1 fc ' . BLUFFTON: A STORY OF TO-DAY. BY % M. % J. SAVAGE. THIRD EDITION. BOSTON: GEO. H. ELLIS, 141 FRANKLIN STREET. 1889. COPYRIGHT, 1878, BY LEE AND SHEPARD. OP OEO. H. ELLIS, 141 FRANKLIN STREET, BOSTON. NOTE. THE incidents of this story are chiefly facts. This is specially true of those things that may to some readers appear forced or exaggerated. The facts, however, do not all belong to any one place, nor to the experience of any one per son. The people who live in Bluffton will doubtless recognize some touches of local scenery ; but, if they look to find the characters among their friends and neighbors, they will most certainly be mistaken. By bringing out in strong relief some of the evils of one phase of religion, and some of the good of the opposite, the writer would not be understood to assert that the evil is all on one side and the good all on the other. He has simply emphasized those things that were essential to his present purpose. Good and evil are both human, and not confined to any one religious type. MAY, 1878. 3 CONTENTS. Ax THE LEVEE II. ON THE STEAMER 14 III. RETROSPECT 23 IV. FIRST SUNDAY AT BLUFFTON 30 V. To THE CAVE 39 VI. THE CONVALESCENCE 52 VII. OTHER STRANDS IN THE THREAD . . . . .61 VIII. MARK AND TOM TALK 72 IX. A GAME OF CROQUET, AND WHO WON 84 X. THE MINISTER IN His WORK 96 6 CONTENTS. XL UNDERGROUND RUMBLINGS ... . . . .104 XII. MR. FORREST AND MRS. GREY 112 XIII. A SOUL COME TO JUDGMENT 123 XIV. THE OFFENCE 134 XV. MADGE ENTREATS 146 XVI. A TERRIBLE SUSPICION 156 XVII. AN EXCHANGE AT MAPLE CITY 162 XVIIL THE COUNCIL 174 XIX. TOM SPEAKS 186 XX. THE BROKEN RING 196 XXI. RECONSIDERATION 2oS XXII. THE REVENGE OF SLIGHTED LOVE 219 XXIII. ADRIFT ............ 229 XXIV. A STRANGE MEETING 238 BLUFFTON: A STORY OF TO-DAY. I. AT THE LEVEE. WHY do you call it Maple City? " said Mark, as, after an hour's walk about the town, he and his friend Tom were slowly strolling down the street cut through the bluff that led to the levee. "Oh ! I don't know," replied Tom, "unless it may be for the reason that the place isn't a city, and hasn't a maple-tree in its limits. As for the matter of names, you know all the towns East have a Spruce Street, and a Pine Street, and gen erally there isn't a spruce or a pine in sight. Perhaps the mental suggestion has some shade and comfort in it." " And as for your cities, Tom, I understand that all cross roads are cities out here." "Yes," said he, "just as the peddler shouted ' Hot pies ! ' because that was ' what they called 'em.' They name towns here on the same principle that mothers christen their chil dren George Washington and Napoleon Bonaparte, seem- 7 S BLUFFTON. ing to have the notion that the quality of the name will somehow strike in, and make Congressmen out of 'em some day." "Towns grow so fast," replied Mark, "that I suppose they want the name big enough to cover the future. Now, I am assured by the committee from Bluffton that the place will at least double in five years. And if they get the Great Central Railroad, for which this and all the neighboring places are fighting, they will even double on that." " ' They all do it,' " drolly replied Tom. " All the places are going to double in three to five years. But, if some of them don't ' flat out ' on their expectations, they'll have to import the inhabitants of the neighboring planets to furnish people enough. And then, as to railroads, they seem to overlook one thing, that it is just as easy to get out of town on a new road as it is to get in, and that people may leave as well as come." "But, at any rate," said Mark, "it indicates the young blood, the vigor, the hope, of a great nation whose life is ahead, a prophecy, and not a page in history illustrated by ruins. A burly, growing boy is always extravagant : he always wants the biggest boots and trousers he can get, be cause he feels the undeveloped man in him, and wants to appear like one. Little old men I never took to anyhow. The boy who is forty years old at thirteen will be too tame for usefulness by the time he is thirty, and ought to be buried at thirty-five. So I say, Hail to the awkward but irrepressible vigor of the New West." " Well," said Tom, " you've made your peroration just in AT THE LEVEE. 9 time ; for there is the smoke of the steamer rising just over the point yonder, and you'll hear your first Mississippi whis tle in a moment." The two young men now stood on the levee. The Rev. Mark Forrest, after a year or two of outpost duty, now, at the age of twenty-five, was on his way to take charge of an evangelical church at Bluffton, a " city " some miles farther down the river. Tom was an old school-friend, five years his senior, who, taking to business, had gone West, made and lost one or two fortunes, married, and with his Western wife and two bright children, was now living at Maple City. Mark, who had never seen the Mississippi before, had tele graphed his friend to meet him for the hour between the arrival of the train and the time for the steamer on her down trip. He had met the church committee in the East, and, after consultation, had consented to go out like Abraham, " not knowing whither he went." And here he was so far on his way. His trunk and small library had been sent on by express, so that he stood with only his travelling-bag in his hand. As it was Saturday, and he must preach his first sermon to his new people on the following day, he could only pay his friend this flying visit on the way. They could now, being so near each other, tie up the bro ken threads of their old intimacy at their leisure. And now the steamer, rounding the headland, swept into full view, at the same time sending out an unearthly scream, as if to strike terror into the heart of the western wilds, and give the woods warning of the speedy approach of the rail road and the steam-plough. To Mark, who had seen only IO BLUFFTON. ocean-steamers before, she was a new sensation. A tall pole tipped with a gilded ball rose into the air from the extreme end of her bow ; two smoke-stacks, high above every thing else, belched out enormous volumes of black, soft-coal smoke, that floated lazily on the still, bright June air; a black mass of men, relieved by the gayer colors of the women, crowded forward on the shoreward side. She looked all decks and cabins and