THE
IOWA BAND.
BOSTON:
CONGREGATIONAL PUBLISHING SOCIETY.
1870.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by
THE CONGREGATIONAL PUBLISHING SOCIETY,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.
RAND, AVERY, & FRYE, PRINTERS, BOSTON.
ike Siev. Asa burner.
DEAR BROTHER :
It was in November, 1843, that you welcomed to your home, your people,
and the West, the brethren since known as THE IOWA BAND. At that time, as
composing the ordained ministry of our denomination in the then Territory of
Iowa, there were with you six others; to wit, JULIUS A. REED, REUBEN
GAYLORD, CHARLES BURNHAM, ALLEN B. HITCHCOCK, OLIVER EMERSON,
and JOHN C. HOLBROOK. From these, too, came a cordial welcome.
This was twenty-five years ago ; bringing us, and our mission work here, to
the Silver-Wedding time. It is usual, on such occasions, in the presence of
friends whose sympathies make the joys common to all, to revive the history of
the parties, and reminiscences of the past.
In this little book, as a Home Missionary offering in honor of that noble
Society which we all love, there is given, first, a brief history of the BAND, fol-
lowed by a few facts and scenes from out our common efforts ; with such re-
flections, in passing, as, by a review of quarter-century labors, are naturally
suggested : all of which, with due thanks to the Master, you will permit, as one
of the first Congregational Ministers of Iowa, and one whom we all love to call
FATHER TURNER, to be to you dedicated
BY ONE OF THE BAND.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
GERM-THOUGHT 13
CHAPTER II.
A SUGGESTION 16
CHAPTER III.
THE PRAYER-MEETING 20
CHAPTER IV.
THE BAND FORMED, AND PLANS MATURED 23
CHAPTER V.
THE JOURNEY 27
CHAPTER VI.
ORDINATION AND DISPERSION 34
CHAPTER VII.
GETTING TO WORK AND COALESCING 38
CHAPTER VIII.
A DIARY 45
CHAPTER IX.
THEN AND Now 57
CHAPTER X.
THE WORKERS 69
CHAPTER XI.
RESULTS . 7Q
6 CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XII.
THE IOWA ASSOCIATION go
CHAPTER XIII.
IOWA COLLEGE 102
CHAPTER XIV.
i
A RARE CHAPTER, AND SHORT 114
CHAPTER XV.
FRAGMENTS 121
CHAPTER XVI.
Loss AND GAIN 153
CHAPTER XVII.
IN MEMORIAM 164
CHAPTER XVIII.
OUTLOOK AND CONCLUSION 176
INTRODUCTION.
IF any one ever doubted the utility and success of
home-missions, let him read this volume. If any
one ever doubted whether his contributions to this cause
were wisely made and expended, let him study this
simple narrative of Christian labors in a new Territory
and State.
Prior to 1839, the region covered by this work was
Wisconsin Territory ; then it became Iowa Territory :
and, when the Band entered it in 1843, the settled
portion of it was a belt of land on the west bank of
the Mississippi, two hundred miles long and forty wide,
with a population of something over fifty thousand. The
country was then divided between the hardy pioneer, the
Indian, and the buffalo. There were fifteen Congrega-
tional churches. The college, the academy, had not gone
over the great river ; hardly the common school and the
Christian Sabbath. It was a noble sight, an act of
quiet, beautiful heroism rarely witnessed, -T to see these
twelve men enter in to do their part in building a Chris-
8 INTRODUCTION.
tian State, and dedicating the latent and developing
energies there to Christ and the Church.
It was hard, unseen, unappreciated labor. The very
word Iowa was yet a strange one to Eastern lips and
ears, and was slowly taking its place in our text-books
and schoolrooms. The men were hidden from us in the
dim, hazy distance, under frontier shadows. Bridle-
paths, ugly fords, and monthly mails led to their work-
fields ; but the Master knew each of their cabins, heard
every prayer and hymn in their creek and prairie homes,
and owned all their great work. What though "men
did not see their rough foundations for Church and State :
we see now what is built on them. In a sublime uncon-
sciousness of their obscurity, they lost themselves in
their work. So noble granite blocks disappear in the
deep waters, that there may be piers and wharves for
queenly ships and the merchandise of all climes.
This volume would not be complete without its pic-
ture of the rude log-cabin church where they were
ordained, and laid their plans, and whence they moved
off in their different and chosen paths. It was a solid,
one-story building, originally twenty-four feet by twenty.
Built in 1837, when there was no saw-mill in the region,
its rough logs were dressed down by the axe of the
pioneer ; split shingles covered the roof, and oaken pun-
cheons made the floor and the seats the pews ! After-
ward, but before the ordination in 1843, an addition of
sixteen feet was made to one end. This was the first
INTRODUCTION. 9
Congregational meeting-house in Iowa ; and here noble
and good Father Turner was for so long a time " the
voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the
way of the Lord ! " The benediction of his face is the
fitting prelude and preface to this volume. How often
his deaf old father spoke to us reverently and affection-
ately of the work " Asa " was doing in the " Great
West ! " While, in our college vacations, we were mow-
ing for the old gentleman where there were two rocks
to one grass, "Asa" was planting the "handful of
corn." Now the fruit thereof shakes like Lebanon,
and the hundreds of cities of Iowa flourish like the grass
of their native prairies.
This same log-church, moreover, was the first acad-
emy-building in Iowa. Here Denmark Academy had
its humble yet noble beginnings in the February pre-
ceding the ordination. A view of its present beautiful
edifice graces this volume.
Here, too, Iowa College was first talked over,
prayed over, and then projected. It was one of the
first joys and fruits for the Band, at one of their first
meetings in Denmark, to consider plans for founding
the first college in Iowa. Midway in these sketches, the
buildings now lift themselves to our view from their
interior and glorious prairie-home. How much of
heroic history and august prophecy in that picture !
In days to come, Denmark, Iowa, will be as a shrine
for Congregational pilgrims ; and, five centuries hence,
IO INTRODUCTION.
how much would be given for one log from that old
church ! The place was settled originally by immigrants
from Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Of course,
true to New-England character and habit, they would at
once start a church and a school. New Englanders
come honestly by such a tendency. When John Win-
throp, the first governor of Massachusetts, was seeking
a new home in England, long prior to his coming to
America, he wrote to his son, acting as his agent, " I
would be near church and some good school." May
that aspiration, so long hereditary, never die out among
the descendants of the Pilgrims and Puritans ! That
sentiment of Winthrop is the larger and better part of
our national history, compressed into a sentence.
Iowa now has her more than two hundred Congrega-
tional churches, the common-school system, highly per-
fected from the Eastern model, with a noble array of high
schools, academies, and colleges. It is a record of
honor ; and eminently fitting it is that these labors and
fruits of twenty-five years should go into written history.
This is the Congregational chapter. Noble co-workers
have material they may well rejoice in for other most
worthy chapters.
It should be here said that these sketches have been
modestly held back and reluctantly given by men who
preferred rather to do work than tell of it. But we
remember how Iowa looked before the Band saw it,
when Keokuk was a village of twelve log and two
INTRODUCTION. I I
frame houses ; when Burlington showed the green stumps
in its main streets ; when Davenport was barely the
superior rival of Rockingham ; and buffalo, deer, and
Indians divided among themselves the waters of the
Des Moines, Cedar, and Wabessapinecon. We have
watched the magic change, and studied it in frequent
revisits ; and it seems but due to God to tell how he has
made the wilderness a fruitful field.
A Christian State has been founded. Let sceptics study
the work, who think we have no longer need for the Chris-
tian religion. The Church of Christ has lengthened her
cords and strengthened her stakes. Let the supporters
of home-missions behold, and thank God ; and so draw
dividends on their charity investments, and take new stock
in new States beyond. The Congregational Church has
gone into a new territory, and became energetic, thrifty,
and multitudinous. Let those make note of it who think
Congregationalism will not work well out of New Eng-
land, is not adapted to a new country and mixed com-
munities. As if sacred Republicanism cannot go hand
in hand across the continent with secular Republicanism,
and men manage their own affairs by popular suffrage
in a church, as well as in a town, city, or State ! Con-
gregational funds have had denominational investment
in Iowa. Let results so eminently satisfactory confirm
our churches in the wisdom of such investments. Another
step of divine Providence is taken westward in fulfil-
ing the prophecy, " He shall have dominion from sea
12 INTRODUCTION.
to sea," from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Another
Christian State is added to the frontier, looking towards
the great sea. The base-line of the army of occupa-
tion for Christ is moved so much farther towards the
prophesied boundary. What new Bands will now go
out to the front, and picket the advancing army? By
and by they will meet those coming up the Pacific
slope : then will the watchmen see eye to eye, and re-
joice together ; then will glory dwell in the land.
W. B.
READING, MASS., May, 1870.
THE IOWA BAND.
CHAPTER I.
GERM- THO UGHT.
IT was a beautiful evening in the summer of
1842, when the students of Andover Seminary
assembled in the chapel, to be led, as usual, by
one of the venerable professors of those days, in
their evening devotions. Among them sat one,
pale and emaciated by continued illness, one of
whom friends began to whisper, " Unless relieved
soon, we fear he will never be well, even if he
lives." They might, perhaps, have spared a por-
tion of their anxiety, had they known better the
nature of his disease ; it being what may be called
the student's enemy, dyspepsia, and that not of a
chronic form.
Our friend was in the middle year ; a year when
theological subjects, the great 'doctrines of salva-
tion, are studied ; a year that has more influence,
probably, in shaping the minister, thian any other
of his seminary course ; a year in which, if ever,
14 THE IOWA BAND.
the student's heart kindles with desire to preach
the great truths of the Bible to his fellow-men.
He had entered the chapel that evening under the
combined influence of his studies and his disease.
He longed for the time when he should be a
preacher ; but, then, could he be one ? Even the
duties of the Seminary were a burden almost too
heavy to be borne. Could he, then, go forth to
write two sermons a week, attend funerals, wed-
dings, prepare lectures, perform pastoral labor, and
all the et-cetera of a parish minister's life ? Im-
possible! Sedentary habits had already induced a
disease, which, if unchecked, would cripple his en-
ergies, while shortening his days. A minister's
life was likely to aggravate rather than check it.
What should he do ? Must he abandon his long-
cherished plan, or should he press on, and give
himself an early sacrifice to it ?
Just then there came to his mind the thought
that there was a field where the necessary labors
of a minister would probably counteract, rather
than foster, his disease ; -and that field the West.
With this came a rush of other thoughts, of things
that he had heard and read about the West. It
would be self-denial to go ; but then, in self-denial
there would come strength of character, with the
gain of a more conscious consecration to God.
Then there was the probable influence of his going
upon fellow-students, friends, Christians, and the
Church ; for to go West then was truly a mission-
ary work. For the moment, he seemed to be there,
GERM-THOUGHT. 15
preaching to the destitute, and laying the founda-
tions of society. Then came the thought, that,
possibly, he might live, labor, and die with the
fruits of his toils about him, himself enshrined
in the hearts of a beloved people, sought out and
adopted by him in his youth.
These thoughts, with others, passed before him
with the swiftness of a vision. They had for a
time the effects of a vision. All things else were
shut out. The chapter, the hymn, the singing,
were all unheard. In the general movement, he
rose for prayer, but not to join in the petitions
offered. The spell was upon him, and he seemed
to stand alone as before God, his feelings, his
petitions, all embodied in one sentiment, one feel-
ing, a position of soul in which his one desire
was, " Lord, prepare me for whatever field thou
hast before me. Prepare me for it, and make me
willing to enter it."
He went out that evening not as he came in.
Henceforth was the prayer, " May I be found in
the right place, doing the right work ! " Here
was the germ, the unfoldings of which, unto the
fruit thereof, we are to trace.
CHAPTER II.
A SUGGESTION.
WHO that has passed a Seminary life has
forgotten the Seminary tramp, which
means a long walk of half a day or so, generally
taken of a Saturday afternoon, when students, in
little companies, are wont to extend their rambles
far away from sight of Seminary walls and sound
of Seminary bell ? It was in the spring of 1 843,
that our dyspeptic friend, and two of his classmates
were on such an excursion amid the hills and bra-
cing air of the West Parish.
For two and a half years, these classmates had
been associated in sacred studies ; and they were
classmates indeed. Circumstances had conspired
to bind them together with ties of more than usual
strength. The time of their preparation for the
great work in view was rapidly drawing to a close.
And now, as was natural, the conversation turned
upon the probable field of their labor. The New-
England parish, the foreign field, the home field,
especially at the Far West, each, in turn, was
discussed. The feeling seemed rather to incline to
the latter. The more they talked of it, the more
they felt. And now suggested one :
A SUGGESTION. I/
" If we and some others of our classmates could
only go out together, and take possession of some
field where we could have the ground and work
together, what a grand thing it would be ! " " So it
would," was the reply. Then the advantages, the
difficulties, and the probable influence of such a
movement, were the theme ; until, ere they were
aware of it, their feet were again climbing the old
familiar hill. The declining sun hung low ; and
the bell, faithful to its duties, was hastening them
to prayers. " We will think of this," said they.
Thus the germ, ripening to a suggestion, had
struck root in other minds, the growth of which
we are still to follow.
But right here it should be told how God, as
afterwards discovered, was leading other minds
also. In one case, it was on this wise. Notice had
been given, about this time, that an elder of a
church in Cincinnati would meet the students, to
address them on the claims of the West. At the
hour appointed, there were assembled both students
and professors ; but the elder came not. Yet a
Western meeting was held.
Venerable Dr. Woods read a letter from a good
deacon of a little church away out on the frontier,
calling for young men to break to the people the
bread of life. The saintly Edwards (Bela B.),
who had just travelled West, and whose mind was
quick to take in its destined progress, expressed
his belief in the assertion, bold, startling, uncred-
ited at the time, that " whoever would go West, in
2*
1 8 THE IOWA BAND.
ten years would find himself better off than if he
had staid in New England, and, better than all,
would have the satisfaction of laboring where he
was more needed." Prof. Emerson, in his off-hand
way, declared that he had no sort of doubt that it
was the duty of more than two-thirds of the stu-
dents to seek fields of labor outside of New Eng-
land. It was a stirring meeting. Many were glad
the elder did not come.
The meeting was closed, and the students dis-
persed. To most, to all, perhaps, save one, it came
and went like many another. There was before
him a sleepless night. In his mind was at work
another germ-thought. " Out of New England,
where more needed ? " And if out of New Eng-
land, where more needed, why not where most
needed ? Strange was the power of that question
as it took possession of him for that night and the
next day, leading to much thought and prayer !
Sometimes there can be no rest till things are
settled, and settled in the way that seems right.
So it was in this case ; -and our friend came man-
fully to the conclusion, " I am for the West, where
needed, and where most needed."
Then there was another, a graduate of a Western
college, whose friends were in the West. It was
known to be settled in his mind, from the first,
that he would go West somewhere. Just how, by
his presence and intercourse, germ-thoughts were
started or fostered can never be known. Seldom
can it be told in any movement, in which are the
A SUGGESTION. IQ
united efforts of human wills, just what the first
influences were, or how they combined to produce
the result. Here, pre-eminently, God works among
men to will and to do. The movement here
recorded we acknowledge as of him. Other germs
of it doubtless there were in other minds ; but
each can give only what to him is known. This
only can the writer do ; and so we will follow on.
CHAPTER III.
THE PR A YER-MEE TING.
HOW uppermost in our minds are thoughts,
plans, projects, which we hold in common
with others ! How, by a new tie, are we bound to
them, and they to us ! And how natural now, if
Christians all, and the plan be one of import, to
carry it to God in united prayer ! Our three
friends of the former chapter, among whom the
question of concerted action had been started,
were more closely allied than ever as they together
walked, and talked of the Western scheme. By
mutual consent, each, in a quiet way, suggested it
to others. 'Whenever it took with especial favor,
as being by God's preparing of course it would,
there was one added to their number.
Soon the enterprise began to wear an important
aspect, calling for the guidance of heavenly wisdom.
So a prayer-meeting was proposed. All assented ;
but where should it be held ? Not in a public
room ; for the movement was as yet kept secret. If,
in the end, any thing should come of it, there would
be time enough yet, it was thought, to make it
known ; if not, it was better that it should always
be a secret. Nor, again, could they meet in a pri-
THE PRAYER-MEETING. 21
vate room ; for, as yet, no two of those interested
happened to be room-mates, in whose room they
could privately assemble. Where, then, should they
meet ? One of their number was the Seminary
librarian ; and the library was proposed. " Agreed,''
said they ; and Tuesday evening, in the Seminary
library, was fixed upon for the meeting. " But it
will be dark," said one ; " for the rules forbid lights
in the library." " No matter," said another : " we
can pray in the dark." So on Tuesday nights, in
one corner of the library, they used to pray, to
seek of God whither to go, where to labor.
In one corner of the Seminary library! and
what fitter place could have been chosen in which
to* go to the mercy-seat with such an errand, than
this, where heralds of the cross in every clime once
had trod ; where were about them the works
of the pious dead of every age ; where, as the
moonbeams played.upon the portraits of men once
eminent in the Church, the great cloud of witnesses
seemed to compass them about ?
There they prayed. Those first entering would
find their way to the appointed corner, and begin.
Others, coming in, would join them in turn. Occa-
sionally, in the darkness, some new step would be
heard ; but whose it was would be unknown to
most, till a new voice would be heard in prayer.
First the prayers, then the conference, consulta-
tions as to motives, qualifications, encouragements,
and discouragements of the Western work, mainly
what field, if any, should be occupied. Should it
22 THE IOWA BAND.
be Ohio, Michigan ? These, indeed, were west, but
not really western. Illinois, Wisconsin? These
were farther west, indeed, but men partially, per-
haps comparatively, well supplied.
" Well, then, Missouri," says one.
" But Missouri is a slave State."
" No matter : they need the gospel there if it
is."
" Yes ; but, if there are places outside of slavery
just as needy, why not go where we can labor to
the best advantage ? "
" Well, Iowa, then : what say you to the new
Territory of Iowa ? "
Not much could be said ; for but little was known,
only this : it was an open field, and of course there
was need.
So there they prayed and consulted in that
north-west corner of the library. Had it any thing
to do with the great North-West soon to be? In
God's nurture were the germs being developed,
united, directed, whose fruitage was to be borne in
regions yet to be peopled. But we will not antici-
pate save in this ; that Tuesday night prayer-meet-
ing on Andover Hill, transplanted, as it was soon
to be, to the plains of Iowa, may it long live !
may it never cease to be held in sacred observance
by the Congregational ministry of this fair State !
CHAPTER IV.
THE BAND FORMED, AND PLANS MA TURED.
AS yet, nothing was decided. All eyes, indeed,
after reflection and prayer, were unanimously
turned to the new Territory of Iowa as the field to
be occupied if they should go. Some of the more
ardent had opened a correspondence with the sec-
retaries of the American Home Missionary Society ;
and a resident pastor in the Territory. But no
also with the Rev. Asa Turner, agent of that society,
one was as yet committed to the enterprise. It
was not certain yet that any one could go ; and
the weeks were flying swiftly. It was time, surely,
for action, and thus it came :
" I am going to settle this question," said one,
" so far as I am concerned. We have been think-
ing about it long enough to conclude one way or
another."
That day, he retired to his room for fasting and
prayer. At evening, as he came out at the setting
of the sun to walk with a friend he was ready to
say,
" Well, I am going to Iowa : whether any one
else goes or not, I am going."
"And I think I will go with you," was the reply.
24 THE IOWA BAND.
So a nucleus was formed, and around it gathered
others one by one, some at once deciding ; others
after more thought, or seasons of private fasting
and prayer, till soon the number stood, as decided
to go, at twelve. Their names were as follows :
Daniel Lane, Harvey Adams, Erastus Ripley,
Horace Hutchinson, Alden B. Robbins, William
Salter, Edwin B. Turner, Benjamin A. Spaulding,
William Hammond, James J. Hill, Ebenezer Alden,
jun., Ephraim Adams. This was the Iowa Band.
There was no longer need of secrecy. Open
steps could be taken to mature plans. The Mis-
sion Rooms were filled with gladness at the pros-
pect of such a re-enforcement for the home mis-
sionary work. The senior secretary, the Rev.
Milton Badger, D.D.,came from New York to hold
a personal interview with the Band : commissions
were promised for their chosen field, and all things
favored the enterprise. But the far-off brethren
then laboring in the proposed field rejoiced with
trembling. Oft had they looked for promised help,
but looked in vain. Those who had started with
commissions in hand for the distant Territory had
all lodged by the way hitherto : none had reached
them ; why should these ?
" It's no use," said the Western pastor who had
been written to upon the subject, and who had set
himself to the formidable task of replying to the
long list of queries sent him about the climate, the
ague, the fever, the food, clothing, etc. " it's no
use to answer any more of your questions ; for I
THE BAND FORMED. 2$
never expect to see one of you west of the Missis-
sippi River as long as I live."
He was assured, in reply, of earnestness in the
matter ; but still he was incredulous. Again he was
told, that, God willing, he would surely be visited
by a dozen or so, and compelled to believe.
" Well, then," said he, " come on ; come all of
you directly to my house ; come here to us, and we
then can help you to your respective fields of
labor." This seemed reasonable ; so Denmark,
Lee County, Io., became a locality in the mind
of each, as yet to be seen. It seemed best also,
unless, in individual cases, there should be special
reasons to the contrary, that the ordination of the
young men should take place on the field where
their life-work was to be done.
Such a home missionary movement in one class
was thought worthy of some public recognition.
Accordingly, a meeting was held on Sabbath even-
ing, Sept. 3, 1843, m the South Church at An-
dover. A sermon was preached by the Rev. Leon-
ard Bacon, D.D.; and an appropriate address made
to the Band by Dr. Badger of the Home Mission-
ary Society.
" You go," said he, " where you will find a soil
of surpassing richness, all covered with beautiful
flowers. But remember that the soil is yet in its
natural state, and must be all turned up. Those
flowers, though beautiful to the eye, are but flowers
of weeds, wild and useless. They must be rooted
out, and better seed cast in their place."
26 THE IOWA BAND.
This meeting was large ; and the exercises
throughout were appropriate, interesting, and
solemn. It was now near the close of the term.
The Anniversary Day soon came, and was gone.
The time had been improved. Already had the
boxes been made, and the books packed, soon
to be shipped, labelled " Burlington, Io., vid New
Orleans."
A few weeks now with home-friends, after which
must be fixed the time and place of departure.
Boston will not do as a starting-point, as some
reside west of this, and so on the way. Some
place must be chosen west of all. So each has it
in his memorandum, " Albany, N.Y., at the Dela-
van House, on Tuesday, 3d of October, the next
morning to take the cars westward."
CHAPTER V.
THE JOURNEY.
ON Wednesday, Oct. 4, 1843, the journey west-
ward began. Most of the Band were at the
appointed place, but not all. One, Mr. E. Ripley,
had been invited to spend another year at the
Seminary as resident licentiate. Another, Mr. J. J.
Hill, since the parting at Andover, had lost a father
by death, and would be detained until spring. A
third, Mr. W. H. Hammond, did not come, through
fear of a Western climate ; and Mr. H. Hutchinson
was detained a day by the death of a friend, but
would probably overtake the company by night-
travel. And yet their number was nearly complete
by the appearance of two as twain. Mr. D. Lane
and Mr. A. B. Robbins, with characteristic fore-
sight, had taken to themselves wives in view of
losses from our original, that might possibly occur.
We will not follow the journey in detail. A few
points only will be noticed in passing, such as,
after the lapse of years, shine out brightest on
memory's page. Twenty-five years ago, a journey
from the Atlantic to the Mississippi was long and
tedious. A week then would scarcely suffice for
what can now be accomplished in a day. As prac-
28 THE IOWA BAND.
tically performed by the Band, it was divided into
three parts, the railroad, the lakes, and the prairies.
The first was soon over, and soon forgotten, bring-
ing them on their way to Buffalo, then the termi-
nus of travel westward by cars. Here their recep-
tion and stay for a while were most pleasant. There
was then living in that city, as pastor of one of
the churches, that most fervent and earnest Chris-
tian man, Dr. Asa T. Hopkins. He died Nov. 28,
1847. Though a stranger to all, he gave them a
brother's welcome, and commended them to the
hospitalities of his people.. What kind Christian
families they found ! Surely this cannot be the
West, thought they ; not far enough yet for mis-
sionary ground.
On Saturday, they took a trip to Niagara, to gaze
upon the Falls, that wondrous work of God ; return-
ing at night to Buffalo to spend the Sabbath with
their kind- friends. It was a bright, pleasant day,
and their hearts were joyous within them.
On Monday morning, all felt as though they
had enjoyed the acquaintance of weeks, and were
almost sad at parting. But the parting came.
In the evening of that day, Oct. 9, they went on
board the steamer " Missouri," bound for Chicago.
The good pastor, and other Christian friends,
accompanied them. on board to bid them God-speed,
and say adieu. A hymn was sung, and a prayer
offered. Beautiful in the bloom of youth, and with
sweetest voice in that evening's song, was the
sister of the pastor's wife, who stood among them
THE JOURNEY. 2Q
there ; but sadly followed the news, a few months
afterwards, that the rose was fading upon her cheek,
and soon again that she was dead. By her side
stood another, a little older in years, but her com-
panion in the family, bidding with others a last
farewell, yet destined of God soon to be a sharer
in the fortunes of those to whom she was saying
adieu. The last bell rings, and the planks are
ready to be drawn in. Already is the hoarse breath
of the steamer heard as her whole frame quivers
at the life-beats of her engine ; and she swings
slowly round from the pier, and takes her course.
" Adieu, adieu ! " and so is the second portion of
the journey begun. The wide, wide Lakes were
entered, all strange, all new, and yet soon how
dull ! It was, indeed, with some interest that they
touched at Erie, Cleveland, and Detroit. The
morning at Mackinaw was bright and calm, and
the hour pleasant, in which they were permitted, in
the bracing air, to scale the heights on shore, or
watch the trout in the clear waters of the upper
lakes. But, on the whole, head winds and a rough
sea without, and sea-sickness and monotony on
board, made it any thing but a pleasant passage.
