USA > Ohio > The Western Reserve of Ohio and some of its pioneers, places and women's clubs, Vol. I > Part 20
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"If Carnegie would remember us in his gifts, it would greatly aid our work," said Mrs. Harris. These students work during the day and study evenings. They have large heads and fine physique and learn rapidly.
We visited the mint, which coins more gold than the other two of Philadelphia and New York. The dust is heated and poured into iron tubes; it is then heated again with an alloy and made into long bars. These bars are run under a hammer that cuts out twenty or more as it passes under it, and a boy stands at the end to fold up what is left and have it again melted into bars. These gold pieces are $20 in value and are put under the stamp and come out ready for the market. The processes are few and simple. Exhibited in a show case there was a collection of coins of all nationalities and of many dis- tinguished generals and emperors.
"The Forum" Woman's Literary Club invited the federation to a meeting. They rent of the Elks and have three large, well furnished rooms. The Chinese minister, Ho You, who had grad- uated at Harvard, gave a talk of an hour on the social life of the Chinese, and the marriage relation of wife to her husband's family.
After his speech the guests were called upon for a few words. Mrs. Jones of Utah said the cordiality of California was seen in the greetings they gave to all ladies, if they had on the Federation colors or badge. Mrs. Brown of Boston told of how she had seen, en route, Niagara Falls, Salt Lake, Los Angeles and felt it was all due to the invitation of California to the G. F. W. C. The writer said she had become interested in forestry and irrigation through the talk of Mrs. Mulford of Philadelphia, and of Mrs. Lemon of Colorado, who said the alkali could be removed by raising beet sugar. Women can
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help this enterprise and should use their influence for it. For California has the climate and the energetic people to enrich the world. They receive the Oriental nations for us. The visitors were asked to stand in line to receive and were each given a bou- quet. Asparagus and daffodils were given to Mrs. Rose.
A basket of roses was placed in each guest's room of the Occidental hotel. The table was the most abundant and best prepared of anything we had so far seen. A lunch was packed daintily in tissue paper for our ride up the Sierre Nevada moun- tains.
When we left Placerville at 8 a. m. the driver said, no mat- ter which of three roads we took, we would wish we had chosen another. For twenty miles it was not bad-long hills with de- tours when the road was impassable, but when we had reached five miles of Mount Hope, the roads forked with no guide mark, and not any of us having gone over the route, we had to return or lift a fallen tree from the highway. Once we lifted the car- riage over a fallen tree, but did not try it again. We would sooner go over broken limbs at the right or left. At last we came where many roads branched off and seeing a barn in the distance went down a steep declivity towards it. Some children were near us and we called to them and one said go back, no wagon ever went down that hill before. It was with the great- est difficulty we could creep up over the slippery pine needles or "mash." One of the children went with us a mile and showed us the real road.
Our friends, when we reached there at 6 p. m., said, "You came the wrong road, we have had workmen at work on another especially for you, and on our return down the mountains we found it much easier, but the state road never goes directly over the hill. It goes around it, for like a bail to a kettle, it is no longer around than over the top."
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This Hope mine has a view down the most beautiful canyon we have yet seen-great pine trees, 200 feet high, surround it on all sides; they are straight and of immense trunks, also a few live oaks or black oaks with the mistletoe hanging like green mists from the boughs.
Our friends, Mr. and Mrs. Wm. R. Pearson, have an "eyrie" or small room built on the mountain side. It is like one large window and frames in the hills and valley with its rapid stream of water, and mills and barns with here and there an open field. Green of every shade-white dogwood blosoms, and the red leaves of the ash, beside large hills with only these immense pine trees. We went into the tunnel, which is 1,000 feet long, and met the car returning with gold ore. The conductor said, "There is to be an explosion soon," and the air just then trembled and the smoke from the powder came pouring out of the tube at the entrance, which conveys the smoke away from the tunnel. The ore was fine, $30 to the ton, though the average is $10. Some neighboring mines get but $3 to the ton, but produce much larger quantities of ore.
We visited the stamp mill. The process is very simple and is fed somewhat like the coal is made into coke in the screw works of Cleveland. Summer and winter are alike to the min- ers in an atmosphere of 60 degrees; he is every ready to work.