saloons ; while the bow end of her low hulk was piled up with bales and boxes and barrels, sprinkled all over which were the tow-colored rags and ebony faces of the " roustabouts," whose business it was to- " tote " the freight aboard and ashore. " Well, what do you think of her, Mark? " said Tom. " I think," replied Mark, " that a party of friends on an outdoor boat like this, floating on such a glassy river, and through such a perfect air, and under such a soft sky, drifting on through sweeps of wide prairie, and along dark woods, and past bright young towns, might easily fancy themselves to have found the ' earthly paradise ' with modern improve ments. As I'm in no hurry to get aboard, let's stand here,, and see the people, and the process of landing." The steamer now headed in toward the shore, and, with a grating noise on the bottom, ran her " nose " against the levee. The river-current caught the stern, and slowly swung her round until she rested quartering on the bank, and headed up stream. And now, as the planks were run out, belated hacks came tearing down the streets, carts rattled over the stones, and numberless " men and brothers " yelled on their bony steeds attached to their two-wheeled drays;. AT THE LEVEE. II and others came with trunks, boxes, or casks on their shoul ders, from the warehouses or the neighboring station. But, above all the noise of the crowd, one sound caught and fixed the attention of Mark : it was the stupendous swearing of the mate. He had witnessed displays of profanity before, so elaborate as to entitle them to rank as works of art ; but as he stood here, and saw him pile Ossa upon Pelion, beheld " Alps on Alps arise," and looked down into yawning gulfs of blasphemy, it seemed to him that here was a Titan play ing with the gigantic upheavals of language, while ordinary men only walked along on the commonplace flats of the dic tionary. Of course he was shocked ; but, while he was one who shrunk from every touch of irreverence, his sense of the ludicrous was so developed that sometimes the absurd ity of a thing made him forget, for the time, its wickedness. Turning to Tom, he said, " Is that a specimen of Western ability in the profanity line?" " Yes," he replied with a shade of irony in his tone : " in this glorious Western world you must expect to find the proportions of things maintained. The man, you see, is ambitious to have his swearing on the same magnificent scale as our ' mighty ' rivers and our ' boundless ' prairies." " But do they all swear like that ? Listen now ! It rattles through the clouds of his words like the jerk and crash of lightning in a thunder-storm." " All the mates do," Tom replied : " it seems to be their special business to swear at the deck-hands. They hurl oaths at them as if they were stones, and crack them over 12 BLUFFTON. the back with a sharp phrase as if it were the sting of a lash. They get so used to it, that I doubt if they would move at all if they were spoken to in ordinary language. They are like the old man's oxen that we used to laugh about. You know they got so used to being sworn at, that, when the old fellow was converted, the only way he could get them along was to sit on the cross-board, and shout at them profane- sounding selections from the New Testament. So these fellows would ' slow up ' till you couldn't see them move, if he didn't swear all the time." But just here Mark's eye caught sight of some one going up the plank, and in an instant the mate was forgotten. " Tom," he said, " I'm in luck. There goes old Judge Hartley. Now, you see, I'm in for good company down the river." "Judge Hartley," said Tom: " what brings him out here ?" " Oh ! I forgot to tell you that he has sold out East, and is moving to Bluffton. He's going to be in my church." " Then I pity you," growled Tom. "Why?" briefly inquired Mark. " Why ? Don't you remember how in the old church at home he was always on the scent for heresy? He even suspected the old minister's soundness in the faith. And now let me warn you beforehand, that, if you happen to learn any thing that hasn't been in the old ' Bodies of Divinity' long enough to get rusty, he'll make it hot for you." " Oh ! but you're too hard on him, Tom," answered Mark. " He's just my idea of a typical Puritan ; neither better nor AT THE LEVEE. 13 worse. He's sunny and sweet and kind in his home. But all his natural tenderness has been laid on what he thinks the altar of God. So it is a matter of duty with him to hate and fight any departures from orthodoxy. He's of the stuff of which martyrs are made ; and, being ready himself to die for God's truth, his sense of duty would stifle all tenderness toward one that he looked upon as an enemy of divine reve lation. But he'll broaden a little out here, and we'll get on capitally." "Well, I hope so," said Tom. " But who was that young lady that followed the judge up the plank?" " I don't know," replied Mark, " unless it is one of his daughters. I haven't seen them since they were girls." " Whoever it is, hurry up, Mark, for they are taking in the plank. Perhaps you'll find light enough in the daughter to relieve the sombreness of the old judge." " Haven't time to think of those things yet," said Mark. " But good-by : I'll write after Sunday." So saying, he leaped aboard. The bell had ceased ringing, and the boat swung off into the river. He stood a minute on the lower deck, as she swept out into the current ; and then went up the gangway to find the judge. Judge Hartley was a tall, close-shaven, gray-eyed man of sixty. Having once been a probate judge, the title still re mained. Retired from active business with a competency, he had decided to move West, and make his future home near the residence of his only surviving brother. BLUFFTON. II. ON THE STEAMER. MARK really thought and no wonder; for older and wiser men have done the same before him that his head and heart were too full of other things to have any room in them for love. He was going to study ; he was going to travel ; he was going to test himself, and find out what was in him and what he could do, and so make him self a permanent footing somewhere, before he allowed himself to think of a home. He would make himself and his position a worthy gift before he would presume to offer them to such a woman as he would love. He had not yet learned, that, though " marriages of convenience " are always in order, real love does not come at a beck, nor wait to be sent for. He knew not as yet that no head nor heart can be crammed so full but that love will find himself a place, and come in even though the doors are shut. So, while he looked after the judge, he found the beginning of a pain that would not let him rest, and that yet he would not have been free from for all the study and travel and am bitions of which he had dreamed since boyhood. While he thought he was only walking a common plank-deck, he, in ON THE STEAMER. 