The Lumberjack Sky Pilot

by Thomas D. Whittles

I well remember a sermon he preached on the Prodigal Son, but the environment must be present if one is to reproduce the sermon. It was well suited to the audience, plain, too plain for a city audience, but an unmistakable message for the men of the forest. Figures of speech had little place in it; of poetry there was little except the poetry of direct simplicity; it was unadorned Anglo-Saxon with the crash and clang of the language in its strength, but it was a story full of love, hope and cheer that appealed to the hundred men who breathlessly listened while the wind of winter beat the drifting snow against the camp.

Here are some extracts given wholly from memory:

"One of the boys stayed at home and one left the old homestead. Now it wasn't the fellow that stayed at home that the father was worrying about, but the fellow that packed his "turkey" and went out to blow his stake. You lumberjacks are in that youngster's place and the old folks are wondering where you are and what you are doing. Because a man leaves home it isn't necessary to be a prodigal, but his chances to make a fool of himself are better if he is away from the old home and its memories."

Then came the story of his own home-leaving and how the mother watched him until the turn in the road hid him from view.

"That mother's prayers have followed me through life. My story is yours with the names changed. Some one wants to hear that you still live. Write a letter tonight.

"Because the fellow had money he found friends, but there never was a friend worth having who was made or bought through money. This young fellow in the parable reminds me of the lumberjack coming down the river in the spring and landing in one of the logging towns. Men who have never heard of him become his friends at once; the barkers of the dens wait at the train to give him the glad hand; he has friends galore and is the most popular man that enters the town—he has money. Then they bleed him to a finish, as they did the prodigal in the Bible. There are men in these towns who have your wages figured up already and they smile and chuckle as they toast their shins at the base burner, thinking what a good time they will have with your money when you come down in the spring. Don't think you are working for yourselves; the saloonmen and their crowd are the ones who cash your checks and bank your coin. Some of the men in the saloon business that came to these parts when I did and were as poor as I am, are now living in the finest houses in the north and eat the best the land affords. The wives of these men are dressed in silks, and their hands and necks glisten with the jewels you bought with your winter's labor—but you still wear the coarse socks and haven't a cent in the bank. Now, men, were you ever invited into the homes you built for the saloonmen, gamblers and brothel keepers? Were you ever given an introduction to the wives whom you dressed in silks and jewels? No, and you never will be. They don't want you; they are after your cash. That's how they treated the prodigal of old; that's how they treat the prodigal lumberjack of today.

"Well, after awhile the prodigal was broke and he asked his friends for a lift, but his friends weren't in the lifting business. It was their business to help him to spend, but not to spend for him. Do you remember when you had spent all at the bar, the wheel, or the brothel, how you asked a loan for a lodging of the man in whose till your winter's earnings rested, and he gave you a hunch to go up river and earn more? Well, the prodigal was in the same boat, for they said to him as they said to you, 'Go up the river, old man. It's the husks and the hogs for you now.'

"But when the men who rob and spoil will not give you a hand, the Father will. In the father's home was the only place the prodigal found a hearty reception, and in the Lord Jesus Christ you will find a welcome."

Then came the gospel message with its cheer and loving hope, the story of how God gave Christ to die that the prodigal might have light and love, and how through him the homestead opens, where love undefiled and almighty help is given unstintedly.

It was a homely sermon, a plain message, a description of life they too well understood because they had too often experienced it. Many a head was bowed in shame as the story of the prodigal's life was told, for the listeners knew it was a tale, not of the times of Christ, but taken from their own lives. When the preacher spoke of the loving Father who warmly welcomes the wanderers there was expectancy in the faces of the auditors.