{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_12564/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_12564","id":"gutenberg_12564","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12564","summary":null,"tags":["California -- Description and travel","California -- Social life and customs","Category: American Literature","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Ethnic groups -- California","Law -- Political aspects -- California","Religion and ethics -- California"],"text":"CALIFORNIA SKETCHES\n\nNew Series.\n\n\n\nBy O. P. Fitzgerald\n\nWith an Introduction by Bishop George F. Pierce.\n\n\n\nThe bearded men in rude attire,\nWith nerves of steel and hearts of fire,\nThe women few but fair and sweet,\nLike shadowy visions dim and fleet,\nAgain I see, again I hear,\nAs down the past I dimly peer,\nAnd muse o'er buried joy and pain,\nAnd tread the hills of youth again.\n\n\n\n\n1883.\n\n\n\nA Word.\n\nEncores are usually anticlimaxes. I never did like them. Yet here I am\nagain before the public with another book of \"California Sketches.\" The\nkind treatment given to the former volume, of which six editions have\nbeen printed and sold; the expressed wishes of many friends who have\nsaid, Give us another book; and my own impulse, have induced me to\nventure upon a second appearance. If much of the song is in the minor\nkey, it had to be so: these Sketches are from real life, and \"all lives\nare tragedies.\"\n\nThe Author.\n\nNashville, September, 1881.\n\n\n\nIntroduction.\n\nThe first issue of the \"California Sketches\" was very popular,\ndeservedly so. The distinguished Author has prepared a Second Series. In\nthis fact the reading public will rejoice.\n\nIn these hooks we have the romance and prestige of fiction; the thrill\nof incident and adventure; the wonderful phases of society in a new\ncountry, and under the pressure of strong and peculiar excitements;\nhuman character loose from the restraints of an old civilization--a\nsettled order of things; individuality unwarped by imitation--free,\nvaried, independent. The materials are rich, and they are embodied in a\nglowing narrative. The writer himself lived amid the scenes and the\npeople he describes, and, as a citizen, a preacher, and an editor, was\nan important factor among the forces destined to mold the elements which\nwere to be formulated in the politics of the State and the enterprises\nof the Church. A close observer, gifted with a keen discrimination and\nretentive memory, a decided relish for the ludicrous and the sportive,\nand always ready to give a religions turn to thought and conversation,\nhe is admirably adapted to portray and recite what he saw, heard, and\nfelt.\n\nThese Sketches furnish good reading for anybody. For the young they are\ncharming, full of entertainment, and not wanting in moral instruction.\nThey will gratify the taste of those who love to read, and, what is more\nimportant, beget the appetite for books among the dull and indifferent.\nHe who can stimulate children and young men and women to read renders a\nsignal service to society at large. Mental growth depends much upon\nreading, and the fertilization of the original soil by the habit wisely\ndirected connects vitally with the outcome and harvest of the future.\n\nDr. Fitzgerald is doing good service in the work already done, and I\ntrust the patronage of the people will encourage him to give us another\nand another of the same sort. At my house we all read the \"California\nSketches\"--old and young--and long for more.\n\nG. F. Pierce.\n\n\n\nContents.\n\nDick The Diggers The California Mad-House San Quentin \"Corralled\" The\nReblooming The Emperor Norton Camilla Cain Lone Mountain Newton The\nCalifornia Politician Old Man Lowry Suicide In California Father Fisher\nJack White The Rabbi My Mining Speculation Mike Reese Uncle Nolan\nBuffalo Jones Tod Robinson Ah Lee The Climate of California After The\nStorm Bishop Kavanaugh In California Sanders A Day Winter-Blossomed A\nVirginian In California At The End\n\n\n\nDick.\n\nDick was a Californian. We made his acquaintance in Sonora about a month\nbefore Christmas, Anno Domini 1855. This is the way it happened:\n\nAt the request of a number of families, the lady who presided in the\ncurious little parsonage near the church on the hill-side had started a\nschool for little girls. The public schools might do for the boys, but\nwere too mixed for their sisters--so they thought. Boys could rough it\n--they were a rough set, anyway--but the girls must he raised according\nto the traditions of the old times and the old homes. That was the view\ntaken of the matter then, and from that day to this the average\nCalifornia girl has been superior to the average California boy. The boy\ngets his bias from the street; the girl, from her mother at home. The\nboy plunges into the life that surges around him; the girl only feels\nthe touch of its waves as they break upon the embankments of home. The\nboy gets more of the father; the girl gets more of the mother. This may\nexplain their relative superiority. The school for girls was started on\ncondition that it should be free, the proposed teacher refusing all\ncompensation. That part of the arrangement was a failure, for at the end\nof the first month every little girl brought a handful of money, and\nlaid it on the teacher's desk. It must have been a concerted matter.\nThat quiet, unselfish woman had suddenly become a money-maker in spite\nof herself. (Use was found for the coin in the course of events.) The\nschool was opened with a Psalm, a prayer, and a little song in which the\nsweet voices of the little Jewish, Spanish, German, Irish, and American\nmaidens united heartily. Dear children! they are scattered now. Some of\nthem have died, and some of them have met with what is worse than death.\nThere was one bright Spanish girl, slender, graceful as a willow, with\nthe fresh Castilian blood mantling her cheeks, her bright eyes beaming\nwith mischief and affection. She was a beautiful child, and her winning\nways made her a pet in the little school. But surrounded as the bright,\nbeautiful girl was, Satan had a mortgage on her from her birth, and her\nfate was too dark and sad to be told in these pages. She inherited evil\ncondition, and perhaps evil blood, and her evil life seemed to be\ninevitable. Poor child of sin, whose very beauty was thy curse, let the\ncurtain fall upon thy fate and name; we leave thee in the hands of the\npitying Christ, who hath said, \"Where little is given little will be\nrequired.\" Little was given thee in the way of opportunity, for it was a\nmother's hand that bound thee with the chains of evil.\n\nAmong the children that came to that remarkable academy on the hill was\nlittle Mary Kinneth, a thin, delicate child, with mild blue eyes, flaxen\nhair, a peach complexion, and the blue veins on her temples that are so\noften the sign of delicacy of organization and the presage of early\ndeath. Mike Kinneth,--her father, was a drinking Irishman, a\ngood-hearted fellow when sober, but pugnacious and disposed to beat his\nwife when drunk. The poor woman came over to see me one day. She had\nbeen crying, and there was an ugly bruise on her cheek.\n\n\"Your riverence will excuse me,\" she said, curtseying, \"but I wish you\nwould come over and spake a word to me husband. Mike's a kind, good\ncraythur except when he is dhrinking, but then he is the very Satan\nhimself.\"\n\n\"Did he give you that bruise on your face, Mrs. Kinneth?\"\n\n\"Yis; he came home last night mad with the whisky, and was breaking\nivery thing in the house. I tried to stop him, and thin he bate me--O!\nhe never did that before! My heart is broke!\"\n\nHere the poor woman broke down and cried, hiding her face in her apron.\n\n\"Little Mary was asleep, and she waked up frightened and crying to see\nher father in such a way. Seeing the child seemed to sober him a little,\nand he stumbled on to the bed, and fell asleep. He was always kind to\nthe child, dhrunk or sober. And there is a good heart in him if he will\nonly stay away from the dhrink.\"\n\n\"Would he let me talk to him?\"\n\n\"Yis; we belong to the old Church, but there is no priest here now, and\nthe kindness your lady has shown to little Mary has softened his heart\nto ye both. And I think he feels a little sick and ashamed this mornin',\nand he will listen to kind words now if iver.\"\n\nI went to see Mike, and found him half-sick and in a penitent mood. He\ncalled me \"Father Fitzgerald,\" and treated me with the utmost politeness\nand deference. I talked to him about little Mary, and his warm Irish\nheart opened to me at once.\n\n\"She is a good child, your riverence, and shame on the father that would\nhurt or disgrace her!\"\n\nThe tears stood in Mike's eyes as he spoke the words.\n\n\"All the trouble comes from the whisky. Why not give it up?\"\n\n\"By the help of God I will!\" said Mike, grasping my hand with energy.\n\nAnd he did. I confess that the result of my visit exceeded my hopes.\nMike kept away from the saloons, worked steadily, little Mary had no\nlack of new shoes and neat frocks, and the Kinneth family were happy in\na humble way. Mike always seemed glad to see me, and greeted me warmly.\n\nOne morning about the last of November there was a knock at the door of\nthe little parsonage. Opening the door, there stood Mrs. Kinneth with a\nturkey under her arm.\n\n\"Christmas will soon be coming, and I've brought ye a turkey for your\nkindness to little Mary and your good talk to Mike. He has not touched a\ndhrop since the blissed day ye spake to him. Will ye take the turkey,\nand my thanks wid it?\"\n\nThe turkey was politely and smilingly accepted, and Mrs. Kinneth went\naway looking mightily pleased.\n\nI extemporized a little coop for our turkey. Having but little\nmechanical ingenuity, it was a difficult job, but it resulted more\nsatisfactorily than did my attempt to make a door for the miniature\nkitchen attached to the parsonage. My object was to nail some\ncross-pieces on some plain boards, hang it on hinges, and fasten it on\nthe inside by a leather strap attached to a nail. The model in my mind\nwas, as the reader sees, of the most simple and primitive pattern. I\nspent all my leisure time for a week at work on that door. I spoiled the\nlumber, I blistered my hands, I broke several dollars' worth of\ncarpenter's tools, which I had to pay, and--then I hired a man to make\nthat door! This was my last effort in that line of things, excepting the\nturkey-coop, which was the very last. It lasted four days, at the end of\nwhich time it just gave way all over, and caved in. Fortunately, it was\nno longer needed. Our turkey would not leave us. The parsonage fare\nsuited him, and he staid, and throve, and made friends.\n\nWe named him Dick. He is the hero of this Sketch. Dick was intelligent,\nsociable, and had a good appetite. He would eat any thing, from a crust\nof bread to the pieces of candy that the schoolgirls would give him as\nthey passed. He became as gentle as a dog, and would answer to his name.\nHe had the freedom of the town, and went where he pleased, returning at\nmeal-times, and at night to roost on the western end of the\nkitchen-roof. He would eat from our hands, looking at us with a sort of\nhuman expression in his shiny eyes. If he were a hundred yards away, all\nwe had to do was to go to the door and call out, \"Dick!\"\n\n\"Dick!\" once or twice, and here he would come, stretching his long legs,\nand saying, \"Oot,\" \"oot,\" \"oot\" (is that the way to spell it?). He got\nto like going about with me. He would go with me to the post-office, to\nthe market, and sometimes he would accompany me in a pastoral visit.\nDick was well known and popular. Even the bad boys of the town did not\nthrow stones at him. His ruling passion was the love of eating. He ate\nbetween meals. He ate all that was offered to him. Dick was a pampered\nturkey, and made the most of his good luck and popularity. He was never\nin low spirits, and never disturbed except when a dog came about him. He\ndisliked dogs, and seemed to distrust them.\n\nThe days rolled by, and Dick was fat and happy. It was the day before\nChristmas. We had asked two bachelors to take Christmas-dinner with us,\nhaving room and chairs for just two more persons. (One of our four\nchairs was called a stool--it had a bottom and three legs, one of which\nwas a little shaky, and no back.) There was a constraint upon us both\nall day. I knew what was the matter, but said nothing. About four\no'clock in the afternoon Dick's mistress sat down by me, and, after a\npause, remarked:\n\n\"Do you know that tomorrow is Christmas-day?\"\n\n\"Yes, I know it.\"\n\nAnother pause. I had nothing to say just then. \"Well, if--if--if any\nthing is to be done about that turkey, it is time it were done.\"\n\n\"Do you mean Dick?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" with a little quiver in her voice.\n\n\"I understand you--you mean to kill him--poor Dick! the only pet we\never had.\"\n\nShe broke right down at this, and began to cry.\n\n\"What is the matter here?\" said our kind, energetic neighbor, Mrs. T--,\nwho came in to pay us one of her informal visits. She was from\nPhiladelphia, and, though a gifted woman, with a wide range of reading\nand observation of human life, was not a sentimentalist. She laughed at\nthe weeping mistress of the parsonage, and, going to the back-door, she\ncalled out:\n\n\"Dick!\" \"Dick!\"\n\nDick, who was taking the air high up on the hillside, came at the call,\nmaking long strides, and sounding his \"Oot,\" \"oot,\" \"oot,\" which was the\nformula by which he expressed all his emotions, varying only the tone.\n\nDick, as he stood with outstretched neck and a look of expectation in\nhis honest eyes, was scooped up by our neighbor, and carried off down\nthe hill in the most summary manner.\n\nIn about an hour Dick was brought back. He was dressed. He was also\nstuffed.\n\n\n\nThe Diggers.\n\nThe Digger Indian holds a low place in the scale of humanity. He is not\nintelligent; he is not handsome; he is not very brave. He stands near\nthe foot of his class, and I fear he is not likely to go up any higher.\nIt is more likely that the places that know him now will soon know him\nno more, for the reason that he seems readier to adopt the bad white\nman's whisky and diseases than the good white man's morals and religion.\nEthnologically he has given rise to much conflicting speculation, with\nwhich I will not trouble the gentle reader. He has been in California a\nlong time, and he does not know that he was ever anywhere else. His\npedigree does not trouble him; he is more concerned about getting\nsomething to eat. It is not because he is an agriculturist that he is\ncalled a Digger, but because he grabbles for wild roots, and has a\ngeneral fondness for dirt. I said he was not handsome, and when we\nconsider his rusty, dark-brown color, his heavy features, fishy black\neyes, coarse black hair, and clumsy gait, nobody will dispute the\nstatement. But one Digger is uglier than another, and an old squaw caps\nthe climax.\n\nThe first Digger I ever saw was the best-looking. He had picked up a\nlittle English, and loafed around the mining-camps picking up a meal\nwhere he could get it. He called himself \"Captain Charley,\" and, like a\ntrue native American, was proud of his title. If it was self-assumed, he\nwas still following the precedent set by a vast host of captains,\nmajors, colonels, and generals, who never wore a uniform or hurt\nanybody. He made his appearance at the little parsonage on the hill-side\nin Sonora one day, and, thrusting his bare head into the door, he said:\n\n\"Me Cappin Charley,\" tapping his chest complacently as he spoke.\n\nReturning his salutation, I waited for him to speak again.\n\n\"You got grub--coche carne?\" he asked, mixing his Spanish and English.\n\nSome food was given him, which he snatched rather eagerly, and began to\neat at once. It was, evident that Captain Charley had not breakfasted\nthat morning. He was a hungry Indian, and when he got through his meal\nthere was no reserve of rations in the unique repository of dishes and\nfood which has been mentioned heretofore in these Sketches. Peering\nabout the premises, Captain Charley made a discovery. The modest little\nparsonage stood on a steep incline, the upper side resting on the red\ngravelly earth, while the lower side was raised three or four feet from\nthe ground. The vacant space underneath had been used by our several\nbachelor predecessors as a receptacle for cast-off clothing. Malone,\nLockley, and Evans, had thus disposed of their discarded apparel, and\nDrury Bond and one or two other miners had also added to the treasures\nthat caught the eye of the inquisitive Digger. It was a museum of\nsartorial curiosities--seedy and ripped broadcloth coats, vests, and\npants, flannel mining-shirts of gay colors and of different degrees of\nwear and tear, linen shirts that looked like battle-flags that had been\nthrough the war, and old shoes and boots of all sorts, from the high\nrubber water-proofs used by miners to the ragged slippers that had\nadorned the feet of the lonely single parsons whose names are written\nabove.\n\n\"Me take um?\" asked Captain Charley, pointing to the treasure he had\ndiscovered.\n\nLeave was given, and Captain Charley lost no time in taking possession\nof the coveted goods. He chuckled to himself as one article after\nanother was drawn forth from the pile which seemed to be almost\ninexhaustible. When he had gotten all out and piled up together, it was\na rare-looking sight.\n\n\"Mucho bueno!\" exclaimed Captain Charley, as he proceeded to array\nhimself in a pair of trousers. Then a shirt, then a vest, and then a\ncoat, were put on. And then another, and another, and yet another suit\nwas donned in the same order. He was fast becoming a \"big Indian\"\nindeed. We looked on and smiled, sympathizing with the evident delight\nof our visitor in his superabundant wardrobe. He was in full-dress, and\nenjoyed it. But he made a failure at one point--his feet were too\nlarge, or were not the right shape, for white men's boots or shoes. He\ntried several pairs, but his huge flat foot would not enter them, and\nfinally he threw down the last one tried by him with a Spanish\nexclamation not fit to be printed in these pages. That language is a\nmusical one, but its oaths are very harsh in sound. A battered\n\"stove-pipe\" hat was found among the spoils turned over to Captain\nChancy. Placing it on his head jauntily, he turned to us, saying, Adios,\nand went strutting down the street, the picture of gratified vanity. His\nappearance on Washington Street, the main thoroughfare of the place,\nthus gorgeously and abundantly arrayed, created a sensation. It was as\ngood as a \"show\" to the jolly miners, always ready to be amused. Captain\nCharley was known to most of them, and they had a kindly feeling for the\ngood-natured \"fool Injun,\" as one of them called him in my hearing.\n\nThe next Digger I noticed was of the gentler (but in this case not\nlovelier) sex. She was an old squaw, who was in mourning. The sign of\nher grief was the black adobe mud spread over her face. She sat all day\nmotionless and speechless, gazing up into the sky. Her grief was caused\nby the death of a child, and her sorrowful look showed that she had a\nmother's heart. Poor, degraded creature! What were her thoughts as she\nsat there looking so pitifully up into the silent, far-off heavens? All\nthe livelong day she gazed thus fixedly into the sky, taking no notice\nof the passersby, neither speaking, eating, nor drinking. It was a\ncustom of the tribe, but its peculiar significance is unknown to me.\n\nIt was a great night at an adjoining camp when the old chief died. It\nwas made the occasion of a fearful orgy. Dry wood and brush were\ngathered into a huge pile, the body of the dead chief was placed upon\nit, and the mass set on fire. As the flames blazed upward with a roar,\nthe Indians, several hundred in number, broke forth into wild wailings\nand howlings, the shrill soprano of the women rising high above the din,\nas they marched around the burning pyre. Fresh fuel was supplied from\ntime to time, and all night long the flames lighted up the surrounding\nhills which echoed with the shouts and howls of the savages. It was a\ntouch of pandemonium. At dawn there was nothing left of the dead chief\nbut ashes. The mourners took up their line of march toward the\nStanislaus River, the squaws bearing their papooses on their backs, the\n\"bucks\" leading the way.\n\nThe Digger believes in a future life, and in future rewards and\npunishments. Good Indians and bad Indians are subjected to the same\nordeal at death. Each one is rewarded according to his deeds.\n\nThe disembodied soul comes to a wide, turbid river, whose angry waters\nrush on to an unknown destination, roaring and foaming. From high banks\non either side of the stream is stretched a pole smooth and small, over\nwhich he is required to walk. Upon the result of this post-mortem\nBlondinizing his fate depends. If he was in life a very good Indian he\ngoes over safely, and finds on the other side a paradise, where the\nskies are cloudless, the air balmy, the flowers brilliant in color and\nsweet in perfume, the springs many and cool, and the deer plentiful and\nfat. In this fair clime there are no bad Indians, no briers, no snakes,\nno grizzly bears. Such is the paradise of good Diggers.\n\nThe Indian who was in life a mixed character, not all good or bad, but\nmade up of both, starts across the fateful river, gets on very well\nuntil he reaches about half-way over, when his head becomes dizzy, and\nhe tumbles into the boiling flood below. He swims for his life. (Every\nIndian on earth can swim, and he does not forget the art in the world of\nspirits.) Buffeting the waters, he is carried swiftly down the rushing\ncurrent, and at last makes the shore, to find a country which, like his\nformer life, is a mixture of good and bad. Some days are fair, and\nothers are rainy and chilly; flowers and brambles grow together; there\nare some springs of water, but they are few, and not all cool and sweet;\nthe deer are few, and shy, and lean, and grizzly bears roam the hills\nand valleys. This is the limbo of the moderately-wicked Digger.\n\nThe very bad Indian, placing his feet upon the attenuated bridge of\ndoom, makes a few steps forward, stumbles, falls into the whirling\nwaters below, and is swept downward with fearful velocity. At last, with\ndesperate struggles he half swims, and is half washed ashore on the same\nside from which he started, to find a dreary land where the sun never\nshines, and the cold rains always pour down from the dark skies, where\nthe water is brackish and foul, where no flowers ever bloom, where\nleagues may be traversed without seeing a deer, and grizzly bears\nabound. This is the hell of very bad Indians--and a very had one it is.\n\nThe worst Indians of all, at death, are transformed into grizzly bears.\n\nThe Digger has a good appetite, and he is not particular about his\neating. He likes grasshoppers, clover, acorns, roots, and fish. The\nflesh of a dead mule, horse, cow, or hog, does not come amiss to him--I\nmean the flesh of such as die natural deaths. He eats what he can get,\nand all he can get. In the grasshopper season he is fat and flourishing.\nIn the suburbs of Sonora I came one day upon a lot of squaws, who were\nengaged in catching grasshoppers. Stretched along in line, armed with\nthick branches of pine, they threshed the ground in front of them as\nthey advanced, driving the grasshoppers before them in constantly\nincreasing numbers, until the air was thick with the flying insects.\nTheir course was directed to a deep gully, or gulch, into which they\nfell exhausted. It was astonishing to see with what dexterity the squaws\nwould gather them up and thrust them into a sort of covered basket; made\nof willow-twigs or tule-grass, while the insects would be trying to\nescape; but would fall back unable to rise above the sides of the gulch\nin which they had been entrapped. The grasshoppers are dried, or cured,\nfor winter use. A white man who had tried them told me they were\npleasant eating, having a flavor very similar to that of a good shrimp.\n(I was content to take his word for it.)\n\nWhen Bishop Soule was in California, in 1853, he paid a visit to a\nDigger campoody (or village) in the Calaveras hills. He was profoundly\ninterested, and expressed an ardent desire to be instrumental in the\nconversion of one of these poor kin. It was yet early in the morning\nwhen the Bishop and his party arrived, and the Diggers were not astir,\nsave here and there a squaw, in primitive array, who slouched lazily\ntoward a spring of water hard by. But soon the arrival of the visitors\nwas made known, and the bucks, squaws, and papooses, swarmed forth. They\ncast curious looks upon the whole party, but were specially struck with\nthe majestic bearing of the Bishop, as were the passing crowds in\nLondon, who stopped in the streets to gaze with admiration upon the\ngreat American preacher. The Digger chief did not conceal his delight.\nAfter looking upon the Bishop fixedly for some moments, he went up to\nhim, and tapping first his own chest and then the Bishop's, he said:\n\n\"Me big man--you big man!\"\n\nIt was his opinion that two great men had met, and that the occasion was\na grand one. Moralizers to the contrary notwithstanding, greatness is\nnot always lacking in self-consciousness.\n\n\"I would like to go into one of their wigwams, or huts, and see how they\nreally live,\" said the Bishop.\n\n\"You had better drop that idea,\" said the guide, a white man who knew\nmore about Digger Indians than was good for his reputation and morals,\nbut who was a good-hearted fellow, always ready to do a friendly turn,\nand with plenty of time on his hands to do it. The genius born to live\nwithout work will make his way by his wits, whether it be in the lobby\nat Washington City, or as a hanger-on at a Digger camp.\n\nThe Bishop insisted on going inside the chief's wigwam, which was a\nconical structure of long tule-grass, air-tight and weather-proof, with\nan aperture in front just large enough for a man's body in a crawling\nattitude. Sacrificing his dignity, the Bishop went down on all-fours,\nand then a degree lower, and, following the chief; crawled in. The air\nwas foul, the smells were strong, and the light was dim. The chief\nproceeded to tender to his distinguished guest the hospitalities of the\nestablishment, by offering to share his breakfast with him. The bill of\nfare was grasshoppers, with acorns as a side-dish. The Bishop maintained\nhis dignity as he squatted there in the dirt--his dignity was equal to\nany test. He declined the grasshoppers tendered him by the chief,\npleading that he had already breakfasted, but watched with peculiar\nsensations the movements of his host, as handful after handful of the\ncrisp and juicy gryllus vulgaris were crammed into his capacious mouth,\nand swallowed. What he saw and smelt, and the absence of fresh air,\nbegan to tell upon the Bishop--he became sick and pale, while a gentle\nperspiration, like unto that felt in the beginning of seasickness,\nbeaded his noble forehead. With slow dignity, but marked emphasis, he\nspoke:\n\n\"Brother Bristow, I propose that we retire.\"\n\nThey retired, and there is no record that Bishop Soule ever expressed\nthe least desire to repeat his visit to the interior of a Digger\nIndian's abode.\n\nThe whites had many difficulties with the Diggers in the early days. In\nmost cases I think the whites were chiefly to blame. It is very hard for\nthe strong to be just to the weak. The weakest creature, pressed hard,\nwill strike back. White women and children were massacred in retaliation\nfor outrages committed upon the ignorant Indians by white outlaws. Then\nthere would be a sweeping destruction of Indians by the excited whites,\nwho in those days made rather light of Indian shooting. The shooting of\na \"buck\" was about the same thing, whether it was a male Digger or a\ndeer.\n\n\"There is not much fight in a Digger unless he's got the dead-wood on\nyou, and then he'll make it rough for you. But these Injuns are of no\nuse, and I'd about as soon shoot one of them as a coyote\" (ki-o-te).\n\nThe speaker was a very red-faced, sandy-haired man, with blood-shot blue\neyes, whom I met on his return to the Humboldt country after a visit to\nSan Francisco.\n\n\"Did you ever shoot an Indian?\" I asked.\n\n\"I first went up into the Eel River country in '46,\" he answered. \"They\ngive us a lot of trouble in them days. They would steal cattle, and our\nboys would shoot. But we've never had much difficulty with them since\nthe big fight we had with them in 1849. A good deal of devilment had\nbeen goin' on all roun', and some had been killed on both sides. The\nInjuns killed two women on a ranch in the valley, and then we set in\njust to wipe 'em out. Their camp was in a bend of the river, near the\nhead of the valley, with a deep slough on the right flank. There was\nabout sixty of us, and Dave was our captain. He was a hard rider, a dead\nshot, and not very tender-hearted. The boys sorter liked him, but kep' a\nsharp eye on him, knowin' he was so quick and handy with a pistol. Our\nplan was to git to their camp and fall on em at daybreak, but the sun\nwas risin' just as we come in sight of it. A dog barked, and Dave sung\nout:\n\n\"'Out with your pistols! pitch in, and give 'em the hot lead!'\n\n\"In we galloped at full speed, and as the Injuns come out to see what\nwas up, we let 'em have it. We shot forty bucks--about a dozen got away\nby swimmin' the river.\"\n\n\"Were any of the women killed?\"\n\n\"A few were knocked over. You can't be particular when you are in a\nhurry; and a squaw, when her blood is up, will fight equal to a buck.\"\n\nThe fellow spoke with evident pride, feeling that he was detailing a\nheroic affair, having no idea that he had done any thing wrong in merely\nkilling \"bucks.\" I noticed that this sane man was very kind to an old\nlady who took the stage for Bloomfield--helping her into the vehicle,\nand looking after her baggage. When we parted, I did not care to take\nthe hand that had held a pistol that morning when the Digger camp was\n\"wiped out.\"\n\nThe scattered remnants of the Digger tribes were gathered into a\nreservation in Round Valley, Mendocino county, north of the Bay of San\nFrancisco, and were there taught a mild form of agricultural life, and\nput under the care of Government agents, contractors, and soldiers, with\nabout the usual results. One agent, who was also a preacher, took\nseveral hundred of them into the Christian Church. They seemed to have\nmastered the leading facts of the gospel, and attained considerable\nproficiency in the singing of hymns. Altogether, the result of this\neffort at their conversion showed that they were human beings, and as\nsuch could be made recipients of the truth and grace of God, who is the\nFather of all the families of the earth. Their spiritual guide told me\nhe had to make one compromise with them--they would dance. Extremes\nmeet--the fashionable white Christians of our gay capitals and the\ntawny Digger exhibit the same weakness for the fascinating exercise that\ncost John the Baptist his head.\n\nThere is one thing a Digger cannot bear, and that is the comforts and\nluxuries of civilized life. A number of my friends, who had taken Digger\nchildren to raise, found that as they approached maturity they fell into\na decline and died, in most cases of some pulmonary affection. The only\nway to save them was to let them rough it, avoiding warm bed-rooms and\ntoo much clothing. A Digger girl belonged to my church at Santa Rosa,\nand was a gentle, kind-hearted, grateful creature. She was a domestic in\nthe family of Colonel H--. In that pleasant Christian household she\ndeveloped into a pretty fair specimen of brunette young womanhood, but\nto the last she had an aversion to wearing shoes.\n\nThe Digger seems to be doomed. Civilization kills him; and if he sticks\nto his savagery, he will go down before the bullets, whisky, and vices\nof his white fellow-sinners.\n\n\n\nThe California Mad-House.\n\nOn my first visit to the State Insane Asylum, at Stockton, I was struck\nby the beauty of a boy of some seven or eight years, who was moving\nabout the grounds clad in a strait-jacket. In reply to my inquiries, the\nresident physician told me his history:\n\n\"About a year ago he was on his way to California with the family to\nwhich he belonged. He was a general pet among the passengers on the\nsteamer. Handsome, confiding, and overflowing with boyish spirits,\neverybody had a smile and a kind word for the winning little fellow.\nEven the rough sailors would pause a moment to pat his curly head as\nthey passed. One day a sailor, yielding to a playful impulse in passing,\ncaught up the boy in his arms, crying:\n\n\"'I am going to throw you into the sea!'\n\n\"The child gave one scream of terror, and went into convulsions. When\nthe paroxysm subsided, he opened his eyes and gazed around with a vacant\nexpression. His mother, who bent over him with a pale face, noticed the\nlook, and almost screamed:\n\n\"'Tommy, here is your mother--don't you know me?'\n\n\"The child gave no sign of recognition. He never knew his poor mother\nagain. He was literally frightened out of his senses. The mother's\nanguish was terrible. The remorse of the sailor for his thoughtless\nfreak was so great that it in some degree disarmed the indignation of\nthe passengers and crew. The child had learned to read, and had made\nrapid progress in the studies suited to his age, but all was swept away\nby the cruel blow. He was unable to utter a word intelligently. Since he\nhas been here, there have been signs of returning mental consciousness,\nand we have begun with him as with an infant. He knows and can call his\nown name, and is now learning the alphabet.\"\n\n\"How is his health?\"\n\n\"His health is pretty good, except that he has occasional convulsive\nattacks that can only be controlled by the use of powerful opiates.\"\n\nI was glad to learn, on a visit made two years later, that the\nunfortunate boy had died.\n\nThis child was murdered by a fool. The fools are always murdering\nchildren, though the work is not always done as effectually as in this\ncase. They cripple and half kill them by terror. There are many who will\nread this Sketch who will carry to the grave, and into the world of\nspirits, natures out of which half the sweetness, and brightness, and\nbeauty has been crushed by ignorance or brutality. In most cases it is\nignorance. The hand that should guide, smites; the voice that should\nsoothe, jars the sensitive chords that are untuned forever. He who\nthoughtlessly excites terror in a child's heart is unconsciously doing\nthe devil's work; he that does it consciously is a devil.\n\n\"There is a lady here whom I wish you would talk to. She belongs to one\nof the most respectable families in San Francisco, is cultivated,\nrefined, and has been the center of a large and loving circle. Her\nmonomania is spiritual despair. She thinks she has committed the\nunpardonable sin. There she is now. I will introduce you to her. Talk\nwith her, and comfort her if you can.\"\n\nShe was a tall, well-formed woman in black, with all the marks of\nrefinement in her dress and bearing. She was walking the floor to and\nfro with rapid steps, wringing her hands, and moaning piteously.\nIndescribable anguish was in her face--it was a hopeless face. It\nhaunted my thoughts for many days, and it is vividly before me as I\nwrite now. The kind physician introduced me, and left the apartment.\n\nThere is a sacredness about such an interview that inclines me to veil\nits details.\n\n\"I am willing to talk with you, sir, and appreciate your motive, but I\nunderstand my situation. I have committed the unpardonable sin, and I\nknow there is no hope for me.\"\n\nWith the earnestness excited by intense sympathy, I combated her\nconclusion, and felt certain that I could make her see and feel that she\nhad given way to an illusion. She listened respectfully to all I had to\nsay, and then said again:\n\n\"I know my situation. I denied my Saviour after all his goodness to me,\nand he has left me forever.\"\n\nThere was the frozen calmness of utter despair in look and tone. I left\nher as I found her.\n\n\"I will introduce you to another woman, the opposite of the poor lady\nyou have just seen. She thinks she is a queen, and is perfectly\nharmless. You must be careful to humor her illusion. There she is--let\nme present you.\"\n\nShe was a woman of immense size, enormously fat, with broad red face,\nand a self-satisfied smirk, dressed in some sort of flaming scarlet\nstuff, profusely tinseled all over, making a gorgeously ridiculous\neffect. She received me with a mixture of mock dignity and smiling\ncondescension, and surveying herself admiringly, she asked:\n\n\"How do you like my dress?\"\n\nIt was not the first time that royalty had shown itself not above the\nlittle weaknesses of human nature. On being told that her apparel was\nindeed magnificent, she was much pleased, and drew herself up proudly,\nand was a picture of ecstatic vanity. Are the real queens as happy? When\nthey lay aside their royal robes for their grave clothes, will not the\npageantry which was the glory of their lives seem as vain as that of\nthis tinseled queen of the mad-house? Where is happiness, after all? Is\nit in the circumstances, the external conditions? or, is it in the mind?\nSuch were the thoughts passing through my mind, when a man approached\nwith a violin. Every eye brightened, and the queen seemed to thrill with\npleasure in every nerve.\n\n\"This is the only way we can get some of them to take any exercise. The\nmusic rouses them, and they will dance as long as they are permitted to\ndo so.\"\n\nThe fiddler struck up a lively tune, and the queen, with marvelous\nlightness of step and ogling glances, ambled up to a tall, raw-boned\nMethodist preacher, who had come with me, and invited him to dance with\nher. The poor parson seemed sadly embarrassed, as her manner was very\npressing, but he awkwardly and confusedly declined, amid the titters of\nall present. It was a singular spectacle, that dance of the mad-women.\nThe most striking figure on the floor was the queen. Her great size, her\nbrilliant apparel, her astonishing agility, the perfect time she kept,\nthe bows, the smiles and blandishments, she bestowed on an imaginary\npartner, were indescribably ludicrous. Now and then, in her evolutions,\nshe would cast a momentary reproachful glance at the ungallant clergyman\nwho had refused to dance with feminine royalty, and who stood looking on\nwith a sheepish expression of face. He was a Kentuckian, and lack of\ngallantry is not a Kentucky trait.\n\nDuring the session of the Annual Conference at Stockton, in 1859 or\n1860, the resident physician invited me to preach to the inmates of the\nAsylum on Sunday afternoon. The novelty of the service, which was\nannounced in the daily papers, attracted a large number of visitors,\namong them the greater part of the preachers. The day was one of those\nbright, clear, beautiful October days, peculiar to California, that make\nyou think of heaven. I stood on the steps, and the hundreds of men and\nWomen stood below me, with their upturned faces. Among them were old men\ncrushed by sorrow, and old men ruined by vice; aged women with faces\nthat seemed to plead for pity, women that made you shrink from their\nunwomanly gaze; lion-like young men, made for heroes but caught in the\ndevil's trap and changed into beasts; and boys whose looks showed that\nsin had already stamped them with its foul insignia, and burned into\ntheir souls the shame which is to be one of the elements of its eternal\npunishment. A less impressible man than I would have felt moved at the\nsight of that throng of bruised and broken creatures. A hymn was read,\nand when Burnet, Kelsay, Neal, and others of the preachers, struck up an\nold tune, voice after voice joined in the melody until it swelled into a\nmighty volume of sacred song. I noticed that the faces of many were wet\nwith tears, and there was an indescribable pathos in their voices. The\npitying God, amid the rapturous hallelujahs of the heavenly hosts, bent\nto listen to the music of these broken harps. This text was announced,\nMy peace I give unto you; and, the sermon began.\n\nAmong those standing nearest to me was \"Old Kelley,\" a noted patient\nwhose monomania was the notion that he was a millionaire, and who spent\nmost of his time in drawing checks on imaginary deposits for vast sums\nof money. I held one of his checks for a round million, but it has never\nyet been cashed. The old man pressed up close to me, seeming to feel\nthat the success of the service somehow depended on him. I had not more\nthan fairly begun my discourse, when he broke in:\n\n\"That's Daniel Webster!\"\n\nI don't mind a judicious \"Amen,\" but this put me out a little. I resumed\nmy remarks, and was getting another good start, when he again broke in\nenthusiastically:\n\n\"Henry Clay!\"\n\nThe preachers standing around me smiled--I think I heard one or two of\nthem titter. I could not take my eyes from Kelley, who stood with open\nmouth and beaming countenance, waiting for me to go on. He held me with\nan evil fascination. I did go on in a louder voice, and in a sort of\ndesperation; but again my delighted hearer exclaimed:\n\n\"Calhoun!\"\n\n\"Old Kelley\" spoiled that sermon, though he meant kindly. He died not\nlong afterward, gloating over his fancied millions to the last.\n\n\"If you have steady nerves, come with me and I will show you the worst\ncase we have--a woman half tigress, and half devil.\"\n\nAscending a stairway, I was led to an angle of the building assigned to\nthe patients whose violence required them to be kept in close\nconfinement.\n\n\"Hark! don't you hear her? She is in one of her paroxysms now.\"\n\nThe sounds that issued from one of the cells were like nothing I had\never heard before. They were a series of unearthly, fiendish shrieks,\nintermingled with furious imprecations, as of a lost spirit in an\necstasy of rage and fear.