"On another occasion I was to speak in the open air, when an old Minnesota campman brought a pitcher of lemonade and placed it by my side. After the meeting he invited me to his home and wanted me to make it mine while I labored in that place. Such kindness from the men who had been my boys in the North Star pineries did much to make my work in Washington a pleasure."
By the past work the doors of the present have been forced open. The waiting men are inviting the bearers of good tidings to enter—shall we refuse? Where there is a need shall not the Christian Church supply it?
Douglas Malloch, the lumbermen's poet, presents us a picture of the field in the following poem:
THE PARISH OF THE PINES
"Where the winter's chill is deep and still,
Where summer days are long,
Where sighing breeze and branches fill
The air with sob and song,
There lies a parish of the Lord
No wall or street confines:
There 'waits the coming of the Lord
The Parish of the Pines.
"No tower uplifts its gilded spire
Above a house of prayer,
No organ tower or swaying choir
Makes sweetest music there,
For 'tis a vineyard choked with weeds
And lush with tangled vines;
Yea, much it lacks and much it needs—
The Parish of the Pines.
"Yet word of God is word of God
In camp or pulpit told,
And men of forest and of sod
Await the story old.
'Tis time to hew away the sin
That now the soul confines,
And let a little sunshine in
The Parish of the Pines."
[Transcriber's Notes:]
Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.
Simple typographical errors were corrected.