The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1906-01-21

put in the collection plate the largest
church contribution that you have made
In years
Big Work for a Boy Of Nineteen.
Many persons who are acquainted with
the meteor-like ministerial career OF
Newell Dwight Hills. who first came
prominently before the country the
successor TO the late Prof David Swing
In the pulpit of Central church, Chicago,
have maTVclCd at the success that has at
tended him from the very beginning Of
his pastoral work. This was in Peoria.
In 1851 where he built fine new church
a year after going there. He was then
Perhaps the explanation Is partially
found I'm the circumstance that while stIll
at his books, young Hills gained a whole
lot of valuable experience organizing
Sunday on his own hook,
While he was attending the academy
which his father helped to found at Grin
nell. Ia, going out from Yale for that
purpose. he determined to become a
preacher. This decision was reached
largely through the influence OF Henry
Ward Beechcrs sermons on the boy and
In this connection II is interesting TO note
that the preacher who is today filling
BeecherS old pulpit Is no other than
Newell Dwight Hills. on leaving the
academy he was imbued with the idea oil
forming Sunday-sChOols in places where
they did not exist, and TO that end he
boarded a c.. Il. & @ train and did not
leave it until the jumping-ofG place was
reached In "A little IrcQuCntcd part of the
Nebraska prairie.
with this hitherto unworlSed country as
a field. this ninetcen-year-ol young man
went about for a year preaching In the
schoolhouses and the churches, organz-
ing SundaN-SChoolS In every community
that he entered, Forty-nve Sunday
schools were organized and, incidentally
eight churches
The next year during his freshman va
cation from Lake Forest university. he
spent eleven weeks organizing Sunday
schools In Wyoming, going into practi-
cally every town in the Territory except
Laramie and Cheyenne, Twenty schools
were organized this trip
His scheme OF work was simple After
a night spent under the roof OF a settler s
sod house, he got of by himself and rcnd
about the community, seeing all the peo-
pie. announcing his meeting and endeaV-
oring to interest the men by telling that
he had read In secret n few hours before.
Perhaps at this time the Sunday-school
superintendent and the directors would
be picked out. He usually directed two
or three meetings. remaining until the
school was In good running order Then
II was up and onward to the next settle
mcnt.
Through his efforts a Sunday-scbooI
was not infrequcntly provided with a good
library as well as the necessary hvmn
books. After he had finished speaking in
Wyoming mining camp saloon to two
hundred and Ofty miners aud Cowboys
lOonkceper made young Hills stand up
while the crowd filed his pockets with
silver-Sl25 In all.
lie was due to leave on the waiting
stage but he shortly returned to the
camp with a hundrcd-volume library and
two hundred hymn books. The saloon
Keepers wife volunteered to take charge
OF the hymn books, and when he bade
farewell TO the camp, Sunday-SchooI n
circulating library and a singing school
were In full swing.
The first part of this work was done
without outside assistance After he had
organized ten or fifteen schools young
Hills learned, 10 his surprise that SINH
lar work had been carried on Systcmati-
Cally for years by the American Sunday
School union Of Philadelphia. His later
work was done under the unions diroc-
ton DR.. Hills himself acknowledges the
great debt he owes to his experiences in
this work
How Hills Got His Famous Beecher