Chapter VI: Part 6

This climate of California is perfectly epitomized in a stanza of the same poem before quoted:

So each year the season shifted, Wet and warm, and drear and dry,

Half a year-of cloud and flowers, Half a year of dust and sky.

After the Storm.

(Penciled in the bay-window above the Golden Gate, North Beach, San Francisco, February 20, 1873.)

All day the winds the sea had lashed, The fretted waves in anger dashed Against the rocks in tumult wild Above the surges roughly piled--No blue above, no peace below, The waves still rage, the winds still blow.

Dull and muffled the sunset gun Tells that the dreary day is done; The sea-birds fly with drooping wing--Chill and shadow on every thing--No blue above, no peace below, The waves still rage, the winds still blow.

The clouds dispart; the sapphire dye In beauty spreads o'er the western sky, Cloud-fires blaze o'er the Gate of Gold, Gleaming and glowing, fold on fold--All blue above, all peace below, Nor waves now rage, nor winds now blow.

Souls that are lashed by storms of pain, Eyes that drip with sorrow's rain; Hearts that burn with passion strong, Bruised and torn, and weary of wrong--No light above, no peace within, Battling with self, and torn by sin--

Hope on, hold on, the clouds will lift; God's peace will come as his own sweet gift, The light will shine at evening-time, The reflected beams of the sunlit clime, The blessed goal of the soul's long quest, Where storms ne'er beat, and all are blest.

Bishop Kavanaugh in California.

He came first in 1856. The Californians "took to" him at once. It was almost as good as a visit to the old home to see and hear this rosy-faced, benignant, and solid Kentuckian. His power and pathos in the pulpit were equaled by his humor and magnetic charm in the social circle. Many consciences were stirred. All hearts were won by him, and he holds them unto this day. We may hope too that many souls were won that will be stars in his crown of rejoicing in the day of Jesus Christ.

At San Jose, his quality as a preacher was developed by an incident that excited no little popular interest. The (Northern) Methodist Conference was in session at that place, the venerable and saintly Bishop Scott presiding. Bishop Kavanaugh was invited to preach, and it so happened that he was to do so on the night following an appointment for Bishop Scott. The matter was talked of in the town, and not unnaturally a spirit of friendly rivalry was excited with regard to the approaching pulpit performances by the Northern and Southern Bishops respectively. One enthusiastic but not pious Kentuckian offered to bet a hundred dollars that Kavanaugh would preach the better sermon. Of course the two venerable men were unconscious of all this, and nothing of the kind was in their hearts. The church was thronged to hear Bishop Scott, and his humility, strong sense, deep earnestness, and holy emotion, made a profound and happy impression on all present. The church was again crowded the next night. Among the audience was a considerable number of Southerners--wild fellows, who were not often seen in such places, among them the enthusiastic Kentuckian already alluded to. Kavanaugh, after going through with the preliminary services, announced his text, and began his discourse. He seemed not to be in a good preaching mood. His wheels drove heavily. Skirmishing around and around, he seemed to be reconnoitering his subject, finding no salient point for attack. The look of eager expectation in the faces of the people gave way to one of puzzled and painful solicitude. The heads of the expectant Southerners drooped a little, and the betting Kentuckian betrayed his feelings by a lowering of the under-jaw and sundry nervous twitchings of the muscles of his face. The good Bishop kept talking, but the wheels revolved slowly. It was a solemn and "trying time" to at least a portion of the audience, as the Bishop, with head bent over the Bible and his broad chest stooped, kept trying to coax a response from that obstinate text. It seemed a lost battle. At last a sudden flash of thought seemed to strike the speaker, irradiating his face and lifting his form as he gave it utterance, with a characteristic throwing back of his shoulders and upward sweep of his arms. Those present will never forget what followed. The afflatus of the true orator had at last fallen upon him; the mighty ship was launched, and swept out to sea under full canvas. Old Kentucky was on her feet that night in San Jose. It was indescribable. Flashes of spiritual illumination, explosive bursts of eloquent declamation, sparkles of chastened wit, appeals of overwhelming intensity, followed like the thunder and lightning of a Southern storm. The church seemed literally to rock. "Amens" burst from the electrified Methodists of all sorts; these were followed by "hallelujahs" on all sides; and when the sermon ended with a rapturous flight of imagination, half the congregation were on their feet, shaking hands, embracing one another, and shouting. In the tremendous religious impression made, criticism was not thought of. Even the betting Kentuckian showed by his heaving breast and tearful eyes how far he was borne out of the ordinary channels of his thought and feeling.

He came to Sonora, where I was pastor, to preach to the miners. It was our second year in California, and the paternal element in his nature fell on us like a benediction. He preached three noble sermons to full houses in the little church on the red hillside, but his best discourses were spoken to the young preacher in the tiny parsonage. Catching the fire of the old polemics that led to the battles of the giants in the West, he went over the points of difference between the Arminiau and Calvinistic schools of theology in a way that left a permanent deposit in a mind which was just then in its most receptive state. We felt very lonesome after he had left. It was like a touch of home to have him with us then, and in his presence we have had the feeling ever since. What a home will heaven be where all such men will be gathered in one company!

