to this, Congregationalists, pastors and people alike, spoke in no uncertain sounds. Interest had hardly become general when a movement was started for the division of public school money between public, non-sectarian schools and parish (Romish) ones. At this point, too, our voice was heard among many others, and that danger-point was passed safely.

In the year 1856, during the three months from May 14th to August 18th, there took place in San Francisco a revolution as heroic in its conception and development, as epochal in its own sphere, as greatly needed and as wisely and bravely brought to a beneficent result as any on a larger scale of which I ever read. In the beginning of its existence San Francisco and indeed the whole of California was practically lawless. There was a feeble attempt to secure law and order, using Mexican methods, but it did not fit the new conditions and was almost powerless. Congress, occupied with discussions, all of them rooted in 165 163 the "irrepressible conflict" between Slavery and Liberty, had not provided a Territorial Government; and a State government, even after a Constitution had been framed and had been adopted by the people, could operate but feebly so long as it remained unaccepted by Congress. The result of this was that convicts from Sydney, men that wished to know no law, flocked hither and by force of numbers and repeaters and frauds in the counting, were virtually in possession of the government, such as it was. This condition of things becoming intolerable, a Vigilance Committee was formed which executed the law not through its prescribed forms and agencies, but according to its spirit. Some murderers were hung, some guilty of frauds in politics or money matters were banished, while many others for whom prudence was the better part of valor left the city for the city's good.*

"Between 1849 and 1856 more than one thousand murders had been committed, and only one legal conviction secured."--Atherton's Intimate History of California, p. 172.

All this took place before I arrived. I am telling the story as it was told to me. It did good for the time being, but the Committee made one bad mistake, or, at any rate, the people did for whom the Committee counselled and wrought. They lapsed into political carelessness, and during or before 1855 the old crowd or one like it had a grip on the city government which it seemed impossible to loosen. The safest thing a murderer or any other criminal who "had a pull," could do was to surrender himself for trial. 166 164 Acquittal might be costly, but it could be had. I remember across sixty years how the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court released from jail on a writ of habeas corpus some young men openly guilty of some crime, and justified his action by saying, "Why, they were my friends." Then there came to the rescue one of Nature's noblemen, James King of William. Belonging to a large tribe of James Kings, he had found it convenient to add his father's name to his own. I first knew him as a banker. He sold his business, and at length he issued a little daily paper of four small octavo pages which he named "The Evening Bulletin." He went, well prepared with facts and proofs, into the frankest and bravest statements respecting the condition of the city and the corrupt politicians who had brought about that condition. It was scarcely a week, as I well remember, before the demand for the little sheet became so heavy that it was scarcely possible, with the facilities at his command, to print the number called for. Thus he was enabled to enlarge it and procure better facilities. Soon after this, a man named Cora committed murder openly in the street. He took refuge in the jail, was tried, and while eleven of the jury were honest men and voted him guilty, there was one who stood out for acquittal. "He was manifestly bribed," said one of his fellow jurymen to me. This raised public indignation, and it was duly characterized in the "Bulletin." Not long after, an ex-convict from New York, named Casey, who had somehow contrived to become a supervisor, passed under the "Bulletin's" animadversion, and having received no satisfaction through a call at the office, met the 167 165 editor on the street and shot him, and then hastened to the jail. Mr. King was not instantly killed. It was the beloved Edward Lacy, pastor of the First Congregational Church, that was called to his bedside, for he had recently chosen that church for his religious home. Mr. Lacy wrote of him: "His last words and look were such that in my memory his dark locks are wreathed with an immortal crown."

That very night a second Vigilance Committee was organized, with no less than 2500 members. The next day the sheriff, under pressure of a loaded cannon trained up before the jail door, surrendered to the Committee both Casey and Cora, and they were taken to quarters made ready elsewhere. There they received a fair trial in strict accordance with the spirit, thought not with all the forms, of law, and were found guilty and hung. After that not only a number of well-known thieves and other evil-doers were tried and sentenced to leave the State, but no less a personage than the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court was arrested for murderous assault and held till his victim's convalescence set him free.

This Committee continued its work for only three months, as I have said, but it did not pass out of existence, and the fact of its existence was a terror to them that did evil. And indirectly it controlled the politics of the city for about eighteen years, seeing to it, as far as possible, that there should be no fraudulent voting or counting at the elections, and thus securing for San Francisco, quite soon, the reputation of being the best governed city in the State, or even in the nation.

