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By I^RANKUN JOHNSON, /t
Professor in the University of Chicago.
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PRIVATEI^Y PUBWSHBD.
1899.
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PRKFACE.
The anniversaries of the northern Baptists were ap-
pointed to be held at Portland, Oregon, in May, 1896.
The financial depression which then prevailed led the
managers ofoursocieties to abandon this plan, and the
meetings were held in the Bast, at Asbury Park. Ore-
gon was chosen originally, in order to commemorate
the beginning of our denominational work there fifty
years before, and especially the opening of the first
Baptist church ever dedicated on the Pacific coast.
This house was largely the product of the energy of my
father, Rev. Hezekiah Johnson, who solicited money
and toiled with his hands to build it. The little frame
structure still Stands at Oregon City, though long since
otttgrown by the congregation and no longer used for
religious purposes.
In 1845 my father and mother went to Oregon un-
der the appointment of the American Baptist Home
Mission Society. The journey over the Rocky Moun-
tains and what was then called the Great American
4 l'HB HOMB MISSION ARIES.
Desert occupied six months. My fathercontinued to
labor in Oregon as a minister tili the dose of his life.
He and my mother, according to their request, were
buried linder the tall fir trees of a farm near Oregon
City, and on their tombstone are engraved the words :
' ' Pioneer Baptist Missionaries. ' '
Before it was known that the anniversaries would
not be held in Oregon, these verses came to me, com-
memorating the journey of my parents across the con-
tinent and their subsequent labors on the Pacific coast,
and I intended to have them read at the meetings of
cur Home Mission Society. I remember to have heard
the incidents of the journey related often at the fire-
side of my early home, and I have visited several times
the scenes among which it lay, so that it is familiär to
me. I have soiight to present some pictures of the re-
gions west of the Missouri River as they were fifty
years ago, as, for example, the well-known mimicries
of the Rocky Mormtains, the wild sage, the "prickly
pear," thesnowy fields of alkali, the hot Springs, the
"jack rabbit," the prairie-dog, in whose burrow were
often found the rattle-snake and the owl, the terrific
"cloud-burst," the incomparable luster of the moon
and Stars, aud the monotonous level of the plains,
'THE HOME MISSIONARI^S. 5
broken sometimes by the so-called "chimney robks."
In these verses I have supposed myself to be Stand-
ing in Portland as a reader, with the white cone of
Mount Hood in füll view and the Willamette Falls but
twelve miles distant.
Franken Johnson.
The Uuiversity of Chicago.
THE HOME MISSIONARIES.
I.
All honor to the saintly pioneers,
Who, having wealth of home and friends, left all,
And bore, lieroic, to the far frontiers
The life and gladness of the gospel's call.
My father and my mother, such were they ;
For a new world to win to Christ they burned ;
Success, affection, fortune, bade them stay,
But steadfast hitherward their Steps they turned.
Yet others joined them, led by love of change,
Of gain, of danger, or by vague unrest,
Or vagrant longings for the new and stränge ;
A various muster and a various qiiest.
Where the plumed cars now race through waving grain,
They plodded patient westward day by day,
Through flood, o'er mountain ramp, o'er fervent piain ;
And hope made all their road a shining way.
8 'rHE home; missionariks.
There are who mourn that time of wild romance,
When there was room, and one could be alone
Beyond the swarming people's swift advance,
And, owning naught, call earth and sky his own.
Yet was the swarming of tlie people good ;
God fashions plaiu and forest, rock and fen,
But loves not well the empty solitude,
For His delights are with the sons of men.
II.
The mountains towered into eternal frost
Whose gorges they must thread, whose scarps must cUmb,
An Alpine chaos in confusion tossed
Upon the earth in some far age subHme.
There saw they cunning mimicries in stone,
A buttressed minster tall, a battle-mace,
A fort, a cross, a tent, a royal throne,
Or, clear against the blue, a human face.
And oft the tumbling crags and peaks were kissed
With colors like a dream of paradise,
Rose, ebon, amber, sapphire, amethyst,
Piled tier on tier into the suulit skies.
THR HOMB MISSIONARIES. 9
More drear than hüls and niountains manifold,
And harder manifold for them to brave,
Were tlie unbounded plain,s which round them rolled
In flat monotony unbroken save
Where haply f rom some crumbling mound might spring
A shapely tapered pillar to the skies,
Of storm and rime the perfect chiseling,
Wrought out through slow tempestuous centuries.
III.
There the wild Indians found a fitting home,
A savage region for a savage race,
Where their fierce warrior-hordes at will might roam
And seek unlet the battle or the chase.
And oft the pilgrims met these roving bands,
Who stood in fear of their severe array,
And signed them peace, and mapped upon the sands
The tedious windings of their further way.
