From the Rockies to the Pacific Coast [excerpt]

I wish you might know some of our home missionary soldiers—your home missionary soldiers—whose heroisms are rarely heralded abroad and who have no martial music to inspire them to battle. Let me introduce you to some of them. Here comes one swinging up the street on his pony; his long ulster is covered with mud; he has on rubber boots that come to his hips. His white necktie has got around under his ear. His face beams with such joy as danced in the eyes of the seventy when they returned to the Master. The hand that grasps yours is not dainty and white, like that of the fashionable preacher who spends his forenoons over his books and his afternoons over the teacups. It is rough and brown and strong. He has ridden thirty-five miles, through the mud, since seven o’clock this morning. Yesterday he went to a little church off in the foothills, built the fire, rang the bell, conducted the service, superintended the Sunday school, led the singing for the Christian Endeavor Society, and preached in the evening. Here [28][29] is another, who has just returned from a trip through the “cow” counties. Last Tuesday you might have seen him on a stage with his felt hat drawn down over his eyes trying to catch a few winks of sleep between jolts as he drew near the end of a journey of 180 miles from the railroad. On Wednesday he went with a local missionary from store to store to raise money for the coming year. In the evening he told the old story of Calvary to a rough crowd that filled the little church to the doors. Thursday he moved on fifty miles, and preached to men who had not heard a sermon in twenty years. Last year he traveled by stage and horseback and boat a distance of 27,000 miles, and was with his family 37 days out of the 365. Here is another. He knows every trout stream within twenty-five miles of his station, can kill a deer every shot at fifty yards, and preach six nights in a week without getting tired. An anarchist in his town, hearing that President McKinley had been assassinated, said, “I’m glad of it; he ought to have been killed long ago.” When this [29][30] home missionary heard what his townsman had said, he went to the anarchist’s store, looked the man straight in the eye, and said, “My friend, I understand you said this morning that you were glad our President had been shot. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. I want to tell you that if I ever hear of you saying such a thing again I’ll give you the worst thrashing you ever had.” The anarchist looked the preacher over a moment, as if noting the broad shoulders and the meaning of the steady gray eyes; then he apologized, and said he would never say such a thing again. That is the way our home missionaries sometimes preach the gospel of patriotism.