It was a warm day when he went down to take the stage for Mariposa. The vehicle seemed to be already full of passengers, mostly Mexicans and Chinamen. When the portly Bishop presented himself, and essayed to enter, there were frowns and expressions of dissatisfaction.

"Mucho malo!" exclaimed a dark-skinned Senorita, with flashing black eyes.

"Make room in there--he's got to go," ordered the bluff stage-driver, in a peremptory tone.

There were already eight passengers inside, and the top of the coach was covered as thick as robins on a sumac-bush. The Bishop mounted the step and surveyed the situation. The seat assigned him was between two Mexican women, and as he sunk into the apparently insufficient space there was a look of consternation in their faces--and I was not surprised at it. But scrouging in, the newcomer smiled, and addressed first one and then another of his fellow-passengers with so much friendly pleasantness of manner that the frowns cleared away from their faces, even the stolid, phlegmatic Chinamen brightening up with the contagious good humor of the "big Mellican man." When the driver cracked his whip, and the spirited mustangs struck off in the California gallop --the early Californians scorned any slower gait--everybody was smiling. Staging in California in those days was often an exciting business. There were "opposition" lines on most of the thoroughfares, and the driving was furious and reckless in the extreme. Accidents were strangely seldom when we consider the rate of speed, the nature of the roads, and the quantity of bad whisky consumed by most of the drivers. Many of these drivers made it a practice to drink at every stopping-place. Seventeen drinks were counted in one forenoon ride by one of these thirsty Jehus. The racing between the rival stages was exciting enough. Lashing the wiry little horses to full speed, there was but one thought, and that was, to "get in ahead." A driver named White upset his stage between Montezuma and Knight's Ferry on the Stanislaus, breaking his right-leg above the knee. Fortunately none of the passengers were seriously hurt, though some of them were a little bruised and frightened. The stage was righted, White resumed the reins, whipped his horses into a run, and, with his broken limb hanging loose, ran into town ten minutes ahead of his rival, fainting as he was lifted from the seat.

"Old man Holden told me to go in ahead or smash everything, and I made it!" exclaimed White, with professional pride.

The Bishop was fortunate enough to escape with unbroken bones as he dashed from point to point over the California hills and valleys, though that heavy body of his was mightily shaken up on many occasions.

He came to California on his second visit, in 1863, when the war was raging. An incident occurred that gave him a very emphatic reminder that those were troublous times.

He was at a camp-meeting in the San Joaquin Valley, near Linden--a place famous for gatherings of this sort. The Bishop was to preach at eleven o'clock, and a great crowd was there, full of high expectation. A stranger drove up just before the hour of service--a broad shouldered man in blue clothes, and wearing a glazed cap. He asked to see Bishop Kavanaugh privately for a few moments.

They retired to "the preachers' tent," and the stranger said:

"My name is Jackson--Colonel Jackson, of the United States Army. I have a disagreeable duty to perform. By order of General McDowell, I am to place you under arrest, and take you to San Francisco."

"Can you wait until I preach my sermon?" asked the Bishop, good-naturedly; "the people expect it, and I don't want to disappoint them if it can be helped."

"How long will it take you?"

"Well, I am a little uncertain when I get started, but I will try not to be too long."

"Very well; go on with your sermon, and if you have no objection I will be one of your hearers."

The secret was known only to the Bishop and his captor. The sermon was one of his best--the vast crowd of people were mightily moved, and the Colonel's eyes were not dry when it closed. After a prayer, and a song, and a collection, the Bishop stood up again before the people, and said:

"I have just received a message which makes it necessary for me to return to San Francisco immediately. I am sorry that I cannot remain longer, and participate with you in the hallowed enjoyments of the occasion. The blessing of God be with you, my brethren and sisters."

His manner was so bland, and his tone so serene, that nobody had the faintest suspicion as to what it was that called him away so suddenly. When he drove off with the stranger, the popular surmise was that it was a wedding or a funeral that called for such haste. These are two events in human life that admit of no delays: people must be buried, and they will be married.

The Bishop reported to General Mason, Provost-marshal General, and was told to hold himself as in duress until further orders, and to be ready to appear at headquarters at short notice when called for. He was put on parole, as it were. He came down to San Jose and stirred my congregation with several of his powerful discourses. In the meantime the arrest had gotten into the newspapers. Nothing that happens escapes the California journalists, and they have even been known to get hold of things that never happened at all. It seems that someone in the shape of a man had made an affidavit that Bishop Kavanaugh had come to the Pacific Coast as a secret agent of the Southern Confederacy, to intrigue and recruit in its interest! Five minutes' inquiry would have satisfied General McDowell of the silliness of such a charge--but it was in war times, and he did not stop to make the inquiry. In Kentucky the good old Bishop had the freedom of the whole land, coming and going without hinderance; but the fact was, he had not been within the Confederate lines since the war began. To make such an accusation against him was the climax of absurdity.

About three weeks after the date of his arrest, I was with the Bishop one morning on our way to Judge Moore's beautiful country-seat, near San Jose, situated on the far-famed Alameda. The carriage was driven by a black man named Henry. Passing the post-office, I found, addressed to the Bishop in my care, a huge document bearing the official stamp of the provost-marshal's office, San Francisco. He opened and read it as we drove slowly along, and as he did so he brightened up, and turning to Henry, said:

"Henry, were you ever a slave?"

