The many newly organized circles which are coming in day after day testify that a great amount of work has been done by somebody in the interests of the C. L. S. C. It is true, much has been done. Much more is being done; of how much nothing that we have received is more suggestive than the following letter from a prominent member of the class of ’87, Mr. K. A. Burnell, and it must be remembered that there are many more workers as zealous as is Mr. Burnell:
Walla-Walla, Washington Territory, November 10, ’84.
Dear Chautauquan:—As a member of ’87, and deeply interested in every one of the 18,000 whose names appear on the two big books at Plainfield, as well as every one reading in any one of the classes of all of the great Chautauqua household, I venture an account of an evangelistic tour over the Northern Pacific Railroad.
Miss Kimball most kindly mailed me the names of the two to three score of readers in Dakota, Montana, Idaho, and Washington Territories, and I wrote eighteen letters to as many points, indicating that as one deeply interested in the C. L. S. C., I was to be over the Northern Pacific Railroad on an evangelistic tour, and should be happy to meet circles or individual readers, and render any service possible, and I felt sure if I imparted nothing I should not fail to be a recipient. I heard from most of the messages, and with uniform and marked interest in the fact of meeting one late from Chautauqua, and especially with a member of the Pansy class of ’87.
At Fargo, Casselton, Cooperstown and Mandan, Dakota, I found individual readers, and did what I could to induce others to take up the course. My habit was at the close of each service to make a few minutes’ statement concerning the C. L. S. C. readings, their rapid growth, and their very great advantage and exceeding helpfulness. I received from Plainfield a generous package of the green books, admission sheets, and circulars, and at each place these documents were placed in the hands of the people at the close of the public service, and were received gladly.
At Gladstone, Dakota, the very patient and self-forgetting Scotch-Irish minister brought from his five miles distant ranch, his three sons and two daughters, with whom after the service I drove home, passing the night and most of the next day, the good minister then driving me to my next appointment (Dickinson), which also was one of his preaching places.
This family, as a whole, became so interested in the C. L. S. C. readings (it was not new to them) as to fully decide to take the course, and at once enter upon it. These bright, thoughtful and inquiring young people will be benefited beyond estimate by their thought, research and study, and by their intimate relations to the great numbers who are pursuing the same stimulating studies. The adaptation of our grand everybodies’ college to meet a great want has striking application in this exemplary minister’s home.
At Helena, Montana’s capital, rich and wicked, there is a single reader, but I failed to find her after repeated public intimations. At Rathdrum, Idaho, the only reader (a school teacher) had gone away to the mines. No readers from Oregon were announced from Plainfield, but I was glad indeed to find a circle in good beginning in connection with and at the rooms of the Young Men’s Christian Association of Portland.
The Portland Y. M. C. A. is a vigorous and hard-working company, and in its adoption of the C. L. S. C. readings is doubtless a prophecy as to the future. At Seattle and Tacoma, Washington Territory, under the shadow of grand, old, snow-capped Mount Tacoma, the only glacier mountain in this county, I found a single reader, and one family reading. Steps were taken for forming a circle at an early day. The delights of an evangelistic campaign of forty-five days on the Northern Pacific Railroad have been deepened because of our Chautauqua classmates.
K. A. Burnell.