15 reality, stumbled across the threshold and through the gate way of an enchanted " castle in Spain," where he was to find dungeons of darkness, and instruments of exquisite torture, as well as galleries of pictures, halls of song, and lofty towers of vision. Stepping into the saloon long enough to register his name, pay his fare, and leave his satchel at the office, he passed out on to the forward deck. Leaning against the starboard rail, he stopped entranced with the beauty of the scene ; for it seemed to him that he had walked into a waking dream. It was about four o'clock in the afternoon. The right bank of the river was a continuous wood-crowned bluff. The river itself at this point curved south-east, so that the sun seemed caught in the ragged tops of the trees straight ahead. What would have been its unbearable brightness in the open sky was broken into a golden mist and spray among the branches, as sometimes the falling waters of a cas cade are turned into a sort of impalpable cloud of glory by jagged rocks and the height of their fall. The river was a veritable " sea of glass." The air was mellow and soft, and spread over the scene a saffron-colored haze that seemed the stuff of which dreams are made. For the moment every thing was still save the distant murmur of voices and the plash of the paddle-wheels, that only seemed to deepen the silence. The steamer drifted so softly that it was almost like float ing in air. There was in his mind a curious blending of memory and anticipation. His home, his childhood, and his old life were behind ; and he was drifting on into a future 1 6 BLUFFTON. of unspeakable glory. This was the Mississippi, and around him was a new world. He was in the boat of De Soto ; and just around that headland yonder would spring into view the fadeless beauty of the " earthly paradise " that the eager Spanish eyes so looked for in this strange, far-off land. And these fancies melted into the visions of the seer of Patmos. The river of life, and the mystic trees, and the sea of crystal, and the blinding glory, were blended with the landscape. He gazed straight on into the light ; and with his eyes half closed, and lost in thought, the illusion was complete. Had a traditional Bible angel floated silently across the glory, he would hardly have roused from his brief revery ; for it would have been a part of his dream. But what he did see startled him into a confused self-conscious ness. Turning his head a little, as he became aware of a presence near him, he found himself looking straight into the face of what seemed to him the most beautiful girl he had ever looked upon. He had read of such in poem and romance ; but he had never yet believed that there was in flesh and blood a face and form like this. In one rapid glance, in less time than it takes to tell it, he took in the fact that her figure was faultless, her dress so perfect as to be forgotten, her face oval in shape and brunette in com plexion. Her heavy masses of hair were black, as were the long lashes that shaded her eyes ; and her eyes themselves were liquid and deep, like the bottomless lakes that lie tree- fringed at the feet of lofty mountains. He had only time to note these particulars, and to accuse himself of rudeness for thus staring in the face of a stran- ON THE STEAMER. I/ ger, when, in a voice that betrayed only girlish unconscious ness and the frank simplicity of a guileless nature, she said, "Isn't this Mr. Forrest?" There was a moment of confusion before he could fully believe that this human angel, that had so suddenly stepped out of his vision of glory, had really spoken to him ; but, seeing her look frankly in his face for reply, he answered, " Certainly, that is my name ; but you must pardon me if I do not remember you. I have never seen a face " " so beautiful as yours," he just saved himself from saying ; and finished not very elegantly, by adding " like yours." She recognized the broken and awkward phrase by a quizzical look, which soon passed, leaving only her simple unconsciousness once more, and added, " Why, I thought you would know me. Have I really changed so much in six years? I am Margaret Hartley. You used to call me Madge when I was a little girl." " You really must forgive me for forgetting you," said he. " I was in a day-dream when I first caught sight of your face. If you hadn't spoken, I fear I should have taken you for a part of my vision ; but, indeed, you have changed from the fly-away Madge I knew at school." " Not for the worse, I hope," said she ; and then, without waiting for the reply that she knew courtesy at least would make complimentary, she continued, "Perhaps I recognized you the more readily because father and I have been speaking of you. We knew to-mor row was to be your first Sunday in Bluffton, and we were wondering what sort of minister you had grown to be. We are to be of your flock, you know." t8 BLUFFTON. " Yes : I had heard that you were moving West ; and, indeed, as I stood on the levee at Maple City, I saw your father go up the plank, but, not seeing your face, I did not recognize you as the one who was with him." " Mother is dead, you know ; and the other girls we have left in Chicago with aunt, until we get the house ready to receive them. I am the housekeeper now. But father must be wondering what has become of me. Don't you want to see him? " " Of course I do. It was he I had started to find when the wonder of this new river scenery threw me into the day dream in which your face appeared. I was more glad than I can tell when I saw him ; for I did not like to enter on my new field alone. It will make the strange church seem like home to see his face among the pews. Where have you left him?" " Aft, I believe the sailors call it : on the deck at the rear of the saloon. I had been at my stateroom for a moment, and strayed this way, on coming out, to take a look down the river. I have visited here before, and the scenery seems like an old acquaintance. Uncle James lives at Bluffton, you know." This was said as they walked together down the saloon. There was a friendly, old-time greeting on the part of Mr. Forrest and Judge Hartley. And, drawing three camp-stools together, they sat down and talked over the past, and went over the causes that brought them all out to their new Western home. The boat glided onward, opening up behind them an ON THE STEAMER. 