Late on Saturday night, in stormy weather, they
had only reached Milwaukie. There most of them
left the boat to tarry for the Sabbath. A few,
either too sick to leave their berths, or for some
other special reason, remained on board to arrive at
Chicago in the morning. Those tarrying for the
Sabbath had a quiet, pleasant day, and on Monday
3*
3O THE IOWA BAND.
found a boat to take them on their way to join
those who had gone before them. And so the
Lakes were passed.
One more experience now, the prairies, the
great wide prairies of Illinois, and the journey
will be complete. Almost two weeks had already
been consumed. Another would bring the end.
It was in the fall of the year, just after harvest-
time ; and from all parts of Illinois, even farther
west than the interior of the State, farmers were
coming to find a market for their wheat in the then
great city of Chicago, of eight thousand people.
On their return home, these farmers were glad
to find some traveller, some freight, or any thing
else, to take with them, that might help to bear the
expense of their long journey to market. In this
way, it was thought private conveyance could be
found more comfortable and pleasant than by stage.
So all were busy. Bargains must be made, and can-
vas coverings for the wagons ; provisions and gen-
eral supplies be secured in true emigrant style : for
hotels were far apart, and the belated traveller was
often obliged to spend the night on the prairie.
Denmark, Lee County, Io., was now the terminus
looked for, but was to be reached by different
routes. One party, the brethren with wives, in
company with another missionary and his wife, who
had joined them, were to strike across for Daven-
port on the Mississippi, then go by boat to Burling-
ton, and thence to Denmark. The others were to
take a more southerly course, direct to Burlington,
and so to Denmark.
THE JOURNEY. 3!
Now began Western life ; and, for a while, it was
well enjoyed. Now in a slough in the bottom-lands
of some sluggish stream, and now high up on the
rolling prairie : what a vast extent of land meets
the eye ! land in every direction, with scarce a
shrub or a tree to be seen. How like a black ribbon
upon a carpet of green stretches away in the dis-
tance before them the road they are to travel ! And
occasionally some far-off cloth-covered wagon like
their own is descried, like a vessel at sea, rightly
named a "prairie schooner." In the settled portions,
what farms ! what fences ! how unlike their Eastern
homes ! No stones, no barns, children and pigs
running together. Then what places in which to
sleep ! and what breakfasts ! If after a morning
ride, they made a lucky stop, such honey ! such
milk ! such butter and eggs ! and all so cheap !
twelve and a half cents a meal.
Day by day they travelled on, gazing, wonder-
ing, remarking and being remarked upon. Some
thought them " land-sharks," some Mormons. But
even this became at last wearisome and monoto-
nous. On Saturday afternoon, the southern party,
worn with travel, halted at Galesburg for another
Sabbath's rest.
Monday morning found them early on their way,
refreshed, and eager for the end. " To-day," thought
they, " the setting sun is to look with us upon the
great Mississippi ; " and so it proved. For an hour
or so, near the close of the day, they had been
winding and jolting through timbered bottom-lands
32 THE IOWA BAND.
among huge trees, grand in their silence, gazing
the while earnestly forward, till at last it was
seen, the smooth, broad bosom of the great river,
with the last silvery rays of the setting sun playing
upon it.
" Three cheers," cried they, " for the Mississippi ! "
Their hearty cheers rang out upon the forest ; and,
in a few moments more, they were on the river's
bank. But the ferry-boat had just made its last
trip for the day ; and, though they hallooed for
help, no one responded to the call. The twilight
deepens. It is soon dark, save as the stars and the
moonbeams sparkle and dance upon the waters.
The hallooing had ceased as useless, and things
looked desperate ; but the dip of a paddle was
heard, and a canoe soon came in sight. It was
a chance to cross the river, twenty-five cents
apiece, and a bark of limited accommodations.
Two declared they would rather stay by the stuff all
night. The others paid the price, and stepped in.
It was a heavy load for a light canoe, and all must
remain motionless. So, in stillness and silence,
with God's stars looking down upon them, they
were paddled across to Iowa's shore.
Now in Iowa, at Burlington ! Kind friends,
even here, were awaiting their arrival ; and, as the
news spread, they were soon constrained to turn
from tavern-fare to Christian homes. The watch-
ers by the stuff came over in the morning; and,
before another night, they had travelled fifteen
miles on Iowa soil to Denmark. They had seen
THE JOURNEY. 33
the Western pastor in his home, and he had
scattered them for hospitality among the members
of his flock. The northern party soon came in
safety. All were to rest a while, and then scatter.
CHAPTER VI.
ORDINATION AND DISPERSION.
ON sabbath morning, Nov. 5, 1843, the usually
quiet town of Denmark was all astir. A
great event was to occur. Every child had heard
that nine young ministers, fresh from the East,
had come to preach in the Territory. In anticipa-
tion of the event, the Rev. A. Turner and the Rev.
R. Gaylord had taken a long tour to spy out the
land, and decide upon the places to be occupied ;
and on that Sabbath seven of these young minis-
ters were to be ordained. Denmark then consisted
of a few' scattered farm-houses of New-England
like appearance ; and convenient thereto stood a
low, broken-backed, elongated building, compelled
as yet to the double service of school and meeting
house.
This, at the appointed hour, was the centre
of attraction. The council had previously been
organized, and the candidates examined. The
members of the Band then ordained were, E. B.
Turner, W. Salter, E. Alden, jun., H. Hutchinson,
E. Adams, D. Lane, and B. A. Spaulding. With
them were ordained W. A. Thompson, who came
to the Territory about the same time, and D.
ORDINATION AND DISPERSION. 35
Granger, who was already here as a licentiate.
The exercises were: Sermon by the Rev. J. A.
Reed, from Acts xx. 28 (the subject was, Pre-
requisites to Success in the Gospel Ministry) ;
ordaining prayer by the Rev. A. Turner ; charge
by the Rev. C. Burnham ; right hand of fellow-
ship by the Rev. R. Gaylord.
The house, of course, was crowded, and the occa-
sion one of great interest. To the few brethren
already in the field, it was a day of rejoicing. Said
one of them, " Such a day I have never seen before ;
such a day I had never expected to see in my life-
time. The most I could do, when alone, was to
weep tears of joy, and return thanks to God."
This was an interesting and solemn occasion ;
but there had been, a day or two previous, in the
pastor's study, a meeting, to the young ministers
of greater interest still. It was a meeting in which
they were to decide among themselves in what
particular place the scene of the future labors of
each should be. In former times, and far away,
they had often met for prayer, often asked God to
guide them in their way. He had guided them ;
had turned their hearts to Iowa, and brought them
thither : and now, with ordination-vows soon to be
taken, they had met to decide where, in the wide
field around them, each should labor. It was a
solemn meeting, a delicate business, a time when
self must be laid aside, and each must be willing
to be any thing, to go anywhere. A prayer was
offered that the Spirit of God might be upon them,
36 THE IOWA BAND.
and with them. Then Fathers Turner and Gay-
lord, who had explored the field, came in, and, map
in hand, described their tour, and the places visited,
and retired.
Now, by free suggestion and mutual consent,
the assignment began. Brother Hutchinson, for
peculiar reasons, as was well known, was inclined
to Burlington, and H. Adams to Farmington. None
were disposed to object ; and so their destination
was fixed. " Those having wives," it was said,
" ought to be provided for in places as comfortable
as any in the Territory." A minister-seeking man
from Keosauqua had claimed Brother Lane as the
one of his choice. His promises were fair, and he
was gratified. Bloomington, since called Musca-
tine, then " a smart town " on the Mississippi, of
four hundred inhabitants, seemed a good place for
one with a family ; and so this, by common consent,
was ceded to Brother Robbins : and thus the wives
were provided for.
Away out in the new purchase, in the region of
the old Indian Agency, new fields were opening,
calling mostly for itinerant labor for the present,
and endurance of frontier hardships as a good
soldier. Brother Spaulding would as soon take
this position as any other ; and thither was his face
turned. Some must go up into the northern coun-
ties of Jackson and Jones. This was far distant, to-
be sure, and the region not thickly settled : but then
the more northern the location, the more Eastern
the people ; and that part of the State would some
ORDINATION AND DISPERSION. 37
time be filled up. Brothers Salter and Turner, the
David and Jonathan of the company, rather liked
the idea of exploring this portion of the field to-
gether, and deciding for themselves where to locate.
This they did, eventually finding themselves,
the former at Maquoketa, and the latter at Cascade.
The two places yet remaining, which then seemed
most important, were Solon and Mt. Pleasant : for
these there were two brethren, E. Alden and E.
Adams, who said they would settle the matter
by themselves ; which they did by referring it
that evening to Father Turner. He assigned Mr.
Alden for Solon, and Mr. Adams for Mt. Pleasant.
So the work was done with perfect harmony and
good will, quickly done, without an unpleasant
word or a jealous thought ; and every one was
satisfied. Considering the nature of the meeting
and the issue thereof, let God be praised !
On Sabbath night, Nov. 5, 1843, as eacn retired
to rest after having been ordained to his work, he
had his particular field in view. On Monday
morning, all was bustle, preparatory to their depart-
ure. Occasionally, as they met in passing to and
fro, there was the grasp of the hand, the hearty
" good-by ! " and the " Lord bless you ! " " Let us
remember Tuesday night," was the parting sugges-
tion. The meeting alluded to in the pastor's study
was the last ever held by the Band at which all the
members were together. Such a meeting on earth
where all are present, there can now never be.
CHAPTER VII.
GETTING TO WORK AND COALESCING.
INTIMATELY connected, yet widely different,
are theory and practice. The theory we spin
out in thought, speech, and books ; the practice we
find amid the vital forces, the living issues and
interests, of actual life. Right here it is, that our
previous instructions sometimes appear almost
useless, our notions visionary, and our plans futile.
For success in any calling or profession, more is
to be learned than can be learned prior to entering
upon it. ,
Of no profession, perhaps, is this more true than
of the ministerial. Against the usual preparatory
course through ten years of study, in academy,
college, and seminary, not a word is to be said : it
is by no means useless. In many respects, and in
most cases, it is essential ; but it alone can never
qualify one for the ministerial work. This is never
found to be precisely what it seems in books. It
includes many an experience and emergency, for
which the previous training has given no real prep-
aration ; while much of the so-called preparation
that has been made, however cherished and
relied upon, will be found like the armor of Saul
GETTING TO WORK AND COALESCING. 39
on the youthful David, and can only be put aside
as cumbersome and useless.
Often the young minister finds himself coming
awkwardly into his calling, because he seeks to
carry into it the full panoply of the schools, or
of favorite theological giants, instead of going to
his work simply in the name of the Lord. The
process of getting to work so as to work success-
fully, in which every one has so much to learn that
has not been taught him by books and teachers, is
always more or less a process of disappointments
and failures. A modification of previous views and
plans becomes necessary. There are frequent calls
for self-adjustments and adaptations, to meet un-
thqught of exigencies ; so that the man often, in
the course of a few years, comes out far different
in many respects from what he had proposed. So
it proved in the case of the classmates, who, in a
few short days, were, twenty-five years ago, taken
from the quiet scenes of student-life at Andover,
and set down one here, and another there as
home missionaries in Iowa.
One, from the representations then frequent
respecting the moral wants of the West, had
pictured to himself a country destitute of preachers,
and a people, with the recollections of Christian
homes fresh in their memories, all eager to hear the
gospel. He had fancied, that, when once among
them, the simple announcement that he came as a
minister would be enough immediately to draw
them about him as those famishing for the bread
4O THE IOWA BAND.
of life. " Oh, what a joy," thought he, " to be a
home missionary ! "
Imagine the change in his views as he found, in
the place to which he was assigned, the great
majority of the people not only just as indifferent
as elsewhere, but, by the sharp, worldly features of
a stirring Western town, even more so. The. few
that had any interest at all in religious things were
cut up into cliques and denominations of all sorts,
some of which he had never heard of before ; and,
to meet their wants, there was a minister or
preacher of some kind at every corner of the
streets, making it, as the Sabbath came, not only
difficult to find a place or an hour in which to
preach, but more difficult still, to secure any thing
like a stated congregation from Sabbath to Sab-
bath. Here was the theory of home-missionary life
turning to fact.
Another, in his mind, had planned on this wise :
" I am going to Iowa ; and, when I get there,
I am going to have my study and library. Then I
am going to write two sermons a week ; and, when
the Sabbath comes, I am going to preach them,
and the people, if they want the gospel, must come
to hear." Well, he came to Iowa to find his home,
for the time being, in the house of kind Christian
people ; in which the one room must answer all the
needs of the family, with those of the new minister
superadded.
The familiar quilt of those days partitioned off
one corner for his bedroom and study ; and his
GETTING TO WORK AND COALESCING. 4!
study-chair was a saddle. As for written sermons,
they were, of course, few; and if any one was com-
pelled to go about in search of the people, instead
of being sought by them, it was he.
A third fancied that he would have three or four
preaching-places far enough apart to enable him to
preach on the same subjects in each place. So he
was calculating on time and opportunity to work
up extempore sermons of great power on important
subjects. He found himself, and for years has
stood, where, with some of the same hearers from
Sabbath to Sabbath, the constant demand was for
two written sermons to be prepared each week,
and, at the same time, cut off from the usual relief
of ministerial exchange and of annual vacations.
Twenty-five years ago, Nauvoo, the city of the
Mormons, was in its glory. Dr. Lyman Beecher
had sounded, through the East, alarms of Catholi-
cism in the West. These two opposing forces, it
was supposed, would confront at once any Chris-
tian laborer going West, and meet him at every
turn. So McGavin's " Protestantism," a huge work,
was procured and studied ; the Mormon Bible
perused ; and in other directions special prepara-
tions made to meet them : for must not the work-
man go forth prepared for his work ?
In fact, however, the most of our young missiona-
ries for years never saw a Mormon ; and, as for Ca-
tholicism, this was by no means the only hostile ism
in the land. They found a people starting homes,
institutions, usages, laws, customs, in a new Terri-
4*
42 THE IOWA BAND.
tory ; gathered from all parts of the country and the
world ; coming together with differing tastes, preju-
dices, ideas, and plans ; and representing all shades
of belief and disbelief. Every phase of error, that
any age or country had ever seen, was here crop-
ping out. They soon found that they were where,
if their lives were to be of use, if they were not
to be swallowed up by the forces around them, they
must be positive and earnest. They must set
forth the best platform under God they could, and,
as earnest men, set about building thereon. What
that platform was to be, and what the work to be
done upon it, was not so much of a question as
how to do it ; what to unlearn, and what to learn ;
how to be adapted to circumstances ; when to take
on new methods and ways, and when to cling to
the old ; and how, especially, to mingle among the
people, not only as among but of them, so as, by
identity of feeling and interest, to gain their con-
fidence and affection, and so an open ear, and, by
God's grace, an open heart.
After the ordination and dispersion came this
process of getting to work, each in his own field,
and coalescing, this process, we will not say, of
turning from the Eastern to the Western man,
but rather of growing from the Eastern into the
Western, in which somewhat of over-niceties, and
the restraints of etiquette and form, are laid aside.
" How do you like the new minister ? " was
asked of a resident in a county where one of the
Band was thus getting to work. " Oh ! we all be-
GETTING TO WORK AND COALESCING. 43
lieve in him," was the reply ; showing how Eastern
habits and culture were no barrier, as they some-
times are, to access to the hearts of the hardy pio-
neers. In this process of getting to work, in the
course of a year or two things were fully settled.
First, what, ecclesiastically, the platform of the
missionaries was to be. This in the case of each
was Congregational. With a number, when they
came to the Territory, the matter of church-polity
was an open question. Decided instructions in the
Seminary had not been given. There had been no
conference respecting it, one with the other, by
which any conclusion or agreement had been
reached as to whether they should be Congrega-
tionalists or Presbyterians. The feeling was, that,
very likely, some would be one, and some the
other. Nor, after they came, were any pains taken
by the Congregational brethren on the ground to
influence them in this matter. But in the provi-
dence of God, by the fitness of things soon per-
ceived, with one consent they thought best to build
upon what, with a single exception, had been the
foundation of their fathers. In after-years, they
thanked God that it was so.
Secondly, they had in affection, feelings, interest,
and aims, coalesced with the brethren who preced-
ed them. These were few ; not so many by half as
those who re-enforced them. Coming in such com-
parative numbers as classmates in the same semi-
nary, as did the Iowa Band, and at so early a period
in the history of the State, it would not have been
44 THE IOWA BAND.
strange, if, in the minds of the brethren already
here, there had been the suggestion at least, if not
the fear, that the new-comers would be clannish in
their feeling, banded together, and standing apart
from others ; not only disposed to set aside those
who were here before, but dictatorial and assuming
over those who should come after them. If any
such suggestion or fear there was, one year was
sufficient to dispel it.
With open hands and warm hearts were they re-
ceived ; and the common interests and experiences
of home-missionary life soon bound all together
as one. As they coalesced with those who had
preceded them, so have others coming later, till the
Iowa ministry of the Congregational churches has
become a band indeed ; and though that part of it
known as the Iowa Band has thus far been made
prominent in this home-missionary record, and, in
the circumstances, may properly, perhaps, occasion-
ally be so made in what follows, yet be it under-
stood, that, as to work accomplished and results
reached, honor is due, under God, not to them
alone, but to all who have labored with them,
those who have come in at a later period as those
who were here before them.
CHAPTER Vin.
A DIARY.
STILL further to illustrate, and as affording, to
some extent, a little more of an inside view of
this process of getting to work, we give in this
chapter a brief diary. It contains the observa-
tions of one, who, in that first year, was called to
visit the most of his brother ministers at their
homes. Initials only of persons and places will
be given. Those acquainted will easily recognize
the most of them ; for those who are not, a parade
of names is unnecessary. The tour begins upon
the banks of the Des Moines at K.
July 1 6, 1844. Here are Brother L. and wife in
their little home with two rooms. They have a
chair or two now, and a table ; but they say they
set up housekeeping without either, using, instead,
old boxes. They have a church of a few members,
a village of promise, and the people are kind. On
the whole, they are in good spirits and hopeful.
The church is organized as Presbyterian ; but its
members are not all of that way of thinking.
Brother L. is coming to be very decided that Con-
gregationalism is the true Bible way ; really quite
conscientious about it. A majority are with him
in opinion. How things will turn out can't tell.
46 THE IOWA BAND.
July 1 8. At M. P. to-night. Found Brother A.
well. He has a study at a tavern, and " boards
round," like a schoolmaster. No church organized,
or next to none. He groans over sects and divis-
ions, and hopes somehow to get some of them to-
gether. Says he sometimes thinks there are more
ministers West than East. One can do nothing in
this place till he takes his stand, and goes to work.
It is not so much destitution as it is the indis-
position, selfishness, and self-seeking of the human
heart here as everywhere.
July 19. Came up to B. This is a farming
settlement, a number of intelligent, pious families.
Brother B. is the minister here ; used to know him
in college. He has a house : it is unpainted, no
carpets in it, a poor fence around it, woodpile near,
and pigs loose. Don't look much like a New-Eng-
land parsonage. I wonder if this isn't the way for
a minister to do, to get a home, and grow up with
the people. Farmers are the basis of every thing ;
and he has a good field.
Monday, July 22. This is the State capital,
the great city of Iowa, of which everybody has
heard, of four hundred inhabitants. It has a pleas-
ant location, however, and plenty of room. Went
into the State Library ; while looking about, met an
old gentleman, who proved to be Gov. L., the
ex-Governor of the Territory. He was affable, and
interested to show me about the city ; took me
down half a mile or so to see some mineral-springs.
I felt a little awkward to have such attention paid me
A DIARY. 47
by so old a man. Spent the Sabbath here with the
Rev. Dr. W. of the New-School Presbyterian church,
and preached for him. There is an Old-School
church here also, but no Congregational. Neither
of the churches having any meeting-house, they hold
meetings in the State House, one in the Repre-
sentatives', the other in Senators' Hall. These two
halls are opposite each other ; so that, as the doors
were open while the people were collecting, when
we took our seats in the desk, we could look across
through the opposite hall, and see the Old-School
minister in his desk at the other end of the building.
" Now," whispered the doctor, " now the watch-
men see eye to eye." Didn't think 'twas just the
place for such a pun, so sadly false too! Long
time, I fear, it will be, before the Old-School friends
will see eye to eye with the New-School brethren,
or us either ; for they look upon us with suspicion,
say we are unsound, and won't even exchange with
us. Oh, what a pity that all these little places should
be so cut up ! Glad we haven't any church here.
July 23. This day's ride on my faithful pony,
for I've forgotten to say that I now own one price
forty-five dollars, has brought me to T., county-
seat of C. County. Here found Brother A. He
has a study, a little ground-room right on the
street, in a "lean-to" of a store, over which live
the family. Horses stand around, these hot days,
kicking the flies ; and, when he is out, the pigs run
in, unless he is careful to shut the door. Poor place,
I should think, for writing sermons. Partition so
48 THE IOWA BAND.
thin, that all the store-talk, especially when the
doors are open, is plainly heard.
It being Tuesday evening, we of course wished
to remember the Tuesday-evening prayer-meeting,
but wanted a more private place for it : so went out
in search of one. Came to a two-story log-building
used for a jail, which happened to be empty, with
the doors open. Went up by an outside stairway
to the upper room, and there, with the moon sailing
over the prairies, had our meeting ; prayed for each
other, for the brethren, for Iowa, for home. Not
exactly like the old Andover meetings in the libra-
ry, but something like them. Coming down again
to the ground, Brother A. looked up in his queer
way : " There," said he, " I guess that's the first
time that old building ever had a prayer in it." Just
as cheerful and funny as ever ; but he is doing a
good work here, and getting hold of the hearts
of everybody. Indeed, he is becoming quite a
bishop of the county. " The first time there was
ever a prayer in it ! " I wonder in how many
places and ways we shall do the first things for
Christ in this new country !
July 24. Am here in D. W., a little place,
with a few buildings, on a big prairie. But how I
got here, which way I travelled, I can't tell. I only
know that in the morning I gave myself up to the
pilotage of the mail-carrier. Soon after starting,
he turned his horse off the road, into the prairie,
and I followed. Since then, my head has been in a
kind of whirl, the points of the compass lost ; and
A DIARY. 49
.1 can only think of prairie-grass, bottom-lands,
sloughs, a river forded, a cabin or two by the way,
and little groves here and there, all jumbled up
together. But I am here ! Looking at the map, I
reason myself into the belief that I have really
travelled from T. to D. W. Here is where Brother
E. lives, a man whom I have long wished to see. It
was his account, in " The Home Missionary," of the
manner in which a gang of horse-thieves was broken
up at B., that turned my attention to Iowa. Some-
how I then felt that there was work to be done in
such a country, and that I would like to labor near
such a man ; and here I am at his home. He is
a whole-souled, earnest brother, and takes you right
in. No danger, I guess, that we and those who
were on the ground before us will not feel as one.
One good thing about this trip is to get ac-
quainted with the older brethren, to see the dif-
ferent fields, to know what the land is. Brother E.
says he located here because so central. If this is
a centre, no trouble in finding one on any of these
big prairies.
Jtily 26. Came up to-day to M., where I ex-
pected to find Brother S. Learning that he was
absent, having gone north, came on up through
A., a little stumpy town in the woods, to this
place, C., the home of Deacon C. So I am the
guest, to-night, of one of the direct descendants
of old John Cotton of Pilgrim memory, in this
far-off Iowa ; and a nice old man he is. Before
leaving the East, an old Christian lady, a mother in
5O THE IOWA BAND.
Israel, learning I was going to Iowa, came, saying
that she had a son-in-law in Iowa for whom she felt
greatly concerned, and gave me his address, with
the injunction, if I ever went near him, to go and
see him, and do him all the good I could. I took the
address, never expecting really to go near him, but
find that to-day I have passed right by his door.
Sorry I had not kept it more in my mind. This
impresses me more than ever with one feature of
the mission-work : it is, to do here, among the
scattered people, what the Eastern fathers and
mothers, brothers and sisters, are contributing, long-
ing, and praying to have done. I must be more
careful.
Deacon C. says Brother S. has taken a trip up
into Wisconsin, about Potosi ; that he is inclined
to think he will not stay in this field long. Hope
he won't- leave Iowa. I'll find him if I can.
July 27. Am up now as far as D. Here is
where really the first white man crossed thb river
to dwell. He had a grant from government to trade
in this mining-region with the Indians. The place
takes his name ; and the whole region is honey-
combed with the miner's diggings. Great fortunes
have been made ; but many a splendid prospect
fails. So it is in all things else. Some say, that
if all the labor expended in digging for lead
had been expended upon the surface of the ground,
about six inches deep, the people generally would
be better off. However this may be, a "right
smart town " is here of a few hundred people.
A DIARY. 51
Brother H. preaches here, and has, I am told,
great influence. He is away now at the East to
get funds towards repairing the church. It needs it ;
for it is a stone building with bare unplastered
walls inside. Yet it is the only house of worship
built expressly for this object that we have in the
Territory. By urgent solicitation of the brethren,
am to spend the Sabbath here.
July 31. Up, up, still farther north, here at G.,
county-seat of C. County. I have now traversed
northward, on my horseback-trip, about two hun-
dred and fifty miles. Since leaving D., I have
been so tossed about, that I could not use my
diary : so I must write up a little.
Started on Monday morning in search of Brother
S. Came up to P. Landing. There crossing the
river, soon got on his track, and found him at last,
after inquiring for him from house to house, doing
good mission-work among the people. It was truly
a surprise-meeting. Glad to learn that he was true
to Iowa, and was to return soon to his field.
Staid with him that night in a neat log-cabin of
some young married people, who said they were
from Maine. Might have known they were from
Yankee-land, if they hadn't told us, by the morn-
ing-glories around the door and the general air of
things in and around the cabin. There will be a
good house there some time, and a Christian home,
too, I trust.
Next day, about noon, crossed back again into
this best part of the world, on the flat-boat ferry
52 THE IOWA BAND.
at C. Landing, at the mouth of the Turkey River.