"Yes, sah; in Mizzoory," said Henry, showing his white teeth.

"Did you ever get your free-papers?"

"Yes, sah--got 'em now."

"Well, I have got mine--let's shake hands."

And the Bishop and Henry had quite a handshaking over this mutual experience. Henry enjoyed it greatly, as his frequent chucklings evinced while the Judge's fine bays were trotting along the Alameda.

(I linger on the word Alameda as I write it. It is at least one beneficent trace of the early Jesuit Fathers who founded the San Jose and Santa Clara missions a hundred years ago. They planted an avenue of willows the entire three miles, and in that rich, moist soil the trees have grown until their trunks are of enormous size, and their branches, overarching the highway with their dense shade, make a drive of unequaled beauty and pleasantness. The horse-cars have now taken away much of its romance, but in the early days it was famous for moonlight drives and their concomitants and consequences. A long-limbed four-year-old California colt gave me a romantic touch of a different sort, nearly the last time I was on the Alameda, by running away with the buggy, and breaking it and me--almost--to pieces. I am reminded of it by the pain in my crippled right-shoulder as I write these lines in July, 1881. But still I say, Blessings on the memory of the Fathers who planted the willows on the Alameda!)

An intimation was given the Bishop that if he wanted the name of the false-swearer who had caused him to be arrested he could have it.

"No, I don't want to know his name," said he; "it will do me no good to know it. May God pardon his sin, as I do most heartily!"

A really strong preacher preaches a great many sermons, each of which the hearers claim to be the greatest sermon of his life. I have heard of at least a half dozen "greatest" sermons by Bascom and Pierce, and other noted pulpit orators. But I heard one sermon by Kavanaugh that was probably indeed his master-effort. It had a history. When the Bishop started to Oregon, in 1863, I placed in his hands Bascom's Lectures, which, strange to say, he had never read. Of these Lectures the elder Dr. Bond said "they would be the colossal pillars of Bascom's fame when his printed sermons were forgotten." Those Lectures wonderfully anticipated the changing phases of the materialistic infidelity developed since his day, and applied to them the reductio ad absurdum with relentless and resistless power. On his return from Oregon, Kavanaugh met and presided over the Annual Conference at San Jose. One of his old friends, who was troubled with skeptical thoughts of the materialistic sort, requested him to preach a sermon for his special benefit. This request, and the previous reading of the Lectures, directed his mind to the topic suggested with intense earnestness. The result was, as I shall always think, the sermon of a lifetime. The text was, There is a spirit in man; and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding. (Job xxxii. 8.) That mighty discourse was a demonstration of the truth of the affirmation of the text. I will not attempt to reproduce it here, though many of its passages are still vivid in my memory. It tore to shreds the sophistries by which it was sought to sink immortal man to the level of the brutes that perish; it appealed to the consciousness of his hearers in red-hot logic that burned its way to the inmost depths of the coldest and hardest hearts; it scintillated now and then sparkles of wit like the illuminated edges of an advancing thundercloud; borne, on the wings of his imagination, whose mighty sweep took him beyond the bounds of earth, through whirling worlds and burning suns, he found the culmination of human destiny, in the bosom of eternity, infinity, and God. The peroration was indescribable. The rapt audience reeled under it. Inspiration! the man of God was himself its demonstration, for the power of his word was not his own.

"O I thank God that be sent me here this day to hear that sermon! I never heard any thing like it, and I shall never forget it, or cease to be thankful that I heard it," said the Rev. Dr. Charles Wadsworth, of Philadelphia, the great Presbyterian preacher--a man of genius, and a true prose-poet, as any one will concede after reading his published sermons. As he spoke, the tears were in his eyes, the muscles of his face quivering, and his chest heaving with irrepressible emotion. Nobody who heard that discourse will accuse me of too high coloring in this brief description of it.

"Don't you wish you were a Kentuckian?" was the enthusiastic exclamation of a lady who brought from Kentucky a matchless wit and the culture of Science Hill Academy, which has blessed and brightened so many homes from the Ohio to the Sacramento.

I think the Bishop was present on another occasion when the compliment he received was a left-handed one. It was at the Stone Church in Suisun Valley. The Bishop and a number of the most prominent ministers of the Pacific Conference were present at a Saturday-morning preaching appointment. They had all been engaged in protracted labors, and, beginning with the Bishop, one after another declined to preach. The lot fell at last upon a boyish-looking brother of very small stature, who labored under the double disadvantage of being a very young preacher, and of having been reared in the immediate vicinity. The people were disappointed and indignant when they saw the little fellow go into the pulpit. None showed their displeasure more plainly than Uncle Ben Brown, a somewhat eccentric old brother, who was one of the founders of that Society, and one of its best official members. He sat as usual on a front seat, his thick eyebrows fiercely knit, and his face wearing a heavy frown. He had expected to hear the Bishop, and this was what it had come to! He drew his shoulders sullenly down, and, with his eyes bent upon the floor, nursed his wrath. The little preacher began his sermon, and soon astonished everybody by the energy with which he spoke. As he proceeded, the frown on Uncle Ben's face relaxed a little; at length he lifted his eyes and glanced at the speaker in surprise. He did not think it was in him. With abnormal fluency and force, the little preacher went on with the increasing sympathy of his audience, who were feeling the effects of a generous reaction in his favor. Uncle Ben, touched a little with honest obstinacy as he was, gradually relaxed in the sternness of his looks, straightening up by degrees until he sat upright facing the speaker in a sort of half-reluctant, pleased wonder. Just at the close of a specially vigorous burst of declamation, the old man exclaimed, in a loud voice:

