"There is no chance for your friend's recovery. You had better break the news to him, for he is beyond our help."
Gently, tenderly, the rough camp preacher told the dying man of his condition and asked him to make preparation for the nearing end.
A SMALL CONGREGATION
The lumberjack looked up at the weeping minister, and smilingly said: "Thank God you came to the camp that night. I heard you preach of a Savior, and all my being longed to know him. It was the first time in twenty years I had heard the gospel. I was raised in a Christian home, and that night all the lessons of childhood came back to me. When the lanterns were put out, and the bunkhouse was silent, I got on my knees and prayed the forgiving God to forgive the past, and make me a better man. That night Jesus Christ brought his strong salvation to me, and I was forgiven." He paused through weakness and was still, then opening his eyes, now clouded with the mists of death, he looked at the minister.
"Brother Higgins, go back to the camps and tell the boys of my Savior. Go back and tell the old story to the lumberjacks. They need you worse than the towns do. Tell them of Jesus who can make them live, go back to the lonely camps." He ceased to speak. More feebly came the breath, and soon the spirit returned to the God who gave it.
The minister was left with a problem greater than any he had yet attempted to solve. In the corridors of the hospital he walked through the long night, carrying a sense of duty and sacrifice he had never known before. "Can it be possible that God wants me to take up this work?" he asked. "Has God spoken his will through the dying man?" Ambition rebelled against the sacrifice; fond wishes refused to be set aside, but with every tempting prospect came the command of the dying man, "Go back to the boys and carry the story of Jesus." It sounded clearly. No man could misunderstand it. That night all his plans were changed. Ambitions, such as come to all young men, were swept away. The large pulpits of which he had dreamed were superseded by the log or barrel which held the Bible in the camp services, and the future audiences were men rough clothed, rough visaged, who dwelt not in homes of opulence, but slept in the hay-filled bunks in the log camps. That night in the hospital he consecrated himself to the service of God in the logging camps.
He now began to look about the field in which his life work was to be done. The extent of the field and the intensity of the need was appalling. While there were Christian men in the camps, and many whose lives were moral, yet these were few in comparison to the crowd who wasted their lives as did the younger son in the parable.
Ordination was now his great desire, for he wished to go to the men as one who could minister to all their spiritual needs. But ordination was far off. The studies were not completed, and would not be for several years.
The spring after his decision, he was surprised on entering his home to find it filled with a crew of lumberjacks who were returning from the camps.