That afternoon had quite a time. I was on the
south side of the river, and the first ford was ten
miles up stream ; the track leading for the most
part through a hilly forest. From recent rains, the
river was much swollen, making, by back-water,
every stream putting into it impassable at the
mouth : so my work that afternoon was principal-
ly heading those streams. It was in one of these,
as I urged my horse down a steep bank, into deeper
water than I supposed, that I was thrown full-length,
when saddle-bags, sermons, and papers went float-
ing. Fortunately I gathered them all up, and came
on. Reached the ferry near night, where the ferry-
man swam my horse for me, and took me over in a
canoe. I was then twelve miles from this place,
and started on with quickened speed. Just as it
was getting dark, as I was querying whether or no
I could keep the road, my horse turned into a by-
path, and shot around a clump of bushes with a will.
Thinking he must have some intent in this, I gave
him the rein. In about five minutes, he took me
up to a fence and a light. There I stopped for the
night.
It was the cabin of an old sea-captain, Capt. C.
His wife, for years a praying Christian woman,
in poor health, and somewhat deaf, was once a
member of Father K's. church in G., 111., but now
is living away alone, as a sheep in the wilderness.
On learning I was a minister, she was greatly re-
joiced. We talked ; she told me much of her his-
A DIARY. 53
tory and experience ; we read the Bible ; we prayed.
I stopped that night in the house of the Lord. In
the morning, she thanked me over and over for the
good she received ; but I felt, and feel now, that she
did me far more good than I did her. Experience,
with the chastenings of the Lord, work that which
seminaries and colleges can never give. We come
out here to preach ; but there are those who preach
to us more effectively than we to them. That day,
I came to this place. Here are Brother H. and
wife. The settlement is on a beautiful prairie-ridge,
and there are many fine families here. Brother
H. and wife are boarding at present, and have be-
fore them a fine field. He enters it with his usual
staid, steady tread ; but she throws herself into it
with the enthusiasm of her whole soul. Long may
they live to labor here ! The next place north, they
say, is Sodom, and then the Indians : so I guess
I'll turn back.
From this point, our tourist, on his return, re-
traces pretty much the path by which he came ; so
that we find in his diary nothing of new interest
until he comes down to D., on the Mississippi.
Here we quote as follows :
Aug. 10. Came down to this place to-day, from
D. W. Of all the rivers in the Territory, and I be-
lieve now I have seen them all, I think the W. is the
worst. Such ugly bottom-lands, and, indeed, such
sloughs as I have had all day long ! A hard ride :
but I find here a beautiful place, the most beautiful
54 THE IOWA BAND.
natural location on the Mississippi, some say ; and I
know of none that excels it. There are here about
five hundred people. I have heard the place spoken
of as a good location for a college. I see nothing
to the contrary. There is certainly beauty of
scenery. Probably it will not be much of a point
for business ; and a literary institution with such sur-
roundings would attract a class of people congenial
to itself. Here I am, the guest of a new acquaint-
ance, Brother H., who preaches here. I believe,
though, he is to leave before long to go to M., 111.,
a new village just starting on the other side of the
river, three miles above R. I. I am to spend the
Sabbath here, and shall be glad of the rest.
I am getting about enough of travel. As to
clothes, between the excessive rains, hot sun, and
horseback-wear, they are beginning to look pretty
rusty.
Monday Morning, Aug. 12, 1844. Preached
yesterday in the forenoon for the Congregational-
ists in a little building put up for a dwelling-house,
and now used for a school-house, situated on what
is known as Ditch Street : twelve hearers. They
are building, however, a neat little church, about
twenty-eight by thirty-eight, on which I see
that Brother H. works daily. Wonder if this
is the way, when it comes to church-building,
that the minister has to turn in as head-carpenter
to " boss the job." In the afternoon yesterday, by
invitation, preached for the Baptists. In the course
of the sermon was a little vexed as I noticed two
A DIARY. 55
ladies smiling at some holes in my coat-sleeve,
revealed by my gesturing. Drew down my arms,
and their faces too, by preaching straight at them.
Perhaps, on this account, I preached with more
point and earnestness than usual ; for, after meeting,
an Old-School Presbyterian said he would give
five dollars if I would stop and preach a year in
the place. Felt it quite a compliment, considering
the source.
Aug. 13. At B. The greatest effort at town-
building this. From four to six hundred people
here are pitched into gullies, and tossed about on
the hills. But here I have a hearty welcome by
Brother R. and wife. They are getting ahead of
all the rest by a little new-comer to their house-
hold. She laughs at the bachelor brethren, and
pretends to have such a care of them. Materials
here for a good church ; and, if the place ever is
any thing, no doubt there will be a good one.
Aug. 1 6. At B. Have been here before quite
frequently. Nothing specially new now. Brother
H. is working away quite hopefully, though his
health is not very firm. Nothing new, I say ? Yes,
there is one thing new, in the shape of an utter-
ance of one Rev. Mr. W., a Cumberland Presbyte-
rian minister, in a piece published in the paper, to
which Brother H. called my attention. It is so
modest, I must put it down as so much history :
" Observation has taught me that many honest
persons have heard Iowa misrepresented. So far
from being a land of heathens, it is becoming dense-
56 THE IOWA BAND.
ly populated by people of intelligence, from not
only different parts of the United States, but of the
Eastern and Western Continents. The people are
able to support their ministers ; and it is an insult
offered to their intelligence to have men stationed
in their largest towns and villages, who receive
from one to four hundred dollars per annum to in-
struct the brethren. Iowa is an unhealthy climate
for theological dwarfs. Ministers are needed who
have clear heads, warm hearts ; whose sentences
breathe, and whose words burn."
O Brother W. ! you, then, must be one of the kind
needed ; for your sentences breathe, and your
words burn. We have heard of similar utterances
got off by unbelievers, especially by one of the
leading judges of the Territory when we came into
it ; but little did we expect that gospel ministers
would join in the cry. The judge, however, apolo-
gized, as he found one of our number coming to be
his next-door neighbor. Wonder if you ever will !
Aug.i?. At D. This is a kind of a home for us
all ; and I thought I would come over here to rest
a little before going back to my field. I have cer-
tainly taken quite a tour, and am glad of it. I have
seen the brethren, seen their homes, know the
country, and trust I shall work the more heartily.
CHAPTER IX.
THEN AND NOW.
IT is by no means proposed, in what follows, to
give a connected history either of the Iowa
Band or Iowa Missions for the last twenty-five
years. We seek only to review a scene here and
there, and put on record a few facts, which, while
of interest to parties concerned, may stand to the
credit of the great home-missionary work. If
but a glimpse of home-missionary life can be pre-
sented, especially of its inner view, with its joys
yet not without its sorrows, our young men pre-
paring for or entering the ministry, we are sure,
will be attracted rather than repelled by it. If we
can hold up a few clusters gathered as the fruits
of home-missions in Iowa, it may encourage and
stimulate all workers in this noble cause to push
it onward with increasing vigor wherever there
remaineth land yet to be possessed.
As preparatory to what is now proposed, nothing
perhaps, will serve better than to contrast the
Iowa of twenty-five years ago with the Iowa of
to-day. By this view of the " then and now,"
unfolding, as it must, the nature of the field
occupied and the changes wrought, we can better
58 THE IOWA BAND.
appreciate the causes at work. But going back
twenty-five years brings us so near the beginning
of all Iowa history, that a word or two of the prior
period may not be amiss.
From 1843, we go back but ten years to find
the first settlement of the State. This was June
i, 1833. Before that date, no white man had
resided within its limits, except the Indian traders
and their dependants, and a few who crossed the
Mississippi in defiance of all treaties.
Of those who have labored here in the gospel,
probably the first Congregational minister whose
privilege it was to look over into this promised
land was the Rev. J. A. Reed. He saw it as early
as May, 1833. His point of observation was a
town-site in Illinois, called Commerce, consisting
then of one log-cabin and a cornfield, since known
as Nauvoo. His eye could just distinguish bluffs
and prairie, with timber-skirted streams. Gazing
on the prospect, his reflection was, that the land
before him, all the way to the Pacific, was the
abode only of savages. All seemed buried, as for
ages, in the silence and sleep of savage-life.
During the first ten years of Iowa history, between
1833 and 1843, the only portion of the State open
for settlement was a strip of country about forty
miles wide, and two hundred miles long, on the
western bank of the Mississippi. So far out was
this on the frontier, on the very borders -of the
Indian country, and so much good land was there
unoccupied and easier of access between it and the
THEN AND NOW. 59
older settlements of what was then the West, that
its population at first increased but slowly. In
1838, five years after its settlement began, the pop-
ulation of the Territory numbered but 22,859.
Prior to July 4, 1839, Iowa was included in the
territorial government, first of Michigan, and then
of Wisconsin. At this date, its own government
was established, embracing in its limits the most
of what is now Minnesota and Dakota. Its pres-
ent boundaries were established when it was ad-
mitted into the Union as a State, in 1846. In
1840, its population had reached 42,500. In these
first years, the country was but little developed.
Pioneer hardships and privations were the com-
mon experience of the people. These were times
in which the brethren tell of letters lying in the
post-office for want of money possessed, or to be
borrowed, with which to pay postage.
The religious condition of the people near the
close of this first ten years, as near as August,
1 842, is indicated by the statements of a writer in
" The Home Missionary " of that period. He puts
down the number of ministers in the Territory, of
all denominations, as 42, and the number of pro-
fessing Christians as 2,133. "Suppose," he says,
"that ten times this number, or 21,330, come
under the stated or transient influence of the
preached gospel, you have yet the astounding fact,
that there are 38,070 souls in the Territory destitute
of the means of grace, a large portion of whom are
under the withering blight of all sorts of perni-
cious error."
6O THE IOWA BAND.
Among the errors alluded to was Mormonism.
Its headquarters were at Nauvoo, 111. The town-
site with its one log-cabin of ten years ago had now
become a city of Latter-day Saints, claiming from
sixteen to eighteen thousand people. All the
males were under military drill, the men in one
division, and the boys in another, to the number, it
it was said, of three thousand. There was not a
school in the place. About this time Mormonism
was sanguine. Its apostles were everywhere,
traversing the new settlements with a zeal and
success at once astonishing and alarming.
Infidelity, too, was presenting a bold front
under the leadership of Abner Kneeland, first
known in Vermont as a Universalist minister,
afterwards in Boston as an atheist. He had set-
tled with a band of his followers, male and female,
upon the banks of the Des Moines, to mould, if
possible, the faith of the new settlers by " substitut-
ing," as one has said, " Paine's ' Age of Reason,' for
the family Bible, the dance for the prayer-meet-
ing, and the holiday for the Sabbath*." Of the
ministers and Christians spoken of as in the Terri-
tory near the close of the first ten years, a very
few only were of the Congregational order.
The first Congregational ministers that explored
this field were the Rev. Asa Turner and the Rev.
William Kirby. This they did in May, 1836. They
found, as the principal settlements, Fort Madison,
Burlington, Farmington, Yellow Springs, Daven-
port, and Pleasant Valley. Had they continued
THEN AND NOW. 6 1
their tour northward far enough, they would have
found Dubuque, with some other little settlements
scattered here and there.
The first resident Congregational minister in
the State was the Rev. W. A. Apthorp, who came
in the fall of 1836. He preached for a year or
two, mostly at Fort Madison and Denmark. At
Denmark, the first Congregational church in Iowa
was formed, May 5, 1838. The ministers present
were Messrs. Turner, Reed, and Apthorp. Denmark
was then about two years old, with a few log-cabins
and a frame-building, twenty by twenty-four, which
served as a schoolhouse and meeting-house, partly
finished. The church was organized with thirty-
two members. Every New-England State but
one was represented in it. Immediately on the
organization of the church, Mr. Turner was in-
vited to take charge of it ; and the invitation was,
after a few weeks, accepted. Mr. Apthorp was
soon called to Illinois, and Mr. Turner was left
the only Congregational minister in the State. So
intimately connected with the history of our
churches in after-years did the. church at Denmark
and its pastor become, that Denmark is regarded
as the cradle of Congregationalism in Iowa ; and to
the revered pastor who so long labored there, the
Iowa ministry have given, by common consent,
the appellation of " Father Turner."
He did not long stand alone. Others came to
his help, but not enough to supply the wants of
even the slowly developing country around them.
62 THE IOWA BAND.
In a few years, the population began to increase
more rapidly. The openings for labor became
more numerous, but the men to occupy the new
fields came not. These were weary years, in
which the few brethren here explored the field,
reported its wants, and then labored on without
re-enforcement. This they did till hope deferred
not only made the heart sick, but made them
almost despair. But at last, as we have seen, help
came.
Twenty-five years ago, what is now the State of
Iowa was a Territory, whose scattered settlements
were mostly confined to the narrow strip of
country before mentioned. The northern and
western portions of it were still in the possession
of the Indians. It was only a little farther west,
about to the centre of the State, that the Indian
title was extinguished in October, 1843. Now the
State stretches from. the Mississippi to the Mis-
souri, taking in a belt of land measuring from north
to south nearly three hundred miles. Traversing the
eastern portion of it are five noble rivers, nearly
equidistant from and parallel to each other, run-
ning in a south-easterly direction to the Mississippi ;
while on the western slope of the State are other
rivers, with their tributaries, tending to the Mis-
souri.
With this area of fifty-five thousand square miles,
situated in the very heart of our country, embracing
a variety of climate, bounded and intersected by the
noblest rivers of the continent, Iowa is equal to
THEN AND NOW. 63
any of her sister States in the richness of her soil,
and more favored than some of them in the extent
of her forests. Her water-courses abound with
facilities for the manufacturer. Her mines of lead
and coal, and her quarries of marble, are exhaustless
sources of wealth. It is indeed a goodly land :
so the thousands who have found a home on its
soil have esteemed it.
The growth of its population, though slow at
first, has in later years been truly wonderful. In
1843, there were but about seventy thousand people
in the State ; now there are over a million. In cities
where then there were but a few hundreds, now
there are thousands, and in some cases tens of
thousands. Twenty-five years ago, a father in the
ministry was calling with one of the Band on a
family in the field of his labor. Wishing to
impress both the family and the youthful minister
with the grandeur of the Christian work in a new
country, he remarked on this wise : " I have no
doubt that the day will come, some time, that,
within a region of ten miles around the place
where we now stand, there will be as many as ten
thousand people." The prophecy at the time
seemed almost startling. But that family is still
living where they then were ; and, within the region
alluded to, the people now are numbered by more
than three times ten thousand, while the two minis-
ters are still living, the older and the younger
beholding in wonder the advancing growth.
64 THE IOWA BAND.
Meantime, as might be expected, the develop-
ment of the State as a whole has been wonderful.
The Iowa of to-day rivals many an older State in
agricultural and mechanical productions ; while her
coal-beds and her quarries are proving sources of
unexpected wealth, and her mines of lead show no
signs of exhaustion. Her advance in all the arts
and achievements of civilized life has been rapid.
There is no better index, perhaps, of the develop-
ment of a country than its facilities of travel, and,
especially in these latter days, the number and
location of its railroads. A glance shows how
marked has been the progress in this respect.
Twenty-five years ago, the nearest approach by
rail from the East was the city of Buffalo. Travel-
lers that would see the then Far West, just opening
on this the farther side of the Mississippi, were
compelled, for the most part, to cross over in skiffs,
flat-boats, or horse-boats. At one point only was
there a steam-ferry. The mode of travel then was
mostly on foot or horseback, guided often by Indian
trails or blazed trees. Bridgeless streams and
sometimes bottomless sloughs were to be crossed.
Many are the incidents and adventures which
the members of the Band and the older ministers
have to recount to their children and to one another
of the days in one .sense so recent, in another so
long ago, as they speak of their early explorations
in looking over their fields and hunting up the
people. But these things have passed. Railroads
THEN AND NOW. 65
have come. No less than five railroad-bridges
across the Mississippi are or are being constructed,
over which the iron horse comes to find here a fresh
pasture-ground for his wide roaming. From these
five points start five main roads, crossing the State
from east to west. Like her five principal rivers,
they are about equi-distant from, and in the main
parallel to, each other. Two of them already
form the Iowa links in the great Pacific Route, and
others are pressing on. Meantime, from north to
south, roads are projected, and parts of them com-
pleted ; giving promise, at no distant day, of a rail-
road system at once complete and adequate. In
the aggregate, about fourteen hundred miles of
railroad are already in operation, an extent nearly
if not quite equal to all the railroads in the whole
country twenty-five years ago. The whistle of the
engine is fast becoming a familiar sound to the
children of Iowa.
The rivers, of course, have been bridged, and car-
riage-roads have been made, as the necessities of
the people have required. Twenty-five years ago,
the only public buildings of Iowa were a rickety
penitentiary and a very ordinary State House :
now, all over the State are scattered her public
institutions of all sorts, homes for the orphan,
asylums for the blind, the insane, and the deaf and
dumb. Her present Capitol stands in a city claim-
ing a population of fifteen thousand, where, at the
coming of the Band, there was but a fort, seldom
6*
66 THE IOWA BAND.
reached, so far was it in the heart of the Indian
country.
In addition to her State University, whose
annual income exceeds twenty-five thousand dol-
lars, her Agricultural College generously endowed,
and a system of common schools magnificently
provided for, there are, among her citizens, schools
and colleges established by Christian enterprise,
already standing high among the best institutions
of the land.
Thus, as by magic, in a few years has the wilder-
ness been peopled. That profound sleep in which,
when the first Congregational minister gazed upon
it, the whole region seemed wrapped, has been
broken. Towns, villages, cities, have sprung up,
where, but a little while ago, no trace of civilization
was visible. With all this growth, giving life and
vitality td it, have sprung up churches of our Lord
Jesus Christ. We will not speak of these now ; but,
when in the proper place we do, we shall find that
here the tens have given place to hundreds, and
hundreds to thousands.
Twenty-five years ago, Iowa was almost un-
known, and its character a blank : now its fame is
at once world-wide and enviable. Then it was
only a frontier Territory, containing, in the eye of
the nation, but a few scattered homes of wild
adventurers : now it is a State ; and a State, too, of
no mean rank in the centre of States. Welcoming,
from the first, to her soil the principles of educa-
THEN AND NOW. /
tion, liberty, and religion that have travelled west-
ward from the land of the Pilgrims ; sending them,
in due time, to the opening plains of Kansas and
Nebraska ; saying to the dark spirit of the South,
that was- ever struggling to press its way north-
ward, " Thus far and no farther; " joining hands, in
the mean time, with her sister States of the North
and the North-west in a friendly rivalry to develop
and protect every noble interest and true, she
stands forth with the proud inscription already on
her brow, " The Massachusetts of the West," an
inscription placed there, not as in self-glorying, by
her Own sons, but by friends abroad, as they have
seen the freedom of her people, her schools, and
her churches, watched the integrity and wisdom of
her legislators, felt her power in the councils of
the nation, and especially as they have marked her
noble record in the hour of the nation's peril.
She was ever* prompt with her full quota of men
and means, and ever mindful of her soldiers in the
field and their families at home. Of all her sister
States, none were more lavish in these respects than
she ; and yet she was the only one of them all to
come out at the close of the war with her liabilities
cancelled, and free of debt. Nor has she since been
untrue to the character then earned : she has made
the path of freedom broad enough to include all
her citizens ; and, in every case in which these
United States have been called to pronounce upon
any of the issues of the times, she has stood
68 THE IOWA BAND.
shoulder to shoulder on the side of progress with
the noblest of them all. Such is the Iowa of to-
day. Looking at things as they now are, we can
hardly believe that they are the outgrowth of the
things few and feeble of twenty-five years ago. But
so it is. There have been causes for this. Where
and what are they ?
CHAPTER X.
THE WORKERS.
THE growth of a State, free and mighty, as are
those of the North-west is a grand event. It
stands forth as the result, not of one cause, but of
a thousand. Prominent among them, to say the
least, is the gospel of Jesus Christ, the message of
God to man by his Son. It is the preaching of
this gospel, with the influences and institutions it
includes, that, entering into the individual, domes-
tic, social, and civil life, gives character and pros-
perity to the State. To prove a proposition like
this is no part of the present object ; nor, with the
history of our country before us, is it needful. It
is to the preachers, teachers, and upholders of the
gospel in Iowa, we are bold to affirm, that she is in
no small degree indebted for what she is.
Somewhat prominent among these are the Con-
gregational ministers and churches of the State.
With here and there an exception, these churches
have all felt the fostering care of the American
Home Missionary Society, a society which is
more than its president, its executive committee, and
its secretaries. Be it ours, then, in this chapter, to set
forth the workers here ; not the home missionaries
7O THE IOWA BAND.
only, but their helpers also, all who have given or
prayed in aid of this work, or sympathized with
them in it. If home missions can show a record
of honor in Iowa, let the honor be shared by all
who should participate in it, and let the joys of it
be wide-spread and mutual.
The grand central figure, however, around which
the picture must be drawn is the home missionary
himself. Look at him as he is, or rather as he was,
twenty-five years ago. We have a young man with-
out family, and, with possibly here and there an
exception, without friends, in the new territory to
which he has come. His property inventories a few
books, the clothes he wears, his trusty horse, and a
debt at the seminary. On a beautiful morning, as
beautiful as the light, which is glorious, and the air,
which is bracing, can make it, he is riding out from
his home, over the prairies, into the surrounding
settlements. He is in the ardor of youth ; yet all
things just now seem neither very bright, beauti-
ful, nor hopeful. The prairies, at first so fascinat-
ing in their novelty, by familiarity have grown
tame and unattractive. They are now actually
dreary, with their verdure stiffened by the frosts of
autumn, or burned to blackness by autumnal fires.
The poetry of Western life and home mission-
ary labor is fast changing to fact. The fires of a
new experience are passing over him. What won-
der now if his ride be somewhat lonely, and his
thoughts flow in a serious, almost saddened mood,
as he queries with himself,
THE WORKERS. /I
" What do I here ? I came here to preach ; but
there are no meeting-houses and no churches. But
few people care about my coming, going, or staying.
Among them all, who is there to lean upon ? Noth-
ing is organized. The materials are heterogeneous
and discordant. There are no counsellors near, no
precedents, no established customs. With some
denominations there are set rules and directions ;
the way is marked out : this is of some advantage,
at least. Some denominations, too, are popular :
mine is not ; is, indeed, but little known, and many
are prejudiced against it. I am to work here alone.
In case of sickness, or general failure of health,
what then ? Foreign missionaries are provided for
in this respect, but home missionaries are not.
Who is so little supported from without as a home
missionary ? Who is put so much upon his self-
reliance ? And on whom does the whole work in
which he is engaged so hang ? And now, an inexpe-
rienced youth, what do I here ? What is my life-
work to be ? "
Oh, from the depths of how many hearts have
these questions come up here in Iowa, and in all
the newer missionary-fields of the West! How
often, having left home and friends, church-
steeples, and the sound of church-going bells, be-
hind him, and gone towards the setting sun till he
found himself single-handed and alone on the very
frontiers of civilization, has the home missionary
in perplexity asked, " What do I here ? " And
how often has the question found an answer in
72 THE IOWA BAND.
some moment of loneliness and sadness, when, in
the absence of all human stays and sympathies,
the soul has been thrown upon God, and, for the
time, the whole being, the whole world even, has
become as the holy of holies, filled with the di-
vine presence !
Then it is seen that there is work enough any-
where ; and there is faith and courage to do it. It
is thus that to the lonely missionary-rider there
springs up a light, and visions brighter than the
brightness of the morning. God never seemed in
his fulness to fill all things more than now in the
surrounding solitudes. In a few years he sees that
the virgin soil around him, with as yet no trace
upon it save here and there a bridle-path, is to take
on the fruits of husbandry and toil ; homes are
soon to cover it ; the silent forest is to be peopled,
and the rivers' banks are to be thronged with arti-
sans. For the people's need, for the glory of God,
and that the land may be Christ's, he sees that
spiritual seed must here be sown, and spiritual
harvests reaped. " Here," he exclaims, " is my
work ! With God for my counsellor, and taking
the customs, precedents, and rules of his Word for
my guide, here will I live and labor, and here will
I die."
Yes, noble Iowa, many are the germs of life-
labor that thus have been set wrthin thee ! Out of
them, many are the years of patient toil and work
that have been given thee by those who brought
salvation on their tongues, whose feet trod the rude
THE WORKERS. 73
dwellings of thy pioneers, who, in the ruder school-
houses, first gathered thy children together to teach
them the ways of the Lord, and whose very lives
have flowed out into the Industry, the thrift, the
virtue, and the integrity, of thy people. When as a
young man thou rejoicest in thy strength, forget
not by what powers thy sinews have been knit ;
from whom, in a measure at least, the currents of
thy life have been fed.
Iowa owes ' a debt even to the humble home-
missionary : but not to him alone ; for with him,
in him, and through him, she has felt the power
of thousands besides. That missionary entered
upon his work with a commission, a business-like
document, sending him out, perhaps, to find a field,
or a place in which to make one ; drawing out, some-
what in detail, the nature of the duties enjoined,
with the requisition of quarterly reports to be
made, and the promise of pecuniary aid in a certain
sum stipulated : all duly signed by accredited
agents, the Secretaries of the Home Missionary
Society. Accordingly, laboring through the months
of the first quarter, hunting up the lost sheep of
the house of Israel, sowing seed as he may beside
all waters, with somewhat of trembling at the little
accomplished, he makes his first report, and labors
on.
In due time, by the tri-weekly or bi-weekly mail,
there comes to him a letter with the Society's
imprint, the first from New York. The twenty-
five cents of postage are paid, and the seal broken.
74 THE IOWA BAND.
There before him is his first missionary draft,
good, in the old times, as so much gold. It seems
to him as almost sacred ; for whence comes it ? Of
the West he has heard from his youth. He
knows how the old folks at home, the fathers and
the mothers, the brothers and the sisters too, are
praying and giving for the West ; and now he is
here, an almoner of their bounties. Through him
is the answer of their prayers to find a channel : a
new tie is felt between him and them.
These are allies in the work, recognized now as
never before. He must be faithful at his post, to
the duties of which he commits himself with a new
consecration. This is not all. That first letter is
no mere off-hand business-note, with the simple
authority to draw so much money. There is
appended a message of cheer, of warm Christian
greeting and encouragement. That message by the
secretary's own pen is as the hand grasp of a friend.