"Bless God! he uses the weak things of this world to confound the mighty!" casting around a triumphant glance at the Bishop and other preachers.

This impromptu remark was more amusing to the hearers than helpful to the preacher, I fear; but it was away the dear old brother had of speaking out in meeting.

I must end this Sketch. I have dipped my pen in my heart in writing it. The subject of it has been friend, brother, father, to me since the day he looked in upon us in the little cabin on the hill in Sonora, in 1855. When I greet him on the hills of heaven, he will not be sorry to be told that among the many in the far West to whom he was helpful was the writer of this too imperfect Sketch.

Sanders.

He belonged to the Church militant. In looks he was a cross between a grenadier and a Trappist. But there was more soldier than monk in his nature. He was over six feet high, thin as a bolster, and straight as a long-leaf pine. His anatomy was strongly conspicuous. He was the boniest of men. There were as many angles as inches in the lines of his face. His hair disdained the persuasions of comb or brush, and rose in tangled masses above a head that would have driven a phrenologist mad. It was a long head in every sense. His features were strong and stern, his nose one that would have delighted the great Napoleon--it was a grand organ. You said at once, on looking at him, Here is a man that fears neither man nor devil. The face was an honest face. When you looked into those keen, dark eyes, and read the lines of that stormy countenance, you felt that it would be equally impossible for him to tell a lie or to fear the face of man.

This was John Sanders, one of the early California Methodist preachers. He went among the first to preach the gospel to the gold-hunters. He got a hearing where some failed. His sincerity and brainpower commanded attention, and his pluck enforced respect. In one case it seemed to be needed.

He was sent to preach in Placerville, popularly called in the old days, "Hangtown." It was then a lively and populous place. The mines were rich, and gold-dust was abundant as good behavior was scarce. The one church in the town was a "union church," and it was occupied by Sanders and a preacher of another sect on alternate Sundays. All went well for many months, and if there were no sinners converted in that camp, the few saints were at peace. It so happened that Sanders was called away for a week or two, and on his return he found that a new preacher had been sent to the place, and that he had made an appointment to preach on his (Sanders's) regular day. Having no notion of yielding his rights, Sanders also inserted a notice in the papers of the town that he would preach at the same time and place. The thing was talked about in the town and vicinity, and there was a buzz of excitement. The miners, always ready for a sensation, became interested, and when Sunday came the church could not hold the crowd. The strange preacher arrived first, entered the pulpit, knelt a few moments in silent devotion, according to custom, and then sat and surveyed the audience which was surveying him with curious interest. He was a tall, fine-looking man, almost the equal of Sanders in height, and superior to him in height. He was a Kentuckian originally, but went from Ohio to California, and was a full-grown man, of the best Western physical type. In a little while Sanders entered the church, made his way through the dense crowd, ascended the pulpit, cast a sharp glance at the intruder, and sat down. There was a dead silence. The two preachers gazed at the congregation; the congregation gazed at the preachers. A pin might have been heard to fall. Sanders was as imperturbable as a statue, but his lips were pressed together tightly, and there was a blaze in his eyes. The strange preacher showed signs of nervousness, moving his hands and feet, and turning this way and that in his seat. It was within five minutes of the time for opening the service. The stranger rose, and was in the act of taking hold of the Bible that lay on the cushion in front of him, when Sanders rose to his full height, stepped in front of him, and darting lightning from his eyes as he looked him full in the face, said:

"I preach here today, sir!"

That settled it. There was no mistaking that look or tone. The tall stranger muttered an inarticulate protest and subsided. Sanders proceeded with the service, making no allusion to the difficulty until it was ended. Then he proposed a meeting of the citizens the next evening to adjudicate the case. The proposal was acceded to. The church was again crowded; and though ecclesiastically Sanders was in the minority, with the genuine love for fair-play which is a trait of Anglo-Saxon character, he was sustained by an overwhelming majority. It is likely, too, that his plucky bearing the, day before made him some votes. A preacher who would fight for his rights suited those wild fellows better than one who would assert a claim that he would not enforce. Sanders preached to larger audiences after this episode in his "Hangtown" pastorate.

It was after this that he went out one day to stake off a lot on which he proposed to build a house of worship. It was near the Roman Catholic Church. A zealous Irishman, who was a little more than half drunk, was standing by. Evidently he did not like any such heretical movements, and, after Sanders had placed the stake in the earth, the Hibernian stepped forward and pulled it up.

