Presented to the LIBRARY of the
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO
by
T~> -IITI /\ ryv -. c\ i miT'"1 T AT1"1"' \K f\r>~" ^TTT '
DEDICATION.
TO THE BAPTIST YOUNG PEOPLE'S UNIONS, INTO WHOSE HANDS WE GIVE THE TORCH OF THE GLORIOUS GOSPEL OF OUR BLESS ED LORD TO BE CARRIED FARTHER INTO THE DARKNESS OF HEATHENDOM, THIS BOOK IS INSCRIBED.
THE LATE REV. JOHN EDWIN DAVIS, M.A. Missionary to the Telugus- 1887-1904.
THE LIFE STORY
OF
A LEPER
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN E. DAVIS Canadian Baptist Missionary among
V '
1089283
PUBMSHKD KY THE
CANADIAN BAPTIST FOREIGN MISSION BOARD 223 Chuivh St., Toronto, Canada.
PREFACE.
On the suggestion of my brother George and fellow- missionaries, I have written this brief sketch of my life. I cannot see to write a word myself. 1 cannot speak out loud. A large part of my body is paralyzed, so this has been a slow and difficult task and has taken a long time. 1 wish the reward of a rich blessing upon the lady who so kindly gave me her spare moments to write down my thoughts. 1 could not sit and write and re-write as I might if I were well. Xor could I wait until I wras in the mood for writing. I had to work whenever I could get some one to write for me, and so the pictures are not so graphic nor the sentences so smooth nor the thought so cohesive as I would like.
J. E. DAVIS.
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
The first edition of 1,000 copies of the ''Life Story of a Leper" sold rapidly, and we are glad to issue a second and larger edition. From all over the land have come expressions of inspiration received from the reading of this wonderful life. We are sure that the book will yet find its way into thousands of homes. It is everywhere deepening interest in that most unfortunate class of people in India — the lepers — and it is a strange Provi dence that the one through w^hose prayers and pleadings the Leper Asylum at Ramachandrapuram is so largely due, should himself have become a martyr to the disease. Mr. Davis never ceased to express his appreciation of the attention of the doctor and kind nurses at the Government Asylum at Tracadie, X.B., where he spent the last five years of his life, and of the thought fulness of the "Mission to Lepers in India and the East," to whose generous support the Leper work at Rama chandrapuram is so greatly indebted and whose Secre tary in Great Britain, visited him and ministered to him during his stay at the Hospital for Oriental Diseases in London.
Toronto, Jan. 5th, 1918. .1. G. BROWN.
CONTENTS.
Page
Preface 4
Introduction , 5
I. Parentage, Farm Life and Youth 9
II. Pioneer Life in the Canadian West 23
III. Working My Way through College 35
IV. McMaster and the Missionary Call 53
V. The Passage to India 68
VI. My Missionary Apprenticeship 79
VII. The Revival and the Hypnotist 93
VIII. Gnruimirti, The Timpany School and Samal
kota Seminary 108
IX. My First Furlough 130
X. A Fateful Choice, Bribes and Revival 151
XI. The Lepers, The Blue Mountains and
Demons 168
XII. Crushing Burdens and the Final Break... 190
XIII. Stricken with an Incurable Disease 21.')
XIV. Struggle for Life and Defeat 22!)
XV. Five Years in the Lazaretto 252
XVI. The Glorious Kmi 280
INTRODUCTION.
Here is the life story of a remarkable character. In an age when heroism is being: displayed in world dimensions on a trench line driving twice across one continent and through a sector of a second, and when the saying is current that there are no ordinary men, but that the men of entire nations are heroes, we- find a man who stands the severest test of high courage, and emerges amongst his fellows a super-hero.
Judge Hughes, the author of "Tom. Brown's School Days," in his "Manliness of Christ," speaks of three types of courage. One is that of the man who, in the excitement of battle, with cannon roaring and bugles blowing and men shouting, rushes up the fire-swept slope and captures the battery at the summit. A higher form, is that shown by tire man taken unawares while standing on a dock, when the cry of a drowning person, friend or stranger, suddenly tests him, and he responds by risking his life to save a perishing fellow. The highest is that of the person who stands and waits, and who through long years of testing struggle and trying temptation, of calumny it may lie, of misrepresentation and persecution, refuses to lower his ideals, or to sur render the unselfish purpose to which lie has devoted his life.
This is the supreme type of courage. This is the courage of the Christ. The first is the courage of the mass, the second i!uit of the individual man, the third is divine. The real test of the coin-age of those splendid fellows now fighting in the trenches will come when, maimed and broken, they return to their ordinary pur suits and take up again the common tasks of life. If with poor health and the limitation of lost limbs ami shattered powers, they shoulder those tasks and cany them through without complaining and without vindic-
6 THE LIFE STORY OF A LEPER
tiveness; if they still maintain inviolate their high ideals and remain true to the unselfish purpose which impelled them to offer their lives on the altar of King and country — then they will go down in history as heroes of the highest type.
Such was the courage of John E. Davis, the very finest type of heroic Christian manhood. Tested to the limit, he proved true. I knew him in college, where we roomed together. 1 travelled with him to India, and through sixteen years fought side by side with him on the thin and far-flung battle line in the great world- struggle. In the last fifteen years of his life I visited him as often as it was possible, and kept up corre spondence with him to the end. He never once failed. I never even feared that he would. At one time, at Norwich, in the early days of his affliction, it seemed as if lie had reached the limit, and that he must capitulate : but he did not. From that time forward, his courage took on the higher form of a noble heroism that increased in brilliance to the glorious end.
He remained true when all life's fondest hopes, all the fruitage of years of laborious seed-sowing and preparation, were suddenly and tragically blasted. In the full maturity of manhood, when all life's currents ran richly, the blight of a separating malady fell upon him and doomed him to a lingering death. The years thus spent in slowly dying were all he needed to crown his unselfish efforts with the reward of a great achieve ment. The denial of that achievement wras his chief affliction. To trust the hand that bars the way to well deserved success, is the severest test of faith. From that test John E. Davis emerged a victor.
Wearing the white lily of a stainless life, a most guileless and pure soul, he was at first suspected of having contracted a disease as loathesome and danger ous as that from which he suffered, and as foul
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN E. DAVIS 7
morally, as his real malady was physically; and yet his temper did not sour. However, he suffered such torture under the lash of that absolutely baseless suspicion, that he once exclaimed, ''Hell is not a place; it is a mental condition, and distrust and suspicion are its malignant elements."
He loved his family with a demonstrative tender ness, but owing to the dangerous character of his sick ness, he repelled their affectionate advances, without being able to explain. He lived daily seeing them lavish their endearments and embraces on others, and though he yearned for them with intense longing, he rigidly repressed his impulses. One less strong could not have resisted so alluring a temptation. When the hopeless nature of his affliction became evident, he urged his wife and pleaded with her, to let him quietly retire to the Lazaretto in Tracadie, and there pursue the easier path of suffering patiently, until death should release him. But she argued that she could not live without him ; to leave her woidd be to kill her; nor could she then leave the children to go with him into exile; so for her sake, and not his own, he remained with them.
lie was the most irrepressibly hopeful of men; even hilariously optimistic. On those hopes fell the crushing and deadening weight of a loathesome disease. There was no possibility of a cure short of a miracle, and very little possibility of any alleviation, and yet his hope was indomitable to the end. He trampled despair under foot, and laughed at despondency.
He was one of the most sociable of men. His capacity for Christian fellowship was boundless. His fondness for congenial company amounted to an insatiable crav ing. Yet the last six years of his life he spent amongst people of a strange tongue and an alien faith. He was Mind, and, toward the last, utterly helpless, but his hope held firm. His courage never failed. His fnilh
8 THE LIFE STORY OF A LEPER
was uiidimmed, his joy unabated. These were amongst his last words to me: "Don't think me unhappy. My little room shines with the glory of an invisible pres ence, and my heart thrills with the abiding fulness of the joy of God." Men who came to commiserate, went away themselves comforted. Many whose faith stag gered at a visitation so relentless as that which his marred and broken body presented, returned from his company with a new sense of the mysterious power that alone can. sustain and satisfy. He demonstrated this one great outstanding truth, that "not possession or position, not health or friends or human fellowship, but the presence of the Spirit of God in the human, heart alone can satisfy."
II. F. LAFLAMME. New York City, July 1, 1917.
CHAPTER I. Childhood and Early Recollections.
I WAS born in the village of Wicklow, County of Northumberland, Ontario, Canada, on the 17th of February, 1858. My father's name was Mordecai Low Davis and my mother's Mary Wilson. My father's father was Welsh and his mother German. My mother's parents came from Ipswich, England, had a coat-of- arms, and had been educated in London. At their wedding they were given £500 each, emigrated to Canada and settled in the forest near Woodstock, Ontario.
We were a large family, consisting of seven boys and two girls. .My mother used to cut and make all our clothes by hand, for sewing machines were not yet invented. My father was not a good business man. He lost heavily by signing notes for others, who ran away to the States and left him to pay them. He also went to Pennsylvania with his family, and spent two years in litigation over the estate of his father, who died intes tate. He was offered ten thousand dollars for his claim, but came back to Canada poorer than when he went. His father was ;i I . K Loyalist.
Just after this he met with several bad accidents. Upon one occasion, he fell off a load, the waggon ran over him and he had five ribs broken; he also had his jawbone broken by the kick of a horse, and one leg broken three times. He became a cripple and lost his farm while the family were all small: hence we children had to struggle to make a living. My brother George left school at twelve years of age and carried about a peddling box, selling small articles from house to house to help support the family. I remember keep ing the cattle out of a field for a neighbor, when I was four years old. I got a penny a day and my dinner. When I had worked three days, and lli»i hay
10 THE LIFE STORY OF A LEPER
was all drawn in, he paid me three pennies and said, "Now, my little man, what are you going to do with so much money?" I said, "Please, Sir, I'll give it to my mother- to buy tea with." It was the first money 1 had earned, and I held it in my hand and ran all the way home and gave it to my mother. We all worked during the holidays at anything we could get to do. Although we were poor, our mother kept our clothes clean and well mended, and we looked about as well dressed as the children, of well-to-do families. My Father was not a Christian at that time, but mother used to take clown the family Bible every morning, and calling us all together, would read a few verses and explain them and then bow with us in prayer and ask God to keep us from sin and temptation during the day. No matter how great a hurry we were in, she would never let us begin the day without prayer. Sorrow and suffering had brought her close to Jesus, and she determined to bring her family us to serve Him. She taught us to hate liquor and to shun those who were accustomed to drink. Later on, my father was converted and joined the church and never touched liquor again ; but he was never- fully able to support us. My eldest brother rented a farm when he was sixteen years old, and was really the manager1 of the household. We were all brought up to hard work, both at home and For1 our neighbor's; but we were strong and healthy and never seemed to be tired. We attended the Baptist Sunday School and church every Sunday, and generally went to the prayer meeting orr Wednesday night. My mother was intensely religious, and her words aird prayers have been ringing in. my ears all my life; and if I have been of any use in the world to God or my fellow-men, 1 owe it to my mother1 arrd the teachers in the Sunday School where I spent my childhood days.