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Now the point which I wish to bring out is that in this movement, which may truly be declared to be the most fully justified, the best managed and the most successful revolution the world ever saw, Congregationalism was largely represented. Mr. Lacy wrote that though the church was filled to the door on that Sunday following the death of Mr. King, he was distressed at missing all the young men who had gathered about him and had been for him such a full-flowing source of inspiration and joy. They were busy serving the Lord in another way. Mr. Lacy quotes a Southern gentleman who was watching the soldierly members of the Committee marching towards the jail, as saying, "When you see these psalm-singing Yankees out like that on Sunday, hell is coming ." And I am still convinced that in those days that tried men's souls, Congregationalism represented in that First Church and in such men as Lacy and Benton and Warren and all the rest, was second to no other force in this new and greatly troubled State, making for righteousness. I remember to have said in those days that tried men's souls, both in connection with the heroic struggle of the Vigilance Committee for the establishment of justice and law and order in San Francisco, and the different but no less heroic service to our whole country during the war for Union and Liberty, that the First Congregational Church of San Francisco, under the leadership of Edward S. Lacy, was pree¨minent, and I was never contradicted.

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CHAPTER XV.

IN CONCLUSION

IT marked an epoch in the early history of Congregationalism in California, when in 1864 Rev. James H. Warren was appointed by the American Home Missionary Society its Agent for the Pacific Coast. How this was viewed at the time appears in this brief but hearty endorsement of it by the General Association: "Resolved, that we hail with joy the appointment of a resident Agent of the American Home Missionary Society for the Pacific Coast,--and that we will heartily coo¨perate with him in the work entrusted to his hands." Two years after this the record is that "The Narrative and Statistics indicate a prosperity perhaps hardly equalled in any preceding year."

The field was immense territorially, immense also in its potencies, its opportunities and its consequent demands. Two other brethren had received such an appointment, Rev. I. H. Brayton and Rev. T. D. Hunt, but the former was compelled soon to resign on account of ill health, and the latter, devoting himself mainly to exploration, must have incurred traveling expenses too great for a missionary treasury to afford. Whether this was the reason for the cessation of the work, I do not know, but it did soon cease, and for several years this ministry, so greatly needed, was not resumed. Dr. Warren had been nominated for the position in 1859, but we waited five years for the nomination to take effect in his appointment.

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He was the man for the hour. Even what may be said to be his one defect might also be said to be a help and blessing partially disguised. He was very sanguine, and this caused him sometimes to see in the future what would not be found there,--to see it so distinctly as to cause him to encourage others to expect what could not be provided. One of our home missionaries once wittily said, "Dr. Warren is the most promising man I ever met." But there was a great deal in his work which called for just that hopeful spirit, which descries real possibilities such as another might not see, and impels one to undertake and finally to achieve what one less sanguine would not even have considered. He was a hearty man, ready to clasp the hand even of a stranger, and then to discover the best in all whom he might meet. He quickly made himself at home with recent acquaintances and gained friendships which outlived long separation. He carried the Home Missionary churches on his heart, the care of them, a welcome though often heavy load. He was greatly blessed in his wife, who was not only a zealous but a wise woman, with whom in his frequent and long absences he could better leave his home affairs than he could take care of them himself,--a woman greatly beloved, in whom Mary and Martha were happily combined.

Dr. Warren received his commission while still our American Home Missionary Society was working under the Plan of Union, so that the interest of the New School churches, so far as these were subserved by the American Home Missionary Society, must have come under his care. The fact that I do not remember 171 169 hearing a single word of complaint from our Presbyterian brethren respecting his administration of Home Missionary affairs makes me quite sure that though personally an ardent Congregationalist, he was faithful to the spirit of the Plan of Union and impartial in his attention and co-working. At length, in 1869-1870, the Reunion of the two great branches of the Presbyterian Church left the American Home Missionary Society dependent entirely upon the Congregational churches, and it became in fact, as afterwards in name, the Congregational Home Missionary Society.

Few of those now with us have any remembrance of the constraint and restraint in which we had been involved through loyalty to that compact made by our fathers. It would be difficult for them to put themselves in our place so as to realize what a relief it was to be free to lay plans, to open up new fields, to make explorations and organize churches with no anxiety lest we might seem to brethren whom we loved, to be careless of their denominational rights and plans.