"I put the stake back in its place. He pulled it up again. I put it back. He pulled it up again. I put it back once more. He got fiery mad by this time, and started at me with an ax in his hand. I had an ax in my hand, and as its handle was longer than his, I cut him down."

The poor fellow had waked up the fighting preacher, and fell before the sweep of Sanders's ax. He dodged as the weapon descended, and saved his life by doing so. He got an ugly wound on the shoulder, and kept his bed for many weeks. When he rose from his bed he had a profound regard for Sanders, whose grit excited his admiration. There was not a particle of resentment in his generous Irish heart. He became a sober man, and it was afterward a current pleasantry among the "boys" that he was converted by the use of the carnal weapon wielded by that spunky parson. Nobody blamed Sanders for his part in the matter. It was a fair fight, and he had the right on his side. Had he shown the white feather, that would have damaged him with a community in whose estimation courage as the cardinal virtue. Sanders was popular with all classes, and Placerville remembers him to this day. He was no rose-water divine, but thundered the terrors of the law into the ears of those wild fellows with the boldness of a John the Baptist. Many a sinner quaked under his stern logic and fiery appeals, and some repented.

I shall never forget a sermon he preached at San Jose. He was in bad health, and his mind was morbid and gloomy. His text was, Who hath hardened himself against him, and hath prospered? (Job ix. 4.) The thought that ran through the discourse was the certainty that retribution would overtake the guilty. God's law will be upheld. It protects the righteous, but must crush the disobedient. He swept away the sophisms by which men persuade themselves that they can escape the penalty of violated law; and it seemed as if we could almost hear the crash of the tumbling wrecks of hopes built on false foundations. God Almighty was visible on the throne of his power, armed with the even thunders of his wrath.

"Who hath defied God and escaped?" he demanded, with flashing eyes and trumpet voice. And then he recited the histories of nations and men that had made the fatal experiment, and the doom that had whelmed them in utter ruin.

"And yet you hope to escape!" he thundered to the silent and awestruck men and women before him. "You expect that God will abrogate his law to please you; that he will tear down the pillars of his moral government that you may be saved in your sins! O fools, fools, fools! there is no place but hell for such a folly as this!"

His haggard face, the stern solemnity of his voice, the sweep of his long arms, the gleam of his deep-set eyes, and the vigor of his inexorable logic, drove that sermon home to the listeners.

He was the keenest of critics, and often merciless. He was present at a camp-meeting near San Jose, but too feeble to preach. I was there, and disabled from, the effects of the California poison-oak. That deceitful shrub! Its pink leaves smile at you as pleasantly as sin, and, like sin, it leaves its sting. The "preachers' tent" was immediately in the rear of "the stand," and Sanders and I lay inside and listened to the sermons. He was in one of his caustic moods, and his comments were racy enough, though not helpful to devotion.

"There! he yelled, clapped his hands, stamped, and--said nothing!"

The criticism was just: the brother in the stand was making a great noise, but there was not much meaning in what he said.

"He made one point only--a pretty good apology for Lazarus's poverty."

This was said at the close of an elaborate discourse on "The Rich Man and Lazarus," by a brother who sometimes got "in the brush."

"He isn't touching his text--he knows no more theology than a guinea-pig. Words, words, words!"

This last criticism was directed against a timid young divine, who was badly frightened, but who has since shown that there was good metal in him. If he had known what was going on just behind him, he would have collapsed entirely in that tentative effort at preaching the gospel.

Sanders kept up this running fire of criticism at every service, cutting to the bone, at every blow, and giving me new light on homiletics, if he did not promote my enjoyment of the preaching. He had read largely and thought deeply, and his incisive intellect had no patience with what was feeble or pointless.

Disease settled upon his lungs, and he rapidly declined. His strong frame grew thinner and thinner, and his mind alternated between moods of morbid bitterness and transient buoyancy. As the end approached, his bitter moods were less frequent, and an unwonted tenderness came into his words and tones. He went to the Lokonoma Springs, in the hills of Napa county, and in their solitudes he adjusted himself to the great change that was drawing near. The capacious blue sky that arched above him, the sighing of the gentle breeze through the solemn pines, the repose of the encircling mountains, bright with sunrise, or purpling in the twilight, distilled the soothing influences of nature into his spirit, and there was a great calm within. Beyond those California hills the hills of God rose in their supernal beauty before the vision of his faith, and when the summons came for him one midnight, his soul leaped to meet it in a ready and joyous response. On a white marble slab, at the "Stone Church," in Suisun Valley, is this inscription:

Rev. John Sanders.

Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivereth him out of them all.

The spring flowers were blooming on the grave when I saw it last.

A Day.