\n\nThe face that glared upon me through the iron grating was hideous,\nhorrible. It was that of a woman, or of what had been a woman, but was\nnow a wreck out of which evil passion had stamped all that was womanly\nor human. I involuntarily shrunk back as I met the glare of those fiery\neyes, and caught the sound of words that made me shudder. I never\nsuspected myself of being a coward, but I felt glad that the iron bars\nof the cell against which she dashed herself were strong. I had read of\nFuries--one was now before me. The bloated, gin-inflamed face, the\nfiery-red, wicked eyes, the swinish chin, the tangled coarse hair\nfalling around her like writhing snakes, the tiger-like clutch of her\ndirty fingers, the horrible words--the picture was sickening, disgust\nfor the time almost, extinguishing pity.\n\n\"She was the keeper of a beer-saloon in San Francisco, and led a life of\ndrunkenness and licentiousness until she broke down, and she was brought\nhere.\"\n\n\"Is there any hope of her restoration?\"\n\n\"I fear not--nothing short of a miracle can, retune an instrument so\nfearfully broken and jangled.\"\n\nI thought of her out of whom were cast the seven devils, and of Him who\ncame to seek and to save the lost, and resisting the impulse that\nprompted me to hurry away from the sight and hearing of this lost woman,\nI tried to talk with her, but had to retire at last amid a volley of\nsuch language as I hope never to hear from a woman's lips again.\n\n\"Listen! Did you ever hear a sweeter voice than that?\"\n\nI had heard the voice before, and thrilled under its power. It was a\nfemale voice of wonderful richness and volume, with a touch of something\nin it that moved you strangely--a sort of intensity that set your\npulses to beating faster, while it entranced you. The whole of the\nspacious grounds were flooded with the melody, and the passing teamsters\non the public highway would pause and listen with wonder and delight.\nThe singer was a fair young girl, with dark auburn hair, large brown\neyes, that were at times dreamy and sad, and then again lit up with\nexcitement, as her moods changed from sad to gay.\n\n\"She will sit silent for hours gazing listlessly out of the window, and\nthen all at once break forth into a burst of song so sweet and thrilling\nthat the other patients gather near her and listen in rapt silence and\ndelight. Sometimes at a dead hour of the night her voice is heard, and\nthen it seems that she is under a special afflatus--she seems to be\ninspired by the very soul of music, and her songs, wild and sad, wailing\nand rollicking, by turns, but all exquisitely sweet, fill the long\nnight-hours with their melody.\"\n\nThe shock caused by the sudden death of her betrothed lover overthrew\nher reason, and blighted her life. By the mercy of God, the love of\nmusic and the gift of song survived the wreck of love and of reason.\nThis girl's voice, pealing forth upon the still summer evening air, is\nmingled with my last recollection of Stockton and its refuge for the\ndoubly miserable who are doomed to death in life.\n\n\n\nSan Quentin.\n\n\"I want you to go with me over to San Quentin next Thursday, and preach\na thanksgiving-sermon to the poor fellows in the State-prison.\"\n\nOn the appointed morning, I met our party at the Vallejo-street wharf,\nand we were soon steaming on our way. Passing under the guns of Fort\nAlcatraz, past Angel Island--why so called I know not, as in early days\nit was inhabited not by angels but goats only--all of us felt the\nexhilaration of the California sunshine, and the bracing November air,\nas we stood upon the guards, watching the play of the lazy-looking\nporpoises, that seemed to roll along, keeping up with the swift motion\nof the boat in such a leisurely way. The porpoise is a deceiver. As he\nrolls up to the surface of the water, in his lumbering way, he looks as\nif he were a huge lump of unwieldy awkwardness, floating at random and\nalmost helpless; but when you come to know him better, you find that he\nis a marvel of muscular power and swiftness. I have seen a \"school\" of\nporpoises in the Pacific swimming for hours alongside one of our\nfleetest ocean-steamers, darting a few yards ahead now and then, as if\nby mere volition, cutting their way through the water with the\ndirectness of an arrow. The porpoise is playful at times, and his\nfavorite game is a sort of leap-frog. A score or more of the creatures,\nseemingly full of fun and excitement, will chase one another at full\nspeed, throwing themselves from the water and turning somersaults in the\nair, the water boiling with the agitation, and their huge bodies\nflashing in the light. You might almost imagine that they had found\nsomething in the sea that had made them drunk, or that they had inhaled\nsome sort of piscatorial anaesthetic. But here we are at our\ndestination. The bell rings, we round to, and land.\n\nAt San Quentin nature is at her best, and man at his worst. Against the\nrocky shore the waters of the bay break in gentle splashings when the\nwinds are quiet. When the gales from the southwest sweep through the\nGolden Gate, and set the white caps to dancing to their wild music, the\nwaves rise high, and dash upon the dripping stones with a hoarse roar,\nas of anger. Beginning a few hundreds of yards from the water's edge,\nthe hills slope up, and up, and up, until they touch the base of\nTamalpais, on whose dark and rugged summit, four thousand feet above the\nsea that laves his feet on the west, the rays of the morning sun fall\nwith transfiguring, glory while yet the valley below lies in shadow. On\nthis lofty pinnacle linger the last rays of the setting sun, as it drops\ninto the bosom of the Pacific. In stormy weather, the mist and clouds\nroll in from the ocean, and gather in dark masses around his awful head,\nas if the sea-gods had risen from their homes in the deep, and were\nholding a council of war amid the battle of the elements; at other\ntimes, after calm, bright days, the thin, soft white clouds that hang\nabout his crest deepen into crimson and gold, and the mountaintop looks\nas if the angels of God had come down to encamp, and pitched here their\npavilions of glory. This is nature at San Quentin, and this is Tamalpais\nas I have looked upon it many a morning and many an evening from my\nwindow above the sea at North Beach.\n\nThe gate is opened for us, and we enter the prison-walls. It is a\nholiday, and the day is fair and balmy; but the chill and sadness cannot\nbe shaken off, as we look around us. The sunshine seems almost to be a\nmockery in this place where fellow-men are caged and guarded like wild\nbeasts, and skulk about with shaved heads, clad in the striped uniform\nof infamy. Merciful God! is this what thy creature man was made for? How\nlong, how long?\n\nSeated upon the platform with the prison officials and visitors, I\nwatched my strange auditors as they came in. There were one thousand of\nthem. Their faces were a curious study. Most of them were bad faces.\nBeast and devil were printed on them. Thick necks, heavy back-heads, and\nlow, square foreheads, were the prevalent types. The least repulsive\nwere those who looked as if they were all animal, creatures of instinct\nand appetite, good-natured and stupid; the most repulsive were those\nwhose eyes had a gleam of mingled sensuality and ferocity. But some of\nthese faces that met my gaze were startling--they seemed so out of\nplace. One old man with gray hair, pale, sad face, and clear blue eyes,\nmight have passed, in other garb and in other company, for an honored\nmember of the Society of Friends. He had killed a man in a mountain\ncounty. If he was indeed a murderer at heart, nature had given him the\nwrong imprint. My attention was struck by a smooth-faced, handsome young\nfellow, scarcely of age, who looked as little like a convict as anybody\non that platform. He was in for burglary, and had a very bad record.\nSome came in half laughing, as if they thought the whole affair more a\njoke than anything else. The Mexicans, of whom there was quite a number,\nwere sullen and scowling. There is gloom in the Spanish blood. The\nirrepressible good nature of several ruddy-faced Irishmen broke out in\nsly merriment. As the service began, the discipline of the prison showed\nitself in the quiet that instantly prevailed; but only a few, who joined\nin the singing, seemed to feel the slightest interest in it. Their eyes\nwere wandering, and their faces were vacant. They had the look of men\nwho had come to be talked at and patronized, and who were used to it.\nThe prayer that was offered was not calculated to banish such a feeling\n--it was dry and cold. I stood up to begin the sermon. Never before had\nI realized so folly that God's message was to lost men, and for lost\nmen. A mighty tide of pity rushed in upon my soul as I looked down into\nthe faces of my hearers. My eyes filled, and my heart melted within me.\nI could not speak until after a pause, and only then by great effort.\nThere was a deep silence, and every face was lifted to mine as I\nannounced the text. God had touched my heart and theirs at the start. I\nread the words slowly: God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain\nsalvation by our Lord Jesus Christ. Then I said:\n\n\"My fellow-men, I come to you today with a message from my Father, and\nyour Father in heaven. It is a message of hope. God help me to deliver\nit as I ought! God help you to hear it as you ought! I will not insult\nyou by saying that because you have an extra dinner, a few hours respite\nfrom your toil, and a little fresh air and sunshine, you ought to have a\njoyful thanksgiving today. If I should talk thus, you would be ready to\nask me how I would like to change places with you. You would despise me,\nand I would despise myself, for indulging in such cant. Your lot is a\nhard one. The battle of life has gone against you--whether by your own\nfault or by hard fortune, it matters not, so far as the fact is\nconcerned; this thanksgiving-day finds you locked in here, with broken\nlives, and wearing the badge of crime. God alone knows the secrets of\neach throbbing heart before me, and how it is that you have come to\nthis. Fellow-men, children of my Father in heaven, putting myself for\nthe moment in your place, the bitterness of your lot is real and\nterrible to me. For some of you there is no happier prospect for this\nlife than to toil within these walls by day, and sleep in yonder cells\nby night, through the weary, slow-dragging years, and then to die, with\nonly the hands of hired attendants to wipe the death-sweat from your\nbrows; and then to be put in a convict's coffin, and taken up on the\nhill yonder, and laid in a lonely grave. My God! this is terrible!\"\n\nAn unexpected dramatic effect followed these words. The heads of many of\nthe convicts fell forward on their breasts, as if struck with sudden\nparalysis. They were the men who were in for life, and the horror of it\novercame them. The silence was broken by sobbings all over the room. The\nofficers and visitors on the platform were weeping. The angel of pity\nhovered over, the place, and the glow of human sympathy had melted those\nstony hearts. A thousand strong men were thrilled with the touch of\nsympathy, and once more the sacred fountain of tears was unsealed. These\nconvicts were men, after all, and deep down under the rubbish of their\nnatures there was still burning the spark of a humanity not yet extinct.\nIt was wonderful to see the softened expression of their faces. Yes,\nthey were men, after all, responding to the voice of sympathy, which had\nbeen but too strange to many of them all their evil lives. Many of them\nhad inherited hard conditions; they were literally conceived in sin and\nborn in iniquity; they grew up in the midst of vice. For them pure and\nholy lives were a moral impossibility. Evil with them was hereditary,\norganic, and the result of association; it poisoned their blood at the\nstart, and stamped itself on their features from their cradles. Human\nlaw, in dealing with these victims of evil circumstance, can make little\ndiscrimination. Society must protect itself, treating a criminal as a\ncriminal. But what will God do with them hereafter? Be sure he will do\nright. Where little is given, little will be required. It shall be\nbetter for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment than for Chorazin and\nBethsaida. There is no ruin without remedy, except that which a man\nmakes for himself by abusing mercy, and throwing away proffered\nopportunity. Thoughts like these rushed through the preacher's mind, as\nhe stood there looking in the tear-bedewed faces of these men of crime.\nA fresh tide of pity rose in his heart, that he felt came from the heart\nof the all-pitying One.\n\n\"I do not try to disguise from you, or from myself the fact that for\nthis life your outlook is not bright. But I come to you this day with a\nmessage of hope from God our Father. He hath not appointed you to wrath.\nHe loves all his children. He sent his Son to die for them. Jesus trod\nthe paths of pain, and drained the cup of sorrow. He died as a\nmalefactor, for malefactors. He died for me. He died for each one of\nyou. If I knew the most broken, the most desolate-hearted, despairing\nman before me, who feels that he is scorned of men and forsaken of God,\nI would go to where he sits and put my hand on his head, and tell him\nthat God hath not appointed him to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our\nLord Jesus Christ, who died for us. I would tell him that his Father in\nheaven loves him still, loves him more than the mother that bore him. I\nwould tell him that all the wrongs and follies of his past life may from\nthis hour be turned into so much capital of a warning experience, and\nthat a million of years from today he may be a child of the Heavenly\nFather, and an heir of glory, having the freedom of the heavens and the\nblessedness of everlasting life. O brothers, God does love you! Nothing\ncan ruin you but your own despair. No man has any right to despair who\nhas eternity before him. Eternity? Long, long eternity! Blessed, blessed\neternity! That is yours--all of it. It may be a happy eternity for each\none of you. From this moment you may begin a better life. There is hope\nfor you, and mercy, and love, and heaven. This is the message I bring\nyou warm from a brother's heart, and warm from the heart of Jesus, whose\nlife-blood was poured out for you and me. His loving hand opened the\ngate of mercy and hope to every man. The proof is that he died for us. O\nSon of God, take us to thy pitying arms, and lift us up into the light\nthat never, never grows dim--into the love that fills heaven and\neternity!\"\n\nAs the speaker sunk into his seat, there was a silence that was almost\npainful for a few moments. Then the pent-up emotion of the men broke\nforth in sobs that shook their strong frames. Dr. Lucky, the prisoner's\nfriend, made a brief, tearful prayer, and then the benediction was said,\nand the service was at an end. The men sat still in their seats. As we\nfiled out, of the chapel, many hands were extended to grasp mine,\nholding it with a clinging pressure. I passed out bearing with me the\nimpression of an hour I can never forget; and the images of those\nthousand faces are still painted in memory.\n\n\n\n\"Corralled.\"\n\n\"So you were corralled last night?\"\n\nThis was the remark of a friend whom I met in the streets of Stockton\nthe morning after my adventure. I knew what the expression meant as\napplied to cattle, but I had never heard it before in reference to a\nhuman being. Yes, I had been corralled; and this is how it happened:\n\nIt was in the old days, before there were any railroads in California.\nWith a wiry, clean-limbed pinto horse, I undertook to drive from\nSacramento City to Stockton one day. It was in the winter season, and\nthe clouds were sweeping up from the south-west, the snow-crested\nSierras hidden from sight by dense masses of vapor boiling at their\nbases and massed against their sides. The roads were heavy from the\neffects of previous rains, and the plucky little pinto sweated as he\npulled through the long stretches of black adobe mud. A cold wind struck\nme in the face, and the ride was a dreary one from the start. But I\npushed on confidently, having faith in the spotted mustang, despite the\nevident fact that he had lost no little of the spirit with which he\ndashed out of town at starting. When a genuine mustang flags, it is a\nserious business. The hardiness and endurance of this breed of horses\nalmost exceed belief.\n\nToward night a cold rain began to fall, driving in my face with the\nheadwind. Still many a long mile lay between me and Stockton. Dark came\non, and it was dark indeed. The outline of the horse I was driving could\nnot be seen, and the flat country through which I was driving was a\ngreat black sea of night. I trusted to the instinct of the horse, and\nmoved on. The bells of a wagon-team meeting me fell upon my ear. I\ncalled out,\n\n\"Halloo there!\"\n\n\"What's the matter?\" answered a heavy voice through the darkness.\n\n\"Am I in the road to Stockton, and can I get there tonight?\"\n\n\"You are in the road, but you will never find your way such a night as\nthis. It is ten good miles from here; you have several bridges to cross\n--you had better stop at the first house you come to, about half a mile\nahead. I am going to strike camp myself.\"\n\nI thanked my adviser, and went on, hearing the sound of the tinkling\nbells, but unable to see any thing. In a little while I saw a light\nahead, and was glad to see it. Driving up in front and halting, I\nrepeated the traveler's \"halloo\" several times, and at last got a\nresponse in a hoarse, gruff voice.\n\n\"I am belated on my way to Stockton, and am cold, and tired, and hungry.\nCan I get shelter with you for the night?\"\n\n\"You may try it, if you want to,\" answered the unmusical voice abruptly.\n\nIn a few moments a man appeared to take the horse, and taking my satchel\nin hand, I went into the house. The first thing that struck my attention\non entering the room was a big log-fire, which I was glad to see, for I\nwas wet and very cold. Taking a chair in the corner, I looked around.\nThe scene that presented itself was not reassuring. The main feature of\nthe room was a bar, with an ample supply of barrels, demijohns, bottles,\ntumblers, and all the et ceteras. Behind the counter stood the\nproprietor, a burly fellow with a buffalo-neck, fair skin and blue eyes,\nwith a frightful scar across his left under-jaw and neck; his\nshirt-collar was open, exposing, a huge chest, and his sleeves were\nrolled up above the elbows. I noticed also that one of his hands was\nminus all the fingers but the half of one--the result probably of some\ndesperate reencounter. I did not like the appearance of my landlord, and\nhe eyed me in a way that led me to fear that he liked my looks as little\nas I did his; but the claims of other guests soon diverted his attention\nfrom me, and I was left to get warm and make further observations. At a\ntable in the middle of the room several hard-looking fellows were\nbetting at cards, amid terrible profanity and frequent drinks of whisky.\nThey cast inquiring and not very friendly glances at me from time to\ntime, once or twice exchanging whispers and giggling. As their play went\non, and tumbler after tumbler of whisky was drunk by them, they became\nmore boisterous. Threats were made of using pistols and knives, with\nwhich they all seemed to be heavily armed; and one sottish-looking brute\nactually drew forth a pistol, but was disarmed in no gentle way by the\nbig-limbed landlord. The profanity and other foul language were\nhorrible. Many of my readers have no conception of the brutishness of\nmen when whisky and Satan have full possession of them. In the midst of\na volley of oaths and terrible imprecations by one of the most violent\nof the set, there was a faint gleam of lingering decency exhibited by\none of his companions:\n\n\"Blast it, Dick, don't cuss so loud--that fellow in the corner there is\na preacher!\"\n\nThere was some potency in \"the cloth\" even there. How he knew my calling\nI do not know. The remark directed particular attention to me and I\nbecame unpleasantly conspicuous. Scowling glances were bent upon me by\ntwo or three of the ruffians, and one fellow made a profane remark not\nat all complimentary to my vocation--where at there was some coarse\nlaughter. In the meantime I was conscious of being very hungry. My\nhunger, like that of a boy, is a very positive, thing at, least it was\nvery much so in those days. Glancing toward the maimed and scarred giant\nwho stood behind the bar, I found he was gazing at me with a fixed\nexpression.\n\n\"Can I get something to eat? I am very hungry, sir,\" I said in my\nblandest tones.\n\n\"Yes, we've, plenty of 'cold' goose, and maybe Pete can pick up\nsomething else for you if he, is sober and in a good humor. Come this\nway.\"\n\nI followed him through a narrow passage-way, which led to a long,\nlow-ceiled room, along nearly the whole length of which was stretched a\ntable, around which were placed rough stools for the rough men about\nthe place.\n\nPete, the cook; came in and the head of the house turned me over to him,\nand returned to his duties behind the bar. From the noise of the uproar\ngoing on, his presence was doubtless needed. Pete set before me a large\nroasted wild-goose, not badly cooked, with bread, milk, and the\ninevitable cucumber pickles. The knives and forks were not very bright\n--in fact, they had been subjected to influences promotive of oxidation;\nand the dishes were not free from signs of former use. Nothing could be\nsaid against the tablecloth--there was no tablecloth there. But the\ngoose was fat, brown, and tender; and a hungry man defers his criticisms\nuntil he is done eating. That is what I did. Pete evidently regarded me\nwith curiosity. He was about fifty years of age, and had the look of a\nman who had come down in the world. His face bore the marks of the\neffects of strong drink, but it was not a bad face; it was more weak\nthan wicked.\n\n\"Are you a preacher?\" he asked.\n\n\"I thought so,\" he added, after getting my answer to his question. \"Of\nwhat persuasion are you?\"! he further inquired.\n\nWhen I told him I was a Methodist, he said quickly and with some warmth:\n\n\"I was sure of it. This is a rough place for a man of your calling.\nWould you like some eggs? we've plenty on hand. And may be you would\nlike a cup of coffee,\" he added, with, increasing hospitality.\n\nI took the eggs, but declined the coffee, not liking the looks of the\ncups and saucers, and not caring to wait.\n\n\"I used to be a Methodist myself,\" said Pete, with a sort of choking in\nhis throat, \"but bad luck and bad company have brought me down to this.\nI have a family in Iowa, a wife and four children. I guess they think\nI'm dead, and sometimes I wish I was.\"\n\nPete stood by my chair, actually crying. The sight of a Methodist\npreacher brought up old times. He told me his story. He had come to\nCalifornia hoping to make a fortune in a hurry, but had only ill luck\nfrom the start. His prospectings were always failures, his partners\ncheated him, his health broke down, his courage gave way, and--he\nfaltered a little, and then spoke it out--he took to whisky, and then\nthe worst came.\n\n\"I have come down to this--cooking for a lot of roughs at five dollars\na week, and all the whisky I want. It would have been better for me if I\nhad died when I was in the hospital at San Andreas.\"\n\nPoor Pete! he had indeed touched bottom. But he had a heart and a\nconscience still, and my own heart warmed toward my poor backslidden\nbrother.\n\n\"You are not a lost man yet. You are worth a thousand dead men. You can\nget out of this, and you must. You must act the part of a brave man, and\nnot be any longer a coward. Bad luck and lack of success are a disgrace\nto no man. There is where you went wrong. It was cowardly to give up and\nnot write to your family, and then take to whisky.\"\n\n\"I know all that, Elder. There is no better little woman on earth than\nmy wife\"--Pete choked up again.\n\n\"You write to her this very night, and go back to her and your children\njust as soon as you can get the money to pay your way. Act the man, and\nall will come right yet. I have writing materials here in my satchel\n--pen, ink, paper, envelopes, stamps, every thing; I am an editor, and go\nfixed up for writing.\"\n\nThe letter was written, I acting as Pete's amanuensis, he pleading that\nhe was a poor scribe at best and that his nerves were too unsteady for\nsuch work. Taking my advice, he made a clean breast of the whole matter,\nthrowing himself on the forgiveness of the wife whom he had so\nshamefully neglected, and promising by the help of God to make all the\namends possible in time to come. The letter was duly directed, sealed,\nand stamped; and Pete looked as if a great weight had been lifted from\nhis soul, He had made me a fire in the little stove, saying it was\nbetter than the barroom; in which opinion I was fully agreed.\n\n\"There is no place for you to sleep tonight without corralling you with\nthe fellows; there is but one bedroom, and there are fourteen bunks in\nit.\"\n\nI shuddered at the prospect-fourteen bunks in one small room, and those\nwhisky-sodden, loud-cursing card-players to be my roommates for the\nnight!\n\n\"I prefer sitting here by the stove all night,\" I said; \"I can employ\nmost of the time writing, if I can have a light.\"\n\nPete thought a moment, looked grave, and then said:\n\n\"That won't do, Elder; those fellows would take offense, and make\ntrouble. Several of them are out now goose-hunting; they will be coming\nin at all hours from now till daybreak, and it won't do for them to find\nyou sitting up here alone. The best, thing for you to do is to go in and\ntake one of those bunks; you, needn't takeoff any thing but your coat\nand boots, and\"--here he lowered his voice, looking about him as he\nspoke--\"if you have any money about, keep it next to your body.\"\n\nThe last words were spoken with peculiar emphasis.\n\nTaking the advice given me, I took up my baggage and followed Pete to\nthe room where I was to spend the night. Ugh! it was dreadful. The\nsingle window in the room was nailed down, and the air was close and\nfoul. The bunks were damp and dirty beyond belief, grimed with foulness,\nand reeking with ill odors. This was being corralled.\n\nI turned to Pete, saying:\n\n\"I can't stand this--I will go back to the kitchen.\"\n\n\"You had better follow my advice, Elder,\" said he very gravely. \"I know\nthings about here better than you do. It's rough, but you had better\nstand it.\"\n\nAnd I did; being corralled, I had to stand it. That fearful night! The\ndrunken fellows staggered in one by one, cursing and hiccoughing, until\nevery bunk was occupied. They muttered oaths in their sleep, and their\nstertorous breathings made a concert fit for Tartarus. The sickening\nodors of whisky, onions, and tobacco filled the room. I lay there and\nlonged for daylight, which seemed as if it never would come. I thought\nof the descriptions I had heard and read of hell, and just then the most\nvivid conception of its horror was to be shut up forever with the\naggregated impurity of the universe. By contrast I tried to think of\nthat city of God into which, it is said, \"there shall in no wise enter\ninto it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination,\nor maketh a lie; but they which are written in the Lamb's book of life.\"\nBut thoughts of heaven did not suit the situation; it was more\nsuggestive of the other place. The horror of being shut up eternally in\nhell as the companion of lost spirits was intensified by the experience\nand reflections of that night when I was corralled.\n\nDay came at last. I rose with the first streaks of the dawn, and not\nhaving much toilet to make, I was soon out-of-doors. Never did I breathe\nthe pure, fresh air with such profound pleasure and gratitude. I drew\ndeep inspirations, and, opening my coat and vest, let the breeze that\nswept up the valley blow upon me unrestricted. How bright, was the face\nof nature, and how sweet her, breath after the sights, sounds, and\nsmells of the night!\n\nI did not wait for breakfast, but had my pinto and buggy brought out,\nand, bidding Pete good-by, hurried on to Stockton.\n\n\"So you were corralled last night?\" was the remark of a friend, quoted\nat the beginning of this true sketch. \"What was the name of the\nproprietor of the house?\"\n\nI gave him the name.\n\n\"Dave W--!\" he exclaimed with fresh astonishment. \"That is the roughest\nplace in the San Joaquin Valley. Several men have been killed and robbed\nthere during the last two or three years.\"\n\nI hope Pete got back safe to his wife and children in Iowa; and I hope I\nmay never be corralled again.\n\n\n\nThe Reblooming.\n\nIt is now more than twenty years since the morning a slender youth of\nhandsome face and modest mien came into my office on the corner of\nMontgomery and Clay streets, San Francisco. He was the son of a preacher\nwell known in Missouri and California, a man of rare good sense, caustic\nwit, and many eccentricities. The young man became an attache of my\nnewspaper-office and an inmate of my home. He was as fair as a girl, and\nrefined in his taste and manners. A genial taciturnity, if the\nexpression may be allowed, marked his bearing in the social circle.\nEverybody had a kind feeling and a good word for the quiet, brightfaced\nyouth. In the discharge of his duties in the office he was punctual and\ntrustworthy, showing not only industry but unusual aptitude for business\nIt was with special pleasure that I learned that he was turning his\nthoughts to the subject of religion. During the services in the little\nPine-street church he would sit with thoughtful face, and not seldom\nwith moistened eyes. He read the Bible and prayed in secret. I was not\nsurprised when he came to me one day and opened his heart. The great\ncrisis in his life had come. God was speaking to his soul, and he was\nlistening to his voice. The uplifted cross drew him, and he yielded to\nthe gentle attraction. We prayed together, and henceforth there was a\nnew and sacred bond that bound us to each other. I felt that I was a\nwitness to the most solemn transaction that can take place on earth--the\nwedding of a soul to a heavenly faith. Soon thereafter he went to\nVirginia, to attend college. There he united with the Church. His\nletters to me were full of gratitude and joy. It was the blossoming of\nhis spiritual life, and the air was full of its fragrance, and the earth\nwas flooded with glory. A pedestrian tour among the Virginia hills\nbrought him into communion with Nature at a time when it was rapture to\ndrink in its beauty and its grandeur. The light kindled within his soul\nby the touch of the Holy Spirit transfigured the scenery upon which he\ngazed, and the glory of God shone round about the young student in the\nflush and blessedness of his first love. O blessed days! O days of\nbrightness, and sweetness, and rapture! The soul is then in its\nblossoming-time, and all high enthusiasms, all bright dreams, all\nthrilling joys, are realities which inwork themselves into the\nconsciousness, to be forgotten never; to remain with us as prophecies of\nthe eternal springtime that awaits the true-hearted on the hills of God\nbeyond the grave, or as accusing voices charging us with the murder of\nour dead ideals! Amid the dust and din of the battle in after-years we\nturn to this radiant spot in our journey with smiles or tears; according\nas we have been true or false to the impulses, aspirations, and purposes\ninspired within us by that first, and brightest, and nearest\nmanifestation of God. Such a season is a natural to every life as the\nApril buds and June roses are to forest and garden. The springtime of\nsome lives is deferred by unpropitious circumstance to the time when it\nshould be glowing with autumnal glory, and rich in the fruitage of the\nclosing year. The life that does not blossom into religion in youth may\nhave light at noon, and peace at sunset, but misses the morning glory on\nthe hills, and the dew that sparkles on grass and flower. The call of\nGod to the young to seek him early is the expression of a true\npsychology no less than of a love infinite in its depth and tenderness.\n\nHis college-course finished, my young friend returned to California, and\nin one of its beautiful valley-towns he entered a law-office, with a\nview to prepare himself for the legal profession. Here he was thrown\ninto daily association with a little knot of skeptical lawyers. As is\noften the case, their moral obliquities ran parallel with their errors\nin opinion. They swore, gambled genteelly, and drank. It is not strange\nthat in this icy atmosphere the growth of any young friend in the\nChristian life was stunted. Such influences are like the dreaded north\nwind that at times sweeps over the valleys of California in the spring\nand early summer, blighting and withering the vegetation it does not\nkill. The brightness of his hope was dimmed, and his soul knew the\ntorture of doubt--a torture that is always keenest to him who allows\nhimself to sink in the region of fogs after he has once stood upon the\nsunlit summit of faith. Just at this crisis, a thing little in itself\ndeepened the shadow that was falling upon his life. A personal\nmisunderstanding with the pastor kept him from attending church. Thus he\nlost the most effectual defense against the assaults that were being\nmade upon his faith and hope, in being separated from the fellowship and\ncut off from the activities of the Church of God. Have you not noted\nthese malign coincidences in life? There are times when it seems that\nthe tide of events sets against us when, like the princely sufferer of\nthe land of Uz, every messenger that crosses the threshold brings fresh\ntidings of ill, and our whole destiny seems to be rushing to a predoomed\nperdition. The worldly call it bad luck; the superstitious call it fate;\nthe believer in God calls it by another name. Always of a delicate\nconstitution, my friend now exhibited symptoms of serious pulmonary\ndisease. It was at that time the fashion in California to prescribe\nwhisky as a specific for that class of ailments. It is possible that\nthere is virtue in the prescription, but I am sure of one thing, namely,\nthat if consumption diminished, drunkenness increased; if fewer died of\nphthisis, more died of delirium tremens. The physicians of California\nhave sent a host of victims raving and gibbering in drunken frenzy or\nidiocy down to death and hell! I have reason to believe that my friend\ninherited a constitutional weakness at this point. As flame to tinder,\nwas the medicinal whisky to him. It grew upon him rapidly, and soon this\ncloud overshadowed all his life. He struggled hard to break the\nserpent-folds that were tightening around him; but the fire that had\nbeen kindled seemed to be quenchless. An uncontrolled evil passion is\nhellfire. He writhed in its burnings in an agony that could be\nunderstood only by such as knew how almost morbidly sensitive was his\nnature, and how vital was his conscience. I became a pastor in the town\nwhere he lived, and renewed my association with him as far as I could.\nBut there was a constraint unlike the old times. When under the\ninfluence of liquor, he would pass me in the streets with his head down,\na deeper flush mantling his cheek as he hurried by with unsteady step.\nSometimes I met him staggering homeward through a back street, hiding\nfrom the gaze of men. He was at first shy of me when sober, but\ngradually the constraint wore off, and he seemed disposed to draw nearer\nto me, as in the old days. His struggle went on, days of drunkenness\nfollowing weeks of soberness, his haggard face after each debauch\nwearing a look of unspeakable weariness and wretchedness. One of the\nlawyers who had led him into the mazes of doubt--a man of large and\nversatile gifts, whose lips were touched with a noble and persuasive\neloquence--sunk deeper and deeper into the black depths of drunkenness,\nuntil the tragedy ended in a horror that lessened the gains of the\nsaloons for at least a few days. He was found dead in his bed one\nmorning in a pool of blood, his throat cut by his own guilty hand.\n\nMy friend had married a lovely girl, and the cottage in which they lived\nwas one of the coziest, and the garden in front was a little paradise of\nneatness and beauty. Ah! I must drop a veil over a part of this true\ntale. All along I have written under half protest, the image of a sad,\nwistful face rising at times between my eyes and the sheet on which\nthese words are traced. They loved each other tenderly and deeply, and\nboth were conscious of the presence of the devil that was turning their\nheaven into hell.\n\n\"Save him, Doctor, save him! He is the noblest of men, and the\ntenderest, truest husband. He loves you, and he will let you talk to\nhim. Save him, O save him! Help me to pray for him! My heart will\nbreak!\"\n\nPoor child! her loving heart was indeed breaking; and her fresh young\nlife was crushed under a weight of grief and shame too heavy to be\nborne.\n\nWhat he said to me in the interviews held in his sober intervals I have\nnot the heart to repeat now. He still fought against his enemy; he still\nbuffeted the billows that were going over him, though with feebler\nstroke. When their little child died, her tears fell freely, but he was\nlike one stunned. Stony and silent he stood and saw the little grave\nfilled up, and rode away tearless, the picture of hopelessness.\n\nBy a coincidence; after my return to San Francisco, he came thither, and\nagain became my neighbor at North Beach. I went up to see him one\nevening. He was very feeble, and it was plain that the end was not far\noff. At the first glance I saw that a great change had taken place in\nhim.\n\nHe had found his lost self. The strong drink was shut out from him, and\nhe was shut in with his better thoughts and with God. His religious life\nrebloomed in wondrous beauty and sweetness. The blossoms of his early\njoy had fallen off, the storms had torn its branches and stripped it of\nits foliage, but its root had never perished, because he had never\nceased to struggle for deliverance. Aspiration and hope live or die\ntogether in the human soul. The link that bound my friend to God was\nnever wholly sundered. His better nature clung to the better way with a\ngrasp that never let go altogether.\n\n\"O Doctor, I am a wonder to myself! It does seem to me that God has\ngiven back to me every good thing I possessed in the bright and blessed\npast. It has all come back to me. I see the light and feel the joy as I\ndid when I first entered the new life. O it is wonderful! Doctor, God\nnever gave me up, and I never ceased to yearn for his mercy and love,\neven in the darkest season of my unhappy life?\"\n\nHis very face had recovered its old look, and his voice its old tone.\nThere could be no doubt of this soul had rebloomed in the life of God.\n\nThe last night came--they sent for me with the message,\n\n\"Come quickly! he is dying.\"\n\nI found him with that look which I have seen on the faces of others who\nwere nearing death--a radiance and a rapture that awed the beholder. O\nsolemn, awful mystery of death! I have stood in its presence in every\nform of terror and of sweetness, and in every case the thought has been\nimpressed upon me that it was a passage into the Great Realities.\n\n\"Doctor,\" he said, smiling, and holding my hand; \"I had hoped to be with\nyou in your office again, as in the old days--not as a business\narrangement, but just to be with you, and revive old memories, and to\nlive the old life over again. But that cannot be, and I must wait till\nwe meet in the world of spirits, whither I go before you. It seems to be\ngrowing dark. I cannot see your face hold my hand. I am going--going. I\nam on the waves--on the waves--.\" The radiance was still upon his\nface, but the hand I held no longer clasped mine-the wasted form was\nstill. It was the end. He was launched upon the Infinite Sea for the\nendless voyage.\n\n\n\nThe Emperor Norton.\n\nThat was his title. He wore it with an air that was a strange mixture of\nthe mock-heroic and the pathetic. He was mad on this one point, and\nstrangely shrewd and well-informed on almost every other. Arrayed in a\nfaded-blue uniform, with brass buttons and epaulettes, wearing a\ncocked-hat with an eagle's feather, and at times with a rusty sword at\nhis side, he was a conspicuous figure in the streets of San Francisco,\nand a regular habitue of all its public places. In person he was stout,\nfull-chested, though slightly stooped, with a large head heavily coated\nwith bushy black hair, an aquiline nose, and dark gray eyes, whose mild\nexpression added to the benignity of his face. On the end of his nose\ngrew a tuft of long hairs, which he seemed to prize as a natural mark of\nroyalty, or chieftainship. Indeed, there was a popular legend afloat\nthat he was of true royal blood--a stray Bourbon, or something of the\nsort. His speech was singularly fluent and elegant. The Emperor was one\nof the celebrities that no visitor failed to see. It is said that his\nmind was unhinged by a sudden loss of fortune in the early days, by the\ntreachery of a partner in trade. The sudden blow was deadly, and the\nquiet, thrifty, affable man of business became a wreck. By nothing is\nthe inmost quality of a man made more manifest than by the manner in\nwhich he meets misfortune. One, when the sky darkens, having strong\nimpulse and weak will, rushes into suicide; another, with a large vein\nof cowardice, seeks to drown the sense of disaster in strong drink; yet\nanother, tortured in every fiber of a sensitive organization, flees from\nthe scene of his troubles and the faces of those that know him,\npreferring exile to shame. The truest man, when assailed by sudden\ncalamity, rallies all the reserved forces of a splendid manhood to meet\nthe shock, and, like a good ship, lifting itself from the trough of the\nswelling sea, mounts the wave and rides on. It was a curious\nidiosyncrasy that led this man, when fortune and reason were swept away\nat a stroke, to fall back upon this imaginary imperialism. The nature\nthat could thus, when the real fabric of life was wrecked, construct\nsuch another by the exercise of a disordered imagination, must have been\noriginally of a gentle and magnanimous type. The broken fragments of\nmind, like those of a statue, reveal the quality of the original\ncreation. It may be that he was happier than many who have worn real\ncrowns. Napoleon at Chiselhurst, or his greater uncle at St. Helena,\nmight have been gainer by exchanging lots with this man, who had the\ninward joy of conscious greatness without its burden and its perils. To\nall public places he had free access, and no pageant was complete\nwithout his presence. From time to time he issued proclamations, signed\n\"Norton I.,\" which the lively San Francisco dailies were always ready to\nprint conspicuously in their columns. The style of these proclamations\nwas stately, the royal first person plural being used by him with all\ngravity and dignity. Ever and anon, as his uniform became dilapidated or\nragged, a reminder of the condition of the imperial wardrobe would be\ngiven in one or more of the newspapers, and then in a few days he would\nappear in a new suit. He had the entree of all the restaurants, and he\nlodged--nobody knew where. It was said that he was cared for by members\nof the Freemason Society to which he belonged at the time of his fall. I\nsaw him often in my congregation in the Pine-street church, along in\n1858, and into the sixties. He was a respectful and attentive listener\nto preaching. On the occasion of one of his first visits he spoke to me\nafter the service, saying, in a kind and patronizing tone:\n\n\"I think it my duty to encourage religion and morality by showing myself\nat church, and to avoid jealousy I attend them all in turn.