By it, henceforth, the youthful laborer feels that
there are indeed loving human sympathies with
him, as he stands in this holy brotherhood of the
mission-work. He as a home-missionary, the sec-
retaries, the patrons of the Society, those who give
and pray, all are as one, and in one work.
Yes, ye donors, ye men of wealth who have
given your thousands, ye widows in Israel who
have brought your two mites, all ye who have given
or prayed, in all the fruits of home-missions at
the West, you are sharers.
And you who with noble hearts have stood be-
THE WORKERS. 75
tween the givers and the workers, allow us who
once were young, and now look back upon our
quarter-century labors, to give expression to the
debt of gratitude we owe to you, and especially to
the senior among you, then in the prime of his
life, and still faithful at his post. Could his brief
messages of cheer in missionary correspondence,
scattered all over Iowa in her earlier days, be
gathered together, what a volume they would
make ! Could it but be seen what courage and
energy they inspired, how rich a reward would
there be in it for him !
We do not wonder that our wives have said, in
passing through the commercial metropolis, that
" they would rather see Dr. Badger's face than any
thing else in New York." Nor will we forget his
noble colleague of the earlier days, now gone to
his reward. Go on then, brethren at the Home
Missionary Rooms, in these words of your cheer.
You little know what power there is in them some-
times in the hearts and homes of those at the out-
posts of home-missionary toil.
Pass on a few years in the young missionary's
career, and look again. Like others, he finds it not
good to be alone. He takes a wife, begins a home.
Children are in the household. The actual neces-
saries of life draw hard upon a scanty income.
Sometimes the burdens of sickness or misfortune
are added. In spite of clerical financiering, and
there is no better in the world, things are going
hard.
76 THE IOWA BAND.
But something is rolled up to the door. It is a
barrel or box ; nothing more, nothing less. Few
things just now could be more ; for it is a " mission-
ary box." Roll it in, and take off the cover. Out
comes a dress or a cloak ; here a vest, and there a
coat ; bundles of nice warm flannel ; little dresses,
little stockings and tiny shoes, and toys even, for
the youngest of the household ; an old hat and old
bonnets sometimes, strange that such things
should be sent !
A real relief is that box ; for almost eyery thing
is in it, many comforts, and often some luxuries
and adornments, that make the prairie-home
brighter and more cheerful for months. Winter
may come now. The lean, lank wallet may swell
out a little ; for less frequent now will be the drafts
upon it. Real gala-scenes sometimes attend the
opening-of these boxes, when the quiet study takes
on the air of a dry-goods room or a clothing-store,
when each is seeking to make out a suit for him-
self, and try it on.
Willie, with the cap adjusted and jacket on, is
tugging at the shoes, and Kate at the stockings,
while the mother is busy with the shawl, gloves, &c.
Of course, every thing in the box does not fit at
first, though afterwards generally made to ; and
somewhat grotesque are the figures arrayed in each
other's presence, to the merriment of all.
But hush ! The articles are all taken off, folded
up, and laid aside ; the little ones are made to
understand that they are gifts from kind friends far
THE WORKERS. 77
away : and then there is a kneeling down around
that box, God is thanked, and blessings invoked on
the donors. Nor is a new consecration to the
mission-work forgotten.
Yes, ye far-off mothers, sisters, ye, too, are
workers here. By the busy stitches that bound
these garments together, not only were your hearts
bound more closely to the missionary cause, but the
hearts of the missionaries were bound to it more
closely as well. By these, in part, have the East and
the West been bound together in the fellowship of
workers in a common Christian cause. They
have also furnished a few threads, at least, in that
web of national sympathy by which the East and
the West and the North and the South are indis-
solubly one.
At every step of our young home missionary in
his progressive work, he finds co-workers in it.
He goes into his little Sabbath schools, presenting
books and pictures to a group of children with
bright eyes and happy faces. They are the gift of
Eastern friends. As the little flock of his gathering
are at the communion-table, he sees the pitcher and
tumbler giving place to a communion-set. This
comes, perhaps, from his own old home church. In
due time, another point is gained ; and a happy day
is it when a house of worship is secured, a sanc-
tuary of God, a home for* the church. Here, too,
help has come from abroad. How large the circle,
how numerous the company, engaged in this mis-
sionary work !
7*
7 8 THE IOWA BAND.
But we must not forget the missionary's helpers
in the field. We refer now not to his brethren in
the ministry merely, to whom he is daily growing
more and more attached by the sympathies of a
common cause and service, but to the faithful few
he finds among his own little flock, and the choice
spirits, also, in the flocks of his brethren. Rare
men and women there were and are in these mis-
sionary churches. What good days those were of
old, when the brethren all knew each other,
and when the churches knew each other too,
somewhat ; when we could travel over all the
fields, and find a welcome everywhere from home
to home ! With such co-workers has our home-
missionary labored on from youth to age. Laborers
have increased ; churches have multiplied, and in
them co-workers not a few. Again we say, in all
that has been accomplished, " honor to whom
honor ; " and, with thanks to God for all, let all
rejoice.
CHAPTER XI.
RESULTS.
HOW genial and wide-spread, in the spring and
summer time, are the influences of sun and
showers ! In autumn we gather in the harvests,
and reckon up their sum. But have we, in the so
many bushels of corn or wheat, more or less, a
measure of what the sun and showers have done ?
What facts and figures are of use here ?
Like sun and showers are gospel influences in a
State, as they flow along the channels of individual,
domestic, and social life. The effects produced are
quite as much unseen as seen. They are such as
no words can compass. Human language cannot
set them forth. To attempt, therefore, to point out,
in the form of definite and tangible results, what
home-missions have done in Iowa may prejudice
rather than promote our object. It were safer, per-
haps, to content ourselves with the general im-
pression given from the view we have taken of the
workers and their field.
Nevertheless we will venture, as to a few points,
upon a closer view ; yet so as by the facts and
figures to be reminded constantly quite as much of
the things not told as of those that are. We will
8O THE IOWA BAND.
begin with a novel scene, novel indeed for Iowa,
and rare even for any State.
On the 1 8th of November, 1868, in one of the
busy cities on the bank of the Mississippi, there
was a great gathering at the house of a pastor, one
of the Band. Within that modest dwelling, children
had grown up around him ; about him now were
his flock, parishioners, friends, and neighbors,
the largest social gathering the city had ever seen ;
by his side stood one, not the first to share his joys
and sorrows as wife and companion, but for many
years his helpmeet indeed, the fruitage of whose
exemplary life of prayerful, earnest toil was in the
scene around her. With him, too, were gathered a
few here a brother, and there a sister of those
who, twenty-five years ago, were with him at the
beginning of things. The silver wedding, they
called it,. and fitly, of pastor and people.
It was easy now to speak of incidents and dates,
to call up facts and figures, to set the present mem-
bership of the church of two hundred, and the
total membership from the beginning of three hun-
dred and fifty-five, over against the little band of
twenty-six who first composed it ; and to set in
array the figures showing the twenty-four thousand
dollars contributed to benevolent purposes during
the last twenty years. It was easy to contrast the
present house of worship with the first one built,
the little brick at the top of the hill, among the
stumps, in the erection of which, after pockets
were empty, the brethren brought their bodies to
RESULTS. 8 1
the work, with hod in hand, carrying brick and
mortar.
It was easy to go back of this to the old court-
house, where the meetings first were held, and then
to fill up this space of twenty-five years with
pleasing incidents of revival scenes recalled, and
manifold changes wrought. Easy indeed was all
this ; and rich and rare was the book of chroni-
cles opened that night by the pastor among his
people.
But all that was said, all that was thought or
conceived of, by any or all, what was it in com-
parison with the true history of the twenty-five
years there under review ? To give that history, one
must trace the workings of prayers and prayer-
meetings, even those little church prayer-meet-
ings of the olden times there, held in the after-
noon, because one of the three brethren who
were to sustain them lived five miles out in the
country. He must tell the story of the sermons
from week to week prayed over, studied, and
preached ; of the good seed sown, in what hearts
it took root, and how it grew. He must tell how
children grew up, were trained and moulded by
church and Sabbath school ; what souls were born
into the kingdom of Christ in the progress of the
years. He must relate the history of those souls
in their Christian development in this world, and
tell how some who have gone over the river were
fashioned and ripened for heaven. He must por-
tray the days of anxiety and solicitude on the part
82 THE IOWA BAND.
of both pastor and people in days of weakness,
when that church was among the little home-mis-
sionary churches of Iowa. He must show what
was the part of each and all the home-mission
workers, who, by their prayers, labors, gifts, and
sympathies, sustained it, till, by the blessing of God,
its liberty and Christ loving principles were trium-
phant, and it became a tower of strength among
sister churches in the State.
But, if such things as these are to be fully and
truthfully told, who is to be the chronicler ? And
yet nothing short of this, and more than this,
would be a complete history. Over and above the
few facts and figures which we can put down in
connection with the history of any one church, as
the results of home-missions in Iowa, there are. in
the divine mind, and as eternity will reveal them,
other results just as definite and tangible, greater,
and more in number, that no human pen can record.
To that silver-wedding scene of pastor and people,
with all its hallowed associations and precious
memories, we point as one of our results. And as
with this church, so with others scattered over
the State. Not that each church is as strong as
this : a few are as strong or stronger ; many are
weaker. Not that every pastor can look back upon
his quarter-century labors in the same field ; but
wherever churches have been planted, and gospel
ordinances maintained, a like process, as to its
general features, has been going on.
We have now reached a point where figures
RESULTS. 83
begin to be significant. When the pastor of
whose silver wedding we have spoken began to
labor with his little home-missionary church twenty-
five years ago, and looked round for his immediate
allies and co-workers, there were in the Territory,
of his denomination, sixteen ministers and six-
teen churches, with an aggregate membership of
four hundred and twenty-two. Among them all
there was but one house of worship, built and used
expressly as such: now (1870) there are one hun-
dred and eighty-one ministers, and one hundred
and eighty-nine churches, with a membership of
about ten thousand.
These churches are well supplied, for a new
country, with houses of worship, some of which
are among the finest structures in the State. They
are located mainly in the principal centres of popu-
lation and trade, places, in this respect, like those
in which Paul first preached the gospel. . They em-
brace, to say the least, their proportionate share of
the commanding forces of society. These churches,
as a general thing, are alive and vigorous.
The amount of money raised by them during
the year ending June, 1869, for home purposes and
benevolent objects abroad, was one hundred and
thirty-six thousand four hundred and five dollars ;
and was equal to an average of sixteen dollars to
every resident church member. Of these churches
all but four were planted by, and have been nur-
tured through, the agency of the American Home
Missionary Society.
84 THE IOWA BAND.
But let us not dwell too long among mere statis-
tics. Keeping in mind the one hundred and eighty-
nine churches now scattered over the State, as the
fruits of, and the fruit-bearing vines planted by, the
Home Missionary Society, let us indicate a few
facts illustrative of their significance and value.
The local church is the laboring point in the
kingdom of God. Where the local church is
vigorous and active, it includes every form of wise
Christian labor. Were the world to be converted
by public gatherings in associations and conven-
tions, by public councils and resolves, the work
were easily done. But little is accomplished by
these, useful as they are in their place, save as those
who share in them go back to the home churches,
where by prayer and by work the seed of the king-
dom is to be sown among the people. Here, where
the gospel is preached and its ordinances are
maintained, where the light shines and the gos-
pel leaven is at work in households, Sabbath
schools, congregations, and society at large, are the
working centres of Christianity.
Here, too, are the laborers for Christ who are to
go forth into other fields, bearing precious seed
with them. From these Iowa churches such
laborers have gone forth to the East and the West
and the South and to the isles of the sea. Some
of our missionaries abroad to-day were raised up
in the bosom of these churches, and others are
preparing to follow. For the promotion of Christ's
kingdom in the land, we have various organiza-
RESULTS. 85
tions, Bible societies, tract societies, Sabbath-
school societies, and the like. But who does not
know, that, the moment a home-missionary enters a
field, he is almost compelled by the force of circum-
stances to be a Bible agent, a tract agent, a Sabbath-
school agent, and the agent and actor in every form
of effort by which Christian work is to be done ?
We hear often and much as to its being the
province of certain agencies to go in advance of
the churches ; but we never yet heard of a great
battle won by skirmishers. All due honor to any
body and any agency that can do good in any
measure and anywhere ; but let us not forget to
recognize the wisdom of the divine plans in accord-
ance with which every thing effective in the king-
dom of God must spring^ from and be nourished
by "the church of the living God, which is the
pillar and ground of the truth." So shall we honor
that Society, which, in the planting of churches,
in a sense absorbs and carries in itself all Christian
agencies.
In estimating the influence of these churches
in Iowa, we must not forget the revivals of reli-
gion included in their history. When God in vari-
ous ways' so wonderfully prepared this nation
for the fearful struggle through which it has
recently passed, by abundant harvests and general
financial success, he also scattered over the land
numerous and powerful revivals of religion, through
which, in part at least, a moral sentiment was
created, adequate to cope with the powers of op-
86 THE IOWA BAND.
pression, and to endure in the struggle. In our
accounts of revivals, we say, So many were con-
verted, so many have joined the church ; as though
this were the whole of it : but here, as elsewhere,
figures fail to tell the story. Follow those truly
converted through their life-work ; see in the ele-
vation and development of Christian character, in
the changes wrought in many homes, in society, in
trades, professions, and the various callings of life,
the influence of genuine revivals of religion ; and
then you may begin to estimate them. So we shall
see how the Congregational churches of Iowa, and
those of all denominations, have been blessed, and
made a blessing to the State, by the outpourings of
God's reviving spirit. *
We should do injustice, in speaking of the results
of home-missions in Iowa, did we fail to mention,
that to these home-mission churches is the country
largely indebted for the stand taken and the ser-
vices rendered by this new and rising State in the
hour of our common national peril. What these
were, we need not tell. They are known and read
of all men. It might have been otherwise.
Once, when, in the Territorial Legislature, the
question of the admission or rejection of slavery
was discussed, liberty barely triumphed. The por-
tions of the State earliest and most thickly settled
received a population largely imbued with Southern
feeling and Southern sentiment. Any open oppo-
sition to human bondage was decidedly unpopular.
Our little churches found themselves amid uncon-
RESULTS. 87
genial elements. They were stigmatized as aboli-
tion churches. Their ministers were some of them
threatened with violence ; but they stood faithful,
espousing from the first, and ever pleading, the cause
of human rights.
A change was wrought ; and Iowa is honored the
country over, as true to the cause of freedom. To
what extent this fact is due to the churches that
gathered to their bosoms the descendants of the
Pilgrims, who had made new homes on her soil,
and lifted aloft the standard of a liberty-giving gos-
pel, may never be definitely known ; for here,
again, facts and figures fail us. But we know, that
when men were called for, and armies were to be
raised, one out of every four of their ministers sent
a son, nearly every fourth of their adult male mem-
bers enlisted, and, from their congregations, two
thousand went forth to the conflict. Of those who
went from their communion-tables, one third never
returned. In the councils of the nation, too, was
their influence felt. Of this we are assured, when,
during the war, there stood among us one holding
one of the highest positions of trust in the gift of
the State, one whose voice in both state and na-
tional councils had always been true and potent for
liberty, who frankly affirmed, that, in respect to his
political principles, he owed more to the body of
men before him than any other, and, at the same
time, his political godfather to be him who was
honored with the title of " Father " among us.
We shall not be charged with undue presumption
88 THE IOWA BAND.
if we say a word here of the modifying influence
exerted upon other denominations. As Congrega-
tionalists, we are neither bigoted nor vain enough
to feel that all excellence or wisdom is with us. We
set up no claim to perfection. Our Western lives
have taught us better. As we now see it, each de-
nomination of true believers has its own peculiar
excellence, around which it grows, and from which*
it has whatever is peculiar to its life. The several
evangelical denominations, working side by side in
this open field, inevitably affect each other. They
give to and borrow from each other. No one of
them in the future is to be just what it would have
been by itself. That future will not, cannot be
just what any one of them alone would have made
it. It is to be better than this, and each denomina-
tion is to be the better for the others.
The modifying influence which the denomina-
tions mutually exert is too marked to escape the
notice of any. Let it go on. We believe they are
doing each other good. In this direction should
the friends of missions look for a portion, at least, of
the results of this labor ; for there is no danger that
the influence of the polity and principles of the
Congregational churches will be too strong amid
the farming influences of the West. There is a
need of them, and let the need be supplied.
If any thing more is needed in this chapter of
results to inspire the feeling that this work of home-
missions pays, we have only to remember that those
churches are young and vigorous, and in a growing
RESULTS. 89
field. In a few years, other churches than that
already referred to, other pastors, will be having
their silver 'weddings ; year by year, additional ones
will be coming up to the point of self-support, and
pass on in their growth. New ones, betimes, will be
planted. In God's husbandry, how soon is it per-
petual sunshine and shower, seed-time and harvest,
commingled !
The sheaves are in our arms, and the tender
grain at the same time is springing at our feet.
Centuries in God's seasons are but days, quarter-
centuries but hours. For what we have already
seen, let God be thanked. In following chapters
we shall meet with still further results, which, with
those that have been named, are but the seeds of
the future.
8*
CHAPTER XII.
THE IOWA ASSOCIATION.
IT is interesting to see with what boldness and
independence a few home-missionaries, when
they get together, will start and lay out plans in the
West. It is all natural enough ; for a sense of the
surrounding growth and progress soon takes pos-
session of the Western man. In all arrangements
for the future this is anticipated, and room for it
carefully made. So it comes that some little
church in an ordinary village bears the name of
The First Congregational Church of such a place.
One, indeed, sometimes almost, smiles at the com-
prehensive and imposing titles with which some
little organization is at the first burdened. But it
should be remembered that the actors have an eye
to things as they are to be, not as they are. If they
start with large titles and plans, it is because they
have confidence that things will soon grow up to
them.
Thus it was, that, in Denmark, as early as Nov.
6, 1 840, when, as yet, the State had hardly begun to
be settled, the General Congregational Association
of Iowa was organized, consisting of three churches,
three ministers, and one licentiate. It may not be
THE IOWA ASSOCIATION. QI
amiss to give their names. The churches were
those of Denmark, Fairfield, and Danville, with an
aggregate membership of one hundred and fifty-
four ; the ministers were Asa Turner, J. A. Reed,
R. Gaylord ; and Charles Burnham, licentiate. The
first two are still members of the Association, wit-
nessing from year to year the fulfilment of their
prophecy in the name they gave it ; the third,
years ago, pitched his pioneer tent on the western
bank of the Missouri, to be an actor in like prophe-
cies and fulfilments in a still more western State.
The Association thus formed held its meetings
semi-annually, in spring and autumn, till October,
1844. At this time, minor associations, by its
recommendation, were formed, to hold their meet-
ings semi-annually ; and its own meetings began
to be held once a year. The minor associations
now number twelve. To these belong ordained
ministers, and churches represented by delegates.
Ministers and churches of the minor bodies are
acknowledged members of the General Association ;
making this, to all intents and purposes, an annual
gathering of the churches, for the exercise of no
ecclesiastical rule, but, as expressed in the second
article of its constitution, "to promote intercourse
and harmony among the ministers and churches in
its connection, to disseminate information relative
to the state of religion, and enable its members
to co-operate with one another, and with other
ecclesiastical bodies, in advancing the, cause of the
Redeemer."
Q2 THE IOWA BAND.
The spirit and proceedings of the annual meet-
ings of this body, if faithfully given, would, of course,
reveal much of the inner workings and progress of
missionary and ministerial life in Iowa. Among
the most pleasing recollections of the writer are
those of a long series of these yearly gatherings ;
for, since 1844, it has been his privilege to be pres-
ent, with a single exception, at all of them. This
exception occurred when the shadow of the death-
angel was hanging over his dwelling. The printed
minutes of the Association for the last twenty
years are before him ; and from these, and the
storehouse of his memory, let a few things be
gathered.
There meets us, in the outset, a little testimony
touching the soundness in doctrine of these
churches and ministers, as found in the articles
of faith .adopted at the beginning, and ever since
retained. In the early days, this soundness was not
always conceded to us. Not only were our churches
stigmatized in certain quarters as " abolition," but
heretical. They were denounced as unsound and
irregular : an exchange of pulpits, even such pulpits
as were found in schoolhouses and court-houses, was
in some cases refused.
"Congregationalism tends to Unitarianism"
was the whisper industriously circulated. When
this was nailed to the wall by an appeal to the true
history of Congregationalism in New England, the
shift was, " Congregationalism at the West is not
what it is in the East." " It is all right there, but
THE IOWA ASSOCIATION. 93
out here it is loose and irregular " was the charge ;
and, to our chagrin, it was partly believed, even at
the East. When we most needed confidence and
sympathy, there was, in some quarters, somewhat
of coldness and distrust. Among some of the
good Eastern fathers, to whom appertained, as they
seemed to think, the steadying of the ark, was the
feeling that hardly any good thing could come from
the West.
But these things have passed away. Our prac-
tice since has confirmed our professions at the
first. We have long been recognized, fellowshipped
at the East, as sound in the faith. But for the
savor of boasting in it, we might have mentioned
the present standing of Western Congregationalism,
and the present fellowship between the Eastern
and the Western, as, in part, at least, among the
results of Iowa home-missions.
In view of what has now been said, it can easily
be seen how correspondence with Eastern bodies
by delegates was appreciated. It is appreciated
now ; but in former days it had a more precious sig-
nificance. At first we were few in number, coming
from fields new and widely separated. We made
provision for a seat with us of delegates from foreign
bodies, which were then mainly in the East. Iso-
lated as we were, and in our peculiar circumstances,
it was joyous to see each others' faces ; but for
years no living man from the far East found us in
our distant home.
At length there came one, a godly man from
94 THE IOWA BAND.
Maine. He was acquainted with some of our num-
ber in their youth, and, of course, had confidence in
them. As he looked in upon us, and was among
us in our prayers, our plans, and our labors, his
heart was moved. He took us to his bosom. He
poured forth his prayers for us, and gave his coun-
sels to us. He promised to take us back with him
in his heart, and commend us to the confidence of
the old home churches. That was Christian saluta-
tion and fellowship indeed ! In later years there
would sometimes be one, sometimes two. Their
names stand recorded upon our minutes. Some
of them have gone to the greater gathering above ;
but their faces and their words are still fresh in our
memories. Those were the days in which Chris-
tian greetings were precious. In these later times,
in our printed lists, the names of delegates, secre-
ries, etc,, are not a few, and our body sometimes
puts on quite an imposing aspect ; but those who
come now are not to us exactly what the first and
the few in the early days were.
As would be naturally supposed, the meetings of
our Association have been characterized by a high
degree of Christian love and harmony. Many things
have combined to make them so. In earlier
years, the majority of our number were old friends
and classmates. They had happily coalesced
with those on the field before them. Others
coming, as happily became one with them all. So
it came to pass that there was a unity of sentiment,
purpose, and plan, unusual in a Western body ;
THE IOWA ASSOCIATION. 95
while the early friendships and affections formed,
combined with the peculiar circumstances of a new
country and new fields, gave to the meetings such
zest and earnest Christian fellowships as would
hardly be looked for, and would seem almost rude,
in an Eastern body. " The best of all," said a
daughter of one of the missionaries, when old
enough to attend one of these meetings, "the
best of all was to see them shake hands, the
first night, after the sermon." If some of the older
ministers should be called upon to give some of
their happiest reminiscences, they would not forget
their journeys of a hundred or two hundred miles,
to and from the Association, and of the pleasing
incidents met with while in attendance. One
could tell you that he went on foot nearly two
hundred miles, and felt paid for the journey.
Others can remember long horseback rides, the
fording of streams, and the rude yet genial enter-
tainment at night in the log-cabin by the way,
whose latch-string was always out. When buggies
were introduced, and bridges began to be built, it
was an "age of progress."
In the business of these meetings, seldom has
there been a jar of angry debate or strife in all
these twenty-five years. Differences of opinion
have of course, been expressed, but with Christian
courtesy ; and, in the decisions that have been
reached, care has been taken that the views of
all should, as far as possible, be regarded. If it
is good for " brethren to dwell together in unity,"
96 THE IOWA BAND.
in looking back through the long series of these
annual meetings, there is little to regret, and much
to be recalled with pleasure.
They have been characterized by a spirit of
prayer and devotion. For years, the first evening
was spent in prayer for the presence of the Master.
The need of his presence was peculiarly felt in the
early days. Experience soon taught that a meeting
of friendly greetings simply, without the presence
and spirit of Christ, must be a failure. The prac-
tice of an opening sermon soon crowded out this
hour of prayer on the first evening ; but it found,
perhaps, a better place. It was put, and has stood
for years, in the middle of the forenoon of each
day's session. There it takes the freshness of the
morning. It is the hour, if any, that friends in the
place can spare to pray with their guests. Though
interrupting business, it steadies it for the day. It
gives tone to the exercises of the whole meeting.
It is the hour of all others in which all wish to be
present. With no pride, but with joy, we see that
this practice of putting an hour of prayer into the
best part of the day has in some cases been copied
by other religious bodies. It can be recommended
to all.
Among the best features of these annual gather-
ings has been the attendance of the wives. This
was especially true in the early times. And why
not ? As the brother got up his horse and buggy to
start on his journey of a hundred miles or so, along
which he would find other brethren to start with
THE IOWA ASSOCIATION. Q7
him, why should he go alone ? Why not take
along his young wife, and their one child ? Will
not the journey, and the visits by the way, be just as
refreshing to her as to him ? Is there not a com-
munion of sisters, as well as of brethren ? The
hallowed influences of these annual assemblies,
are they not as needful and useful for the wives as
the husbands ? At an early day, the general under-
standing was, that the wives, too, should come. They
did come, renewing old and forming new friend-
ships, recounting the goodness of God in the past,
and gathering new strength, hope, courage, and
consecration, that made them better helpers in the
home-mission work.
If in this, too, other bodies have copied our exam-
ple, we think no harm has come of it. But times
have changed. Family cares have increased.