1 was just five years old, and probably did not know what sin was till the following took place. As it had
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN E. DAVIS 11
an. important bearing: on my after life, I desire to record it. My mother had gone to the village, and my eldest sister was in. charge of us younger children. 1 was very I'ond of cucumbers, but my mother had forbidden me to eat them, except when they were put on the table. Ve had a nice lot in the garden and 1 deter mined to '|et one. 1 asked my sister for a knife to cut a notch in my arrow. I had previously put some pepper and salt in my pocket, and when 1 had made the arrow ready, slipped the knife into my pocket also; and going out With my bow and arrow, 1 began to shoot here and there about the garden. Each time I shot the arrow a little nearer the cucumber patch. At last 1 was down under a hill, where my sister could not see me. I then threw down my bow and arrow and crept on my hands and knees up to the cucumber patch. I cut off two large ones and went as quickly as i could around to the back of the house and into the woodshed. There was a little loft in the woodshed, where the older boys used to lie down and take their noon rest. F climbed up the ladder as quickly as possible, and lying down on the buffalo robe, peeled one of the cucumbers, got out my pepper and salt and ate it. I had just begun to peel the other when my sister appeared at the top of the ladder. She had missed me, and remembering that I had kept the knife, suspected that I was in mischief. She took the cucumber and knife from me and made me come into the house. She told me over and over again what an awful sin I had committed. E had disobeyed my mother and told a lie, and God was very angry with me. When mother came home and the family gathered for supper, she told them all what T had done, and 1 was sent to bed without any supper. My little face flushed scarlet, and 1 was so ashamed that I wished 1 could die. As I lay on my bed sobbing, my mother came up with the Bible and read me the
12 THE LIFE STORY OF A LEPER
story of Ananias and Sapphira. She told me how they v, ere struck dead for telling a lie, how angry God was with them, and how all the Christians of that time were frightened at this terrible judgment. By the time she had finished the story I thought my judgrnent day had come too, and that God was about to strike me dead. I didn't wish to die then, as 1 had done before, for I was terribly afraid. My mother assured me that God would forgive me if I repented, and kissing away my tears, made me say the child's prayer and then bade me good night. But for months afterwards, whenever a thunderstorm came up, I thought God was a Her me to strike me dead, and I would run to the house and crawl under my mother's bed. 1 thought she was so good that God wouldn't touch me while I was there. This impression of God's anger against sin, made 011 me so early in my life, has lived with me until this day. Had my mother passed over it lightly, or spoken of it as a smart prank 1 had played on my sister, my life might have been altogether different. It is these earl}^ impres sions that, shape our lives and mould our characters. Parents ought to be exceedingly careful about such matters.
I left school in April, when I was nine years of age, to harrow in the grain, and from that time on never attended school in the summer. But after the roots had been gathered in in the Fall, I went back and attended during the four Winter months. This I con tinued to do till I was about fourteen; then I took a team and drew cordwood to market during the greater part of the Winter season". I remember taking a load of hay twelve miles to a hay market when I was four teen. I got it weighed and sold it, I had to pitch it off myself through a window hole in a driving-bant, hitch my horses to the back of the sleighs and draw them out. backwards to the street again through a little narrow lane. This required considerable skill, for I
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN E. DAVIS 13
had to hold the tongue of the sleighs and guide the horses by my words. No one offered to help me, but I succeeded in getting out safely. I then got my money, fed my horses, ate a cold dinner, and drove back home in the afternoon.
I was very fond of horses and learned to ride and drive them in my early childhood. One of our neigh bors was an expert, and used to break in all the wildest horses in the country, lie often called me to help him ; hence I learned how to use all the ropes and appliances for .throwing kicking and ugly horses. This practical training was useful to me in after life, and I never was afraid of any horse, however ugly he might be. At this time we rented a large farm of three hundred acres and kept thirty cows. I used to milk eight every night and morning, and often in the harvest time, when my older brothers were busy, fifteen or twenty. We sent the milk to the cheese factory during the week, but on Sundays we had to store it in the cellar. My oldest brother and sister, who had attended Colborne High School for two years, were away from home teaching school by this time, and my brother Charles had become manager of the home. We all worked hard during the day, but in the evening played games or gathered around the organ with my youngest sister and sang songs and hymns till mother would come and order us off to bed. My brother James and I went to Barnum's Circus to see the wild animals, but we were more interested in the clowns and the gymnastic per formances. From that time 011 we used to practise walking on our hands and turning handsprings during the noon hour, while the others were taking their rest. We soon succeeded and were able to turn seven hand springs in succession. A hard day's work in the harvest field did not seem to tire us, for we would walk miles and spend half the night in hunting coons. The rough
14 THE LIFE STORY OF A LEPER
out-door life developed our constitutions and made us strong and able to fight our own way in li!V.
My Conversion.
In the year 1873, when 1 was fifteen years old. Elder Lacey, our aged pastor, conducted prayer services every evening during the first week of the Xew Year; and as one or two young men were converted, he was led to continue the meetings. Before the month was over the people began to come from all directions; every night the church was so full that they could not seat them. At this time, the "Rev. J. B. Moore, an evangelist, came to assist the pastor, lie was a young man, full of life and energy, and had a wonderful influ ence over the young people. Almost every night someone professed faith in Christ as his Saviour. Old men wept over their sins and backsliders were restored to fellowship in the church. I attended all these meet ings and was deeply wrought upon by the Spirit, but pride and the fear of my companions kept me back. One night a boy that I used to go to school with stood up in the meeting and said that God, for Christ's sake, had forgiven all his sins, and he was very happy. This confession was the sword of the Spirit that pierced my heart. I got up, went down out of the gallery and walked two miles and a half home. I thought if this boy could find forgiveness in Christ, I could too. From. that time on I began to confess my sins, with repentance and tears, and ask God to give me a new heart. I used to walk by myself at night and pray by the hour; but the more I prayed the more my sins came up before me, and by the end of February I was just as far away as ever. I had fasted, prayed and wrept over my sins till I was worn out, and still T w-as in darkness. T made up my mind that T was lost. 1 had read in the Bible that God's Spirit would not always strive with man, and another verse, "Quench not the Spirit," and 1 began
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN E. DAVIS 15
to think that God had taken His Spirit from me. Mr. Moore came to supply our church as student pastor for the summer. His sermons and prayer meeting talks were so earnest that a number of young men and women were converted, and 1 also was deeply moved by the Holy Spirit. I used to go behind the barn every night to pray, and I promised God that T would give Him my heart and serve Him all my life. But when Mr. Moore returned to college I gradually became cold and indif ferent to spiritual things, until the death of my little brothei-, the youngest of the family, brought me near to the Lord oner more. I used to go out into the fields, in the starlight, and there pour out my heart, to God in prayer and plead with Him to forgive my sins. Over and over again I promised to be faithful and serve Him ; but association with wild companions soon caused me to forget all my promises, and I felt that God wns greatly displeased with me and that there was no forgiveness for inc. I made up my mind that I was lost, that my mother and the other members of the family would go to Heaven, but I would be sent to Hell. I thought it was just and right that it should be so, but did not tell my mother for fear it would cause her pain. 1 stopped praying and just made up my mind there was no hope for me. After I had been in this frame of mind for a week, 1 went to feed the young cattle that were kept in a barn about half a mile away. As I rode up to the straw-stack, a verse of Scripture came into my mind: "All we like sheep have gone astray: we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all." It was like a light from Heaven. 1 understood it now — Jesus had borne my sins upon the cross and I was free. He cried out : "It is finished," and gave up the ghost. I knewlhat my pardon was purchased by His blood and that I was saved. It all came to me in a moment, like a flash of
16 THE LIFE STORY OF A LEPER
lightning from the heavens ; and I was so happy that I burst into tears and knelt by the straw-stack and offered thanksgiving and praises to God for His great mercy and loving kindness, to me. I then hastened and cut open the ice in the creek for the cattle to drink, fed them all, and jumping on my horse, rode home again. When. I was going down the lane, 1 was singing that old familiar hymn—
"Oh, happy day that fixed my choice On Thee, my Saviour and my God.
Well may this glowing heart rejoice And tell its raptures all abroad.
Happy day, happy day,
When Jesus washed my sins away."
My mother heard me singing, and when I put my horse in the stable and returned to the house, she ran out to meet me, and putting her arms around me, said: "My boy, have you found Jesus?" I said: "Yes, mother, I have." She replied, "I thought so when I heard you singing. I knew you were in trouble about your soul, and I have been praying for you ever since those meetings began." On Saturday mother and I went to the covenant meeting that was held in the church. There T told the pastor and members of the church that I had found peace through faith in the blood of Christ, and I wanted to be baptized. T was received by a hearty and unanimous vote and baptized on the following Sunday evening with twenty- four others. About sixty persons in all were baptized during the great revival in the old Haldimand Church. This was the happiest time in all my life. For weeks afterwards it seemed as I wrere walking on air, and God w^as very near me. I was no longer afraid of the opinions of my worldly companions. The wildest young man in the neighborhood told me he was glad that I had taken a stand for Christ, and that he wished he had done so too.
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN E. DAVIS II
My Fall and Restoration.
After the crops were in, I went to Colborne to be a clerk in a store. I took care of a horse for my board and got three dollars a month for my work. This seemed very small pay, but some clerks did not receive anything during the first three months in those days. I had the promise of promotion if I did my work well. I was determined to succeed; hence I was always at the store early in the morning, had it opened, sprinkled and swept clean, and the sidewalk swept before any of the others arrived.