\"\n\nHe loved children, and would come into the Sunday-school, and sit\ndelighted with their singing. When, in distributing the presents on a\nChristmas-tree, a necktie was handed him as the gift of the young\nladies, he received it with much satisfaction, making a kingly bow of\ngracious acknowledgment. Meeting him one day, in the springtime, holding\nmy little girl by the hand, he paused, looked at the child's bright\nface, and taking a rose-bud from his button-hole, he presented it to her\nwith a manner so graceful, and a smile so benignant, as to show that\nunder the dingy blue uniform there beat the heart of a gentleman. He\nkept a keen eye on current events, and sometimes expressed his views\nwith great sagacity. One day he stopped me on the street, saying:\n\n\"I have just read the report of the political sermon of Dr.--(giving\nthe name of a noted sensational preacher, who was in the habit, at\ntimes, of discussing politics from his pulpit). I disapprove\npolitical-preaching. What do you think?\"\n\nI expressed my cordial concurrence.\n\n\"I will put a stop to it. The preachers must stop preaching politics, or\nthey must all come into one State Church. I will at once issue a decree\nto that effect.\"\n\nFor some unknown reason, that decree never was promulgated.\n\nAfter the war, he took a deep interest in the reconstruction of the\nSouthern States. I met him one day on Montgomery street, when he asked\nme in a tone and with a look of earnest solicitude:\n\n\"Do you hear any complaint or dissatisfaction concerning me from the\nSouth?\"\n\nI gravely answered in the negative.\n\n\"I was for keeping the country undivided, but I have the kindest feeling\nfor the Southern people, and will see that they are protected in all\ntheir rights. Perhaps if I were to go among them in person, it might\nhave a good effect. What do you think?\"\n\nI looked at him keenly as I made some suitable reply, but could see\nnothing in his expression but simple sincerity. He seemed to feel that\nhe was indeed the father of his people. George Washington himself could\nnot have adopted a more paternal tone.\n\nWalking along the street behind the Emperor one day, my curiosity was a\nlittle excited by seeing him thrust his hand into the hip-pocket of his\nblue trousers with sudden energy. The hip-pocket, by the way, is a\nmodern American stupidity, associated in the popular mind with rowdyism,\npistol shooting, and murder. Hip-pockets should be abolished wherever\nthere are courts of law and civilized men and women. But what was the\nEmperor after? Withdrawing his hand just as I overtook him, the mystery\nwas revealed--it grasped a thick Bologna sausage, which he began to eat\nwith unroyal relish. It gave me a shock, but he was not the first royal\npersonage who has exhibited low tastes and carnal hankerings.\n\nHe was seldom made sport of or treated rudely. I saw him on one occasion\nwhen a couple of passing hoodlums jeered at him. He turned and gave them\na look so full of mingled dignity, pain, and surprise, that the low\nfellows were abashed, and uttering a forced laugh, with averted faces\nthey hurried on. The presence that can bring shame to a San Francisco\nhoodlum must indeed be kingly, or in some way impressive. In that genus\nthe beastliness and devilishness of American city-life reach their\nlowest denomination when the brutality of the savage and the lowest\nforms of civilized vice are combined, human nature touches bottom.\n\nThe Emperor never spoke of his early life. The veil of mystery on this\npoint increased the popular curiosity concerning him, and invested him\nwith something of a romantic interest. There was one thing that excited\nhis disgust and indignation. The Bohemians of the San Francisco press\ngot into the practice of attaching his name to their satires and hits at\ncurrent follies, knowing that the well-known \"Norton I.\" at the end\nwould insure a reading. This abuse of the liberty of the press he\ndenounced with dignified severity, threatening extreme measures unless\nit were stopped. But nowhere on earth did the press exhibit more\naudacity, or take a wider range, and it would have required a sterner\nheart and a stronger hand than that of Norton I. to put a hook into its\njaws.\n\nThe end of all human grandeur, real or imaginary, comes at last. The\nEmperor became thinner and more stooped as the years passed. The humor\nof his hallucination retired more and more into the background, and its\npathetic side came out more strongly. His step was slow and feeble, and\nthere was that look in his eyes so often seen in the old and sometimes\nin the young, just before the great change comes--a rapt, far-away\nlook, suggesting that the invisible is coming into view, the shadows\nvanishing and the realities appearing. The familiar face and form were\nmissed on the streets, and it was known that he was dead. He had gone to\nhis lonely lodging, and quietly lain down and died. The newspapers spoke\nof him with pity and respect, and all San Francisco took time, in the\nmidst of its roar-and-rush fever of perpetual excitement, to give a kind\nthought to the dead man who had passed over to the life where all\ndelusions are laid aside, where the mystery of life shall be revealed,\nand where we shall see that through all its tangled web ran the golden\nthread of mercy. His life was an illusion, and the thousands who sleep\nwith him in Lone Mountain waiting the judgment-day were his brothers.\n\n\n\nCamilla Cain.\n\nShe was from Baltimore, and had the fair face and gentle voice peculiar\nto most Baltimore women. Her organization was delicate but elastic--one\nof the sort that bends easily, but is hard to break. In her eyes was\nthat look of wistful sadness so often seen in holy women of her type.\nTimid as a fawn, in the class-meeting she spoke of her love to Jesus and\ndelight in his service in a voice low and a little hesitating, but with\nstrangely thrilling effect. The meetings were sometimes held in her own\nlittle parlor in the cottage on Dupont street, and then we always felt\nthat we had met where the Master himself was a constant and welcome\nguest. She was put into the crucible. For more than fifteen years she\nsuffered unceasing and intense bodily pain. Imprisoned in her sick\nchamber, she fought her long, hard battle. The pain-distorted limbs lost\ntheir use, the patient face waxed more wan, and the traces of agony were\non it always; the soft, loving eyes were often tear washed.  The fires\nwere hot, and they burned on through the long, long years without\nrespite. The mystery of it all was too deep for me; it was too deep for\nher. But somehow it does seem that the highest suffer most:\n\nThe sign of rank in Nature Is capacity for pain, And the anguish of the\nsinger Makes the sweetness of the strain.\n\nThe victory of her faith was complete. If the inevitable why? sometimes\nwas in her thought, no shadow of distrust ever fell upon her heart. Her\nsick-room was the quietest, brightest spot in all the city. How often\ndid I go thither weary and faint with the roughness of the way, and\nleave feeling that I had heard the voices and inhaled the odors of\nparadise! A little talk, a psalm, and then a prayer, during which the\nroom seemed to be filled with angel-presences; after which the thin,\npale face was radiant with the light reflected from our Immanuel's face.\nI often went to see her, not so much to convey as to get a blessing. Her\nheart was kept fresh as a rose of Sharon in the dew of the morning. The\nchildren loved to be near her; and the pathetic face of the dear\ncrippled boy, the pet of the family, was always brighter in her\npresence. Thrice death came into the home-circle with its shock and\nmighty wrenchings of the heart, but the victory was not his, but hers.\nNeither death nor life could separate her from the love of her Lord. She\nwas one of the elect. The elect are those who know, having the witness\nin themselves. She was conqueror of both--life with its pain and its\nweariness, death with its terror and its tragedy. She did not endure\nmerely, she triumphed. Borne on the wings of a mighty faith, her soul\nwas at times lifted above all sin, and temptation, and pain, and the\nsweet, abiding peace swelled into an ecstasy of sacred joy. Her swimming\neyes and rapt look told the unutterable secret. She has crossed over the\nnarrow stream on whose margin she lingered so long; and there was joy on\nthe other side when the gentle, patient, holy Camilla Cain joined the\nglorified throng.\n\nO though oft depressed and lonely, All my fears are laid aside, If I but\nremember only Such as these have lived and died!\n\n\n\nLone Mountain.\n\nThe sea-wind sweeps over the spot at times in gusts like the frenzy of\nhopeless grief, and at times in sighs as gentle as those heaved by aged\nsorrow in sight of eternal rest. The voices of the great city come\nfaintly over the sand-hills, with subdued murmur like a lullaby to the\npale sleepers that are here lying low. When the winds are quiet, which\nis not often, the moan of the mighty Pacific can be heard day or night,\nas if it voiced in muffled tones the unceasing woe of a world under the\nreign of death. Westward, on the summit of a higher hill, a huge cross\nstretches its arms as if embracing the living and the dead-the first\nobject that catches the eye of the weary voyager as he nears the Golden\nGate, the last that meets his lingering gaze as he goes forth upon the\ngreat waters. O sacred emblem of the faith with which we launch upon\nlife's stormy main--of the hope that assures that we shall reach the\nport when the night and the tempest are past! When the winds are high,\nthe booming of the breakers on the cliff sounds as if nature were\nimpatient of the long, long delay, and had anticipated the last thunders\nthat wake the sleeping dead. On a clear day, the blue Pacific,\nstretching away beyond the snowy surf-line, symbolizes the shoreless sea\nthat rolls through eternity. The Cliff House road that runs hard by is\nthe chief drive of the pleasure-seekers of San Francisco. Gayety, and\nlaughter, and heart-break, and tears, meet on the drive; the wail of\nagony and the laugh of gladness mingle as the gay crowds dash by the\nslow-moving procession on its way to the grave. How often have I made\nthat slow, sad journey to Lone Mountain--a Via Doloroso to many who\nhave never been the same after they had gone thither, and coming back\nfound the light quenched and the music bushed in their homes! Thither\nthe dead Senator was borne, followed by the tramping thousands, rank on\nrank, amid the booming of minute-guns, the tolling of bells, the\nmeasured tread of plumed soldiers, and the roll of drums. Thither was\ncarried, in his rude coffin, the \"unknown man\" found dead in the\nstreets, to be buried in potter's-field. Thither was borne the hard and\ngrasping idolater of riches, who clung to his coin, and clutched for\nmore, until he was dragged away by the one hand that was colder and\nstronger than his own. Here was brought the little child, out of whose\nnarrow grave there blossomed the beginnings of a new life to the father\nand mother, who in the better life to come will be found among the\nblessed company of those whose only path to paradise lay through the\nvalley of tears. Here were brought the many wanderers, whose last\nearthly wish was to go back home, on the other side of the mountains, to\ndie, but were denied by the stern messenger who never waits nor spares.\nAnd here was brought the mortal part of the aged disciple of Jesus, in\nwhose dying-chamber the two worlds met, and whose death-throes were\ndemonstrably the birth of a child of God into the life of glory.\n\nThe first time I ever visited the place was to attend the funeral of a\nsuicide. The dead man I had known in Virginia, when I was a boy. He was\na graduate of the Virginia Military Institute, and when I first knew him\nhe was the captain of a famous volunteer company. He was as handsome as\na picture--the admiration of the girls, and the envy of the young men\nof his native town. He was among the first who rushed to California on\nthe discovery of gold, and of all the heroic men who gave early\nCalifornia its best bias none was knightlier than this handsome\nVirginian; none won stronger friends, or had brighter hopes. He was the\nfirst State Senator from San Francisco. He had the magnetism that won\nand the nobility that retained the love of men. Some men push themselves\nforward by force of intellect or of will--this man was pushed upward by\nhis friends because he had their hearts. He married a beautiful woman,\nwhom he loved literally unto death. I shall not recite the whole story.\nGod only knows it fully, and he will judge righteously. There was\ntrouble, rage, and tears, passionate partings and penitent reunions--the\nold story of love dying a lingering yet violent death. On the fatal\nmorning I met him on Washington street. I noticed his manner was hurried\nand his look peculiar, as I gave him the usual salutation and a hearty\ngrasp of the hand. As be moved away, I looked after him with mingled\nadmiration and pity, until his faultless figure turned the corner and\ndisappeared.\n\nTen minutes afterward he lay on the floor of his room dead, with a\nbullet through his brain, his hair dabbled in blood. At the\nfuneral-service, in the little church on Pine street, strong men bowed\ntheir heads and sobbed. His wife sat on a front seat, pale as marble and\nas motionless, her lips compressed as with inward pain; but I saw no\ntears on the beautiful face. At the grave the body had been lowered to\nits resting-place, and all being ready, the attendants standing with\nuncovered heads, I was just about to begin the reading of the solemn\nwords of the burial service, when a tall, blue-eyed man with gray\nside-whiskers pushed his way to the head of the grave, and in a voice\nchoked with passion, exclaimed:\n\n\"There lies as noble a gentleman as ever breathed, and he owes his death\nto that fiend!\" pointing his finger at the wife, who stood pale and\nsilent looking down into the grave.\n\nShe gave him a look that I shall never forget, and the large steely-blue\neyes flashed fire, but she spoke no word. I spoke:\n\n\"Whatever maybe your feelings, or whatever the occasion for them, you\ndegrade yourself by such an exhibition of them here.\"\n\n\"That is so, sir; excuse me, my feelings overcame me,\" he said, and\nretiring a few steps, he leaned upon a branch of a scrub-oak and sobbed\nlike a child.\n\nThe farce and the tragedy of real life were here exhibited on another\noccasion. Among my acquaintances in the city were a man and his wife who\nwere singularly mismatched. He was a plain, unlettered, devout man, who\nin a prayer-meeting or class-meeting talked with a simple-hearted\nearnestness that always produced a happy effect.\n\nShe was a cultured woman, ambitious and worldly, and so fine-looking\nthat in her youth she must have been a beauty and a belle. They lived in\ndifferent worlds, and grew wider apart as time passed by--he giving\nhimself to religion, she giving herself to the world. In the gay city\ncircles in which she moved she was a little ashamed of the quiet, humble\nold man, and he did not feel at home among them. There was no formal\nseparation, but it was known to the friends of the family that for\nmonths at a time they never lived together. The fashionable daughters\nwent with their mother. The good old man, after a short sickness, died\nin great peace. I was sent for to officiate at the funeral-service.\nThere was a large gathering of people, and a brave parade of all the\nexternals of grief, but it was mostly dry-eyed grief, so far as I could\nsee. At the grave, just as the sun that was sinking in the ocean threw\nhis last rays upon the spot, and the first shovelful of earth fell upon\nthe coffin that had been gently lowered to its resting-place, there was\na piercing shriek from one of the carriages, followed by the\nexclamation:\n\n\"What shall I do? How can I live? I have lost my all! O! O! O!\"\n\nIt was the dead man's wife. Significant glances and smiles were\ninterchanged by the bystanders. Approaching the carriage in which the\nwoman was sitting, I laid my hand upon her arm, looked her in the face,\nand said:\n\n\"Hush!\"\n\nShe understood me, and not another sound did she utter. Poor woman! She\nwas not perhaps as heartless as they thought she was. There was at least\na little remorse in those forced exclamations, when she thought of the\ndead man in the coffin; but her eyes were dry, and she stopped very\nshort.\n\nAnother incident recurs to me that points in a different direction. One\nday the most noted gambler in San Francisco called on me with the\nrequest that I should attend the funeral of one of his friends, who had\ndied the night before. A splendid-looking fellow was this knight of the\nfaro-table. More than six feet in height, with deep chest and perfectly\nrounded limbs, jet black hair, brilliant black eyes, clear olive\ncomplexion, and easy manners, he might have been taken for an Italian\nnobleman or a Spanish Don. He had a tinge of Cherokee blood in his\nveins. I have noticed that this cross of the white and Cherokee blood\noften results in producing this magnificent physical development. I have\nknown a number of women of this lineage, who were very queens in their\nbeauty and carriage. But this noted gambler was illiterate. The only\nbook of which he knew or cared much was one that had fifty-two pages,\nwith twelve pictures. If he had been educated, he might have handled the\nreins of government, instead of presiding over a nocturnal banking\ninstitution.\n\n\"Parson, can you come to number--, on Kearney street, tomorrow at ten\no'clock, and give us a few words and a prayer over a friend of mine, who\ndied last night?\"\n\nI promised to be there, and he left.\n\nHis friend, like himself, had been a gambler. He was from New York. He\nwas well educated, gentle in his manners, and a general favorite with\nthe rough and desperate fellows with whom he associated, but with whom\nhe seemed out of place. The passion for gambling had put its terrible\nspell on him, and be was helpless in its grasp. But though he mixed with\nthe crowds that thronged the gambling-hells, he was one of them only in\nthe absorbing passion for play. There was a certain respect shown him by\nall that venturesome fraternity. He went to Frazer River during the gold\nexcitement. In consequence of exposure and privation in that wild chase\nafter gold, which proved fatal to so many eager adventurers, he\ncontracted pulmonary disease, and came back to San Francisco to die. He\nhad not a dollar. His gambler friend took charge of him, placed him in a\ngood boarding-place, hired a nurse for him, and for nearly a year\nprovided for all his wants.\n\n\n\nNewton.\n\nThe miners called him the \"Wandering Jew.\" That was behind his back. To\nhis face they addressed him as Father Newton. He walked his circuits in\nthe northern mines. No pedestrian could keep up with him, as with his\nlong form bending forward, his immense yellow beard that reached to his\nbreast floating in the wind, he strode from camp to camp with the\nmessage of salvation. It took a good trotting-horse to keep pace with\nhim. Many a stout prospector, meeting him on a highway, after panting\nand straining to bear him company, had to fall behind, gazing after him\nin wonder, as he swept out of sight at that marvelous gait. There was a\nglitter in his eye, and an intensity of gaze that left you in doubt\nwhether it was genius or madness that it bespoke. It was, in truth, a\nlittle of both. He had genius. Nobody ever talked with him, or heard him\npreach, without finding it out. The rough fellow who offended him at a\ncamp-meeting, near \"Yankee Jim's,\" no doubt thought him mad. He was\nmaking some disturbance just as the long bearded old preacher was\npassing with a bucket of water in his hand.\n\n\"What do you mean?\" he thundered, stopping and fixing his keen eye upon\nthe rowdy.\n\nA rude and profane reply was made by the jeering sinner.\n\nQuick as thought Newton rushed upon him with flashing eye and uplifted\nbucket, a picture of fiery wrath that was too much for the thoughtless\nscoffer, who fled in terror amid the laughter of the crowd. The\nvanquished son of Belial had no sympathy from anybody, and the plucky\npreacher was none the less esteemed because he was ready to defend his\nMaster's cause with carnal weapons. The early Californians left scarcely\nany path of sin unexplored, and were a sad set of sinners, but for\nvirtuous women and religion they never lost their reverence. Both were\nscarce in those days, when it seemed to be thought that gold-digging and\nthe Decalogue could not be made to harmonize. The pioneer preachers\nfound that one good woman made a better basis for evangelization than a\nscore of nomadic bachelors. The first accession of a woman to a church\nin the mines was an epoch in its history. The church in the house of\nLydia was the normal type--it must be anchored to woman's faith, and\ntenderness, and love, in the home.\n\nHe visited San Francisco during my pastorate in 1858. On Sunday morning\nhe preached a sermon of such extraordinary beauty and power that at the\nnight-service the house was crowded by a curious congregation, drawn\nthither by the report of the forenoon effort. His subject was the faith\nof the mother of Moses, and he handled it in his own way. The powerful\neffect of one passage I shall never forget. It was a description of the\nmother's struggle, and the victory of her faith in the crisis of her\ntrial. No longer able to protect her child, she resolves to commit him\nto her God. He drew a picture of her as she sat weaving together the\ngrasses of the little ark of bulrushes, her hot tears falling upon her\nwork, and pausing from time to time with her hand pressed upon her\nthrobbing heart. At length, the little vessel is finished, and she goes\nby night to the bank of the Nile, to take the last chance to save her\nboy from the knife of the murderers. Approaching the river's edge, with\nthe ark in her hands, she stoops a moment, but her mother's heart fails\nher. How can she give up her child? In frenzy of grief she sinks upon\nher knees, and lifting her gaze to the heavens, passionately prays to\nthe God of Israel. That prayer! It was the wail of a breaking heart, a\ncry out of the depths of a mighty agony. But as she prays the\ninspiration of God enters her soul, her eyes kindle, and her face beams\nwith the holy light of faith. She rises, lifts the little ark, looks\nupon the sleeping face of the fair boy, prints a long, long kiss upon\nhis brow, and then with a firm step she bends down, and placing the tiny\nvessel upon the waters, lets it go. \"And away it went,\" he, said,\n\"rocking upon the waves as it swept beyond the gaze of the mother's\nstraining eyes. The monsters of the deep were there, the serpent of the\nNile was there, behemoth was there, but the child slept as sweetly and\nas safely upon the rocking waters as if it were nestled upon its\nmother's breast--for God was there!\" The effect was electric. The\nconcluding words, \"for God was there!\" were uttered with upturned face\nand lifted hands, and in a tone of voice that thrilled the hearers like\na sudden clap of thunder from a cloud over whose bosom the lightnings\nhad rippled in gentle flashes. It was true eloquence.\n\nIn a revival meeting, on another occasion, he said, in a sermon of\nterrific power: \"O the hardness of the human heart! Yonder is a man in\nhell. He is told that there is one condition on which he may be\ndelivered, and that is that lie must get the consent of every good being\nin the universe. A ray of hope enters his soul, and he sets out to\ncomply with the condition. He visits heaven and earth, and finds\nsympathy and consent from all. All the holy angels consent to his\npardon; all the pure and holy on earth consent; God himself repeats the\nassurance of his willingness that he maybe saved. Even in hell, the\ndevils do not object, knowing that his misery only heightens theirs. All\nare willing, all are ready--all but one man. He refuses; he will not\nconsent. A monster of cruelty and wickedness, he refuses his simple\nconsent to save a soul from an eternal hell! Surely a good God and all\ngood beings in the universe would turn in horror from such a monster.\nSinner, you are that man! The blessed God, the Holy Trinity, every angel\nin heaven, every good man and woman on earth, are not only willing but\nanxious that you shall be saved. But you will not consent. You refuse to\ncome to Jesus that you may have life. You are the murderer of your own\nimmortal soul. You drag yourself down to hell. You lock the door of your\nown dungeon of eternal despair, and throw the key into the bottomless\npit, by rejecting the Lord that bought you with his blood! You will be\nlost! you must be lost! you ought to be lost.\"\n\nThe words were something like these, but the energy, the passion, the\nfrenzy of the speaker must be imagined. Hard and stubborn hearts were\nmoved under that thrilling appeal. They were made to feel that the\npreacher's picture of a self doomed soul described their own eases.\nThere was joy in heaven that night over repenting sinners.\n\nThis old man of the mountains was a walking encyclopedia of theological\nand other learning. He owned books that could not be duplicated in\nCalifornia; and he read them, digested their contents, and constantly\nsurprised his cultivated bearers by the affluence of his knowledge, and\nthe fertility of his literary and classic allusion. He wrote with\nelegance and force. His weak point was orthography. He would trip\nsometimes in the spelling of the most common words. His explanation of\nthis weakness was curious: He was a printer in Mobile, Alabama. On one\noccasion a thirty-two-page book-form of small type was \"pied.\" \"I\nundertook,\", said he, \"to set that pied form to rights, and, in doing\nso, the words got so mixed in my brain that my spelling was spoiled\nforever!\"\n\nHe went to Oregon, and traveled and preached from the Cascade Mountains\nto Idaho, thrilling, melting, and amusing, in turn, the crowds that came\nout to hear the wild-looking man whose coming was so sudden, and whose\ngoing as so rapid, that they were lost in wonder, as if gazing at a\nmeteor that flashed across the sky.\n\nHe was a Yankee from New Hampshire, who, going to Alabama, lost his\nheart, and was ever afterward intensely Southern in all his convictions\nand affections. His fiery soul found congenial spirits among the\ngenerous, hotblooded people of the Gulf States, whose very faults had a\nsort of charm for this impulsive, generous, erratic, gifted, man. He\nmade his way back to his New England hills, where he is waiting for the\nsunset, often turning a longing eye southward, and now and then sending\na greeting to Alabama.\n\n\n\nThe California Politician.\n\nThe California politician of the early days was plucky. He had to be so,\nfor faint heart won no votes in those rough times. One of the Marshalls\n(Tom or Ned--I forget which), at the beginning of a stump speech one\nnight in the mines, was interrupted by a storm of hisses and execrations\nfrom a turbulent crowd of fellows, many of whom were full of whisky. He\npaused a moment, drew himself up to his full height, coolly took a\npistol from his pocket, laid it on the stand before him, and said:\n\n\"I have seen bigger crowds than this many a time. I want it to be fully\nunderstood that I came here to make a speech tonight, and I am going to\ndo it, or else there will be a funeral or two.\"\n\nThat touch took with that crowd. The one thing they all believed in was\ncourage. Marshall made one of his grandest speeches, and at the close\nthe delighted miners bore him in triumph from the rostrum.\n\nThat was a curious exordium of \"Uncle Peter Mehan,\" when he made his\nfirst stump-speech at Sonora: \"Fellow-citizens, I was born an orphin at\na very early period of my life.\" He was a candidate for supervisor, and\nthe good-natured miners elected him triumphantly. He made a good\nsupervisor, which is another proof that book-learning and elegant\nrhetoric are not essential where there are integrity and native good\nsense. Uncle Peter never stole any thing, and he was usually on the\nright side of all questions that claimed the attention of the\ncounty-fathers of Tuolumne.\n\nIn the early days, the Virginians, New Yorkers, and Tennesseans, led in\npolitics. Trained to the stump at home, the Virginians and Tennesseans\nwere ready on all occasions to run a primary-meeting, a convention, or a\ncanvass. There was scarcely a mining-camp in the State in which there\nwas not a leading local politician from one or both of these States. The\nNew Yorker understood all the inside management of party organization,\nand was up to all the smart tactics developed in the lively struggles of\nparties in the times when Whiggery and Democracy fiercely fought for\nrule in the Empire State. Broderick was a New Yorker, trained by Tammany\nin its palmy days. He was a chief, who rose from the ranks, and ruled by\nforce of will. Thick-set, strong-limbed, full-chested, with immense\ndriving-power in his back-head, he was an athlete whose stalwart\nphysique was of more value to him than the gift of eloquence, or even\nthe power of money. The sharpest lawyers and the richest money-kings\nalike went down before this uncultured and moneyless man, who dominated\nthe clans of San Francisco simply by right of his manhood. He was not\nwithout a sort of eloquence of his own. He spoke right to the point, and\nhis words fell like the thud of a shillalah; or rang like the clash of\nsteel. He dealt with the rough elements of politics in an exciting and\nturbulent period of California politics, and was more of a border chief\nthan an Ivanhoe in his modes of warfare. He reached the United States\nSenate, and in his first speech in that august body he honored his\nmanhood by an allusion to his father, a stone mason, whose hands, said\nBroderick, had helped to erect the very walls of the chamber in which he\nspoke. When a man gets as high as the United States Senate, there is\nless tax upon his magnanimity in acknowledging his humble origin than\nwhile he is lower down the ladder. You seldom hear a man boast how low\nhe began until he is far up toward the summit of his ambition.\nNinety-nine out of every hundred self-made men are at first more or less\nsensitive concerning their low birth; the hundredth man who is not is a\nman indeed.\n\nBroderick's great rival was Gwin. The men were antipodes in every thing\nexcept that they belonged to the same party. Gwin still lives, the most\ncolossal figure in the history of California. He looks the man he is. Of\nimmense frame, ruddy complexion, deep-blue eyes that almost blaze when\nhe is excited, rugged yet expressive features, a massive bead crowned\nwith a heavy suit of silver-white hair, he is marked by Nature for\nleadership. Common men seem dwarfed in his presence. After he had\ndropped out of California politics for awhile, a Sacramento hotel-keeper\nexpressed what many felt during a legislative session: \"I find myself\nlooking around for Gwin. I miss the chief.\"\n\nMy first acquaintance with Dr. Gwin began with, an incident that\nillustrates the man and the times. It was in 1856. The Legislature was\nin session at Sacramento, and a United States Senator was to, be\nelected. I was making a tentative movement toward starting a Southern\nMethodist newspaper, and visited Sacramento on that business. My friend\nMajor P. L. Solomon was there, and took a friendly interest in my\nenterprise. He proposed to introduce me to the leading men of both\nparties, and I thankfully availed myself of his courtesy. Among the\nfirst to whom he presented me was a noted politician who, both before\nand since, has enjoyed a national notoriety, and who still lives, and is\nas, ready as ever to talk or fight. His name I need not give. I\npresented to him my mission, and he seemed embarrassed.\n\n\"I am with you, of course. My mother was a Methodist, and all my\nsympathies are with the Methodist Church. I am a Southern man in all my\nconvictions and impulses, and I am a Southern Methodist in principle.\nBut you see, sir, I am a candidate for United States Senator, and\nsectional feeling is likely to enter into the contest, and if it were\nknown that my name was on your list of subscribers, it might endanger my\nelection.\"\n\nHe squeezed my arm, told me he loved me and my Church, said he would be\nhappy to see me often, and so forth--but he did not give me his name. I\nleft him, saying in my heart, Here is a politician.\n\nGoing on together, in the corridor we met Gwin. Solomon introduced me,\nand told him my business.\n\n\"I am glad to know that you are going to start a Southern Methodist\nnewspaper. No Church can do without its organ. Put me down on your list,\nand come with me, and I will make all these fellows subscribe. There is\nnot much religion among them, I fear, but we will make them take the\npaper.\"\n\nThis was said in a hearty and pleasant way, and he took me from man to\nman, until I had gotten more than a dozen names, among them two or three\nof his most active political opponents.\n\nThis incident exhibits the two types of the politician, and the two\nclasses of men to be found in all communities--the one all \"blarney\"\nand selfishness, the other with real manhood redeeming poor human\nnature, and saving it from utter contempt. The senatorial prize eluded\nthe grasp of both aspirants, but the reader will not be at a loss to\nguess whose side I was on. Dr. Gwin made a friend that day, and never\nlost him. It was this sort of fidelity to friends that, when fortune\nfrowned on the grand old Senator after the collapse at Appomattox,\nrallied thousands of true hearts to his side, among whom were those who\nhad fought him in many a fierce political battle. Broderick and Gwin\nwere both, by a curious turn of political fortune, elected by the same\nLegislature to the United States Senate. Broderick sleeps in Lone\nMountain, and Gwin still treads the stage of his former glory, a living\nmonument of the days when California politics was half romance and half\ntragedy. The friend and protege of General Andrew Jackson, a member of\nthe first Constitutional Convention of California, twice United States\nSenator, a prominent figure in the civil war, the father of the great\nPacific Railway, he is the front figure on the canvas of California\nhistory.\n\nGwin was succeeded by McDougall. What a man was he! His face was as\nclassic as a Greek statue. It spoke the student and the scholar in every\nline. His hair was snow-white, his eyes bluish gray, and his form\nsinewy and elastic. He went from Illinois, with Baker and other men of\ngenius, and soon won a high place at the bar of San Francisco. I heard\nit said, by an eminent jurist, that when McDougall had put his whole\nstrength into the examination of a case, his side of it was exhausted.\nHis reading was immense, his learning solid. His election was doubtless\na surprise to himself as well as to the California public. The day\nbefore he left for Washington City, I met him in the street, and as we\nparted I held his hand a moment, and said:\n\n\"Your friends will watch your career with hope and with fear.\"\n\nHe knew what I meant, and said, quickly:\n\n\"I understand you. You are afraid that I will yield to my weakness for\nstrong drink. But you may be sure I will play the man, and California\nshall have no cause to blush on my account.\"\n\nThat was his fatal weakness. No one, looking upon his pale, scholarly\nface, and noting his faultlessly neat apparel, and easy, graceful\nmanners, would have thought of such a thing. Yet he was a--I falter in\nwriting it--a drunkard. At times he drank deeply and madly. When half\nintoxicated he was almost as brilliant as Hamlet, and as rollicking as\nFalstaff. It was said that even when fully drunk his splendid intellect\nnever entirely gave way.\n\n\"McDougall commands as much attention in the Senate when drunk as any\nother Senator does when sober,\" said a Congressman in Washington in\n1866. It is said that his great speech on the question of\n\"confiscation,\" at the beginning of the war, was delivered when he was\nin a state of semi-intoxication. Be that as it may, it exhausted the\nwhole question, and settled the policy of the Government.\n\n\"No one will watch your senatorial career with more friendly interest\nthan myself; and if you will abstain wholly from all strong drink, we\nshall all, be proud of you, I know.\"\n\n\"Not a drop will I touch, my friend; and I'll make you proud of me.\"\n\nHe spoke feelingly, and I think there was a moisture about his eye as he\npressed my hand and walked away.\n\nI never saw him again. For the first few months he wrote to me often,\nand then his letters came at longer intervals, and then they ceased. And\nthen the newspapers disclosed the shameful secret California's brilliant\nSenator was a drunkard. The temptations of the Capital were too strong\nfor him. He went down into the black waters a complete wreck. He\nreturned to the old home of his boyhood in New Jersey to die. I learned\nthat he was lucid and penitent at the last. They brought his body back\nto San Francisco to be buried, and when at his funeral the words \"I know\nthat my Redeemer liveth,\" in clear soprano, rang through the vaulted\ncathedral like a peal of triumph, I indulged the hope that the spirit of\nmy gifted and fated friend had, through the mercy of the Friend of\nsinners, gone from his boyhood hills up to the hills of God.\n\nThe typical California politician was Coffroth. The \"boys\" fondly called\nhim \"Jim\" Coffroth. There is no surer sign of popularity than a popular\nabbreviation of this sort, unless it is a pet nickname. Coffroth was\nfrom Pennsylvania, where he had gained an inkling of polities and\ngeneral literature. He gravitated into California polities by the law of\nhis nature. He was born for this, having what a friend calls the gift of\npopularity. His presence was magnetic; his laugh was contagious; his\nenthusiasm irresistible. Nobody ever thought of taking offense at Jim\nCoffroth. He could change his politics with impunity without losing a\nfriend--he never had a personal enemy; but I believe he only made that\nexperiment once. He went off with the Know-nothings in 1855, and was\nelected by them to the State Senate, and was called to preside over\ntheir State Convention. He hastened back to his old party associates,\nand at the first convention that met in his county on his return from\nthe Legislature, he rose and told them how lonesome he had felt while\nastray from the old fold, how glad he was to get back, and how humble he\nfelt, concluding by advising all his late supporters to do as he had\ndone by taking \"a straight chute\" for the old party. He ended amid a\nstorm of applause, was reinstated at once, and was made President of the\nnext Democratic State Convention. There he was in his glory. His tact\nand good humor were infinite, and he held those hundreds of excitable\nand explosive men in the hollow of his hand. He would dismiss a\ndangerous motion with a witticism so apt that the mover himself would\njoin in the laugh, and give it up. His broad face in repose was that of\na Quaker, at other times that of a Bacchus. There was a religious streak\nin this jolly partisan, and he published several poems that breathed the\nsweetest and loftiest religious sentiment. The newspapers were a little\ndisposed to make a joke of these ebullitions of devotional feeling, but\nthey now make the light that casts a gleam of brightness upon the\nbackground of his life. I take from an old volume of the Christian\nSpectator one of these poems as a literary curiosity. Every man lives\ntwo lives. The rollicking politician, \"Jim Coffroth,\" every Californian\nknew; the author of these lines was another man by the same name:\n\nAmid the Silence of the Night. \"Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall\nneither slumber nor sleep.\" Psalm cxxi.\n\nAmid the silence of the night, Amid its lonely hours and dreary, When we\nClose the aching sight, Musing sadly, lorn and weary, Trusting that\ntomorrow's light May reveal a day more cheery;\n\nAmid affliction's darker hour, When no hope beguiles our sadness, When\nDeath's hurtling tempests lower, And forever shroud our gladness, While\nGrief's unrelenting power Goads our stricken hearts to madness;\n\nWhen from friends beloved we're parted, And from scenes our spirits\nlove, And are driven, broken-hearted, O'er a heartless world to rove;\nWhen the woes by which we've smarted, Vainly seek to melt or move; When\nwe trust and are deluded, When we love and are denied, When the schemes\no'er which we brooded Burst like mist on mountain's side, And, from\nevery hope excluded, We in dark despair abide;\n\nThen, and ever, God sustains us, He whose eye no slumber knows, Who\ncontrols each throb that pains us, And in mercy sends our woes, And by\nlove severe constrains us To avoid eternal throes.\n\nHappy he whose heart obeys him! Lost and ruined who disown! O if idols\ne'er displace him, Tear them from his chosen throne! May our lives and\nlanguage praise him! May our hearts be his alone!\n\nHe took defeat with a good nature that robbed it of its sting, and made\nhis political opponents half sorry for having beaten him. He was talked\nof for Governor at one time, and he gave as a reason, why he would like\nthe office that \"a great many of his friends were in the State-prison,\nand he wanted to use the pardoning power in their behalf.