And oft they met the mounted trapper rüde,
Who, with his squaw in beaded buckskin dressed,
And tawny children, abarbaric brood,
Through lonely weeks across the des5ert pressed.
10 THK HOMK MISvSlONARIKS.
IV.
A curse sat somber on those withered lands
By which accursed plants alone were borne,
Like the gnarled sage, or, sprawling in the sands,
The cactus, barbed with man)'- a cruel thorn ;
Except some Space of bristling grasses browned
Tlieir tufts courageous in the summer heat,
Or some loue fountain pierced the arid ground
And spread a carpeting for weary feet.
Here were wide fields of deadly alkali,
As white as when the winter siiow-storms feil ;
There shaf ts of shining vapors shot on high
From waters seething at the mouth of hell.
The cities of the burrowing dog were there,
Bach house deep graven in the earth's hard breast :
In each the rattle-snake might choose his lair ;
In each, stränge guests ! theowl might build her nest.
There had its home the gray gigantic hare
In the dusk shadows of the dusty sage,
And there, in cleft or bush, the grizzly bear, .
More terrible than the yoiing lion's rage.
THE HOMK MISSIONARIES. II
Perchance for days of living tliings was lack ;
Tlienstraiglitthewhole round worid,frora marge to marge,
With armies of the buffalo grew black,
And shook with earthquake of their headlong charge.
One fairest form did that wide waste possess,
The antelope, a bounding flower of grace,
Which lured the hunter by its lovehness
And sped like winds and mocked his keenest chase.
V.
Now fifty years are fled, and all ivS changed ;
The curse is lifted f rom that withered land ;
And where wild beasts and wilder warriors ranged
There crescent states with teeming peoples stand.
And one may wander o'er the vast expanse
And search for the old desert-scenes in vain,
And find the town, the church, the school, the mause,
The peaceful herds, the worlds of waving grain.
12 THK HOMK MISSIONARi:eS.
VI.
Of fume and fog the air was passing clear ;
To breathe it was to breathe new heart and hope ;
The small loomed large, and distant scenes drew near,
As when one gazes tlirougli a telescope.
The sun, untempered, fiercely raged by day,
And through the cordial coohiess of the night
The Stars blazed hiige, with unacciistomed ray,
And the broad moon's mild flame shone doubly bright.
VII.
Behold the folk astir at early dawn,
The white tents Struck, the willing oxen spanned,
The lengthening line of wagons forward drawn,
The herds behind them, a well-guarded band.
Behold them halt beneath the blaze of noon,
The cattle lapping greedy the scant grass,
The hasty meal of friendly groups, then soon
The onward course o'er piain or mountain pass.
Behold them pitch their camp at set of sun
Where some rare spring has made an oasis,
The covered wagons in a circle run,
The fires of surly sage that flame and hiss,
THE HOME MISSIONARIKS. 13
The tents that dot the twilight's deepening shade,
The hungry cattle grazing to their fill
Till barred within the wagons' barricade,
The mounting of the guard ; then all is still.
Or haply, not yet charmed by sleep and dreams,
They linger round their fading camp-fires long,
And gladden the last ember's paly beams
With many a jocund story, jest, and song.
r
Yet oft they passed from heedless mirth to moan
When broke some sudden tempest's dissonance
And laid their tented town in ruins prone
Before the fury of its fierce advance,
Or when an ocean deep of cloud on cloud
Hurled down its drowning billows through the air
And shook the world with crash of thunders loud
And scorched it with the lightning's ceaseless glare.
VIII.
My parents rested on the day of rest
Even when encompassed close by perils grim,
Assured that He by whom the day was blessed
Would care for them while they should honor Him.
14 THK HOMK MISSION ARIES.
And nightly ere they sought their light repose
They knelt together in undoubting prayer,
And from their sweet consenting voices rose
A hymn of praise upon the desert air,
God's angel led them through those barrens vast
And spake that none should do them any ill ;
And, tili their creeping caravan liad passed,
The warrior-tribes beheld it and were still.
Yet oft, when at the break of day they rose,
They saw, writ piain on ruffled sand or sod,
While they had slept secure their stealthy foes,
Afraid, yet ravenous, had near them trod.
IX.
They journeyed not as seeking gold or lands ;
What others coveted they counted dross,
That they might carry with uncumbered hands
To sinful men the treasure of the cross.
Thus from Missouri's tawny shallows wide
For months they foUowed the slow oxen's tread,
Then paused where the Willamette's brighter tide
In thunder down its clifFy canyon sped.
THK HOMK MISSION ARIES. 15
Amid a forest high their home they made,
Though near it daily the sleek panther prowled,
The shambling bear his bulk unwieldy swayed,
And the gaunt wolf in sateless hunger howled.