I venture now confidently to affirm that this new liberty of ours did not degenerate into license. I speak confidently because I was from 1864 to 1875 (if not longer) the first Statistical Secretary of the Association, and because for more than twenty-five years I was the Recording Secretary, first of the "Advisory Committee" of the American Home Missionary Society and then of the Executive Committee of the California Auxiliary; and there could scarcely have occurred a use of missionary money for purposes of denominational competition without my observing 172 170 and remembering it. We did not abandon a field which we had entered and were cultivating, because some other denomination had entered into it, for such a course would scarcely admit of our becoming rooted and fruitful anywhere; but we did not thrust in a Congregational church at points already sufficiently churched by others. The field was too wide to afford any excuse for crowding at any one point. The destitutions were fearful, and no appeal of ours to Eastern helpers secured the needed supplies either of money or of men.

Under the pressure of this destitution, we began to observe the wonderful adaptability of the policy and the spirit of the Pilgrims to solve the problems of the Frontier. It long ago became a familiar characterization of Congregationalism that it is "the solvent of sects," but I remember when it dawned upon us --a new discovery. If in any young community people of several different denominations came to see that by combining they could at once establish a church strong enough for efficient service to Christ, and if thus they became wise enough to say, "Let us have a `Union church,'" they would inevitably make it a congregational church without the capital C. That is, they will instinctively regulate their church affairs by a majority vote of the entire membership. They also will of necessity be autonomous. Now even though they are strong enough to be self-sustaining, they will become hungry for fellowship . And still more, if they find themselves unable alone to build a suitable meeting-house or to support suitably a pastor, and they need the practical aid of fellowship, to whom will 173 171 they turn? If to Presbyterians, they must become a Presbyterian church; if to Methodists, a Methodist church; and so with regard to any and every company of Christian people combined upon the principle of mutual control as distinguished from local autonomy and mutual fellowship. So also with regard to companies of churches established to maintain any special method of administering the sacraments or to uphold any confessedly non-essential dogma; they cannot apply to any of these; they cannot be a Baptist church or an Episcopal or Lutheran. To whom will they go? Congregationalism solves this problem. It may still be a Union church and call itself by that name without adopting our accustomed nomenclature. But if it will give us a chance, we will make it at home with us, and will aid it up to the measure of its needs, so far as our means will allow.

Several of our now comparatively strong churches came to us in just that way, and became at length as heartily and helpfully Congregational, not discarding the capital C, as any that were to this manner born.

In some cases, however, this has involved us in rather bitter disappointments. Nearly twenty years ago I became greatly interested in a church organized in this way, the first church in a little village which has now come to be a large city. Toward the erection of its house of worship I was enabled to secure about $4000. The element in it originally Congregational was very small. Its main pillars, as I now remember the case, were Baptists and Presbyterians, with a goodly share of Methodists. What 174 172 we had counted upon as assuring its growth and full success, proved to be the occasion of repeated setbacks, bringing it more than once almost to the point of extinction. This was the growth of the village and its "manifest destiny" to become an important city. This led each of the denominations to hasten their coming to it. Our church had not even welcomed its expected pastor, when a Baptist evangelist visited the village, and the result of his services was that two of the main pillars of the young church, with all the other Baptists withdrew from it to form a church of their own sect. It had scarcely recovered from this blow when a Methodist leader drew away the Methodists, and after that the heaviest of all blows fell when the Presbyterians withdrew, leaving the mother church almost prostrate. Yet it survived, and, I think, was never before in as good condition as it is today. Weaker still than several of her children, she is renewing her youth and gives promise of being forever young.

Upon a showing of enrolled membership, we are in California, as in the whole country, one of the smallest of the more prominent denominations. But this is not due to our polity. It can be accounted for in other ways. And, if we except the sect which claims as especially its possession the name of "Christian," and if we take account of what might be called our capital at the time when we began with some measure of freedom to act for ourselves, no other body of Christians has prospered in the matter of membership more than we. What I mean by capital is the size of each denomination at the time spoken of--the 175 173 resources in numbers from which in the country at large we might draw.

Congregational statistics for the whole country date from 1857. They were gathered by and published in the "Congregational Quarterly," and they showed a total membership of 220,332; in California 463. The next year showed 257,634 in the whole country, and 579 in California. The Presbyterians had 427,790. Thus the Presbyterians were nearly twice as numerous as we were, while the Baptists and Methodists were more than four times as numerous. In sixty-nine years the Congregationalists have become "two bands," two Conferences, Northern and Southern, and the total membership 34,280, about seventy-times as many as in 1857. I have not within reach the statistics of other denominations, and will rejoice with any, if there be any, whose ratio of increase exceeds ours. But when we consider that this increase has taken place here while what I have called our capital, to start with, was so small, I am sure that we in this new land, in this "frontier" field to which we were told with wearisome reiteration that Congregationalism with its "rope of sand" for mutual helpfulness was ill adapted, have no need to be discouraged, but rather to thank God and press on.