\" This was a\njest, of course, referring to the fact that as a lawyer much of his\npractice was in the criminal courts. He was never suspected of treachery\nor dishonor in public or private life. His very ambition was unselfish:\nhe was always ready to sacrifice himself in a hopeless candidacy if he\ncould thereby help his party or a friend.\n\nHis good nature was tested once while presiding over a party convention\nat Sonora for the nomination of candidates for legislative and county\noffices. Among the delegates was the eccentric John Vallew, whose mind\nwas a singular compound of shrewdness and flightiness, and was stored\nwith the most out-of-the-way scraps of learning, philosophy, and poetry.\nSome one proposed Vallew's name as a candidate for the Legislature. He\nrose to his feet with a clouded face, and in an angry voice said:\n\n\"Mr. President, I am surprised and mortified. I have lived in this\ncounty more than seven years, and I have never had any difficulty with\nmy neighbors. I did not know that I had an enemy in the world. What have\nI done, that it should be proposed to send me to the Legislature? What\nreason has anybody to think I am that sort of a man? To think I should\nhave come to this! To propose to send me to the Legislature, when it is\na notorious fact that you have never sent a man thither from this county\nwho did not come back morally and pecuniarily ruined!\"\n\nThe crowd saw the point, and roared with laughter, Coffroth, who had\nserved in the previous session, joining heartily in the merriment.\nVallew was excused.\n\nCoffroth grew fatter and jollier; his strong intellect struggled against\nincreasing sensual tendencies. What the issue might have been, I know\nnot. He died suddenly, and his destiny was transferred to another\nsphere. So there dropped out of California-life a partisan without\nbitterness, a satirist without malice, a wit without a sting, the\njolliest, freest, readiest man that ever faced a California audience on\nthe hustings--the typical politician of California.\n\n\n\nOld Man Lowry.\n\nI had marked his expressive physiognomy among my hearers in the little\nchurch in Sonora for some weeks before he made himself known to me. As I\nlearned afterward, he was weighing the young preacher in his critical\nbalances. He had a shrewd Scotch face, in which there was a mingling of\nkeenness, benignity, and humor. His age might be sixty, or it might be\nmore. He was an old bachelor, and wide guesses are sometimes made as to\nthe ages of that class of men. They may not live longer than married\nmen, but they do not show the effects of life's wear and tear so early.\nHe came to see us one evening. He fell in love with the mistress of the\nparsonage, just as he ought to have done, and we were charmed with the\nquaint old bachelor. There was a piquancy, a sharp flavor, in his talk\nthat was delightful. His aphorisms often crystallized a neglected truth\nin a form all his own. He was an original character. There was nothing\ncommonplace about him. He had his own way of saying and doing every\nthing.\n\nSociety in the mines was limited in that day, and we felt that we had\nfound a real thesaurus in this old man of unique mold. His visits were\nrefreshing to us, and his plain-spoken criticisms were helpful to me.\n\nHe had left the Church because he did not agree with the preachers on\nsome points of Christian ethics, and because they used tobacco. But he\nwas unhappy on the outside, and finding that my views and habits did not\nhappen to cross his peculiar notions, he came back. His religious\nexperience was out of the common order. Bred a Calvinist, of the good\nold Scotch-Presbyterian type, he had swung away from that faith, and was\nin danger of rushing into Universalism, or infidelity. That once famous\nand much-read little book, \"John Nelson's Journal,\" fell into his hands,\nand changed his whole life. It led him to Christ, and to the Methodists.\nHe was a true spiritual child of the unflinching Yorkshire stone-cutter.\nLike him he despised half-way measures, and like him he was aggressive\nin thought and action. What he liked he loved, what he disliked he\nhated. Calvinism he abhorred, and he let no occasion pass for pouring\ninto it the hot shot of his scorn and wrath. One night I preached from\nthe text, Should it be according to thy mind?\n\n\"The first part of your sermon,\" he said to me as we passed out of the\nchurch, \"distressed me greatly. For a full half hour you preached\nstraight out Calvinism, and I thought you had ruined every thing; but\nyou had left a little slip-gap, and crawled out at the last.\"\n\nHis ideal of a minister of the gospel was Dr. Keener, whom he knew at\nNew Orleans before coming to California. He was the first man I ever\nheard mention Dr. Keener's name for the episcopacy. There was much in\ncommon between them. If my eccentric California bachelor friend did not\nhave as strong and cool a head, he had as brave and true a heart as the\nincisive and chivalrous Louisiana preacher, upon whose head the miter\nwas placed by the suffrage of his brethren at Memphis in 1870.\n\nHe became very active as a worker in the Church. I made him\nclass-leader, and there have been few in that office who brought to its\nsacred duties as much spiritual insight, candor, and tenderness. At\ntimes his words flashed like diamonds, showing what the Bible can reveal\nto a solitary thinker who makes it his chief study day and night. When\nneedful, he could apply caustic that burned to the very core of an error\nof opinion or of practice. He took a class in the Sunday-school, and his\nfreshness, acuteness, humor, and deep knowledge of the Scriptures, made\nhim far more than an ordinary teacher. A fine pocket Bible was offered\nas a prize to the scholar who should, in three months, memorize the\ngreatest number of Scripture verses. The wisdom of such a contest is\nquestionable to me now, but it was the fashion then, and I was too young\nand self-distrustful to set myself against the current in such matters.\nThe contest was an exciting one--two boys, Robert A--and Jonathan R--,\nand one girl, Annie P--, leading all the school. Jonathan suddenly fell\nbehind, and was soon distanced by his two competitors. Lowry, who was\nhis teacher, asked him what was the reason of his sudden breakdown. The\nboy blushed, and stammered out:\n\n\"I didn't want to beat Annie.\"\n\nRobert won the prize, and the day came for its presentation. The house\nwas full, and everybody was in a pleasant mood. After the prize had been\npresented in due form and with a little flourish, Lowry arose, and\nproducing a costly Bible, in a few words telling how magnanimously and\ngallantly Jonathan had retired from the contest, presented it to the\npleased and blushing boy. The boys and girls applauded California\nfashion, and the old man's face glowed with satisfaction. He had in him\ncuriously mingled the elements of the Puritan and the Cavalier--the\nuncompromising persistency of the one, and the chivalrous impulse and\nopenhandedness of the other.\n\nThe old man had too many crotchets and too much combativeness to be\npopular. He spared no opinion or habit he did not like. He struck every\nangle within reach of him. In the state of society then existing in the\nmines there were many things to vex his soul, and keep him on the\nwarpath. The miners looked upon him as a brave, good man, just a little\ndaft. He worked a mining-claim on Wood's Creek, north of town, and lived\nalone in a tiny cabin on the hill above. That was the smallest of\ncabins, looking like a mere box from the trail which wound through the\nflat below. Two little scrub-oaks stood near it, under which he sat and\nread his Bible in leisure moments. There, above the world, he could\ncommune with his own heart and with God undisturbed, and look down upon\na race he half pitied and half despised. From the spot the eye took in a\nvast sweep of hill and dale: Bald Mountain, the most striking object in\nthe near background, and beyond its dark, rugged mass the snowy summits\nof the Sierras, rising one above another, like gigantic stair-steps,\nleading up to the throne of the Eternal. This lonely height suited\nLowry's strangely compounded nature. As a cynic, he looked down with\ncontempt upon the petty life that seethed and frothed in the camps\nbelow; as a saint, he looked forth upon the wonders of God's handiwork\naround and above him.\n\nThere was an intensity in all that he did. Passing his mining-claim on\nhorseback one day, I paused to look at him in his work. Clad in a blue\nflannel mining-suit, he was digging as for life. The embankment of red\ndirt and gravel melted away rapidly before his vigorous strokes, and he\nseemed to feel a sort of fierce delight in his work. Pausing a moment,\nhe looked up and saw me.\n\n\"You dig as if you were in a hurry,\" I said.\n\n\"Yes, I have been digging here three years. I have a notion that I have\njust so much of the earth to turn over before I am turned under,\" he\nreplied with a sort of grim humor.\n\nHe was still there when we visited Sonora in 1857. He invited us out to\ndinner, and we went. By skillful circling around the hill, we reached\nthe little cabin on the summit with horse and buggy. The old man had\nmade preparations for his expected guests. The floor of the cabin had\nbeen swept, and its scanty store of furniture put to rights, and a\ndinner was cooking in and on the little stove. His lady-guest insisted\non helping in the preparation of the dinner, but was allowed to do\nnothing further than to arrange the dishes on the primitive table, which\nwas set out under one of the little oaks in the yard. It was a miner's\nfeast--can-fruits, can-vegetables, can-oysters, can-pickles, can-every\nthing nearly, with tea distilled from the Asiatic leaf by a receipt of\nhis own. It was a hot day, and from the cloudless heavens the sun\nflooded the earth with his glory, and the shimmer of the sunshine was in\nthe still air. We tried to be cheerful, but there was a pathos about the\naffair that touched us. He felt it too. More than once there was a tear\nin his eye. At parting, he kissed little Paul, and gave us his hand in\nsilence. As we drove down the hill, he stood gazing after us with a look\nfixed and sad. The picture is till before me the lonely old man standing\nsad and silent, the little cabin, the rude dinner-service under the oak,\nand the overarching sky. That was our last meeting. The next will be on\nthe Other Side.\n\n\n\nSuicide in California.\n\nA half protest rises within me as I begin this Sketch. The page almost\nturns crimson under my gaze, and shadowy forms come forth out of the\ndarkness into which they wildly plunged out of life's misery into\ndeath's mystery. Ghostly lips cry out, \"Leave us alone! Why call us back\nto a world where we lost all, and in quitting which we risked all?\nDisturb us not to gratify the cold curiosity of unfeeling strangers. We\nhave passed on beyond human jurisdiction to the realities we dared to\nmeet. Give us the pity and courtesy of your silence, O living brother,\nwho didst escape the wreck!\" The appeal is not without effect, and if I\nlift the shroud that covers the faces of these dead self-destroyed, it\nwill be tenderly, pityingly. These simple Sketches of real California\nlife would be imperfect if this characteristic feature were entirely\nomitted; for California was (and is yet) the land of suicides. In a\nsingle year there were one hundred and six in San Francisco alone. The\nwhole number of suicides in the State would, if the horror of each case\ncould be even imperfectly imagined, appall even the dryest statistician\nof crime. The causes for this prevalence of self-destruction are to be\nsought in the peculiar conditions of the country, and the habits of the\npeople. California, with all its beauty, grandeur, and riches, has been\nto the many who have gone thither a land of great expectations, but\nsmall results. This was specially the case in the earlier period of its\nhistory, after the discovery of gold and its settlement by \"Americans,\"\nas we call ourselves, par excellence. Hurled from the topmost height of\nextravagant hope to the lowest deep of disappointment, the shock is too\ngreat for reaction; the rope, razor, bullet, or deadly drug, finishes\nthe tragedy. Materialistic infidelity in California is the avowed belief\nof multitudes, and its subtle poison infects the minds and unconsciously\nthe actions of thousands who recoil from the dark abyss that yawns at\nthe feet of its adherents with its fascination of horror. Under some\ncircumstances, suicide becomes logical to a man who has neither hope nor\ndread of a hereafter. Sins against the body, and especially the nervous\nsystem, were prevalent; and days of pain, sleepless nights, and weakened\nwills, were the precursors of the tragedy that promised change, if not\nrest. The devil gets men inside a fiery circle, made by their own sin\nand folly, from which there seems to be no escape but by death, and they\nwill unbar its awful door with their own trembling hands. There is\nanother door of escape for the worst and most wretched, and it is opened\nto the penitent by the hand that was nailed to the rugged cross. These\ncrises do come, when the next step must be death or life-penitence or\nperdition. Do sane men and women ever commit suicide? Yes--and, No.\nYes, in the sense that they sometimes do it with even pulse and steady\nnerves. No, in the sense that there cannot be perfect soundness in the\nbrain and heart of one who violates a primal instinct of human nature.\nEach case has its own peculiar features, and must be left to the\nall-seeing and all-pitying Father. Suicide, where it is not the greatest\nof crimes, is the greatest of misfortunes. The righteous Judge will\nclassify its victims.\n\nA noted case in San Francisco was that of a French Catholic priest. He\nwas young, brilliant, and popular--beloved by his flock, and admired by\na large circle outside. He had taken the solemn vows of his order in all\nsincerity of purpose, and was distinguished as well for his zeal in his\npastoral work as for his genius. But temptation met him, and he fell. It\ncame in the shape in which it assailed the young Hebrew in Potiphar's\nhouse, and in which it overcame the poet-king of Israel. He was seized\nwith horror and remorse, though he had no accuser save that voice\nwithin, which cannot be hushed while the soul lives. He ceased to\nperform the sacred functions of his office, making some plausible\npretext to his superiors, not daring to add sacrilege to mortal sin.\nShutting himself in his chamber, he brooded over his crime; or, no\nlonger able to endure the agony he felt, he would rush forth, and walk\nfor hours over the sand-dunes, or along the sea-beach. But no answer of\npeace followed his prayers, and the voices of nature soothed him not. He\nthought his sin unpardonable--at least, he would not pardon himself. He\nwas found one morning lying dead in his bed in a pool of blood. He had\nsevered the jugular-vein with a razor, which was still clutched in his\nstiffened fingers. His handsome and classic face bore no trace of pain.\nA sealed letter, lying on the table, contained his confession and his\nfarewell.\n\nAmong the lawyers in one of the largest mining towns of California was\nH. B--. He was a native of Virginia, and an alumnus of its noble\nUniversity. He was a scholar, a fine lawyer, handsome and manly in\nperson and bearing, and had the gift of popularity. Though the youngest\nlawyer in the town, he took a front place at the bar at once. Over the\nheads of several older aspirants, he was elected county judge. There was\nno ebb in the tide of his general popularity, and he had qualities that\nwon the warmest regard of his inner circle of special friends. But in\nthis case, as in many others, success had its danger. Hard drinking was\nthe rule in those days. Horace B--had been one of the rare exceptions.\nThere was a reason for this extra prudence. He had that peculiar\nsusceptibility to alcoholic excitement which has been the ruin of so\nmany gifted and noble men. He knew his weakness, and it is strange that\nhe did not continue to guard against the danger that he so well\nunderstood. Strange? No; this infatuation is so common in everyday life\nthat we cannot call it strange. There is some sort of fatal fascination\nthat draws men with their eyes wide open into the very jaws of this hell\nof strong drink. The most brilliant physician in San Francisco, in the\nprime of his magnificent young manhood, died of delirium tremens, the\nvictim of a self-inflicted disease, whose horrors no one knew or could\npicture so well as himself. Who says man is not a fallen, broken\ncreature, and that there is not a devil at hand to tempt him? This\ndevil, under the guise of sociability, false pride, or moral cowardice,\ntempted Horace B--, and he yielded. Like tinder touched by flame, he\nblazed into drunkenness, and again and again the proud-spirited, manly,\nand cultured young lawyer and jurist was seen staggering along the\nstreets, maudlin or mad with alcohol. When he had slept off his madness,\nhis humiliation was intense, and he walked the streets with pallid face\nand downcast eyes. The coarser-grained men with whom he was thrown in\ncontact had no conception of the mental tortures he suffered, and their\nrude jests stung him to the quick. He despised himself as a weakling and\na coward, but he did not get more than a transient victory over his\nenemy. The spark had struck a sensitive organization, and the fire of\nhell, smothered for the time, would blaze out again. He was fast\nbecoming a common drunkard, the accursed appetite growing stronger, and\nhis will weakening in accordance with that terrible law by which man's\nphysical and moral nature visits retribution on all who cross its path.\nDuring a term of the court over which he presided, he was taken home one\nnight drunk. A pistol-shot was heard by persons in the vicinity some\ntime before daybreak; but pistol-shots, at all hours of the night, were\nthen too common to excite special attention. Horace B--was found next\nmorning lying on the floor with a bullet through his head. Many a stout,\nheavy-bearded man had, wet eyes when the body of the ill-fated and\nbrilliant young Virginian was let down into the grave, which had been\ndug for him on the hill overlooking the town from the south-east.\n\nIn the same town there was a portrait-painter, a quiet, pleasant fellow,\nwith a good face and easy, gentlemanly ways. As an artist, he was not\nwithout merit, but his gift fell short of genius. He fell in love with a\ncharming girl, the eldest daughter of a leading citizen. She could not\nreturn his passion. The enamored artist still loved, and hoped against\nhope, lingering near her like a moth around a candle. There was another\nand more favored suitor in the case, and the rejected lover had all his\nhopes killed at one blow by her marriage to his rival. He felt that\nwithout her life was not worth living. He resolved to kill himself, and\nswallowed the contents of a two-ounce bottle of laudanum. After he had\ndone the rash deed, a reaction took place. He told what he had done, and\na physician was sent for. Before the doctor's arrival, the deadly drug\nasserted its power, and this repentant suicide began to show signs of\ngoing into a sleep from which it was certain he would never awake.\n\n\"My God! What have I done?\" he exclaimed in horror. \"Do your best, boys,\nto keep me from going to sleep before the doctor gets here.\"\n\nThe doctor came quickly, and by the prompt and very vigorous use of the\nstomach-pump he was saved. I was sent for, and found the would-be\nsuicide looking very weak, sick, silly, and sheepish. He got well, and\nwent on making pictures; but the picture of the fair, sweet girl, for\nlove of whom he came so near dying, never faded from his mind. His face\nalways wore a sad look, and he lived the life of a recluse, but he never\nattempted suicide again--he had had enough of that.\n\n\"It always makes me shudder to look at that place,\" said a lady, as we\npassed an elegant cottage on the western side of Russian Hill, San\nFrancisco.\n\n\"Why so? The place to me looks specially cheerful and attractive, with\nits graceful slope, its shrubbery, flowers, and thick greensward.\"\n\n\"Yes, it is a lovely place, but it has a history that it shocks me to\nthink of. Do you see that tall pumping-apparatus, with water-tank on\ntop, in the rear of the house?\"\n\n\"Yes; what of it?\"\n\n\"A woman hanged herself there a year ago. The family consisted of the\nhusband and wife, and two bright, beautiful children. He was thrifty and\nprosperous, she was an excellent housekeeper, and the children were\nhealthy and well-behaved. In appearance a happier family could not be\nfound on the hill. One day Mr. P--came home at the usual hour, and,\nmissing the wife's customary greeting, he asked the children where she\nwas. The children had not seen their mother for two or three hours, and\nlooked startled when they found she was missing. Messengers were sent to\nthe nearest neighbors to make inquiries, but no one had seen her. Mr. P\n----'s face began to wear a troubled look as he walked the floor, from\ntime to time going to the door and casting anxious glances about the\npremises.\n\n\"About dusk a sudden shriek was heard, issuing from the water-tank in the\nyard, and the Irish servant-girl came rushing from it, with eyes\ndistended and face pale with terror.\n\n\"Holy Mother of God! It's the Missus that's hanged herself!\"\n\nThe alarm spread, and soon a crowd, curious and sympathetic, had\ncollected. They found the poor lady suspended by the neck from a beam at\nthe head of the staircase leading to the top of the inclosure. She was\nquite dead, and a horrible sight to see. At the inquest no facts were\ndeveloped throwing any light on the tragedy. There had been no cloud in\nthe sky portending the lightning stroke that laid the happy little home\nin ruins. The husband testified that she was as bright and happy the\nmorning of the suicide as he had ever seen her, and had parted with him\nat the door with the usual kiss. Every thing about the house that day\nbore the marks of her deft and skillful touch. The two children were\ndressed with accustomed neatness and, good taste. And yet the bolt was\nin the cloud, and it fell before the sun had set! What was the mystery?\nEver afterward I felt something of the feeling expressed by my lady\nfriend when, in passing, I looked upon the structure which had been the\nscene of this singular tragedy.\n\nOne of the most energetic business men living in one of the foothill\ntowns, on the northern edge of the Sacramento Valley, had a charming\nwife, whom he loved with a deep and tender devotion. As in all true\nlove-matches, the passion of youth had ripened into a yet stronger and\npurer love with the lapse of years and participation in the joys and\nsorrows of wedded life. Their union had been blessed with five children,\nall intelligent, sweet, and full of promise. It was a very affectionate\nand happy household. Both parents possessed considerable literary taste\nand culture, and the best books and current magazine literature were\nread, discussed, and enjoyed in that quiet and elegant home amid the\nroses and evergreens. It was a little paradise in the hills, where Love,\nthe home-angel, brightened every room and blessed every heart. But\ntrouble came in the shape of business reverses; and the worried look and\nwakeful nights of the husband told how heavy were the blows that had\nfallen upon this hard and willing worker. The course of ruin in\nCalifornia was fearfully rapid in those days. When a man's financial\nsupports began to give way, they went with a crash. The movement\ndownward was with a rush that gave no time for putting on the brakes.\nYou were at the bottom, a wreck, almost before you knew it. So it was in\nthis case. Every thing was swept away, a mountain of unpaid debts was\npiled up, credit was gone, clamor of creditors deafened him, and the\ngaunt wolf of actual want looked in through the door of the cottage upon\nthe dear wife and little ones. Another shadow, and a yet darker one,\nsettled upon them. The unhappy man had been tampering with the delusion\nof spiritualism, and his wife had been drawn with him into a partial\nbelief in its vagaries. In their troubles they sought the aid of the\n\"familiar spirits\" that peeped and muttered through speaking, writing,\nand rapping mediums. This kept them in a state of morbid excitement that\nincreased from day to day until they were wrought up to a tension that\nverged on insanity. The lying spirits; or the frenzy of his own heated\nbrain, turned his thought to death as the only escape from want.\n\n\"I see our way out of these troubles, wife,\" he said one night, as they\nsat hand in hand in the bedchamber, where the children were lying\nasleep. \"We will all die together! This has been revealed to me as the\nsolution of all our difficulties. Yes, we will enter the beautiful\nspirit-world together! This is freedom! It is only getting out of\nprison. Bright spirits beckon and call us. I am ready.\"\n\nThere was a gleam of madness in his eyes, and, as he took a pistol from\na bureau-drawer, an answering gleam flashed forth from the eyes of the\nwife, as she said:\n\n\"Yes, love, we will all go together. I too am ready.\"\n\nThe sleeping children were breathing sweetly, unmindful of the horror\nthat the devil was hatching.\n\n\"The children first, then you, and then me,\" he said, his eye kindling\nwith increasing excitement.\n\nHe penciled a short note addressed to one of his old friends, asking him\nto attend to the burial of the bodies, then they kissed each of the\nsleeping children, and then--but let the curtain fall on the scene that\nfollowed. The seven were found next day lying dead, a bullet through the\nbrain of each, the murderer, by the side of the wife, still holding the\nweapon of death in his hand, its muzzle against his right temple.\n\nOther pictures of real life and death crowd upon, my mind, among them\nnoble forms and faces that were near and dear to me; but again I hear\nthe appealing voices. The page before me is wet with tears--I cannot\nsee to write.\n\n\n\nFather Fisher.\n\nHe came to California in 1855. The Pacific Conference was in session at\nSacramento. It was announced that the new preacher from Texas would\npreach at night. The boat was detained in some way, and he just had time\nto reach the church, where a large and expectant congregation were in\nwaiting. Below medium height, plainly dressed, and with a sort of\npeculiar shuffling movement as he went down the aisle, he attracted no\nspecial notice except for the profoundly reverential manner that never\nleft him anywhere. But the moment he faced his audience and spoke, it\nwas evident to them that a man of mark stood before them. They were\nmagnetized at once, and every eye was fixed upon the strong yet\nbenignant face, the capacious blue eyes, the ample forehead, and massive\nhead, bald on top, with silver locks on either side. His tones in\nreading the Scripture and the hymns were unspeakably solemn and very\nmusical. The blazing fervor of the prayer that followed was absolutely\nstartling to some of the preachers, who had cooled down under the\ndepressing influence of the moral atmosphere of the country. It almost\nseemed as if we could hear the rush of the pentecostal wind, and see the\ntongues of flame. The very house seemed to be rocking on its\nfoundations. By the time the prayer had ended, all were in a glow, and\nready for the sermon. The text I do not now call to mind, but the\nimpression made by the sermon remains. I had seen and heard preachers\nwho glowed in the pulpit--this man burned. His words poured forth in a\nmolten flood, his face shone like a furnace heated from within, his\nlarge blue eyes flashed with the lightning of impassioned sentiment, and\nanon swam in pathetic appeal that no heart could resist. Body, brain,\nand spirit, all seemed to feel the mighty afflatus. His very frame\nseemed to expand, and the little man who had gone into the pulpit with\nshuffling step and downcast eyes was transfigured before us. When, with\nradiant face, upturned eyes, an upward sweep of his arm, and\ntrumpet-voice, he shouted, \"Hallelujah to God!\" the tide of emotion\nbroke over all barriers, the people rose to their feet, and the church\nreechoed with their responsive hallelujahs. The new preacher from Texas\nthat night gave some Californians a new idea of evangelical eloquence,\nand took his place as a burning and a shining light among the ministers\nof God on the Pacific Coast.\n\n\"He is the man we want for San Francisco!\" exclaimed the impulsive B. T.\nCrouch, who had kindled into a generous enthusiasm under that marvelous\ndiscourse.\n\nHe was sent to San Francisco. He was one of a company of preachers who\nhave successively had charge of the Southern Methodist Church in that\nwondrous city inside the Golden Gate--Boring, Evans, Fisher,\nFitzgerald, Gober, Brown, Bailey, Wood, Miller, Ball, Hoss, Chamberlin,\nMahon, Tuggle, Simmons, Henderson. There was an almost unlimited\ndiversity of temperament, culture, and gifts among these men; but they\nall had a similar experience in this, that San Francisco gave them new\nrevelations of human nature and of themselves. Some went away crippled\nand scarred, some sad, some broken; but perhaps in the Great Day it may\nbe found that for each and all there was a hidden blessing in the\nheart-throes of a service that seemed to demand that they should sow in\nbitter tears, and know no joyful reaping this side of the grave. O my\nbrothers, who have felt the fires of that furnace heated seven times\nhotter than usual, shall we not in the resting-place beyond the river\nrealize that these fires burned out of us the dross that we did not know\nwas in our souls? The bird that comes out of the tempest with broken\nwing may henceforth take a lowlier flight, but will be safer because it\nventures no more into the region of storms.\n\nFisher did not succeed in San Francisco, because he could not get a\nhearing. A little handful would meet him on Sunday mornings in one of\nthe upper-rooms of the old City Hall, and listen to sermons that sent\nthem away in a religious glow, but he had no leverage for getting at the\nmasses. He was no adept in the methods by which the modern sensational\npreacher compels the attention of the novelty-loving crowds in our\ncities. An evangelist in every fiber of his being, he chafed under the\nlimitations of his charge in San Francisco, and from time to time he\nwould make a dash into the country, where, at camp-meetings and on other\nspecial occasions, he preached the gospel with a power that broke many a\nsinner's heart, and with a persuasiveness that brought many a wanderer\nback to the Good Shepherd's fold. His bodily energy, like his religious\nzeal, was unflagging. It seemed little less than a miracle that he\ncould, day after day, make such vast expenditure of nervous energy\nwithout exhaustion. He put all his strength into every sermon and\nexhortation, whether addressed to admiring and weeping thousands at a\ngreat camp-meeting, or to a dozen or less \"standbys\" at the\nSaturday-morning service of a quarterly-meeting.\n\nHe had his trials and crosses. Those who knew him intimately learned to\nexpect his mightiest pulpit efforts when the shadow on his face and the\nunconscious sigh showed that he was passing through the waters and\ncrying to God out of the depths. In such experiences, the strong man is\nrevealed and gathers new strength; the weak one goes under. But his\nstrength was more than mere natural force of will, it was the strength\nof a mighty faith in God--that unseen force by which the saints work\nrighteousness, subdue kingdoms, escape the violence of fire, and stop\nthe mouths of lions.\n\nAs a flame of fire, Fisher itinerated all over California and Oregon,\nkindling a blaze of revival in almost every place he touched. He was\nmighty in the Scriptures, and seemed to know the Book by heart. His was\nno rose-water theology. He believed in a hell, and pictured it in Bible\nlanguage with a vividness and awfulness that thrilled the stoutest\nsinner's heart; he believed in heaven, and spoke of it in such a way\nthat it seemed that with him faith had already changed to sight. The\ngates of pearl, the crystal river, the shining ranks of the white-robed\nthrongs, their songs swelling as the sound of many waters, the holy love\nand rapture of the glorified hosts of the redeemed, were made to pass in\npanoramic procession before the listening multitudes until the heaven he\npictured seemed to be a present reality. He lived in the atmosphere of\nthe supernatural; the spirit-world was to him most real.\n\n\"I have been out of the body,\" he said to me one day. The words were\nspoken softly, and his countenance, always grave in its aspect, deepened\nin its solemnity of expression as he spoke.\n\n\"How was that?\" I inquired.\n\n\"It was in Texas. I was returning from a quarterly-meeting where I had\npreached one Sunday morning with great liberty and with unusual effect.\nThe horses attached to my vehicle became frightened, and ran away. They\nwere wholly beyond control, plunging down the road at a fearful speed,\nwhen, by a slight turn to one side, the wheel struck a large log. There\nwas a concussion, and then a blank. The next thing I knew I was floating\nin the air above the road. I saw every thing as plainly as I see your\nface at this moment. There lay my body in the road, there lay the log,\nand there were the trees, the fence, the fields, and every thing,\nperfectly natural. My motion, which had been upward, was arrested, and\nas, poised in the air, I looked at my body lying there in the road so\nstill, I felt a strong desire to go back to it, and found myself sinking\ntoward it. The next thing I knew I was lying in the road where I had\nbeen thrown out, with a number of friends about me, some holding up my\nhead, others chafing my hands, or looking on with pity or alarm. Yes, I\nwas out of the body for a little, and I know there is a spirit-world.\"\n\nHis voice had sunk into a sort of whisper, and the tears were in his\neyes. I was strangely thrilled. Both of us were silent for a time, as if\nwe heard the echoes of voices, and saw the beckonings of shadowy hands\nfrom that Other World which sometimes seems so far away, and yet is so\nnear to each one of us.\n\nSurely you heaven, where angels see God's face, Is not so distant as we\ndeem From this low earth. 'Tis but a little space, 'Tis but a veil the\nwinds might blow aside; Yes, this all that us of earth divide From the\nbright dwellings of the glorified, The land of which I dream.\n\nBut it was no dream to this man of mighty faith, the windows of whose\nsoul opened at all times Godward. To him immortality was a demonstrated\nfact, an experience. He had been out of the body.\n\nIntensity was his dominating quality. He wrote verses, and whatever they\nmay have lacked of the subtle element that marks poetical genius, they\nwere full of his ardent personality and devotional abandon. He\ncompounded medicines whose virtues, backed by his own unwavering faith,\nwrought wondrous cures. On several occasions he accepted challenge to\npolemic battle, and his opponents found in him a fearless warrior, whose\nonset was next to irresistible. In these discussions it was no uncommon\nthing for his arguments to close with such bursts of spiritual power\nthat the doctrinal duel would end in a great religious excitement,\nbearing disputants and hearers away on mighty tides of feeling that none\ncould resist.\n\nI saw in the Texas Christian Advocate an incident, related by Dr. F. A.\nMood, that gives a good idea of what Fisher's eloquence was when in full\ntide:\n\n\"About ten years ago,\" says Dr. M., \"when the train from Houston, on the\nCentral Railroad, on one occasion reached Hempstead, it was peremptorily\nbrought to a halt. There was a strike among the employees of the road,\non what was significantly called by the strikers 'The Death-warrant.'\nThe road, it seems, had required all of their employees to sign a paper\nrenouncing all claims to moneyed reparation in case of their bodily\ninjury while in the service of the road. The excitement incident to a\nstrike was at its height at Hempstead when our train reached there. The\ntracks were blocked with trains that had been stopped as they arrived\nfrom the different branches of the road, and the employees were gathered\nabout in groups, discussing the situation--the passengers peering\naround with hopeless curiosity. When our train stopped, the conductor\ntold us that we would have to lie over all night, and many of the\npassengers left to find accommodations in the hotels of the town. It was\nnow night, when a man came into the car and exclaimed, 'The strikers are\ntarring and feathering a poor wretch out here, who has taken sides with\nthe road--come out and see it!' Nearly every one in the car hastened\nout. I had risen, when a gentleman behind me gently pulled my coat, and\nsaid to me, 'Sit down a moment.' He went on to say: 'I judge, sir, you\nare a clergyman; and I advise you to remain here. You may be put to much\ninconvenience by having to appear as a witness; in a mob of that sort,\ntoo, there is no telling what may follow.' I thanked him, and resumed my\nseat. He then asked me to what denomination I belonged, and upon my\ntelling him I was a Methodist preacher, he asked eagerly and promptly if\nI had ever met a Methodist preacher in Texas by the name of Fisher,\ndescribing accurately the appearance of our glorified brother. Upon my\ntelling him I knew him well, he proceeded to give the following\nincident. I give it as nearly as I can in his own words. Said he:\n\n\"'I am a Californian, have practiced law for years in that State, and,\nat the time I allude to, was district judge. I was holding court at [I\ncannot now recall the name of the town he mentioned], and on Saturday\nwas told that a Methodist camp-meeting was being held a few miles from\ntown. I determined to visit it, and reached the place of meeting in good\ntime to hear the great preacher of the occasion--Father Fisher. The\nmeeting was held in a river canyon. The rocks towered hundreds of feet\non either side, rising over like an arch. Through the ample space over\nwhich the rocks hung the river flowed, furnishing abundance of cool\nwater, while a pleasant breeze fanned a shaded spot. A great multitude\nhad assembled--hundreds of very hard cases, who had gathered there,\nlike myself, for the mere novelty of the thing. I am not a religious man\n--never have been thrown under religious influences. I respect religion,\nand respect its teachers, but have been very little in contact with\nreligious things. At the appointed time, the preacher rose. He was\nsmall, with white hair combed back from his forehead, and he wore a\nvenerable beard. I do not know much about the Bible, and I cannot quote\nfrom his text, but he preached on the Judgment. I tell you, sir, I have\nheard eloquence at the bar and on the hustings, but I never heard such\neloquence as that old preacher gave us that day. At the last, when he\ndescribed the multitudes calling on the rocks and mountains to fall on\nthem, I instinctively looked up to the arching rocks above me. Will you\nbelieve it, sir?--as I looked up, to my horror I saw the walls of the\ncanyon swaying as if they were coming together! Just then the preacher\ncalled on all that needed mercy to kneel down. I recollect he said\nsomething like this: \"'Every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall\nconfess;' and you might as well do it now as then.\" The whole multitude\nfell on their knees--every one of them. Although I had never done so\nbefore, I confess to you, sir, I got down on my knees. I did not want to\nbe buried right then and there by those rocks that seemed to be swaying\nto destroy me. The old man prayed for us; it was a wonderful prayer! I\nwant to see him once more; where will I be likely to find him?'\n\n\"When he had closed his narrative, I said to him: 'Judge, I hope you\nhave bowed frequently since that day.' 'Alas! no, sir,' he replied; 'not\nmuch; but depend upon it, Father Fisher is a wonderful orator--he made\nme think that day that the walls of the canyon were falling.'\"\n\nHe went back to Texas, the scene of his early labors and triumphs, to\ndie. His evening sky was not cloudless--he suffered much--but his\nsunset was calm and bright; his waking in the Morning Land was glorious.\nIf it was at that short period of silence spoken of in the Apocalypse,\nwe may be sure it was broken when Fisher went in.\n\n\n\nJack White.\n\nThe only thing white about him was his name. He was a Piute Indian, and\nPiutes are neither white nor pretty. There is only one being in human\nshape uglier than a Piute \"buck\"--and that is a Piute squaw. One I saw\nat the Sink of the Humboldt haunts me yet. Her hideous face, begrimed\nwith dirt and smeared with yellow paint, bleared and leering eyes, and\nhorrid long, flapping breasts--ugh! it was a sight to make one feel\nsick. A degraded woman is the saddest spectacle on earth. Shakespeare\nknew what he was doing when he made the witches in Macbeth of the\nfeminine gender. But as you look at them you almost forget that these\nPiute hags are women--they seem a cross between brute and devil. The\nunity of the human race is a fact which I accept; but some of our\nbrothers and sisters are far gone from original loveliness. If Eve could\nsee these Piute women, she would not be in a hurry to claim them as her\ndaughters; and Adam would feel like disowning some of his sons. As it\nappears to me, however, these repulsive savages furnish an argument in\nsupport of two fundamental facts of Christianity. One fact is, God did\nindeed make of one blood all the nations of the earth; the other is the\nfact of the fall and depravity of the human race. This unspeakable\nugliness of these Indians is owing to their evil living. Dirty as they\nare, the little Indian children are not at all repulsive in expression.\nA boy of ten years, who stood half-naked, shivering in the wind, with\nhis bow and arrows, had well-shaped features and a pleasant expression\nof countenance, with just a little of the look of animal cunning that\nbelongs to all wild tribes. The ugliness grows on these Indians\nfearfully fast when it sets in. The brutalities of the lives they lead\nstamp themselves on their faces; and no other animal on earth equals in\nugliness the animal called man, when he is nothing but an animal.