The only persons seriously hurt were L.L. Lee and L.S. Kellogg. The first was compelled to carry a hand in a sling for a long time, and the latter was considerably injured by a blow from a club on the head. The blood ran freely, but he was able to attend the Law and Order Meeting the following morning. His speech on the occasion became a watchword among the people. He said in a very resolute manner, "Our Fathers fought for freedom, both civil and religious, and if we have got to fight the battle over again I am ready, and I am willing that my blood should be the first to flow." The city appropriated one hundred and fifty dollars to repair the damages done to the Church edifice.
Bishop Waugh made us a visit near the close of the year. He was on his way to the Conference to be held at Waukesha, and went with us to the Camp-Meeting at Brookfield. Spring Street Station made no inconsiderable part of the Meeting. She pitched a tent that would accommodate one hundred and fifty persons, and it was well filled from the beginning to the end of the Meeting. It was a Meeting of great power. None who heard the exhortations of the good Bishop at the close of his Sunday morning sermon can ever forget it. After holding the vast congregation spell-bound for more than an hour in the delivery of the sermon, the old man, with locks as white as the driven snow, came down from the stand, and, standing on a seat in the Altar, began to invite mourners. The motives of the Gospel were presented one after another, the tide of feeling rising, until the Bishop was master of the occasion, and seemed to sway the people at his pleasure. The Bishop's voice grew grandly eloquent as his great soul rose to the level of the effort, and before it and its burden of truth, the people began to bend, then brake, and finally flew to the Altar. Nor did the exhortation cease until the Altar was literally crowded with seeking penitents.
The Scandinavian work was this year opened in Wisconsin. To further this object the Missionary Management at New York sent forward Rev. C. Willerup, placing him at the beginning under my care. On reaching the city he found the population using the Scandinavian language too small to organize the work, and we deemed it advisable to explore the interior. To do this he must have an Itinerant's outfit, consisting at least of horse and saddle-bags. While he was employed in settling his family in a rented house, I visited the market and purchased a horse for him and the other necessary articles, using my own funds until drafts should be received from the Missionary Treasury. The desired location for the first Mission was found at Cambridge, where Brother Willerup organized a Society and subsequently erected a Church edifice. From this small beginning has since grown a family of charges and a line of able Ministers, constituting a Presiding Elder's District.
The Conference year had now come to a close. Many changes had occurred in Spring Street Station. In consequence of the cholera, and the consequent stagnation of business, large numbers of the people went into the country. But notwithstanding this depletion, such had been the number of accessions, one hundred and seven in all, that I was able to report one hundred and fifty-seven members and sixty-three probationers, making a total of two hundred and twenty.
The financial plan, adopted at the beginning of the year, that of collecting the funds in the classes, had proved a success. At the close of the year, the Pastor was fully paid, and the Society was out of debt.
CHAPTER XII.
Conference of 1851.--Presiding Elder.--Presentation.--Give and Take.--Fond du Lac District--Quarterly Meeting--Rev. J.S. Prescott.--Footman vs. Buggies--Fond du Lac.--Two Churches.--Greenbush Quarterly Meeting--Rev. David Lewis--Pioneer Self-Sacrifice.--Finds a Help-Meet.--Sheboygan Falls.--Rev. Matthias Himebaugh.--Oshkosh--First Class.--Church Enterprises.
The Conference for 1851 was held June 25th, at Waukesha. The Sessions were deeply spiritual, and were characterized by general harmony among the preachers. At this Conference the Committee on Periodicals, of which I was a member, reported in favor of the establishment of a North Western Christian Advocate, and the report was unanimously adopted.
In the arrangement of appointments I was assigned to the Fond du Lac District. The appointment was a great surprise to myself, and doubtless to others. Besides, it was not in harmony with my judgment or wishes. It seemed to me to be an unwise measure to take so young a man, only twenty-nine, from the companionship of books and the details of the Pastoral office, and place him on a District where both of the Departments of labor, so essential to success in the Ministry, must necessarily be abridged. And in the next place, it appeared to me that, since there were so many other men in the Conference, who were better qualified than I for the position, my appointment was but doing violence to the work. But I soon came to the conclusion that when an appointment has been made there is no further need to debate the question. In such a case, the sooner both the Ministers and people adjust their views to the new order of things, the better for all concerned. Accepting this view, I hastened to conform to the situation with as good grace as possible. And to aid me perhaps a little, several of the preachers surprised me by the presentation of a cane.