Modes of travel have changed ; becoming more ex-
peditious, but more costly too. The field has
enlarged. Not every mother and wife can go now ;
but the attendance of the sisters is still a feature
of the Iowa Association, profitable alike to them,
their companions, and the churches. They have
their separate meetings for prayer ; while, in the
regular hours of devotion, the volume of supplica-
tion is increased by the silent uplifting of their
hearts, with those of the brethren, to God. By
the light of their cheerful faces, homes are opened
to a more cordial hospitality ; they helping in many
ways to make the meeting of the Association a
pleasure and a blessing in any place where it is
98 THE IOWA BAND.
held. Often, in some house or hall, are social
fellowships added to the religious. Acquaintances
and friendships are formed, ties of affection are
strengthened, and Christ's kingdom as well.
Lest any one may think the picture is overdrawn
by one who has for years been in and of them, let
the testimony of a stranger, whose field of labor is
at the East, but who came to us once, bearing the
greetings of his brethren, be given. He says, " A
few years ago, I had the privilege of attending the
Annual Meeting of the General Association of
Iowa. There are no more self-denying and faithful
missionaries of Christ anywhere than were repre-
sented there, the patriarchal ' Father Turner ' at
the head, apparently the youngest of them all. How
those weather-beaten men and women talked and
prayed ! How they laid hold of each other, and
of any casual stranger who might be present, with-
out waiting for formal introduction, when the mod-
erator announced that the time had arrived for the
miscellaneous shaking of the hands all around the
house ! How enthusiastically they united business
and enjoyment! How tenderly they sang their
parting hymn, standing together around the table
where together they had partaken of the sacrament-
al emblems of a Saviour's love, breaking forth spon-
taneously into song during the sacramental feast ! "
Those hymns, those songs, we may add, are all the
sweeter because the voices of the wives are mingled
in them.
But let no one think that these Associational
THE IOWA ASSOCIATION. 99
meetings consist only in the rhapsodies of Chris-
tian fellowship, communion, and prayer. There is
business too. The printed minutes furnish abun-
dant evidence that another marked feature of the
Iowa Association has been its prompt and decided
action from time to time upon the vital questions
of the day. On all such subjects as the Sabbath,
intemperance, slavery, the Mexican war, the Rebel-
lion, etc., its testimony has been given with no
uncertain sound. Resolutions upon resolutions on
these topics might be copied, were it necessary.
Out of the necessities that have arisen in the
practical working of things in this new field, this
Association has initiated policies, and recommended
measures, afterwards approved and adopted by the
denomination throughout the land. More than
one instance could be named ; but the most impor-
tant is that of " church-building at the West." No
wonder, that, by those on the ground, the absolute
necessity of houses of worship should early be felt,
and that it should be thought aid in building them,
as well as in sustaining the gospel ministry, was
wise policy.
As early as 1845, more than twenty years ago,
an able report was presented, recommending this
policy to our Eastern friends. The policy was
resisted. No place was found for the report by any
of the leading papers. Our friends were fixed in
the position, " If we help sustain your ministers,
you must build your own churches." Six years
IOO THE -IOWA BAND.
later, another report was made, drawn by the same
hand, re-affirming the old positions, with additional
facts. This found a hearing. Other testimony,
from other quarters, was of course given. Soon
after came the Albany Convention, and then light
began to dawn. Before the Albany fund, however,
we had already our Iowa plan, and an Iowa fund in
progress. Now the Congregational Union has this
as its special work.
No thanks in all this to us, and no cause for
boasting. We only see in it, that God, by the force
of circumstances, and the necessities developed by
his providence, was teaching his people. If we
do not, in some respects, have better plans and bet-
ter churches in these Western fields than are found
elsewhere, then woe be to us ; for in that case we
must be dull scholars indeed.
But we will not longer dwell on these pleasing
recollections of our Associational meetings. The
plans of those first three ministers were not too
large, nor were their expectations visionary. They
believed that there would be a General Congrega-
tional Association of Iowa. As a realization of
their faith, we have a body, we may modestly sug-
gest, highly respectable as to numbers and talent,
and characterized, we trust, by a goodly measure
of Christian zeal and devotion, whose opinions and
recommendations are of weight among its churches,
and respected in the land. It is already so large
as to suggest the coming necessity of a division.
THE IOWA ASSOCIATION. IOI
But "not till we are dead," say some of the oldest
members : " we don't wish to see it." How long
some of us are to labor, and what the necessities of
the future are to be, God only knows. To him let
there be given praise for the past, and in him let
there be trust for the time to come.
9*
CHAPTER XIII.
IOWA COLLEGE.
home-missionary is not only bold in his
JL plans, but it is curious to see how, as by in-
stinct, his plans run in certain directions. Given a
Puritan descent, a Yankee training, and a sanctified
culture in New-England institutions, and one may
know beforehand, as to certain things at least,
what he will be doing when first put into a new
and Western field.
" If each one of us can only plant one good per-
manent church, and all together build a college,
what a work that would be ! " So said one of the
Band, as they were contemplating their Western
work. So, too, had been thinking those already in
the field ; for, at the close of one of the first meet-
ings held at Denmark after the arrival of the
O
Band, they were invited to tarry a few moments
to listen to plans for founding a college. A little
surprised were they, and not a little gratified.
Here was the beginning of Iowa College.
Thtfs far back in home-missions in Iowa must we
go for its- inception. This mere seed, as it germi-
nates, takes root, springs up, and grows, will develop
still further, workers, workings, and results. Like
IOWA COLLEGE. 1 03
many another Western college that is now a power
and glory in the land, it took its start out of prayer
and toil in the days of pioneer missionary labor.
It strikes its roots back into the faith and self-
denial of the early churches, taught by the min-
isters to water it with their prayers and their gifts ;
of its early teachers and professors, too, who con-
sented to nurture it as a part of mission-work,
and one involving in those days no less of self-
denial and toil than any other. These are features
in this institution, which, thank God, have not yet
died out. To present a true view of this college,
especially of its earlier history, will help to bind
it anew to the affections of its friends ; and it may
recommend it to the confidence of those whom
God has enabled, and who love, to endow such
institutions. It may inspire the feeling, that an
institution so planted and nurtured must have the
blessing of the Lord within it.
But to draw the picture with each color and
shading true to facts and experience is another
of those things that by no human possibility
can ever be done. From recollection and records
a few things only can be given. After the meeting
alluded to, nothing was done till the following
spring.
March 12, 1844, a meeting of ministers and
others "interested in founding a college" was
held at Denmark, of course, for this was at that
day the centre of all things. The plan proposed
and approved was to find a tract of land subject
IO4 THE IOWA BAND.
to entry, in some good location, obtain funds for
its purchase, and then sell it out in parcels at an
advanced price to settlers favorable to the object ;
thus securing an endowment for the institution,
and a community in which it might prosper. A
suitable location, therefore, was the first object.
A committee of exploration was appointed, with
power, when ready to report, to call another
meeting. The call was issued for April 16, 1844,
and embraced the Congregational and N. S. Pres-
byterian ministers in the Territory, the most of
whom were in attendance. So favorable was the
report of the committee, and so unanimously were
all previous plans approved, that the brethren
resolved themselves at once into an association,
under the title of " Iowa College Association,"
with suitable rules and regulations, and appointed
an agent to go immediately to the East to obtain
the necessary funds with which to pay for the land,
agreeing by formal resolution to defray his ex-
penses from their own scanty resources.
It would not be of interest to mention in detail
the precise date and circumstances of each suc-
cessive meeting in respect to the enterprise thus
started. It is sufficient to say, that this College
Association took charge of it, until, in due time, it
was committed to a board of Trustees empowered
to fill its own vacancies, and add to its own
number. The two denominations named were
represented in due proportion in this board, and
continued to be so represented, until, in process of
IOWA COLLEGE. 1C>5
time, from causes affecting their relations to. each
other in the country at large, the practical
interest of the Presbyterian brethren in the institu-
tion diminished, and they gradually withdrew
from its councils. Thus the college came to be
exclusively, as in point of interest and support
it had mainly been from the first, the foster-child
of the Congregationalists ; and as such its history
will be given.
The agent, of whose appointment we have
spoken, repaired at once to the East, going directly
to Boston. But he was not to succeed. The
College Society, so called for the sake of brevity,
had just been formed, with a view of systematizing
and regulating appeals at the Eastin behalf of
Western colleges.
Its friends, at a called meeting, disapproved of
the plans of the agent, and recommended that a
good location should be first secured, the best for a
college, irrespective of other considerations ; that
donations should be called for outright, a begin-
ning be made, and that the institution trust to the
patronage of the Society, and of friends whose
liberal endowments could eventually be secured.
It seemed like losing a grand opportunity ; but the
agent returned. The Western brethren, with
some reluctance, yet cordially, yielded to the judg-
ment of their Eastern friends, some of whom had
had experience in the West.
What the result would have been had their
plans been carried out, it is impossible, of course,
IO6 THE IOWA BAND.
to tell ; but, as they look now at one of the most
flourishing inland towns of the State, upon one of
our principal railroads, with its water-power, its
timber, and its prairie, filled and surrounded by an
enterprising population, right where it was pro-
posed to purchase the college lands, they are
wont to say to each other, "That is where we
talked of starting our college. That is where, with
a few dollars, we might once have started and
endowed it. What would have been the outcome
of a beginning there on the plan proposed, we do
not know. There might have been success, there
might have been failure. One thing is certain : the
plan actually adopted involved beginning at the
very lowest round of the ladder, whence every step
upward was of necessity by the hardest."
The thing was first to get a location, a loca-
tion for- a college, without a dime besides, a cent
even, or a promise, save as there was faith in
prayer and toil. In a year or two, the minds of all
were agreed upon a point, which, at that day, for
ease of access and beauty of situation, stood forth
without a rival. In 1846, it was voted to locate
at Davenport, " provided the citizens would raise
fourteen hundred dollars, and provide certain
specified grounds for a location." Each individual,
moreover, was to raise, if possible, one hundred
dollars among his Eastern friends, or elsewhere.
A board of trustees was at this time elected.
This was the beginning of work, and much hard
work, with slow progress. The next year, in 1 847,
IOWA COLLEGE. IC>7
it is found that the citizens of Davenport have
pledged thirteen hundred and sixty-two dollars and
thirteen lots : otherwise little has been secured.
The proposed location is secured, and instructions
given* " to plan and erect a building, which shall be
a permanent college-building, in good taste, and
which, when enclosed, shall not exceed in cost the
sum of two thousand dollars."
One may smile at the idea of a permanent
college-building in good taste, within the cost, when
enclosed, of two thousand dollars : but that was a
day of small things ; and where even this amount
was to come from, none could tell. The trustees
and members of the College Association pledged
themselves to make up any deficiency there might
be, not over six hundred dollars, a resolution to
this effect having been unanimously adopted, and
signed by each one present. Such was the care
taken that all liabilities should be seasonably pro-
vided for, and no debts incurred. The building
was erected, and the bills paid.
In November, 1848, a school was opened, under
the charge of the Rev. E. Ripley, elected as professor
of languages, with a salary of five hundred dollars
a year. There were appropriate opening exercises,
including an address and dedicatory prayer. It
was a windy, wintry day. Not many were present ;
but a few were there, with hearts of gratitude to
God for all success hitherto in the enterprise
wherein by faith was seen a college for Iowa. As
the brethren met together in their homes, as they
IO8 THE IOWA BAND.
came to their annual association, they began to say
" our college." They had need to say it ; for
contingent expenses, salary, etc., far exceeded the
amounts received for tuition. Besides, improve-
ments must be made, and more teachers employed.
Here began the years of anxiety and labor,
teachers toiling, trustees planning, and the execu-
tive committee trying to execute, meeting often,
with much to be done, but never able to do it.
When they could do nothing else, they could at
least pray. So they worked and prayed and
worked. Every year, as the churches came to-
gether in their annual association, the story of the
college was told, its wants rehearsed, and their
prayers and alms besought. This was not without
response.
In 1849, there were subscribed for it four hundred
and forty-two dollars and sixty-five cents, all but
four of the subscribers being ministers ; and the
minutes of that year show the whole number of
ministers to have been twenty-one. In 1850, at
the meeting of the association in Dubuque, there
were reported, besides the preparatory department,
twenty-eight students in Latin, eight in Greek.
There, too, it was told how the baptism of the
Spirit had been sent down upon the infant college,
as the seal of God's approval. There,, also, was
reported the first noonday prayer-meeting of the
students, a meeting, which, with little interruption,
has been kept up to this day, while many succeed-
ing revivals have been enjoyed. As the old tale of
IOWA COLLEGE. IOQ
pecuniary embarrassment was there told, hearts
were opened for relief, and four hundred and fifty
dollars were pledged. In the minutes of that
meeting it stands recorded that " the wives, also,
of the ministers, anxious to share in the enterprise
of founding this college, resolved to raise a hun-
dred dollars out of their own resources ; and
seventy dollars were subscribed by fourteen persons
who were present." " It was a great sum then,"
said one of them, years afterwards : " it was a great
sum then, five dollars, but I. managed to pay it."
So it went on for years afterwards. In 1852,
a hundred and fifty-three dollars were raised ; in
1853, seven hundred and eleven dollars. In this
year came the first decided help from abroad, the
donation from Dea. P. W. Carter of Waterbury,
Conn., of five thousand and eighty dollars. It
seemed a great sum. The interest of this, and the
aid which the College Society began to give, to-
gether with the avails of our own efforts, would
have given relief, only that increasing wants kept
pace with increasing means,
New professorships were established from time
to time, till, in 1855, there were four professors.
By this time, the original site had been abandoned,
a new one of ten acres secured, and an elegant
stone building, with a boarding-house, erected
upon it. This change was caused by the per-
sistence of the city authorities of Davenport in
thrusting a street through the grounds first occu-
pied. The second site chosen was divided and
10
HO THE IOWA BAND.
injured in the same way. About this time the
Institution was unfortunate in trusts reposed in
one of its officers. As the State settled up, there
were prejudices in the interior against a river loca-
tion for an institution of learning ; and the feeling
began to prevail, that, among the people of the
place, it did not have so congenial a home as it
ought.
As the result of these combined circumstances,
it was decided, in 1858, to sell out, and seek for a
new site. God, in his providence, had one in prep-
aration. A few years previous, in the heart of the
State, a colony had settled with the express pur-
pose of establishing, and at the outset had made
provision for, an institution of learning. Here a
school had already been commenced. After due
thought and much prayer, it was concluded, with
the general approval of all parties interested, that
the fountain opened by the father of waters should
be united with the rill of the prairies. Accord-
ingly, from 1859, Grinnell, Io., has been the seat
of Iowa College.
We will not follow its history in detail for the
next ten years ; but, if any one will take the pains
to look at one of the illustrations in this volume,
he will find an engraving of two noble college-
buildings. These stand in an area of twenty-two
acres, to which the verdure of growing shade-trees
adds increasing beauty from year to year. The
location is on the border of a village whose pride
is the college. The intelligence, morality, and
IOWA COLLEGE. ^1 I I
affectionate good will of the people make it a fit
place for the education of the sons and daughters
of Iowa. The names of two hundred and ninety
of them are found enrolled as members of the
Institution during the past year, more than half
of whom are in the collegiate and preparatory
departments.
There are eight instructors, the president, four
professors, a principal of the preparatory depart-
ment, a principal of the ladies' department, and one
tutor. In the library, there are over four thousand
volumes, besides the smaller libraries of the liter-
ary societies of the college. The apparatus, though
far from what it should be, is yet sufficient to illus-
trate the principles of natural philosophy, chem-
istry, and astronomy ; while admirable collections
have already been made in mineralogy, zoology,
botany, etc., which are arranged in a cabinet of rare
attraction and taste. On the walls of the college
library are the portraits of Carter and Williston,
as among the chief founders of the college. The
names of Grimes, Ames, Dodge, Richards, Merrill,
Butler, and Barstow may be fitly recorded here, as
of those who have largely contributed to its funds ;
and perhaps others not known to the writer are
equally deserving of mention.
The college property, in the aggregate, now
amounts to one hundred and sixty thousand
dollars, more than half of which is productive.
The list of graduates is not long ; but they are
already scattered over the land, occupying honora-
112 THE IOWA BAND.
ble positions in the various professions. The
resources of the institution are as yet by no means
ample. Its facilities must increase from year to
year, to meet the growing demands upon it ; but
beholding it now, and calling to mind how hard it
was to get together the two thousand dollars for
the first humble building, remembering how the
seed was sown, and by the nurture of what prayer
and toil it has grown, the contrast is indeed
pleasing. Grateful always is the memory of labors
past, where results in the form of abounding fruits
are seen.
Before closing this pleasing review, another
reference may not be amiss to him in whose first
endowment, in part, of the Carter professorship
there was such courage and cheer. It was the
pleasing privilege of the writer to receive a portion
of that gift at his own hands, and in his own home.
He was a plain man, and his home of the olden
stamp, somewhat old fashioned in its air, but ample
in comfort, without extravagance or display. Rid-
ing about the village one afternoon, in the old
family-carriage, he reined up his horse where a
to.vnsman was building a residence of great ele-
gance and cost. Surveying it for a moment,
" There," said he, " I might take my money, and
build me a house just like that ; but then, if I
should, I should not have it to give to Iowa Col-
lege." It showed that he had considered the
question, and made his choice. Who will say, as
he looks at Iowa College to-day, and thinks of him
IOWA COLLEGE. 113
as having passed from earth, that the choice was
not a good one ?
O ye whom God has blessed with fortunes that
are ample, now is the time of your choosing. If
you wish to turn a portion of your means into
some permanent, mighty power, that shall work for
Christ in this and the ages to come, how more
surely or better can you do it than to help to build
in this Western land some Christian college ?
The tongues of missionaries and pastors sooner or
later shall be silent in death ; teachers change : but
endowments in these Christian colleges will work
on, work ever. We in this fair field would not be
selfish ; but, if you have still further gifts with
which to meet the growing wants of our beloved
college, we will hail them as new tokens of God's
blessing upon what was in weakness begun for him.
10*
CHAPTER XIV.
A RARE CHAPTER, AND SHORT.
IF, in conventions, speeches, reports, and histo-
ries, we are wont to speak and write as though
only men were actors in the world, then is the
present chapter rightly named ; for we wish here
expressly to acknowledge the influence and aid of
the wives and sisters. As woman's work in the
war forms one of the rarest chapters in the history
of our late national struggle, so if in this chapter
the influence alluded to in our Christian work in
Iowa could be but truthfully and fully unfolded, it
would indeed be the rarest chapter of all.
But fully to present the intense labor, the keen
sympathy, and efficient helpfulness of a home-
missionary's wife is not attempted. They can at
most only be suggested. This began to be im-
pressed on one of our earliest missionaries years
ago, before, by happy experience, he knew what
such help was, by a scene well worth describing.
We will let him give it in his own words :
" I was a young man, and it was the first year
of my ministry. Travelling abroad one day, from
my field of labor, I thought I would make the ac-
quaintance of a brother minister of whom I had
A RARE CHAPTER, AND SHORT. 115
heard, but whom I had never seen. I went to his
house. It was made of logs, with a shingle roof,
with one room below, and the usual loft. As I
remember, it was about sixteen feet square, with a
passage through it by a door on each side. On
one side of the room was a stove, on the other a
bed, with the usual display of kettles, dishes, hats,
clothing, etc., found in such houses. The brother
was not at home.. His wife, I was told, was above,
and sick. I was invited to go up and see her. I
did so, ascending by a ladder in one corner.
" There, sitting on her bed, having, with an evi-
dent exertion, arranged her person for the reception
of a stranger, was the missionary's wife, frail in
form, pale and sickly in countenance. Her con-
stitution was evidently fragile, and to her bodily
suffering was no stranger. I shall never forget
how she looked, nor with what womanly courtesy
she received me. Her eye beamed hopefully ; and
her smile, though languid, was cheerful. Not a
murmur did she utter, and scarcely an apology even
for any thing. An air of peace and contentment
characterized her. I noticed that the whole roof
was a little askew, as though it had been lifted up,
and turned around, and let down again, with
articles of clothing caught in the cracks.
" ' That," said she, ' was done by a hurricane we
had a few days ago. The wind blew terribly for a
*vhile. I was here all alone, and thought once the
house was going ; but somehow I felt safe.' "
" Her husband, she said, had gone to the river to
I 1 6 THE IOWA BAND.
get a load of lumber. She was sorry he had to
work so hard. He was lame, and not strong ; but
ministers had to do many things to which they
were strangers elsewhere, in a new country. ' The
worst of it all is,' she said, ' I can't help him, I
am sick so much. I feel so sorry when I think
sometimes that I must be only a burden, and of no
use to him.'
" Then she went on to speak, with her whole soul
in it, of the missionary work in which he was
engaged. I tarried for the night, and, in the morn-
ing, went on my way with a new insight into the
realities of the mission-work. Especially did I
there begin to see how woman in patience could
endure -self-sacrifice, self-denial, and toil, and how
keenly, in every fibre of her being, she could sym-
pathize in all her husband's plans and labors for
Christ. - In after years it was often my privilege to
be in that family. Her health afterwards was
better ; and then I saw how a wife, in the fortitude
of a trusting spirit, could cheer, encourage, and
help her husband in his work. In other cases I
have often seen it, and as often asked, ' What
could our brethren do without their wives ? ' '
The first draft made on the energies of home-
missionary wives is made through their keen sym-
pathy with all that pertains to their husband's
work : the next is in connection with their family
cares. It has often been remarked, and somewhat
truthfully, that the hardships of a new country fall
more heavily on women than men. A Western
A RARE CHAPTER, AND SHORT. I I/
farmer, as a general thing, at the very outset, can
carry on his out-door operations quite as easily on
his new Western farm as he could on the old and
harder lands of the East. But, between the old
Eastern homes and all the little home conve-
niences of a long-settled country, and the new log-
cabin and the nameless discomforts of a new
country, the difference is wide. Here it is that
bricks are to be made without straw, and that the
exigencies of a new country are especially hard
upon women. The experience of home missiona-
ries' wives is, in this respect, the same as that of
others.
As was natural, among the all-sorts of Yankee
questions alluded to in the first part of this
book, as having been asked by the " Band " prior
to their coming West, were inquiries whether a
missionary should be married or unmarried, and
whether wives . could be maintained and made
comfortable. There came back but this one an-
swer : " Wives are the cheapest things in all Iowa.
Bring wives ! Bring Yankee wives, that are not
afraid of a checked apron, and who can pail the
cow, and churn the butter."
It would not be safe to say that every one here
has been able literally to fill this bill ; but it is safe
to say that the rude and rough experiences of
Western life have been, and are now being, nobly
borne by the wives of missionaries. For a newly
married couple, just from the East, to begin house-
keeping in two rooms, with only a little stove, and
Il8 THE IOWA BAND.
some boxes for chairs and tables, is not much.
There is a touch of romance in it, with hopes of
better days. To see a missionary pastor's young
wife, fresh from the delicacies of an Eastern city
home, at Association time, when ministers and
delegates, and wives and children, come pouring
in beyond the preparations of the village to ac-
commodate them, call for a farm-wagon, take the
reins herself, and scour the country for straw, till
straw beds are provided, and placed in bedroom,
entry, and parlor even ; to see the sister-wives turn
in for days to help her, and then all go to meeting
together, this, too, is well enough. There is a
dash and novelty in it, that makes an occasion long
and pleasantly to be remembered.
But let years roll on, children be born, and cares
increase ; let the days come when there is moving
from house to house, and perhaps from place to
place, till the little furniture, new at first, begins to
be old ; let, from year to year, the limit of the little
salary be most plainly marked, and the increasing
study be how to keep within it ; let the necessity
come for all sorts of contrivances, such as making
washstands and toilet-tables out of old boxes, turn-
ing worn garments, making over old ones for a
new look, transmuting those of the older children
to the younger, and missionary wives find that
no small part of the missionary work and the mis-
sionary sacrifice is theirs. Nobly have they borne
it, till the bloom of youth has faded from many a
cheek, yet cheerfully till some, overburdened, have
fallen by the way.
A RARE CHAPTER, AND SHORT. I IQ
But we have alluded only to the less important
phases of their work. When a little church, with
a young pastor and his wife, is started in a new
village hitherto destitute of the means of grace, it
is interesting to see what a change is soon wrought,
and how a new and better order of things is in many
respects speedily established. Children are gath-
ered from Sabbath roamings to the Sabbath Schools ;
young people, and sometimes older ones too, let go
their balls and dancing-parties for sewing-circles
and church sociables ; Christmas-trees, children's
gatherings of various kinds are introduced, prayer-
meetings too, the ladies' prayer-meeting and the
church prayer-meeting.
Some among the flock are sick, or are in
poverty and sorrow, and must be ministered unto ;
and some are to be buried with a Christian burial.
Here opens a field for the wife. We may say,
indeed, that she is under no obligation in these
matters more than any others ; that, when hus-
bands agree to be ministers, wives do not ; and that
they ought not to be compelled to the double
toil of parochial and domestic duties. All true :
yet who would keep them from it ? Who would
be willing to spare this part of mission - work ?
How great a part it is !
. But we ought not here to speak of missionaries'
wives alone. In all our churches there are two or
three women to one man. These churches at the
outset, in the days of their feebleness, were com-
posed, in many cases, of one or two brethren only,
I2O THE IOWA BAND.
surrounded by a band of noble sisters. Where
then was their strength ? What wonder if there
were some praying and talking then, and voting
too, other than that done by the brethren ? If, in
the days of our Saviour, woman ministered to him,
and he honored her ministry, if Paul acknowl-
edged his indebtedness to those women who helped
him in the gospel, is it not well for us to remem-
ber how prominent has been woman's influence
and work in the planting and rearing of the Iowa
churches ?
" Who is that ? " was asked of a lady who had
just admitted a stranger to her door. " It is the
man I have long been praying for," was the reply.
" He says he is a missionary sent by the Home
Missionary Society." To this day that Christian
woman is laboring with that then newly-arrived
minister, in the firm belief that he was sent of God.