They told me I wasn't to sell anything during the firsi month, but just to sweep and dust, practise doing up packages, watch the others and see how the business was run.
I began work in the grocery department and the second morning' I was there two teamsters called for tobacco. I took the money, and before the week was over began to sell things just as the other clerks did. I was the youngest and latest arrival in the store; hence the others wanted me to do all the disagreeable work and leave them to wait on the customers. This I refused to do. I took my share of the sweeping, dusting, clean ing lamps and carrying eggs and butter in and out of the cellar; but when I began to wait on a customer, 1 would not let any of them take my place. This caused considerable friction, but I was firm and would not yield to them. They frequently reported me to the manager, but at the end of the month he increased my wages one dollar; so I knew I had won his good opinion.
I had to stay till nine and sometimes ten o'clock three nights during the week; but the other three nights I got off at six. I had never lived in a town before, and
18 THE LIFE STORY OF A LEPER
did not know anything about the temptations of town life. The other clerks all smoked and swore and did not object to taking* a glass of whiskey, when they were treated or had enough money to buy it. Tom -was my companion, and in the evenings often took me to the bowling alleys or the billiard rooms. If he had any money, he would try a shot at the target. If he hit the bullseye, he was allowed three shots free; but if he missed it, had to pay ten cents more before he could shoot again. If he played billiards, it cost him so much an hour for the use of the table. Besides this the boys generally played for the drinks; hence there was a good deal of treating and drinking. 1 had no money to spare and did not take part in the games. I told Tom those fellows keeping the bowling alley and billiard saloon were too lazy to work and were getting rich out of the money we worked so hard for; that the boys were a lot of fools to toil all the month and give their money to those lazy loafers, and that I did not intend to do it. Tom perfectly agreed with me that they were making; an easy living, but he could not resist the temptation, when he met with other young fellows in the evening, so 1 had to keep pretty much to myself. There was no Baptist Church in Colborne at that time, so I attended the Methodist church on Sundays. I did not know anyone and nobody took any interest in me. T soon found that the town was a place where everyone looked out for himself. The boys were sharper than the country boys, but not so honest.
Before the summer was over, T was receiving six dollars a month ; but T did not like the work and determined to go back to the farm. The manager then offered me an advance of two dollars a month if I would stay, but as they kept liquor in the cellar and always treated their customers, I refused.
AITOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN E. DAVIS 19
That summer spent in town gave me an insight into another side of life about which I had before known nothing. I did not go very far astray, but 1 learned to smoke cigars, and certainly lost a good deal of my spiritual life.
J teamed cord-wood and logs nearly all the following- winter. Sometimes I was invited out to parties where there was dancing. At first, I took part only in the games, but as I was very fond of music, I soon joined those who were dancing. There was no particular harm in this, but 1 was associated , with pretty wild com panions, and often the young men had liquor hidden in their sleighs or in the barn. During the next two years, little by little I was led away from the church and my first love for Christ. Once or twice 1 played dominoes for the drinks in a hotel. 1 generally took cigars, and did not drink much; but the other three young men all tried to see who could drink the most, and consequently got pretty drunk before we went home. One night I went to a dance where there was liquor and some rough company. Two of the young men got drunk, quarrelled and fought, and on the whole it was a disgraceful proceeding. Another young man and 1 took our young ladies and quietly left for home. When 1 had bidden them good-night, I started back to my own home again ; but 1 felt so ashamed of having taken a lady to such a place, and so afraid my mother would find it out, that I did not know what to do. At last I thought, if my mother* will feel so badly, what about my Saviour, whom 1 have promised to love and serve all my life? 1 was so overcome with grief that I could not go any further, so I threw myself down in the fence corner and there wept and prayed and confessed my sins to God. 1 said, "() Lord, if you will only forgive me this once and take me back into your love, I will never wander- away again, nor even trust myself any more."
20 THE LIFE STORY OF A LEPER
As I groaned in agony over my sins I remembered a verse of a hymn. I heard them sing in church :
"What peaceful hours I once enjoyed!
How sweet their memory still! But they have left an aching void
The world can never fill."
A young man had said to me shortly before this: "You wTould make a first-class athlete if you were not so d— - religious; that has spoiled you for this world." What he said was quite true. I had partaken of heavenly things and this world would never satisfy my heart again. I remained in that fence corner until after four o'clock in the morning and then wralked quietly home, tossed the bed clothes about, laid aside my evening suit, put on my working clothes and began a newr day's work with a tired body, but a glad heart. I had been unhappy during all this time, but now it was over. On the following Wednesday night I attended the prayer meeting, and when there was an opportunity, 1 told the brethren and sisters how I had been wandering away from God, and asked them to pray for me. After the meeting was over they gathered around me, shook my hand so heartily and were so glad to see me back that I was quite happy. I felt God had forgiven me and my brethren in the church almost wept when they welcomed me back. This was my first and only fall. From -that time onward I set my face heavenward ; and though I have not been all I ought to be, still I have loved God and have tried to serve Him.
Light on My Future Career.
I had a conviction that I was not going to work on the farms always; hence my prayer was, "Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?" I had been praying in this way for two years, when one night, on my way home
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN E. DAVIS 2 I
from church, 1 knelt down in. a i'ence corner and began to pray. Suddenly, I heard a voice saying to me, "Go on just as you are for the present. 1 will show you the way and make you very useful." This may have been an inner voice, probably it was; but I heard it just as distinctly as 1 over heard any person speaking in my life. I looked about me, but there was 110 one there. I was so happy and so lifted up that I just sat there and laughed and cried with joy. Then I thanked God, arose and went slowly to the house. I told no one of this experience till many years afterwards. During this time i saved all my money and put it in the bank or loaned it at interest. Each Fall I went to see my parents and gave them twenty-five or thirty dollars; also col lected some from my other brothers and brought it to 1hem. Then I saw that they were supplied with wood, made tilings comfortable for the winter, bade them good-bye and returned to my work. By this time I made up my mind that smoking was an expensive and useless habit and that my money was not my own. So I threw my cigars into the fire and never touched tobacco again, but gave the money that I would have spent for cigars to the church and to missions. Another year passed by and I made up my mind that T would start to school again. I bought a set of books and •attended a, common school nearly all winter, with a view to entering High School and fitting myself to be a teacher. 1 did pretty well in the school and took up some work privately, getting the teacher to help me evenings. ! had been out of school so long that I found studying hard work; and as many of the young men in the neighborhood were going to Manitoba, T decided to go, too, and take up a homestead for myself. While I was talking over my plans with my sister, I received a letter from my brother George, saying that he had joined Doctor Crawford and was going West to build
22 THE LIFE STORY OF A LEPER
a Baptist College. He asked me it:' I would not like to come along. I replied in the affirmative. The following Saturday I went To town, bought some clothes, bade my parents and friends good-bye and 011 Monday morning took the train for the West.
CHAPTER II.
Pioneer Life in the West (1880-86).
I was always fond of adventure, and this going out
into the unknown just suited me. I travelled via
Chicago and up through the Western States, as this
was the only rail route leading to our Canadian West
at that time. When we got into .Minnesota a blizzard
came on and our train was snowbound for two days.
We had to form parties and go out to the farm houses
round about to buy bread and meat, as our lunch
baskets were about exhausted. Toward the close of the
second day, three engines came with snow-plows,
cleared the road and took our train to Crookston.
There we had our supper at a restaurant, bought the
daily papers and got aboard our train once more. There
was a story in the paper of a man who had left his farm
and gone south to Chicago, lie warned everyone
against going so far north to take a farm. He said the
cold there was so severe that he found his oxen fro/en
stiff, standing up against the stall in January; his hens
had all been frozen ; and during a blizzard he had to
fasten a clothes-line between the house and woodshed
for fear he would lose his way while carrying his wood.
The thermometer dropped to sixty-five below zero, and
he cold scarcely keep enough fire on to boil the kettle.
In March he resolved to get out and leave the land to
the Government, so he had started south on the train.
He said he saw four men standing beside the track,
leaning on their shovels; and as they did not move, he
asked the conductor about them and found they had
fro/en 1o dt-alh in December and had been standing
there all winter. This was all he wanted to see of the
North-West, so anyone was welcome to his land and
buildings. The absurdity of this story caused a roar
of laughter in the train, for we were going hundreds
of miles farther North.
24
THE LIFE STORY OF A LEPER
It was a slow, tiresome journey, and we were often stuck in the snow. The last sixty miles of roadbed had been newly laid and was not at all safe ; so we -were allowed to run only five miles an hour. We reached Winnipeg on Sunday and entered the frame Baptist church as my brother was preaching. I had been just a week on the journey.
THE LATE MRS. J. E. DAVIS.
Winnipeg was all new to me. The dog trains were coming in from different directions, bringing the mail; and men clad in buffalo coats were teaming goods with oxen around the streets. My brother and five students were there, and we spent a few days buying three yoke
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN E. DAVIS 25
of oxen and sleighs. Winnipeg: was full of men going out West for land. The Rev. Alexander McDonald, his sunny wife and a few Baptist brethren received us into their homes, and entertained us while we were making preparations for our journey farther West. They gave us a. farewell in the church on March 15th. We departed next morning with the thermometer at zero, feeling we had met with warm friends, who were praying for the prosperity of our enterprise.
We had heavy loads and the snow was deep, so we were able to make only about sixteen miles a day with the oxen. One set of sleighs was covered with canvas. We had a little camp stove inside, where we cooked our food and slept during the night. We shot a few prairie chickens along the road and cut what wood we needed from little bluffs of timber we passed. We reached Rapid City in eight days. My brother soon secured eleven hundred acres of land for the new Col lege, partly by homesteading. Dr. Crawford's plan was to have the students work the land in the summer and study mostly in the winter months, lie believed in manual training in education. •
We got out about fifty loads of wood and posts, up the river five miles, before the snow went off. I found a. homestead for myself nine miles south-west of the town.
We began plowing on the College bind on April 28th, put in about sixty acres of oats on sod, and broke one hundred acres more before August. My brother and I burned lime in a kiln at night and led the students hauling boulders off the prairie for our building during the day. I was strong, had never been sick, and did not think 1 ever would be. I remember, on one occasion, I had been up half the night and worked till noon the next day, when Hugh Crawford, the Doctor's son, who
26 THE LIFE STORY OF A LEPER
had a homestead near mine, came to me in trouble. He could not -strike out the lands with his oxen on the new prairie. He took my place at the lime-kiln: I walked ten miles to his farm, struck out four lands, each eighty rods long, got my supper- in his shack and walked back to the College farm by eleven o'clock that night, almost eaten up by the mosquitoes; but 1 was up at five the next morning as fresh as ever.
