IT is a long time since I had the privilege of writing to you, my young friends, but you will be pleased to have a few more lines from the “Far West.” Life here is very different from what it is in Old England, and our Sunday congregations would appear very strange in your eyes.
At one time we assemble in a low-pitched room, called a bunk-house, situated immediately at the foot of high mountains. Wooden bunks, piled one upon the top of another, are attached to the walls, very much after the fashion of the berths in a ship. The listeners, who are quarrymen of various nationalities, are some smoking, and others lying down. A party of these are noisy, while not a few, under the influence of whiskey, are cursing me as I tell them of God’s love to sinners.
At another time, after traveling a long distance out on the prairie, the only place I find in which to preach to the ranchmen and their families, who have come in wagons from miles around, is a small wooden building, called a shanty, through the opening cracks of which the wind whistles uncomfortably. In this room for several Sundays an attentive little company gathers together to hear of our Lord Jesus. Some of the hearers are Christians, but, living, as they do, far from any town, they seldom have the opportunity of public worship, or of listening to the gospel.
One old lady of this company wept as she shook my hand and wished me God-speed, for she said the meetings reminded her of her old home and friends in the Eastern states, and of the many happy hours she had spent there. In that wee shanty, in which all who came could not find sitting or standing room, I have reason to hope that more than one soul was converted to God, and found peace and joy through believing in Christ.
In most of the mountain hamlets, it is difficult to get the people to assemble to hear the gospel; for they have been so long unaccustomed to attend any religious service that they have become altogether careless. They totally disregard the Lord’s Day―indeed, many scarcely know when Sunday comes round. At one place, on arriving at the school-house, where I had been announced to preach, I found, instead of an audience, some twenty boys and young men, as wild almost as the ponies they rode, assembled for horse racing. But in this spot, by repeatedly calling at the houses and farms, and by sending messengers through the glades to the people, they gradually came round. First the children came, and very pleased they were with the story-books with pictures which I gave them; then the young men and women followed, and when a few weeks had passed, the parents and older people came, so that at last we had quite an earnest congregation.
So far as we now are from home and our old beloved friends, you cannot wonder if we often long for the privileges we used to enjoy in England.
A few months since an interesting incident occurred here. About thirty years ago, a cruel father, who lived in the south of London, forsook his home, taking with him his little boy of two years of age, whom he had secretly removed from his mother’s care. He went to the docks to sail for America. This man had for a long time neglected his home, and had treated his young wife and baby most cruelly. Little Fred, as the child was named, cried very much to be taken back to the mother, but his hard-hearted father paid no heed to him, but sailed with him to America. On the voyage the father quarreled with a sailor, who so seriously injured him that, soon after their arrival in America, he died. The baby-boy, Fred, was placed under the care of an uncle and aunt, who taught him to call them father and mother; but after a few years they died also, and poor Fred was left alone to earn his living.
Years of hardship passed over him, during which time much rough treatment fell to his lot. He determined to start for the “great West,” and journeyed as far as the Rocky Mountains. There, by perseverance and industry, he was enabled to provide himself a home. He purchased horses and implements, and set up in business for himself, and became settled in life. The great longing of the boy, through all these years, had been to hear tidings of his mother, for the aunt and uncle, before they died, had told him his history.
One day Fred called upon us, told us how he had been taken from his mother when a baby, and asked if we knew anyone of their name in London, and begged that we would make enquiries after her.
The particulars were so meagre, and the chances of finding his mother so remote, that we gave but little hope. Thirty long years had passed since Fred had been carried on board ship and brought from London to America, and we thought most probably his poor mother had died of grief years ago. And, even if she were alive, it seemed impossible that she could be found. However, seeking God’s guidance, we wrote to one of the London newspapers, gave the few particulars we possessed, and requested the editor to insert the inquiry, and this he kindly did.
Six weeks after this, Fred rushed into our house one morning, exclaiming excitedly, “I’ve found my mother. She saw your letter in the newspaper, and wrote off at once. Here is a letter from her. Read it.”
The touching letter was in disjointed sentences―evidence of the excitement under which it had been written. It narrated the facts in detail of the loss of her little Fred, whom, as she said, she had long thought was lost to her. The sequel is soon told. Fred sent his photograph to his mother, and with it money, begging her to come over at once to him. In about five weeks Mrs. B. arrived, and who can describe the feelings of those two hearts, at meeting after so long a separation! It must have been in some respects, similar to that of the father and prodigal son, of which we read in the fifteenth chapter of Luke’s Gospel. Yet, whilst we can imagine somewhat of the intense joy of the mother and son, it is but a feeble picture of the love that God has towards us, and of the joy He has when a soul accepts the Lord Jesus Christ as his or her Saviour, Yes, and when a little girl or boy, too, comes to Jesus.
In my story you saw that both the mother and son equally longed to find each other; but the Bible tells us that it is God who is seeking the sinner, whilst the sinner does not seek after God. How strange! God is beseeching sinners to receive pardon and peace and eternal life, through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, who died to put away our sins. C. G. D.