[CHAPTER VIII.]
MUSCULAR CHRISTIANITY.
Muscular Christianity has a rather far-off sound in this matter-of-fact age where indifference is present and many a church is under the blight of apathy. But on the part of the logging camp missionary there is no apathy. His ministry is twofold: it is spiritual and muscular.
Let some one who is more interested in the dead past write the story of the rough but earnest Crusaders, who fought in the name of the gentle Christ with flesh-piercing spear and blood-letting sword. That is a tale, foreign, distant and past; the narrative I bring is native, near and present. This warfare is not with the weapons which are the product of the fire and anvil, yet it is muscular and strenuous; its purpose is not death, but life, and its spirit is love. The banner alone is the same—the Sign of the Cross.
Physical fitness of no common order is required of the missionary of the forest. In our northern pineries strength of limb, endurance and hardiness are the necessary capital of the workers. When the frolicsome winds drive the mercury thirty or forty degrees below zero and hold it in that low retreat for days, the men who work under the open sky must be vigorous to stand the taunts of the north wind and strong to resist the fettering cold. The pineries is no place for weaklings, either as pastor or logger. Brawn is an asset not despised, muscle is honored, and endurance is the ideal of the lumberjack.
The city pastor finds that head and heart predominate in his work for souls; the missionary of the logging camps soon realizes that the first essential is bodily excellency—heart and head are secondary in the estimation of the woodsmen. They pity a weakling, they respect a strong man. But to strength must be added devotion if the man who comes as Christ's messenger is to win. They will willingly listen to the rough address of a rough and ready man who can fell a tree with precision and ease; the argument of the man who is scientific of fist and nimble of leg is sure of a ready reception.
It follows that the same kind of ministry we look for in the city is not asked for in the camps. The object of the work is the same—the souls of men—but the methods and means are more varied. The man of tact soon sees that the body can be used to do a glorious work for the King, and that he who is fearful of manual exercise cannot be a winning ambassador for his Master.
Physical Christianity sounds like a story of the middle ages, but this form of godliness is being used successfully to point men to Christ in the great north woods. It is not forcing men to accept his teaching, but doing with physical might for him whatever the hands find to do.
Of more value than discussion will be the narrative, and so I present to the reader a few plain tales of the lights and shadows, the labors and losses in the life of the missionary who spends his all for the men who are far from civilization, far from Christ, lonely, wayward, rough, but still our brothers for whom our Master died.
The village was little more than a collection of rude shacks. In its confines two hundred people made their homes. Even in the logging district one would search long for a place more under the influence of open sin. The camps were near and the village traffic was evil—almost exclusively evil. Nine saloons were the ornaments of the place and the large brothel occupied a prominent place in the social life. There was little in the village to commend, much to condemn. Its influence was vicious and its efforts were to impoverish the campmen.
It was nearing the spring of 1905. The camps would soon break up for the winter, and the Rev. Frank E. Higgins, while making his rounds, found himself, after nightfall, in the village described above. The lunchroom was in the rear of a saloon and there the missionary took his belated meal. Many drinking lumberjacks were at the bar and soon they crowded around the minister with invitations to drink with them.