\n\nThere was a mystery about Jack White's early life. He was born in the\nsagebrush desert beyond the Sierras, and, like all Indian babies,\ndoubtless had a hard time at the outset. A Christian's pig or puppy is\nas well cared for as a Piute papoose. Jack was found in a deserted\nIndian camp in the mountains. He had been left to die, and was taken\ncharge of by the kind hearted John M. White, who was then digging for\ngold in the Northern mines. He and his good Christian wife had mercy on\nthe little Indian boy that looked up at them so pitifully with his\nwondering black eyes. At first he had the frightened and bewildered look\nof a captured wild creature, but he soon began to be more at ease. He\nacquired the English language slowly, and never did lose the peculiar\naccent of his tribe. The miners called him Jack White, not knowing any\nother name for him.\n\nMoving to the beautiful San Ramon Valley, not far from the Bay of San\nFrancisco, the Whites took Jack with them. They taught him the leading\ndoctrines and facts of the Bible, and made him useful in domestic\nservice. He grew and thrived. Broad-shouldered, muscular, and straight\nas an arrow, Jack was admired for his strength and agility by the white\nboys with whom he was brought into contact. Though not quarrelsome, he\nhad a steady courage that, backed by his great strength, inspired\nrespect and insured good treatment from them. Growing up amid these\ninfluences, his features were softened into a civilized expression, and\nhis tawny face was not unpleasing. The heavy under-jaw and square\nforehead gave him an appearance of hardness which was greatly relieved\nby the honest look out of his eyes, and the smile which now and then\nwould slowly creep over his face, like the movement of the shadow of a\nthin cloud on a calm day in summer. An Indian smiles deliberately, and\nin a dignified way--at least Jack did.\n\nI first knew Jack at Santa Rosa, of which beautiful town his patron, Mr.\nWhite, was then the marshal. Jack came to my Sunday-school, and was\ntaken into a class of about twenty boys taught by myself. They were the\nnoisy element of the school, ranging from ten to fifteen years of age\n--too large to show the docility of the little lads, but not old enough\nto have attained the self-command and self-respect that come later in\nlife. Though he was much older than any of them, and heavier than his\nteacher, this class suited Jack. The white boys all liked him, and he\nliked me. We had grand times with that class. The only way to keep them\nin order was to keep them very busy. The plan of having them answer in\nconcert was adopted with decided results. It kept them awake and the\nwhole school with them, for California boys have strong lungs. Twenty\nboys speaking all at once, with eager excitement and flashing eyes,\nwaked the drowsiest drone in the room. A gentle hint was given now and\nthen to take a little lower key. In these lessons, Jack's deep guttural\ntones came in with marked effect, and it was delightful to see how he\nenjoyed it all. And the singing made his swarthy features glow with\npleasure, though he rarely joined in it, having some misgiving as to the\nmelody of his voice.\n\nThe truths of the gospel took strong hold of Jack's mind, and his\ninquiries indicated a deep interest in the matter of religion. I was\ntherefore not surprised when, during a protracted-meeting in the town,\nJack became one of the converts; but there was surprise and delight\namong the brethren at the class-meeting when Jack rose in his place and\ntold what great thing the Lord had done for him, dwelling with special\nemphasis on the words, \"I am happy, because I know Jesus takes my sins\naway--I know he takes my sins away.\" His voice melted into softness,\nand a tear trickled down his cheek as he spoke; and when Dan Duncan, the\nleader, crossed over the room and grasped his hand in a burst of joy,\nthere was a glad chorus of rejoicing Methodists over Jack White, the\nPiute convert.\n\nJack never missed a service at the church, and in the social-meetings he\nnever failed to tell the story of his newborn joy and hope, and always\nwith thrilling effect, as he repeated with trembling voice, \"I am happy,\nbecause I know Jesus takes my sins away.\" Sin was a reality with Jack,\nand the pardon of sin the most wonderful of all facts. He never tired of\ntelling it; it opened a new world to him, a world of light and joy. Jack\nWhite in the class-meeting or prayer-meeting, with beaming face, and\nmoistened eyes, and softened voice, telling of the love of Jesus, seemed\nalmost of a different race from the wretched Piutes of the Sierras and\nsagebrush.\n\nJack's baptism was a great event. It was by immersion, the first baptism\nof the kind I ever performed--and almost the last. Jack had been talked\nto on the subject by some zealous brethren of another \"persuasion,\" who\nmagnified that mode, and though he was willing to do as I advised in the\nmatter, he was evidently a little inclined to the more spectacular way\nof receiving the ordinance. Mrs. White suggested that it might save\nfuture trouble, and \"spike a gun.\" So Jack, with four others, was taken\ndown to Santa Rosa Creek, that went rippling and sparkling along the\nsouthern edge of the town, and duly baptized in the name of the Father,\nand of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. A great crowd covered the bridge\njust below, and the banks of the stream; and when Wesley Mock, the Asaph\nof Santa Rosa Methodism, struck up--\n\n   O happy day that fixed my choice\n   On thee, my Saviour and my God,\n\nand the chorus--\n\n   Happy day, happy day, when\n   Jesus washed my sins away,\n\nwas swelled by hundreds of voices, it was a glad moment for Jack White\nand all of us. Religiously it was a warm time; but the water was very\ncold, it being one of the chilliest days I ever felt in that genial\nclimate.\n\n\"You were rather awkward, Brother Fitzgerald, in immersing those\npersons,\" said my stalwart friend, Elder John McCorkle, of the\n\"Christian\" or Campbellite Church, who had critically but not unkindly\nwatched the proceedings from the bridge. \"If you will send for me the\nnext time, I will do it for you,\" he added, pleasantly.\n\nI fear it was awkwardly done, for the water was very cold, and a\nshivering man cannot be very graceful in his movements. I would have\ndone better in a baptistery, with warm water and a rubber suit. But of\nall the persons I have welcomed into the Church during my ministry, the\nreception of no one has given use more joy than that of Jack White, the\nPiute Indian.\n\nJack's heart yearned for his own people. He wanted to tell them of\nJesus, who could take away their sins; and perhaps his Indian instinct\nmade him long for the freedom of the hills.\n\n\"I am going to my people,\" he said to me; \"I want to tell them of Jesus.\nYou will pray for me?\" he added, with a quiver in his voice and a\nheaving chest.\n\nHe went away, and I have never seen him since. Where he is now, I know\nnot. I trust I may meet him on Mount Sion, with the harpers harping with\ntheir harps, and singing, as it were, a new song before the throne.\n\nPostscript.--Since this Sketch was penciled, the Rev. C. Y. Rankin, in\na note dated Santa Rosa, California, August 3, 1880, says: \"Mrs. White\nasked me to send you word of the peaceful death of Jack White (Indian).\nHe died trusting in Jesus.\"\n\n\n\nThe Rabbi.\n\nSeated in his library, enveloped in a faded figured gown, a black velvet\ncap on his massive head, there was an Oriental look about him that\narrested your attention at once. Power and gentleness, childlike\nsimplicity, and scholarliness, were curiously mingled in this man. His\nlibrary was a reflex of its owner. In it were books that the great\npublic libraries of the world could not match--black-letter folios that\nwere almost as old as the printing art, illuminated volumes that were\nonce the pride and joy of men who had been in their graves many\ngenerations, rabbinical lore, theology, magic, and great volumes of\nHebrew literature that looked, when placed beside a modern book, like an\nold ducal palace alongside a gingerbread cottage of today. I do not\nthink he ever felt at home amid the hurry and rush of San Francisco. He\ncould not adjust himself to the people. He was devout, and they were\nintensely worldly. He thundered this sentence from the teacher's desk in\nthe synagogue one morning: \"O ye Jews of San Francisco, you have so\nfully given yourselves up to material things that you are losing the\nvery instinct of immortality. Your only idea of religion is to acquire\nthe Hebrew language, and you don't know that!\" His port and voice were\nlike those of one of the old Hebrew prophets. Elijah himself was not\nmore fearless. Yet, how deep was his love for his race! Jeremiah was not\nmore tender when he wept for the slain of the daughter of his people.\nHis reproofs were resented, and he had a taste of persecution; but the\nJews of San Francisco understood him at last. The poor and the little\nchildren knew him from the start. He lived mostly among his books, and\nin his school for poor children, whom he taught without charge. His\nhabits were so simple and his bodily wants so few that it cost him but a\ntrifle to live. When the synagogue frowned on him, he was as independent\nas Elijah at the brook Cherith. It is hard to starve a man to whom\ncrackers and water are a royal feast.\n\nHis belief in God and in the supernatural was startlingly vivid. The\nVoice that spoke from Sinai was still audible to him, and the Arm that\ndelivered Israel he saw still stretched out over the nations. The\nmiracles of the Old Testament were as real to him as the premiership of\nDisraeli, or the financiering of the Rothschilds. There was, at the same\ntime, a vein of rationalism that ran through his thought and speech. We\nwere speaking one day on the subject of miracles, and, with his usual\nenergy of manner, he said:\n\n\"There was no need of any literal angel to shut the mouths of the lions\nto save Daniel; the awful holiness of the prophet was enough. There was\nso much of God in him that the savage creatures submitted to him as they\ndid to unsinning Adam. Man's dominion over nature was broken by sin, but\nin the golden age to come it will be restored. A man in full communion\nwith God wields a divine power in every sphere that he touches.\"\n\nHis face glowed as he spoke, and his voice was subdued into a solemnity\nof tone that told how his reverent and adoring soul was thrilled with\nthis vision of the coming glory of redeemed humanity.\n\nHe knew the New Testament by heart, as well as the Old. The sayings of\nJesus were often on his lips.\n\nOne day, in a musing, half-soliloquizing way, I heard him say:\n\n\"It is wonderful, wonderful! a Hebrew peasant from the hills of Galilee,\nwithout learning, noble birth, or power, subverts all the philosophies\nof the world, and makes himself the central figure of all history. It is\nwonderful!\"\n\nHe half whispered the words, and his eyes had the introspective look of\na man who is thinking deeply.\n\nHe came to see me at our cottage on Post street one morning before\nbreakfast. In grading a street, a house in which I had lived and had the\nill luck to own, on Pine street, had been undermined, and toppled over\ninto the street below, falling on the slate-roof and breaking all to\npieces. He came to tell me of it, and to extend his sympathy.\n\n\"I thought I would come first, so you might get the bad news from a\nfriend rather than a stranger. You have lost a house; but it is a small\nmatter. Your little boy there might have put out his eye with a pair of\nscissors, or he might have swallowed a pin and lost his life. There are\nmany things constantly taking place that are harder to bear than the\nloss of a house.\"\n\nMany other wise words did the Rabbi speak, and before he left I felt\nthat a house was indeed a small thing to grieve over.\n\nHe spoke with charming freedom and candor of all sorts of people.\n\n\"Of Christians, the Unitarians have the best heads, and the Methodists\nthe best hearts. The Roman Catholics hold the masses, because they give\ntheir people plenty of form. The masses will never receive truth in its\nsimple essence; they must have it in a way that will make it digestible\nand assimilable, just as their, stomachs demand bread, and meats, and\nfruits, not their extracts or distilled essences, for daily food. As to\nJudaism, it is on the eve of great changes. What these changes will be I\nknow not, except that I am sure the God of our fathers will fulfill his\npromise to Israel. This generation will probably see great things.\"\n\n\"Do you mean the literal restoration of the Jews to Palestine?\"\n\nHe looked at me with an intense gaze, and hastened not to answer. At\nlast he spoke slowly:\n\n\"When the perturbed elements of religious thought crystallize into\nclearness and enduring forms, the chosen people will be one of the chief\nfactors in reaching that final solution of the problems which convulse\nthis age.\"\n\nHe was one of the speakers at the great Mortara indignation-meeting in\nSan Francisco. The speech of the occasion was that of Colonel Baker, the\norator who went to Oregon, and in a single campaign magnetized the\nOregonians so completely by his splendid eloquence that, passing by all\ntheir old party leaders, they sent him to the United States Senate. No\none who heard Baker's peroration that night will ever forget it. His\ndark eyes blazed, his form dilated, and his voice was like a bugle in\nbattle.\n\n\"They tell us that the Jew is accursed of God. This has been the plea of\nthe bloody tyrants and robbers that oppressed and plundered them during\nthe long ages of their exile and agony. But the Almighty God executes\nhis own judgments. Woe to him who presumes to wield his thunderbolts!\nThey fall in blasting, consuming vengeance upon his own head. God deals\nwith his chosen people in judgment; but he says to men, Touch them at\nyour peril! They that spoil them shall be for a spoil; they that carried\nthem away captive shall themselves go into captivity. The Assyrian smote\nthe Jew, and where is the proud Assyrian Empire? Rome ground them under\nher iron heel, and where is the empire of the Caesars? Spain smote the\nJew, and where is her glory? The desert sands cover the site of Babylon\nthe Great. The power that hurled the hosts of Titus against the holy\ncity Jerusalem was shivered to pieces. The banners of Spain, that\nfloated in triumph over half the world, and fluttered in the breezes of\nevery sea, is now the emblem of a glory that is gone, and the ensign of\na power that has waned. The Jews are in the hands of God. He has dealt\nwith them in judgment, but they are still the children of promise. The\nday of their long exile shall end, and they will return to Zion with\nsongs and everlasting joy upon their heads!\"\n\nThe words were something like these, but who could picture Baker's\noratory? As well try to paint a storm in the tropics. Real thunder and\nlightning cannot be put on canvas.\n\nThe Rabbi made a speech, and it was the speech of a man who had come\nfrom his books and prayers. He made a tender appeal for the mother and\nfather of the abducted Jewish boy, and argued the question as calmly,\nand in as sweet a spirit, as if he had been talking over an abstract\nquestion in his study. The vast crowd looked upon that strange figure\nwith a sort of pleased wonder, and the Rabbi seemed almost unconscious\nof their presence. He was as free from self-consciousness as a little\nchild, and many a Gentile heart warmed that night to the simple-hearted\nsage who stood before them pleading for the rights of human nature.\n\nThe old man was often very sad. In such moods he would come round to our\ncottage on Post street, and sit with us until late at night, unburdening\nhis aching heart, and relaxing by degrees into a playfulness that was\ncharming from its very awkwardness. He would bring little picture-books\nfor the children, pat them on their heads, and praise them. They were\nalways glad to see him, and would nestle round him lovingly. We all\nloved him, and felt glad in the thought that he left our little circle\nlighter at heart. He lived alone. Once, when I playfully spoke to him of\nmatrimony, he laughed quietly, and said:\n\n\"No, no--my books and my poor schoolchildren are enough for me.\"\n\nHe died suddenly and alone. He had been out one windy night visiting the\npoor, came home sick, and before morning was in that world of spirits\nwhich was so real to his faith, and for which he longed. He left his\nlittle fortune of a few thousand dollars to the poor of his native\nvillage of Posen, in Poland. And thus passed from California-life Dr.\nJulius Eckman, the Rabbi.\n\n\n\nMy Mining Speculation.\n\n\"I Believe the Lord has put me in the way of making a competency for my\nold age,\" said the dear old Doctor, as he seated himself in the armchair\nreserved for him at the cottage at North Beach.\n\n\"How?\" I asked.\n\n\"I met a Texas man today, who told me of the discovery of an immensely\nrich silver mining district in Deep Spring Valley, Mono county, and he\nsays he can get me in as one of the owners.\"\n\nI laughingly made some remark expressive of incredulity. The honest and\nbenignant face of the old Doctor showed that he was a little nettled.\n\n\"I have made full inquiry, and am sure this is no mere speculation. The\nstock will not be put upon the market, and will not be assessable. They\npropose to make me a trustee, and the owners, limited in number, will\nhave entire control of the property. But I will not he hasty in the\nmatter. I will make it a subject of prayer for twenty-four hours, and\nthen if there be no adverse indications I will go on with it.\"\n\nThe next day I met the broad-faced Texan, and was impressed by him as\nthe old Doctor had been.\n\nIt seemed a sure thing. An old prospector had been equipped and sent out\nby a few gentlemen, and he had found outcroppings of silver in a range\nof hills extending not less than three miles. Assays had been made of\nthe ores, and they were found to be very rich. All the timber and\nwaterpower of Deep Spring Valley had been taken up for the company under\nthe general and local preemption and mining laws. It was a big thing.\nThe beauty of the whole arrangement was that no \"mining sharps\" were to\nbe let in; we were to manage it ourselves, and reap all the profits.\n\nWe went into it, the old Doctor and I, feeling deeply grateful to the\nbroad-faced Texan, who had so kindly given us the chance. I was made a\ntrustee, and began to have a decidedly business feeling as such. At the\nmeetings of \"the board,\" my opinions were frequently called for, and\nwere given with great gravity. The money was paid for the shares I had\ntaken, and the precious evidences of ownership were carefully put in a\nplace of safety. A mill was built near the richest of the claims, and\nthe assays were good. There were delays, and more money was called for,\nand sent up. The assays were still good, and the reports from our\nsuperintendent were glowing. \"The biggest thing in the history of\nCalifornia mining,\" he wrote; and when the secretary read his letter to\nthe board, there was a happy expression on each face.\n\nAt this point I began to be troubled. It seemed, from reasonable\nciphering, that I should soon be a millionaire. It made me feel solemn\nand anxious. I lay awake at night, praying that I might not be spoiled\nby my good fortune. The scriptures that speak of the deceitfulness of\nriches were called to mind, and I rejoiced with trembling. Many\nbeneficent enterprises were planned, principally in the line of endowing\ncolleges, and paying church-debts. (I had had an experience in this\nline.) There were further delays, and more money was called for. The\nores were rebellious, and our \"process\" did not suit them. Fryborg and\nDeep Spring Valley were not the same. A new superintendent--one that\nunderstood rebellious ores--was employed at a higher salary. He\nreported that all was right, and that we might expect \"big news\" in a\nfew days, as he proposed to crush about seventy tons of the best rock,\n\"by a new and improved process.\"\n\nThe board held frequent meetings, and in view of the nearness of great\nresults did not hesitate to meet the requisitions made for further\noutlays of money. They resolved to pursue a prudent but vigorous policy\nin developing the vast property when the mill should be fairly in\noperation.\n\nAll this time I felt an undercurrent of anxiety lest I might sustain\nspiritual loss by my sudden accession to great wealth, and continued to\nfortify myself with good resolutions.\n\nAs a matter of special caution, I sent for a parcel of the ore, and had\na private assay made of it. The assay was good.\n\nThe new superintendent notified us that on a certain date we might look\nfor a report of the result of the first great crushing and cleanup of\nthe seventy tons of rock. The day came. On Kearny street I met one of\nthe stockholders--a careful Presbyterian brother, who loved money. He\nhad a solemn look, and was walking slowly, as if in deep thought.\nLifting his eyes as we met, he saw me, and spoke:\n\n\"It is lead!\"\n\n\"What is lead?\"\n\n\"Our silver mine in Deep Spring Valley.\"\n\nYes; from the seventy tons of rock we got eleven dollars in silver, and\nabout fifty pounds of as good lead as was ever molded into bullets.\n\nThe board held a meeting the next evening. It was a solemn one. The\nfifty-pound bar of lead was placed in the midst, and was eyed\nreproachfully. I resigned my trusteeship, and they saw me not again.\nThat was my first and last mining speculation. It failed somehow--but\nthe assays were all very good.\n\n\n\nMike Reese.\n\nI had business with him, and went at a business hour. No introduction\nwas needed, for he had been my landlord, and no tenant of his ever had\nreason to complain that he did not get a visit from him, in person or by\nproxy, at least once a month. He was a punctual man--as a collector of\nwhat was due him. Seeing that he was intently engaged, I paused and\nlooked at him. A man of huge frame, with enormous hands and feet,\nmassive head, receding forehead, and heavy cerebral development, full\nsensual lips, large nose, and peculiar eyes that seemed at the same time\nto look through you and to shrink from your gaze--he was a man at whom\na stranger would stop in the street to get a second gaze. There he sat\nat his desk, too much absorbed to notice my entrance. Before him lay a\nlarge pile of one-thousand-dollar United States Government bonds, and he\nwas clipping off the coupons. That face! it was a study as he sat using\nthe big pair of scissors. A hungry boy in the act of taking into his\nmouth a ripe cherry, a mother gazing down into the face of her pretty\nsleeping child, a lover looking into the eyes of his charmer, are but\nfaint figures by which to express the intense pleasure he felt in his\nwork. But there was also a feline element in his joy--his handling of\nthose bonds was somewhat like a cat toying with its prey. When at length\nhe raised his head, there was a fierce gleam in his eye and a flush in\nhis face. I had come upon a devotee engaged in worship. This was Mike\nReese, the miser and millionaire. Placing his huge left-hand on the pile\nof bonds, he gruffly returned my salutation,\n\n\"Good morning.\"\n\nHe turned as he spoke, and east a look of scrutiny into my face which\nsaid plain enough that he wanted me to make known my business with him\nat once.\n\nI told him what was wanted. At the request of the official board of the\nMinna-street Church I had come to ask him to make a contribution toward\nthe payment of its debt.\n\n\"O yes; I was expecting you. They all come to me. Father Gallagher, of\nthe Catholic Church, Dr. Wyatt, of the Episcopal Church, and all the\nothers, have been here. I feel friendly to the Churches, and I treat all\nalike--it won't do for me to be partial--I don't give to any!\"\n\nThat last clause was an anticlimax, dashing my hopes rudely; but I saw\nhe meant it, and left. I never heard of his departing from the rule of\nstrict impartiality he had laid down for himself.\n\nWe met at times at a restaurant on Clay street. He was a hearty feeder,\nand it was amusing to see how skillfully in the choice of dishes and the\nthoroughness with which he emptied them he could combine economy with\nplenty. On several of these occasions, when we chanced to sit at the\nsame table, I proposed to pay for both of us, and he quickly assented,\nhis hard, heavy features lighting up with undisguised pleasure at the\nsuggestion, as he shambled out of the room amid the smiles of the\ncompany present, most of whom knew him as a millionaire, and me as a\nMethodist preacher.\n\nHe had one affair of the heart. Cupid played a prank on him that was the\noccasion of much merriment in the San Francisco newspapers, and of much\ngrief to him. A widow was his enslaver and tormentor--the old story.\nShe sued him for breach of promise of marriage. The trial made great fun\nfor the lawyers, reporters, and the amused public generally; but it was\nno fun for him. He was mulcted for six thousand dollars and costs of the\nsuit. It was during the time I was renting one of his offices on\nWashington street. I called to see him, wishing to have some repairs\nmade. His clerk met me in the narrow hall, and there was a mischievous\ntwinkle in his eye as he said:\n\n\"You had better come another day--the old man has just paid that\njudgment in the breach of promise case, and he is in a bad way.\"\n\nHearing our voices, he said,\n\n\"Who is there?--come in.\"\n\nI went in, and found him sitting leaning on his desk, the picture of\nintense wretchedness. He was all unstrung, his jaw fallen, and a most\npitiful face met mine as he looked up and said, in a broken voice,\n\n\"Come some other day--I can do no business today; I am very unwell.\"\n\nHe was indeed sick--sick at heart. I felt sorry for him. Pain always\nexcites my pity, no matter what may be its cause. He was a miser, and\nthe payment of those thousands  of dollars was like tearing him asunder.\nHe did not mind the jibes of the newspapers, but the loss of the money\nwas almost killing. He had not set his heart on popularity, but cash.\n\nHe had another special trouble, but with a different sort of ending. It\nwas discovered by a neighbor of his that, by some mismeasurement of the\nsurveyors, he (Reese) had built the wall of one of his immense business\nhouses on Front street six inches beyond his own proper line, taking in\njust so much of that neighbor's lot. Not being on friendly terms with\nReese, his neighbor made a peremptory demand for the removal of the\nwall, or the payment of a heavy price for the ground. Here was misery\nfor the miser. He writhed in mental agony, and begged for easier terms,\nbut in vain. His neighbor would not relent. The business men of the\nvicinity rather enjoyed the situation, humorously watching the progress\nof the affair. It was a case of diamond cut diamond, both parties\nbearing the reputation of being hard men to deal with. A day was fixed\nfor Reese to give a definite answer to his neighbor's demand, with\nnotice that, in case of his noncompliance, suit against him would be\nbegun at once. The day came, and with it a remarkable change in Reese's\ntone. He sent a short note to his enemy breathing profanity and\ndefiance.\n\n\"What is the matter?\" mused the puzzled citizen; \"Reese has made some\ndiscovery that makes him think he has the upper-hand, else he would not\ntalk this way.\"\n\nAnd he sat and thought. The instinct of this class of men where money is\ninvolved is like a miracle.\n\n\"I have it!\" he suddenly exclaimed; \"Reese has the same hold on me that\nI have on him.\"\n\nReese happened to be the owner of another lot adjoining that of his\nenemy, on the other side. It occurred to him that, as all these lots\nwere surveyed at the same time by the same party, it was most likely\nthat as his line had gone six inches too far on the one side, his\nenemy's had gone as much too far on the other. And so it was. He had\nquietly a survey made of the premises, and he chuckled with inward joy\nto find that he held this winning card in the unfriendly game. With grim\npoliteness the neighbors exchanged deeds for the two half feet of\nground, and their war ended. The moral of this incident is for him who\nhath wit enough to see it.\n\nFor several seasons he came every morning to North Beach to take\nsea-baths. Sometimes he rode his well-known white horse, but oftener he\nwalked. He bathed in the open sea, making, as one expressed it,\ntwenty-five tents out of the Pacific Ocean, by avoiding the bathhouse.\nWas this the charm that drew him forth so early? It not seldom chanced\nthat we walked downtown together. At times he was quite communicative,\nspeaking of himself in a way that was peculiar. It seems he had thoughts\nof marrying before his episode with the widow.\n\n\"Do you think a young girl of twenty could love an old man like me?\" he\nasked me one day, as we were walking along the street.\n\nI looked at his huge and ungainly bulk, and into his animal face, and\nmade no direct answer. Love! Six millions of dollars is a great sum.\nMoney may buy youth and beauty, but love does not come at its call.\nGod's highest gifts are free; only the second-rate things can be bought\nwith money. Did this sordid old man yearn for pure human love amid his\nmillions? Did such a dream cast a momentary glamour over a life spent in\nraking among the muck-heaps? If so, it passed away, for he never\nmarried.\n\nHe understood his own case. He knew in what estimation he was held by\nthe public, and did not conceal his scorn for its opinion.\n\n\"My love of money is a disease. My saving and hoarding as I do is\nirrational, and I know it. It pains me to pay five cents for a streetcar\nride, or a quarter of a dollar for a dinner. My pleasure in accumulating\nproperty is morbid, but I have felt it from the time I was a foot\npeddler in Charlotte, Campbell, and Pittsylvania counties, in Virginia,\nuntil now. It is a sort of insanity, and it is incurable; but it is\nabout as good a form of madness as any, and all the world is mad in\nsome, fashion.\"\n\nThis was the substance of what he said of himself when in one of his\nmoods of free speech, and it gave me a new idea of human nature--a man\nwhose keen and penetrating brain could subject his own consciousness to\na cool and correct analysis, seeing clearly the folly which he could not\nresist. The autobiography of such a man might furnish a curious\npsychological study, and explain the formation and development in\nsociety of those moral monsters called misers. Nowhere in literature has\nsuch a character been fully portrayed, though Shakespeare and George\nEliot have given vivid touches of some of its features.\n\nHe always retained a kind feeling for the South, over whose hills he had\nborne his peddler's pack when a youth. After the war, two young\nex-Confederate soldiers came to San Francisco to seek their fortunes. A\nsmall room adjoining my office was vacant, and the brothers requested me\nto secure it for them as cheap as possible. I applied to Reese, telling\nhim who the young men were, and describing their broken and impecunious\ncondition.\n\n\"Tell them to take the room free of rent--but it ought to bring five\ndollars a month.\"\n\nIt took a mighty effort, and he sighed as he spoke the words. I never\nheard of his acting similarly in any other case, and I put this down to\nhis credit, glad to know that there was a warm spot in that mountain of\nmud and ice. A report of this generous act got afloat in the city, and\nmany were the inquiries I received as to its truth. There was general\nincredulity.\n\nHis health failed, and he crossed the seas. Perhaps he wished to visit\nhis native hills in Germany, which he had last seen when a child. There\nhe died, leaving all his millions to his kindred, save a bequest of one\nhundred and fifty thousand dollars to the University of California. What\nwere his last thoughts, what was his final verdict concerning human\nlife, I know not. Empty-handed he entered the world of spirits, where,\nthe film fallen from his vision, he saw the Eternal Realities. What\namazement must have followed his awakening!\n\n\n\nUncle Nolan.\n\nHe was black and ugly; but it was an ugliness that did not disgust or\nrepel you. His face had a touch both of the comic and the pathetic. His\nmouth was very wide, his lips very thick and the color of a ripe damson,\nblue-black; his nose made up in width what it lacked in elevation; his\nears were big, and bent forward; his eyes were a dull white, on a very\ndark ground; his wool was white and thick. His age might be anywhere\nalong from seventy onward. A black man's age, like that of a horse,\nbecomes dubious after reaching a certain stage.\n\nHe came to the class-meeting in the Pine-street Church, in San\nFrancisco, one Sabbath morning. He asked leave to speak, which was\ngranted.\n\n\"Bredren, I come here sometime ago, from Vicksburg, Mississippi, where I\nhas lived forty year, or more. I heered dar was a culud church up on de\nhill, an' I thought I'd go an' washup wid'em. I went dar three or fo'\nSundays, but I foun' deir ways didn't suit me, an' my ways didn't suit\ndem. Dey was Yankees' niggers, an' [proudly] I's a Southern man myself.\nSumbody tole me dar was a Southern Church down here on Pine street, an'\nI thought I'd cum an' look in. Soon 's I got inside de church, an' look\nroun' a minit, I feels at home. Dey look like home-folks; de preacher\npreach like home-folks; de people sing like home-folks. Yer see,\nchillan, I'se a Southern man myself [emphatically], and I'se a Southern\nMethodis'. Dis is de Church I was borned in, an' dis is de Church I was\nrarred in, an' [with great energy] dis is de Church which de Scripter\nsays de gates ob hell shall not prevail ag'in it! [\"Amen!\" from Father\nNewman and others.] When dey heerd I was comin' to dis Church, some ob\n'em got arter me 'bout it. Dey say dis Church was a enemy to de black\npeople, and dat dey was in favor ob slavery. I tole 'em de Scripter\nsaid, 'Love your enemies,' an' den I took de Bible an' read what it says\nabout slavery--I can read some, chillun Servants, obey yer masters in\nall things, not wid eye-service, as men-pleasers, but as unto de Lord;'\nand so on. But, bless yer souls, chillun, dey wouldn't lis'en to dat\n--so I foun' out dey was abberlishem niggers, an' I lef' 'em.!\"\n\nYes, he left them, and came to us. I received him into the Church in due\nform, and with no little eclat, he being the only son of Ham on our roll\nof members in San Francisco. He stood firm to his Southern Methodist\ncolors under a great pressure.\n\n\"Yer ought ter be killed fer goin' ter dat Southern Church,\" said one of\nhis colored acquaintances one day, as they met in the street.\n\n\"Kill me, den,\" said Uncle Nolan, with proud humility; \"kill me, den;\nyer can't cheat me out ob many days, nohow.\"\n\nHe made a living, and something over, by rag-picking at North Beach and\nelsewhere, until the Chinese entered into competition with him, and then\nit was hard times for Uncle Nolan. His eyesight partially failed him,\nand it was pitiful to see him on the beach, his threadbare garments\nfluttering in the wind, groping amid the rubbish for rags, or shuffling\nalong the streets with a huge sack on his back, and his old felt hat\ntied under his nose with a string, picking his way carefully to spare\nhis swollen feet, which were tied up with bagging and woolens. His\nreligious fervor never cooled; I never heard him complain. He never\nceased to be joyously thankful for two things--his freedom and his\nreligion. But, strange as it may seem, he was a pro-slavery man to the\nlast. Even after the war, he stood to his opinion.\n\n\"Dem niggers in de South thinks dey is free, but dey ain't. 'Fore it's\nall ober, all dat ain't dead will be glad to git back to deir masters,\"\nhe would say.\n\nYet he was very proud of his own freedom, and took the utmost care of\nhis free-papers. He had no desire to resume his former relation to the\npeculiar and patriarchal institution. He was not the first philosopher\nwho has had one theory for his fellows, and another for himself.\n\nUncle Nolan would talk of religion by the hour. He never tired of that\ntheme. His faith was simple and strong, but, like most of his race, he\nhad a tinge of superstition. He was a dreamer of dreams, and he believed\nin them. Here is one which he recited to me. His weird manner, and low,\nchanting tone, I must leave to the imagination of the reader:\n\nUncle Nolan's Dream.\n\nA tall black man came along, an' took me by de arm, an' tole me he had\ncome for me. I said:\n\n\"What yer want wid me?\"\n\n\"I come to carry yer down into de darkness.\"\n\n\"What for?\"\n\n\"Cause you didn't follow de Lord.\"\n\nWid dat, he pulled me 'long de street till he come to a big black house,\nde biggest house an' de thickest walls I eber seed. We went in a little\ndo', an' den he took me down a long sta'rs in de dark, till we come to a\nbig do'; we went inside, an' den de big black man locked de do' behin'\nus. An' so we kep' on, goin' down, an' goin' down, an' goin' down, an'\nhe kep' lockin' dem big iron do's behin' us, an' all de time it was\npitch dark, so I couldn't see him, but he still hel' on ter me. At las'\nwe stopped, an' den he started to go 'way. He locked de do' behin' him,\nan' I heerd him goin' up de steps de way we come, lockin' all de do's\nbehin' him as he went. I tell you, dat was dreafful when I heerd dat big\nkey turn on de outside, an' me 'way down, down, down dar in de dark all\nalone, an' no chance eber to git out! An' I knowed it was 'cause I\ndidn't foller de Lord. I felt roun' de place, an' dar was nothin' but de\nthick walls an' de great iron do'. Den I sot down an' cried, 'cause I\nknowed I was a los' man. Dat was de same as hell [his voice sinking into\na whisper], an' all de time I knowed I was dar, 'cause I hadn't follered\nde Lord. Bymeby somethin' say, \"Pray.\" Somethin' keep sayin', \"Pray.\"\nDen I drap on my knees an' prayed. I tell you, no man eber prayed harder\n'n I did! I prayed, an' prayed, an' prayed! What's dat? Dar's somebody\na-comin' down dem steps; dey 's unlockin' de do'; an' de fus' thing I\nknowed, de place was all lighted up bright as day, an' a white-faced man\nstood by me, wid a crown on his head, an' a golden key in his han'.\nSomehow, I knowed it was Jesus, an' right den I waked up all of a\ntremble, an' knowed it was a warnin' dat I mus' foller de Lord. An',\nbless Jesus, I has been follerin' him fifty year since I had dat dream.\n\nIn his prayers, and class-meeting and love-feast talks, Uncle Nolan\nshowed a depth of spiritual insight truly wonderful, and the effects of\nthese talks were frequently electrical. Many a time have I seen the\nPine-street brethren and sisters rise from their knees, at the close of\none of his prayers, melted into tears, or thrilled to religious rapture,\nby the power of his simple faith, and the vividness of his sanctified\nimagination.\n\nHe held to his pro-slavery views and guarded his own freedom-papers to\nthe last; and when he died, in 1875, the last colored Southern Methodist\nin California was transferred from the Church militant to the great\ncompany that no man can number, gathered out of every nation, and tribe,\nand kindred, on the earth.\n\n\n\nBuffalo Jones.\n\nThat is what the boys called him. His real Christian name was Zachariah.\nThe way he got the name he went by was this: He was a Methodist, and\nprayed in public. He was excitable, and his lungs were of extraordinary\npower. When fully aroused, his voice sounded, it was said, like the\nbellowing of a whole herd of buffaloes. It had peculiar reverberations\n--rumbling, roaring, shaking the very roof of the sanctuary, or echoing\namong the hills when let out at its utmost strength at a camp-meeting.\nThis is why they called him Buffalo Jones. It was his voice. There never\nwas such another. In Ohio he was a blacksmith and a fighting man. He had\nwhipped every man who would fight him, in a whole tier of counties. He\nwas converted after the old way; that is to say, he was \"powerfully\"\nconverted. A circuit-rider preached the sermon that converted him. His\nanguish was awful. The midnight hour found him in tears. The Ohio forest\nresounded with his cries for mercy. When he found peace, it swelled into\nrapture. He joined the Church militant among the Methodists, and he\nstuck to them, quarreled with them, and loved them, all his life. He had\nmany troubles, and gave much trouble to many people. The old Adam died\nhard in the fighting blacksmith. His pastor, his family, his friends,\nhis fellow-members in the Church, all got a portion of his wrath in due\nseason, if they swerved a hair-breadth from the straight-line of duty as\nhe saw it. I was his pastor, and I never had a truer friend, or a\nseverer censor. One Sunday morning he electrified my congregation, at\nthe close of the sermon, by rising in his place and making a personal\napplication of a portion of it to individuals present, and insisting on\ntheir immediate expulsion from the Church. He had another side to his\ncharacter, and at times was as tender as a woman. He acted as\nclass-leader. In his melting moods he moved every eye to tears, as he\npassed round among the brethren and sisters, weeping, exhorting, and\nrejoicing. At such times, his great voice softened into a pathos that\nnone could resist, and swept the chords of sympathy with resistless\npower. But when his other mood was upon him, he was fearful. He scourged\nthe unfaithful with a whip of fire. He would quote with a singular\nfluency and aptness every passage of Scripture that blasted hypocrites,\nreproved the lukewarm, or threatened damnation to the sinner. At such\ntimes his voice sounded like the shout of a warrior in battle, and the\ntimid and wondering hearers looked as if they were in the midst of the\nthunder and lightning of a tropical storm. I remember the shock he gave\na quiet and timid lady whom I had persuaded to remain for the\nclass-meeting after service. Fixing his stern and fiery gaze upon her,\nand knitting his great bushy eyebrows, he thundered the question:\n\n\"Sister, do you ever pray?\"\n\nThe startled woman nearly sprang from her seat in a panic as she\nstammered hurriedly,\n\n\"Yes, sir; yes, sir.\"\n\nShe did not attend his class-meeting again.