That summer in June my brother Charles and my father and mother all died of typhoid fever. My brother had been dead two weeks before we received the news: The mail was carried by stage one hundred and fifty miles west from Winnipeg. On this occasion it arrived on Sunday; and as the people surrounded the Postoffice, anxiously awaiting news from, their friends in the East, the postmaster kindly delivered our letter. I was watching the cattle out on the prairie when my brother- handed it to me. I was greatly surprised to hear of my brother's death, for he was a strong young man. As T sat there on the prairie thinking over the matter, I was fairly rebellious and in my heart was murmuring against God for taking him away. I had my Bible with me and was preparing my Sunday School lesson, when suddenly the wind blew over the leaves and my eyes rested on the forty-sixth Psalm, tenth verse: "Be still and know that 1 am God." When T read these words I felt that God was rebuking me. T hid my face in my hands as I lay upon the ground and murmured no more. I understood then that friends and relatives must all stand aside when God's call comes. Human love may soothe our dying bed, but it cannot keep us back from death. For a few days I went about my work with a heavy heart, but there is nothing like work to help us forget our trouble.
On July 9th, the second party of students arrived; one coming by the river bringing eleven tons of freight,
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN E. DAVIS 27
and the other four driving from Winnipeg with three horse teams and nine head of cattle. We had the freight to haul thirty miles, the hay to cut and our harvesting to do, as well as the erection of the. building. But we got to work; and as two .of the students had been masons, and another was a first-class carpenter, under their instructions twelve of us built the walls and put up a three-storey building 28 by 34 feet.
On October the first the stone work was completed and the building closed in. My brother then went east to Ingersoll, Out., and was married to Miss Lydia Harris. By that time the railway had reached Portage la Prairie, and he was back again in two weeks. Driv ing from the Portage his ponies got stuck in a slough about five miles from Rapid City. The word came to me after dark that night. I harnessed the horses, took a lantern and rode out through the rain to meet them. We exchanged teams and made our way back to the town.
Next morning, at five o'clock, I started for Portage la Prairie to meet Dr. Crawford, his daughter Emily, a lady student and our cook. When 1 had gone about ten miles 1 met one of the students, who was bringing a load of furniture. His wagon was down in a mudhole and his oxen could not extricate it. I hitched my horses ahead of his and drew them out; then proceeded on my way. Toward evening, when, I had gone about thirty miles, 1 came to a farm house and resolved to stay there all night. I took supper early and retired. It was a small log house with one room, and my bed was not curtained off. The lady of the house went behind a curtain when I prepared for bed. I was soon fast- asleep, for I was very tired. About ten o'clock F was awakened by a loud knocking at the door. The door opened and three ladies and an old man came in. As they were taking supper, I learned that Dr. and Miss
28 THE LIFE STORY OF A LEPER
Crawford were in the party. Then came the question, how am I to get up and dress myself and leave the bed for" the ladies? I waited until they were all gath ered around the table, and were busy taking supper and asking questions about the road and the dis tance they had to travel, when I managed to dress myself and leave the bed without being: seen. Then 1 introduced myself and they were very glad to meet me. Dr. Crawford and I took our buffalo robes and slept in a new house, partly built. It was a cold night, and as we lay on the floor, 1 felt very sorry for the poor old man, for f knew he had always had every comfort and knew nothing of the rough life in the West. The other women went to bed, but Miss Crawford sat in the rock ing-chair and cried most of the night.
The College building was ready for occupation, with its bare walls, eighteen inches thick. They were often nicely festooned with frost during the winter, but none of OUT- party of eighteen had a sick day. The students all studied as hard as they had worked. We had a Literary Society and a College paper, and we spent a profitable winter with my brother, his wife and Miss Crawford as teachers. We had four big wood- stoves to keep going, and for lack of money to hire help, my brother often went out five miles for a load of wood and taught his classes until ten o'clock at night. Many of us had been out of school for a long time, and hence we found studying hard work.
My -First Sermon.
Besides their studies many of the students went out among the settlers and preached on Sundays. Early in the winter, "Mr. Vansickle had arranged to preach to some settlers about five miles from the College. I accompanied him, as he went to preach his first sermon. It was a cold day, thirty-five below zero, but the people
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN E. DAVIS 29
turned out well and the house was full when we arrived. We had a good meeting, and Mr. Vansickle won the confidence of all wrho were there.
On our way home, he said to me, "I want you to preach the sermon next Sunday." 1 had never done such a thing and told him that it was impossible. But he would not let me off. So during the week T spent my spare moments preparing my sermon. The next Sunday, when \ve arrived at the house where the meeting was to be held, I was introduced to a gentleman and his wife and sister-in-law. They were all college gradu ates, and this made my task the more difficult. I was naturally very bashful, and trembled at the thought of si cinding up before people. My knees almost knocked together when first I rose to my feet; but by the time the singing and reading of the Scripture were finished, I had gathered a little more courage and lifted up niy heart to God in prayer for JTis blessing on my message and on those assembled. Although 1 had made good preparation, I forgot almost, everything; but I struggled through. I was so earnest in present ing the claims of (1hrist that one man was in tears.
We continued these meetings until the snow went off in the Spring. Other students did the same in other neighborhoods. Shortly after our arrival in "Rapid City, my brother gathered the Baptist people together and organized a church, lie also stalled a subscription list to build a chapel. While t4ie building was going up, they rented a hall and lie preached to them. He was fresh from college, and his strong, vigorous sermons, full of tenderness and passion, made the Bible a new book to me and quickened the desire in'me to preach the (Jospel. My brother Albert, who had joined the College party, also became a preacher.
Farming and Preaching-.
The Spring came and I went to my farm, built a
30 THE LIFE STORY OP A LEPER
shack and settled down for the summer. There were a few young men in tents and shacks, scattered here and 1here over the prairie, who spent their Sundays in. fishing- and shooting, or in playing cards and telling stories. There were also a few Christian families in the neighborhood, but no one seemed willing to conduct a service on Sunday. I could not keep still and let this state of affairs continue, so I got the use of a house for a service. Then I went around and notified all the young men in the vicinity. There was a lady hi the neighborhood who had been leader oi? a choir, and a number of the young men had good voices, so we began our meeting by singing a number of hymns. When they had all become interested in the hymns, I stood up and led in prayer: and after the reading of God's word, 1 did my best to point them to "the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world." i had made a beginning and could not go back, so 1 kept up the service all summer. 1 had no books to help me, and my sermons, at best, could not have been more than exhortations, but T had heard, "The crow does sing as sweetly as the lark when unattended." They had no one else to listen to, and had been without a service so long that they seemed hungry for the word of life. T toiled hard all the week and walked six miles and preached every Sunday.
The Boom.
When the next winter came on, I studied privately with Prof. S, J. McKee and Prof. J. E. Wells. The latter had come West to edit the Rapid City Standard, which was owjied by my brother. Besides reviewing my English studies, T got a good start in Latin. That was the year of the boom in the West. American capi talists came into Winnipeg, and began to buy town lots at extravagant pi-ices and sell them to one another, always raising the price. Soon they were buying lots
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN E. DAVIS 31
in every town in Manitoba and the West. People got excited and I never saw anything like it in all my life. Lots were drawn out on paper and sold where towns did not exist. People in Ontario sent money to purchase Rapid City lots lying in the marshy grounds of the river. The excitement ran high all winter, and the man who owned most of the town-plot suddenly became wealthy. He lost his head, was often the worse of liquor, lit his cigar with a five-dollar bill, invested heavily in syndicates dealing in town property, and died a few years later in abject poverty. Rapid City had thousands of surveyed lots, but only about fifty buildings. The railway had been surveyed to go through at this point; but a change of government car ried it next year twenty miles to the south. Brandon sprang up there and Rapid City collapsed.
The Americans did their sharp work, sold out at the right time, took their money and returned home. The whole country was bankrupt. Many were left in extreme poverty. Few men thought of paying their dobls. The boom killed all interest in the country and left all business in a state of stagnation for the next ten years.
I did not have any money to invest nor any faith in such wild speculation, so ! kept plodding away at my studies in the Academy that had been opened by Prof. McKee and my brother for literary students only; as Pi-airie College on the hill accepted only students for theology on the manual-labor basis.
A Close Call.
I spent a second summer on my farm and preached in two neighborhoods every Sunday. By that time 1 had concluded that preaching the gospel was to be my
life-work. In the Fall 1 relumed to the Academy and had Professors McKee and AYells as my principal
teachers. At Chrislmas I visited mv sister at
32 THE LIFE STORY OF A LEPER
Portage la Prairie ; and on my way back rode in the same car with. Miss Irvine, the lady teacher in the Academy. When we reached Brandon it was forty-two below zero. There was a strong wind blowing from the north-west, and the stage driver to Rapid City refused to face it. I told Miss Irvine we must remain in Brandon all night, but she was determined to hire a livery with two horses and go on. In a short time the driver came with one large, fine-looking horse and said be would take us the twenty miles in two hours; so we started out. The wind was so strong, and blew the fine snow in the horse's face so badly that the animal would turn right around in spite of the driver. I had to get out arid run ahead of the horse, and every now and then rub the icicles off his eyes and nose. At the half-way house the thermometer stood at sixty below zero. After getting warmed we took the trail again, but lost it ten times. Once we stopped our horse near a bluff of dry timber and resolved to build a fire and stay there all night. But I found the trail again and called to the driver to come on. By this time Miss Irvine had become so cold that she did not reply when I spoke to her. When we reached the Academy 1 carried her in and it took some time bring ing her to consciousness. The driver and I had Our faces frozen. Next day we heard of the death of several farmers lost in the storm. That was the hardest experience I ever passed through in the North-West. It was only by the mercy of God that we escaped with our lives.
