The mission churches of the lumber regions are like springs in the desert, but for which the traveller would die on his way; and thousands of church-members scattered from ocean to ocean were born of the Spirit in some one of these little churches that did brave work in a transient town.
To do work in these places aright, one must drop all denominational nonsense,—be as ready to pray and work with the dying Roman Catholic as with a member of his own church, and do as I did,—lend the church building to the priest, because disease in the town would not permit of using the private houses at the time, and so help to fill up the gap between us and the old mother that nursed us a thousand years.
In every new town, in every camp, should be a standing notice, "No cranks need apply."
Here is a brawny man who does not like the church. He hates the name of preacher, and threatens that he had better not call at his house. Scarlet fever takes his children down. The despised preacher, armed with a basket of good things, raps at the door. Pat opens it. "Good-morning, Pat. I heard your little ones were sick, and my wife thought your wife would have her hands full, and she has sent a few little things—not much, but they will help a little, I hope."
The tears are in Pat's eyes. "Come in, Elder, if you are not afraid, for we have scarlet fever here."
"That is the very reason I came, my boy;" and Pat is won. The very man that swore the hardest because the elder was near, now says, "Don't swear, boys; there's the elder."
Yes; and when men have heard that the new preacher has helped in the house stricken with small-pox or typhoid, he has the freedom of the village, or the camp, and is respected. And so the village missionary does some good in the mill-town. But what is one man among so many? See this little place with less than five hundred population. Two thousand men come there for their mail, and the average distance to the next church is over twenty miles; and one man is totally inadequate to the great work before him.
These villages and camps ought to have good libraries, a hall well lighted, innocent amusements, lectures, and entertainments, and in addition to this, an army of men carrying good books and visiting all the camps; and there is nothing to hinder but the lack of money, and the lack of will to use it in those who have abundance. I lately passed through a lumber-town of seven thousand inhabitants. Four or five millionnaires lived there. One had put up an $80,000 training-school, another a memorial building costing $160,000. This is the other extreme. But up to date the lumber-regions have been shamefully neglected, and thousands of boys and girls are growing up to drift to our great cities and form the dangerous classes, fitted for it by their training. It is better to clear the water-sheds than to buy filters, and the cheapest policeman of the city is the missionary in the waste places of our land.