19 ever-changing panorama of loveliness. Now a bluff stood out boldly, and with its rocky front looked down upon them as they drifted through its shadows. On the other shore, the prairie stretched off for miles, till a range of hills, tipped with the rays of the slanting sun, closed in the horizon. Then a green valley, down which a tree-shaded creek ran darkly in the deepening shadow, wound off and up, and hid itself in the mystery of the hills. And here and there were islands that were emeralds set in crystal. Pointing out to each other the beauties of scenery as they passed, they fell to talking of their coming life and work. " This Western country is grand and wonderful," said the judge. " But I imagine that, religiously, it is not much like New England. There is a little colony of the Puritan ele ment at Bluffton ; and we must try to be like the leaven of the Scriptures, and see if we can't bring them to our New- England ways." " I have only seen two or three of the people," answered Mr. Forrest, " and do not know much about the rest of the inhabitants." " I'm afraid they're a godless set," replied the judge. " My brother writes me, that it is a sabbath-breaking, horse- racing, drinking place, not much like the God-fearing town we are used to." " We must show them a better style of morals, then," said Mr. Forrest. " Morals ! " rather emphatically exclaimed the judge. " Morals are good enough as far as they go ; but they need something deeper than that. Morals never yet saved a 2O BLUFFTON. town any more than an individual. It's the gospel they need, the pure, unadulterated gospel ; and I hope that you are ready to preach it to them fearlessly, Mr. Forrest." "I trust," modestly replied he, "that I shall be able to preach God's truth to them, and help them mend their ways." " Good, hard doctrine," continued the judge, " the wrath of God against sin, the 'sincere milk of the word,' salvation only through the atoning blood, that is what they need." "We must expect," he replied, "to find their ways differ ent from ours. All new countries are rough at first. It's a lower type of civilization." " Don't talk of ' civilization,' and ' different ways,' " said the judge. " Such words savor too strongly of worldly wis dom, and 'philosophy falsely so called.' Sin is the same thing, and comes from the same Devil, all the world over. We must be uncompromising. The strongholds of Satan's kingdom must be attacked by the ' sword of the Lord and of Gideon.' " Mr. Forrest was as earnest in his faith, and thought him self as sound in his orthodoxy, as the judge. But, though he remembered the tone in his conversation that used to be so familiar in the old prayer-meeting talks at home, it had now a strange, far-away sound in his ears. He had become accustomed to put his religious meanings into the talk of every day, thinking it better to translate divine messages into the language of the street. So he was not sorry when Madge jumped to her feet, as the whistle blew its shrill blast, and said, ON THE STEAMER. 21 " Come, father and Mr. Forrest, let's leave theology now, and see the steamer pass through the bridge." They rose and hurried through the saloon, and stood together on the forward deck. They were just in time. The draw had swung to its place, and the quickening cur rent, as it rushed between the piers, was bearing the steamer on with its rapid flow. The boat seemed to thrill with the lift of the waters ; and she shot through the opening as if rejoicing in the intelligence and grace of motion of a living thing. And now Bluffton itself was in sight, and the boat was all astir with the preparation for landing. They stood for a moment to take in the natural features of the town. Mark first noticed the tall bluff at its southern end, from which it took its name. Sheer up it rose a hundred and fifty feet, crowned with one lone tree on the edge of its summit, whose gnarled and crooked roots stretched out and curled down over its rocky face. A lower and irregular range of hills stretched round in a semicircle, bounding the horizon at the back of the town, and jutting out boldly again on the river-bank above the city in another bluff only less noticeable than the first. A stream ran through the city, dividing it irregularly into an upper and lower town. Its nearer side had all the dingy and ill-kept appearance that marks so many of these river-towns ; but it looked very picturesque and beautiful as it stretched back from the river-front, and climbed past the open square and up to the tops of the hills that were brilliant with the glory of the setting sun. The scene on the levee only repeated that at Maple City ; 22 BLUFFTON. save that the judge and Margaret recognized and beckoned to the friends that waited for them on shore. Mr. Forrest himself saw a member of the church committee that had met him at the East, come to welcome him to his new field. As they passed down the plank, he bade the judge a hearty good-night, saying, "We shall meet again to-morrow." And now for the first time, at parting, he took the hand of Margaret, thrilled with the consciousness that it was no longer a child's hand to be touched or dropped indifferently, but the hand of a woman. He had shaken the hands of a thousand women before, and only regarded it as a formal piece of ceremony. But this soft touch tingled in his veins, and throbbed wildly through his heart. All pure, new love has about it a sense of reverent awe. So while he would not have dared to hold her hand, or give it conscious pressure, a new sense of loss came over him when it was withdrawn ; and he trembled as he waked up to the fact that the power of control over his own future happiness had passed out of his hands, and now lay in the touch and look of one, who, so far as he knew, was utterly indifferent to him except on the one point as to whether she was going to like or dislike him as a minister. So, while he was driven to the hotel, he became aware that Bluffton now had in it, for his weal or woe, something besides a church. RETROSPECT. 