In May, that year, I went to Winnipeg, wrote on the matriculation examination and was one of the successful candidates. Then I returned to my farm and broke fifty acres of prairie on. an adjoining section for a gentleman, as I had done the year before, thus earn ing two hundred dollars each year and completing my
A I TOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN K. DAVIS 33
homestead duties. That summer T also kept up my preaching- appointments. One Sunday T remember a Scottish family came eight miles, bringing the aged mother on a stone-boat with the oxen. They had no wagon and often came to hear the gospel and join in the worship. 1 shed tears of joy when T saw such faith and devotion, and this was reward enough for me. In the Fall I bade all the settlers good-bye and started for Winnipeg to attend college. The Church of England, the Catholics and the Presbyterians, all had colleges affiliated with the Provincial University. Naturally 1 chose the Presbyterian.
Prairie College and the Academy kept open for another year, with an enrollment of about forty students. But Dr. Crawford was receiving1 very little help from Ontario Baptists. Manitoba was passing through hard times. Markets had not yet been established. Oats could not be sold, even at fifteen cents a bushel, nor wheat at fifty. Six Baptist churches had been organized by the College party, and ten in all had been united in the Manitoba Baptist Convention. During the same period another Baptist College had been started in Toronto, with a million dollars of endowment. Dr. MacVicar was sent to Mani toba, and advised that Prairie College "he closed, and that all Baptist ministers he educated at McMaster Hall. Very little progress was made by Baptists in Manitoba for the next eight years. The American Baptist Home Mission Board gave employment to Dr. Crawford and Rev. Alexander McDonald in Dakota for ten years, and paid the salary of my brother, who went to Moose Jaw and organi/ed a church there. My brother Albert and some students of Prairie College removed to the Ameri can side, and are still there, while others went to Toronto. Prof. MeKee moved his Academy to Brandon and soon had over sixty students. Mr. and Mrs.
34 THE LIFE STORY OF A LEPER
"William Da vies, Sen., of Toronto, saw the great need of a college for Baptists in Brandon, as well as the great opportunity, and made substantial gifts, both for a new building and for endowment. Mr. McKee's Academy was merged in Brandon College, and he was made the leading professor, with Dr. A. P. McDiarmid as prin cipal. The College has grown into a great institution. Pioneers endure hardship, lay foundations, "set the ball a-rolling" and are often quite forgotten.
CHAPTER 111. Working My Way Through College.
During my last summer on the farm, Rev. Geo. Sale,, who was pastor of the church in Rapid City, came down to preach for me one Sunday in harvest time. Tt was a fine day, and so many came to the meeting that half the people could not get into the house. Many sat out side on benches around the door. He made me read the Scriptures and open the meeting with prayer. After the meeting was over I took him back to my farm, gave him a. cup of tea and then drove him to Rapid City. He told me he felt sure that God had called me to preach the gospel, and in fact the conviction had been steadily growing upon me that that was the work God would have me do. I could make money and be successful as a farmer, but this seemed to have no attraction for me. I knew, however, that in this day of light and progress, the minister of the Gospel must have anleducation that will qualify him to meet and deal with all classes of people. I resolved that, however difficult it might be, I would take the Arts course and pass the B.A. examination.
1 had never lived in a city before. T was a stranger at the College and a stranger in the church, and during the first two weeks I was more lonely than I had ever been when, camping on the prairie. 1 had never been among Presbyterians before, and was the only Baptist in the College. The students were mostly Scotch- Canadians. We bad the Campbells and Camerons, the Gordons and McPhersons, the MacBeths and McLeans, the Mclvers and McDougalls. They were great men at sports of all kinds, and some of them greatly ex celled in tin-owing the sledge-hammer and in putting the heavy weight and shoulder stone. They were also good football players. I did not know much about these kinds of sports, but. 1 joined the football club, and was
36 THE LIFE STORY OF A LEPER
soon chosen to play on the first eleven, where T con tinued to hold my place for three years. I had not been there long when one of their strong men picked my room-mate up and carried him out of the room. I laughed at the lad for allowing anyone to carry him out so easily. The big fellow then proceeded to carry me out also. I had been easily first among the students in Prairie College in wrestling, and so did not feel much alarmed. By the time he got hold of me and started to pull me toward the door, I put him down on the floor. After T had repeated it three times, he made up his mind that it was a greater undertaking than he had imagined. This gave me a reputation among the men, and I was allowed to go free from that time onwards.
The second Sunday 1 was in the city, I attended the Baptist Sunday School, and when it wTas over, Henry Sharpe, one of the deacons, shook hands with me at the door and asked me if 1 were a stranger in the city. When he learned who T was, he introduced me to his sister and they took me home with them to tea. From that time on, we became great friends; and when T felt the need of a change, I used to run over to their house arid have a chat Avith them, in the evening. He was a hard-working business man, but was constantly getting hold of young men who were strangers in the city. He would invite them to his own home to tea, and then take Them to church. His wife and sister co-operated with him. They sought to throw a good influence around young men and keep them from the hotels and billiard saloons. It is wonderful what a good Christian business man can do in his spare hour's, if he only realizes that he is a co-laborer with God. I soon became acquainted with the pastor, the Rev. A. A. Cameron, and his capable wife. They also took a kindly interest in me, and often invited me to their home; and, while taking tea together, he frequently told me of his boy-
\UTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN E. DAVI* O*
hood days and his struggle for an education, and gave me a word of encouragement.
There was a good Literary Society in the College, and the students put as much life and energy into that as they did into a game of football. Here we learned to declaim and debate and get accustomed to speaking on the public platform. Dr. Bryce, one of the professors, generally acted as literary critic. He was a scholarly man, and his criticisms were always wise and just. I remember one Friday evening after taking part in a debate, that I awaited his criticism with a good deal of anxiety. Tn summing up his remarks, he said: "I congratulate Mr. Davis on his maiden speech. He is a little nervous and bashful, but will doubtless get over that in. time. He is a strong, vigorous debater and made his points clear nnd illustrated them well ; but 1 would remind him that his metaphors and similies smack rather much of the farmyard for one who intends to lead a public life. I would advise him to read the poets and cultivate a taste for good literature." I felt he had let me off easy, but I made a mental note of his criticism, and from that time on I began to get acquainted with Tennyson, Long fellow and Shakespeare. T enjoyed the evenings in the Literai'y Society very much, for my life had been spent mostly on the farm, and T had not had an oppor tunity of meeting and associating with a body of educated young men. I had begun late in life and was behind in almost everything. This, at least, kept me humble and made me resolve to work hard and attain to something higher and nobler than T had yet attained. "VYhiMi Spring came, we had a pretty severe examina tion, and I failed in Algebra.
On a Summer Field.
I had taken some part in the prayer meetings at the Baptist Church, preached at the jail occasionally
38 THE LIFE STORY OF A LEPKR
of a Sunday morning:, visited the hospitals and taught a class in Sunday School; so the church licensed me to preach, and T went out to Southern Manitoba and began, work there. I taught school through the week and preached three times on Sunday. The preach ing places were six miles apart; and after preaching in the schoolhouse where I taught, I had to walk six miles west and take another service at two o'clock. From there I rode six miles to a village called Clearwater, on horseback, and preached at seven in the evening. Then I rode back to the central place of service, gave the horse over to Mi'. Maclntyre, who had so kindly loaned him to me, and walked six miles home alter night. I also conducted prayer meetings in two of these places, at which a few young people professed conversion, and some of the older ones who had wandered away returned to the Shepherd and Bishop of their souls.
One Saturday, while on horseback riding over the prairie, T lost my way, but came across a wagon track which I followed for two or three miles; then, suddenly, 1 saw in the distance some kind of a building. As ! rode up to it, F found it was a horse stable; and while looking about for a shack or tent, T discovered a dug-out. It was built on the side of a hill ; the walls and the roof were made of long strips of sod dug from the prairie; a, stovepipe appeared out of the top: and as a little smoke was curling up in the air, 1 concluded some body must be living there, and accordingly, went to the door and knocked. A lady appeared, and after a little hesitation invited me to come in. There was no floor in the building and very little furniture, but in one corner I discovered a piano. A few boards, had been laid down for a platform and it. was resting on them. The ladies slipped behind a curtain and soon appeared quite well dressed. I soon learned their storv.
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN K. DAVIS 39
Their husbands had been merchants in Montreal, had failed in business and had gone away to the "West with the hope of bettering- their condition in life. T found they were well educated and good musicians. One of them played the piano and we sang several hymns together. I prayed with them, invited them to attend the service on Sunday, and bade them good-bye. I never saw them again, but 1 heard they thought their clothes were not good enough to go out anywhere in society. They had seen better days and it was hard for them to accept their surroundings. It is easy for any one to ascend, but much more difficult to lose all and start over again. But they remarked that they never knew who their real friends were till after they became pooi1.
T enjoyed my summer's work very much. During my spare hours I reviewed all my work in Algebra, and in October bade farewell to the settlers and once more set out for College. On arriving in Winnipeg, T passed my supplemental examination and entered upon new work. I had arrived at the stage in which a student is called upon to decide what honor course he will pursue. After talking the matter over with the pro fessors, 1 chose mental and moral science, political economy and logic. Thus I entered upon a new world of thought.
We were new and green and took the subjects •pretty seriously. We read Locke's Essay on the Human Understand ing and found the mind was a tabula rasa, on which the external world writes, and that all our knowledge conies to us through experience. But we learned also from Leibnitz that the mind itself formed tin- larger factor in our knowledge. According to the nnpirical philisopsy, we cannot know things in them selves, but only their qualities. Then Bishop Berkeley taught us that we could not know the mind either,
40 THE LIFE STORY OF A LEPER
except through its attributes, such as thought and volition. Hume carried us still farther away from the real world by declaring that we could know neither matter nor mind, 'but only a succession of sensations. As we listened to the lectures of the professors and read the various authors, we became more and more confused, and at the end of the year wrere not very sure whether we knew anything or not.
We had a great many other things, however, that kept us in contact with the real world. I practised football playing every night and played in the College tournament, and we were again successful in winning first place. We learned to recite and debate in the Literary Society and occasionally conducted a session of mock parliament. We organized a Y.M.C.A. in the College, and I took my turn with the others in leading the meetings. I also visited the jail occasionally and preached to the prisoners ; and as the Presbyterians had many preaching stations that were supplied by the students during the winter, I was occasionally asked to go out fifty or a hundred miles by train and conduct the Sunday services. When I was in the city on Sun day, I attended the Baptist church and taught in the Sunday School.
The Kiel Rebellion.