This pure air, the ozone of the pines, the cleanliness of all surroundings make the life of the gold miner almost ideal.
With the San Francisco Daily Chronicle and the Outlook, with the latest Christian Science book and a healthy appetite they say there is nothing to be desired except an occasional visit to a neighboring city. It is a business as necessary to our gov- ernment as the mining of coal or the manufacture of paper.
At Santa Cruz, 120 miles from San Francisco, we were
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driven over a six-mile wagon road up the beautiful Powdermill canyon to the Big Tree grove. This has 100 trees, from ten to twenty feet in diameter. The largest is 310 feet high, 63 feet in circumference, 21 feet in diameter, and 100 feet to the first limb.
Our driver, who has been fifty years in California, said this one tree would, if made into cordwood and placed on a wagon and twenty-five feet allowed for horse and wagon, reach over two miles; also that the lumber in it would build forty houses of six rooms each.
The trees are well proportioned; there are several clusters, but the black and charred stumps tell of a destruction wasteful and extravagant. Everybody of our party spoke in favor of Congress preserving these trees. No time or money can restore them, and when once gone no imagination can supply their place.
It is of the sequoia variety and is unique, of solid structure, tall, straight trunk and built as if to stand for centuries. All other woods seem trifling and ephemeral. Congress has saved for us Niagara and the Adirondacks, and the Yosemite; let it also save the big trees of Santa Cruz.
This is a country of surprises with man's co-operation; flowers bloom all the year round-"27,000 on one plant," said a lady today, "by actual count."
One great pine was entirely covered and in full bloom. One of the streets of this noted winter resort is a veritable garden. "What blossoms when the roses are done," said one. "They are never done; they blossom all the year round," was the reply, and every variety of rose. American Beauties, the pink or yel- low tinted, the red rose, called George IV, and all sorts.
At this time of year the trees are in bloom, pale sickly green flowers, and the hillsides are covered with bushes in blossom of a dainty blue, called wild lilac.
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I saw no bees or insects. Usually flowers are not for man so much as for honey bees and insects; if we pick a flower we rob a bee. But here I saw not one roaming from field to field, nor many birds. We heard their songs, so they were not far away.
Our driver told us amusing stories. One was: "Two an- cient maidens traveled alone. One had a camera, another a note book and pencil. And when I told them it took four yoke of oxen to bring down two cords of that solid redwood they flatly denied that oxen could come down the hill without falling over each other, but when told each wheel had a locker they still would not believe it, but when told in a joke that each oxen had his tail tied to a big stone, thev said, 'Oh, yes, I see how that can be.' "
They thanked the driver for the information and said, "New, I forgot one thing. We wish to do as others do, and will pay you a little for your trouble." As he stood handling the money he said, "But you may need this before you get home; you had better take it." And they said, "Thank you, so we might," and took it back.
On the cliff road we saw the residence of the mayor of San Francisco, the home of a retired merchant of Pittsburg and the winter home of Bishop Warren of Denver, Col. They have a fine sea view and are gay with flowers.
Twin Lakes Park, a Baptist resort, is two miles along the East Cliff road.
THE NORTHERN PACIFIC
Portland, Oregon, has over one hundred thousand inhabi- tants. The Portland Hotel, built in a hollow-square, has a series of parlors in white and gold, like the palaces of Europe; in one was a ping-pong table, in another a piano, in another writing tables, sofas and other creature comforts. It has a variety store in its corridors and notices of churches and their pastors on its walls.
In visiting the suburbs on an electric car we saw thorn- trees full of red blossoms. On a high bluff was a fine residence, and on inquiring how the steep lawn was kept so well shaven, the conductor said: "They use lawn mowers, letting them up and down with a cord."
In the year 1853 Governor Slade, of Massachusetts, was sending female teachers to Oregon by way of Cape Horn. Every shipload were soon married to the young men of the country and by this Divine Providence it made a wonderful New England society on this Pacific Coast.
I met in 1900 one of these wives, whose daughter graduated at Leland University. These scholars are the leading women of the West.