23 III. RETROSPECT. AND now, while the young minister is resting from his journey, and preparing for the word he must speak to-morrow, and which is to strike the keynote to the work which he is to undertake in Bluffton, let us glance back a little, and see who and what kind of a man he is. In person he was a little above the medium height, straight, broad-shouldered, and rather muscular in his build. His head was large, and covered with wavy, soft brown hair. His forehead was high and broad, and terminated at the base by cliffs of brows that reminded one of Tennyson's " bar of Michael Angelo ; " while beneath these were a pair of large gray eyes, set so deep that they looked smaller than they were, except when he was animated in private or roused in public speech. His nose was large, straight, and prominent. A long and firm upper-lip was completely concealed by a heavy moustache, with the exception of which his face was smooth. The face which was strong and striking rather than handsome was rounded by a chin no way remarkable, but only in keeping with the rest of his features. He dressed in accordance with the one canon of perfect taste that he 24 BLUFFTON. was always ready to advocate for both man and woman, so well and so simply that no one would think any thing about the dress, but only notice and remember the person. He had behind him such a memory of struggle and toil as fitted him to understand, and brought him into keen and ready sympathy with, all " The low, sad music of humanity." Born in poverty, a hard-working farmer's son, he kept ever hanging in his study, as an ideal portrait of his remem bered childhood, the picture of Whittier's " Barefoot Boy." Many a time, sleeping up under the bare, sloping roof of the little old brown farmhouse garret, while the wild winter storm rocked and sung him to sleep, had he waked in the morning to find a snowdrift sifted through the broken roof, and lying across his bed. Rising, the winter through, at four o'clock in the morning, to do his father's and the neigh bors' " chores," and cut the wood for the day's fire, before the time for school, he was used to trudging through the snow, thin-clad, to the old district schoolhouse, and struggling hard, or playing hard, to keep back the tears that the nip ping cold would extort. He was strongly religious in his natural bent, and he was nursed and trained in all the traditional views and ways of orthodoxy. Dreaming from childhood of the work of Jesus in Judaea, and of the still dark wastes of heathendom that had not heard his name, he used to wonder why all men were not ministers of his gospel ; and he could not remem ber the time when he did not plan to be one himself. RETROSPECT. 2 5 He was cradled amid scenes of such idyllic country beauty as naturally gave an aesthetic and poetic turn to his sensitive mind. The farmhouse was on a hill-top overlooking a lovely river, that wound away past intervale and wood, till it lost itself in the hills that rose higher and higher northward in a range of mountains that closed in the horizon about the region of the lakes. A brook, the scene of childhood sports, of adventures of hunting and fishing, wound through the meadow, and poured its tiny tribute into the river at the foot of the hill. He rummaged through the village library, and feasted on the wit, humor, and satire of the first series of the " Biglow Papers ; " he devoured Pope and Dry den and Cowley, and twice read through " Paradise Lost," long before he had any idea of general literature, or the rank to which these writers were entitled on the world's roll of fame. He also had the attack, inevitable as teething, to which all thoughtful children are subject, of verse-making himself. He wrote verse enough for a book by the time he was fifteen, which bashfulness perhaps, more than compassion for a suffering humanity, prevented his inflicting on a patient world. Such were some of the salient outlines on the background of his memory. At his first entry of the seminary for theological training, his reverence for professors and learned lecturers was such that he did little but receive and absorb their teachings. He even regarded as presumptuous the hardihood of some occasional student who dared to question the dictum of a master in divinity ; and he thought it was good enough for 26 BLUFFTON. him when a sharp retort and a " settler " took the place of an explanation. A student asked Dr. Wayland, one day, why divine inspiration was necessary for the writing of the Book of Proverbs. The doctor crushed him by asking him to go and write as good a chapter himself. At this time Mark would have looked at such a rejoinder as conclusive. He did not stop, till afterwards, to think that because " not twenty men in Boston could have written Shakspeare," as a critic once profoundly said, that hardly proved that Othello was inspired and infallible. But toward the latter part of his seminary-life he began to use his own brain, and think for himself. Not, by any means, that he questioned the system of orthodoxy, very far from it ; but he began to feel, that, while such and such things might be true, he could not preach as a mere echo of others' thoughts. It must be true to him before he could dare to speak it. Thus, without his knowing it, he admitted a prin ciple fatal to his soundness, and that was to lead him a long and weary and painful way. He did not read or study outside of his system, except as special books were pointed out to him ; and these he was taught to consider already abolished, or as profane quibblers who chose "darkness rather than light," and were therefore " given over to a reprobate mind." A perfect divine revela tion had been given to men ; and only the wilfully wicked refused to see it. One prominent professor from Union Seminary advised the students not to read any books later than the seventeenth century. A prominent, successful D.D. and pastor told them that the books that attacked their RETROSPECT. 