Fourteen years ago I attended fifty-one funerals in twenty-one months. This large number was due to the fact that toward the south and west the nearest minister was ten miles off, north and east over twenty miles; and though there were only some 450 souls in White Cloud, we may safely put down 3,000 as the number who looked to this point for ministerial aid in time of trouble.

The traveller by rail passes a few small places, and may think that between stations there is nothing but a wilderness, for such it often appears. He would be surprised to learn that one mile from the line, at short intervals, are large steam-mills with little communities—forty, fifty, and sixty souls.Here and there are many of the Lord's people, who, overwhelmed by the iniquity they see and hear, have hung their harps upon the willows, and have ceased to sing the Lord's song. They feel that if some one could lead, they would follow; and the call for help is imperative, if we take no higher grounds than that of self-protection. Hundreds of children are growing up in ignorance, and will inevitably drift to the cities. It is from these sources that the dangerous classes in them are constantly augmented.

It is hard to believe that in our day, in Michigan, should be found such a spiritual lack as the following incident reveals. One night just as I was falling asleep, a knock aroused me. A man had come for me to go some five miles through the woods to see a poor woman who was dying. The moon was shining when we started, and we expected soon to reach the place. But we had scarcely reached the forest when a storm broke upon us. The lightning was so vivid that the horse came to a stand. The trees moaned and bent under the heavy wind, and threatened to fall on us. No less than seven trees fell in that road some few hours later. Our lantern was with difficulty kept alight, so that we made but little progress; for it was dangerous to drive fast, and, indeed, to go slow, for that matter. We spent two hours in going five miles. As we were fastening the horse, I heard cries and groans proceeding from the house, and was met at the door with exclamations of sorrow, and, "Oh, sir, you are too late, too late!"

This was an old, settled community of farmers; some eight or ten men and women at the house, some of whom have had Christian parents, and yet not one to pray with the poor woman or point her to the Lamb of God.

Did they think I could absolve her? Did they look upon a minister as a telegraph or a telephone operator, whom they must call to send the message?

We often read of the overworked city pastor, and the contrast of his busy life with the quiet of his country brother. But the contrast does not apply to the home missionary who has a large field, as most of them have. Let me give some incidents of one week of home missionary experience. On Saturday, a funeral service. Sabbath, two Sunday-schools and preaching. Monday, I visited a poor Finnish woman, suddenly bereft of her husband, who had been fishing on Sunday in company with three others—a keg of beer which they took with them explained the trouble. Tuesday, attended the funeral, closing the service just in time to catch the train to reach an appointment nine miles off. Friday, received a telegram to come immediately to a village, where a man was killed in the mill. While there, waiting for the relatives, expected on the next train, another telegram came from home, calling me back instantly.

Yet we cannot stop, for the work presses. Did we not know that the Lord is above the water floods, we should be overwhelmed.

I am tempted to write a few lines about a family that came to Woodville just before Christmas. It consisted of a mother, son-in-law, three daughters, and two sons. Before they had secured a house their furniture (save a stove and a few chairs) was burned. They were very poor, and moved the few things they had left into two woodsheds, one of which was lower than the other, so that after the end of one was knocked out there was a long step running right across the house. Now, fancy a family of six in here in winter time, with no bedsteads, a table, and some broken chairs and stove, and you can imagine what sort of a home it was. The widow felt very despondent, hinted about being tired of life, and mentioned poison. One morning, after drinking a great quantity of cold water, she turned in her bed and died. The coroner's jury pronounced it dropsy of the heart, and waived a post-mortem examination.I felt much drawn toward the children during the funeral service, and spoke mainly to them. They seemed to drink in every word, and I believe understood all.

Three weeks later a daughter lay dying of diphtheria. She called the doctor, and told him she was going home to live with Jesus, and was quite happy. One week from that time a son followed, twelve years of age. He also went quite resigned. I shall never forget the scene presented at this time; the dark room, the extemporized bedsteads, the wind playing a dirge through the numerous openings, the man worn out with night-work and watching, stretched beside the coffin, the dead boy on the other bed, two more children sick with the same disease. People seemed afraid to visit them. I gave the little ones some money each time I went. The little four-year-old, a pretty boy, said,—

"You won't have to give any for Willie this time, I have his."Death seemed to have no terrors for the little ones. I talked to them of Jesus, and told them he was our Elder Brother and God was our Father. The little boy listened as I talked of heaven, and seemed very thoughtful. In another week, to a day, I was there again. The little fellow was going too; and now he said,—

"I want you to buy me a pretty coffin, won't you? and put nice leaves and flowers in it. I am going to heaven, you know, and I shall see my brother. Jesus is my brother, you know."

And so he passed away like one falling to sleep. I could not but think of the glorious change for these little ones, now "safe in the arms of Jesus." From a hut to a mansion, from hearing the hoarse, gruff breathing of the mill to the chanting of the heavenly choirs, from the dark squalor and rags to see the King in his beauty, to hunger no more, to thirst no more, neither to have the sun light on them nor any heat, to be led to living fountains of waters, to have all tears wiped from their eyes—who would wish them back?

I remember in one case a man whose wife had run off with another man, and had left him with two boys, one an idiot. The poor little child was found dead under the feet of the oxen, and when the funeral took place the man with his remaining son came through the woods and across lots to the cemetery, while a man with the coffin in a cart came by the road. The only ones at the funeral were these two and the carter, with myself.

I visited one home where nine out of eleven were down with diphtheria. Two young girls in a fearful condition were in the upper rooms; nothing but horse-blankets were hung up in the unplastered rooms, but they did not keep out the snow. The father and the man who drove were the only ones beside myself at this funeral. In one family four died before the first was buried.

It made me think of the plague in London, and the man tolling the bell and crying, "Bring out your dead." Scarlet fever, small-pox, and typhoid were epidemic for some time, and it was then the people began to appreciate the services of the minute-man.

Some cases were rather odd, to say the least. One night a boy was lost. I suggested to his mother that he might be drowned, and that the pond ought to be searched. Her reply was amazing: "Well, if he's drownded, he's drownded, and what's the use till morning." Here was philosophy. Yet at the funeral this woman was so punctilious about the ceremonies that, seeing a horse which broke into a trot for a few steps, she said "it didn't look very well at a funeral to be a-trottin' hosses."