So has it been with many another. Ministers
have not only been obtained and supported, but
churches have often been gathered, and meeting-
houses built, more through the prayers and ener-
gies of the sisters than through those of the
brethren. As the world goes, when battles are
won, generals are praised, and private soldiers for-
gotten. But, in the kingdom of Christ, let it not
be so. Let not the source of the rarest and best
influence employed in the Master's service be un-
acknowledged.
CHAPTER XV.
FRAGMENTS.
MORE completely, if possible, to reveal to
the reader the inner view of home -mis-
sionary life, we present in this chapter a few inci-
dents from the personal reminiscences and expe-
riences of the brethren. Broken sketches indeed
they will be, and diverse, some joyous and some
sad, some serious and some humorous, but all true
to the life, because real. For some of these the
writer is indebted to the brethren who have kindly
furnished them ; others he has culled from old num-
bers of The Religious News-Letter, the files of
which are an honor to, as they are a record of, the
Iowa churches, for the time in which it was pub-
lished. Many a regret has there been that it ever
ceased to be. In these sketches the actors are liv-
ing, as the names of persons are, in the main,
omitted First, are a few
REVIVAL REMINISCENCES.
" Where'er we seek Him he is found,
And every place is holy ground."
" I was once invited to assist a home-missionary
in a series of religious meetings, under peculiar
11
122 THE IOWA BAND.
circumstances. Although it was a considerable
village, yet there was neither meeting-house,
school-house, hall, nor other room large enough to
accommodate a congregation such as might be
expected to gather, with the exception of a spa-
cious nine-pin alley. To the astonishment of
everybody, and especially of the minister, the
owner of that building, which joined the liquor-
saloon, offered without solicitation the use of it
for a protracted meeting, as long as it might be
needed ; and that, too, without any pay, although it
was bringing him in an income of ten dollars a
day.
" This offer was gladly accepted ; and immediate
arrangements were made for its occupancy. On
my arrival at the place, I was conducted to this
novel house of worship, which I found fitted up
with seats made of rough boards arranged across
the alley nearly the whole length of it. At one
end, a billiard-table was placed in position for a
desk ; while in one corner, behind the speaker's
stand, were piled up the pins and balls. It was
well lighted and warmed, and, on the whole, consti-
tuted quite an inviting audience-room ; and when
as soon came to be the case, it was filled with
attentive listeners, and pervaded by a spirit of true
devotion, the original design of it was entirely
forgotten. Here were held meetings for preaching
every evening, and for prayer and conference and
inquiry during the day, for more than two weeks ;
and the Spirit of God condescended to be present,
FRAGMENTS. 123
and render them profitable and delightful seasons,
seasons which will be remembered in eternity by
some, as probably among the most precious ever
enjoyed on earth.
" Frequently we could hear the conversation and
the noise of the toddy-stick in the saloon adjoin-
ing, separated from us only by a thin board parti-
tion ; but so deeply interesting were our services,
that these incongruous sounds did not disturb us,
or divert attention from eternal things. Seldom
have I enjoyed such services more, or seen more
marked effects from them.
" During the progress of these meetings, there
were many hopeful conversions, the exact num-
ber I do not remember ; and it is an interesting
and suggestive fact, that, among the converts, was
the son of the proprietor of the building in which
we met. At the close of the series of meetings,
a church was formed ; and the record in the church-
book states that it was ' organized on day of
, in Mr. 's ninepin alley.' Subsequently,
a house of worship was erected for this congrega-
tion. The minister, now deceased, and ' whose
sun went down while it was yet day/ was after-
wards called to a more important field, and was suc-
ceeded for a time by one who is now one of our
ablest and most popular preachers.
" On another occasion, I was called to aid a minis-
terial brother in a protracted meeting in a consider-
able farming settlement,- where there was no church
organization, and no house of worship. The school-
124 THE IOWA BAND.
house being too small, it was decided to hold the
services in a large barn, the weather being favora-
ble. There, day after day, we preached, the people
occupying the barn floor, and, when that became
too strait, resorting to the hay-mows and bays ad-
joining. Here, too, we enjoyed the presence of
God ; and a delightful work of grace was wit-
nessed.
" At another time, while exploring the country
with a brother minister, we came to a place of con-
siderable importance at that day, in its own imme-
diate vicinity, but occupied in the main by a most
godless community. Still there was a little leaven
there. A small band of Christians, the remnant of
a church that had once been organized there, were
praying, and for weeks had been pleading for a re-
vival of religion in the place. As soon as it was
known by them that two ministers were in town,
they at once took it as God's token for good, and
immediately besought us, with an earnestness that
would take no denial, to tarry, and begin without
delay a protracted meeting.
" Not daring to refuse, we consented. Here, too,
the only place of gathering to be found was a va-
cant storeroom in the centre of the village. Here,
in a dimly lighted room, with drinking and gam-
bling saloons on all sides of us, like Paul and Bar-
nabas, we preached the gospel for two weeks ;
during which the Spirit of the Lord came down
and filled the place with the glory of his presence.
More than thirty persons were converted ; and a
FRAGMENTS. 12$
church was afterwards organized, a meeting-house
built, and the morals of the place improved, as the
result, we will not say of the preaching, but of the
earnest prayers, of those few pleading Christians.
From such cases we are constrained to say, Let
bands of believers everywhere, even without min-
isters, be encouraged to pray, and trust the Lord
for help ; let ministers and churches not wait for
new houses of worship, or more favorable circum-
stances, but go to work in faith and hope with such
facilities as they have, and the Lord shall bless
them."
Often, in new settlements, it is interesting to
note the changes wrought by the introduction of
the gospel ; and sometimes among the hardy but
rough backwoodsmen there are marked conversions,
showing the power of God to change the lion to
the lamb. Illustrative of .this, a brother gives us a
sketch under the title of
THE PET BEAR.
" In the year 1845, I was preaching in the desti-
tute neighborhoods of the lead-mining region
west of Dubuque. On my first introduction to the
settlement, I found no religious services at all, and
no observance of the Sabbath. That day was
usually spent as a holiday, in carousing and sporting.
During the first year of my labor there, I did not
know even a single family where the worship of God
was observed. Many of the miners had dropped
11*
126 THE IOWA BAND.
their proper names, and were known only by titles
or names which indicated some distinguished trait
of their character, and which had been given them
by their companions. In passing through a con-
siderable tract of timber to reach the schoolhouse
where I preached, I frequently met parties of hunt-
ers on a Sabbath morning, and could not fail to hear
the oaths which mingled in their common conver-
sation.
" After a while, in coming upon them suddenly, I
could hear the suppressed ' Hush, hush! ' and swear-
ing would cease while I was within hearing. This
was the first hopeful indication of an awakened
conscience ; and it seemed to me to be the dawn of
a better state of things. Then, when they saw me
coming, they would ' break and scatter.' Their
dogs, however, told upon their masters ; and I could
not restrain a smile, as my eye would detect a man
here, and another there, trying to place a tree be-
tween me and himself, acting the squirrel to perfec-
tion. Here, too, I thought, is hope.
" It was not long after this when a passing shadow
in the schoolhouse window or doorway, during
preaching, would arrest the eye, and lead to the de-
tection of listeners without. Then, a little bolder,
and conscience a little more active, they would lean
their rifles against a tree, and themselves stand out
in full view, hearing what the preacher had to say,
or would seat themselves on the doorstep ; and
finally they would venture into the house, leaving
their guns outside, but still wearing powder-horn
FRAGMENTS. 12J
and shot-belt across their shoulders, and would sit
quiet and attentive listeners.
" In the winter of 1847, we held a series of reli-
gious meetings. The Rev. J. C. H. came out, and
preached ten or twelve days. It was a memorable
time in the history of that community. The word
preached was attended with divine power ; and
many of the hardest characters bowed to the mild
reign of the Saviour, and became new creatures in
Christ Jesus.
" Among this number was ' The Pet Bear.' His
proper name was Thomas B n. He was one
of the early pioneers, a real backwoodsman, pos-
sessing a powerful frame ; was just in the pride of
life, a hard drinker, and one of the most profane
men I ever knew, and a perfect slave to a passion-
ate temper, that not unfrequently raged like a tor-
nado. With him it was a word and a blow, often
the last first.
" On several occasions I had attempted to con-
verse with him on the subject of religion, but was
answered by a volley of oaths ; and I had learned
to fear coming in contact with him. During the
meetings, I turned out of my way one evening,
and stopped at his cabin door. He was there. I
said to him, ' Mr. B., we are having some good
meetings at the schoolhouse, and most of your
companions attend. I wish you would come : we
shall be glad to see you.' Without giving him an
opportunity to reply, I bade him good-evening, and
walked on. To our astonishment, he entered the
128 THE IOWA BAND.
house with his wife. A solemn and searching ser-
mon was preached, in which the guilt of the sinner
was faithfully exposed, and the love of the Saviour
clearly set forth. He listened attentively, and was
evidently affected. Nothing was said to him, we
shook hands, and he left for home.
" Early the next morning, one of the neighbors
came to me and said, ' Mr. W., I wish you would
go and see " The Pet Bear ! " ' ' Why do you wish
it ? ' I asked. He replied, ' There is something
the matter with him. He came home from meet-
ing last night like a fury. He sat down in a chair
before the fire, and he has been there all night. I
do not know what it is, but he is weeping like a
child. As I was passing, his wife came out and
whispered to me to ask you to come and see him.'
" With silent prayer that God would teach me how
to meet him, and what to say, I hastened to his
cabin, and there found him sitting with his head
bowed on his hands, between his knees, and the
tears trickling, down between his fingers, and falling
on the hearthstone. I drew my chair up to him,
and asked him kindly to tell me the cause of his
distress. After a pause, he looked up in my face ;
and, with a look and emphasis I shall never forget,
he said, ' O Mr. W. ! I am the most wicked and
the most wretched sinner in the world, and I don't
know what to do : can you tell me ? '
" I endeavored, in a plain, simple way, to show him
the love of the Saviour, and his readiness to par-
don all who came to him sick of sin, and who de-
FRAGMENTS.
sired to break away from it, and give him their love,
and obey him. He listened, and, with a strange
expression, said, ' What ! you make me believe that
he came to seek and to save such a lost sinner as I
am ? ' ' Yes/ I replied : ' he came to save the chief
of sinners, who repent and hope in his mercy.'
' Ah ! but,' he urged, ' you do not know what a
wicked sinner I have been.' ' No,' I replied ; ' but
the Saviour does ; and he says to you, " Come unto
me : I will in no wise cast you out."'
" I spent nearly the whole day with him. He
became calm, and listened like a little child. In
a few days he had intelligently given himself to
Christ, and felt by joyful experience that the blood
of Jesus could cleanse even such ' a desperate sin-
ner as he was.' "
" He was no longer ' The Pet Bear,' having by
grace put on the nature of the lamb ; constraining
all around to exclaim, ' What hath God wrought ! '
He said to me, ' My cabin is small, but it is at
your service. Come and preach in it ; come and
hold a Sabbath school in it. I don't know much,
and should make out poorly teaching others ; but I
can talk about what Jesus Christ has done for me.
You know,' he said, ' " The Pet Bear " has been
a faithful servant of the Devil a great many years :
now it is God's turn. I hope to become as faithful
a servant to him as ever I was to my old master.
I want you to tell me what I can do. I never was
afraid of a man ; and, since God has made me
strong to work for him, ought I ever to be ashamed
I3O THE IOWA BAND.
to tell what a wonderful work he has wrought in
me ?
' " You see,' he said, ' I have been thinking it
over, and I know I shall have a hard row to hoe.
I know it will be up stream with me all the way.
But then I have a sure pilot if I only listen to Him ;
and when I find the stream too rapid, why, I shall
paddle to shore, and tie up to Jesus ; and I know,
if I tell him all about it, and ask him to help me
through, he will do it.'
" During his absence from the house, his wife told
me, that, after I left, on the preceding evening, she
expected an outburst of temper ; but, instead of
this, he turned to her and said, ' Wife, get your
things on, and we'll go to meeting.' Then began a
perfect tornado of oaths against himself, occasion-
ally speaking to himself; ' Spew it out, Pet ; it is the
last time: get rid of it ; for I mean to cut a new
set of houselogs ; ' meaning he intended to begin a
new course of life. He went to the meeting : she
was sure, from his manner, the sermon had touched
him. On his way home, she said, his oaths made
her tremble: it seemed as though he was possessed
of seven devils. As he reached his cabin door, he
turned to her, and said, ' There, wife, it is all out ; '
and, with such an expression as she had never heard
from him before, he cried out, ' O God, help me ! '
He took a seat before the fire, and had scarcely
altered his position during the whole night. The
Spirit of God was dealing with him, and he wept
the tears of a repenting and returning prodigal.
FRAGMENTS. 131
Until I left that field, his was a consistent Christian
walk."
Such scenes as the preceding, though by no
means uncommon, are not always connected with
home-mission work in a new country. Some-
times it is the lot of one to labor on with only
gradual changes for the better, as in the day of
small things, but laying foundations for the future.
This is the trial of our faith and hope.
The following is the partial experience of one
whose lot it was for a few years to do pioneer
work in C r County, and then return to an
Eastern field. It will be of interest to those ac-
quainted with the localities, and will show, among
other things, that the Home Missionary Society is
not confined in its labors to places where churches
are organized :
" I became a resident of the county in the win-
ter of 1844, and organized the church in the spring
following, May 5. It consisted of three members.
It was a rainy day, which prevented some others
from being present to unite with us. It was formed
in the bar-room of the public house, or, rather, the
public room of the house where I boarded. The
first summer, I preached in the upper room of the
jail, used during the week as a carpenter-shop.
The carpenter was an avowed atheist, but helped
me to clear up the room for the meetings.
" Subsequently I occupied the Court House as a
place of worship, alternating with the Methodist
circuit-rider. There were received into the church
132 THE IOWA BAND.
while I was there, thirty-two. I baptized nineteen
infants, attended twenty-one funerals, and married
five couples. The figures do not show much. It
was a dark day, a long trial of faith and patience.
But the aspect of things was brightening before I
left. Among other encouragements, a female
prayer-meeting gave promise of better days. I
preached in various neighborhoods, usually at two,
sometimes at three places on the Sabbath, without
appointments during the week. I ranged the
country far and near, having preaching stations in
every direction.
" Generally, perhaps, the brethren surpassed me
in activity ; but one winter, 1845-46, 1 worked hard.
I had many long and lonely rides. My meetings
were conducted by myself alone, preaching from a
plan written out, but retained in my memory. I
made no show of notes. My sermons were talks
in cabins, in the court house, in carpenter shops,
and out of doors. I knew but little of prayer-
meetings, led my own singing, and rode on horse-
back the first two years. In the latter part of the
time, I preached from more fully written notes.
One fall, I suffered much, and was laid aside by the
fever and ague.
" I cannot speak of special outpourings of the
Spirit ; but God gave me the privilege of laying
foundations, with a few tokens of prospective
growth. I have some remembrances of those
youthful days which are vivid. I had opportunities
to see nature in its primeval beauty. For the pen
FRAGMENTS. 133
of an Irving, those years would furnish materials of
surpassing interest. Those adventures of frontier
life, though but incidental to the work of the home-
missionary, will long remain with me, while other
things, perhaps of more importance, will have
slipped from the memory."
In looking over this experience, we can only
wish that our brother could revisit the scenes of
his former labors, to see, in part at least, the fruits
of his toil. " One layeth the foundations, and
another buildeth thereon."
As showing still further how the Home Mis-
sionary Society reaches out beyond the region of
organized churches, and as reviewing the early
history of Congregationalism in Western Iowa,
which was for a long time to Eastern Iowa as a
foreign field, and allowing here, because it cannot
well be avoided, the full names of persons and
places, we give next a paper presented at the Quar-
terly Centennial of the Iowa Association in 1866,
respecting
THE MISSOURI SLOPE.
" Congregationalism made its first appearance on
the slope in the organization of the Union Church
at Civil Bend in 1849, where, without any recog-
nized minister, about a dozen Christians Bap-
tists, Congregationalists, and Methodists formed
themselves into a church, adopted their creed and
covenant, and agreed to recognize each other in
church relations, and co-operate in promoting the
12
134 THE IOWA BAND.
cause of Christ. A flourishing day-school was
already in existence in the neighborhood. A Sab-
bath school, Bible class, and regular prayer-meetings
were established, and attended with a good degree
of religious interest, before any minister labored
among them.
" The name Civil Bend was derisively given to
this settlement along the Missouri River by the
roughs who so frequently held high carousal at
the various whiskey cabins that fringed the ' Big
Muddy.' These breathing-holes of the infernal
regions were known by such euphonious titles as
' Devil's Den,' ' Hell's Kitchen,' etc. ; and, to
designate the temperance neighborhood, it was
called ' Civil Bend.' The residents accepted the
name ; and by this title it is known to this day,
although the post-office is Gaston. On the ist of
July, 1850, the Rev. John Todd, with his family,
joined this settlement for the purpose of preach-
ing Christ on the frontiers. A dwelling of hewn
logs had been erected and roofed, out on the prai-
ries, for his accommodation, which, on his arrival,
was perforated, and supplied with doors and win-
dows, and floored with cotton-wood 'puncheons.'
The window and door casings were all the sawed ma-
terial used in constructing the house ; and this had
to be brought a distance of twenty-five miles. The
minister's study-walls were curtains, and the study
table a puncheon resting on two wooden pins
driven into the logs.
" A few families of Congregationalists from Illi-
FRAGMENTS. 135
nois, who had started for California, stopped on the
banks of the Missouri, opposite the Big Platte,
twenty-five miles north of Civil Bend, in the fall
of 1849, an d formed the first out-station, which
resulted in the organization of a small church of ten
members, reported as the Church of Florence, sub-
sequently disbanded. Trader's Point, nine or ten
miles above Florence, about the same distance from
Council Bluffs, and nearly east of where Belleview
in Nebraska now is, was then a flourishing village
of Mormons and traders, of about thirty or thirty-
five houses, where many crossed the river on their
way to the Great Salt Lake Valley. That, also, was
made a monthly preaching place. It has long
since been all swept away by the Missouri. About
eighteen miles above Council Bluffs, near the
Boyer, a few Gentiles were found, who wished to
hear the gospel, and there was another preaching-
point. A good Christian Baptist lady, residing at
Stutnan's Mills, on the West Nishnibotna, twenty-
five or thirty miles east of Council Bluffs, signified
a wish to hear Christ preached to her Mormon
neighbors ; and there another monthly appointment
was made.
" Cutler's Camp, on Silver Creek in Mills County,
now seven miles from Glenwood, formed another
point in the monthly circuit. Linden, too, then
county-seat of Atchkinson County, Mo., twenty-
five miles south-east of Civil Bend, was then favored
with a monthly visit on the Sabbath.
" Thus, within a year from the time of begin-
136 THE IOWA BAND.
ning, from Civil Bend to the banks of the Boyer,
and round about unto Missouri, was the gospel
preached. There were seven appointments in the
circuit, but two of them favored with even a log
schoolhouse. In the autumn of 1850, the Rev. J. A.
Reed, a sort of archbishop in the discharge of
the duties of his office, accompanied by the Rev.
J. B. Hitchcock, made a descent upon the slope at
Civil Bend. Right glad were we to find that some-
body cared for us, and that we were not hopelessly
severed from the Christian world. It then required
a full month to exchange letters with our friends in
Eastern Iowa. Our nearest post-office was fifteen
miles distant. That same autumn, 1850, Brother
Wm. Simpson, the first regular itinerant of the M.
E. Church on the slope, entered upon the charge of
Council Bluffs, and came to Civil Bend, claiming
all Methodists as his. He proved a devout, genial,
working Christian. With his co-operation, the first
revival was enjoyed during the second winter at
Civil Bend. A single family of Africo-Americans,
who had earned and paid thousands of dollars for
their freedom, came into the settlement, and were
encouraged to attend school ; for which, some who
' had never attended school with niggers,' nor any-
body else, for they could neither read nor write,
determining that their children should not be so
disgraced, accidentally or by design burnt down the
log building which constituted our schoolhouse
and place of worship. This occurred on watch-
night of 1850 and 1851.
FRAGMENTS. 137
"In June, 1851, the waters of the rivers, the
waters of the uplands, and the waters above the
firmament, combined to drive the people from Civil
Bend. The river rose threateningly ; the heavens
gave forth frequent floods ; and the streams from
the bluffs swept down in torrents, bearing away
bridges, fences, and all before them. Five miles of
water spread out between us and the highlands-
Sloughs were waded to go to meeting, where horses
would mire down, and abundance of buffalo-fish
were speared with pitch-forks amid the tall grass.
Mosquitoes enough to dim the sun and moon
chimed in to sing the requiem of our hopes in that
land of promise.
" That was a trying time to the itinerancy. A
surplus of water and scarcity of bridges necessi-
tated a curtailment of the circuit. Florence and
Trader's Point continued to be visited monthly ;
but fighting mosquitoes by night, and travelling on
horseback by day, with regular ague shakes for
variety, were not very well adapted to make a Boa-
nerges of our itinerant. But no human lives were
lost ; and, as already intimated, we had our first
revival the following winter.
"In the fall of 1851, Brother G. G. Rice, from
Union Theological Seminary, I think, arrived at
Council Bluffs, under the patronage of the A. H.
M. S., and entered upon the work of preaching the
gospel. After the experience of 1851, on the Mis-
souri Bottom, several families resolved to take
higher ground, believing that it afforded a firmer
12*
138 THE IOWA BAND.
basis for the object, which, from the first, they had
in view ; viz., the establishment of an institution of
learning, in connection with the promotion of reli-
gion. They, after considerable search, located on
Tabor. Three families moved there', or to that
vicinity, in 1852, purchased claims, lived in log-
cabins, at once began a regular prayer-meeting,
Sunday school, and regular preaching, which have
continued without intermission up to the present
time. In October, 1852, the Congregational Church
of Tabor was formed, with eight members. This
was the first church on the slope which assumed
the Congregational name."
This church at Tabor, it should be remarked,
is now the largest but one in the State. The In-
stitution alluded to is now known as Tabor Col-
lege. It has, according to the latest published
statement, a President and four other instructors ;
twenty-one students in the college classes, and
one hundred and four in the preparatory depart-
ment ; with property estimated at fifty thousand
dollars, and a library of twelve hundred volumes.
In such fields as just described, indeed, in all
new countries liable to excessive rains, with few
roads and fewer bridges, the missionary needs the
pleasant faculty of making the best of things, as
one prime qualification for his work. Many a one
has had an experience similar to that related be-
low, though not always as happily borne.
FRAGMENTS. 139
GOING TO ASSOCIATION.
" Last fall, at the meeting of this Association at
S., Brother C. proposed for our spring meeting to
convene at C. Brother T. knew nothing of C., except
that it was the home of our esteemed Brother A.,
and that it was situated somewhere ' within the
bounds ' of F. County. But Brother T. was expect-
ed to be there ; and he very naturally expected to
see his brethren there also. The meeting was to
be held on the third Tuesday in M., at eventide ;
and of this fact all the brethren were warned in
due time.
" On the Monday previous to this said Tuesday,
Brother T. would needs set forth in the ecclesias-
tical buggy, propelled by the ancient horse Billy.
He first made diligent inquiries, however, as to the
location of the said town of C. ; but all men
wagged their heads, and could do no more. They
knew nothing of any such city. The maps were
equally silent ; and there was no time for corre-
spondence, seeing that the mail from Brother T.'s
house to F. County describeth the circle of the
greater ram's-horn, and never returneth. Brother
T. was in a great quandary, and knew not whether
to proceed to the south-west, the west, or the
north-west. Yet Brother T. was expected to be
there. So, after much dubitation, he concluded to
follow the wisdom of the prairie-hawk ; and, as the
game was not in sight, to beat about for it. Pie
started southward and westward, driving towards C.,
I4O THE IOWA BAND.
which lieth upon the S., and is a town fair to see.
Here he found a certain Gaius, a miller of much
substance, whose daughter is a miller also. Here
he tarried ; and in the evening they all sang hymns,
and rejoiced abundantly. In the morning, mine
host, and of the whole church, would go with
Brother T. to question certain men of his town ;
and, behold, a man was found who had heard of C.,
and knew where it was, but had never been there.
Also he heard that the river must be forded at this
place, and that it would be nearer swimming than
fording.
" So, a good while before he came to the river,
he bade farewell to his host, who bade him good-
speed, and said, ' See thou art riot drowned in
the river ! ' And, after a while, he came to the
river. Now, there was a mighty bridge there,
and it was like secession : for it was easy to get
upon it, and it carried one fairly for a time ; but at
the end of it was a grievous jump, and there was
nothing but sharp rocks and a quagmire at the
bottom. Over this bridge Brother T. carried all
the contents of the ecclesiastical buggy. After
these were deposited on the other side, he returned
and said to the ancient steed, ' Billy, there is noth-
ing for it but we must take to the stream.'
" So they addressed themselves to enter the river.
And, at the very first, the wav,es flowed into the
buggy, which caused Brother T. to raise his feet ;
and presently the waters reached the seat, which
caused the rider thereupon to go up higher ; and
FRAGMENTS. 14!
he sat on the topmost rail of the seat. And the
waters prevailed even to the arm of the seat ; and
Brother T. saw the coat-tails of 'divinity/ that
they streamed out behind upon the waters of the
river ; and he -was a spectacle to certain men
which stood by : after which the waters abated, and
presently they came forth again upon the dry land.
" After this, divers other streams were crossed,
and much desolate green prairie ; and at evening,
when the stars shone, behold, th ;y were at the
place C.
" Now, because Brother T. was the only minister
that had arrived, he must needs preach to the peo-
ple ; and, when the meeting was done, the two dele-
gates Brother B. of P. and Brother A. of M.
essayed to have the Association organized ; but,
when they looked upon the record, they found
there was not a quorum present. So they went to
lodge with the people. And the next day, Brother
T. told them what was known to him of the condi-
tion of the churches.
" Now, at the former meeting, the brethren had
appointed Brother T. to read an essay on the anni-
hilation of the wicked ; so, in the evening, it was
read, albeit the wicked did not come to hear it.
