Year: 1879

which our own hands had helped to fash


ION, and which we had occupied SUNDAY


alter Sunday. while from the desk was


expounded TO US the way of life. And


near the church was the graveyard where


some oil the same flesh and blood with


ourselves lie buried, and where we had
Just deposited the remains of a beloved


tather. But my time and your patience


would fail if were to tell of all the scenes


witnessed and the impressions felt.


Returning home made flying visit


through corner of Illinois. At Wyanet.


Bureau county, | was pleasantly enter.


tanned by the family of friend who has


grown gray in the good work of dspens.


ing the bread of life to the spiritually


hungry. May God bless him and his good


wife in their old age. He has son, too,


following in his footsteps. found him


genial. wholc.souled preacher of The gos-


pel-one that loves his work and believes


he has Il divine call to it. Would that the
good Maker of all would raise up more
such men,. We got into his buggy and he
drove out into the country, visiting the
place where he spent his boyhood days,
and other scenes of interest. l found he
country more rolling than expected.
Evidences of thrift were every where. 1t
seemed almost impossible to believe that
In the memory of men, and those not very
old either, that whole country was II
desoate prairie. But the soil was rich
and men have got rich tilling it.


l found in Mercer county some school
mates of Vermont whom had not seen
for nearly twenty years. Their father had
taken him a farm there when the country
was new. but dying when they were
young. they returned to Vermont till they
were of age, when they moved back on 10
the old-or rather the new-place. Now
they consider their land worth $500 per
acre. They have good buildings, orchards,
schools and churches. A railroad runs
near by, and a town is built plenty close
enough. Coal and wood are plenty there,
and one can have his choice and defy the
winters wind. We visited coal mine
near by. A vein not quite three feet thick,
imbedded between two rock formations
and running under hill, was being
worked. We descended the shaft about
forty feet and took a survey of the SUBJ
terranean cavern they had excavated. Not
very pleasant work crawling around in u
room less than three feet high. with floor
sometimes wet, and always black and
grimmy with the coal dust. l think the
miners earn their money. They get six
cents a bushe for their coal at the mouth
of the pit.


Corn and hogs are the principal staple
in that part of Illinois Hogs are every
where. Corn is selling now for twenty
five cents per bushel. At the new railroad
station at Reynolds they had Just put up
three long cribs-a hundred feet long
each--and they were already filled. The
farmers alternate between corn and tame
grass. Not much of the original prairie
grass is to be seen. The wild grass has to
recede before the civilized timothy and
clover, just as the Indian must give way
to the superior civilization of the white
man. | saw few tufts in one place
skirting the edge of field that lay alonga
ravine. but that was all.


reached home just as Jack Frost with
the forces of the mir had succeeded in in
another blizzard. 1t was sting
ing cold the morning | stepped off the
train at the station nearest home. Nv
friends begged of me not to think it had
been that way during all the time | was
gone. For their sake concluded to be-
lieve it, and for the credit of Minnesota
put it on record. WE.