If now I may close with a few words of suggestion with reference to greater efficiency, let me say that we need above all things else a deeper, more intense and general appreciation of that which Jesus, just before his ascension, spoke of to his apostles, as " the promise of the Father," eminent among all promises and in a true sense inclusive of them all, the 176 174 "baptism with the Holy Spirit," a rich experience whch brings us into absolute assurance of faith, into a not merely principled but spontaneous and gladsome consecration, entire and unconditional, the extinction of selfishness, self crucified with Christ, our life no other than His life in us.

With this there will come freedom and power as witnesses for Christ. "Ye shall receive power when the Holy Spirit is come upon you, and ye shall be my witnesses." Acts 1:8. We must accept the plan distinctly and unchangeably adopted by our Master for redeeming the world from social disorder and wretchedness, namely, the saving of individuals one by one from sin. This is foundation work in the uplift of mankind, and to lay this foundation, stone beside stone, living stones upon living stones, Christ Himself the chief corner-stone, this is the Church's special vocation. It is something that human government cannot do, that civilization cannot do, that education cannot do, except it be such educaiton as develops in strength and beauty that hidden life into which we are born anew, born of the Spirit of God. Let the churches aim at this, and by the grace of God achieve it, and all the rest will follow, I will not say easily, but I will say normally, rapidly, triumphantly.

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CHAPTER XVI.--SUPPLEMENTAL.

THE CHARISMATA: SPIRITUAL GIFTS

"THE old Protestant theologians understood by this term the endowment to perform miraculous works; such as the speaking with tongues, healing the sick, raising the dead; and limited it to the Primitive Church. This is still the view of the Protestant Church, which regards these gifts either as forfeited by the Church's guilt, as do the followers of Edward Irving, or as extinguished by God as no longer necessary ."

So writes one of our standard authors. Another more recent, responsive to the modes of thinking current in our day, seems to attribute the endowments of power which the newborn disciples at Corinth and elsewhere received, to a natural process " which ceased to operate when the Church took its place as an established institution ."..."It would have been surprising had so entire a revolution in human feelings and prospects as Christianity introduced, not been accompanied by some extraordinary and abnormal manifestations. The new Divine life which was suddenly poured into human nature, stirred it to unusual powers. Men and women who yesterday could only sit and condole with their sick friends, found themselves today in so elevated a state of mind that they could impart to the sick vital energy. Young men who had been brought up in idolatry and ignorance, suddenly found their minds filled with new and stimulating ideas, which they felt impelled to impart to those who would listen. 178 176 These and the like extraordinary gifts, which were very helpful in calling attention to the young Christian community, speedily passed away .

Both these statements, samples as they are of many others, express a conviction more or less current in every quarter since thought was set free by the Reformation, that " the age of miracles is past ." I myself met this teaching at the very beginning of my Seminary course, in my study both of the Scriptures and of Systematic Theology. One of my teachers suggested as a possible explanation of the cessation of these gifts that they were bestowed only by the laying on of the hands of the apostles (see Acts 8:14-18), and that when the Apostles went to Heaven, the powers ceased, because the channel of communication was thus closed. I remember quite distinctly that my mind and heart revolted at an explanation so unspiritual, so almost mechanical, as that; but this did not shake my acceptance of the historical and unquestionable fact (?) that somehow, or for some good reason not revealed to us, "the age of miracles was past."

I confess that I was stumbled by the fact that the history of the Church is replete throughout the ages with outbursts of miraculous energy, and by the fact that these were disposed of by orthodox doubters in a way somewhat like that in which rationalism has sought to discredit the miracles of Jesus Himself; yet in the busy life which I had to lead, and in my lack of preparation and of the apparatus necessary to investigate the accounts of these miracles, I generally dropped the subject and fell back on the old adage, "age of miracles is past."

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A more serious difficulty was in the paragraph in which the Gospel of Mark draws to its close. I disposed of this, however, for awhile by noting that reliable and friendly criticism has made it quite certain that the final paragraph as Mark wrote it, was lost, and this was added as a substitute by some later copyist. But if this was so, this passage is a demonstration that these spiritual gifts did continue in the Church long after the close of the apostolic age. Certainly if they were no longer bestowed, the writer of the paragraph would not have represented Jesus as giving this unlimited promise: "These signs shall accompany them that believe: in My name shall they cast out demons, they shall speak with new tongues...they shall lay their hands on the sick and they shall recover."