" And after this, the hope of seeing our brethren
vanished, and we came together no more. And if
those brethren who came not had but known how
the people waited for them, and how they climbed
the steeple, and how the green sea that surrounds
the place was swept often with a spy-glass in ex-
I4 2 THE IOWA BAND.
pectation of their approach, they would have taken
care not to have caused such a disappointment
" And, besides this, it was a shame to Brother T.
that it was confidently asserted many times that
the brethren were coming, when, behold, the things
that were seen were only a green bush, a stray
sheep, some calves, certain horses, and mayhap a
few mules ! These things ought not to be ranked
with delinquent ministers at such times.
" So, when all was done, Brother T. wrote it upon
the book, that
" ' I. Nobody but Brother T. and two delegates
can testify to having been at C. on the twentieth
day of M., in the year of our Lord 186-.
" ' II. That, in consequence, nothing was done,
except that Brother T. had a good visit.
" ' III. That the Association is expected to meet
next fall at D.
" ' IV. That Brother T. is expected to be there.' "
Allusion has once or twice been made to
Abner Kneeland and his followers, who settled
upon the Des Moines River, near Farmington, at a
place called Salubria. The writer remembers well
a visit paid to the old infidel, nearly twenty-five
years ago. He was of noble form, venerable in
appearance, and treated his visitor courteously.
On frankly telling him that I had come to see him
simply out of curiosity, " Yes," he replied pleasantly :
" I suppose I am about as much of a show as an
elephant ;" and then expressed his readiness to con-
FRAGMENTS. 143
verse on any topic or answer any questions I might
choose. In private 'intercourse, his infidelity and
atheism were of the boldest kind, and his public
lectures gross. In derision of the marriage insti-
tution, he used to say, "Tie the tails of two dogs
together, and they will fight. Allow them to go
free, and they will be good friends." He and his
followers were quite zealous and successful at first,
in sowing the seeds of their infidelity among the
new settlers by pamphlets, periodicals, public lec-
tures, etc. Ridicule of "priests," making sport,
sometimes mock of sacred things, entered largely
into all their efforts. But a view of the positions
they assumed, and the manner in which they tried
to defend them, can best be seen in the following
account given by one whose first ministry was in
the midst of them, the Rev. Harvey Adams :
THE INFIDEL CELEBRATION.
" Early one afternoon in the month of August,
1847, a colporter of the American Tract Society
called at our house, and told me there was to be a
great celebration in the Kneeland neighborhood ;
and, as he desired to see what they would say and do,
he said he should attend, and wished me to accom-
pany him. As the distance was short, it being
only a mile to the place, with staff in hand we
were soon there. The gathering was in a charming
grove on the east bank of the beautiful Des Moines.
The object of the gathering was to celebrate the
144 THE IOWA BAND.
anniversary of Mr. Kneeland's liberation from prison
in Boston, to which place he had been sentenced
for blasphemy. There were present, of both sexes
and .of all ages, about a hundred and fifty. So
they claimed. Yet probably not more than half of
these were very sceptical in their views : they
came simply as spectators. A platform was erected
for the speakers, and seats were prepared for the-
ladies. The men stood round about in a circle.
When we arrived, the speaking had commenced.
On our joining the company, the snap of the eye,
the sly glances, and the jogging of one another,
seemed to say, ' There's a priest among us : he'll
have a good time ! '
" The speeches were spiced with such condiments
as these :
" ' We are not indebted to Christianity for the first
practical good. What has it done ? Look at Spain !
Look at Mexico ! In early days, Mexico was a par-
adise. Her people were among the most virtuous
and happy. But ever since Columbus, the Chris-
tian missionary, came over and converted them to
Christianity, they have been miserably degraded
and wretched. We glory in infidelity. We wear
it as the cloak for our virtues, just as the Christians
wear Christianity as the cloak for their vices.'
Cries of, ' Yes, yes ! that's so ! ' came from the
crowd ; and one, who evidently spoke for my special
benefit, said, ' There was St, Gregory, who was
covered with sin six feet deep.'
" At the close of the speeches, a pressing invita-
FRAGMENTS. 145
tion was given the writer to 'take the stand.'
This was declined, with the remark that I came
merely as a spectator ; and that, if I spoke, I could
not expect to change their views. 'He dare not
speak without a pulpit before him. 'Twon't do,
where there can be a reply,' said an old man.
" As advantage would be taken of my silence, the
instant resolve was formed to say something if
there should be a favorable opportunity. Nor was
there need of waiting long.
"The ladies withdrew to prepare the dinner, while
the men all closed up thick around ' the priest,'
this being the term by which they always designate
'a Christian minister.
" The two champions of the day were large, gray-
headed men, who literally ' stooped for age.' One
of them was an apostate from a Baptist church in
Vermont, and the other from a Presbyterian church
in Pennsylvania. They placed themselves directly
before me, and stood leaning forward on their
staves. I was seated. Compared with myself, they
were almost giants.
" In giving the sequel, for convenience I will call
one of them Dr., as he was a physician ; call the
other McB. ; and ' the priest ' H. M., for Home Mis-
sionary. The doctor was sour in look, and crabbed
and bitter in speech. McB. was more courteous,
but oily and sarcastic. No sooner had they placed
themselves thus before me, than they commenced
catechising, thus :
" McB. As I take you to be a philosopher and
13
146 THE IOWA BAND.
a theologian, I should like to ask a few questions,
if you have no objection.
" H. M. Certainly. Perhaps I shall not be able
to give you satisfactory answers ; but, if you ask
civil questions, I am bound to give civil replies, as
far as I am able.
" McB. (very smoothly). Well, just for the
purpose of information, will you please to tell us
how large the Holy Ghost is ?
" The point of this was, that they were material-
ists, and did not believe in any such thing as spirit ;
and, therefore, if I, 'a philosopher and theologian,'
could not tell how large the Holy Ghost was, of
course I must be the next passenger bound for Salt
River.
" H. M. That is rather a tough question, Mr.
McB. : but when you are attacked with something
like the bilious colic, and distressed almost to death,
and feel as though another gripe or two would take
your life, how large is the pain ?
" At this there was a general laugh, and the ques-
tion was dropped as quickly as though it had gone
to oblivion.
" McB. Man does what he does under the in-
fluence of circumstances over which he has no con-
trol. He is not responsible for his actions, because
he cannot help them.
" H. M. And so you came all the way to this
celebration by means of circumstances which you
could not control ? And all the rest have done the
same thing ?
FRAGMENTS. 147
" McB. Certainly. Show me a thing that is
not the fruit of circumstances.
" H. M. Then the priests do what they do to
destroy infidelity and atheism through circum-
stances they cannot control. But how comes it to
pass that you consider them so criminal for what
they do ? Why do you speak of them as the ene-
mies of the race, as you have done to-day ? Why
not rather commend their efforts ? More especially,
why do you not celebrate the day of Mr. Kneeland's
sentence and imprisonment ? The Bostonians did
what they did under circumstances they could not
control. [A good deal of laughing.]
" McB. But it is the circumstances. Men can-
not control the circumstances of one of their
actions.
" H. M. Then if I take my cane, and give you
a sound drubbing over the head, I may sing all the
way home to-night ? And you will charge it all to
the circumstances ? You will not consider me at
fault ?
" McB. Yes. I'll punish the circumstances : I
won't punish you. [A loud laugh.]
" H. M. That's very generous ; but do you act
on that principle ? Suppose some one against
whom you hold a note should come to you and say,
' I know, that, as men use language, I owe you ; but
I never intend to pay. I would not, if I could as
well as not. Circumstances do not compel me to
pay, and I shall not do it.' Would you not treat
him to a constable ? [Cries of ' Good ! good ! ']
14 THE IOWA BAND.
" McB. All this hair-splitting about would
and would not, right and wrong, good and evil,
guilt and innocence, is a humbug. These terms
all amount to the same thing. There is no such
thing as right and wrong.
" H. M. I knew that would follow from your
doctrine, though I did not know that you would so
openly avow it. But will you tell us why you em-
ploy these terms so freely yourselves ? and more
especially when you speak of the priests ? [Cries
of ' Good ! ' with laughter.] And then, too, most
certainly, if I give you a real drubbing with my
cane, you cannot say that I do any harm or wrong ;
for there is no such thing. Not one of the priests
has ever done any. Now, to try your principle,
suppose I take my cane, and make a serious experi-
ment on your head ?
" McB. (very emphatically). I don't like that
illustration about the cane. [A roar of laughter.]
The amount of it is, when we speak of doing, or
when we speak of right and wrong, or of the mind,
soul, spirit, and the like, we use words without
meaning. There is no such thing. That which
is not material is nothing.
" //. M. Doctor, you and I have had a little
conversation on this point before ; but as we did
not get through, and it is now up again, I should
like-
" Dr. (very sourly). None of your gospel
pettifogging. I know you have your visions and
dreams, and soul and spirit, and Holy Ghost and
FRAGMENTS. 149
all that, in your Bible ; but [Cries from the
crowd,' ' Doctor, let him go on ; let him go on ! ']
" H. M. You may call it pettifogging, or what
you please, doctor : I will try to talk common sense,
but am ready to leave it to the company whether
I do or not. If I understand you, Mr. McB., you
say that that which is not material is nothing.
" McB. Yes. That's it. Immateriality is an
absurdity.
" H. M, You will admit this general law of
nature, that ' like produces like,' I suppose.
" McB. Oh, yes ! No one can dispute that.
" H. M. So that all thoughts, all the products
of the mind, whatever we call them, are really
matter.
" McB. Most Certainly.
" H. M. And have the attributes of matter ;
that is to say, the mind, the soul, and all thoughts,
have length, breadth, thickness, weight, and the
like.
" McB. Certainly. It is absurd to talk of a
thing which is not material.
" H. M. Very well. When we communicate
thoughts, we communicate matter, we communicate
shape, size, and weight. That is understood. Now
then, if you two old men continue to talk to me, and
I receive your thoughts without making any reply,
you will reduce yourselves to skeletons ; and I,
though small, bid fair to become a pretty corpulent
man. [The woods rang with laughter.]
" The call to dinner now came, and my two infi-
13*
I5O THE IOWA BAND.
del friends seemed to be very glad of it. But they
had become very good-natured. I was invited to
partake with them, and was conducted to the head
of the table. When seated, and while the waiters
were serving, the doctor asked me if I could par-
take without ' grace.' The reply was, that, if they
did not desire that I should publicly invoke a bless-
ing, I was not limited to that method of doing it.
Soon after this, the doctor said to those near him,
but for my benefit, ' He eats with publicans and
sinners.' To this I could not help replying,
' Thank you, doctor. Happy to see you recog-
nize the distinction.'
" Dinner being over, and the furniture removed,
the tables were arranged in a row, and seats placed
upon and in front of them for* the ladies ; while
the gentlemen were formed into a semi-circle,
facing the ladies. The toast-master conducted the
'priest' to the centre of the half-circle, and a little
in advance of it, where every one could see him.
And now for the toasts and sentiments. One was
read, and cheers called for. But the crowd were
silent, as if at a funeral. Another, and a third ;
but with no response. After what had passed, the
company did not feel like giving cheers to such
sentiments. Volunteers were called for. One
man gave out a sentiment, and lifted up his arms,
and exclaimed, ' Hoo ra!' but his was the only
voice. Among the volunteer sentiments, this was
one : ' Eighteen hundred and fourteen years ago,
Jesus Christ was imprisoned for blasphemy ; and
FRAGMENTS. 15 1
years ago, Abner Kneeland was imprisoned
in Boston for the same crime : the latter a philoso-
pher, the former a juggler.'
" The design of their toasts and sentiments, as
well as of all the previous speeches, seemed to be,
to deliver themselves of the gall and spleen they
had treasured up against priests, priestcraft, and
Christianity in general. They probably also in-
tended to confirm such as might be doubtful. But
the celebration had a very different result. The
crowd evidently left with the conviction, that, what-
ever might be said against Christianity, certainly
infidelity had not many attractions.
" I am not aware that any of that gathering have
since been active in propagating it. From that
time to this, there has not been another celebra-
tion of the kind, that I have heard of. They have
not met, as before, to hear infidel lectures on the
Sabbath. The one whom I have called McB.
renounced his infidelity subsequently ; and it is re-
ported that he died with the hope of the Christian.
Since that time, also, I have attended many fune-
rals among those families ; and, in one case, when
three young persons, belonging to three different
families, were buried at the same time. They had
been drowned. Many have been the acts of cour-
tesy and kindness shown to the writer by individ-
uals who were previously of that belief.
" In the retrospect, I am satisfied that all the lec-
tures I ever gave on the evidences of Christianity
accomplished little for the purpose, compared with
152
THE IOWA BAND.
the conversation here detailed. This was not
sought or coveted. There was clearly a providence
in it all. It was one of a number of occurrences
which have been overruled to destroy infidelity in
that region. To God be all the honor."
But these sketches have been sufficiently ex-
tended. They illustrate a few of the varied phases
of missionary life. We might add more, which
would bring out scenes in the home-circle some-
times partaking of the sad, in hours of affliction,
in remote settlements, away from friends, where
husbands have preached the funeral sermons of
wives, a father of children ; but we forbear. As to
that infidel colony, its hopes are blasted. The
leaders being bold, but blasphemous, their efforts
for political ascendancy in the country, and to set
at nought sacred things by mock funerals, and in
other ways, soon overreached themselves. The
people became disgusted as they saw the tendency
and the aim. A strange series of deaths, too,
among them, had its effect. Better things came
in ; and Kneelandism, as an organization, is a thing
of the past.
CHAPTER XVI.
LOSS AND GAIN.
HOW often, when for duty's sake, for the sake
of Christian service to be rendered, we enter
upon some path, expecting and consenting to the loss
of many things, we find, that, of all others, that was
the very path to be chosen for real gain ! " He that -
loseth his life for my sake shall find it." Solomon
chose wisdom, and God gave him both wisdom and
riches. Twenty-five years ago, every one thought it
a great sacrifice for a minister to go West : no one
would go except at the stern call of duty. As be-
tween an Eastern and a Western settlement, the ad-
vantages then seemed to be entirely with the former.
Well is it remembered, how then a rhetorical pro-
duction by one whose face was turned westward,
under the title of " Inducements to go West," was
received by us at the Seminary. It was with a sort
of smile, as much as to say, " Well, it is a happy
faculty to look at the bright side of things ; and, if
one is going, he may as well make the best of it."
Little was it then thought, that what appeared
fancy was but half the sober truth ! Let it not be
supposed that a Western life has been, or is, all
gain and no loss ; but, looking over the past, let us
154 THE IOWA BAND.
strike a balance in this regard, and see where it
stands.
Twenty-five years ago, one of the first things
thought of by one contemplating the Western work
was health. It was supposed he must have the
fever and ague, probably a bilious fever ; and, at
any rate, must go through a process of acclimation,
the issue of which must determine whether he
could stay in the country or not. We smile now
at the way we used to think of this. Some of us,
indeed, have had the fever and ague, and some have
not. There have been some deaths ; and from some
families children have been taken, one after the
other, till the record has become a sad, sad one.
But so, doubtless, it would have been elsewhere.
Taking the Band for a sample, it surely cannot be
said, that, in the matter of health, there has been
loss : we should say, probably gain. It is doubt-
ful whether the same number of their classmates
who chose an Eastern settlement have been more
highly favored than they. In the case of no one is
it certain that his health was injured by coming
West ; while in others it has been improved, and
life, doubtless, has been prolonged. One of them at
least, perhaps more, can say, that, for more than a
quarter of a century, he has never lost a single
appointment from ill health, nor more than a dozen
from any cause.
Next to the matter of health, it is natural to
consider that of support and home-comforts. This,
perhaps, does not at first enter much into the cal-
LOSS AND GAIN. 155
dilations of those proposing to labor in the minis-
try at the East or West ; but it comes up sooner or
later, and may be properly considered. Four hun-
dred dollars a year, twenty-five years ago, was
about the highest limit of missionary salary. That
sum now seems small indeed. It did then. But
with beef and pork at two or three cents a pound,
corn twelve and a half cents a bushel, and other
products of a fertile soil in proportion, it is easy to
see that a little money would go a great way. True,
clothing, furniture, books, etc., were higher than at
the East, and expenses in this direction had to be
curtailed. Missionary families, like' all other fami-
lies in a new country, had to dispense with a great
many things considered indispensable in an Eastern
home. But they managed to get along somehow.
Gifts came in sometimes from the people. Mis-
sionary boxes met many an exigency. Occasionally
some books or other remembrances came from
Eastern friends.
As living expenses have increased, missionary
grants have grown larger. Sometimes the home-
missionary, driven to buy a little place, because too
poor to rent one, or wishing to get a little foothold
for a home, has found himself, by the rise of prices
in a thrifty village, actually gaining in property.
Meantime, the churches have, many of them, be-
come able to give more ample support. Taking it
all in all, as a matter of fact, it is presumed that
those longest in the field have no cause of com-
plaint. Perhaps, in the end, they are just as well
156 THE IOWA BAND.
off, and, on the whole, have been as comfortably
provided for, so far as the real necessaries of life
are concerned, as if they had been in Eastern set-
tlements. They have had to dispense with many
things, at times, that they might have had else-
where : and, perhaps, were their wives called upon
to testify at this point, they might say at once that
the advantage was with the Eastern settlement ; not
because they are quicker to complain than their
husbands, but because, as before stated, the priva-
tions of a new country fall most heavily within
their peculiar province. Still, claiming a little ad-
vantage for the West on the score of health, we are
willing to let that and this balance.
Next, let us look at mental development. A
man's surroundings will, of course, have an influ-
ence upon his mental habits and intellectual cul-
ture. The time was, when the advantages in this
respect seemed nearly all with the Eastern field.
As to many things they were. " Early introduc-
tion," says a distinguished writer, " to active labor
in an extended field, partaking of a missionary and
itinerant character, may, amidst much usefulness,
spoil a man for life in all that regards progress of
erudition, and productiveness of the reasoning
powers." True, in the old and narrow field there
may be the more quiet study, more help from books
and literary intercourse, more time to elaborate
and polish. There may be, moreover, among the
hearers a more rigid demand for this sort of excel-
lence in sermonizing, creating in the preacher an
LOSS AND GAIN. 157
ambition to produce it. But, possibly, right here
in the strong point of many a preacher is his very
weakness. His hearers demand, and his life is
worn out in supplying, what, while admired, fails
to bless. But we are to compare, not criticise.
The Western man, on the frontier work, as was
that of all Iowa once, suffers right here some loss.
Here are felt some of his greatest privations, and
some of his greatest self-denials are practised. His
trial is not that he has to wear a seedy coat, as good
perhaps as his brother Christians about him wear ;
nor that, in his travels of a wet season, he occa-
sionally gets "sloughed," or has to swim the stream.
This is just what his neighbors do, and is nothing
in a new country. But, if he takes a paper, he
reads of books which he can never see. He thinks
of ministers' meetings, and the culture of literary
fellowships among his brother-ministers, which he
can never enjoy. Exchanges, even, are out of the
question. His duties call him much abroad out of
his study, if he has one ; and, when in it, he groans
in spirit sometimes, that it is so poorly furnished
with the needful helps. But this Western field has
its advantages, too, even in the matter of intellect-
ual development. The impression twenty years ago
is not quite right, that, if a man goes to a West-
ern missionary field, he must once for all abandon
all thoughts of mental culture and growth. Men
are to be studied, as well as books ; and the contrast
of mind with mind is a vigorous mental stimulus.
Place now a young minister in some new Western
14
158 THE IOWA BAND.
settlement, where, in his line, nothing yet is estab-
lished, nothing started even ; where everybody and
every thing about him is on the quick, earnest move ;
where are commingled from all quarters every shade
of prejudice, opinion, and belief; and where all, with
the trammels off, are free to speak out just what
they think, and he must have some earnest mental
work. Every inch he gains here he must get by
a sort of conquest. Aside from the constant readi-
ness which he must have for hand-to-hand conflicts
in his neighborly calls, the right arm of power
in his public preaching must be the plain Bible
truth, aimed straight at the mark, with an earnest-
ness that means something. His hearers, if he
gets hearers at all, must be drawn together and
held together, not by the force of family or social
relations, not by the beauty of the sanctuary where
they meet, nor by the excellence of the singing ;
but, in the absence of all these, it may be, by the
presence of one among them, positive and strong,
whose preaching and whose life are calculated to
produce the blessed fruits of the gospel. In all the
demands of a growing country, he must be a prac-
tical man. If he makes for himself a place, holds
it, and builds upon it, he will and must be an in-
tellectually growing man. We do not say that
Western men are more completely developed intel-
lectually than Eastern, but that their position is not,
on the whole, unfavorable in this respect. Thrown
upon their own resources, and standing at the head
of growing influences, which they are called upon
LOSS AND GAIN. 1 59
to gather, to hold, and to guide, they themselves
are compelled to grow in mental strength, energy,
breadth of views, and high Christian aims. There
are advantages here, which, for all the purposes of
earnest Christian work in the world, we must claim
as items of especial gain.
The absence in a new country of established
customs, usages, and precedents, has been alluded
to as one of the disadvantages of a Western field.
The young man who takes an Eastern church has
the way prepared before him. In many respects,
he has only to keep things as they are, with tried
men as advisers, and staid Christians to help. To
start anew in a new country is to start without any
such aids. But even this has its advantages. Be-
sides helping to draw out of the minister all there is
in him, it is often of use, both to him and his little
church, to be free from the trammels of previous
customs and habits. Churches get into bad ways,
as well as into good ones. Much as we revere the
memory of our Puritan Fathers, all wisdom was
doubtless not with them. We do not suppose that
New-England churches and institutions are such
perfect models, that there can be no improvement
upon them ; neither do we think that every change,
proposed or actual, is an advance. But on this
Western field if anywhere, with the word of God
for our guide, and freedom to adapt ourselves to
actual wants and circumstances, we should improve
even upon the excellences of the past. There
ought, as already indicated, to be among us, in some
I6O THE IOWA BAND.
respects, better churches, better colleges, and bet-
ter methods of doing things, than in older regions.
In our peculiar freedom to adopt new expedients
and plans, therefore, we claim one advantage. If
we do not use it for improvement, it is because we
lack wisdom or grace, or both,. to make the most of
our opportunity.
" But there is, of course, a loss," it will be said,
"as to the privileges of refined society, in going
West." To this we say, " In your refined society, so
called, there is much that is artificial, formal, and
sometimes hollow. We have learned that there is
such a thing as being civilized and refined almost
to death. Experience has proved it to be a real
luxury at times to get out of the conventionalities
of artificial life, into the frank atmosphere of true
" log-cabin hospitality." The free-and-easy ways
of new-country socialities we heartily put down as
on the side of gain, rather than of loss. Indeed,
those of us who have been here longest almost
sigh for things as they used to be twenty years
ago ; when all were more 'upon a level, when every
house was open and every latch-string out. No
one need fear loss in this direction.
Some ministers, even, may like to be in the neigh-
borhood of newspapers, where names somehow
creep out in public print ; and near anniversaries,
and platforms, and speeches to be heard, and
made. There is in this a pleasure, and a kind of
privilege. The only gain we have to suggest here
is that involved in laboring away from all such in-
LOSS AND GAIN. l6l
fluences in the main, away from all appeals to- pride
and ambition, in a kind of obscurity and isolation,
where the true motives of the ministerial work have
a better chance to operate, and where, as they are
felt, and they alone, purer and richer rewards of
ministerial labor are realized.
There is one more point to be considered, in
respect to which all will doubtless concede that the
Western field has the decided advantage. It is the
privilege of helping to make things ; of growing
up with them, and seeing the fruit of one's labors.
" I would rather," said an old settler, "I would
rather help build a log schoolhouse, and see things
grow, than live in a country that is all made. "Not-
withstanding the hardships of a new country, there
is little doubt that the generation that makes a
country enjoys it better than one that takes it after
it is made. The pioneer minister shares in all this
work of construction. It may be in many respects
a hard work. He begins low down, but at every
upward step he has a peculiar joy. He sees a little
flock gathered almost as " a flock in the wilderness."
He joyfully shares their first communion-season.
The earthen plate and glass tumbler are in due
time exchanged for a real communion-service. He
sees, in different directions, gospel institutions and
influences beginning to take shape around him.
At length a meeting-house is built. This is for
him a great day. He sees how that new house of
worship helps to make for him nearly a new con
gregation, a new Sabbath school, and of himself
14*
l62 THE IOWA BAND.
almost a new minister. Most of all does he rejoice,
when, in connection with this new sanctuary, as is
often the case, the Spirit of the Lord comes down,
and the spiritual keeps progress, with the material.
Men who gave of their money for the material
temple are often the first to be brought as lively
stones into the spiritual building.
So he goes on, with fresh joy at every step.
Home-missionary churches become self-sustaining,
and their pastors find themselves in a developed
country, with the fruits of their labors about them.
The frontier fields of a quarter of a century ago
are now in the heart of the country ; and those who
entered them with the feeling that they were going
so far away as scarcely ever to be heard from, find
that they were striking for the very centres of
position and power. This, however, was by the
direction of God's wisdom, not theirs. In all this
there is great gain. He who labors from year to
year with an Eastern church, that, by dint of hard
work, simply holds its own, is doing a good work.
He who in faithfulness stands by a waning church,
whose young people are all leaving, renders a noble
and self-sacrificing service. In each case there is
faith and heroism ; but, if God will, it is pleasanter
to see results accomplished, to feel the throb of
enterprise and progress around us, and to see new
forces fast accumulating, through which the little
we do shall tell for good in the ages to come. In
this is our especial gain.
Some may dislike, possibly, the first relations in
LOSS AND GAIN. 163
which, so far as our denomination is concerned, the
process just alluded to in this Western country is
generally begun, the relations of a home-mission-
ary in connection with a little home-missionary
church, or some new place yet churchless. But is
there not something good, yea, noble, even in this ?
When one thinks of the prayers offered for home-
missionaries, is it not good to be one of them ?