Well on towards Spring in the year 18S5 the second Kiel Rebellion broke out in the North-West. Some policemen were shot down at Duck Lake, and the news spread like wildfire all over the country. The half- breeds had been collecting arms and ammunition, and it was feared that the various Indian tribes would join them. The Ninetieth Battalion of Volunteers wT.as ordered to the front, and a number of our students were compelled to leave college, don their regimentals and go with their battalion. A special train took the four hundred troops to the West and we students went up
AI'TOBIOCRAIMIY OF .JOHN K. DAVIS 41
to see tlie in off. We had played football with many of them and hence were specially interested in them.
There was one young: man that I wished to see very much. He was an Irish Catholic, and 1 had known him for some years. He was clever and gifted in almost every way; he was the champion skater, a great foot ball player and an expert in the game of lacrosse. He was also a good student. His very gifts often brought him into bad company and he learned to take part in drinking-, gambling and other vices common to the average sportsman. About eighteen months previous to this time, while coming home one night from the station. I found him on a side street the worse of liquor and hanging on to a lamp post. After much coaxing and persuading:, I got him to come with me and took him to his home. 1 rang the bell and his mother came to the door. He .went into the hall past her and she and I had a pretty plain talk, for I had gathered from his remarks that his father had turned him outdoors, and that he had not been home for three days. I asked her if his own mother turned against him, Avho would receive him or care for him? After a few days he came back to the College and began to do well in his studies again. All that winter 1 watched over him, went for walks with him, kept him away from hotels and from evil companions, and in the Spring he won a scholarship in the examinations. Now he was going to the front and might be shot down and I would never see him again. Would he be lost or would he be saved? This was the question that was in my mind, as I walked up and down the railway platform, looking in the ear windows to see if 1 could catch a glimpse of him. It was getting late, and I had just given up all hope of seeing him and was turning to go back to the College, when someone laid a hand on my shoulder, and turning, 1 saw it was Harry. We went down into an alleyway be-
42 THE LIFE STORY OF A LEPER
tween two buildings and had a little talk together. "If I die in battle," he said, "1 expect to meet you in Heaven. The night you took me in from that lamp post I had planned to commit suicide. I was waiting for the police to get off the street. Then 1 intended to cross over, make my way to the river and jump in. I thought everybody in the world was against me, and that no one cared whether I lived or died, and 1 didn't caiv myself; but when you came and took me home and stood by me all Winter, I began to respect myself again and determined to mend my ways." AVe just knelt and had a word of prayer together; then 1 bade him. fare well and he took his place on the train. As the train moved out from the station, wre waved handkerchiefs at each other tilL the train got in motion ; then I wended my way back to the College, feeling that at least I had done my duty.
Our Ninetieth had only been gone a few days when a French battalion arrived from Quebec and camped north of the railway, and before the week was out, a battalion of Highlanders came up from Nova Scotia and camped right in front of our College. So we had band music, bugle calls and bagpipes, and the drilling of troops at all hours of the day; and it required a good deal of will-power to keep down to our studies. There was constant excitement kept up by the news that Avas coming from the front. Seven of the young men in the Ninetieth were killed in battle, and the bodies of two of our old College boys were sent back to Winnipeg for interment. One of them had been studying in the medical college ; so three of the medical students and I were bearers at his funeral. He was a dashing, wild young fellow, and was shot dead without a moment's warning. The funeral sermon was preached in the Congregational church. According to the preacher's view, all soldiers were heroes, and no one could be
A IT< (BIOGRAPHY OF JOHN E. DAMS 43
better prepared to meet' his God than he who fell fight ing for his country. When we had laid the body to rest and were returning, one of the medical students re marked to me that the preacher had a happy way of getting men into the kingdom of God. "Speak well of the dead," I said. "Yes," he replied, "I know all that, but 1 knew F— - better than anyone else, and if he is in heaven, then there must be some other way than the straight and narrow one that leads to those golden gates." "People do not need to go to war in order to die," I replied. "Accidents are happening here on the streets every day. Supposing you were killed on the road home this evening, would you be any better off
than F ?" "Xo," he said, "I don't pretend that
I am ready for heaven ; but I hope when 1 finish my studies to lead a better life." "In the day and the hour ye think not, the Son of Man cometh," I replied. "Be ye also ready." "Now is the accepted time." "You will never have a better one. Your heart is moved over the death of your fellow-students. Why not settle the matter now?" "Well, Davis," he said, "1 wish I were in your place and felt as sure of heaven as you do: but I can't do it yet." As he said this we came to the part ing of the ways, and I bade him good-night.
Shoal Lake and Strathclair.
Towards the end of May the examinations came on and we had ten days' pretty hard work; but when it was over 1 felt fairly well satisfied. 1 knew T had made a better record than I ever had done before. That evening I went to meet the Home Mission Board and they sent me out to Strathclair to preach for the Sum mer. I went as far as Brandon by train, then took the stage to Rapid City, and my old friend, Professor ]\IcKee, met me there and took me about twenty miles on my journey. I then left my trunk and valise at a farm house and walked twenlv miles on to Slralhebur.
44 THE LIFE STORY OF A LEPEK
When 1 arrived I found they had been without any services for eight months. There had been a quarrel among some of the members of the church • and, as they had no pastor, they had ceased to hold prayer meetings. I got Deacon McLaurin to drive me around to see the Baptist people. The crop had been a failure the year before, and they thought they could not pay me any thing for my services. I told them I was there to preach the gospel, whether I received anything for it or not, and repeated the Twenty-third Psalm : "The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want." After talking the matter over for some time, Peter McLaurin, a good man and full of faith, said he was willing to give me a room and my board, whether the others gave me anything or not. 1 called the older people together on Thursday night, and we had a good prayer meeting; then 1 talked to them about, their children and the young people of the neighborhood and told them they were responsible for giving the gospel to the settlers round about them. At the close of the meeting those who had been unfriendly came together, shook hands and forgave one another, and promised to tell their neighbors that there would be a service in the log church at eleven o'clock the follow ing Sunday.
On Sunday the settlers turned out pretty well and almost filled the little church. We had a good service and I was introduced to all who came to the meeting. After dinner 1 mounted my horse and rode fourteen, miles west to Oakburn, where I preached at two o 'clock. Here there was only one Baptist family — Mr. Morgan, his wife, his mother and sister; but there were some Presbyterians in the neighborhood and some who did not belong to any church at all. On Monday and Tues day I went about the neighborhood, visited the people from house to house, had prayer with them and in vited them to the Sunday service ; on Wednesday I
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN E. DAVIS 45
returned to my boarding place to conduct the evening prayer meeting. In June I conducted special meetings ten nights in succession. A number of the young people professed faith in Christ, and some of the older ones, who had been careless and indifferent about spiritual things, returned to the Shepherd and Bishop of their souls. The church was strengthened and encouraged and my heart was full of joy and gladness. I kept up the preaching services and prayer meetings all Summer. Away to the South-west of us, there was a place called Shoal Lake. The Mounted Police had been sta tioned there in former days and a few of them still remained to keep order in the country. There were two hotels, two general stores, a Postoffice and a few private dwellings. The place had a hard name. An English Church minister had visited it occasionally some years before, but as no one would attend the service he had abandoned it. A Methodist minister also had made an attempt, but they treated him rudely; and as he was far away and had more work than he could do, he left them to themselves. That Summer they had a boat race on Sunday and a man was drowned and buried without any funeral service. Another Sunday they had a horse race and a man who was drinking was thrown from his horse and instantly killed. He, too, was buried by his companions without even a prayer.
On Sunday I preached at Strathclair in the morning, at Oakburn in the afternoon and then rode my pony around the north end of the lake down to the south end, where the village was at that time. 1 wrent straight to the schoolho'use and tied my pony in the shed. When I came into the school building it was cold and chilly; there had been a dance there on Friday night, and the whole place was upside down and the floor very dirty. There were a few young men about the door, but no one offered to do anything. So I took off my coat, went to
46 THE LIFE STORY OF A LEPER
the woodshed, split some kindling, brought wood and put 011 a good fire ; then lit one of the lamps, found a broom and began to sweep out the building. The young men sat on the benches giggling, each afraid to do any thing lest the others should say, "He is getting re ligious." Soon one of the hotelkeepers and his wife came in. She began to clean the lamps and sent him to take the broom from me and to finish sweeping out the schoolroom. After the lamps were lit, I waited some little time, hoping that others might come; but as they did not and the time for opening the meeting had arrived, 1 gave out a familiar hymn. 1 thought I wTould get the young men to join in the singing and thus get them interested. But in this I was mistaken, for when I began to sing no one joined with me, and I had to sing the hymn through alone. Two young men sat upon the window, cracked their feet together and -kept pull ing and hauling each other and giggling. I was not a very good singer and didn't enjoy singing alone; but t put all my energy into the hymn and sang it through to the end. I then read the Scriptures and prayed, during which time a number of others came into the room and took their seats. Just as I gave out the second hymn, the Mode family arrived from the south and some others with them. As soon as I had read the first verse of the hymn, Miss Mode raised the tune and led the singing. The hotelkeeper and his wife and a number of others joined in, and I found they had good voices and could sing well when they wished to. T preached a short practical sermon, and at the conclusion told them I was willing to preach for them every Sunday night without any reward, but thought they ought to take up a collection to pay the school trustees for the oil and wood we used. One man jumped up and said, "All right, boss. We'll see about that," and taking his hat, he passed it around and got a good collection. We then
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN E. DAVIS 47
sang1 a hymn and 1 dismissed them with the benediction. I was at the door before any of them could get out, shook hands with them and invited them to come again. The hotelkeeper asked me to come and stay with them all night. I was glad he did so, for both the pony and myself were tired out. After supper he and his wife came into the parlor with me and I had prayer with them. He then went back to the bar-room, but she remained with me and told me how ashamed she was that they should be keeping a hotel. She said they had a good farm a few miles away and were doing well on it ; but that the love of money had led her husband to go into this business; and stated that both his parents and hers would be very much grieved if they knew what they were doing. She was also in great trouble about her own soul. I read her all the precious prom ises of Christ, and we knelt and prayed together. I told her the Lord would forgive- her, even though they were engaged in keeping hotel, if she would only turn to Him with her whole heart. When we arose from prayer, the tears were running down her cheeks, and she said, "By God's help I am going to lead a new life, and 1 am sure He sent you here to help us all." I bade her good-night and returned to my room.