Ah, that blessed, blessed day! I had gone to the White Sulphur Springs, in Napa County, to get relief from the effects of the California poison-oak. Gay deceiver! With its tender green and pink leaves, it looks as innocent and smiling as sin when it woos youth and ignorance. Like sin, it is found everywhere in that beautiful land. Many antidotes are used, but the only sure way of dealing with it is to keep away from it. Again, there is an analogy: it is easier to keep out of sin than to get out when caught. These soft, pure white sulphur waters work miracles of healing, and attract all sorts of people. The weary and broken down man of business comes here to sleep, and eat, and rest; the woman of fashion, to dress and flirt; the loudly-dressed and heavily-bejeweled gambler, to ply his trade; happy bridal couples, to have the world to themselves; successful and unsuccessful politicians, to plan future triumphs or brood over defeats; pale and trembling invalids, to seek healing or a brief respite from the grave; families escaping from the wind and fog of the bay, to spend a few weeks where they can find sunshine and quiet--it is a little world in itself. The spot is every way beautiful, but its chief charm is its isolation. Though within a few hours' ride of San Francisco, and only two miles from a railroad-station, you feel as if you were in the very heart of nature --and so you are. Winding along the banks of a sparkling stream, the mountains--great masses of leafy green--rise abruptly on either hand; the road bends this way and that until a sudden turn brings you to a little valley hemmed in all around by the giant hills. A bold, rocky projection just above the main hotel gives a touch of ruggedness and grandeur to the scene. How delicious the feeling of rest that comes over you at once!--the world shut out, the hills around, and the sky above.

It was in 1863, when the civil war was at its white heat. Circumstances had given me undesired notoriety in that connection. I had been thrust into the very vortex of its passion, and my name made the rallying-cry of opposing elements in California. The guns of Manassas, Cedar Mountain, and the Chickahominy, were echoed in the foothills of the Sierras, and in the peaceful valleys of the far-away Pacific Coast. The good sense of a practical, people prevented any flagrant outbreak on a large scale, but here and there a too ardent Southerner said or did something that gave him a few weeks' or months' duress at Fort Alcatraz, and the honors of a bloodless martyrdom. I was then living at North Beach, in full sight of that fortress. It was kindly suggested by several of my brother editors that it would be a good place for me. When, as my eye swept over the bay in the early morning, the first sight that met my gaze was its rocky ramparts and bristling guns, the poet's line would come to mind: "'T is distance lends enchantment to the view." I was just as close as I wanted to be. "I have good quarters for you," said the brave and courteous Captain McDougall, who was in command at the fort; "and knowing your penchant, I will let you have the freedom of a sunny corner of the island for fishing in good weather." The true soldier is sometimes a true gentleman.

The name and image of another Federal officer rise before me as I write. It is that of the heroic soldier, General Wright, who went down with the "Brother Jonathan," on the Oregon coast, in 1865. He was in command of the Department of the Pacific during this stormy period of which I am speaking. I had never seen him, and I had no special desire to make his acquaintance. Somehow Fort Alcatraz had become associated with his name for reasons already intimated. But, though unsought by me, an interview did take place.

"It has come at last!" was my exclamation as I read the note left by an orderly in uniform notifying me that I was expected to report at the quarters of the commanding-general the next day at ten o'clock. Conscious of my innocence of treason or any other crime against the Government or society, my pugnacity was roused by this summons. Before the hour set for my appearance at the military headquarters, I was ready for martyrdom or any thing else except Alcatraz. I didn't like that. The island was too small, and too foggy and windy, for my taste. I thought it best to obey the order I had received, and so, punctually at the hour, I repaired to the headquarters on Washington Street, and ascending the steps with a firm tread and defiant feeling, I entered the room. General Mason, provost-marshal, a scholar and polished gentleman, politely offered me a seat.

"No; I prefer to stand," I said stiffly.

"The General will see you in a few minutes," said he, resuming his work, while I stood nursing my indignation and sense of wrong.

In a little while General Wright entered--a tall and striking figure, silver-haired, blue-eyed, ruddy faced, with a mixture of the dash of the soldier and the benignity of a bishop.

Declining also his cordial invitation to be seated, I stood and looked at him, still nursing defiance, and getting ready to wear a martyr's crown. The General spoke:

"Did you know, sir, that I am perhaps the most attentive reader of your paper to be found in California?"

"No; I was not aware that I had the honor of numbering the commanding-general of this department among my readers." (This was spoken with severe dignity.)

"A lot of hotheads have for sometime been urging me to have you arrested on the ground that you are editing and publishing a disloyal newspaper. Not wishing to do any injustice to a fellowman, I have taken means every week to obtain a copy of your paper, the Pacific Methodist; and allow me to say, sir, that no paper has ever come into my family which is such a favorite with all of us."

I bowed, feeling that the spirit of martyrdom was cooling within me. The General continued:

"I have sent for you, sir, that I might say to you, Go on in your present prudent and manly course, and while I command this department you are as safe as I am."

There I stood, a whipped man, my pugnacity all gone, and the martyr's crown away out of my reach. I walked softly downstairs, after bidding the General an adieu in a manner in marked contrast to that in which I had greeted him at the beginning of the interview. Now that it is all over, and the ocean winds have wailed their dirges for him so many long years, I would pay a humble tribute to the memory of as brave and knightly a man as ever wore epaulettes or fought under the stars and stripes. He was of the type of Sidney Johnston, who fell at Shiloh, and of McPherson, who fell at Kennesaw--all Californians; all Americans, true soldiers, who had a sword for the foe in fair fight in the open field, and a shield for woman, and for the noncombatant, the aged, the defenseless. They fought on different sides to settle forever a quarrel that was bequeathed to their generation, but their fame is the common inheritance of the American people. The reader is beginning to think I am digressing, but he will better understand what is to come after getting this glimpse of those stormy days in the sixties.

