One evening he found himself at the opening of an immense cañon, on the lofty tops of which the snow was perpetual. Sheltered beneath its mighty walls, flowers of semi-tropical luxuriance flourished, and birds of gorgeous plumage flitted here and there; while humming-birds, like balls of metal, darted among the flowers. A little silver streamlet ran down the cañon until lost in the blue distance; and here our minute-man stood lost in reverent admiration. The sun was going down in pomp of purple and gold; and the little stream changed its colors with the clouds, until in a moment it became black; a cold wind came down the cañon, the flowers closed their petals, and with a twitter here and there the birds went to roost. And then our minute-man looked up aloft, where the sun still gilded the great cañon's shoulders until they glowed like molten metal, and kissed the forehead of an Indian who stood like a statue waiting the sun's setting. Another moment and it was gone, and our Indian stood like a silhouette against the sky, when he at once wheeled toward the east, and, stooping, lit a fire; then drawing his ragged blanket around him, prepared to watch all night until the sun came up in the eastern horizon, watching for the return of his Saviour Montezuma. And thus far he has watched in vain.
A strange fact,—a poor tribe still waiting and watching for a Saviour in a land where there are over twenty million church-members, some of whom ride past him in their palace-cars to take a palatial steamer, and travel thousands of miles to find a soul to save. Over twelve denominations striving in Mexico to win souls, and scarcely a thing done for the hundreds of thousands of Mexicans in our own land, and over forty tribes of Indians. And all this in the year of our Lord 1895.
XXIII.
DARK PLACES OF THE INTERIOR.
I want to picture out in this chapter one of the hardest fields the minute-man has to labor in. I think there are greater inequalities to be found in our land than in any other, at least a greater variety of social conditions. Times have changed much in the last twenty-five years. The consolidating of great business concerns has made a wide gulf between the employer and employee such as never before existed outside of slavery.
It is not true to say that the rich are growing richer, and the poor poorer; for the poor could not be poorer. There never was a time when men were not at starvation-point in some places. We have to-day thousands of men who never saw the owner of the property that they work upon. There is a fearful distance between the gentlemen and ladies in their four-in-hand turnout and the begrimed men who come up into the daylight out of our great coal-mines, or those who handle the heavy iron ore. I have seen men whose hands could be pared like a horse's hoof without drawing the blood, who were going back to Germany to stay,—men who had been lured over by the promise of big wages, who, as they said, averaged "feefty cent a day." I have seen sixty and seventy men living in a big hut, with two or three women cooking their vegetables in a great iron kettle, and dipping them out with tin ladles. I have seen little boys by the score working for a few cents a day, and four, five, and seven families living in one house, and where all the pay was store-pay, and did not average five dollars a week, and where it was not safe to walk at night, and murder was common,—and you could find within a few miles cities where there were men who would say that the whole of the above was a lie.
When I first talked on these regions, I could think of nothing else; and some good men advised me not to tell of what I had seen. It smacked too much of socialism, they said. I remarked, "You will hear of starving, bloodshed, and riot from that region before long." And so they did. The State troops were called out more than once. And here in the midst of this misery our minute-man went. Before the mines were opened, a little stream of clear water flowed between green banks and through flowery meads; cattle dotted the meadows, and peaceful farm-houses nestled under the trees. But all this was soon changed. The green sod was turned up, the clear stream became a muddy, discolored torrent, and wretched little houses took the place of the farm-houses. Low saloons abounded. Our minute-man was warned that his life would be in danger. On the other hand, he was offered three times the salary he was getting as a missionary if he would become a foreman. But the man is one of the last of that noble army of pioneers that count not their life dear.
When our man tried to find a place to preach, there was none save an old dilapidated schoolhouse. The window-sashes were broken, the panels of the door gone. The place was beyond a little stream, which had to be crossed upon a log. It was nearly dark before his audience arrived. The women, much as they wanted to go, were ashamed of the daylight. Many of the young girls had on but one garment. The men were a rough-looking lot. The place was lighted with candles in lanterns, the flames of which fluttered with the draughts, and gutters of tallow ran down. What a contrast to the church a few miles away, where the seats were cushioned, and a quartet choir sang, "The Earth is the Lord's," with a magnificent organ accompaniment! What a gulf between these poor souls and those who came in late, not because of poor clothes, but because of fine ones! And yet I suppose they did not perceive it, perhaps they did not know. But it does seem to me that when men hear that "The Earth is the Lord's," it ought to make them think how small a proportion of earth they will make when mingled with the dust from which they came.