The Minute Man on the Frontier

by William George Puddefoot

A MINUTE MAN'S PARSONAGE.
Page 190.

When a man has access to all the great reviews, to fine libraries, public and private, and has the stimulation that comes from constant intercourse with others, besides an income that will allow him to buy the best books, when his services begin with forty-five minutes of liturgy and song, backed with a fine pipe-organ, when he enjoys two or three months vacation into the bargain, he must be a very small specimen of a man if he cannot write a thirty-minute sermon; but when all a man's books can be put on one shelf, when his salary barely keeps the pot boiling, and he has fifty-two Sundays to fill, year in and year out, it is no wonder that short pastorates are the rule. When a man reaches his new field with no better start than many have,—the majority without a college training, and some without even a high-school education,—it is not long before some of his parish will be asking a superintendent or presiding elder whether he cannot send them a good man. "Our man here," he says, "is good, but he can't preach for shucks." The new man comes, and in three months he is in the same boat. And another comes; and after a little there is as much money spent for the sustaining of these families as would keep a good man.

So it goes on, year after year. Sectarian jealousies and sectarian strivings are as bad for the spiritual development of a country as saloons. So that we find to-day, in little towns of two thousand inhabitants, ten or eleven churches, all of them little starveling things, "No one so poor to do them reverence;" while the real frontier work is left with thousands of churchless parishes.

If a man properly fitted out for his field could go at first, it would often stop the multiplication of little sects whose chief article of faith is some wretched little button-hook-and-eye or feet-washing ceremony. In the beginning, such is the weakness of the new community, a union church is inevitable, there not being enough of a kind to go around; and nothing but a lack of Christianity will break that church up.

For an example, here is a superintendent with a field a thousand miles by four hundred. He hears that a new town is started up in the mountains, a hundred and fifty miles from the railway. The stage is the only means of reaching it; no stopping on the road but twenty minutes for meals. After a tedious journey he reaches the place, and finds the usual conditions,—saloons, gambling-houses by the score, houses of every description in the process of erection.

He goes up to the hotel man, and asks whether he can procure a place for preaching. He is given the schoolhouse. He announces preaching service, and begins. The people crowd the little building; they sit or stand outside. Here are members of a dozen sects, and a solitary feet-washer feeling lonely enough. The work crowds him; and he wires to headquarters at New York,—a strange telegram,—"For the love of God, send me a man." Just as the telegram arrives, a man who has just come from England steps into the office. He is examined, and asked whether he would like to go beyond the Rocky Mountains. He is the right stuff. "Anywhere," is the answer; and as fast as limited express can take him he hurries to the new field. He finds a great crowd outside the schoolhouse, a revival going on, and he has hard work to reach the minister. A church is organized, and it is to be a union church. What a calamity to have the brethren living together in unity! To have Christ's prayer answered that they may be one! It's dreadful. But never mind; the Devil, in the shape of sect that holds its deformity higher than Christ, soon makes an end of that; so that the real-estate agent advertises good water, good schools, and good churches.

The only way I see out of this anti-christian warfare is to send a well-balanced, well-paid man to start with. In the case just stated, the man was a good one, and held the fort, and managed skilfully his united flock.

There are times when the best men will fail, as they do in business. The place promises great growth, and peters out; but in these small towns, where the growth will never be large, your faithful man often does a mighty work. His flock are constantly moving away, but new ones are constantly coming; and so his church is helping to fill others miles away, and it will not be until he is translated that we shall see how grand a man he was.

I remember one man with his wife and family presenting himself one day to the Superintendent of Missions. He had just left a pretty little rose-covered parsonage in England. The only place open was a very cold and hard field. The forests had been destroyed by fire. The climate was intense, either summer or winter; but he said, "I will go. I do not want to be a candidate."