The Beginning of the Revival.
In January following, 1868, I left my home and work at Nanaimo, attended some rousing missionary meetings in Victoria, crossed the Gulf, took a canoe manned by Indians, and went with them up the river.
We pushed on up the Fraser as fast as we could, for it was getting very cold. A biting north-east wind was blowing right down the river, and before we reached Sumas one of our men had his fingers frozen, and they all begged of me to stop. We spent one night at Sumas Landing, and now the weather moderated a little.
“Where are you going?” said a friend, just as I was leaving on a preaching tour through the valley.
“I am off to Nah-nates, fourteen miles away, at the head of Sumas Lake, to preach to the Indians; then back to Tso-wallie (Cultus Lake); then to Skowkale, and on to Squi-ala, all Indian camps, and back to Sumas.”
“All right! Go and see the Indians,” said my friend, “but be sure and do not go to the Upper Settlement, as the men have declared they will do you some bodily harm. You know that fellow. Harry ——, he is the leader of the party. They declare that they will fix you on account of the sermon you preached to them the last time you were up there.”
“Good-bye! Pray for me!” I replied, and off I went across the prairie as happy as mortal could be.
Continuing on my way, who should I see ahead of me but this very Harry ——, travelling alone. As I drew near to him I lifted up my heart to God that He would give me wisdom to deal with the man in the best way.
When I met him I threw out my hand and got his in mine. Shaking hands with him I said, “Praise the Lord, Harry, you and I are not in hell. We might have been there long ago but for the loving Saviour. Oh, how He has loved us.” And still holding him by the hand, and looking him in the eyes, I continued, “Harry, do you love the Saviour? You ought to love Him. He died for you.” By this time his eyes began to moisten.
“How are the boys in the Upper Settlement?” I went on.
“They are all jolly and well, sir,” he replied.
“Tell them that next Sabbath, if all is well, I want to preach to them, and I hope they will all come.”
“They will be glad to see you, Mr. Crosby,” said the now thoroughly subdued Harry.
Bidding him good-day, I continued on my journey, praising the Lord that I had had such a good opportunity of meeting Harry alone.
These were the days of no roads, only blind trails and no bridges, so that if you could not ford the streams and sloughs you might swim. Woe betide the man or horse that got into a miry hole. I made my first trip through to Chilliwack from Sumas over what was called the trail. Poles had been laid lengthwise over the sloughs to enable one to cross, and it was really amusing to see the little horses walk the poles. But, oh, dear, if you had a horse that could not walk the poles!
After visiting the Indian camps as I had planned, I got back to the Lower Settlement Friday night, where we had a prayer-meeting. On Saturday night we had a never-to-be-forgotten service at a bachelor’s house near Miller’s Landing. The old man seldom swept his house, and to save the trouble of washing dishes, when he had used them on the one side for a time, he turned them over and made use of the other side. We had to sit on boxes around the fire, which was built, like any Indian camp, in the centre of the floor, the smoke finding its way out through the cracks. I trust the dear Lord blessed the poor man. He died soon afterwards.
Sunday morning I preached to the white people of Sumas from the text, “Thy word is truth.” At the close of the service I asked all who wished to talk about religion to stay behind. Several remained, who showed by their conduct and conversation that the Lord was at work upon their hearts.
During the afternoon I went on to Chilliwack, and at night preached to a crowd which filled to overflowing the two rooms in the private house where we held our service. The Spirit of God was present in mighty, awakening power, and the whole neighborhood was moved. Not an unkind word was said to me, in spite of all the threats I had heard of. For six weeks the work of grace continued, until nearly all the people were converted.
The interest awakened led to a desire to improve the means of communication between the two settlements. Early the following week “a bee” was called to make a road, with pole bridges over the sloughs, between Sumas and Chilliwack, which was really the first road in the settlement.
In the midst of all this I was taken with congestion of my left lung, and had to be kept in the house and treated with a steam bath of hot water and cedar boughs and mustard plasters for several days. However, the next Sabbath I took four services, and for weeks following preached night after night, and have never had anything the matter with my lungs since.
The awakening was so general that, far and near, nearly everyone was affected. A man came four miles one morning, while I was ill, to tell me that though he had taken his horses out that morning to work, he was so troubled in his soul that he couldn’t work, and then and there gave his heart to God. At once he became so happy that, as he said, “the mountains looked brighter, the birds sang sweeter, and all nature seemed to be praising the Lord,” and he thought he must come and let me know of his new-found joy. On the way he called at the cabin of a neighbor and found him on his knees praying.
Another man came several miles after midnight to beg me to get up and go home with him, for, as he said, he could neither sleep nor eat, and he feared that he would die if a change did not soon come.
“Praise the Lord!” I shouted.
“Man, don’t talk to me like that; I shall die.”
“There is no use in my going with you all that distance,” I replied. “I have heavy work to do. But I am glad the Lord is troubling you.” (He had a native woman and several children. I was not ordained at the time, and could not legally marry him.)
He still begged me to go with him and talk with the poor woman as well.
“Will you promise to be the legal father of those children the first chance you get?” I urged.
“Yes, I will do anything,” he said, and there was agony in his voice, “for I shall die in this state and be lost.”
“Then the Lord will convert you on credit,” I said. The poor man was made happy right there. A short time after, when an ordained minister came up, he married five such couples.
We had some wonderful testimonies during these meetings.
One night a man got up and said: “I came here with my neighbor to scoff. But as the meeting went on he said to me, ‘Jim, let’s get out of this; it is too hot.’ ‘No,’ I said, ‘let’s stick it out.’ And now, friends,” he continued, “I wish you would pray for me; I want to find this religion you speak about.”