Fifty-six years ago a Christian woman in New England who had at that time attained no eminence in literature or science or religion, published a book which she entitled, "Science and Health, with a Key to the Scriptures." It is difficult for one not already drawn to it, either by a personal experience of the practical results attending the reading of that book or by a close observation of them, to find in it, even now, the secret of its hold upon multitudes of people whose intelligence and trustworthiness are certainly not below--indeed, I may say, are evidently above--that of the average American.

It seems to me that no statistical study is necessary to compel us to find in those results a wonderful phenomenon. The adherents of Christian Science are building in every large town large and expensive 180 178 temples, and these are filled with worshipers. No meeting-houses except those of the Romish Church, and a few of the Protestant churches whose eminent pastors attract an unusual attendance, approach these temples in respect to the crowds gathering there. And yet the reported order of worship is such that would quickly empty any other churches. Two members of the church are designated as "Readers." One of them reads a passage from the Bible, and the other, comments upon it found in "Science and Health"; there is congregational singing and prayer, and the service ends. Their midweek meetings are also very largely attended, sometimes crowding their edifices, and in these meetings there is greater freedom, and spontaneous testimonies are given concerning physical healings which have fruitened in a different spirit in home life and business life--gentleness and faithfulness and the absence of anxieties.

Perhaps in calling these healings miraculous, I am using a term which the teachers in this movement would repudiate; for I have seen in Mrs. Eddy's statement of her own personal experience of healing, in which the whole movement took its rise, that she discovered a "law"--if I understood the statement correctly, a natural law--by the right use of which all these results are produced.

I am not able to go further in describing this phenomenon. I am not its exponent, certainly not its advocate: I am simply insisting that it is a phenomenon which ought to be candidly and carefully studied; and unless there has been a discovery of some natural law at present unknown except to the disciples of Mrs. 181 179 Eddy, in the use of which these results are brought to pass, the age of miracles is not past .

It is nearly, if not quite, twenty years since I read a paper at our Congregational ministers' meeting, the title of which was: "Christian Science: Shall we fight it or shall we flank it?" It had already for several years been fought by eminent preachers in almost every denomination with great earnestness and skill. But the more we fought it, the more it grew. It was capturing many of our church members, and often such as could ill be spared; and its literary agencies of growth were increasing both in number and in power. And the secret of it all, so far as one outside could see, is in its removing pain, its healing disease, its quieting anxiety, and doing this without the use of medicines and without delays.

The practical suggestion in my paper was this: that since our fighting had been so signally unsuccessful, we flank it after the manner of General Sherman's magnificent march from Tennessee to Savannah, never fighting a battle, but simply keeping ahead of the opposing force. Suppose, I said, we outdo our friends of this new cult in their own undertakings. Suppose we reconsider that old saying that "the age of miracles is past"; examine the grounds for so bold an affirmation and raise the question whether, in bringing us face to face with such a phenomenon, Christ may not be rebuking our unbelief. If that old saying is heresy, it seems to me to be one of the worst heresies that ever blocked the advance of the Kingdom of Christ, or hindered the salvation of men.

I cited in my paper this incident in my own 182 180 pastorate. Finding that the calls made upon me for service in other directions had forced upon me a neglect of pastoral services in my own flock, I had employed an excellent Christian lady as my assistant. Her name was Caroline Smith. She was also in special charge of the Sunday School out of which grew the Bethlehem Congregational Church.

Few probably remember that about thirty-three years ago the centennial of the introduction of prayer at the daily meetings of the convention which framed the constitution of our nation being about to arrive, the suggestion was widely made that the churches recognize and celebrate it by holding in each church a prayermeeting at ten o'clock on the morning of that day. Bethany Church acted upon that suggestion. On the Sunday morning preceding the Tuesday on which this meeting was to be held, a message from Miss Smith came to me stating that she was very sick, and asking me to come and pray for her, anointing her with oil according to the direction in the epistle of James. Of course I promised to do so as early as possible in the afternoon. Two of our earnest young ladies accompanied me. When Miss Smith was brought out of her chamber and laid down upon a lounge arranged for the purpose, I thought her face to be more haggard than any I had ever looked upon before. A fearful hemorrhage had taken place, whether from the lungs or not, I do not know. I greatly esteemed her; felt that I could not spare her: and I prayed for her recovery with all earnestness, but with submission to what seemed to be the will of God. I also anointed her with oil in fulfilment of 183 181 the direction, so far as I understood it. Soon after my prayer was ended, one of my companions prayed. Then we bade Miss Smith goodbye--I, with a very heavy heart.