\n\nAt a camp-meeting he was present, and in one of his bitterest moods. The\nmeeting was not conducted in a way to suit him. He was grim, critical,\nand contemptuous, making no concealment of his dissatisfaction. The\npreaching displeased him particularly. He groaned, frowned, and in other\nways showed his feelings. At length he could stand it no longer. A young\nbrother had just closed a sermon of a mild and persuasive kind, and no\nsooner had he taken his seat than the old man arose. Looking forth upon\nthe vast audience, and then casting a sharp and scornful glance at the\npreachers in and around \"the stand,\" he said:\n\n\"You preachers of these days have no gospel in you. You remind me of a\nman going into his barnyard early in the morning to feed his stock. He\nhas a basket on his arm, and here come the horses nickering, the cows\nlowing, the calves and sheep bleating, the hogs squealing, the turkeys\ngobbling, the hens clucking, and the roosters crowing. They all gather\nround him, expecting to be fed, and lo, his basket is empty! You take\ntexts, and you preach, but you have no gospel. Your baskets are empty.\"\n\nHere he darted a defiant glance at the astonished preachers, and then,\nturning to one, he added in a milder and patronizing tone:\n\n\"You, Brother Sim, do preach a little gospel in your basket there is one\nlittle nubbin!\"\n\nDown he sat, leaving the brethren to meditate on what he had said. The\nsilence that followed was deep.\n\nAt one time his conscience became troubled about the use of tobacco, and\nhe determined to quit. This was the second great struggle of his life.\nHe was running a sawmill in the foothills at the time, and lodged in a\nlittle cabin near by.\n\nSuddenly deprived of the stimulant to which it had so long been\naccustomed, his nervous system was wrought up to a pitch of frenzy. He\nwould rush from the cabin, climb along the hill-side, run leaping from\nrock to rock, now and then screaming like a maniac. Then he would rush\nback to the cabin, seize a plug of tobacco, smell it, rub it against his\nlips, and away he would go again. He smelt, but never tasted it again.\n\n\"I was resolved to conquer, and by the grace of God I did,\" he said.\n\nThat was a great victory for the fighting blacksmith.\n\nWhen a melodeon was introduced into the church, he was sorely grieved\nand furiously angry. He argued against it, he expostulated, he\nprotested, he threatened, he staid away from church. He wrote me a\nletter, in which he expressed his feelings thus:\n\nSan Jose, 1860.\n\nDear Brother:--They have got the devil into the church now! Put your\nfoot on its tail and it squeals.\n\nZ. Jones.\n\nThis was his figurative way of putting it. I was told that he had, on a\nformer occasion, dealt with the question in a more summary way, by\ntaking his ax and splitting a melodeon to pieces.\n\nNeutrality in politics was, of course, impossible to such a man. In the\ncivil war his heart was with the South. He gave up when Stonewall\nJackson was killed.\n\n\"It is all over--the praying man is gone,\" he said; and he sobbed like\na child. From that day he had no hope for the Confederacy, though once\nor twice, when feeling ran high, he expressed a readiness to use carnal\nweapons in defense of his political principles. For all his opinions on\nthe subject he found support from the Bible, which he read and studied\nwith unwearying diligence. He took its words literally on all occasions,\nand the Old Testament history had a wonderful charm for him. He would\nhave been ready to hew any modern Agag in pieces before the Lord.\n\nHe finally found his way to the Insane Asylum. The reader has already\nseen how abnormal was his mind, and will not be surprised that his\nstorm-tossed soul lost its rudder at last. But mid all its veerings he\nnever lost sight of the Star that had shed its light upon his checkered\npath of life. He raved, and prayed, and wept, by turns. The horrors of\nmental despair would be followed by gleams of seraphic joy. When one of\nhis stormy moods was upon him, his mighty voice could be heard above all\nthe sounds of that sad and pitiful company of broken and wrecked souls.\nThe old class-meeting instinct and habit showed itself in his semi-lucid\nintervals. He would go round among the patients questioning them as to\ntheir religious feeling and behavior in true class-meeting style. Dr.\nShurtleff one day overheard a colloquy between him and Dr. Rogers, a\nfreethinker and reformer, whose vagaries had culminated in his shaving\nclose one side of his immense whiskers, leaving the other side in all\nits flowing amplitude. Poor fellow! Pitiable as was his case, he made a\nludicrous figure walking the streets of San Francisco half shaved, and\ndefiant of the wonder and ridicule he excited. The ex-class-leader's\nvoice was earnest and loud, as he said:\n\n\"Now, Rogers, you must pray. If you will get down at the feet of Jesus,\nand confess your sins, and ask him to bless you, he will hear you, and\ngive you peace. But if you won't do it,\" he continued, with growing\nexcitement and kindling anger at the thought, \"you are the most infernal\nrascal that ever lived, and I'll beat you into a jelly!\"\n\nThe good Doctor had to interfere at this point, for the old man was in\nthe very act of carrying out his threat to punish Rogers bodily, on the\nbare possibility that he would not pray as he was told to do. And so\nthat extemporized class-meeting came to an abrupt end.\n\n\"Pray with me,\" he said to me the last time I saw him at the Asylum.\nClosing the door of the little private office, we knelt side by side,\nand the poor old sufferer, bathed in tears, and docile as a little\nchild, prayed to the once suffering, once crucified, but risen and\ninterceding Jesus. When he arose from his knees his eyes were wet, and\nhis face showed that there was a great calm within. We never met again.\nHe went home to die. The storms that had swept his soul subsided, the\nlight of reason was rekindled, and the light of faith burned brightly;\nand in a few weeks he died in great peace, and another glad voice joined\nin the anthems of the blood-washed millions in the city of God.\n\n\n\nTod Robinson.\n\nThe image of this man of many moods and brilliant genius that rises most\ndistinctly to my mind is that connected with a little prayer-meeting in\nthe Minna-street Church, San Francisco, one Thursday night. His thin\nsilver locks, his dark flashing eye, his graceful pose, and his musical\nvoice, are before me. His words I have not forgotten, but their electric\neffect must forever be lost to all except the few who heard them.\n\n\"I have been taunted with the reproach that it was only after I was a\nbroken and disappointed man in my worldly hopes and aspirations that I\nturned to religion. The taunt is just\"--here he bowed his head, and\npaused with deep emotion \"the taunt is just. I bow my head in shame, and\ntake the blow. My earthly hopes have faded and fallen one after another.\nThe prizes that dazzled my imagination have eluded my grasp. I am a\nbroken, gray-haired man, and I bring to my God only the remnant of a\nlife. But, brethren, it is this very thought that fills me with joy and\ngratitude at this moment--the thought that when all else fails God\ntakes us up. Just when we need him most, and most feel our need of him,\nhe lifts us up out of the depths where we had groveled, and presses us\nto his Fatherly heart. This is the glory of Christianity. The world\nturns from us when we fail and fall; then it is that the Lord draws\nhigher. Such a religion must be from God, for its principles are\nGod-like. It does not require much skill or power to steer a ship into\nport when her timbers are sound, her masts all rigged, and her crew at\ntheir posts; but the pilot that can take an old hulk, rocking on the\nstormy waves, with its masts torn away, its rigging gone, its planks\nloose and leaking, and bring it safe to harbor, that is the pilot for\nme. Brethren, I am that hulk; and Jesus is that Pilot!\"\n\n\"Glory be to Jesus!\" exclaimed Father Newman; as the speaker, with\nswimming eyes, radiant face, and heaving chest, sunk into his seat. I\nnever heard any thing finer from mortal lips, but it seems cold to me as\nI read it here. Oratory cannot be put on paper.\n\nHe was present once at a camp-meeting, at the famous Toll-gate\nCamp-ground, in Santa Clara Valley, near the city of San Jose. It was\nSabbath morning, just such a one as seldom dawns on this earth. The\nbrethren and sisters were gathered around \"the stand\" under the\nlive-oaks for a speaking-meeting. The morning glory was on the summits\nof the Santa Cruz Mountains that sloped down to the sacred spot, the\nlovely valley smiled under a sapphire sky, the birds hopped from twig to\ntwig of the overhanging branches that scarcely quivered in the still\nair, and seemed to peer inquiringly into the faces of the assembled\nworshipers. The bugle-voice of Bailey led in a holy song, and Simmons\nled in prayer that touched the eternal throne. One after another,\ngray-haired men and saintly women told when and how they began the new\nlife far away on the old hills they would never see again, and how they\nhad been led and comforted in their pilgrimage. Young disciples, in the\nflush of their first love, and the rapture of newborn hope, were borne\nout on a tide of resistless feeling into that ocean whose waters\nencircle the universe. The radiance from the heavenly hills was\nreflected from the consecrated encampment, and the angels of God hovered\nover the spot. Judge Robinson rose to his feet, and stepped into the\naltar, the sunlight at that moment falling upon his face. Every voice\nwas hushed, as, with the orator's indefinable magnetism, he drew every\neye upon him. The pause was thrilling. At length he spoke:\n\n\"This is a mount of transfiguration. The transfiguration is on hill and\nvalley, on tree and shrub, on grass and flower, on earth and sky. It is\non your faces that shine like the face of Moses when he came down from\nthe awful mount where be met Jehovah face to face. The same light is on\nyour faces, for here is God's shekinah. This is the gate of heaven. I\nsee its shining hosts, I hear the melody of its songs. The angels of God\nencamped with us last night, and they linger with us this morning. Tarry\nwith us, ye sinless ones, for this is heaven on earth!\"\n\nHe paused, with extended arm, gazing upward entranced. The scene that,\nfollowed beggars description. By a simultaneous impulse all rose to\ntheir feet and pressed toward the speaker with awestruck faces, and when\nGrandmother Bucker, the matriarch of the valley, with luminous face and\nuplifted eyes, broke into a shout, it swelled into a melodious hurricane\nthat shook the very hills. He ought to have been a preacher. So he said\nto me once:\n\n\"I felt the impulse and heard the call in my early manhood. I conferred\nwith flesh and blood, and was disobedient to the heavenly vision. I have\nhad some little success at the bar, on the hustings, and in legislative\nhalls, but how paltry has it been in comparison with the true life and\nhigh career that might have been mine!\"\n\nHe was from the hill-country of North Carolina, and its flavor clung to\nhim to the last. He had his gloomy moods, but his heart was fresh as a\nBlue Ridge breeze in May, and his wit bubbled forth like a\nmountain-spring. There was no bitterness in his satire. The very victim\nof his thrust enjoyed the keenness of the stroke, for there was no\npoison in the weapon. At times he seemed inspired, and you thrilled,\nmelted, and soared, under the touches of this Western Coleridge. He came\nto my room at the Golden Eagle, in Sacramento City, one night, and left\nat two o'clock in the morning. He walked the floor and talked, and it\nwas the grandest monologue I ever listened to. One part of it I could\nnot forget. It was with reference to preachers who turn aside from their\nholy calling to engage in secular pursuits, or in politics.\n\n\"It is turning away from angels' food to feed on garbage. Think of\nspending a whole life in contemplating the grandest things, and working\nfor the most glorious ends, instructing the ignorant, consoling the\nsorrowing, winning the wayward back to duty and to peace, pointing the\ndying to Him who is the light and the life of men, animating the living\nto seek from the highest motives a holy life and a sublime destiny! O it\nis a life that might draw an angel from the skies! If there is a special\nhell for fools, it should be kept for the man who turns aside from a\nlife like this, to trade, or dig the earth, or wrangle in a court of\nlaw, or scramble for an office.\"\n\nHe looked at me as he spoke, with flashing eyes and curled lip.\n\n\"That is all true and very fine, Judge, but it sounds just a little\npeculiar as coming from you.\"\n\n\"I am the very man to say it, for I am the man who bitterly sees its\ntruth. Do not make the misstep that I did. A man might well be willing\nto live on bread and water, and walk the world afoot, for the privilege\nof giving all his thoughts to the grandest themes, and all his service\nto the highest objects. As a lawyer, my life has been spent in a\nprolonged quarrel about money, land, houses; cattle, thieving,\nslandering, murdering, and other villainy. The little episodes of\npolitics that have given variety to my career have only shown me the\nbaseness of human nature, and the pettiness of human ambition. There are\nmen who will fill these places and do this work, and who want and will\nchoose nothing better. Let them have all the good they can get out of\nsuch things. But the minister of the gospel who comes down from the\nheight of his high calling to engage in this scramble, does that which\nmakes devils laugh and angels weep.\"\n\nThis was the substance of what he said on this point. I have never\nforgotten it. I am glad he came to my room that night. What else he\nsaid I cannot write, but the remembrance of it is like to that of a\nmelody that lingers in my soul when the music has ceased.\n\n\"I thank you for your sermon today--you never told a single lie.\"\n\nThis was his remark at the close of a service in Minna street one\nSunday.\n\n\"What is the meaning of that remark?\"\n\nThat the exaggerations of the pulpit repel thousands from the truth.\nModeration of statement is a rare excellence. A deep spiritual insight\nenables a religious teacher to shade his meanings where it is required.\nDeep piety is genius for the pulpit. Mediocrity in native endowments,\nconjoined with spiritual stolidity in the pulpit, does more harm than\nall the open apostles of infidelity combined. They take the divinity out\nof religion and kill the faith of those who hear them. None but inspired\nmen should stand in the pulpit. Religion is not in the intellect merely.\nThe world by wisdom cannot know God. The attempt to find out God by the\nintellect has always been, and always must be, the completest of\nfailures. Religion is the sphere of the supernatural, and stands not in\nthe wisdom of men, but in the power of God. It has often happened that\nmen of the first order of talent and the highest culture have been\nconverted by the preaching of men of weak intellect and limited\neducation, but who were directly taught of God, and had drunk deep from\nthe fount of living truth in personal experience of the blessed power of\nChristian faith. It was through the intellect that the devil seduced the\nfirst pair. When we rest in the intellect only, we miss God. With the\nheart only can man believe unto righteousness. The evidence that\nsatisfies is based on consciousness. Consciousness is the satisfying\ndemonstration.\n\n\"Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart\nof man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But\nGod hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit. They can be revealed in no\nother way.\"\n\nHere was the secret he had learned, and that had brought a new joy and\nglory into his life as it neared the sunset. The great change dated from\na dark and rainy night as he walked home in Sacramento City. Not more\ntangible to Saul of Tarsus was the vision, or more distinctly audible\nthe voice that spoke to him on the way to Damascus, than was the\nrevelation of Jesus Christ to this lawyer of penetrating intellect,\nlarge and varied reading, and sharp perception of human folly and\nweakness. It was a case of conversion in the fullest and divinest sense.\nHe never fell from the wonder-world of grace to which he had been\nlifted. His youth seemed to be renewed, and his life had rebloomed, and\nits winter was turned into spring, under the touch of Him who maketh all\nthings new. He was a new man, and he lived in a new world. He never\nfailed to attend the class-meetings, and in his talks there the flashes\nof his genius set religious truths in new lights, and the little band of\nMethodists were treated to bursts of fervid eloquence, such as might\nkindle the listening thousands of metropolitan churches into admiration,\nor melt them into tears. On such occasions I could not help regretting\nanew that the world had lost what this man might have wrought had his\npath in life taken a different direction at the start. He died suddenly,\nand when in the city of Los Angeles I read the telegram announcing his\ndeath, I felt, mingled with the pain at the loss of a friend, exultation\nthat before there was any reaction in his religious life his mighty soul\nhad found a congenial home amid the supernal glories and sublime joys of\nthe world of spirits. The moral of this man's life will be seen by him\nfor whom this imperfect Sketch has been penciled.\n\n\n\nAh Lee.\n\nHe was the sunniest of Mongolians. The Chinaman, under favorable\nconditions, is not without a sly sense of humor of his peculiar sort;\nbut to American eyes there is nothing very pleasant in his angular and\nsmileless features. The manner of his contact with many Californians is\nnot calculated to evoke mirthfulness. The brickbat may be a good\npolitical argument in the hands of a hoodlum, but it does not make its\ntarget playful. To the Chinaman in America the situation is new and\ngrave, and he looks sober and holds his peace. Even the funny-looking,\nbe-cued little Chinese children wear a look of solemn inquisitiveness,\nas they toddle along the streets of San Francisco by the side of their\nqueer-looking mothers. In his own land, overpopulated and misgoverned,\nthe Chinaman has a hard fight for existence. In these United States his\nadvent is regarded somewhat in the same spirit as that of the seventeen\nyear locusts, or the cotton-worm. The history of a people may be read in\ntheir physiognomy. The monotony of Chinese life during these thousands\nof years is reflected in the dull, monotonous faces of Chinamen.\n\nAh Lee was an exception. His skin was almost fair, his features almost\nCaucasian in their regularity; his dark eye lighted up with a peculiar\nbrightness, and there was a remarkable buoyancy and glow about him every\nway. He was about twenty years old. How long he had been in California I\nknow not. When he came into my office to see me the first time, he\nrushed forward and impulsively grasped my hand, saying:\n\n\"My name Ah Lee--you Doctor Plitzjellie?\"\n\nThat was the way my name sounded as he spoke it. I was glad to see him,\nand told him so.\n\n\"You makee Christian newspaper? You talkee Jesus? Mr. Taylor tellee me.\nMe Christian--me love Jesus.\"\n\nYes, Ah Lee was a Christian; there could be no doubt about that. I have\nseen many happy converts, but none happier than he. He was not merely\nhappy--he was ecstatic.\n\nThe story of the mighty change was a simple one, but thrilling. Near\nVacaville, the former seat of the Pacific Methodist College, in Solano\ncounty, lived the Rev. Iry Taylor, a member of the Pacific Conference of\nthe Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Mr. Taylor was a praying man, and\nhe had a praying wife. Ah Lee was employed as a domestic in the family.\nHis curiosity was first excited in regard to family prayers. He wanted\nto know what it all meant. The Taylor's explained. The old, old story\ntook hold of Ah Lee. He was put to thinking and then to praying. The\nidea of the forgiveness of sins filled him with wonder and longing. He\nhung with breathless interest upon the word of the Lord, opening to him\na world of new thought. The tide of feeling bore him on, and at the foot\nof the cross he found what he sought.\n\nAh Lee was converted--converted as Paul, as Augustine, as Wesley, were\nconverted. He was born into a new life that was as real to him as his\nconsciousness was real. This psychological change will be understood by\nsome of my readers; others may regard it as they do any other\ninexplicable phenomenon in that mysterious inner world of the human\nsoul, in which are lived the real lives of us all. In Ah Lee's heathen\nsoul was wrought the gracious wonder that makes joy among the angels of\nGod.\n\nThe young Chinese disciple, it is to be feared, got little sympathy\noutside the Taylor household and a few others. The right-hand of\nChristian fellowship was withheld by many, or extended in a cold,\nhalf-reluctant way. But it mattered not to Ah Lee; he had his own\nheaven. Coldness was wasted on him. The light within him brightened\nevery thing without.\n\nAh Lee became a frequent visitor to our cottage on the hill. He always\ncame and went rejoicing. The Gospel of John was his daily study and\ndelight. To his ardent and receptive nature it was a diamond mine. Two\nthings he wanted to do. He had a strong desire to translate his favorite\nGospel into Chinese, and to lead his parents to Christ. When he spoke of\nhis father and mother his voice would soften, his eyes moisten with\ntenderness.\n\n\"I go back to China and tellee my fader and mudder allee good news,\" he\nsaid, with beaming face.\n\nThis peculiar development of filial reverence and affection among the\nChinese is a hopeful feature of their national life. It furnishes a\nsolid basis for a strong Christian nation. The weakening of this\nsentiment weakens religious susceptibility; its destruction is spiritual\ndeath. The worship of ancestors is idolatry, but it is that form of it\nnearest akin to the worship of the Heavenly Father. The honoring of the\nfather and mother on earth is the commandment with promise, and it is\nthe promise of this life and of life everlasting.\n\nThere is an inter blending of human and divine loves; earth and heaven\nare unitary in companionship and destiny. The golden ladder rests on the\nearth and reaches up into the heavens.\n\nAbout twice a week Ah Lee came to see us at North Beach. These visits\nsubjected our courtesy and tact to a severe test. He loved little\nchildren, and at each visit he would bring with him a gayly-painted box\nfilled with Chinese sweetmeats. Such sweetmeats! They were to strong for\nthe palates of even young Californians. What cannot be relished and\ndigested by a healthy California boy must be formidable indeed. Those\nsweetmeats were--but I give it up, they were indescribable! The boxes\nwere pretty, and, after being emptied of their contents, they were kept.\n\nAh Lee's joy in his new experience did not abate. Under the touch of the\nHoly Spirit, his spiritual nature had suddenly blossomed into tropical\nluxuriance. To look at him made me think of the second chapter of the\nActs of the Apostles. If I had had any lingering doubts of the\ntransforming power of the gospel upon all human hearts, this conversion\nof Ah Lee would have settled the question forever. The bitter feeling\nagainst the Chinese that just then found expression in California,\nthrough so many channels, did not seem to affect him in the least. He\nhad his Christianity warm from the heart of the Son of God, and no\ncaricature of its features or perversion of its spirit could bewilder\nhim for a moment. He knew whom he had believed. None of these things\nmoved him. O blessed mystery of God's mercy, that turns the night of\nheathen darkness into day, and makes the desert soul bloom with the\nflowers of paradise! O cross of the Crucified! Lifted up, it shall draw\nall men to their Saviour! And O blind and slow of heart to believe! why\ncould we not discern that this young Chinaman's conversion was our\nLord's gracious challenge to our faith, and the pledge of success to the\nChurch that will go into all the world with the news of salvation?\n\nAh Lee has vanished from my observation, but I have a persuasion that is\nlike a burning prophecy that he will be heard from again. To me he types\nthe blessedness of old China newborn in the life of the Lord, and in his\nluminous face I read the prophecy of the redemption of the millions who\nhave so long bowed before the Great Red Dragon, but who now wait for the\ncoming of the Deliverer.\n\n\n\nThe Climate of California.\n\nHad Shakespeare lived in California, he would not have written of the\n\"winter of our discontent,\" but would most probably have found in the\nsummer of that then undiscovered country a more fitting symbol of the\ntroublous times referred to; for, with the fogs, winds, and dust, that\naccompany the summer, or the \"dry season,\" as it is more appropriately\ncalled in California, it is emphatically a season of discontent. In the\nmountains of the State only are these conditions not found. True, you\nwill find dust even there as the natural consequence of the lack of\nrain; but that is not, of course, so bad in the mountains; and with no\npersistent, nagging wind to pick it up and fling it spitefully at you,\nyou soon get not to mind it at all. But of summer in the coast country\nit is hard to speak tolerantly. The perfect flower of its unloveliness\nflourishes in San Francisco, and, more or less hardily, all along the\ncoast. From the time the rains cease--generally some time in May\n--through the six-months' period of their cessation, the programme for\nthe day is, with but few exceptions, unvaried. Fog in the morning\n--chilling, penetrating fog, which obscures the rays of the morning sun\ncompletely, and, dank and \"clinging like cerements,\" swathes every thing\nwith its soft, gray folds. On the bay it hangs, heavy and chill,\nblotting out everything but the nearest objects, and at a little\ndistance hardly distinguishable from the water itself. At such times is\nheard the warning-cry of the foghorns at Fort Point, Goat Island, and\nelsewhere--a sound which probably is more like that popularly supposed\nto be produced by an expiring cow in her last agony than any thing else,\nbut which is not like that or any thing in the world but a foghorn. The\nfog of the morning, however, gives way to the wind of the afternoon,\nwhich, complete master of the situation by three o'clock P.M., holds\nstormy sway till sunset. No gentle zephyr this, to softly sway the\ndelicate flower or just lift the fringe on the maiden's brow, but what\nseamen call a \"spanking breeze,\" that does not hesitate to knock off the\nhat that is not fastened tightly both fore and aft to the underlying\nhead, or to fling sand and dust into any exposed eye, and which dances\naround generally among skirts and coat-tails with untiring energy and\npersistency. To venture out on the streets of San Francisco at such\ntimes is really no trifling matter; and to one not accustomed to it, or\nto one of a non-combative disposition, the performance is not a pleasant\none. Still the streets are always full of hurrying passengers; for,\nwhether attributable to the extra amount of vitality and vim that this\nbracing climate imparts to its children, or to a more direct and obvious\ncause, the desire to get indoors again as soon as possible, the fact\nremains the same--that the people of California walk faster than do\nthose of almost any other country. Not only men either, who with their\ncoats buttoned up to their chins, and hats jammed tightly over their\nhalf-shut eyes, present a tolerably secure surface to the attacks of the\nwind, but their fairer sisters too can be seen, with their fresh cheeks\nand bright eyes protected by jaunty veils, scudding along in the face or\nthe track of the wind, as the case may he, with wonderful skill and\ngrace, looking as trim and secure as to rigging as the lightest schooner\nin full sail on their own bay.\n\nBut it is after the sun has gone down from the cloudless sky, and the\nsea has recalled its breezes to slumber for the night, that the\nfulfillment of the law of compensation is made evident in this matter.\nThe nights are of silver, if the days be not of gold. And all over the\nState this blessing of cool, comfortable nights is spread. At any\nseason, one can draw a pair of blankets over him upon retiring, sure of\nsound, refreshing slumber, unless assailed by mental or physical\ntroubles to which even this glorious climate of California cannot\nminister.\n\nThe country here during this rainless season does not seem to the\nEastern visitor enough like what he has known as country in the summer\nto warrant any outlay in getting there. He must, however, understand\nthat here people go to the country for precisely opposite reasons to\nthose which influence Eastern tourists to leave the city and betake\nthemselves to rural districts. In the East, one leaves the crowded\nstreets and heated atmosphere of the great city to seek coolness in some\nsylvan retreat. Here, we leave the chilling winds and fogs of the city\nto try to get warm where they cannot penetrate. Warm it may be; but the\ncountry at this season is not at its best as to looks. The flowers and\nthe grass have disappeared with the rains, the latter, however, keeping\nin its dry, brown roots, that the sun scorches daily, the germ of all\nnext winter's green. Of the trees, the live-oak alone keeps to the\nsummer livery of Eastern forests. Farther up in the mountain counties it\nis very different. No fairer summer could be wished for than that which\nreigns cloudless here; and with the sparkling champagne of that clear,\ndry air in his nostrils, our Eastern visitor forgets even to sigh for a\nsummer shower to lay the dreadful dust. And even in the valleys and\naround the bay, we must confess that some advantages arise from the\nno-rain-for-six-months policy. Picnickers can set forth any day, with no\nfear of the fun of the occasion being wet-blanketed by an unlooked-for\nshower; and farmers can dispose of their crops according to convenience,\noften leaving their wheat piled up in the field, with no fear of danger\nfrom the elements.\n\nStill we do get very tired of this long, strange summer, and the first\nrains are eagerly looked for and joyously welcomed. The fall of the\nfirst showers after such a long season of bareness and brownness is\nalmost as immediate in its effects as the waving of a fairy's magic wand\nover Cinderella, sitting ragged in the ashes and cinders. The change\nthus wrought is well described by a poet of the soil in a few\npicturesque lines:\n\nWeek by week the near hills whitened, In their dusty leather cloaks;\n\nWeek by week the far hills darkened, From the fringing plain of oaks;\n\nTill the rains came, and far breaking, On the fierce south-wester tost,\n\nDashed the whole long coast with color, And then vanished and were lost.\n\nWith these rains the grass springs up, the trees put out, and the winds\ndisappear, leaving in the air a wonderful softness. In a month or two\nthe flowers appear, and the hills are covered with a mantle of glory.\nBluebells, lupins, buttercups, and hosts of other blossoms, spring up in\nprofusion; and, illuminating every thing, the wild California poppy\nlifts its flaming torch, typifying well, in its dazzling and glowing\ncolor, the brilliant minds and passionate hearts of the people of this\nland. All these bloom on through the winter, for this is a winter but in\nname. With no frost, ice, or snow, it is more like an Eastern spring,\nbut for the absence of that feeling of languor and debility which is so\noften felt in that season. True it rains a good deal, but by no means\nconstantly, more often in the night; and it is this season of smiles and\ntears, this winter of flowers and budding trees, in which the glory of\nthe California climate lies. Certainly nothing could be more perfect\nthan a bright winter day in that State. Still, after all I could say in\nits praise, you would not know its full charm till you had felt its\ndelicious breath on your own brow; for the peculiar freshness and\nexhilaration of the air are indescribable.\n\nSometimes in March, the dwellers on the bay are treated to a blow or two\nfrom the north, which is about as serious weather as the inhabitant of\nthat favored clime ever experiences. After a night whose sleep has been\nbroken by shrieks of the wind and the rattling of doors and windows, I\nwake with a dullness of head and sensitiveness of nerve that alone would\nbe sufficient to tell me that the north wind had risen like a thief in\nthe night, and had not, according to the manner of that class, stolen\naway before morning. On the contrary, he seems to be rushing around with\nan energy that betokens a day of it. I dress, and look out of my window.\nThe bay is a mass of foaming, tossing waves, which, as they break on the\nbeach just below, cast their spray twenty feet in air. All the little\nvessels have come into port, and only a few of the largest ships still\nride heavily at their anchors. The hue separating the shallow water near\nthe shore from the deeper waters beyond is much farther out than usual,\nand is more distinct. Within its boundary, the predominant white is\nmixed with a dark, reddish brown; without, the spots of color are\ndarkest green. The shy has been swept of every particle of cloud and\nmoisture, and is almost painfully blue. Against it, Mounts Tamalpais and\nDiablo stand outlined with startling clearness. The hills and islands\nround the bay look as cold and uncomfortable in their robes of bright\ngreen as a young lady who has put on her spring-dress too soon. The\nstreets and walks are swept bare, but still the air is filled with\nflying sand that cuts my face like needles, when, later, overcoated and\ngloved to the utmost, I proceed downtown. Such days are Nature's\ncleaning days, very necessary to future health and comfort, but, like\nall cleaning-days, very unpleasant to go through with. With her\nmightiest besom does the old lady sweep all the cobwebs from the sky,\nall the dirt and germs of disease from the ground, and remove all specks\nand impurities from her air-windows. One or two such \"northers\" finish\nup the season, effectually scaring away all the clouds, thus clearing\nthe stage for the next act in this annual drama of two acts.\n\nThis climate of California is perfectly epitomized in a stanza of the\nsame poem before quoted:\n\nSo each year the season shifted, Wet and warm, and drear and dry,\n\nHalf a year-of cloud and flowers, Half a year of dust and sky.\n\n\n\nAfter the Storm.\n\n(Penciled in the bay-window above the Golden Gate, North Beach, San\nFrancisco, February 20, 1873.)\n\nAll day the winds the sea had lashed, The fretted waves in anger dashed\nAgainst the rocks in tumult wild Above the surges roughly piled--No blue\nabove, no peace below, The waves still rage, the winds still blow.\n\nDull and muffled the sunset gun Tells that the dreary day is done; The\nsea-birds fly with drooping wing--Chill and shadow on every thing--No\nblue above, no peace below, The waves still rage, the winds still blow.\n\nThe clouds dispart; the sapphire dye In beauty spreads o'er the western\nsky, Cloud-fires blaze o'er the Gate of Gold, Gleaming and glowing, fold\non fold--All blue above, all peace below, Nor waves now rage, nor winds\nnow blow.\n\nSouls that are lashed by storms of pain, Eyes that drip with sorrow's\nrain; Hearts that burn with passion strong, Bruised and torn, and weary\nof wrong--No light above, no peace within, Battling with self, and torn\nby sin--\n\nHope on, hold on, the clouds will lift; God's peace will come as his own\nsweet gift, The light will shine at evening-time, The reflected beams of\nthe sunlit clime, The blessed goal of the soul's long quest, Where\nstorms ne'er beat, and all are blest.\n\n\n\nBishop Kavanaugh in California.\n\nHe came first in 1856. The Californians \"took to\" him at once. It was\nalmost as good as a visit to the old home to see and hear this\nrosy-faced, benignant, and solid Kentuckian. His power and pathos in the\npulpit were equaled by his humor and magnetic charm in the social\ncircle. Many consciences were stirred. All hearts were won by him, and\nhe holds them unto this day. We may hope too that many souls were won\nthat will be stars in his crown of rejoicing in the day of Jesus Christ.\n\nAt San Jose, his quality as a preacher was developed by an incident that\nexcited no little popular interest. The (Northern) Methodist Conference\nwas in session at that place, the venerable and saintly Bishop Scott\npresiding. Bishop Kavanaugh was invited to preach, and it so happened\nthat he was to do so on the night following an appointment for Bishop\nScott. The matter was talked of in the town, and not unnaturally a\nspirit of friendly rivalry was excited with regard to the approaching\npulpit performances by the Northern and Southern Bishops respectively.\nOne enthusiastic but not pious Kentuckian offered to bet a hundred\ndollars that Kavanaugh would preach the better sermon. Of course the two\nvenerable men were unconscious of all this, and nothing of the kind was\nin their hearts. The church was thronged to hear Bishop Scott, and his\nhumility, strong sense, deep earnestness, and holy emotion, made a\nprofound and happy impression on all present. The church was again\ncrowded the next night. Among the audience was a considerable number of\nSoutherners--wild fellows, who were not often seen in such places,\namong them the enthusiastic Kentuckian already alluded to. Kavanaugh,\nafter going through with the preliminary services, announced his text,\nand began his discourse. He seemed not to be in a good preaching mood.\nHis wheels drove heavily. Skirmishing around and around, he seemed to be\nreconnoitering his subject, finding no salient point for attack. The\nlook of eager expectation in the faces of the people gave way to one of\npuzzled and painful solicitude. The heads of the expectant Southerners\ndrooped a little, and the betting Kentuckian betrayed his feelings by a\nlowering of the under-jaw and sundry nervous twitchings of the muscles\nof his face. The good Bishop kept talking, but the wheels revolved\nslowly. It was a solemn and \"trying time\" to at least a portion of the\naudience, as the Bishop, with head bent over the Bible and his broad\nchest stooped, kept trying to coax a response from that obstinate text.\nIt seemed a lost battle. At last a sudden flash of thought seemed to\nstrike the speaker, irradiating his face and lifting his form as he gave\nit utterance, with a characteristic throwing back of his shoulders and\nupward sweep of his arms. Those present will never forget what followed.\nThe afflatus of the true orator had at last fallen upon him; the mighty\nship was launched, and swept out to sea under full canvas. Old Kentucky\nwas on her feet that night in San Jose. It was indescribable. Flashes of\nspiritual illumination, explosive bursts of eloquent declamation,\nsparkles of chastened wit, appeals of overwhelming intensity, followed\nlike the thunder and lightning of a Southern storm. The church seemed\nliterally to rock. \"Amens\" burst from the electrified Methodists of all\nsorts; these were followed by \"hallelujahs\" on all sides; and when the\nsermon ended with a rapturous flight of imagination, half the\ncongregation were on their feet, shaking hands, embracing one another,\nand shouting. In the tremendous religious impression made, criticism was\nnot thought of. Even the betting Kentuckian showed by his heaving breast\nand tearful eyes how far he was borne out of the ordinary channels of\nhis thought and feeling.\n\nHe came to Sonora, where I was pastor, to preach to the miners. It was\nour second year in California, and the paternal element in his nature\nfell on us like a benediction. He preached three noble sermons to full\nhouses in the little church on the red hillside, but his best discourses\nwere spoken to the young preacher in the tiny parsonage. Catching the\nfire of the old polemics that led to the battles of the giants in the\nWest, he went over the points of difference between the Arminiau and\nCalvinistic schools of theology in a way that left a permanent deposit\nin a mind which was just then in its most receptive state. We felt very\nlonesome after he had left. It was like a touch of home to have him with\nus then, and in his presence we have had the feeling ever since. What a\nhome will heaven be where all such men will be gathered in one company!\n\nIt was a warm day when he went down to take the stage for Mariposa. The\nvehicle seemed to be already full of passengers, mostly Mexicans and\nChinamen. When the portly Bishop presented himself, and essayed to\nenter, there were frowns and expressions of dissatisfaction.\n\n\"Mucho malo!\" exclaimed a dark-skinned Senorita, with flashing black\neyes.\n\n\"Make room in there--he's got to go,\" ordered the bluff stage-driver,\nin a peremptory tone.\n\nThere were already eight passengers inside, and the top of the coach was\ncovered as thick as robins on a sumac-bush. The Bishop mounted the step\nand surveyed the situation. The seat assigned him was between two\nMexican women, and as he sunk into the apparently insufficient space\nthere was a look of consternation in their faces--and I was not\nsurprised at it. But scrouging in, the newcomer smiled, and addressed\nfirst one and then another of his fellow-passengers with so much\nfriendly pleasantness of manner that the frowns cleared away from their\nfaces, even the stolid, phlegmatic Chinamen brightening up with the\ncontagious good humor of the \"big Mellican man.\" When the driver cracked\nhis whip, and the spirited mustangs struck off in the California gallop\n--the early Californians scorned any slower gait--everybody was\nsmiling. Staging in California in those days was often an exciting\nbusiness. There were \"opposition\" lines on most of the thoroughfares,\nand the driving was furious and reckless in the extreme. Accidents were\nstrangely seldom when we consider the rate of speed, the nature of the\nroads, and the quantity of bad whisky consumed by most of the drivers.\nMany of these drivers made it a practice to drink at every\nstopping-place. Seventeen drinks were counted in one forenoon ride by\none of these thirsty Jehus. The racing between the rival stages was\nexciting enough. Lashing the wiry little horses to full speed, there was\nbut one thought, and that was, to \"get in ahead.