The next morning I rode out about five miles south east, of there to visit a Baptist family, of which 1 had heard. 1 found the wife was a Christian, but the hus band was not; so I had prayer with her and the chil dren. She sent me about three miles i'arther on to visit a Scotchman, who had injured his spine and had been unable to do any work all Summer. When I arrived at his place, I found him in a very had frame of mind. He was cursing his bad luck and murmuring against God fo.r laying him aside in the busy season of- the year. I tried to talk with him, but he would not listen; he would not let me read or pray with him. He said that
48 THE LIFE STORY OF A LEPER
the God who would send him. such trouble was not a just God, and blasphemed so horribly that I went out of the room and left him. His wife was a good woman, and the tears were in her eyes as she told me something of their troubles and misfortunes. T had prayer with her and the children, and' my own heart was so moved in pity for them, that I could not keep back the tears, as J poured out my soul to God in their behalf. When I had finished and was about to go away, he called his wife and she stepped behind the curtain to see what he wanted. In a moment she returned and said he was sorry for the Avay he had treated me, wrhen I had come such a distance to see him, and wanted me to come to his bedside again. This time it was all different. He asked me to forgive him for what, he had said, and to read and pray with him. I found he knew many of the Psalms by heart and had been well brought up in Scotland. T read him the story of the Prodigal Son, and quoted many other precious passages, and then 1 knelt and prayed for him. When I rose up, I saw the big tears running down on his dark beard. He thanked me for coming, and told me if he got well he would bring the whole family to hear me pi-each. 1 then bade them good-bye and visited a few other homes, stayed with a Baptist family all night, and the next day got back to my boarding place.
I kept up this service till the first week in October, when I had to leave again for College. The wife of the hotelkeeper found her Saviour and was very happy. Several others were also seriously considering the ques tion. The last Sunday 1 wras with them \ bade them all good-bye, and promised to try to send someone in my place. When T reached Winnipeg I induced the Home Mission Board to send a pastor out to Strathclair, and he had the joy of baptizing the hotelkeeper and his wife and a number of others.
ATTOHrOGRAPHY OF .JOHX E. DAVIS 49
Last Year in College.
I reached Winnipeg in linn1 for the College opening. 11 was a great event, for the students and many of the friends of the College were present. The large chapel room was filled to overflowing, and the scholar-ships and prizes, taken by the students in the May examinations, were awarded. AVhile they were calling the names of successful candidates in the various departments and presenting them with their prizes, I was listening for my own name to be called. There were just two of us in the philosophy class who had taken scholarships. I came second, and when my name was called, T walked down to the Principal's desk and received a check for $60.00. I thanked him and returned to my seat with a heart full of gratitude and thanksgiving to my Heavenly Father, who had granted me the strength to persevere in my studies. Just after the scholarships were awarded, it was announced that prizes would be given in the Literary Society, and I .was greatly sur prised to hear that 1 had won the first prize for public speaking. I had taken part in all the debates during the previous Winter, but I was not at all a polished speaker, like many of the other students. The prize was two large volumes of the History of Ancient Egypt, by Professor Kawlinson. I was the only Baptist in the College, and 1 felt that my Presbyterian friends had more than done me justice in presenting me with this prize. At the close of my course I was also awarded the Silver Medal in Metaphysics. It was a great evening for many of us, especially for those who had received scholarships, and we went to our rooms with happy hearts and with a resolve to do our best in the future. It took a week or two for us to get our football associa tion, Literary Society, and Y.M.C.A. organized, and to get back into the way of studying again ; but it was not very long before we were down to work as usual.
50 THE LIFE STORY OF A LEPER
This was my last year in the College, and I resolved to do my best to help my i'ellow-stndents heavenward. 1 used to play football with them, in order to get them to the Young Men's Christian Association prayer meet ing; and one night, when we were practising, an inci dent occurred which caused me a good deal of anxiety. A number of the old players had graduated and gone away, and a number of new ones had come in from the Collegiate and joined our team. Among them was a tall, strong young man, who played a very rough game. He was continually kicking and tripping some of the smaller ones, and there were many complaints against him. I always played on the defence, so never came in contact with him; but this night he left his place and came dowrn and played with the forwards near our goal. Presently the ball dropped between us. We both ran forward, but I was quicker than he, and as T passed him, he put out his foot and tripped me. 1 fell on my hands and knees on the ball, and stuck to it till I had kicked it away. Then I told him that it was a foul. I resumed my place, but just as I did so, the ball came near once more; and as I ran after it, he again tripped me. This time I warned him not to repeat it, but before the hour was up the ball dropped off to one side near us two, and we both ran for it. I got ahead of him, but just as 1 kicked the ball, he charged and tripped me, and gave me a push with his hands. I fell on the side walk, cut the knee of my pants and bruised myself somewhat. I was pretty good-natured, but this was a little more than I could endure; and turning quickly around, I seized him, and giving him a roll 011 my hip, brought him violently to the ground. Some of the boys said that 1 struck him with the flat of my hand, but I did not remember doing this. He was kicking violently and trying to get up. T seized him by the legs, stood him on his head, and then giving him a push over, went up
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN E. DAVI^
51
the field after the ball. My blood was up and I cleared a road for myself, carried the ball down to the other goal and drove it between the flags.
Then I began, to think of what 1 had done. I was playing football in order to have an influence over the students, and now I had lost my temper and probably forfeited my influence. So, as soon as the game was finished, 1 went to him and apologized. I told him L was sorry 1 had lost my temper and asked him to for give me. lie put out his hand and we shook hands and walked off the field together.
The next evening I had to lead the students' prayer meeting. I was very much ashamed of what 1 had done, and all that evening I humbled myself before the Lord and asked Him to forgive me and not let me lose my influence over the men, because of this incident. The next day at four o'clock, when the College closed, the bell rang for the Y.M.C.A. prayer meeting; we assembled in one of the large classrooms, and with a good deal of fear- and trembling, I took my place at the teacher's desk and announced a hymn. We sang several hymns while the students were assembling. Then I read the Scriptures and lifted up my voice in prayer. Nearly every student in the College was present. The classroom was packed full; and while the meeting was going on, Dr. King, our good old Principal, came in and sat down. I addressed the students with an humble spirit, but with as much energy and positive conviction as ever I had done. When the meeting was over, one of the students, who belonged to the rougher class, came up and shook hands with me. I told him I was glad to see him at the meeting. "Well," he said, "I don't care so much about religion, but I like to hear a man talk who can knock a fellow down on the football field when he deserves it." I tried to tell him that 1 did wrong, but he would not listen to it at all. He said, "If you hadn't
52 THE LIFE STORY OF A LEPER
done that, you wouldn't have been a man at all; and those are my sentiments. " The affair turned out better than I expected. I went to my room, thanked God for it, and asked Him for grace to control myself in the future. I heard afterwards that Dr. King often men tioned my name to the next generation of students as one who had exerted a great influence for good. I think he got his impression from that packed class room. He altogether overestimated the little work I did. i was conscious of failure all the time 1 was there; and as I look back over the years now, I know I could have done a thousand-fold more, if I. had only been more in earnest.
I worked hard during the Christmas holidays preaching, but it was a change for me. Besides I earned eighteen dollars, which I needed very much; for living was expensive in the West, and books and college fees, together with our board and other expenses, left many of us in. the Spring with empty purses.
I plodded on as usual through the AVinter and went up to the examinations in May feeling pretty confident that I could make a pass on any paper that was set before me. T had put a good deal of time on Psychol ogy, and was well acquainted with the subtleties of subjective philosophy. The examinations lasted about two weeks and T wrote on my last paper on a Friday morning. I passed in all subjects, and was admitted to the degree of Bachelor of Arts with honors.
CHAPTER IV.
McMaster and the Missionary Call.
When I returned to the College, Dr. King asked me what I was going to do in the Summer. I told him I didn't know yet. He said that if I wished they would give me a church for six months, until the congregation could secure a pastor from the East. I thanked him very heartily, and told him I would think the matter over and let him know later on. 1 could have gone out under the Baptist Home Mission Board, but the re muneration would not have been large, or 1 might have taken Normal Training and taught school in the AVest and received a good salary for that. But I had left all secular1 pur-suits to preach the gospel, so I went up to my room, locked the door and knelt in prayer to ask for special guidance. Just then a rap came on my door- and I rose and opened it. The resident tutor handed me a letter from my brother, Rev. G. B. Davis, B.D., who was pastor- at Poplar- Hill and Kast Williams, Out., asking me to come East and take charge of his churches for the Summer-, and saying that I would find a money order in the Office to defray expenses. 1 felt this was the answer- to my prayer. "Before they call, 1 will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear." I put on my hat, ran most of the way to the Postoffice, got the money I needed, jumped on the street car-, and went a mile and a half to the C.P.I-?, station and secured my ticket for Toronto. I then returned to the College, packed my trunk, said good-bye to the professors and students and a few Baptist friends, and at seven o'clock took the train and bade farewell to Manitoba and the Western prairies.
I reached Port Arthur about ten o'clock Saturday morning and took the steamboat over the lakes to Owen Sound. It was the last of May arrd the weather was beautiful. The lakes were as calm as a pond, and
54 THE LIFE STORY OF A LEPER
I had a good rest and enjoyed the passage very much. On Sunday morn ing the Captain came to me and asked if I would conduct a. service, and I consented to do so; but in a IV w minutes he returned, bringing with him an old friend, who was then a Presbyterian missionary to the Indians. As he was a man of age and experience, I at once asked him to take the service; but he insisted on my taking part with him; so 1 distributed the hymn books and some of the ladies gathered about the piano.
When they had selected a number of familiar pieces, I took a hymn book and announced the first hymn; but just as I did so, two men walked into the saloon. One of them was a large, broad-shouldered man, six feet four inches tall. He stepped up to me and said: "This is a public saloon and 1 forbid you to hold any service here ; we have paid for our tickets and have a right to enjoy this saloon without being compelled to listen to any d— - nonsense." I told him that we Avere conduct ing the service by request of the Captain, and if he did not wish to hear, he could kindly go up on the deck ; but this he refused to do. Just then a short, stout, red headed man threw off his coat, and rolling up his sleeves, took his stand in front of this great giant. He said: "I want you to understand you are in a Christian country, and I am not going to let any d— - infidel stop this meeting." I was afraid there was going to be trouble ; so I stepped between the men and tried to quiet them. Just-then the first officer came in, accompanied by three of the sailors. He told the man that a service was conducted on the steamer every Sunday, by order of the Company, and that if he didn't wish to hear, he could go to his stateroom. He still protested and began to speak rudely, when the officer laid a hand upon his arm and said, "Not another word, or I will have you put in irons for the rest of the journey." The big man wheeled around, walked up the companion ladder to the
AI'TOBIOGKAPIIY OF .JOHX E. DAMS 55
deck and joined his companion and two well-dressed ladies. I heard afterwards that they were a party making a tour around the world.