As we walked toward our church, my two companions chatted together cheerily concerning other matters than that which had called us to our sick sister. I could not bear it, and at length gently chided them--"I don't see how you can be talking so glibly, with Carrie Smith so sick." "Why, she is all right," replied the one who had prayed; "I don't have any difficulty in believing it: I know she is safe." Whereupon I ceased and returned to my own thoughts and prayer about it.

On Tuesday morning, about ten minutes before ten o'clock, I went from my study to the chapel to see that every necessary preparation had been made for the meeting, saying to myself on the way, "As soon as this meeting closes, I will call on Carrie Smith." But in opening the door I saw her already present. She had walked a half mile over a rather rough road on an upgrade. Of course I was astonished. I asked, "How is this?" The answer was, "When you prayed, and when I was anointed, I felt no change. But when Lillian prayed, I felt a thrill run down my back and found that I was well."

This incident set me to studying the Scriptures which speak of the "gifts" of our ascended Lord (Eph. 4:7-12; Rom. 12:6-8; I Cor. 12: 1-11). I observed in one passage that those gfts were represented as coming from our ascended Lord; and in the others, it appears that the Spirit bestows them. For us the 184 182 simplest and most vivid thought that we can have of the Holy Spirit is to think of Him as Jesus invisible . We are certainly warranted in doing so when, in perfect harmony, Jesus speaks of the Paraklete as one coming to be with us forever (John 14:16) and adds in verse 18, " I will not leave you desolate, I come unto you." Or again (Matt. 28:20) "Lo, I am with you every day, even to the consummation of the age"--the fulfilment of redemption.

Now, not attempting to suggest any theory about these gifts, as though they were bestowed through some law of nature not yet discovered, or as though they were natural results of influence (inflowing) of health and strength from one human spirit "strong in the Lord" into one weakened by disease, I have found these facts to be unquestionable, if that which is written concerning them be true.

1. These gifts were distributed . Few if any, even in the Apostolic age, had all of them, or perhaps more than one.

2. This distribution was an expression of Divine sovereignty--"Dividing to each one severally as He will ."

3. The exercise of these gifts by those who had received them was also regulated by the Divine will. It is true that at times--a few times, as far as appears--throngs of people were healed, apparently without discrimination. It is said that at one time in Jerusalem the reputation of Peter as a healer had become so widespread, that the sick were brought into the streets and laid on beds or couches, so that his shadow as he passed "might overshadow some of 185 183 them," and "they were healed every one." But this was evidently unusual. Take the case of the lame man healed by Peter a short time before this gathering of crowds, when he and John were "going up into the Temple at the hour of prayer." It is scarcely conceivable that this was the only beggar there. Probably there were more than ninety-nine that they passed by, but only one was lifted out of helpless infirmity into the joy of health. If they had been conscious of the possession of this healing gift as committed to them to be exercised at their own will, we can scarcely repress our indignation at such heartlessness. What would Peter say to us in explanation of it? This, doubtless: "I cannot of myself heal any. The Lord Jesus, to whom in this case I appealed, answered me and authorized me to use His name." And Peter's faith was simply confidence in that spiritual authorization; Jesus spoke to him and he heard and obeyed.

How long would Epaphroditus (Phil. 2:26, 27), whom Paul loved so dearly and leaned upon so heavily, have been "sick nigh unto death"; if Paul, who seems to have been endowed with many gifts--certainly that of healing (see Acts 14:8-16)--could on his own authority have spoken the healing word? He was healed, whether naturally or supernaturally does not appear; but even if it were done through the Spiritual Gift, evidently the healing word could not be spoken till the Spirit speaking within some gifted healer said that it might be done.

So then, in this incident, the voice of the Master was heard within Lillian--my child in the Gospel--and brought her assurance that her prayer was 186 184 granted. He granted my petition by granting hers, because He had bestowed on her the gift of healing, which He had not given me. But this did not, in her view, authorize her to open an office and advertise herself as a "Divine Healer." She could use the gift only when authorized so to do by the voice of God speaking within. She did hear that voice as she offered her prayer, and thus it came to pass that she and her companion left their sister in such good cheer and Lillian could say in replying to my uncalled-for rebuke: "I don't have any difficulty in believing it; she is all right."