When one thinks of the Christian donors who give
so freely for home-missions at the West, is it not
good to be an almoner of their bounties ? When
one thinks of what it is to plant and foster a Chris-
tian church in a new country, he may well rejoice
in the work, and gladly accept the relations in
which so many are co-workers with him. Bring-
ing his little church, by the blessing of God, up to
self-support, he may well feel that his work, though
humble, is yet a great and good one. He who, on
mission-ground, has done it once, twice, or thrice, is
an honored servant in the kingdom of Christ. Sur-
veying thus the past, we claim no honor, no great-
ness, but bless God for opening before us a field
in relation to which, as we balance the loss and the
gain as compared with fields that might have been
found nearer our Eastern homes, we are constrained
to say, No loss : especially gain !
. Were youth renewed with our past experience,
we are quite sure, if allowed of God, we would
strike for some new field, only careful that it were
small enough for us at the first, and then to grow.
CHAPTER XVII.
IN MEMORIAM.
HITHERTO my life has been preparatory.
I want to live : yes, when I think what
God will do for Iowa in the next twenty years
I want to live, and be an actor in it." Thus ex-
claimed one who came here to labor in the ardor
of youth, but was early called to die.
Looking back through our quarter of a century,
we recall others who have also fallen by the way.
It is due to them, and meet for us, that they should
.have a place in these reminiscences. The names
of all, of course, cannot appear ; only such as stand
freshest in -mind as we take our backward look.
The words quoted at the opening of this chapter
were those of the one first taken, and he from the
Band. This was Horace Hutchinson. He died
at Burlington, March 7, 1 846. He was a native of
Sutton, Mass., a graduate of Amherst College in
1839, an d of Andover Seminary in 1843. His
disease was hereditary consumption, against which,
for years, he had been struggling. Not quite thirty
years of age, having been permitted but little over
two years to prosecute his Master's work, to which
he had become ardently attached, and for which,
IN MEMORIAM. 165
by his natural enthusiasm and richness of intel-
lectual culture, no less than his culture of heart,
he was eminently fitted, and just settled most hap-
pily in his domestic relations, it was no wonder
that he felt that he was just ready to live, and
wanted to live ; that it was hard to die. Yet he was
cheerful, resigned, and ready. His end was peace.
What a breach was made in our ranks, not only
as we missed the light of his cheerful face, and the
warmth of his genial nature, but felt, that, in all
plans for Iowa, the benefit of his sound judgment
and hearty aid, on which we had begun to rely,
were so soon removed ! How, by this early death
among us, was our work more seriously and de-
voutly apprehended ! How keen was our sym-
pathy with her who was thus early called to
exchange bridal robes for weeds of mourning !
Though removing soon after from the Territory,
and entering into new relations in a neighboring
State, she was still reckoned as one of us. Mrs.
H., for a time Principal of Abbott Female Semi-
nary at Andover, Mass., was subsequently married
to the Rev. S. J. Humphrey, April 18, 1854, and died
at Newark, O., Aug. 18, 1860. She was born at
Grafton, Mass., Feb. 20, 1823. . Thus, by that first
death, did God teach that there were paths of
sorrow for us to tread, as well as of hope, success,
and joy. The lesson has been again and again
repeated. It will be pardoned, perhaps, if we
follow these providences, first in reference to the
Band.
1 66 THE IOWA BAND.
Four years passed away before the second came.
Eliza C. Robbins died at Muscatine, July 16, 1850.
She -was a native of Canterbury, Conn. ; born June 7,
1819 ; was married Sept. 27, 1843, and started in a
few days as one of the only two wives in that first
journey westward. Her lot, as has been told, was
cast in what was then called Bloomington, now
a Muscatine. She accepted it heartily. With
natural overflow of good feeling, and a happy turn
in all circumstances, she easily accommodated
herself to the numberless annoyances and discom-
forts of a new country. In no home were the
bachelor brethren more welcome than in hers.
Putting everybody at ease in her presence, she won
rapidly upon the hearts of the people. For seven
swift years did she act her part, singing as she
went, with a joyous heart ; and then her work was
suddenly ended. The cholera, that for a summer
or two raged on the river, seized her as a victim,
and in a few hours she was dead. Behind her
were left a stricken husband, three little children,
a bereaved people, and many mourning friends,
mourning, yet comforted ; for a cheerful light plays
about the sadness of that hour, as they remember
how she passed away in the strength of that beau-
tiful psalm, "The Lord is my shepherd," which
was read to her by a kind Christian friend in the
moments while she was still conscious, but unable
to speak.
Two years later, a third bereavement came. In
this case, too, a wife was taken. Sarah E. Hill
IN MEMORIAM. l6/
died May 21, 1852. She was born in Bath, Me.,
Aug. 8, 1 823, and was, therefore, twenty-nine years
of age. As a worker, she was confined to a 'few
short years ; but they were years filled with the
glowing enthusiasm of an ardent soul. Entering
with zeal on the mission-work, she attached herself
at once to every thing in Iowa. All the brethren,
all the sisters, all the churches, every thing in and
about her adopted State, was hers. Into every plan
and method of mission-labor she threw her whole
soul. The college, now in its prosperity, is the
result, in part, of her faith and her gifts. It is not
strange, that, to-day, her two sons, as Christian
young men, are on the lists of its students ; for,, in
their infancy, she gave them heartily and believ-
ingly to the Lord. After the labors of eight
years, some of them at frontier points, where
mission-work meant hardship and privation, she
has found her grave on the banks of the Missis-
sippi. Summer by summer there are those passing
up and down the river who are wont to think,
" There on those beautiful bluffs was our sister
buried." How soon all such travellers shall cease !
A few more years, and God spake again : this
time, also, by the removal of a wife and sister. As
her name is written, all who knew her will remem-
ber her quiet, gentle ways, the sweetness of her
disposition, the steady, humble traits of her Chris-
tian character. Naturally retiring, she found her
province and her sway chiefly in the realms of
domestic life, and yet won esteem and influence in
1 68 THE IOWA BAND.
wider circles. It was with apprehension that we
saw the paleness of her cheek, amid the devotion
of a wife and the cares of a mother ; but we feel
now that it was meet that a spirit like hers should
be taken to a better world. Harriet R. Ripley
was born at Drakesville, N.J., Sept. 13, 1820, and
died at Davenport, April 4, 1857, at the age of
thirty-seven.
It remains for one more lesson to be noted.
This time it is the death of a brother ; bringing us
down to March 31, 1867. Then died, in Ottumwa,
B. A. Spaulding, the second of the Band now
deceased. He was truly a man of God. Pos-
sessed of more intellectual worth than it was his
ambition to show, his aim was, in a frontier field, in
the true home-missionary spirit, to lay foundations
for Christ. This he did in many a heart and in
many a place. At the first, his was pre-eminently
the work of an evangelist. Travelling on horseback
over the New Purchase, he had twenty-five or
thirty different places of meeting, some of them a
hundred miles apart ; preaching in groves and
cabins, and organizing churches, where, ten years
before, had been the Indian dance. For years he
toiled thus, till, in due time, it was his privilege to
see the heaven-pointing spires, to hear church-
going bells, and to welcome new laborers in that
at first wild and uncultivated region.
It was in these years that he subsequently
declared he had more joys, amid greater hardships,
than at any other period of his life. Gradually his
IN MEMORIAM. 1 69
labors were contracted within narrower limits, till
he became the pastor of the church in the place
he at first selected as his home, and where he died.
It was his privilege to be an actor in the twenty
years for which Brother Hutchinson longed ; and
yet he was not satisfied. His disease, too, was con-
sumption ; and, as it began to be apparent that he
must yield to it, his words were, " Oh to do more
for Jesus ! Oh for ten years to live, and do some-
thing for Christ ! " But his work was done ; and
he was resigned, as, on a Saturday night, the death-
shades gathered thick about him. " Is this the
dark valley ? " he inquired. Being told that it was,
" It will not be long/' he said. " Will it last till
morning ? " It did last till morning. At the
Sabbath dawn he passed up to the day of rest.
He was born in Billerica, Mass., July 20, 1815 ;
was a graduate of Harvard College and Andover
Seminary. Dying March 31, 1867, he was fifty-
two years of age. He left a wife and one child.
We have now noticed where a husband or a wife
has, in repeated instances, been taken. Meanwhile,
children have been born, and children, too, have
died ; but of them we cannot speak in detail. We
must be content with this bare recognition of God's
chastening hand in their removal. Changes have
been going on outside the Band. A few names
will be given, such as are freshest in the mind of
the writer. In other minds, doubtless, there are
other names not given, just as fresh and just as
worthy of mention as those that will appear.
15
I/O THE IOWA BAND.
First, as intimately associated with, because near
as to time and place to, that of Mrs. Hill, was the
death of Brother Thompson. William A. Thomp-
son died May 3, 1852. All who were in the State
at that time remember the mystery that shrouded
this calamity. Judging from his intentions when
he left home, and the position of his horse and
buggy when found, it was thought he must have
been drowned in attempting to row a frail skiff
across an arm of the Mississippi, in high water
and a boisterous wind. There were suspicions of
foul play, but they were not regarded as well
founded. For weeks, search was made for his body
in vain. Standing by the newly-made grave of our
sister, upon the bluffs overlooking the waters of the
Mississippi, the thought was, " There, somewhere, is
the grave of our brother." The following June, as
the brethren were holding their annual Association
at Muscatine, a few were walking, at a leisure hour,
by the river's side, when a human body was seen
floating towards the bank. Was it, could it be, that
of their brother ? This was the question that
flashed on their minds. It soon appeared almost
to a certainty that it was even so : yet to identify
the body was difficult. Of the signs, they were not
absolutely sure. A garment sent to the anxious,
weary wife established the fact. Thus, sixty miles
below where the sad accident occurred, God brought
to us the consolation, that at least the body of our
brother had been found. We buried it in the same
ground where was buried the first sister taken.
IN MEMORIAM. I/I
Brother Thompson was a good man, humble,
earnest, and prayerful. Entering the State at the
same time with the brethren of the Band, he was
reckoned as one of them. His loss was deeply
felt by all.
Those here in the autumn of 1853 remember the
joy occasioned by the arrival of two young men,
apparently in the vigor of life, directly from their
seminary studies. Mysterious has always seemed
their fate. One of them, as he entered his field,
seemed to labor as with the blessing of God on
him, a young man of rare mental and social quali-
ties, and ardent piety. How astounding was the
news of his sudden illness and death ! Strong were
the sympathies that his young wife carried back
with her to her Eastern home. The brother here
referred to was E. C. A. Woods, who died at Wa-
pello, Nov. 4, 1854. Born in Newport, N.H., Sep-
tember, 1824, he was thirty years of age.
The other was Oliver Dimon, who went to Keo-
sauqua. By his excellences he gathered about
him the affections of his people. But disease was
on him ; and he soon became prostrated, and was
carried back to his Eastern home to die.
Similar to these cases was that of another, who
had been trained among us. Joseph Bloomer was
converted in one of our churches, a member once
of our college, though he graduated at Amherst
in 1856. From the first, so eager was he to be in
the field, that he could not wait the usual course of
study. It was well, perhaps, in his case, as one des-
1/2 THE lOWA BAND.
tined to early death, that he did not. He went to
McGregor late in 1857. His labors were limited
to a few brief months ; but they were months of
much zeal and great promise. The people felt
the power of an earnest preacher among them.
" Sharper sermons," said one, " I never heard, than
fell from his lips. I do not know, but, under God,
he would have converted the whole town had he
lived." He died suddenly, Feb. 21, 1858.
Another called from his work on earth was L. R.
White. He, too, was a young man ; though he was
permitted to labor several years among us, first at
Le Claire, then at Summit, and then at Brighton.
At Le Claire, with great labor, he secured the erec-
tion of a house of worship. Many a one knows
the toil recorded in that brief sentence. At Brigh-
ton he did the same thing. The sad fact in our
memories is, that the first gathering held in the
new meeting-house was that convened at his
funeral. 'His death was occasioned by a cold, to-
gether with over-exertion in his efforts to secure
the completion of the house at a given time. He
wrought, as many another missionary has done,
with his own hands. He died at Brighton, May
30, 1858.
Later down, a father in the ministry is taken.
Alfred Wright died at Durango, Nov. 8, 1865.
Few who ever knew him will soon forget the
inward grace that shone out on his cheerful face.
So, also, we think of French, Waters, Mather,
Brown, Leonard, and others.
IN MEMORIAM. 1 73
Meanwhile, sisters were also passing away.
There was one under whose roof, in the earlier
years, we used always to find a hearty welcome, and
whose calm trust and cheerful endurance preached
us many a sermon ; who, after years of suffering,
died in the triumphant hope of joys to come. This
was Mrs. Emerson. She closed her life at Sabula,
January, 1856.
A few months earlier, one who had recently come
among us, and was just entering joyously into our
Iowa work, was called to the higher service of
heaven, Mrs. Sarah W. Guernsey died at Du-
buque, May 10, 1855. Her remains rest in the old
burial-ground at New Haven, Conn. Pleasant
memories of her and her Christian activities will
long linger with those who then composed her hus-
band's flock.
Another was Mrs. Abby A. Magoun, a sister of
Mrs. Hill. Of gentle nature, she was firm in the
service of Christ. As a Christian woman, a mother,
and a pastor's wife, she adorned her calling and
station. She, too, sleeps on the banks of our beau-
tiful river. Her death was at Lyons, Feb. 10, 1864.
We must speak of another, who, a little later, died
at Durant,Dec. 7, 1866, Mrs. Mary F. Bullen. We
could not, if we would, efface from our minds the
sweetness of the expression she wore. Not even
by death's cold touch shall it be marred. We well
remember it, as turned to a heavenly smile.
There are memories, too, of dear brethren of the
churches, of the hospitable Edwards ; the venera-
15*
1/4 THE IOWA BAND.
ble Cotton, a lineal descendant of old John Cotton of
Boston ; of Father Vincent, who, at one of our meet-
ings, said, the brethren were all daguerreotyped on
his mind ; of brethren, too, at the East, who in heart
have been with us and of us, such as Mackintire,
Carter, and others. How many come to mind, who
to-day are with the multitude around the throne ;
who rest from their labors, and their works do
follow them !
In the summer of 1863, during the Associational
Meeting at Burlington, a few of the brethren, with
their wives, went out to the grave of their Brother
Hutchinson. Gathering around it, with uncovered
heads, they bowed in prayer to God that the man-
tle of all that was excellent in him might fall
upon them.
As we linger thus among the memories of the
departed, may all that was noble in their lives and
excellent in their characters be with us that re-
main, to 'stimulate and to cheer, till our race, too,
shall be run, and we shall be reckoned with them !
Since the foregoing was written, and while this
work is going through the press, another name is
to be added to those of the Band who have gone.
Erastus Ripley died Feb. 21, 1870, in Somers,
Conn., aged 55. He was born in Coventry, Conn.,
March 15, A.D. 1815 ; was a graduate of Union
College ; also of Andover Seminary, in tl\e class of
1843. Elected as resident licentiate, he remained at
Andover till the spring of 1844, when he joined his
IN MEMORIAM. 1/5
classmates in Iowa, taking charge of the church in
Bentonsport. He remained at this place till the
summer of 1848, when he was chosen the first pro-
fessor of Iowa College at Davenport. From this
time he was identified with the interests of the col-
lege ; at first the only, afterwards associate, teacher,
as Carter Professor of Ancient Languages, until the
time of its removal to Grinnell in 1859. Shortly after
this he returned to his native State, where, until his
death, he was engaged in the profession of teach-
ing, in which he took a high rank. Mr. Ripley's
leading powers were those of a linguist. He was
a good preacher, an enthusiastic teacher, and
sought to lay all on the altar for Christ. His
work is done, and he, too, has passed away.
CHAPTER XVIII.
OUTLOOK AND CONCLUSION.
THUS have we cast our thoughts backward.
For a moment we have held this fair land in
view, as, but a few years ago, its forests, its prairies,
its rivers, were vast solitudes of Nature's richness
and beauty, which for centuries had waited the
magic touch of civilized life. Here, with the
thronging thousands, have the lives of those of us
that have been in Iowa for the last three, five, ten,
twenty, or thirty years, entered in.
By these reminiscences, in the changes wrought,
have we been led to think of our individual work
and associated labors. We have thought, too, and
perhaps,' in passing, have shed the tear of affection
as we have thought, of thos.e who entered with us,
and have fallen by the way. In the midst of the
serious and the sad, there has been much to encour-
age and rejoice. We have not labored in vain ; but
th end is not yet. To the most of us that have
been here even the longest, life, with somewhat of
health and vigor, is still spared ; and work yet
remains.
We take not our review as in evening's shade,
with the armor off, awaiting repose ; but as at
noontide heat, with the outlook of demands, oppor-
OUTLOOK AND CONCLUSION. I//
tunities, and labors before us of the declining day.
And what see we here ? A mighty State, which as
yet even is but in the dawn of its development.
Of her area of fifty-five thousand square miles,
there are two-thirds, or twenty-five millions, of its
rich acres that as yet bear upon them the native
prairie sod. Already the fourth State in the Union
in the production of some of the cereals, what is it
yet to be ? It is only here and there that her water-
courses, abundant in their privileges, have been
made to turn the busy wheels of art ; while her
extensive fields of minerals and coal have but just
begun to be worked. Her system of railroads
with near two thousand miles already in operation,
with the converging lines meeting on its western
border, there to unite with the great Pacific is yet
to be completed. Then will she lie, as favored of
God, on the great highway of the nations, and as
central therein. Then by her roads and rivers she
will send out from and draw to herself, as she lists,
from the North and the South, the East and the
West.
It only remains for a growing population to carry
out and develop all these resources garnered in
her bosom. A guarantee for this we have in the
record of the past. In 1836, the population was
ten thousand ; in 1846, ninety-seven thousand ; in
1856, five hundred and nineteen thousand. Now,
in 1870, it is estimated at one million and a
quarter. How it will stand when he who re-
views the next quarter - century shall announce
178 THE IOWA BAND.
the figures, a conjecture will not be hazarded.
Nor as to the scenes of development and pro-
gress which it will be his privilege to unfold, will
any prophecy be made. Only this : if by the ap-
pliances of education, virtue, piety, religion, the
tone and vigor of the people can be kept up and
improved ; if her schools, colleges, institutions, and
churches can be made to act well their part, the
results in this State for the country, the world, and
for God, will be glorious. Here, then, with all
others of the good and the true, is our work and
our labor. If, to any, the sun of his day seems to
be hanging low, let him do with his might what his
hand findeth to do. Surely, in Iowa even, the
mission-field is but just entered.
But let us extend our view. West of us there is
already a region containing four millions of people,
where, twenty-five years ago, there were none.
Here is opening the West of to-day. Here are
almost two-thirds of our national domain, all organ-
ized into States or* Territories, rapidly filling up,
but as yet, in the main, almost destitute of the
institutions of the gospel. In Washington Terri-
tory, with its seventy thousand square miles ; Idaho,
with its one hundred thousand ; Montana, a third
larger still ; Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada,
none of them smaller than the others, some larger,
in all these, the number of the laborers of our
order can to-day be counted upon one's fingers,
while that of all other denominations is small.
This is not from want of people, but because the
OUTLOOK AND CONCLUSION.
laborers are few. The tide of population from all
parts of the world stays not, and the work grows.
Here, truly, our home-mission field is almost bound-
less. Nor is this all. The work is far from being
complete in the States east of us, as well as in our
own ; while all over the South, the cry, no doubt,
will yet be heard, " Come and help us also." The
spectacle before us is almost appalling : it is really
so if we gaze long enough to see in the character
of our people, and the genius of our government,
the necessity, the absolute necessity, of the gospel of
Jesus Christ to fuse us as one, to purify and preserve.
Failing to supply this, our nation fails, becoming as
effete and worthless without the preserving salt.
There are certain notorious facts that may well
alarm us. Not only are there alarming destitutions
in the newer portions of the country, but there is
equally alarming indifference in the older. A fourth
part of our thirty-seven millions of people are habit-
ual neglecters of public worship. Organized efforts
are made in many quarters to break down the sanc-
tity of the Sabbath. Infidelity is rife. The press is in
a great measure corrupted and corrupting. Profan-
ity, intemperance, corruption, political and financial,
are sadly prevalent. These influences must be
withstood, if our country is to be safe. The only
efficient counteracting influence is the gospel, the
gospel for the people. The work of giving it must
ever be largely a home-mission work. Even now,
with such an outlook before us, we seem to stand
only at the threshold of the home-missionary enter-
prise.
ISO THE IOWA BAND.
After looking at the past in what now seems to
be this little field of Iowa, with this glance around
and before us, reflections of various sorts crowd
thick upon us. In the utterance of a few will be
found our conclusion.
For the Executive Committee and the Secretaries
of the Society prosecuting this great home-work :
It is yours to stand as upon the watch-tower, sur-
veying the wants of this vast, outspreading field,
and to make report of the same to the people. It
is yours to direct the money and the men volunteered
for their supply, and to report of progress made.
You stand as at the very centre of the whole. Of
the responsibilities of your position, the great trust
reposed in you by the churches, we have not a
word to say. These you have well considered, and
no one else can feel them as you can. Nor is it an
exhortation to be faithful that we presume to offer,
but simply an All Hail ! in your great and glorious
work ; to join with you in thanks to God for his
blessing upon it in the past, with a hearty God-
speed for you in the future. May enlarged wisdom
and grace be given you for the enlarged and grow-
ing wants of the field !
For the donors : If you have wasted money
anywhere, it is not in this work. Here, bread cast
upon the waters returns again after not many days.
Here is a great and growing want, which, so far as
you are concerned, money alone, with prayer, can
supply. For your money, then, we appeal in the
name of all that is near, dear, and precious, in the
OUTLOOK AND CONCLUSION. l8l
name of home, country, Christ, and souls. Fill up
the treasury at New York, that, for the want of
money, this great work stay not. In money are
the sinews of war. We found it so in the great
struggle just passed ; and how like water was it
poured out ! How selfish, how mean, and how sor-
did, he who would hoard it then ! But a greater
conflict is now raging between the good and the evil,
all over the land. It is the old warfare of the two
kingdoms ; and never, in any country, was the
conflict sharper than in ours now. Never before
was such a prize to be lost and won. On the one side
are the standards of the arch-enemy, and many are
flocking thereto : on the other is the banner of
the cross. That victory may perch upon it, the
great thing needed is, that churches, mission-
churches of the Lord Jesus Christ, be planted
everywhere, out upon the frontiers, up and down
the land, as outposts, forts, and citadels of the fight.
Will you furnish the means ?
For the young men : Men are needed as well as
means. You in colleges and seminaries, with the
ministry in view, and you in the churches, that
have hearts that can feel and tongues to express
the things of Jesus, let us speak to you. A few
young men there are out in these Western fields,
who never saw a seminary or college, who are suc-
cessfully feeding the Lord's flocks in the wilderness.
Would that we had hundreds, yea, thousands, of
them ! Christian young men in our churches, are
you, if God will, just as ready to be ministers as
16
1 82 THE IOWA BAND.
you are to be engineers, merchants, or farmers ?
You that are in colleges and seminaries, are you
willing to go anywhere to preach Jesus ? " Send
me," said one at the home-missionary rooms, more
than thirty years ago, " send me to the hardest
spot you have." They sent him ; sent him where
it was indeed desolate and drear. But now, if all
is not as the garden of the Lord, he can at least
look around him, and behold the mighty things that
God has wrought. Young men, be not afraid to
launch out. There are no waters without the steps
of Jesus upon them ; and his promise, " Lo I am
with you always," reaches unto the ends of the
earth.
For our churches, the churches of our beloved
Iowa : The Lord hath blessed you ; but how much,
under God, do you owe to the Home Missionary
Society ! Recognize the debt. Look around you,
and see others in want. Feel the obligation by
every means in your power to attain the point of
self-support at the earliest possible period, and then
join in with your helpers, to be the helpers of
others. The time is coming, yea, now is, when the
churches of the West, in the matter of the great
benevolent objects of the day, must come up to the
help of the Lord as they have never yet done.
Let not those of Iowa be in the rear. Freely
have ye received, freely give. Not of your money
only : of your prayers and labors also, the prayers
and labors of your individual members, in the wise
work of winning souls around you, that each church
OUTLOOK AND CONCLUSION. 183
may indeed be a mission-church for the field within
its reach. By Sabbath schools, teachers sent here
and there, by neighborhood prayer-meetings, by
lay preaching, if you choose to call it so, upon the
Sabbath, by every method within the church and
around it, work for Jesus. In no other way can
our surrounding wants be reached. We cannot
call for ministers to do all the work. They are not
to be had ; and, if they were, it is better to be work-
ers ourselves. We cannot call upon the Home
Missionary Society for all the needed help. It
would be asking -for what it has not to give ; and,
were all the money and men at its command in-
creased a hundred fold, there are central and prom-
ising fields in waiting for them all, in the regions
around and beyond. With a limited supply, the
great work of the Home Missionary Society must
ever be to gather up and establish churches. Let
but these be true to their work, let them be mission-
churches in deed, as well as in name, and the sys-
tem will be more complete. Let the churches of
Iowa learn the lesson, and fill up the work remain-
ing to be done.
For the ministry of Iowa : To you who were on
the field prior to 1843, we cede the honor of being
the pioneers in this blessed work. By you, in
many respects, were the foundations laid, the key-
note of the true principles of our Christian work
and church-growth struck. If, after your years of
watching, waiting, almost despairing, you recognize
it as of God that youthful helpers were sent to
184 THE IOWA BAND.
you, they also recognize it as of him that you
were here, to be in many respects their light and
their guide ; and, among you, none more than he,
who, after his forty years of service in the gospel
ministry, has just laid off his pastoral harness.
May the Lord long spare him to be to us what
hitherto he has been !
Those who have joined us since 1843 will not
feel that they are excluded in this quarter-century
review ; for they, too, have been sharers in the work
accomplished. Let each be joyous in view of it,
according to the time and faithfulness given to it.
May you, dear brethren, as faithful workers for
Christ, be true lovers of Iowa, even as those who
have been longest here !
Finally, THE BAND : God hath been gracious to
us. Two only has he taken by death ; three have
been called to other fields of labor ; seven yet
remain. How much longer we are to labor here,
we know not. This we know : it is past the noon-
tide, and soon, very soon, the evening shades will
come. When the setting sun hangs low, God
grant that we may look back on a day well spent !
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