Krom thence the father, oft afoot, set forth
And spake the gladness of the saving word
To all in west and east, in south and north ;
And God His witness bore in theni that heard ;
And oft the converts to the waters went
Arrayed in meetly-robed procession long :
The forest liushed, the sweet skies nearer bent,
And all things listened to their holy song ;
And when they bowed beneath the crystal stream
And rose again from out that raystic torab,
The heavens shone round them with a brighter gleam
That they had fled the world's approaching doora.
X.
It were a sin against my mother's heart
To paint her features for the world to see ;
She was conteüt that, while she served apart,
Her Portrait liung in love's small gallery.
l6 THE HOMB MISSIONAR lES.
My father's form I view before me now,
Nor low, nor large, and for endurance knit,
His great gray head, bis Square protruding brow
With deepening lines of thought and deed o'erwrit,
His face firm-set with will that moved right on,
Though mountains rose to frown him from his goal,
His eagle-eyes that from deep caverns shone,
Alight with luster of the ardent soul.
He stood above the common faults of men ;
Severe, yet tender in severity ;
True, upright, and self-ruled, a puritan
From puritanic pride and rigor free ;
So towers in lonely majesty Mount Hood,
Attired in ermine of eternal snow,
And from the splendor of its solitude
Pours floods of verdure on the world below.
The mother preached by making home his rest ;
He rallied there for duties yet undone :
God saw the work of each that it was best ;
God saw the v\rork of both that it was one.
thb; hom]^ missionariejs. 17
XL
The Indiati found them pitiful and strong
To urge him from his vice and indolence
And shame the shameless whites wlio did him wrong
And give his helplessness a firm defence.
Yet seemed the yearning of their friendship vain :
So when a tree is wounded to its death
It withers in the spring's caressing rain
And in the summer's warm and vital breath.
But ' twas the winter of that f ading race :
A few leaves lingered in the frosty air,
And held as with a dying hand their place
Upon the tribal branches reft and bare.
If now at length it turns again and lives
And feebly decks itself with leaf and flower,
It is with life the gospel ever gives
To him who seeks, though late, its saving power.
XII.
Hard was their daily toil and scant their wage ;
Yet asked they little, for their wants were few ;
And thus they found a wealthy heritage
In what their willing hands had found to do.
l8 THB HOMR MISSIONARIKS;
They had no fear ; their shepherd was the I/Ord ;
Their daily bread His promises made sure ;
With this content, they found it large reward
To tili His virgin wilds with minds secure.
Beside the church they set the school on high,
Twin orbs of light, though yet of light diverse ;
A sun to flood with luster earth and sky,
A moon a fainter radiance to disperse.
They knew füll well the worth of that they wrought ;
They saw af ar with clear prophetic eyes
The fair republics füll with blessings fraught,
That soon beneath the westering sun should rise.
XIII.
At length on the Willamette' s greening shore
Their fight they finished and were crowned with life,
Near where yon hoary falls with solemn roar
Sing anthems for their triumph in the strife.
They had their wish ; for them let no one weep ;
They chose to toil for man unknown to men
Where now our stately temples heavenward sweep
From the deep bases they cemented then.
THK HOME MISSION ARIES. IQ
They had their wish ; for tliem we shed no tear ;
Within the forest-aisles they loved they He,
Where the tall firs their mighty columns rear
And pillar up the arches of the sky.
They had their wish ; for them let no one mourn ;
From happy life through happy death they sped ;
To paradise by angels they were borne ;
And they are now forever comforted.
XIV.
If here we meet within a mighty State,
If here the family is whole and pure,
If here the man is streng to conquer fate,
If here the woman's honor is secure,
If Senates are unbought and courts are just
To scourge the wrong and set its victims free,
If public Office is a public trust,
If rieh and poor strike hands in amity,
If school and College wax from more to more
And show us to assuage our human ills,
If from the mountains to the ocean's shore
The churches light our forests, vales, and hüls,
20 THE HOMB MISSION ARIES.
It is to these and such as tliese we owe
The gracious fruits of faith and hope and love,
Who scorned the gain men covet here below
And sought the gain reserved for them above.
XV.
We thank Thee, God, Thou fonnt of godliness,
For all Thou wroughtestthrough these righteoiis dead
We bless Thy name when we Th}^ servants bless,
And foUow Thee when in their steps we tread.
Our country now is one vast garden-land,
With no frontiers of mountain, piain, or wood,
Yet countless thousands of its people stand
In outer darkness, far from any good.
What arid plains of earthly pleasures vain,
What frigid mountains of self-will and pride,
What forest-depths of sin and vice and pain,
Thy church and these unhappy souls divide.
Help US these distances to overpass
Upon the urgent feet of love divine
That haste to every clime and every class,
And let our country and the world be Thine.
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' THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
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