It seems to me that until this occurred, the question ever rose in my mind whether I myself had any of these gifts, and it was answered for me: I had the gift of prophecy --not necessarily fore telling, but always forth -telling. I have had occasion to refer to this in some of the Reminiscences already recited, and it is in order to a better understanding of these that I have written this chapter. In one case, in my promise to my Chinese brethren, it was a clear case of foretelling (see p. 134). My preaching has come to be habitually a forth-telling--prophecy.

At the beginning of my first pastorate, I prudentially purchased a little blank-book in which I entered good subjects for sermons, thinking that whenever I was at a loss for a subject, I could find one there. The list became somewhat long, but was never referred to and was lost long ago. I have never been content to preach upon a topic because it was a good one or because it would be a pleasing one to my people. Long before this question of the gift of prophecy had risen 187 185 in my mind, I acted upon it. I cannot remember when I was satisfied to begin the preparation of a sermon without a certain consciousness that I had received a message from Jesus Himself to deliver at that time to my flock. Sometimes my faith in this has been sorely tested, as I saw the days of the week passing by and no message. But I do not recollect that it ever failed me. And when it did come, perhaps on Saturday morning, it would be with such freshness and fullness that, sitting down at my table, pencil in hand, I could not jot down the suggestions as fast as they came. They came, too, in the right order, so that seldom in rewriting did I need to make changes.

Recollections apposite to this go back beyond my ministry in California, and to preaching done while I was still a student in the Seminary at Bangor, Maine. We were to have a vacation of two months, and I was appointed to supply a pastorless church in the suburbs of the city of Belfast, a village known as North Belfast. The Holy Spirit wrought with me, and I soon found myself in the midst of a quiet revival. The consequence was that I could not leave in the midst of my harvest, and a third month would include Thanksgiving Day. Rev. Dr. George W. Field, at that time one of the most popular preachers in Maine, and a very dear friend to me, young though I was, wrote me that he was coming to spend Thanksgiving at his childhood's home, and I need not be at the trouble to prepare a Thanksgiving sermon, for he would come and preach for me. I gave this good news to the people and it was welcomed with much enthusiasm. So, on Thanksgiving morning I started 188 186 with our good old Deacon's horse and buggy to bring Doctor Field. The horse was so conscious of his own and his owner's dignity that for him haste was always unbecoming. So I started early with a joyous anticipation of the good fellowship we should have while the horse took his moderate pace homeward, and the good sermon on which my people and not less I would feed. What was my dismay, when I reached the door of his childhood's home to hear that he had not arrived. I drove in desperation about the little city trying to find a minister who could preach offhand a Thanksgiving sermon. I found none. Indeed, before I gave up the search it became a serious question whether through any speed to which I could urge my horse, I could reach the church in time.

As a matter of fact, with my best endeavor we were a little late, and I found the church crowded. On my way I was pleading with Jesus His promise, which, while not designed to encourage laziness, was apposite to my condition (Matt. 10:19): "Be not anxious how or when ye shall speak: for it shall be given you in that hour what ye shall speak." I had not reached the point of appropriating to myself the following sentence, "For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you." This, I supposed was to be fulfilled only in the age of miracles. There came to my mind a thought which I had welcomed and hoped that I might prepare a sermon about: The help which a vivid sense of the presence of Christ with us would give, and the loss we sustain when living without this. Nothing, however, came to me to say about it.

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I entered the church and stated my disappointment, adding that I had learned nothing which would help me to understand it. I then led them in the invocation and selecting a hymn at random announced it and sat down, opening the pulpit Bible on my lap, and my eye fell on Isaiah 45:15: "Verily thou art a God that hideth thyself, O God of Israel, the Saviour." I could not have found a better text than that upon which to found my message; and so, determined to read a portion of that chapter as our Scripture lesson, I replaced the Bible and had time to find a good Thanksgiving hymn. I read the lesson and led them in a prayer of Thanksgiving and announced the hymn; but so far as I now recollect, I had not even one sentence in mind to follow the announcement of the text. But it was given me what I should speak. Utterly free from embarrassment, suitable thoughts and a suitable expression of them came to me, and through me to the people. When the service ended, the people thronged about me, declaring that they were glad that Doctor Field did not come; and I myself, as I look back upon it, could conceive no possible improvement of it, either as to the order of the thought or the language used, and I thanked the Master for fulfilling His promise. But I did not take the gracious hint He gave in His explanation of His promise: "It is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you." Today I call it prophecy .