In 1903 the National Women's Clubs convened in Los An- geles and our return trip was through Portland. When we left this city we crossed the bay on a ferry and then came into the rough country of the Rocky Mountains. The railroad is above the deep rapid Grand River and runs through short tun- nels in the spurs of the mountains. We can see them before and after we enter. We had three engines and had a grade of two
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feet to every hundred; later on at five feet to one hundred feet, and go at the rate of ten miles an hour. Bridges span the chasms.
We no longer saw the Indian Trail that was on the opposite side of the river, for the rocks extend down perpendicularly to its edges. The railroad bridges span foaming cataracts. We passed a fire over which an Indian was cooking his evening meal. Snow lay on the ground and the green fir trees tower above it, making a beautiful combination of color. All the mountain tops are covered with snow and the sides are crevassed with ice that in many places melts and becomes a foaming stream. All rivers are too rapid and rough for even a canoe; they are nar- row and deep with frequent accessions from waterfalls. They make a constant roar.
A frame house was on the plain and near it a little white church with a cupola. Then a village, houses all unpainted except one, which has the sash of the windows and doors painted white. Again we passed a square with white fence enclosing other white fences-probably a burying ground.
The trees are no longer ten feet in diameter and two hun- dred feet high. One mountain had hundreds of these big trees half burned pines stand, only to fall with the first tornado; in- deed fire seems the resort of the pioneer who clears his land with it. We passed through Assiniboia, a part of the British Empire (pronounced Assiniby), but, for asking, we would not have noticed it. The lady who told me soon left the cars. Some finely dressed soldiers came into our cars and others on the platform bade goodbye to those who came with us.
It is strange indeed, in this solitary region, where but few, except men employed in the lumber regions, ever stay, we need a standing army, with idlness which is always demoralizing.
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We hope the army drill in the public schools will be sufficient for any emergency. Our volunteers did as well as others in actual service in our Civil War, and peace and its accompanying industry is better for the world than an idle soldiery.
The small bridge that divides Dakota from Montana was pointed out to us. Some trees were planted in groves, wheat fields are smaller and a great variety of cereals. We bought a Winnipeg Journal which said: "Where the rains and floods which had destroyed wheat, flax would be grown by the farmers."
A couple in front of us, when asked if they stopped at Se- attle, said: "We go to Skagway. We will reach there day after tomorrow night." Therefore this is the highway to the greatest gold region of the west. The Chinese and Japanese will enter here. Seattle boasts they will have the city of the world, for they are to have a harbor in which battleships and other fleets can rest, free from the growth of barnacles. They are to join a fresh water lake to their harbor by a broad canal.
On the cars a Baptist preacher approached us for a contri- bution. He said the west had been divided between three de- nominations so as not to overlap each other and we were passing through the Baptist division. "The church must look to the young for advanced methods of work, so we must iook to the west for advanced methods of living."
Seattle has the same steep hills to climb with street cars as has San Francisco. Our depot was near the steamboat landing and represented the Klondike in their advertisements. We seated ourselves in the Northern Pacific car for St. Paul. A man and wife came with baskets and bundles; then he left her. She was on crutches. With much sympathy we asked how far she would go. She said: "To Boston. I am a music teacher and
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composer, so go by way of Winnipeg." I said: "Oh, I want to see Winnipeg; could I change my ticket?" She replied: "There is the Superintendent, call him." He looked at the ticket. "We have great trouble with the Lake Shore and Michigan. It would be better to buy a new ticket from here and trust to getting them to take it back." "Oh, I will go on as I planned," and I moved into my touring car. Soon the music teacher called me to say: "Give the porter a quarter a day and he will bake these potatoes for you and make you a cup of tea. I have beeksteak and eggs in this basket." What a find, for meals were 75 cents each, if taken at a restaurant. I bought a loaf of bread and half a pound of butter and had my own tea. A lady back of me said: "I will give you milk for some of your tea." Then all meals cost only a trifle.
The music teacher said: "Tell that man with a concertina to play for us," which he did. "Old Lang Syne," "Old Folks at Home," and dozens of good old tunes. At Oxbow the music teacher left. May God bless her and return her to Seattle.