2/ system were weak, if not venomous, and they ought not to waste their time in reading them, but spend it in saving souls. Beside, Satan was able to make " the worse appear the better reason;" and since man was fallen, and the divine light blotted from his mind, to follow " profane and carnal reason " was chasing a will-o'-the-wisp that would lead them into the swamps of corruption, and endanger their souls' eternal welfare. Through such influences he passed to his work. God was to be found only in the Bible as interpreted in the popular writings. Man was corrupt ; nature was only to be used to illustrate revelation ; and the great scientific thinkers of the world had lost their spiritual vision by long contact with a debasing materialism. When his theological course was completed, he said to his chum, " If the rest of you choose to settle down in some little quiet nook, and wither into a petty routine, I do not. I'm off for the frontiers." " But what will you get on the frontiers except rough work?" said his chum. " I'll get a knowledge of humanity ; I'll measure the size of the continent ; I'll see how my theology works in practi cal life," said he. "Then, if I wish to settle East, I can labor in view of the whole field." So off he went, by the way of the Isthmus, to California and Oregon. He went up and down the country, exploring the field, the wants of this place and that, and at last located in a mining-camp, and began preaching in schoolhouses and on the street-corners as he could get a hearing. 28 BLUFFTON. He learned one thing that was of infinite use to him in his after-life ; and that was, to stand strong on his own feet, and place the man before the minister. The " Rev." attached to his name, he soon found out, instead of giving him cur rency as sterling coin, was looked upon with suspicion as a surface indication of counterfeit and religious swindle. His being a minister, instead of being a proof of manhood, was rather against him. After he had proved himself a man, then they began, for the first time, to respect the minister. Not that they had any thing against ministers, as such ; they remembered home too well for that : but the title had so often been used to cloak a sham, that they wanted to know what was under a black coat. Wrecked and tumble-down minis ters, with the manhood gone out, were scattered, like desert ed and broken-roofed cabins, all through the mining-regions. So after Mark had "cleaned out" some "roughs" that came in to break up his prayer-meeting; after he had knocked down a brute on the street for abusing a little boy ; when they found that he was always on the side of right, " meant business " as they said, and was always ready to " help a feller in trouble," they " took to " him wonderfully. One rough old miner told him privately that " he didn't know but he liked him 'bout as well ez ef he warn't a minister." And he added, " Ef yer want any dust to help a boy whose mine has ' petered out,' an' who's got sick, jes' show yer hand, and I'm yer man. Or ef any shufflin' bilk interferes with your meetin's, I'll clean him out quicker'n greased light- nin'. Yer can count on me." And another lesson he learned ; and that was, that when RETROSPECT. 29 dealing with men who cared nothing for traditions, who got right down to " hard-pan " on all questions, and who believed with their whole souls that it took just a hundred cents in gold to make a dollar, he must appeal to their common sense and reason, must talk home to their every-day life, or else he might as well not talk at all. Along with this kind of life, he had read and studied widely and deeply as his time and means for purchasing books per mitted ; for he wished to be master of the problems of the day in the scholarly world, as well as master of the human heart in its every-day manifestations of common life. When you stand by a river-bank, and know its source and general trend, you can with tolerable accuracy forecast its onward course, and tell into what ocean it will empty. So it was needful that so much of the past course of the young minister should be indicated, in order to a better under standing of what is to follow. 3O BLUFFTON. IV. FIRST SUNDAY AT BLUFFTON. BY eight o'clock on Sunday morning, Mr. Forrest had eaten a light breakfast, the slight nervous anxiety he always felt when he was to speak in public usually took away his appetite, and was on his way to Bowman's Hill, as the keeper of the " Cosmopolitan Hotel " informed him they had christened the bluff at the northern end of the town. As he turned in the street, and looked back at what in his Eastern home would have been popularly called a " tarvern," he smiled at the ludicrous suggestion, that, if the name had been any bigger for so little a hotel, the signboard would have stuck out at both ends of the building. And the term " Cosmopolitan " had in it painful suggestions of the bound less hospitality the house afforded to all the inferior forms of animate life. But he soon forgot the unpleasant breaks in his "visions of the night," as he thought that " God made the country, but man made the town." The scene of beauty about him was, at any rate, God's work, whatever might be said of the hotel. He slowly climbed the hill ; for as he was to speak, not read, that day, he wisely thought a breath of the divine inspiration of nature would be fitting preparation. FIRST SUNDAY AT BLUFFTON. 