I venture to give another quite recent experience, even more conclusive in respect to this gift of prophecy, i.e. forthtelling.

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It is less than three years since I was requested to go to Suisun City, to take the place on Sunday of a brother who was conducting the Sunday services in our church there till a permanent pastor could be secured, but who had suddenly become sick. I had greatly enjoyed the day. It was in a new, very comely and convenient house of worship dedicated the Sunday preceding, that I was to meet the people. I had visited the Sunday School and almost fell in love with those who wrought in it, and especially with the class which, in the absence of its teacher, I had taught. I had preached at the morning service eye to eye with every person present--such attention as always makes preaching a royal feast for the preacher; and a part of the afternoon had been spent with two highly esteemed friends.

At length, when I was returning to my room to think through, as is my habit before conducting a service, what has been given me to say, in ascending quite a long stairway more rapidly, in my unusual buoyancy, than was discreet, I swooned the first and only time in my life, and falling unconscious on the steps rolled down a considerable distance. When I resumed consciousness, I saw a lady and gentleman trying to lift me. With their help I reached my room, and little realizing the extent of my injury I began to try to think and found it impossible. My brain would not work at all. I suppose that my head had fallen heavily on each stair in my descent, and the brain had been shaken too hard and too many times.

I observed that it was raining, and comforted myself that very few would come and be disappointed. 191 189 But, probably because of the rain, the good superintendent of the Sunday School had come for me with his car. Thus I felt constrained to go with him, though I could not conceive of any possibility of my conducting the service. There are three facts and only three that I remember at all respecting the service; these, however, are fixed in my memory forever. The first was, that finding it impossible for me to do it, I asked the leader of the choir, who sat near me, to select and announce the hymns. The second is, that when the time came for the sermon, I said to the people, still sitting in my chair: "It will be impossible for me to pursue the train of thought which I had prepared for this evening, but I will try to bear some testimony to Jesus Christ, if He will put the words upon my lips." The third fact was a vision which I think lasted but one minute. I heard my voice ringing out clear and strong and saw my two hands stretched to their utmost toward the people, showing me that in whatever I had been saying, I had been in dead earnest. But of anything I said, I have no recollection at all. I do not remember reading the Scripture or offering prayer, but I was told afterwards that I did both in the usual way. As to what I said, I was too completely enfeebled in brain to ask or converse at all. But three days after I reached my study, a letter came from a lady whom I had never met or known in any way, in which she spoke of the "golden words" of my message. They were not my words, but words which Jesus placed upon my lips. It was prophecy.

And now, if any of my brethren in the ministry 192 190 who have dealt with me so kindly, so fraternally, as to read what I have written, will continue the reading a few minutes longer, I will give them what after service in the ministry for more than threescore years and ten is my ideal of a sermon. It is not an essay, however rich in thought or fine in the expression of the thought. It is not an oration, to be judged according to its eloquence. One who so views it is nextdoor neighbor to that brother who was reported to have delivered, on some great occasion, the most eloquent prayer ever addressed to a Boston audience. The ideal sermon is a message from Christ Himself to people for whom He lived and died and rose again. Its tone, its air, should be conversational. Such was the preaching of Rev. E. S. Lacy, under whose ministry our First Church in San Francisco rose out of embarrassment such as might easily have been fatal, to be eminent among the few strongholds of righteousness in a city which seemed to be doomed to be a hotbed of all sorts of iniquity and uncleanness. Of course, I very seldom heard him preach: his preaching was not eloquent, there was no attempt at eloquence, but it was conversational, suggestive, inspiring. Once to have heard him talking with us, heart to heart, was sufficient to make me hear my Master say, "Go thou and do likewise.

Many years ago I was for a few days in Boston and had an opportunity to attend a service in the old Park Street Church. Its pastor at that time was thought to be a coming compeer of Henry Ward Beecher. The great auditorium was so full that I was glad to find a seat in a corner of the rear gallery 193 191 as far removed from the speaker as any one could be. But I could hear what he was saying, and almost immediately felt that he was conversing with me. At the same time, the unusually close attention indicated that every other person present had the same feeling. As I listened, I prayed that the Spirit of God would enable me in like simple, social way to give my hearers the message, week by week, which Jesus might commit to me. And it was not long before kind people, coming up to me after a service to bid me welcome or say farewell, began to express themselves not as impressed by any eloquence or interested in any beauty of expression, but said simply, "I liked your talk ." It was like extending a right hand of fellowship and a new recognition that I had been doing Christ's errand to them individually, and they had so recognized me and heard me.