\" A driver named White\nupset his stage between Montezuma and Knight's Ferry on the Stanislaus,\nbreaking his right-leg above the knee. Fortunately none of the\npassengers were seriously hurt, though some of them were a little\nbruised and frightened. The stage was righted, White resumed the reins,\nwhipped his horses into a run, and, with his broken limb hanging loose,\nran into town ten minutes ahead of his rival, fainting as he was lifted\nfrom the seat.\n\n\"Old man Holden told me to go in ahead or smash everything, and I made\nit!\" exclaimed White, with professional pride.\n\nThe Bishop was fortunate enough to escape with unbroken bones as he\ndashed from point to point over the California hills and valleys, though\nthat heavy body of his was mightily shaken up on many occasions.\n\nHe came to California on his second visit, in 1863, when the war was\nraging. An incident occurred that gave him a very emphatic reminder that\nthose were troublous times.\n\nHe was at a camp-meeting in the San Joaquin Valley, near Linden--a\nplace famous for gatherings of this sort. The Bishop was to preach at\neleven o'clock, and a great crowd was there, full of high expectation. A\nstranger drove up just before the hour of service--a broad shouldered\nman in blue clothes, and wearing a glazed cap. He asked to see Bishop\nKavanaugh privately for a few moments.\n\nThey retired to \"the preachers' tent,\" and the stranger said:\n\n\"My name is Jackson--Colonel Jackson, of the United States Army. I have\na disagreeable duty to perform. By order of General McDowell, I am to\nplace you under arrest, and take you to San Francisco.\"\n\n\"Can you wait until I preach my sermon?\" asked the Bishop,\ngood-naturedly; \"the people expect it, and I don't want to disappoint\nthem if it can be helped.\"\n\n\"How long will it take you?\"\n\n\"Well, I am a little uncertain when I get started, but I will try not to\nbe too long.\"\n\n\"Very well; go on with your sermon, and if you have no objection I will\nbe one of your hearers.\"\n\nThe secret was known only to the Bishop and his captor. The sermon was\none of his best--the vast crowd of people were mightily moved, and the\nColonel's eyes were not dry when it closed. After a prayer, and a song,\nand a collection, the Bishop stood up again before the people, and said:\n\n\"I have just received a message which makes it necessary for me to\nreturn to San Francisco immediately. I am sorry that I cannot remain\nlonger, and participate with you in the hallowed enjoyments of the\noccasion. The blessing of God be with you, my brethren and sisters.\"\n\nHis manner was so bland, and his tone so serene, that nobody had the\nfaintest suspicion as to what it was that called him away so suddenly.\nWhen he drove off with the stranger, the popular surmise was that it was\na wedding or a funeral that called for such haste. These are two events\nin human life that admit of no delays: people must be buried, and they\nwill be married.\n\nThe Bishop reported to General Mason, Provost-marshal General, and was\ntold to hold himself as in duress until further orders, and to be ready\nto appear at headquarters at short notice when called for. He was put on\nparole, as it were. He came down to San Jose and stirred my congregation\nwith several of his powerful discourses. In the meantime the arrest had\ngotten into the newspapers. Nothing that happens escapes the California\njournalists, and they have even been known to get hold of things that\nnever happened at all. It seems that someone in the shape of a man had\nmade an affidavit that Bishop Kavanaugh had come to the Pacific Coast as\na secret agent of the Southern Confederacy, to intrigue and recruit in\nits interest! Five minutes' inquiry would have satisfied General\nMcDowell of the silliness of such a charge--but it was in war times,\nand he did not stop to make the inquiry. In Kentucky the good old Bishop\nhad the freedom of the whole land, coming and going without hinderance;\nbut the fact was, he had not been within the Confederate lines since the\nwar began. To make such an accusation against him was the climax of\nabsurdity.\n\nAbout three weeks after the date of his arrest, I was with the Bishop\none morning on our way to Judge Moore's beautiful country-seat, near San\nJose, situated on the far-famed Alameda. The carriage was driven by a\nblack man named Henry. Passing the post-office, I found, addressed to\nthe Bishop in my care, a huge document bearing the official stamp of the\nprovost-marshal's office, San Francisco. He opened and read it as we\ndrove slowly along, and as he did so he brightened up, and turning to\nHenry, said:\n\n\"Henry, were you ever a slave?\"\n\n\"Yes, sah; in Mizzoory,\" said Henry, showing his white teeth.\n\n\"Did you ever get your free-papers?\"\n\n\"Yes, sah--got 'em now.\"\n\n\"Well, I have got mine--let's shake hands.\"\n\nAnd the Bishop and Henry had quite a handshaking over this mutual\nexperience. Henry enjoyed it greatly, as his frequent chucklings evinced\nwhile the Judge's fine bays were trotting along the Alameda.\n\n(I linger on the word Alameda as I write it. It is at least one\nbeneficent trace of the early Jesuit Fathers who founded the San Jose\nand Santa Clara missions a hundred years ago. They planted an avenue of\nwillows the entire three miles, and in that rich, moist soil the trees\nhave grown until their trunks are of enormous size, and their branches,\noverarching the highway with their dense shade, make a drive of\nunequaled beauty and pleasantness. The horse-cars have now taken away\nmuch of its romance, but in the early days it was famous for moonlight\ndrives and their concomitants and consequences. A long-limbed\nfour-year-old California colt gave me a romantic touch of a different\nsort, nearly the last time I was on the Alameda, by running away with\nthe buggy, and breaking it and me--almost--to pieces. I am reminded of\nit by the pain in my crippled right-shoulder as I write these lines in\nJuly, 1881. But still I say, Blessings on the memory of the Fathers who\nplanted the willows on the Alameda!)\n\nAn intimation was given the Bishop that if he wanted the name of the\nfalse-swearer who had caused him to be arrested he could have it.\n\n\"No, I don't want to know his name,\" said he; \"it will do me no good to\nknow it. May God pardon his sin, as I do most heartily!\"\n\nA really strong preacher preaches a great many sermons, each of which\nthe hearers claim to be the greatest sermon of his life. I have heard of\nat least a half dozen \"greatest\" sermons by Bascom and Pierce, and other\nnoted pulpit orators. But I heard one sermon by Kavanaugh that was\nprobably indeed his master-effort. It had a history. When the Bishop\nstarted to Oregon, in 1863, I placed in his hands Bascom's Lectures,\nwhich, strange to say, he had never read. Of these Lectures the elder\nDr. Bond said \"they would be the colossal pillars of Bascom's fame when\nhis printed sermons were forgotten.\" Those Lectures wonderfully\nanticipated the changing phases of the materialistic infidelity\ndeveloped since his day, and applied to them the reductio ad absurdum\nwith relentless and resistless power. On his return from Oregon,\nKavanaugh met and presided over the Annual Conference at San Jose. One\nof his old friends, who was troubled with skeptical thoughts of the\nmaterialistic sort, requested him to preach a sermon for his special\nbenefit. This request, and the previous reading of the Lectures,\ndirected his mind to the topic suggested with intense earnestness. The\nresult was, as I shall always think, the sermon of a lifetime. The text\nwas, There is a spirit in man; and the inspiration of the Almighty\ngiveth them understanding. (Job xxxii. 8.) That mighty discourse was a\ndemonstration of the truth of the affirmation of the text. I will not\nattempt to reproduce it here, though many of its passages are still\nvivid in my memory. It tore to shreds the sophistries by which it was\nsought to sink immortal man to the level of the brutes that perish; it\nappealed to the consciousness of his hearers in red-hot logic that\nburned its way to the inmost depths of the coldest and hardest hearts;\nit scintillated now and then sparkles of wit like the illuminated edges\nof an advancing thundercloud; borne, on the wings of his imagination,\nwhose mighty sweep took him beyond the bounds of earth, through whirling\nworlds and burning suns, he found the culmination of human destiny, in\nthe bosom of eternity, infinity, and God. The peroration was\nindescribable. The rapt audience reeled under it. Inspiration! the man\nof God was himself its demonstration, for the power of his word was not\nhis own.\n\n\"O I thank God that be sent me here this day to hear that sermon! I\nnever heard any thing like it, and I shall never forget it, or cease to\nbe thankful that I heard it,\" said the Rev. Dr. Charles Wadsworth, of\nPhiladelphia, the great Presbyterian preacher--a man of genius, and a\ntrue prose-poet, as any one will concede after reading his published\nsermons. As he spoke, the tears were in his eyes, the muscles of his\nface quivering, and his chest heaving with irrepressible emotion. Nobody\nwho heard that discourse will accuse me of too high coloring in this\nbrief description of it.\n\n\"Don't you wish you were a Kentuckian?\" was the enthusiastic exclamation\nof a lady who brought from Kentucky a matchless wit and the culture of\nScience Hill Academy, which has blessed and brightened so many homes\nfrom the Ohio to the Sacramento.\n\nI think the Bishop was present on another occasion when the compliment\nhe received was a left-handed one. It was at the Stone Church in Suisun\nValley. The Bishop and a number of the most prominent ministers of the\nPacific Conference were present at a Saturday-morning preaching\nappointment. They had all been engaged in protracted labors, and,\nbeginning with the Bishop, one after another declined to preach. The lot\nfell at last upon a boyish-looking brother of very small stature, who\nlabored under the double disadvantage of being a very young preacher,\nand of having been reared in the immediate vicinity. The people were\ndisappointed and indignant when they saw the little fellow go into the\npulpit. None showed their displeasure more plainly than Uncle Ben Brown,\na somewhat eccentric old brother, who was one of the founders of that\nSociety, and one of its best official members. He sat as usual on a\nfront seat, his thick eyebrows fiercely knit, and his face wearing a\nheavy frown. He had expected to hear the Bishop, and this was what it\nhad come to! He drew his shoulders sullenly down, and, with his eyes\nbent upon the floor, nursed his wrath. The little preacher began his\nsermon, and soon astonished everybody by the energy with which he spoke.\nAs he proceeded, the frown on Uncle Ben's face relaxed a little; at\nlength he lifted his eyes and glanced at the speaker in surprise. He did\nnot think it was in him. With abnormal fluency and force, the little\npreacher went on with the increasing sympathy of his audience, who were\nfeeling the effects of a generous reaction in his favor. Uncle Ben,\ntouched a little with honest obstinacy as he was, gradually relaxed in\nthe sternness of his looks, straightening up by degrees until he sat\nupright facing the speaker in a sort of half-reluctant, pleased wonder.\nJust at the close of a specially vigorous burst of declamation, the old\nman exclaimed, in a loud voice:\n\n\"Bless God! he uses the weak things of this world to confound the\nmighty!\" casting around a triumphant glance at the Bishop and other\npreachers.\n\nThis impromptu remark was more amusing to the hearers than helpful to\nthe preacher, I fear; but it was away the dear old brother had of\nspeaking out in meeting.\n\nI must end this Sketch. I have dipped my pen in my heart in writing it.\nThe subject of it has been friend, brother, father, to me since the day\nhe looked in upon us in the little cabin on the hill in Sonora, in 1855.\nWhen I greet him on the hills of heaven, he will not be sorry to be told\nthat among the many in the far West to whom he was helpful was the\nwriter of this too imperfect Sketch.\n\n\n\nSanders.\n\nHe belonged to the Church militant. In looks he was a cross between a\ngrenadier and a Trappist. But there was more soldier than monk in his\nnature. He was over six feet high, thin as a bolster, and straight as a\nlong-leaf pine. His anatomy was strongly conspicuous. He was the boniest\nof men. There were as many angles as inches in the lines of his face.\nHis hair disdained the persuasions of comb or brush, and rose in tangled\nmasses above a head that would have driven a phrenologist mad. It was a\nlong head in every sense. His features were strong and stern, his nose\none that would have delighted the great Napoleon--it was a grand organ.\nYou said at once, on looking at him, Here is a man that fears neither\nman nor devil. The face was an honest face. When you looked into those\nkeen, dark eyes, and read the lines of that stormy countenance, you felt\nthat it would be equally impossible for him to tell a lie or to fear the\nface of man.\n\nThis was John Sanders, one of the early California Methodist preachers.\nHe went among the first to preach the gospel to the gold-hunters. He got\na hearing where some failed. His sincerity and brainpower commanded\nattention, and his pluck enforced respect. In one case it seemed to be\nneeded.\n\nHe was sent to preach in Placerville, popularly called in the old days,\n\"Hangtown.\" It was then a lively and populous place. The mines were\nrich, and gold-dust was abundant as good behavior was scarce. The one\nchurch in the town was a \"union church,\" and it was occupied by Sanders\nand a preacher of another sect on alternate Sundays. All went well for\nmany months, and if there were no sinners converted in that camp, the\nfew saints were at peace. It so happened that Sanders was called away\nfor a week or two, and on his return he found that a new preacher had\nbeen sent to the place, and that he had made an appointment to preach on\nhis (Sanders's) regular day. Having no notion of yielding his rights,\nSanders also inserted a notice in the papers of the town that he would\npreach at the same time and place. The thing was talked about in the\ntown and vicinity, and there was a buzz of excitement. The miners,\nalways ready for a sensation, became interested, and when Sunday came\nthe church could not hold the crowd. The strange preacher arrived first,\nentered the pulpit, knelt a few moments in silent devotion, according to\ncustom, and then sat and surveyed the audience which was surveying him\nwith curious interest. He was a tall, fine-looking man, almost the equal\nof Sanders in height, and superior to him in height. He was a Kentuckian\noriginally, but went from Ohio to California, and was a full-grown man,\nof the best Western physical type. In a little while Sanders entered the\nchurch, made his way through the dense crowd, ascended the pulpit, cast\na sharp glance at the intruder, and sat down. There was a dead silence.\nThe two preachers gazed at the congregation; the congregation gazed at\nthe preachers. A pin might have been heard to fall. Sanders was as\nimperturbable as a statue, but his lips were pressed together tightly,\nand there was a blaze in his eyes. The strange preacher showed signs of\nnervousness, moving his hands and feet, and turning this way and that in\nhis seat. It was within five minutes of the time for opening the\nservice. The stranger rose, and was in the act of taking hold of the\nBible that lay on the cushion in front of him, when Sanders rose to his\nfull height, stepped in front of him, and darting lightning from his\neyes as he looked him full in the face, said:\n\n\"I preach here today, sir!\"\n\nThat settled it. There was no mistaking that look or tone. The tall\nstranger muttered an inarticulate protest and subsided. Sanders\nproceeded with the service, making no allusion to the difficulty until\nit was ended. Then he proposed a meeting of the citizens the next\nevening to adjudicate the case. The proposal was acceded to. The church\nwas again crowded; and though ecclesiastically Sanders was in the\nminority, with the genuine love for fair-play which is a trait of\nAnglo-Saxon character, he was sustained by an overwhelming majority. It\nis likely, too, that his plucky bearing the, day before made him some\nvotes. A preacher who would fight for his rights suited those wild\nfellows better than one who would assert a claim that he would not\nenforce. Sanders preached to larger audiences after this episode in his\n\"Hangtown\" pastorate.\n\nIt was after this that he went out one day to stake off a lot on which\nhe proposed to build a house of worship. It was near the Roman Catholic\nChurch. A zealous Irishman, who was a little more than half drunk, was\nstanding by. Evidently he did not like any such heretical movements,\nand, after Sanders had placed the stake in the earth, the Hibernian\nstepped forward and pulled it up.\n\n\"I put the stake back in its place. He pulled it up again. I put it\nback. He pulled it up again. I put it back once more. He got fiery mad\nby this time, and started at me with an ax in his hand. I had an ax in\nmy hand, and as its handle was longer than his, I cut him down.\"\n\nThe poor fellow had waked up the fighting preacher, and fell before the\nsweep of Sanders's ax. He dodged as the weapon descended, and saved his\nlife by doing so. He got an ugly wound on the shoulder, and kept his bed\nfor many weeks. When he rose from his bed he had a profound regard for\nSanders, whose grit excited his admiration. There was not a particle of\nresentment in his generous Irish heart. He became a sober man, and it\nwas afterward a current pleasantry among the \"boys\" that he was\nconverted by the use of the carnal weapon wielded by that spunky parson.\nNobody blamed Sanders for his part in the matter. It was a fair fight,\nand he had the right on his side. Had he shown the white feather, that\nwould have damaged him with a community in whose estimation courage as\nthe cardinal virtue. Sanders was popular with all classes, and\nPlacerville remembers him to this day. He was no rose-water divine, but\nthundered the terrors of the law into the ears of those wild fellows\nwith the boldness of a John the Baptist. Many a sinner quaked under his\nstern logic and fiery appeals, and some repented.\n\nI shall never forget a sermon he preached at San Jose. He was in bad\nhealth, and his mind was morbid and gloomy. His text was, Who hath\nhardened himself against him, and hath prospered? (Job ix. 4.) The\nthought that ran through the discourse was the certainty that\nretribution would overtake the guilty. God's law will be upheld. It\nprotects the righteous, but must crush the disobedient. He swept away\nthe sophisms by which men persuade themselves that they can escape the\npenalty of violated law; and it seemed as if we could almost hear the\ncrash of the tumbling wrecks of hopes built on false foundations. God\nAlmighty was visible on the throne of his power, armed with the even\nthunders of his wrath.\n\n\"Who hath defied God and escaped?\" he demanded, with flashing eyes and\ntrumpet voice. And then he recited the histories of nations and men that\nhad made the fatal experiment, and the doom that had whelmed them in\nutter ruin.\n\n\"And yet you hope to escape!\" he thundered to the silent and awestruck\nmen and women before him. \"You expect that God will abrogate his law to\nplease you; that he will tear down the pillars of his moral government\nthat you may be saved in your sins! O fools, fools, fools! there is no\nplace but hell for such a folly as this!\"\n\nHis haggard face, the stern solemnity of his voice, the sweep of his\nlong arms, the gleam of his deep-set eyes, and the vigor of his\ninexorable logic, drove that sermon home to the listeners.\n\nHe was the keenest of critics, and often merciless. He was present at a\ncamp-meeting near San Jose, but too feeble to preach. I was there, and\ndisabled from, the effects of the California poison-oak. That deceitful\nshrub! Its pink leaves smile at you as pleasantly as sin, and, like sin,\nit leaves its sting. The \"preachers' tent\" was immediately in the rear\nof \"the stand,\" and Sanders and I lay inside and listened to the\nsermons. He was in one of his caustic moods, and his comments were racy\nenough, though not helpful to devotion.\n\n\"There! he yelled, clapped his hands, stamped, and--said nothing!\"\n\nThe criticism was just: the brother in the stand was making a great\nnoise, but there was not much meaning in what he said.\n\n\"He made one point only--a pretty good apology for Lazarus's poverty.\"\n\nThis was said at the close of an elaborate discourse on \"The Rich Man\nand Lazarus,\" by a brother who sometimes got \"in the brush.\"\n\n\"He isn't touching his text--he knows no more theology than a\nguinea-pig. Words, words, words!\"\n\nThis last criticism was directed against a timid young divine, who was\nbadly frightened, but who has since shown that there was good metal in\nhim. If he had known what was going on just behind him, he would have\ncollapsed entirely in that tentative effort at preaching the gospel.\n\nSanders kept up this running fire of criticism at every service, cutting\nto the bone, at every blow, and giving me new light on homiletics, if he\ndid not promote my enjoyment of the preaching. He had read largely and\nthought deeply, and his incisive intellect had no patience with what was\nfeeble or pointless.\n\nDisease settled upon his lungs, and he rapidly declined. His strong\nframe grew thinner and thinner, and his mind alternated between moods of\nmorbid bitterness and transient buoyancy. As the end approached, his\nbitter moods were less frequent, and an unwonted tenderness came into\nhis words and tones. He went to the Lokonoma Springs, in the hills of\nNapa county, and in their solitudes he adjusted himself to the great\nchange that was drawing near. The capacious blue sky that arched above\nhim, the sighing of the gentle breeze through the solemn pines, the\nrepose of the encircling mountains, bright with sunrise, or purpling in\nthe twilight, distilled the soothing influences of nature into his\nspirit, and there was a great calm within. Beyond those California hills\nthe hills of God rose in their supernal beauty before the vision of his\nfaith, and when the summons came for him one midnight, his soul leaped\nto meet it in a ready and joyous response. On a white marble slab, at\nthe \"Stone Church,\" in Suisun Valley, is this inscription:\n\nRev. John Sanders.\n\nMany are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivereth him\nout of them all.\n\nThe spring flowers were blooming on the grave when I saw it last.\n\n\n\nA Day.\n\nAh, that blessed, blessed day! I had gone to the White Sulphur Springs,\nin Napa County, to get relief from the effects of the California\npoison-oak. Gay deceiver! With its tender green and pink leaves, it\nlooks as innocent and smiling as sin when it woos youth and ignorance.\nLike sin, it is found everywhere in that beautiful land. Many antidotes\nare used, but the only sure way of dealing with it is to keep away from\nit. Again, there is an analogy: it is easier to keep out of sin than to\nget out when caught. These soft, pure white sulphur waters work miracles\nof healing, and attract all sorts of people. The weary and broken down\nman of business comes here to sleep, and eat, and rest; the woman of\nfashion, to dress and flirt; the loudly-dressed and heavily-bejeweled\ngambler, to ply his trade; happy bridal couples, to have the world to\nthemselves; successful and unsuccessful politicians, to plan future\ntriumphs or brood over defeats; pale and trembling invalids, to seek\nhealing or a brief respite from the grave; families escaping from the\nwind and fog of the bay, to spend a few weeks where they can find\nsunshine and quiet--it is a little world in itself. The spot is every\nway beautiful, but its chief charm is its isolation. Though within a\nfew hours' ride of San Francisco, and only two miles from a\nrailroad-station, you feel as if you were in the very heart of nature\n--and so you are. Winding along the banks of a sparkling stream, the\nmountains--great masses of leafy green--rise abruptly on either hand;\nthe road bends this way and that until a sudden turn brings you to a\nlittle valley hemmed in all around by the giant hills. A bold, rocky\nprojection just above the main hotel gives a touch of ruggedness and\ngrandeur to the scene. How delicious the feeling of rest that comes over\nyou at once!--the world shut out, the hills around, and the sky above.\n\nIt was in 1863, when the civil war was at its white heat. Circumstances\nhad given me undesired notoriety in that connection. I had been thrust\ninto the very vortex of its passion, and my name made the rallying-cry\nof opposing elements in California. The guns of Manassas, Cedar\nMountain, and the Chickahominy, were echoed in the foothills of the\nSierras, and in the peaceful valleys of the far-away Pacific Coast. The\ngood sense of a practical, people prevented any flagrant outbreak on a\nlarge scale, but here and there a too ardent Southerner said or did\nsomething that gave him a few weeks' or months' duress at Fort Alcatraz,\nand the honors of a bloodless martyrdom. I was then living at North\nBeach, in full sight of that fortress. It was kindly suggested by\nseveral of my brother editors that it would be a good place for me.\nWhen, as my eye swept over the bay in the early morning, the first sight\nthat met my gaze was its rocky ramparts and bristling guns, the poet's\nline would come to mind: \"'T is distance lends enchantment to the view.\"\nI was just as close as I wanted to be. \"I have good quarters for you,\"\nsaid the brave and courteous Captain McDougall, who was in command at\nthe fort; \"and knowing your penchant, I will let you have the freedom of\na sunny corner of the island for fishing in good weather.\" The true\nsoldier is sometimes a true gentleman.\n\nThe name and image of another Federal officer rise before me as I write.\nIt is that of the heroic soldier, General Wright, who went down with the\n\"Brother Jonathan,\" on the Oregon coast, in 1865. He was in command of\nthe Department of the Pacific during this stormy period of which I am\nspeaking. I had never seen him, and I had no special desire to make his\nacquaintance. Somehow Fort Alcatraz had become associated with his name\nfor reasons already intimated. But, though unsought by me, an interview\ndid take place.\n\n\"It has come at last!\" was my exclamation as I read the note left by an\norderly in uniform notifying me that I was expected to report at the\nquarters of the commanding-general the next day at ten o'clock.\nConscious of my innocence of treason or any other crime against the\nGovernment or society, my pugnacity was roused by this summons. Before\nthe hour set for my appearance at the military headquarters, I was ready\nfor martyrdom or any thing else except Alcatraz. I didn't like that. The\nisland was too small, and too foggy and windy, for my taste. I thought\nit best to obey the order I had received, and so, punctually at the\nhour, I repaired to the headquarters on Washington Street, and ascending\nthe steps with a firm tread and defiant feeling, I entered the room.\nGeneral Mason, provost-marshal, a scholar and polished gentleman,\npolitely offered me a seat.\n\n\"No; I prefer to stand,\" I said stiffly.\n\n\"The General will see you in a few minutes,\" said he, resuming his work,\nwhile I stood nursing my indignation and sense of wrong.\n\nIn a little while General Wright entered--a tall and striking figure,\nsilver-haired, blue-eyed, ruddy faced, with a mixture of the dash of the\nsoldier and the benignity of a bishop.\n\nDeclining also his cordial invitation to be seated, I stood and looked\nat him, still nursing defiance, and getting ready to wear a martyr's\ncrown. The General spoke:\n\n\"Did you know, sir, that I am perhaps the most attentive reader of your\npaper to be found in California?\"\n\n\"No; I was not aware that I had the honor of numbering the\ncommanding-general of this department among my readers.\" (This was\nspoken with severe dignity.)\n\n\"A lot of hotheads have for sometime been urging me to have you arrested\non the ground that you are editing and publishing a disloyal newspaper.\nNot wishing to do any injustice to a fellowman, I have taken means every\nweek to obtain a copy of your paper, the Pacific Methodist; and allow me\nto say, sir, that no paper has ever come into my family which is such a\nfavorite with all of us.\"\n\nI bowed, feeling that the spirit of martyrdom was cooling within me. The\nGeneral continued:\n\n\"I have sent for you, sir, that I might say to you, Go on in your\npresent prudent and manly course, and while I command this department\nyou are as safe as I am.\"\n\nThere I stood, a whipped man, my pugnacity all gone, and the martyr's\ncrown away out of my reach. I walked softly downstairs, after bidding\nthe General an adieu in a manner in marked contrast to that in which I\nhad greeted him at the beginning of the interview. Now that it is all\nover, and the ocean winds have wailed their dirges for him so many long\nyears, I would pay a humble tribute to the memory of as brave and\nknightly a man as ever wore epaulettes or fought under the stars and\nstripes. He was of the type of Sidney Johnston, who fell at Shiloh, and\nof McPherson, who fell at Kennesaw--all Californians; all Americans,\ntrue soldiers, who had a sword for the foe in fair fight in the open\nfield, and a shield for woman, and for the noncombatant, the aged, the\ndefenseless. They fought on different sides to settle forever a quarrel\nthat was bequeathed to their generation, but their fame is the common\ninheritance of the American people. The reader is beginning to think I\nam digressing, but he will better understand what is to come after\ngetting this glimpse of those stormy days in the sixties.\n\nThe guests at the Springs were about equally divided in their sectional\nsympathies. The gentlemen were inclined to avoid all exciting\ndiscussions, but the ladies kept up a fire of small arms. When the mails\ncame in, and the latest news was read, comments were made with flashing\neyes and flushed cheeks.\n\nThe Sabbath morning dawned without a cloud. I awoke with the earliest\nsong of the birds, and was out before the first rays of the sun had\ntouched the mountaintops. The coolness was delicious, and the air was\nfilled with the sweet odors of aromatic shrubs and flowers, with a hint\nof the pine-forests and balsam-thickets from the higher altitudes.\nTaking a breakfast solus, pocket-bible in hand I bent my steps up the\ngorge, often crossing the brook that wound its way among the thickets or\nsung its song at the foot of the great overhanging cliffs. A shining\ntrout would now and then flash like a silver bar for a moment above the\nshaded pools. With light step a doe descending the mountain came upon\nme, and, gazing at me a moment or two with its soft eyes, tripped away.\nIn a narrow pass where the stream rippled over the pebbles between two\ngreat walls of rock, a spotted snake crossed my path, hurrying its\nmovement in fright. Fear not, humble ophidian. The war declared between\nthee and me in the fifteenth verse of the third chapter of Genesis is\nsuspended for this one day. Let no creature die today but by the act of\nGod. Here is the lake. How beautiful! how still! A landslide had dammed\nthe stream where it flowed between steep, lofty banks, backing the\nwaters over a little valley three or four acres in extent, shut in on\nall sides by the wooded hills, the highest of which rose from its\nnorthern margin. Here is my sanctuary, pulpit, choir, and altar. A\ngigantic pine had fallen into the lake, and its larger branches served\nto keep the trunk above the water as it lay parallel with the shore.\nSeated on its trunk, and shaded by some friendly willows that stretch\ntheir graceful branches above, the hours pass in a sort of subdued\necstasy of enjoyment. It is peace, the peace of God. No echo of the\nworld's discords reaches me. The only sound I hear is the cooing of a\nturtledove away off in a distant gorge of the mountain. It floats down\nto me on the Sabbath air with a pathos as if it voiced the pity of\nHeaven for the sorrows of a world of sin, and pain, and death. The\nshadows of the pines are reflected in the pellucid depths, and ever and\nanon the faintest hint of a breeze sighs among their branches overhead.\nThe lake lies without a ripple below, except when from time to time a\ngleaming trout throws himself out of the water, and, falling with a\nsplash, disturbs the glassy surface, the concentric circles showing\nwhere he went down. Sport on, ye shiny denizens of the deep; no angler\nshall cast his deceitful hook into your quiet haunts this day. Through\nthe foliage of the overhanging boughs the blue sky is spread, a thin,\nfleecy cloud at times floating slowly along like a watching angel, and\ncasting a momentary shadow upon the watery mirror below. That sky, so\ndeep and so solemn, woos me--lifts my thought till it touches the\nEternal. What mysteries of being lie beyond that sapphire sea? What\nwonders shall burst upon the vision when this mortal shall put on\nimmortality? I open the Book and read. Isaiah's burning song makes new\nmusic to my soul attuned. David's harp sounds a sweeter note. The words\nof Jesus stir to diviner depths. And when I read in the twenty-first\nchapter of Revelation the Apocalyptic promise of the new heavens and the\nnew earth, and of the New Jerusalem coming down from God out of heaven,\na new glory seems to rest upon sky, mountain forest, and lake, and my\nsoul is flooded with a mighty joy. I am swimming in the Infinite Ocean.\nNot beyond that vast blue canopy is heaven; it is within my own ravished\nheart! Thus the hours pass, but I keep no note of their flight, and the\nevening shadows are on the water before I come back to myself and the\nworld. O hallowed day! O hallowed spot! foretaste and prophecy to the\nweary and burden-bowed soul of the new heavens and the new earth where\nits blessed ideal shall be a more blessed reality!\n\nIt is nearly dark when I get back to the hotel. Supper is over, but I am\nnot hungry--I have feasted on the bread of angels.\n\n\"Did you know there was quite a quarrel about you this morning?\" asks\none of the guests.\n\nThe words jar. In answer to my look of inquiry, he proceeds:\n\n\"There was a dispute about your holding a religious service at the\npicnic grounds. They made it a political matter--one party threatened\nto leave if you did preach, the other threatened to leave if you did not\npreach. There was quite an excitement about it until it was found that\nyou were gone, and then everybody quieted down.\"\n\nThere is a silence. I break it by telling them how I spent the day, and\nthen they are very quiet.\n\nThe next Sabbath every soul at the place united in a request for a\nreligious service, the list headed by a high-spirited and brilliant\nPennsylvania lady who had led the opposing forces the previous Sunday.\n\n\n\nWinter-Blossomed.\n\nI think I saw him the first Sunday I preached in San Jose, in 1856. He\nwas a notable-looking man. I felt attracted toward him by that\nindefinable sympathy that draws together two souls born to be friends. I\nbelieve in friendship at first sight. Who that ever had a real friend\ndoes not? Love at first sight is a different thing--it may be divine\nand eternal, or it may be a whim or a passing fancy. Passion blurs and\nblinds in the region of sexual love: friendship is revealed in its own\nwhite light.\n\nI was introduced after the service to the stranger who had attracted my\nattention, and who had given the youthful preacher such a kind and\ncourteous hearing.\n\n\"This is Major McCoy.\"\n\nHe was a full head higher than anybody else as he stood in the aisle. He\nbowed with courtly grace as he took my hand, and his face lighted with a\nsmile that had in it something more than a conventional civility. I felt\nthat there was a soul beneath that dignified and courtly exterior. His\nhead displayed great elevation of the cranium, and unusual breadth of\nforehead. It was what is called an intellectual head; and the lines\naround the eyes showed the traces of thought, and, as it seemed to me, a\ntinge of that sadness that nearly always lends its charm to the best\nfaces.\n\n\"I have met a man that I know I shall like,\" was my gratified\nexclamation to the mistress of the parsonage, as I entered.\n\nAnd so it turned out. He became one of the select circle to whom I\napplied the word friend in the sacredest sense. This inner circle can\nnever be large. If you unduly enlarge it you dilute the quality of this\nwine of life. We are limited. There is only One Heart large enough to\nhold all humanity in its inmost depths.\n\nMy new friend lived out among the sycamores on the New Almaden Road, a\nmile from the city, and the cottage in which he lived with his cultured\nand loving household was one of the social paradises of that beautiful\nvalley in which the breezes are always cool, and the flowers never fade.\n\nMy friend interested me more and more. He had been a soldier, and in the\nMexican war won distinction by his skill and valor. He was with Joe Lane\nand his gallant Indianians at Juamantla, and his name was specially\nmentioned among those whose fiery onsets had broken the lines of the\nswarthy foe, and won against such heavy odds the bloody field. He was\nseldom absent from church on Sunday morning, and now and then his\ninquiring, thoughtful face would be seen in my smaller audience at\nnight. One unwelcome fact about him pained me, while it deepened my\ninterest in him.\n\nHe was a skeptic. Bred to the profession of medicine and surgery, he\nbecame bogged in the depths of materialistic doubt. The microscope drew\nhis thoughts downward until he could not see beyond second causes. The\nsoul, the seat of which the scalpel could not find, he feared did not\nexist. The action of the brain, like that of the heart and lungs, seemed\nto him to be functional; and when the organ perished did not its\nfunction cease forever? He doubted the fact of immortality, but did not\ndeny it. This doubt clouded his life. He wanted to believe. His heart\nrebelled against the negations of materialism, but his intellect was\nentangled in its meshes. The Great Question was ever in his thought, and\nthe shadow was ever on his path. He read much on both sides, and was\nalways ready to talk with any from whom he had reason to hope for new\nlight or a helpful suggestion. Did he also pray? We took many long rides\nand had many long talks together. Pausing under the shade of a tree on\nthe highway, the hours would slip away while we talked of life and\ndeath, and weighed the pros and cons of the mighty hope that we might\nlive again, until the sun would be sinking into the sea behind the Santa\nCruz Mountains, whose shadows were creeping over the valley. He believed\nin a First Cause. The marks of design in Nature left in his mind no room\nto doubt that there was a Designer.\n\n\"The structure and adaptations of the horse harnessed to the buggy in\nwhich we sit, exhibit the infinite skill of a Creator.\"\n\nOn this basis I reasoned with him in behalf of all that is precious to\nChristian faith and hope, trying to show (what I earnestly believe)\nthat, admitting the existence of God, it is illogical to stop short of a\nbelief in revelation and immortality.\n\nThe rudest workman would not fling The fragments of his work away, If\nevery useless bit of clay He trod on were a sentient thing.\n\nAnd does the Wisest Worker take Quick human hearts, instead of stone,\nAnd hew and carve them one by one, Nor heed the pangs with which they\nbreak?\n\nAnd more: if but creation's waste, Would he have given us sense to yearn\nFor the perfection none can earn, And hope the fuller life to taste?\n\nI think, if we most cease to be, It is cruelty refined To make the\ninstincts of our mind Stretch out toward eternity.\n\nWherefore I welcome Nature's cry, As earnest of a life again, Where\nthought shall never be in vain, And doubt before the light shall fly.\n\nMy talks with him were helpful to me if not to him. In trying to remove\nhis doubts my own faith was confirmed, and my range of thought enlarged.\nHis reverent spirit left its impress upon mine.\n\n\"McCoy is a more religious man than either you or I, Doctor,\" said Tod\nRobinson to me one day in reply to a remark in which I had given\nexpression to my solicitude for my doubting friend.\n\nYes, strange as it may seem, this man who wrestled with doubts that\nwrung his soul with intense agony, and walked in darkness under the veil\nof unbelief; had a healthful influence upon me because the attitude of\nhis soul was that of a reverent inquirer, not that of a scoffer.\n\nThe admirable little treatise of Bishop McIlvaine, on the \"Evidences of\nChristianity,\" cleared away some of his difficulties. A sermon of Bishop\nKavanaugh, preached at his request, was a help to him. (That wonderful\ndiscourse is spoken of elsewhere in this volume.)\n\nA friend of his lay dying at Redwood City. This friend, like himself;\nwas a skeptic, and his doubts darkened his way as he neared the border\nof the undiscovered country. McCoy went to see him. The sick man, in the\nfreedom of long friendship, opened his mind to him. The arguments of the\ngood Bishop were yet fresh in McCoy's mind, and the echoes of his mighty\nappeals were still sounding in his heart. Seated by the dying man, he\nforgot his own misgivings, and with intense earnestness pointed the\nstruggling soul to the Saviour of sinners.\n\n\"I did not intend it, but I was impelled by a feeling I could not\nresist. I was surprised and strangely thrilled at my own words as I\nunfolded to my friend the proofs of the truth of Christianity,\nculminating in the incarnation, death, and resurrection, of Jesus\nChrist. He seemed to have grasped the truths as presented, a great calm\ncame over him, and he died a believer. No incident of my life has given\nme a purer pleasure than this; but it was a strange thing! Nobody could\nhave had access to him as I had--I, a doubter and a stumbler all my\nlife; it looks like the hand of God!\"\n\nHis voice was low, and his eyes were wet as he finished the narration.