3! When he had gained the hill, he looked slowly round, and drank in the scene. As he gazed down and up the river, and over the prairie beyond, and saw the city so silent at his feet, while the still sunlight, like magic alchemist, transmuted every base thing, even the filthy streets, to burnished gold, his lips moved, and his thoughts found involuntary utterance in those words that have become a part of so many fair nature-pictures, " Oh, what is so rare as a day in June ? Then if ever come perfect days." And glancing up at the tender blue that seemed so near, and then away to where it softly rested on the as tender green of the prairie, he continued, " Then heaven tries the earth, if it be in tune, And over it softly her warm ear lays, Whether we look, or whether we listen, We hear life murmur, or see it glisten." And he exclaimed in sincere and simple devoutness, " O Lord, how manifold are thy works ! in wisdom hast thou made them all." His musing was interrupted by a rough voice that ex claimed, " Waal, young man, I reckon as how ye must be fresh in these parts, or ye wouldn't be up here at this time in the mornin' alone, gawkin' round ez ef ye'd never seen a river nur a payrarie before." Mark turned, and faced a man bare-headed and in his shirt-sleeves, who appeared to belong to an odd-looking and 32 BLUFFTON. diminutive cottage not far away. When he saw he was good- natured, and disposed to be neighborly, he was not alto gether sorry to be interrupted in his meditations; for he thought he could ask him a few questions about the city below. So he answered pleasantly, " Yes : I presume I am one that you'd call ' fresh,' having come to town for the first time by last night's boat ; and I never saw the Mississippi till yesterday." " Raally ! " said he, " that seems sorter Strange to one who's looked at it night and mornin' for nigh thirty year. I reckon it's natur' though. 'F I should go to Chicago or St. Louis, I reckon I sh'd stare round same's you do here. Ye don't look like a hotel-runner nur a book-agent?" The tone of voice in which the last sentence was uttered turned it into a question ; and, as Mr. Forrest had no objec tion to his knowing his mission, he said, " No : I'm a minister. I preach my first sermon here to day. Perhaps you attend what is to be my church." " Haven't been ter church this ten year," said he, " 'cept to funerals. I don't take much stock in what the churches calls religion any more, nohow. I b'long ter the church o' all-out-doors, where all the pews is free, and it don't cost nothin' for choirs, coz the birds do the music. The church es is full o' ornery critters, that cheats week-days, and prays Sundays. Now, thar's the Congregational church been raarin' up a mighty fine meetin'-'us, but ain't got religion enough ter go half way round. Presbyterians 'bout the same, only their heaven's a leetle smaller'n the Congrega- tionalists'. The 'Piscopals runs the Church of the 'Postolic FIRST SUNDAY AT BLUFFTON. 33 Succession, where they have sech ' a gentlemanly mode of worship/ as one on 'em said t'other day. 'N' then, wuss'n all the rest, is the Christ-yuns and Baptists, always fightin' 'bout a leetle more or less water, that wouldn't hurt 'em any outside, nur do 'em much good in. They talk so much 'bout water, that it always seems sort 'er swampy and soggy like, round a Baptist church, and makes ye feel 'z ef 'twas a kindo' speritooal fever-'n'-ager country they live in." " Oh ! but you're rather hard on the churches, aren't you?" said Mr. Forrest. "I know they're not all saints; but that is because they don't live out the beauty of their religion. It's more religion, not less, that we all need." " Maybe, young man," said he ; " but you'll be wiser when ye git older. Ask yer parding for speakin' rough; but I like yer, and am sorry ye ain't doing something better'n preachin.' Now, they had a feller here not long sence, that looked so ornery 't I thought the Lord must be short on't fer hands when he made a 'postle er him. But you look like a squar' man, az ef yer hed it in yer." "Thank you for your good opinion," answered Mark. " Perhaps you'll think better of my religion when you know its better side." " Ez ter that," said he, " I don't own up ter bein' 'thout religion now : only I've got my own kind. I've my own. notions 'bout God an' this ere universe. I don't believe that bluff over yander wuz made in six days. An' I think th' Almighty knew what he was 'bout from the fust. I 'low it don't stan' ter reason, that after he'd got things done, and called 'em ' good,' he found himself dis'pinted in the way 34 BLUFFTON. the machine run, and had ter come in an' fix 't all over again, and lose the biggest part o' the job at that. 'Cordin' ter you ministers, the Lord gits euchred every time, coz the other feller holds all the trumps." " Well," said Mark, " I haven't time to talk longer now. I've heard you through, and some day I'll give you my side of these questions. I must be getting ready for church. Good day what may I call you?" " Call me Uncle Zeke, if you will. That's my every-day name. I live over thar' in the cabin. Latch-string's allers out." Mr. Forrest now started down the hill, and walked leisure ly in the direction of the church. He was not at all troubled by what he tolerantly regarded as the natural prejudices of one who had doubtless received rather ill usage at the hands of the world. As he went on, he saw Major Ward, the gentleman who had met him East, and who drove him to his hotel. He had now come to walk with him to the church. Mr. Forrest related his adventure ; and the major gave him some account of Uncle Zeke, whom he spoke of as a " good, honest man, but a little peculiar." The bells were now ringing out on the soft, luminous air ; and the streets were full of people on their way to church. Seeing Mr. Forrest with the major, they knew he must be the new minister, and so scanned him curiously as they passed. "The people are taking my measure, major," said he. " They are looking to see if I am a ' reed shaken by the wind.'" FIRST SUNDAY AT BLUFFTON. 35 " It'll be an old story after a little, and I think you'll enjoy it when you get settled into the work. This is a field of most capital promise." They had now reached the church, a plain but nice brick structure, on the corner of Seventh and Linden Streets, facing the public square. Mr. Forrest saw, through the open door, that it was filled by a pleasant and attractive-looking congregation. He passed up the aisle, and took his seat in the pulpit. He was used to facing congregations by this time ; and so, while modest in demeanor, he was not flurried. For the first time in his life, however, he was afraid of eyes ; not of the hundreds, but of one solitary pair. These the eyes of the angel that floated into his yesterday's vision looked at him, and pierced him through and through. He trembled, and looked down. To him this large audience was now reduced to one. He wished she might have staid at home on this first Sunday, until he had once been heard. He did not care whether the people liked the sermon : would