Sabbath day was quiet and soon the Scotchman was asked to play on his concertina. He played but two tunes; said it was a day to rest, that he was a forty-niner and had orchards of fruit to sell and was going East to hunt up purchasers, that his wife would meet him in New York; she had been on a visit to Scotland.
The Union Depot in St. Paul is the best we had seen. We waited there from 7 p. m. to 2 a. m.
At Madison we saw the State House and Wisconsin Uni- versity. Lake Moronu adds much to the pleasure of the stu- dents. The roadbed is not smooth and we were glad to reach Chicago. As this is near to Aurora, Ill., we wished to go there and see the civic improvement made by the women's clubs, by
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offering to school children five cents a market basket full of dan- delions and plantains. It was done also in Dixon, Ill. But time tables were not found. Then we returned to Cleveland and went to our summer home on the Thousand Islands. Many Cleveland- ers are there, W. G. Rose, Rose Island; J. M. Curtis, Gipsy Island; L. P. Lamson, Edgewood, and Mrs. Burke, Round Island.
Yesterday was the Sabbath. At 10:30 service is held in a square, brown school house, which stands on a side hill on the other side of the river. Three years ago the Protestant Meth- odists had held revival service under a tent, and a number of young people were converts. Before that natives had worked their farms Sundays and week days; they cared not to better their condition; strong drink possessed them, and men and women indulged in the intoxicating bowl. Suddenly a blow fell upon one family, two boys who went out sailing, one 17 and the other 19, were capsized and drowned. They were found two days later, for father and mother were too stupefied by drink to know of their absence. It was a shock that brought them to their senses. "I will drink no more," said the mother. "Hus- band, you must promise me the same. Our three children spared to us must know of this agreement and pledge the same with us. We must worship God, we must aid the poor missionary recently sent amongst us by the Canadians. I will go myself and see what I can beg from the Islanders," as the cottagers are called. And she came, and when given a dollar, she said, "God bless you. We poor folks never saved that much from drink, but He shall have this sure as our thank offering for being brought to our right minds."
The school house was weather beaten and small, thirty people would crowd it, and by applying to the authorities two
Thousand Islands,N.Y., Rose Island
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hundred dollars was applied from the county treasury for repairs.
Nothing but the frame was used. It was turned around and added to, with a vestibule, patent seats put in, that allow the seat to turn back when you rise, and an organ was solicited and paid for by the young people.
The social hymns sent for and the Gospel News published in Cleveland used in the Sabbath school. An Epworth League formed, for they had applied and been admitted to the Meth- odist Episcopal Church. A young man and his wife came. The first three years his salary for this "charge" was one hundred and seventy-five dollars per year.
A local preacher purchased the largest farm. He visited the sick and gave from his own land a place for a cemetery. He gave forty dollars of the hundred they raised, and he came to the Islanders to solicit for the seventy-five.
"How would it do to have a musical?" said he.
"An, excellent idea," said one, "but who would attend? At night this place is difficult of access, and in the daytime we must work."
"The Islanders, of course," said Mr. F., and a lady who has great influence with the boats, because a stockholder, at once planned and executed the "musical." Three parks con- tributed talent, recitations, solos and duets; ice cream was served and the amount raised.
The next year the same effort was made to make the deficit of salary, more was needed. With all outlays over five hundred dollars was required, and two hotels opened their doors for "musicals," and they were largely attended. Mrs. Rose, who re- mained for the winter in Boston purchased a small library at
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Lathrop & Co.'s, one guest had contributed five dollars, and she herself gave eight, and wholesale prices were given. She bought the lives of Franklin, Grant, Lincoln, Garfield, and other great men, also works of Pansy and Henry Ward Beecher, and in Cleveland one neighbor gave a series of books, another choice volumes, and again the empty shelves were filled.
These people are a mixture of French, Canadian and Eng- lish; they appreciate gcod clothes and witty repartee; they know a good thing when they see it, and they make much of the few gifts bestowed. Out of this people have come such men as Dr. Buckley, Bishop Jaynes, Charles G. Finney, Bishop Rulison, and many other distinguished men.
