Brother Van

by Stella Wyatt Brummitt

Not only gold, but silver, copper, lead, coal, and iron are found. Especially rich are the fields of copper, and since 1892, Montana has been the leading state in the production of this metal. Great smelting and refining plants costing millions of dollars have been establishedaround which thriving cities have quickly grown. In the maze of stacks, mills, ore-dumps, tracks, and surrounding streets filled with the cottages of the laborers, the visitor who has been to the new settlements on the plains and to the reservations sees a different Montana—not that of the rancher and the Indians but that of the industrial worker.

We have an enthusiastic guide when we travel through the mining regions with Brother Van. He keeps the spirit of the pioneer. While his work has led him more among the Indians and the plainsmen, he sees the great needs that have arisen with the growth of the industrial centers. He is eager that the Christian forces of America undertake new tasks of helpfulness for the men who toil underground and in the mills, and for their families.

Copyright, Brown Brothers.

A COPPER MINE AT BUTTE

A new America must be won in the restless, throbbing centers of industrial life.

It is in Butte that we find the heart of the great copper region of Montana. From the hill north of the city, ore to the value of a million and a half dollars has been taken. When Brother Van made his first visit there he found but fifty residents. Not only is it now a busy city of forty thousand inhabitants, but the characterof the community has entirely changed. The settlers of that period were of American birth and parentage. To-day the great majority of the miners are from distant countries. The pioneers of the days of Brother Van’s young manhood lived the hearty open life of the wind-swept plains; the newcomers from Europe must toil in the dark mine shafts or amid the dust and roar of the mills and smelters.

Coming as these workers do for the most part from southern and eastern Europe, differing greatly in customs and in language from the older population, they must be given special guidance, if they are to find the real America of their dreams. They will attain the kind of citizenship which will make them able to take a really helpful place in the life of the country only as we interpret Christian ideals for them. It was for these ideals of democratic brotherhood that the young men of America went abroad and for which thousands of them gave their lives. Is America now to show to those who have come as strangers to us, and who do such a large share of the hard work of our country,that these ideals of democratic brotherhood are being put into practise for the benefit of all?

Brother Van found a frontier region when he stepped ashore from the river boat at Fort Benton on that July morning in 1872. He threw himself into the life about him, and his years of service have brought friendship and hope and courage to lonely men and women and to aspiring young people all over a great commonwealth. Cowboy, Indian, and miner have welcomed his help, for, as they put it, he “prayed lucky.” There is need to-day—there will always be a need—for the same ministry that Brother Van has been carrying on in his founding of new churches, and in his friendly visiting in lonely homes, and in his preaching anywhere and everywhere the word of cheer and of faith that his whole life taught. And as a part of the same great task to which he has devoted all his years, Brother Van will tell you that there is need for another kind of scouting to-day in the land of the shining mountains.

This vast development of modern industry calls for new and varied kinds of service. Thethrill of adventure is there, although it may be different from that which was found in the early days of the frontier, and the joy of conquest remains. The winning of a new America is yet to be achieved in many of those restless, throbbing centers of industrial life where men have not yet learned how to bring the spirit of Christ into their daily toil; where home life is narrow and harsh; where growing boys and girls are shut out from the opportunities for recreation and for training, that a preparation for healthy, capable citizenship demands.