she like it? It was not a sense of pride in his work, but only the crushing thought that he could not bear to have her hold a mean opinion of him. The sweetest flowers would have shrivelled to a poor and unworthy gift, if he had thought of offering them to her. And so his highest and best thoughts seemed poor, because she was to listen. Would she think him awkward ? This thought almost par alyzed his movements. But the time came to speak ; and he bravely flung away his timidity, and began the service. He took for his text, " God was in Christ, reconciling the 3~6 BLUFFTON. world unto himself." He preached a sermon of nature and of life. The sweet world and the blue sky, and the high hope of a young and noble heart, got into his words. He spoke of God as the living and loving God to-day ; of Christ as a manifestation of his saving grace that waited not to be sent for, but went out after the lost ; of man as able to turn from evil when he would ; and he closed by saying, that, if any men were finally lost, it would only be because they "would not come and have life." At the close of service he had what to him was the exqui site pleasure of touching Miss Margaret's hand once more. And, though she said no word of the sermon, there was that in her eyes that told him she had been melted and moved. And he went out of church as light as air, feeling that all the world might hate and despise him, if it would, provided only her eyes might look upon him with approval. After being introduced to everybody, he accepted an invi tation to dine with Major Ward. And we will leave him now in his care, while we listen to a few comments in the vesti bule and on the street. " Oh ! that was a sweet, gentle, loving sermon, wasn't it? " said old Mr. Buck. "Yis,"said aunt Sally Rawson; "but I don't think he'll never do. He'll be too foppish, I'm afeared : his hair curls too much for a minister." " And there's another thing," said old Mrs. Buck : " he'd orter be married. A minister ain't wuth nothin' till he's got a wife to help him do his parish work. An' I guess there won't be much spiritooality about him as long's he's gallivan- FIRST SUNDAY AT BLUFFTON. 37 tin' round with all the handsome gals. Now, my old man was nothin' till I took him in hand, and settled him down ; and he ain't a minister neither." " Oh, yes ! " tartly replied Jane Ann Rawson, " of course you'll talk that way, because you ain't got any girls. If you had one fit to be married, you'd think he was a special prov idence." And so the chatter ran on. The quiet ones went away and thought. The rattlers went away, and rattled as they went. But they meant no harm by their gossip, and were as ready to like the new minister as anybody. The only thing that boded trouble was the comments of three that went up the street by themselves, Judge Hart ley, Mr. Richard Smiley, and Deacon Putney, who, on ac count of his plastic nature, was generally called Deacon Putty by any one who was speaking of, and not to, him. If you wanted to know his opinion, you must hunt up the last strong-minded man who had spoken to him. He meant well : so of all stupid tools and blunderers. Meaning to serve the Lord, he was always ready to do the Devil's work, if his highness only came playing his popular part of the " angel of light." " I like him capitally," said Deacon Putney : " that was just a splendid sermon." "Well," replied Judge Hartley, "I'm afraid it savors a little too much of tenderness towards sin. Of course God is love ; but he's justice too. The wickedness of man needs the wrath preached. God is love toward the elect ; but to the hardened sinner he is a ' consuming fire.' But I won't 38 BLUFFTON. judge too soon : he may give us the other side next Sun day." "And I think," said Mr. Richard Smiley, "that such preaching is fast verging toward infidelity. Not a word about 'justification by faith;' not a word about the 'rags of our own righteousness ; ' not a word about total deprav ity, and the uselessness of a man's trying to help himself and lead a good life in his own strength ! I believe that the ' works of the law ' are a curse, and that what we need is ' free grace ' through the blood of Christ." He didn't know enough of the true meaning of scrip ture to understand that it was just the "works of the law," in Paul's sense of the term, to which he was really trusting. And Uncle Zeke on the bluff sometimes shrewdly observed, that, if " Dick Smiley ever is saved, it will have to be by faith, sure 'nough. For, d'ye see, he hain't got rags o' self- righteousness 'nough round his whole place to rig out a 'spectable scarecrow." But Deacon Putney, after the ex-cathedra opinion of Mr. Smiley, made nimble work of getting over the critical fence ; and said, " Well, yes : I guess p'raps there's a deal in what you say. We'll have to keep our eyes open, and see that he don't win the affections of the church, and lead 'em into infidelity." Meantime, at the house of Major Ward, Mr. Forrest was finding pleasant and appreciative entertainment. The major wholly approved of the sermon, and gave him a hearty right hand on the promise of his first Sunday in Bluffton. TO THE CAVE. 39 V. TO THE CAVE. MR. FORREST had now been several weeks at Bluffton, and was quietly settled down to his work. The other two of the judge's daughters had come on from Chicago, and the family was established in its new home. Mr. Forrest had wearied of the hotel, and been admitted into the house of a family close by the judge's, and had fitted up the " best room " as his study. The people had exhausted their petty criticisms, and, when they were done, found out that they really liked him amazingly. So thoroughly had he gained the ear and respect of the town by his straight-out, simple manliness, that even Mr. Richard's Smiley's instinc tive dislike was hidden beneath a cloak of seeming admira tion. And of course Deacon Putney was loud in his praises. Judge Hartley, who, where he did not consider the honor of God or the integrity of the gospel at stake, was as gentle and loving as a child, had been thoroughly won over into a genuine admirer of Mr. Forrest, and tried to make him feel that his house was a sort of home. He was at liberty to come and go as he would ; and always there was a chair for him at the table. And yet there was no house 4