Another old man testified and said: “I was a soldier in the Russian war, and one time was called up to be court-martialled for being drunk and disorderly. All I had done was to sing a little ditty in the presence of my chief officer, and he thought I was drunk. When the investigation was held, my character in the past was examined. They looked up the records and said, ‘Sergeant H— has a clean sheet, he has never been before the court in the past, let him go free.’ My friends, when this revival commenced I felt that I was very wicked, and the sins of my life came before me. But now, bless God, I have got a clean sheet; Sergeant H— is forgiven through the blood of the Lamb.”
Another poor man, who had been an Independent in England, said: “When these meetings commenced I thought, ‘What are these people making so much fuss about? I am a member of an Independent church, and I am good enough.’ But the Spirit of God showed me how far I had wandered, and now I am at the feet of Jesus and trusting in God alone for salvation.”
A quaint Roman Catholic Irishman attended the meetings and used to give his testimony: “Be jabbers! you are the best praste that ivver came to these rayjans,” he would say. “No praste ivver blessed the paypul like you have. I wish the dear man would stay wid us and get some young gurrls to come here, and then mesilf and some others of the poor b’ys might get a wife.” (He was a bachelor, and remained one.)
One day during the revival a fellow came to the door and asked the kind lady of the house for Crosby. She said, “Come in.” “No,” said he, “I want to see Crosby out here.” I was called to the outer door, where I met a man who, like many of his neighbors, was living a wicked life, and thus setting a very bad example to the poor dark pagan Indians.
“Come out here. I want you. I’d like to thrash you,” he cried out.
“Come in, come in,” said I.
“No, I want you to come out here. I’ll thrash you if you said so-and-so about some of my brothers and neighbors.”
“Well, isn’t it true?” I replied. “If it is true, what are you mad about? You know it is true, and God will judge you for such conduct. If you do not repent you will have a hot place in hell. So you had better get at the confession of your sins to God. If you do it sincerely He will help you.”
The poor fellow went away in a changed mood without thrashing the preacher. He was afterwards converted and became one of my fast friends.
After the meetings had been continued about three weeks, Rev. Arthur Browning came to our assistance, and some memorable services were held.
The glorious work of grace, having thus begun by the good hand of the Lord, continued until the whole valley was aroused, and many of the most hardened sinners were awakened and converted. When I left, shortly after, to attend the District meeting, there was a class of thirty-one members, nearly all the white people in the valley.
Looking back upon this marvellous work of God, so unexpected by human foresight, of which I had been a favored witness, I am led with adoring gratitude to exclaim, “What hath God wrought! Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy name give glory.”
CHAPTER XVII.
MORE OF THE CHILLIWACK REVIVAL—CAMP-MEETINGS.
“Oh, it is great, and there is no other greatness, to make some nook of God’s creation a little fruitfuller, better, more worthy of God; to make some human hearts a little wiser, manfuller, happier,—more blessed, less accursed! It is a work for God.”—Thomas Carlyle.
One of the most beautiful districts in Canada is that which is bounded on the west by the Sumas River, on the south and east by a spur of the Coast range of mountains, whose easternmost peak, Mt. Cheam, rises in majestic grandeur 8,500 feet, its summit crowned with perpetual snow, and on the north by the Fraser River, and known as the Chilliwack Valley. The district is divided into two parts, that through which the old Chil-way-uk River flows being properly Chilliwack; the western portion, along whose edge the Sumas River flows, being called Sumas. To the south-east another smaller valley is situated, divided from the main section by a low range of hills, through which the Chil-way-uk finds its way by a narrow pass at Vedder Crossing.
The united valleys contain upwards of 80,000 square acres of the richest soil to be found anywhere in the world. A yield of sixty bushels of wheat, or of sixty bushels of oats to the acre is quite common, and some idea may be had of the marvellous fertility of the soil when a meadow has been known to produce for twenty-five consecutive years an average of three and a half tons of hay to the acre, and that without having been re-seeded or fertilized otherwise than by the pasturing of cattle. On the levels and along the foothills an ever-increasing acreage of orchards—apples, pears, plums, prunes, peaches and cherries—may be seen, and vegetables of all kinds are grown in rich abundance.
This garden spot, beautiful for situation, the joy of all those whose good fortune it is to live there, was at one time the home of great bands of Indians belonging to the Flathead nation. Where to-day there are eight small villages, there were thousands of people governed by certain great chiefs, whose authority was respected to a great extent throughout the whole valley. Their numbers have been reduced by disease and by their terrible tribal wars. The Indians from Cowichan and the coast made periodical incursions, massacring the people and burning their property. Their enemies were not always successful, for on one occasion, when the young men of the valley had gone down to work at Langley and Victoria, and had secured their pay in blankets, as was then the custom, the Cowichans became enraged at this interference with what they considered their labor market, and, gathering a large war party, they went up the old Chil-way-uk, prepared for the work of murder and destruction. They were met, however, with a stout resistance, their canoes were all captured and destroyed, and those who were not killed were forced to make their way home again stealthily and on foot.
The Indians still have traditions of the visit of the first white man to the river, and of how the Gospel first came to the Chilliwack.
We have in this valley what many call a model settlement, whose people are law-abiding, and whose business is carried on prosperously without any liquor licenses. Not one was ever granted, and the people do not want one to-day.
In 1808, when Simon Fraser made his way down the great river which now bears his name, he landed opposite Chilliwack, at the mouth of what is now known as the Harrison River. Here he was received by hundreds of the natives, who thought, as they said, that “he was the pure white child of the sun.” The chiefs carried him upon their backs and set him down on mats in the place of honor, and then danced to the sun-god for days in token of their appreciation of the visit of his son. It was not long after that they discovered, when rum and disease followed in his train, that the white man was not the pure child of the sun they had imagined.