The guests at the Springs were about equally divided in their sectional sympathies. The gentlemen were inclined to avoid all exciting discussions, but the ladies kept up a fire of small arms. When the mails came in, and the latest news was read, comments were made with flashing eyes and flushed cheeks.

The Sabbath morning dawned without a cloud. I awoke with the earliest song of the birds, and was out before the first rays of the sun had touched the mountaintops. The coolness was delicious, and the air was filled with the sweet odors of aromatic shrubs and flowers, with a hint of the pine-forests and balsam-thickets from the higher altitudes. Taking a breakfast solus, pocket-bible in hand I bent my steps up the gorge, often crossing the brook that wound its way among the thickets or sung its song at the foot of the great overhanging cliffs. A shining trout would now and then flash like a silver bar for a moment above the shaded pools. With light step a doe descending the mountain came upon me, and, gazing at me a moment or two with its soft eyes, tripped away. In a narrow pass where the stream rippled over the pebbles between two great walls of rock, a spotted snake crossed my path, hurrying its movement in fright. Fear not, humble ophidian. The war declared between thee and me in the fifteenth verse of the third chapter of Genesis is suspended for this one day. Let no creature die today but by the act of God. Here is the lake. How beautiful! how still! A landslide had dammed the stream where it flowed between steep, lofty banks, backing the waters over a little valley three or four acres in extent, shut in on all sides by the wooded hills, the highest of which rose from its northern margin. Here is my sanctuary, pulpit, choir, and altar. A gigantic pine had fallen into the lake, and its larger branches served to keep the trunk above the water as it lay parallel with the shore. Seated on its trunk, and shaded by some friendly willows that stretch their graceful branches above, the hours pass in a sort of subdued ecstasy of enjoyment. It is peace, the peace of God. No echo of the world's discords reaches me. The only sound I hear is the cooing of a turtledove away off in a distant gorge of the mountain. It floats down to me on the Sabbath air with a pathos as if it voiced the pity of Heaven for the sorrows of a world of sin, and pain, and death. The shadows of the pines are reflected in the pellucid depths, and ever and anon the faintest hint of a breeze sighs among their branches overhead. The lake lies without a ripple below, except when from time to time a gleaming trout throws himself out of the water, and, falling with a splash, disturbs the glassy surface, the concentric circles showing where he went down. Sport on, ye shiny denizens of the deep; no angler shall cast his deceitful hook into your quiet haunts this day. Through the foliage of the overhanging boughs the blue sky is spread, a thin, fleecy cloud at times floating slowly along like a watching angel, and casting a momentary shadow upon the watery mirror below. That sky, so deep and so solemn, woos me--lifts my thought till it touches the Eternal. What mysteries of being lie beyond that sapphire sea? What wonders shall burst upon the vision when this mortal shall put on immortality? I open the Book and read. Isaiah's burning song makes new music to my soul attuned. David's harp sounds a sweeter note. The words of Jesus stir to diviner depths. And when I read in the twenty-first chapter of Revelation the Apocalyptic promise of the new heavens and the new earth, and of the New Jerusalem coming down from God out of heaven, a new glory seems to rest upon sky, mountain forest, and lake, and my soul is flooded with a mighty joy. I am swimming in the Infinite Ocean. Not beyond that vast blue canopy is heaven; it is within my own ravished heart! Thus the hours pass, but I keep no note of their flight, and the evening shadows are on the water before I come back to myself and the world. O hallowed day! O hallowed spot! foretaste and prophecy to the weary and burden-bowed soul of the new heavens and the new earth where its blessed ideal shall be a more blessed reality!

It is nearly dark when I get back to the hotel. Supper is over, but I am not hungry--I have feasted on the bread of angels.

"Did you know there was quite a quarrel about you this morning?" asks one of the guests.

The words jar. In answer to my look of inquiry, he proceeds:

"There was a dispute about your holding a religious service at the picnic grounds. They made it a political matter--one party threatened to leave if you did preach, the other threatened to leave if you did not preach. There was quite an excitement about it until it was found that you were gone, and then everybody quieted down."

There is a silence. I break it by telling them how I spent the day, and then they are very quiet.

The next Sabbath every soul at the place united in a request for a religious service, the list headed by a high-spirited and brilliant Pennsylvania lady who had led the opposing forces the previous Sunday.

Winter-Blossomed.

I think I saw him the first Sunday I preached in San Jose, in 1856. He was a notable-looking man. I felt attracted toward him by that indefinable sympathy that draws together two souls born to be friends. I believe in friendship at first sight. Who that ever had a real friend does not? Love at first sight is a different thing--it may be divine and eternal, or it may be a whim or a passing fancy. Passion blurs and blinds in the region of sexual love: friendship is revealed in its own white light.

I was introduced after the service to the stranger who had attracted my attention, and who had given the youthful preacher such a kind and courteous hearing.

"This is Major McCoy."