Two professors have taken the island next to the school house, and contributed of their talent and brains to the general class which takes place every Sabbath and to the Bible class study. One has for twenty-five years held a chair in a New York College; Dr. McAfee and General Von Patton examine the applicants to the ministry of the M. E. church in history, sacred and profane, and every Sabbath is interesting in the new thoughts presented.
If we would rise in time we could attend one of the three churches of Alexandria Bay. The Episcopal only keeps open in summer time, but the Methodist and Dutch Reform are old and established and have good music and able sermons.
Churches to do the most good should stand like lamp posts on the highway, not grouped together like dry goods stores or lawyers' offices to catch the stray customer.
Two miles is a little too far to be regular in attendance, and to lift one needs a short lever. Worship is a command from the Most High, in the presence of Jehovah all the thoughts
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of the heart are made known to us in the clear light of his coun- tenance, and we involuntarily say "God be merciful to me, a sinner."
The waters of the St. Lawrence are full of foliage. Long slender leaves grow from centers as do the ferns on the rocks above. Fishes hide in their green alcoves, and turtles are often seen. Frogs are speared at night by the aid of torches, and pickerel or muskellunge have been found hiding away from the sharp hook of man's invention.
MR. MOODY IN BOSTON
First Day
Tremont Temple is used for the noonday meetings of one hour only, the business men Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. The first half is devoted to singing; a choir of volunteers fills the orchestra seats. First a solo of sweetness and power, then the upper tier is often called on to sing the chorus alone and they do it well; then the first, then the floor, then all, in concert, as one lovely lady remarked it seems like the Judgment Day.
The first day Mr. Moody said: When I go to a prayer meet- ing I speak to God. When I go to my closet God speaks to me.
Our work goes for nothing because we do not know how to use our weapons.
A man in Boston said to me: "I hope, Mr. Moody, you do not believe in the whole Bible."
I believe it all is given by inspiration of God, but not all inspired, neither Jezebel nor those who troubled Job but the men were inspired to write it up, the Master behind it.
I believe as it was in the days of Noah so it will be again. Of Sodom and Gomorrah, the angry God said: "As it was, so it shall be, remember Lot's wife."
"As the brazen serpent was lifted up so shall the Son of Man be lifted up."
They say, "Do you believe the story of Elijah?" and then the reply : "There is not one question that Jesus did not put his seal to. He referred to Jonah when he said, 'You ask for a sign and
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there shall be no sign given to you, but the sign of the Prophet Jonah.' He was three days in the whale's belly; so was Jesus three days in the grave."
There is no part of the Bible that does not teach supernat- ural things. If you go into Exodus, from first to last there is no part that it did not take place. In Leviticus, five times, in Num- bers the brazen serpent was lifted up, and so you can go into every book of the Old Testament. The last that the skeptic gives up are the four gospels, but five hundred years before Christ was born it was told that he should be born in Bethlehem.
This is my beloved son, was not this supernatural; he casts out devils; speaks to the winds and they obey him; and the res- urrection; and the veil of the temple was rent from top to bot- tom. Not bottom to top, also at the sepulchre; he led captivity captive.
When God went from Eden he left a curse and when he went from that grave he lifted the curse.
This refusal to believe the Bible only in parts is spread all over the earth. I heard of a man who cut the Bible as he heard it preached. He said to the man: "This is not authentic, all of Job, all of Revelations, and I cut it out. I have got the covers and I will hold onto them."
I can't understand everything; I do not understand all about my body. I believe it all the same. If I could prove it, it would not be divine. "There are thoughts I have not been able to understand."
The Second Day
He showed how to study the Bible; the New Testament, in Matthew, has 100 references to the Old Testament. It says, "This is done that it might be fulfilled." Luke has 25, Galatians 16, Ephesians 10, Hebrews 27, Romans 18. It is said 40 times
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in Revelations; 200 times it is quoted, and a benediction is pro- nounced on him who reads it.
I never met but one skeptic who had read the Bible through. He could not tell whether Genesis or Revelations came first in order.
We say we want something new; it is time we had a Bible; yet we do not say we want a new sun in the heavens. Why do we not ask to have electric lights put up and not have any win- dows in our houses?
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