\n\nYes, the hand of God was in it--it is in every good thing that takes\nplace on earth. By the bedside of a dying friend, the undercurrent of\nfaith in his warily and noble heart swept away for the time the\nobstructions that were in his thought, and bore him to the feet of the\nblessed, pitying Christ, who never breaks a bruised reed. I think he had\nmore light, and felt stronger ever after.\n\nDeath twice entered his home-circle--once to convey a budding flower\nfrom the earth-home to the skies, and again like a lightning-stroke\nlaying young manhood low in a moment. The instinct within him, stronger\nthan doubt, turned his thought in those dark hours toward God. The ashes\nof the earthly hopes that had perished in the fire of fierce calamity,\nand the tears of a grief unspeakable, fertilized and watered the seed of\nfaith which was surely in his heart. The hot furnace-fire did not harden\nthis finely-tempered soul. But still he walked in darkness, doubting,\ndoubting, doubting all he most wished to believe. It was the infirmity\nof his constitution, and the result of his surroundings. He went into\nlarge business enterprises with mingled success and disappointment. He\nwent into politics, and though he bore himself nobly and gallantly, it\nneed not be said that that vortex does not usually draw those who are\nwithin its whirl heavenward. He won some of the prizes that were fought\nfor in that arena where the noblest are in danger of being soiled, and\nwhere the baser metal sinks surely to the bottom by the inevitable force\nof moral gravitation.\n\nFrom time to time we were thrown together, and I was glad to know that\nthe Great Question was still in his thought, and the hunger for truth\nwas still in his heart. Ill health sometimes made him irritable and\nmorbid, but the drift of his inner nature was unchanged. His mind was\nenveloped in mists, and sometimes tempests of despair raged within him;\nbut his heart still thirsted for the water of life.\n\nA painful and almost fatal railway accident befell him. He was taken to\nhis ranch among the quiet hills of Shasta County. This was the final\ncrisis in his life. Shut out from the world, and shut in with his own\nthoughts and with God, he reviewed his life and the argument that had so\nlong been going on in his mind. He was now quiet enough to hear\ndistinctly the Still Small Voice whose tones he could only half discern\namid the clamors of the world when he was a busy actor on its stage.\nNature spoke to him among the hills, and her voice is God's. The great\nprimal instincts of the soul, repressed in the crowd or driven into the\nbackground by the mob of petty cares and wants, now had free play in the\nnature of this man whose soul had so long cried out of the depths for\nthe living God. He prayed the simple prayer of trust at which the gate\nflies open for the believing soul to enter into the peace of God. He was\nborn into the new life. The flower that had put forth its abortive buds\nfor so many seasons, burst into full bloom at last. With the mighty joy\nin his heart, and the light of the immortal hope beaming upon him, he\npassed into the World of Certainties.\n\n\n\nA Virginian in California.\n\n\"Hard at it, are you, uncle?\"\n\n\"No, sah--I's workin' by de day, an' I an't a-hurtin' myself.\"\n\nThis answer was given with a jolly laugh as the old man leaned on his\npick and looked at me.\n\n\"You looked so much like home-folks that I felt like speaking to you.\nWhere are you from?\"\n\n\"From Virginny, sah!\" (pulling himself up to his full height as he\nspoke). \"Where's you from, Massa?\"\n\n\"I was brought up partly in Virginia too?\"\n\n\"Wbar'bouts, in Virginny?\"\n\n\"Mostly in Lynchburg.\"\n\n\"Lynchburg! dat's whar I was fotched up. I belonged to de Widder Tate,\ndat lived on de New London Road. Gib me yer han', Massa!\"\n\nHe rushed up to the buggy, and taking my extended hand in his huge fist\nhe shook it heartily, grinning with delight.\n\nThis was Uncle Joe, a perfect specimen of the old Virginia \"Uncle,\" who\nhad found his way to California in the early days. Yes, he was a perfect\nspecimen--black as night, his lower limbs crooked, arms long, hands and\nfeet very large. His mouth was his most striking feature. It was the\norator's mouth in size, being larger than that of Henry Clay--in fact,\nit ran almost literally from ear to ear. When he opened it fully, it was\nlike lifting the lid of a box.\n\nUncle Joe and I became good friends at once. He honored my ministry with\nhis presence on Sundays. There was a touch of dandyism in him that then\nand there came out. Clad in a blue broadcloth dress-coat of the olden\ncut, vest to match, tight-fitting pantaloons, stove-pipe hat, and yellow\nkid gloves, he was a gorgeous object to behold. He knew it, and there\nwas a pleasant self-consciousness in the way he bore himself in the\nsanctuary.\n\nUncle Joe was the heartiest laugher I ever knew. He was always as full\nof happy life as a frisky colt or a plump pig. When he entered a knot of\nidlers on the streets, it was the signal or a humorous uproar. His\nquaint sayings, witty repartee, and contagious laughter, never failed.\nHe was as agile as a monkey, and his dancing was a marvel. For a dime he\nwould \"cut the pigeon wing,\" or give a \"double-shuffle\" or \"breakdown\"\nin a way that made the beholder dizzy.\n\nWhat was Uncle Joe's age nobody could guess--he had passed the line of\nprobable surmising. His own version of the matter on a certain occasion\nwas curious. We had a colored female servant--an old-fashioned aunty\nfrom Mississippi--who, with a bandanna handkerchief on her head, went\nabout the house singing the old Methodist choruses so naturally that it\ngave us a home-feeling to have her about us. Uncle Joe and Aunt Tishy\nbecame good friends, and he got into the habit of dropping in at the\nparsonage on Sunday evenings to escort her to church. On this particular\noccasion I was in the little study adjoining the dining-room where Aunt\nTishy was engaged in cleaning away the dishes after tea. I was not\neavesdropping, but could not help hearing what they said. My name was\nmentioned.\n\n\"O yes,\" said Uncle Joe; \"I knowed Massa Fitchjarals back dar in\nVirginny. I use ter hear 'im preach dar when I was a boy.\"\n\nThere was a silence. Aunt Tishy couldn't swallow that. Uncle Joe's\nstatement, if true, would have made me more than a hundred years old, or\nbrought him down to less than forty. The latter was his object; he\nwanted to impress Aunt Tishy with the idea that he was young-enough to\nbe an eligible gallant to any lady. But it failed. That unfortunate\nremark ruined Uncle Joe's prospects: Aunt Tishy positively refused to go\nwith him to church, and just as soon as he had left she went into the\nsitting-room in high disgust, saying:\n\n\"What made dat nigger tell me a lie like dat? Tut, tut, tut!\"\n\nShe cut him ever after, saying she would n't keep company with a liar,\n\"even if he was from de Souf.\" Aunt Tishy was a good woman, and had some\nold-time notions. As a cook, she was discounted a little by the fact\nthat she used tobacco, and when it got into the gravy it was not\nimproving to its flavor.\n\nUncle Joe was in his glory at a dinner-party, where he could wait on the\nguests, give droll answers to the remarks made to call him out, and\nenliven the feast by his inimitable and \"catching\" laugh. In a certain\ncircle no occasion of the sort was considered complete without his\npresence There was no such thing as dullness when he was about. His\npeculiar wit or his simplicity was brought out at a dinner-party one day\nat Dr. Bascom's. There was a large gathering of the leading families of\nSan Jose and vicinity, and Uncle Joe was there in his jolliest mood.\nMrs. Bascom, whose wit was then the quickest and keenest in all\nCalifornia, presided, and enough good things were said to have made a\nreputation for Sidney Smith or Douglas Jerrold. Mrs. Bascom, herself a\nVirginian by extraction, had engaged in a laughing colloquy with Uncle\nJoe, who stood near the head of the table waving a bunch of peacock's\nfeathers to keep off the flies.\n\n\"Missus, who is yer kinfolks back dar in Virginny, any way?\"\n\nThe names of several were mentioned.\n\n\"Why, dem's big folks,\" said Uncle Joe.\n\n\"Yes,\" said she, laughingly; \"I belong to the first families of\nVirginia.\"\n\n\"I don't know 'bout dat, Missus. I was dar 'fore you was, an' I don't\n'long to de fus' families!\"\n\nHe looked at it from a chronological rather than a genealogical\nstandpoint, and, strange to say, the familiar phrase had never been\nheard by him before.\n\nUncle Joe joined the Church. He was sincere in his profession. The proof\nwas found in the fact that he quit dancing. No more \"pigeon wings,\"\n\"double-shuffles,\" or \"breakdowns,\" for him--he was a \"perfessor.\" He\nwas often tempted by the offer of coin, but he stood firm.\n\n\"No, sah; I's done dancin', an' don't want to be discommunicated from de\nChurch,\" he would say, good-naturedly, as he shied off, taking himself\naway from temptation.\n\nA very high degree of spirituality could hardly be expected from Uncle\nJoe at that late day; but he was a Christian after a pattern of his own\n--kind-hearted, grateful, simple-minded, and full of good humor. His\nstrength gradually declined, and he was taken to the county hospital,\nwhere his patience and cheerfulness conciliated and elicited kind\ntreatment from everybody. His memories went back to old Virginia, and\nhis hopes looked up to the heaven of which his notions were as simple as\nthose of a little child. In the simplicity of a child's faith he had\ncome to Jesus, and I doubt not was numbered among his little ones. Among\nthe innumerable company that shall be gathered on Mount Zion from every\nkindred, tribe, and tongue, I hope to meet my humble friend, Uncle Joe.\n\n\n\nAt the End.\n\nAmong my acquaintances at San Jose, in 1863, was a young Kentuckian who\nhad come down from the mines in bad health. The exposure of mining-life\nhad been too severe for him. It took iron constitutions to stand all day\nin almost ice-cold water up to the waist with a hot sun pouring down its\nburning rays upon the head and upper part of the body. Many a poor\nfellow sunk under it at once, and after a few days of fever and delirium\nwas taken to the top of an adjacent hill and laid to rest by the hands\nof strangers. Others, crippled by rheumatic and neuralgic troubles,\ndrifted into the hospitals of San Francisco, or turned their faces sadly\ntoward the old homes which they had left with buoyant hopes and elastic\nfootsteps. Others still, like this young Kentuckian, came down into the\nvalleys with the hacking cough and hectic flush to make a vain struggle\nagainst the destroyer that had fastened upon their vitals, nursing often\na vain hope of recovery to the very last. Ah, remorseless flatterer! as\nI write these lines, the images of your victims crowd before my vision:\nthe strong men that grew weak, and pale, and thin, but fought to the\nlast inch for life; the noble youths who were blighted just as they\nbegan to bloom; the beautiful maidens etherealized into almost more than\nmortal beauty by the breath of the death-angel, as autumn leaves,\ntouched by the breath of winter, blush with the beauty of decay. My\nyoung friend indulged no false hopes. He knew he was doomed to early\ndeath, and did not shrink from the thought. One day, as we were\nconversing in a store uptown, he said:\n\n\"I know that I have at most but a few months to live, and I want to\nspend them in making preparation to die. You will oblige me by advising\nme what books to read. I want to get clear views of what I am to do, and\nthen do it.\"\n\nIt need scarcely be said that I most readily complied with his request,\nand that first and chiefly I advised him to consult the Bible, as the\nlight to his path and the lamp to his feet. Other books were suggested,\nand a word with regard to prayerful reading was given, and kindly\nreceived.\n\nOne day I went over to see my friend. Entering his room, I found him\nsitting by the fire with it table by his side, on which was lying a\nBible. There was an unusual flush in his face, and his eye burned with\nunusual brightness.\n\n\"How are you today?\" I asked.\n\n\"I am annoyed, sir--I am indignant,\" he said.\n\n\"What is the matter?\"\n\n\"Mr. ----, the--preacher, has just left me. He told me that my soul cannot\nbe saved unless I perform two miracles: I must, he said, think of\nnothing but religion, and be baptized by immersion. I am very weak, and\ncannot fully control my mental action--my thoughts will wander in spite\nof myself. As to being put under the water, that would be immediate\ndeath; it would bring on a hemorrhage of the lungs, and kill me.\"\n\nHe leaned his head on the table and panted for breath, his thin chest\nheaving. I answered:\n\n\"Mr.--is a good man, but narrow. He meant kindly in the foolish words\nhe spoke to you. No man, sick or well, can so control the action of his\nmind as to force his thoughts wholly into one channel. I cannot do it,\nneither can any other man. God requires no such absurdity of you or\nanybody else. As to being immersed, that seems to be a physical\nimpossibility, and he surely does not demand what is impossible. My\nfriend, it really makes little difference what Mr.--says,or what I say,\nconcerning this matter. What does God say? Let us see.\"\n\nI took up the Bible, and he turned a face upon me expressing the most\neager interest. The blessed Book seemed to open of itself to the very\nwords that were wanted. \"Like as a father pitieth his children, so the\nLord pitieth them that fear him.\" \"He knoweth our frame, and remembereth\nthat we are dust.\" \"Ho, everyone that thirsteth, come to the waters.\"\n\nGlancing at him as I read, I was struck with the intensity of his look\nas he drank in every word. A traveler dying of thirst in the desert\ncould not clutch a cup of cold water more eagerly than he grasped these\ntender words of the pitying Father in heaven.\n\nI read the words of Jesus: \"Come unto me all ye that labor and are\nheavy-laden, and I will give you rest.\" \"Him that cometh unto me I will\nin no wise east out.\"\n\n\"This is what God says to you, and these are the only conditions of\nacceptance. Nothing is said about any thing but the desire of your heart\nand the purpose of your soul. O my friend, these words are for you!\"\n\nThe great truth flashed upon his mind, and flooded it with light. He\nbent his head and wept. We knelt and prayed together, and when we rose\nfrom our knees he said softly, as the tears stole, down his face:\n\n\"It is all right now--I see it clearly; I see it clearly!\"\n\nWe quietly clasped hands, and sat in silent sympathy. There was no need\nfor any words from me; God had spoken, and that was enough. Our hearts\nwere singing together the song without words.\n\n\"You have found peace at the cross--let nothing disturb it,\" I said, as\nhe pressed my hand at the door as we left.\n\nIt never was disturbed. The days that had dragged so wearily and\nanxiously during the long, long months, were now full of brightness. A\nsubdued joy shone in his face, and his voice was low and tender as he\nspoke of the blessed change that had passed upon him. The Book whose\nwords had been light and life to him was often in his hand, or lay open\non the little table in his room. He never lost his hold upon the great\ntruth he had grasped, nor abated in the fullness of his joy. I was with\nhim the night he died. He knew the end was at hand, and the thought\nfilled him with solemn joy. His eyes kindled, and his wasted features\nfairly blazed with rapture as he said, holding my hand with both of his:\n\n\"I am glad it will all soon, be over. My peace has been unbroken since\nthat morning when God sent you to me. I feel a strange, solemn joy a the\nthought that I shall soon know all.\"\n\nBefore daybreak the great mystery was disclosed to him, and as he lay in\nhis coffin next day, the smile that lingered on his lips suggested the\nthought that he had caught a hint of the secret while yet in the body.\n\n\n\nAmong the casual hearers that now and then dropped in to hear a sermon\nin Sonora, in the early days of my ministry there, was a man who\ninterested me particularly. He was at that time editing one of the\npapers of the town, which sparkled with the flashes of his versatile\ngenius. He was a true Bohemian, who had seen many countries, and knew\nlife in almost all its phases. He had written a book of adventure which\nfound many readers and admirers. An avowed skeptic, he was yet\nrespectful in his allusions to sacred things, and I am sure his\neditorial notices of the pulpit efforts of a certain young preacher who\nhad much to learn were more than just. He was a brilliant talker, with a\nvein of enthusiasm that was very delightful. His spirit was generous and\nfrank, and I never heard from his lips an unkind word concerning any\nhuman being. Even his partisan editorials were free from the least tinge\nof asperity--and this is a supreme test of a sweet and courteous\nnature. In our talks he studiously evaded the one subject most\ninteresting to me. With gentle and delicate skill he parried all my\nattempts to introduce the subject of religion in our conversations.\n\n\"I can't agree with you on that subject, and we will let it pass\" he\nwould say, with a smile, and then he would start some other topic, and\nrattle on delightfully in his easy, rapid way.\n\nHe could not stay long at a place, being a confirmed wanderer. He left\nSonora, and I lost sight of him. Retaining. a very kindly feeling for\nthis gentle-spirited and pleasant adventurer, I was loth thus to lose\nall trace of him. Meeting a friend one day, on J Street, in the city of\nSacramento, he said:\n\n\"Your old friend D--is at the Golden Eagle hotel. You ought to go and\nsee him.\"\n\nI went at once. Ascending to the third story, I found his room, and,\nknocking at the door, a feeble voice bade me enter. I was shocked at the\nspectacle that met my gaze. Propped in an armchair in the middle of the\nroom, wasted to a skeleton, and of a ghastly pallor, sat the unhappy\nman. His eyes gleamed with an unnatural brightness, and his features\nwore a look of intense suffering.\n\n\"You have come too late, sir,\" he said, before I had time to say a word.\n\"You can do me no good now. I have been sitting in this chair three\nweeks. I could not live a minute in any other position, Hell could not\nbe worse than the tortures I have suffered! I thank you for coming to\nsee me, but you can do me no good--none, none!\"\n\nHe paused, panting for breath; and then he continued, in a soliloquizing\nway:\n\n\"I played the fool, making a joke of what was no joking matter. It is\ntoo late. I can neither think nor pray, if praying would do any good. I\ncan only suffer, suffer, suffer!\"\n\nThe painful interview soon ended. To every cheerful or hopeful\nsuggestion which I made he gave but the one reply:\n\n\"Too late!\"\n\nThe unspeakable anguish of his look, as his eyes followed me to the\ndoor, haunted me for many a day, and the echo of his words, \"Too late!\"\nlingered sadly upon my ear. When I saw the announcement of his death, a\nfew days afterward, I asked myself the solemn question, Whether I had\ndealt faithfully with this lighthearted, gifted man when he was within\nmy reach. His last rook is before me now, as I pencil these lines.\n\n\n\n\"John A--is dying over on the Portrero, and his family wants you to go\nover and see him.\"\n\nIt was while I was pastor in San Francisco. A--was a member of my\nChurch, and lived on what was called the Portrero, in the southern part\nof the city, beyond the Long Bridge. It was after night when I reached\nthe little cottage on the slope above the bay.\n\n\"He is dying and delirious,\" said a member of the family, as I entered\nthe room where the sick man lay. His wife, a woman of peculiar traits\nand great religious fervor, and a large number of children and\ngrandchildren, were gathered in the dying man's chamber and the\nadjoining rooms. The sick man--a man of large and powerful frame--was\nrestlessly tossing and roving his limbs, muttering incoherent words,\nwith now and then a burst of uncanny laughter. When shaken, he would\nopen his eyes for an instant, make some meaningless ejaculation, and\nthen they would close again. The wife was very anxious that he should\nhave a lucid interval while I was there.\n\n\"O I cannot bear to have him die without a word of farewell and\ncomfort!\" she said, weeping.\n\nThe hours wore on, and the dying man's pulse showed that he was sinking\nsteadily. Still he lay unconscious, moaning and gibbering, tossing from\nside to side as far as his failing strength permitted. His wife would\nstand and gaze at him a few moments, and then walk the floor in agony.\n\n\"He can't last much longer,\" said a visitor, who felt his pulse and\nfound it almost gone, while his breathing became more labored. We waited\nin silence. A thought seemed to strike the wife. Without saying a word,\nshe climbed upon the bed, took her dying husband's head upon her lap,\nand, bending close above his face, began to sing. It was a melody I had\nnever heard before--low, and sweet, and quaint. The effect was weird\nand thrilling as the notes fell tremulous from the singer's lips in the\nhush of that dead hour of the night. Presently the dying man became more\nquiet, and before the song was finished he opened his eyes as a smile\nswept over his face, and as his glance fell on me I saw that he knew me.\nHe called my name, and looked up in the face that bent above his own,\nand kissed it.\n\n\"Thank God!\" his wife exclaimed, her hot tears falling on his face, that\nwore a look of strange serenity. Then she half whispered to me, her face\nbeaming with a softened light:\n\n\"That old song was one we used to sing together when we were first\nmarried in Baltimore.\"\n\nOn the stream of music and memory he had floated back to consciousness,\ncalled by the love whose instinct is deeper and truer than all the\nscience and philosophy in the world.\n\nAt dawn he died, his mind clear, and the voice of prayer in his ears,\nand a look of rapture in his face.\n\nDan W--, whom I had known in the mines in the early days, had come to\nSan Jose about the time my pastorate in the place began. He kept a\nmeat-market, and was a most genial, accommodating, and good-natured\nfellow. Everybody liked him, and he seemed to like everybody. His animal\nspirits were unfailing, and his face never revealed the least trace of\nworry or care. He \"took things easy,\" and never quarreled with his luck.\nSuch men are always popular, and Dan was a general favorite, as the\ngenerous and honest fellow deserved to be. Hearing that he was very\nsick, I went to see him. I found him very low, but he greeted me with a\nsmile.\n\n\"How are you today, Dan?\" I asked, in the offhand way of the old times.\n\n\"It is all up with me, I guess,\" he replied, pausing to get breath\nbetween the words; \"the doctor says I can't get out of this--I must\nleave in a day or two.\"\n\nHe spoke in a matter-of-fact way, indicating that he intended to take\ndeath, as he had taken life, easy.\n\n\"How do you feel about changing worlds, my old friend?\"\n\n\"I have no say in the matter. I have got to go, and that is all there is\nof it.\"\n\nThat was all I ever got out of him. He told me he had not been to church\nfor ten years, as \"it was not in his line.\" He did not understand\nmatters of that sort, he said, as his business was running a\nmeat-market. He intended no disrespect to me or to sacred things--this\nwas his way of putting the matter in his simple-heartedness.\n\n\"Shall I kneel here and pray with you?\" I asked.\n\n\"No; you needn't take the trouble, parson,\" he said, gently; \"you see\nI've got to go, and that's all there is of it. I don't understand that\nsort of thing--it's not in my, line, you see. I've been in the meat\nbusiness.\"\n\n\"Excuse me, my old friend, if I ask if you do not, as a dying man, have\nsome thoughts about God and eternity?\"\n\n\"That's not in my line, and I couldn't do much thinking now any way.\nIt's all right, parson--I've got to go, and Old Master will do right\nabout it.\"\n\nThus he died without a prayer, and without a fear, and his case is left\nto the theologians who can understand it, and to the \"Old Master\" who\nwill do right.\n\n\n\nI was called to see a lady who was dying at North Beach, San Francisco.\nHer history was a singularly sad one, illustrating the ups and downs of\nCalifornia life in a startling manner. From opulence to poverty, and\nfrom poverty to sorrow, and from sorrow to death--these were the acts\nin the drama, and the curtain was about to fall on the last. On a\nprevious visit I had pointed the poor sufferer to the Lamb of God, and\nprayed at her bedside, leaving her calm and tearful. Her only daughter,\na sweet, fresh girl of eighteen, had two years ago betrothed herself to\na young man from Oregon, who had come to San Francisco to study a\nprofession. The dying mother had expressed a desire to see them married\nbefore her death, and I had been sent for to perform the ceremony.\n\n\"She is unconscious, poor thing!\" said a lady who was in attendance,\n\"and she will fail of her dearest wish.\"\n\nThe dying mother lay with a flushed face, breathing painfully, with\nclosed eyes, and moaning piteously. Suddenly her eyes opened, and she\nglanced inquiringly around the room. They understood her. The daughter\nand her betrothed were sent for. The mother's face brightened as they\nentered, and she turned to me and said, in a faint voice:\n\n\"Go on with the ceremony, or it will be too late for me. God bless you,\ndarling!\" she added as the daughter bent down sobbing, and kissed her.\n\nThe bridal couple kneeled together by the bed of death, and the\nassembled friends stood around in solemn silence, while the beautiful\nformula of the Church was repeated, the dying mother's eyes resting upon\nthe kneeling daughter with an expression of unutterable tenderness. When\nthe vows were taken that made them one, and their hands were clasped in\ntoken of plighted faith, she drew them both to her in a long embrace,\nand then almost instantly closed her eyes with a look of infinite\nrestfulness, and never opened them again.\n\n\n\nOf the notable men I met in the mines in the early days, there was one\nwho piqued and puzzled my curiosity. He had the face of a saint with the\nhabits of a debauchee. His pale and student-like features were of the\nmost classic mold, and their expression singularly winning, save when at\ntimes a cynical sneer would suddenly flash over them like a cloud-shadow\nover a quiet landscape. He was a lawyer, and stood at the head of the\nbar. He was an orator whose silver voice and magnetic qualities often\nkindled the largest audiences into the wildest enthusiasm. Nature had\ndenied him no gift of body or mind requisite to success in life; but\nthere was a fatal weakness in his moral constitution. He was an\ninveterate gambler, his large professional earnings going into the\ncoffers of the faro and monte dealers. His violations of good morals in\nother respects were flagrant. He worked hard by day, and gave himself up\nto his vices at night. Public opinion was not very exacting in those\ndays, and his failings were condoned by a people who respected force and\npluck, and made no close inquiries into a man's private life, because it\nwould have been no easy thing to find one who, on the score of\ninnocence, was entitled to cast the first stone. Thus he lived from year\nto year, increasing his reputation as a lawyer of marked ability, and as\na politician whose eloquence in every campaign was a tower of strength\nto his party. His fame spread until it filled the State, and his money\nstill fed his vices. He never drank, and that cool, keen intellect never\nlost its balance, or failed him in any encounter on the hustings on at\nthe bar. I often met him in public, but he never was known to go inside\na church. Once, when in a street conversation I casually made some\nreference to religion, a look of displeasure passed over his face, and\nhe abruptly left me. I was agreeably surprised when, on more than one\noccasion, he sent me a substantial token of goodwill, but I was never\nable to analyze the motive that prompted him to do so. This remembrance\nsoftens the feelings with which these lines are penciled. He went to San\nFrancisco, but there was no change in his life.\n\n\"It is the old story,\" said an acquaintance of whom I made inquiry\nconcerning him: \"he has a large and lucrative practice, and the gamblers\nget all he makes. He is getting gray, and he is failing a little. He is\na strange being.\"\n\nIt happened afterward that his office and mine were in the same building\nand on the same floor. As we met on the stairs, he would nod to me and\npass on. I noticed that he was indeed \"failing.\" He looked-weary and\nsad, and the cold or defiant gleam in his steel-gray eyes, was changed\ninto a wistful and painful expression that was very pathetic. I did not\ndare to invade his reserve with any tender of sympathy. Joyless and\nhopeless as he might be, I felt instinctively that he would play out his\ndrama alone. Perhaps this was a mistake on my part: he may have been\nhungry for the word I did not speak. God knows. I was not lacking in\nproper interest in his well-being, but I have since thought in such\ncases it is safest to speak.\n\n\"What has become of B--?\" said my landlord one day as we met in the\nhall. \"I have been here to see him several times, and found his door\nlocked, and his letters and newspapers have not been touched. There is\nsomething the matter, I fear.\"\n\nInstantly I felt somehow that there was a tragedy in the air, and I had\na strange feeling of awe as I passed the door of B--'s room.,\n\nA policeman was brought, the lock forced, and we went in. A sickening\nodor of chloroform filled the room. The sight that met our gaze made us\nshudder. Across the bed was lying the form of a man partly dressed, his\nhead thrown back, his eyes staring upward, his limbs hanging loosely\nover the bedside.\n\n\"Is he dead?\" was asked in a whisper.\n\n\"No,\" said the officer, with his finger on B--'s wrist; \"he is not dead\nyet, but he will never wake out of this. He has been lying thus two or\nthree days.\"\n\nA physician was sent for, and all possible efforts made to rouse him,\nbut in vain. About sunset the pulse ceased to beat, and it was only a\nlump of lifeless clay that lay there so still and stark. This was his\ndeath--the mystery of his life went back beyond my knowledge of him,\nand will only be known at the judgment-day.\n\n\n\nOne of the gayest and brightest of all the young people gathered at a\nMay-day picnic, just across the bay from San Francisco, was Ada D--.\nThe only daughter of a wealthy citizen, living in one of the lovely\nvalleys beyond the coast-range of mountains, beautiful in person and\nsunny in temper, she was a favorite in all the circle of her\nassociations. Though a petted child of fortune, she was not spoiled,\nEnvy itself was changed into affection in the presence of a spirit so\ngentle, unassuming, and loving. She had recently been graduated from one\nof the best schools, and her graces of character matched the brilliance\nof her pecuniary fortune.\n\nA few days after the May-day festival, as I was sitting in my office, a\nlittle before sunset, there was a knock at the door, and before I could\nanswer the messenger entered hastily, saying:\n\n\"I want you to go with me at once to Amador Valley. Ada D--is dying,\nand wishes to be baptized. We just have time for the six o'clock boat to\ntake us across the bay, where the carriage and horses are waiting for\nus. The distance is thirty miles, and we must run a race against death.\"\n\nWe started at once: no minister of Jesus Christ hesitates to obey a\nsummons like that. We reached the boat while the last taps of the last\nbell were being given, and were soon at the landing on the opposite side\nof the bay. Springing ashore, we entered the vehicle which was in\nreadiness. Grasping the reins, my companion touched up the spirited\nteam, and we struck across the valley. My driver was an old Californian,\nskilled in all horse craft and road-craft. He spoke no word, putting his\nsoul and body into his work, determined, as he had said, to make the\nthirty miles by nine o'clock. There was no abatement of speed after we\nstruck the hills: what was lost in going up was regained in going down.\nThe mettle of those California-bred horses was wonderful; the quick\nbeating of their hoofs upon the graveled road was as regular as the\nmotion of machinery, steam-driven. It was an exciting ride, and there\nwas a weirdness in the sound of the night-breeze floating by us, and\nghostly, shapes seemed looking at us from above and below, as we wound\nour way through the hills, while the bright stars shone like\nfuneral-tapers over a world of death. Death! how vivid and awful was its\nreality to me as I looked up at those shining worlds on high, and then\nupon the earth wrapped in darkness below! Death! his sable coursers are\nswift, and we may be too late! The driver shared my thoughts, and lashed\nthe panting horses to yet greater speed. My pulses beat rapidly as I\ncounted the moments.\n\n\"Here we are!\" he exclaimed, as we dashed down the hill and brought up\nat the gate. \"It is eight minutes to nine,\" he added, glancing at his\nwatch by the light of a lamp shining through the window.\n\n\"She is alive, but speechless, and going fast,\" said the father, in a\nbroken voice, as I entered the house.\n\nHe led me to the chamber of the dying girl; The seal of death was upon\nher. I bent above her, and a look of recognition came into her eyes. Not\na moment was to be lost.\n\n\"If you know me, my child, and can enter the meaning of what I say,\nindicate the fact if you can.\"\n\nThere was a faint smile and a slight but significant inclination of the\nfair head as it lay enveloped with its wealth of chestnut curls. With\nher hands folded on her breast, and her eyes turned upward, the dying\ngirl lay in listening attitude, while in a few words I explained the\nmeaning of the sacred rite and pointed her to the Lamb of God as the one\nsacrifice for sin. The family stood round the bed in awed and tearful\nsilence. As the crystal sacramental drops fell upon her brow a smile\nflashed quickly over the pale face, there was a slight movement of the\nhead--and she was gone! The upward look continued, and the smile never\nleft the fair, sweet face. We fell upon our knees, and the prayer that\nfollowed was not for her, but for the bleeding hearts around the couch\nwhere she lay smiling in death.\n\n\n\nDave Douglass was one of that circle of Tennesseans who took prominent\nparts in the early history of California. He belonged to the Sumner\nCounty Douglasses, of Tennessee, and had the family warmth of heart,\nimpulsiveness, and courage, that nothing could daunt. In all the\npolitical contests of the early days he took an active part, and was\nregarded as an unflinching and unselfish partisan by his own party, and\nas an openhearted and generous antagonist by the other. He was elected\nSecretary of State, and served the people with fidelity and efficiency.\nHe was a man of a powerful physical frame, deep-chested, ruddy-, faced,\nblue-eyed, with just enough shagginess of eyebrows and heaviness of the\nunder-jaw to indicate the indomitable pluck which was so strong an\nelement in his character. He was a true Douglass, as brave and true as\nany of the name that ever wore the kilt or swung a claymore in the land\nof Bruce. His was a famous Methodist family in Tennessee, and though he\nknew more of politics than piety, he was a good friend to the Church,\nand had regular preaching in the schoolhouse near his farm on the\nCalaveras River. All the itinerants that traveled that circuit knew\n\"Douglass's Schoolhouse\" as an appointment, and shared liberally in the\nhospitality and purse of the General--(that was his title).\n\n\"Never give up the fight!\" he said to me, with flashing eye, the last\ntime I met him in Stockton, pressing my hand with a warm clasp. It was\nwhile I was engaged in the effort to build a church in that place, and I\nhad been telling him of the difficulties I had met in the work. That\nword and handclasp helped me.\n\nHe was taken sick soon after. The disease had taken too strong a grasp\nupon him to be broken. He fought bravely a losing battle for several\ndays. Sunday morning came, a bright, balmy day. It was in the early\nsummer. The cloudless sky was deep-blue, the sunbeams sparkled on the\nbosom of the Calaveras, the birds were singing in the trees, and the\nperfume of the flowers filled the air and floated in through the open\nwindow to where the strong man lay dying. He had been affected with the\ndelirium of fever during most of his sickness, but that was past, and he\nwas facing death with an unclouded mind.\n\n\"I think I am dying,\" he said, half inquiringly.\n\n\"Yes--is there any thing we can do for you?\"\n\nHis eyes closed for a few moments, and his lips moved as if in mental\nprayer. Opening his eyes, he said:\n\n\"Sing one of the old camp-meeting songs.\"\n\nA preacher present struck up the hymn, \"Show pity, Lord, O Lord\nForgive.\"\n\nThe dying man, composed to rest, lay with folded hands and listened with\nshortening breath and a rapt face, and thus he died, the words and the\nmelody that had touched his boyish heart among the far-off hills of\nTennessee being the last sounds that fell upon his dying ear. We may\nhope that on that old camp-meeting song was wafted the prayer and trust\nof a penitent soul receiving the kingdom of heaven as a little child.\n\n\n\nDuring my pastorate at Santa Rosa, one of my occasional hearers was John\nI--. He was deputy-sheriff of Sonoma County, and was noted for his\nquiet and determined courage. He was a man of few words, but the most\nreckless desperado knew that he could not be trifled with. When there\nwas an arrest to be made that involved special peril, this reticent,\nlow-voiced man was usually intrusted with the undertaking. He was of the\ngood old Primitive Baptist stock from Caswell County, North Carolina,\nand had a lingering fondness for the peculiar views of that people. He\nhad a weakness for strong drink that gave him trouble at times, but\nnobody doubted his integrity any more than they doubted his courage. His\nwife was an earnest Methodist, one of a family of sisters remarkable for\ntheir excellent sense and strong religious characters. Meeting him one\nday, just before my return to San Francisco, he said, with a warmth of\nmanner not common with him:\n\n\"I am sorry you are going to leave Santa Rosa. You understand me, and if\nanybody can do me any good, you are the man.\"\n\nThere was a tremor in his voice as he spoke, and he held my hand in a\nlingering grasp.\n\nYes, I knew him. I had seen him at church on more than one occasion with\ncompressed lips struggling to conceal the strong emotion he felt,\nsometimes hastily wiping away an unbidden tear. The preacher, when his\nown soul is aglow and his sympathies all awakened and drawn out toward\nhis hearers, is almost clairvoyant at times in his perception of their\ninner thoughts. I understood this man, though no disclosure had been\nmade to me in words. I read his eye, and marked the wishful and anxious\nlook that came over his face when his conscience was touched and his\nheart moved. Yes, I knew him, for my sympathy had made me responsive,\nand his words, spoken sadly, thrilled me, and rolled upon my spirit the\nburden of a soul. His health, which had been broken by hardships and\ncareless living, began to decline more rapidly. I heard that he had\nexpressed a desire to see me, and made no delay in going to see him. I\nfound him in bed, and much wasted.\n\n\"I am glad you have come. I have been wanting to see you,\" he said,\ntaking my hand. \"I have been thinking of my duty to God for a good\nwhile, and have felt more than anybody has suspected. I want to do\nwhat I can and ought to do. You have made this matter a study, and\nyou ought to understand it. I want you to help me.\"\n\nWe had many interviews, and I did what I could to guide a penitent\nsinner to the sinner's Friend. He was indeed a penitent sinner--shut\nout from the world and shut in with God, the merciful Father was\nspeaking to his soul, and all its depths were stirred. The patient,\npraying wife had a wishful look in her eyes as I came out of his room,\nand I knew her thought. God was leading him, and he was receptive of the\ntruth that saves. He had one difficulty.\n\n\"I hate meanness, or any thing that looks like it. It does look mean for\nme to turn to religion now that I am sick, after being so neglectful and\nwicked when I was well.\"\n\n\"That thought is natural to a manly soul, but there is a snare in it.\nYou are thinking what others may say, and your pride is touched. You are\ndealing with God only. Ask only what will please him. The time for a man\nto do his duty is when he sees it and feels the obligation. Let the past\ngo--you cannot undo it, but it may be forgiven. The present and an\neternal future are yours, my friend.\n\n\"Do what will please God, and all will be right.\"\n\nThe still waters were reached, and his soul lay at rest in the arms of\nGod. O sweet, sweet rest! infinitely sweet to the spirit long tossed\nupon the stormy sea of sin and remorse. O peace of God, the inflow into\na human heart of the very life of the Lord! It is the hidden mystery of\nlove divine whispered to the listening ear of faith. It had come to him\nby its own law when he was ready to receive it. The great change had\ncome to him--it looked out from his eyes and beamed from his face.\n\nHe was baptized at night. The family had gathered in the room. In the\nsolemn hush of the occasion the whispers of the night-breeze could be\nheard among the vines and flowers outside, and the rippling of the\nsparkling waters of Santa Rosa Creek was audible. The sick man's face\nwas luminous with the light that was from within. The solemn rite was\nfinished, a tender and holy awe filled the room; it was the house of God\nand the gate of heaven. The wife, who was sitting near a window, rose,\nand noiselessly stepped to the bed, and without a word printed a kiss on\nher husband's forehead, while the joy that flushed her features told\nthat the prayer of thirty years had been answered, We sung a hymn and\nparted with tears of silent joy. In a little while he crossed the river\nwhere we may mingle our voices again by and by. There is not money\nenough in the California hills to buy the memory of that visit to Santa\nRosa.","title":"California Sketches, New Series","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":61380}