St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1895-01-21


blessed with an army of children. For
sleeping room they were straitened to
the tenSest strain of poor morality's
frail tenterhooks. Education was I'M
dreamed of. AS soon as a boy could
walk he was set to help maintain him
self. He was born to ignorance and
toll, as the sparks fly upward.
Even with unremitting labor and dill
igence, they had always the dread of
dismissal. For them there was no
court of appeal from a sentence that
was little worse than death. For, in
Tennyson's youth the tide of rural mi
grafton had not set in, and few men
wandered beyond the confines of
their own village from birth to death.
Yet these men, of a stubborn and I'M
yielding stock, were ready to undergo
the Severest privations rather than
condescend to accept charity. For
with the receipt of relief in the too
often recurring hard times, the strong
hold of manhood was broken down.
Poverty was no longer honorable. 1t
was no longer honest and endured with
pride. 1t became degradation and in
digence. The strong band which, in
the midst of awful sufferings, had
enabled them to maintain their dig
nifty and self-respect was snapped.
Dependence was disgrace. They lost
caste. They rapidly deteriorated in life
and morals. They became paupers.
Anything was preferable to this. If
one man endured privation, so did an
other. Suffering was the badge of all
their tribe. But serviiity, never In
dependence was life's brightest treas
Ure, and through toll and hunger and
misery they would not bate one jot
of effort to preserve it intact. 1t might
often prove poor compensation fol-
an empty stomach. Many time they
We're sorely tried. But they made no
whine of discomfort. They drew no
comparisons. Hardship was to them
part of the eternal course of things.
Why complain of fate, any more than
complain of the sun that brought light
and warmth to all, or of the winter
that brought cold, and pains, and ach-
ing fogs? Parliament had not dis
covered either them or the farmer.
They were catalogued in the frequent
royal commission reports, in company
with, though of somewhat less i'm
portance than sheep, pigs, cattle and
crops. Their griefs and joys, their
lives and death, were then outside the
range of political economy. Nothing
could be darker than their lot. No
alienation could be hoped for. The
laborers' grandest hope was that
"meeaster'' would let them work on.
that they might preserve their indie
pendence till the end.
Yet, if material consolation were de-
MED them, all were not without hope.
In the disused barn, or in some poor
meeting house, a few kindred spirits
would assemble together and worship
God in their own fashion. These early
Methodists and Baptists were no ordi-
nary men. True, in secular knowledge
they were ignorant. But they were
bound together in one communion and
fellowship, in their endeavor to seek
the Lord and to serve him Alright al
ways. They needed no human inter
mediary to interpret to them the lively
oracles of God. Though few in num-
Der, they were fervent in spirit. They
brought their cares and fears to him
who was to them, in a real sense, the
Savior of the world, shedding the
beams of his light over the darkness
of their life. The doctrines taught by
the local preacher might not agree
with those Of the catechism or the
Thirty-nine Articles. But they were
full of homely Illustrations drawn from
the never-failing store of their COM
mon experience or from the Grand
Ovid Book Smitten with the convic-
ton of sin, and touched with the hal
lowed fire of truth, they Spake out of
the fullneSS of their hearts. If their
utterance was wanting in the graces
of culture or if it lacked the finicking
nicetieS of grammatical correctness,
these deficiencies were more than
atoned for by their fiery earnestness,
aglow with the love of God and man
that sought only to minister comfort
to fellow travellers on the same weary
road that led to the home not made
with hands eternal in the heavens"
The little company of rude unlettered
men held their faith mistaken. They
believed they were entered into COM
munion with One who understands
their inmost needs; with One who,
Himself a man of sorrow, and like
them, acquainted with grief, was
touched with the feeling of their in
firmities. And with fervor the deep
er by contrast with their habitual sto-
lidity, they poured forth in prayer
their hopes, their struggles, their back
slidings, their longings for forgive
ness, and for that peace which the
world cannot give. They pleaded with
tears for their fellow laborers,
wrestling with the spirit in prayer if
SO be that they might be plucked like
brands from the burning, and become
of the number of the elect. The be-
attic vision filed their waking
thoughts. To them,
Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood,
Stood decked in living green.
And well for them it was to live in
the hope of a happier life beyond the
miserable hand-to-mouth struggle for
a scanty dole of daily bread.
It was evident that there was little
chance of material advancement or
worldly success to be gained from mem
bership with Dissenters. A convent
icle of poor and despised laboring men
would not yield any great social influ-
ence. To be identified with the sect
was to bar the road to ones own sue
cess. Fellowship with them would not
promote the prosperity either of
farmer or laborer. Promotion did not
lie through the meeting house Con-
siderations of this solid and sensible
nature, rather than spiritual misglv-
ings as to the sin of schism. would
probably induce the church warden to
shake off the dust of his feet against
the humble Nonconformists. His ad-
herence to the Baptists might have
been genuine. But it is more reasona-
bic to suppose, judging by his egotiSti-
cal confessions, that his allegiance was
rather from hope of financial relief
than from any desire for spiritual gain.
In the wave of discomfort that over
spread the country prior to the passing
of the first reform bill, it seemed to
many, and to this Lincolnshire farm
er among the number, that the old in
situations were lettering to their fall.
He thought Church an Staate' were
doomed, and that the Radicals and
Dissenters would be the rulers in the
new millennium, when ''toithe an
raate" would be no more. But the
dream faded. The Reformers were
not reyolutionists. The bill became
law, and men breathed still the air of
freedom. The old institutions stood
intact. Church an Staate" were more
firmly rooted for the storm. He had
miscalculated. He believed in the gos-
pei of "gittin' on He must git
'igher." His thoughts turned with
yearning towards the church. Why