NOTES IN THE SADDLE.
BY FIELD-SUPERINTENDENT C. J RYDER.
In the “Notes” of last month I spoke of the floods that threatened the destruction of plantations and villages in Western Mississippi. From Mississippi I passed over into Texas, and this was passing from flood to drought. In some sections of the latter State there have been only two showers in as many years. Cattle are dying by thousands on prairie ranches. Water is held at fabulous prices, and in some sections it is impossible to get it, even for gold. The reports of suffering which come from the Western part of the State are painful in the extreme. All Christian hearts are turning in agonizing prayer to Him “who holds the waters in His hand.” Special prayer services are held in many places, and every Sabbath petitions are offered in the pulpits for rain. It is a fearful experience through which Texas is passing just now, and unless relief comes speedily the loss of property will be enormous, and the lives of the settlers will be endangered.
I wonder if there be any occult logical connection between the want of water and the prohibition agitation? However that may be, Texas is stirred to its centre by this temperance movement.
Next August a prohibitory amendment to the State constitution is to be voted upon by the citizens. Churches, public halls and school houses are filled almost nightly with interested and excited audiences listening to the discussion of their political duties concerning this great moral question. The leading temperance advocates have confident hopes that this coming election will wheel the Lone Star State into line with the goodly number of prohibitory States. In the hotels, on the streets, in railway carriages, everywhere, prohibition is the absorbing question.
In the cars, as I journeyed from Paris to Dallas, two gentlemen sat just behind me. They were, of course, discussing this perplexing question of prohibition, although from their arguments I learned that they were both opposed to temperance legislation. One was a Georgian, the other a Texan. They both freely admitted that they “liked their bitters,” and neither believed in prohibition, “because, you see, it wouldn’t prohibit!” Said the Texan: “There always have been, and there always will be, certain besetting sins, and you cannot abolish them by law. People have kept getting drunk ever since Eve got drunk in the Garden of Eden, and I reckon they always will, and you can’t prohibit it by law.”
Poor old mother Eve! The apple must have had hard cider in it. This was the argument of a lawyer, and fairly averages the arguments urged throughout the State against prohibition. Agitation and fair discussion are all that are needed to convince every man that the thing to do with crime is to prohibit it. Every A. M. A. preacher and teacher was pronounced and energetic in his advocacy of this sound temperance principle. The influence of these Christian workers will be felt in the coming election. The colored vote is an important factor in the settlement of this question, and our A. M. A. workers will do their utmost to make it solid for prohibition.
The Sunday laws in Texas are strict and well enforced. Even at the news counter at the hotels, cigars and tobacco are not sold. Congregational leaven, or some other moral force, has agitated society most healthfully. Texas is a worthy example to many of our older States in respect to Sunday observance. There is now before the Legislature a law prohibiting hunting on Sunday, and there is every reason to believe that it will pass.
Tillotson Institute, the A. M. A. institution at the capital of the State, is demanding better facilities and larger accommodations. The school has outgrown its buildings. Its very prosperity makes additional expense necessary in order to do the work that is now pressing upon us. And there is every reason to expect still larger success for the school in the future under the management of its new president. It is the only institution which the A. M. A. has in the State, and it holds a commanding position. If it is largely and generously supported, its influence will be felt throughout the entire State.
A ride of forty miles across the lonely prairie, starting at midnight, was full of possible romances and imaginary dangers. The boy who drove got out of the buggy repeatedly “to feel for the road, sah.” As the track was so dim where other wagons had passed, and as there were no fences to mark the road, the only way to find it by night was to get down on one’s hands and knees and feel for it. Houses stood ten, twelve, and even eighteen miles apart. Wolves were all around us on the prairie. It would have been easy to have fancied that one was in danger, but there was no real danger, and when the light of the early morning came the ride was most delightful. The prairie was starred with flowers; thorny cactuses stood guard over more timid blossoms. Away back here on the prairie is Goliad, and in it an A. M. A. church and school. An old Mexican town, now in ruins, stands across a ravine a short distance from the present village. Here, in 1835, the terrible massacre of the American troops crimsoned the prairie grass. But it was the bloody baptism of freedom! The fetters of Mexican tyranny were broken. To-day this village is the centre of a large and exceedingly fertile farming region. The A. M. A. church is feeble, but full of hope and confidence. They own their meeting-house, and are thrifty and prosperous. They are pushing towards self-support. One of the church members teaches a day school. So in this out-of-the-way village on the prairies of Texas the A. M. A. is sowing the seed of a better Christian progress.
The local papers of Alabama have changed the spelling of the name of that State, and write it now “Alaboomer.” It is an appropriate change, for the whole State is in a fever of excitement over the “booms” in real estate. This rise in the value of property means increased work for the A. M. A. Children of small farmers can be spared from cotton and corn field as their parents become more prosperous, and thus our schools will be more crowded, if this is possible.