He was a full head higher than anybody else as he stood in the aisle. He bowed with courtly grace as he took my hand, and his face lighted with a smile that had in it something more than a conventional civility. I felt that there was a soul beneath that dignified and courtly exterior. His head displayed great elevation of the cranium, and unusual breadth of forehead. It was what is called an intellectual head; and the lines around the eyes showed the traces of thought, and, as it seemed to me, a tinge of that sadness that nearly always lends its charm to the best faces.

"I have met a man that I know I shall like," was my gratified exclamation to the mistress of the parsonage, as I entered.

And so it turned out. He became one of the select circle to whom I applied the word friend in the sacredest sense. This inner circle can never be large. If you unduly enlarge it you dilute the quality of this wine of life. We are limited. There is only One Heart large enough to hold all humanity in its inmost depths.

My new friend lived out among the sycamores on the New Almaden Road, a mile from the city, and the cottage in which he lived with his cultured and loving household was one of the social paradises of that beautiful valley in which the breezes are always cool, and the flowers never fade.

My friend interested me more and more. He had been a soldier, and in the Mexican war won distinction by his skill and valor. He was with Joe Lane and his gallant Indianians at Juamantla, and his name was specially mentioned among those whose fiery onsets had broken the lines of the swarthy foe, and won against such heavy odds the bloody field. He was seldom absent from church on Sunday morning, and now and then his inquiring, thoughtful face would be seen in my smaller audience at night. One unwelcome fact about him pained me, while it deepened my interest in him.

He was a skeptic. Bred to the profession of medicine and surgery, he became bogged in the depths of materialistic doubt. The microscope drew his thoughts downward until he could not see beyond second causes. The soul, the seat of which the scalpel could not find, he feared did not exist. The action of the brain, like that of the heart and lungs, seemed to him to be functional; and when the organ perished did not its function cease forever? He doubted the fact of immortality, but did not deny it. This doubt clouded his life. He wanted to believe. His heart rebelled against the negations of materialism, but his intellect was entangled in its meshes. The Great Question was ever in his thought, and the shadow was ever on his path. He read much on both sides, and was always ready to talk with any from whom he had reason to hope for new light or a helpful suggestion. Did he also pray? We took many long rides and had many long talks together. Pausing under the shade of a tree on the highway, the hours would slip away while we talked of life and death, and weighed the pros and cons of the mighty hope that we might live again, until the sun would be sinking into the sea behind the Santa Cruz Mountains, whose shadows were creeping over the valley. He believed in a First Cause. The marks of design in Nature left in his mind no room to doubt that there was a Designer.

"The structure and adaptations of the horse harnessed to the buggy in which we sit, exhibit the infinite skill of a Creator."

On this basis I reasoned with him in behalf of all that is precious to Christian faith and hope, trying to show (what I earnestly believe) that, admitting the existence of God, it is illogical to stop short of a belief in revelation and immortality.

The rudest workman would not fling The fragments of his work away, If every useless bit of clay He trod on were a sentient thing.

And does the Wisest Worker take Quick human hearts, instead of stone, And hew and carve them one by one, Nor heed the pangs with which they break?

And more: if but creation's waste, Would he have given us sense to yearn For the perfection none can earn, And hope the fuller life to taste?

I think, if we most cease to be, It is cruelty refined To make the instincts of our mind Stretch out toward eternity.

Wherefore I welcome Nature's cry, As earnest of a life again, Where thought shall never be in vain, And doubt before the light shall fly.

My talks with him were helpful to me if not to him. In trying to remove his doubts my own faith was confirmed, and my range of thought enlarged. His reverent spirit left its impress upon mine.

"McCoy is a more religious man than either you or I, Doctor," said Tod Robinson to me one day in reply to a remark in which I had given expression to my solicitude for my doubting friend.

Yes, strange as it may seem, this man who wrestled with doubts that wrung his soul with intense agony, and walked in darkness under the veil of unbelief; had a healthful influence upon me because the attitude of his soul was that of a reverent inquirer, not that of a scoffer.

The admirable little treatise of Bishop McIlvaine, on the "Evidences of Christianity," cleared away some of his difficulties. A sermon of Bishop Kavanaugh, preached at his request, was a help to him. (That wonderful discourse is spoken of elsewhere in this volume.)

A friend of his lay dying at Redwood City. This friend, like himself; was a skeptic, and his doubts darkened his way as he neared the border of the undiscovered country. McCoy went to see him. The sick man, in the freedom of long friendship, opened his mind to him. The arguments of the good Bishop were yet fresh in McCoy's mind, and the echoes of his mighty appeals were still sounding in his heart. Seated by the dying man, he forgot his own misgivings, and with intense earnestness pointed the struggling soul to the Saviour of sinners.

"I did not intend it, but I was impelled by a feeling I could not resist. I was surprised and strangely thrilled at my own words as I unfolded to my friend the proofs of the truth of Christianity, culminating in the incarnation, death, and resurrection, of Jesus Christ. He seemed to have grasped the truths as presented, a great calm came over him, and he died a believer. No incident of my life has given me a purer pleasure than this; but it was a strange thing! Nobody could have had access to him as I had--I, a doubter and a stumbler all my life; it looks like the hand of God!"

His voice was low, and his eyes were wet as he finished the narration.