I then gave out the hymn, the lady at the piano began to play, and all present joined in the singing. 1 had them sing two or three hymns in order to divert their minds from the excitement that had just taken place. I then read selected portions of Scripture, and lifted my heart and voice in prayer. After the singing of another hymn, Mr. McKay, the missionary, preached a very vigorous sermon.
On the deck I met a gentleman from the American side who said he gathered from my prayer that I believed in future punishment. He went on to aver that he didn't suppose there were many educated men that believed in that doctrine in this age of light and pro gress. He said he could prove to me that such a thing could not be. 1 told him I would he very glad to accept his doctrine, if he was able to prove it. "Well," he said, "every truth must be square with itself. We read in St. John's Epistle that God is Love, and there is no other statement just like that in the Bible. Here are two nouns, God and Love, with only the copula between them, which signifies God is equal to Love and Love is equal to God. Now, it' we know what Love can do, we also know what God can do. Love can only love: it cannot punish. A thing cannot go contrary to its own nature, and the nature of Love is to love; and since Love cannot punish, God cannot punish ; therefore there cannot bo any hell." I had just finished studying John Stuart Mill's six books of Inductive and Deductive Logic; so I took a pencil out of my pocket and drew a big circle on the dock with the blue end of the pencil and over that circle I wrote, God. Then in the centre of the circle 1 drew a small circle with the rod end of the pencil, and over it I wrote, Love. Then 1 said to
5G THE LIFE STORY OF A LEPER
him: "The big circle, God, contains the little circle. Love; and so we can truthfully say that God is all of Love. But let us reverse the proposition, as you have done, and say the little circle, Love, contains the big circle, God; that is Love is all of God. We. can plainly see that this is not true, for the little circle is just a small portion of the larger one; therefore, Love is only a small part of God." T then made another circle within the larger circle and wrote over it, Light ; and I said, "God is Light"; but Light is not God, it is only a small portion of Him. 1 then drew another small circle within the larger one and wyrote, Consuming Fire, over it, and said, "The Lord our God is a Consuming Fire," but Fire is not God. God is Omnipotent, Omniscient and Omnipresent, and yet none of these is God, and even the sum total of them is not God; for God is a person, and a person can love and can punish, and yet be just. All parents punish their children at times, and yet they love. All the laws of nature lead us to believe in punishment. You cannot transgress a law of nature without suffering. If you put your hand in the fire, the law of retaliation sets in and you are burned; if you jump overboard here in the lake, you are drowned; if you transgress the laws of health, you break down your constitution and sickness, pain and death follow. Therefore 1 believe in a real hell for all those who wilfully transgress the laws of God." He said he had never looked at the matter in. that way before, and would take time to think it over.
We reached Owen Sound Monday morning and took the train for Toronto. As we moved on, T noticed how beautiful the foliage was; the maple trees were just budding out their beautiful leaves and all nature was throbbing with life and putting on her beautiful Summer garments. For- over- six years I had seen nothing but the boundless prairie and its dreary wastes,
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOIIX E. DAVIS 57
and here in Ontario were- woods and brooks and gardens, and the front yards oi' farmhouses were decorated with, spruce and cedar trees and beautiful hedges. There wore also rows of maples along the road and fences. The old school song 1 had learned in my childhood came back to my memory, and 1 found myself humming the tune of "The Maple Leaf Forever." I th.ought it was the prettiest piece of country I had ever seen. I had heard that when Canada was first discovered by the French, a priest made a journey along the shores of Lake Erie; and in writing back to Montreal, he de scribed the country as the Garden of Eden. As I looked at this lovely stretch of country, I could not help admiring his taste.
I arrived at Toronto in the afternoon and re mained there overnight. The next morning I took the train for Ingersoll, and after a couple of days at Sal- ford, went on to my brother at Poplar Hill. On Sunday I preached in both of his churches. After introducing me to the deacons and a few of the leading members, he left me in charge for the Slimmer and went to the West to survey fields for the Dominion Home Mission Boa j-d.
I had done considerable preaching to the settlers in the AVest, but I had never been responsible for looking after a large church before. My brother had erected a new building at Poplar Hill the year before. That AVin- ter he conducted special services, in which about sixty young men and women found their Saviour and were received into the church by baptism. At East AATilliams, also, a similar work of grace was going on, and about fifteen had been bapti/ed there. To take care of all these young converts and to make them feel that they were responsible for the propagation of the Gospel, both at home and abroad, was a great Undertaking for one who had had so little experience. The Poplar Hill
58 TUP: LIFE STORY OF A LEPER
congregation was the largest country congregation I had ever seen. Every Sunday night the seats were drawn out in the aisles, and the building was packed to its utmost capacity. The young people for miles around came to that church, and the attention was, all that could be desired.
My brother had a good library and I did consider able reading. Among other books I read Hervey's His tory of Baptist Missions. While reading the lives of Carey and Judson my own heart was deeply stirred, and I felt that T must be a missionary to the Hindus some day; but I wished to take a course in Theology, and so tried to put the thought out of my mind. Towards the last of September my brother returned, and I handed the work over to him, packed my trunk and set out for Toronto. There was no McMaster University then, only the Theological Department. I arrived early in October and was present at the opening of the College.
After securing my room and purchasing the books T required, T left for a short visit to my sister in Port Hope. On my way down T called to see Miss Laura Lockhart, the young lady T had left nearly seven years previous when T went to the West. We had kept up an irregular correspondence, and there was an under standing between us that when we met again, if we still cared for each other1 as we had done in past years, we would become engaged. T stayed at her mother's place that Friday nisrht and we drove to my sister's on Saturday. On Sunday we attended the Port Hope church and drove back home in the evening. By this time we had come to understand each other, and found that we had not changed very much during the seven years of separation. As she remarked: "Hearts don't change much after all; men are only boys grown tall."
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN E. DAVIS 59
On Monday morning I returned to College. Every thing was new to me. hi the Presbyterian College a large proportion' of the Theological students were graduates in Arts, but as we had no University at that time, the number of graduates in the Theological classes was small, and I thought that our men intellec tually were not as well equipped. But in regard to things spiritual, I realized that T was breathing a different atmosphere, both among the students and the professors. There was a real desire for fellowship with God, and often a little band of the students met together to pray and to encourage one another to strive more earnestly after spiritual attainment. One day in every month was spent in reading papers on home and foreign mission work. These papers were carefully prepared by the students or the professors, and they generally provoked a good deal of discussion.
Appointment as a Missionary. .
In these monthly meetings we heard of the work that was going on in all parts of the world. My heart was greatly stirred, and T knew that if I lived I would have to go to the foreign field. Two of our missionaries in India had died, and Dr. McLaurin, the founder of our Mission, was broken in health and was returning home. All Winter the foreign Mission Board kept appealing to the students to volunteer, but the terrible heat of India, and the cholera, fever and other dreadful dis eases seemed to prevent them from doing so. At the close of one of the meet ings in March, I was so wrought upon that I felt I must offer myself to my Heavenly Father and to the Board for service. That night I wrote a letter to the Secretary, I\ev. .James ({cant, and' told him that I was willing to go, if the Board thought T was fit to undertake such a work. In a few days I received a reply asking me to meet the Committee on a certain date. At this time, Korman and AVilder, two students
60
THE LIFE STORY OF A LEPER
from, the United States, were visiting the colleges and addressing- students on Foreign Missions. Forrnan
H, F. LAFLAMME and J E. DAVIS, 1887
spoke in our College on Sunday morning. Mr. Laflamme was greatly moved by his address, and signed a card pledging himself, God willing and health permitting, to
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN E. DAVIS 61
become a foreign missionary. He and I were rooming together at the time, and the next week wrhen I went down to meet the Board, he came with me. After the Board had examined me in regard to my conversion and call to the ministry and to the foreign field. I was asked to slip into another room for a few minutes, while my application was being discussed. I had not long to wait, for soon the Secretary came to the door, and taking me by the hand, said, "You have been unani mously appointed by the Board, and I want to con gratulate you on so grand a prospect." The members of the Board gathered around me and shook my hand very heartily. 1 then told them that Mr. Laflamme was waiting in the room below and wished to meet them. The Secretary asked me to send him up, and I did so. He was only twenty-two, and some of them thought he was too young to enter upon so responsible a work; but after questioning him for over an hour, they appointed him also.
We continued our studies until the end of March, wlM-n we again met the Executive Committee. They wished us to go out and do some speaking among the churches, that they might get acquainted with us and become interested in us and in the work we were going to do; and so their sympathy and prayers would be behind us in the coming years. At this meeting we learned that our first and only single lady missionary, Miss .M. •!. I-Yith, had suffered a sunstroke, and had been ordered home by the doctors; and that she and the. McLaurins were already on their way to Canada.
The Board was in debt, funds were not cominu in as rapidly as they should, and the Committee seemed very much discouraged. AVe wished to visit the churches together, thinking that we would make a better "impression than by being separated; but a majority of the Committee wished us to go out singly,
62 THE LIFE STORY OF A LEPER
saying' that in this way we could visit twice as many churches. We told them we believed it wTas not a matter of how many churches we could touch, but of the in terest God would use us to awaken in the hearts of His people. After considerable discussion, Mr. William •Craig, Sen., rose to his feet and said: "Brethren, I believe in God, and He is not going to let this work fail. Let the young brethren go out together." Some of the Board members had said we would not raise enough money to pay our travelling expenses, as they had sent out others before to collect for them and they had not succeeded in getting anything. Mr. Craig then wyrote a cheque for one hundred dollars and gave it to me, saying, "If you need this money to pay your ex penses, you can cash it at the bank; and if not, you can return it to me." That settled the matter, and we were permitted to go out together.
On the following Sunday, we supplied vacant pulpits and received twelve dollars each. We took the money and bought some charts and foreign missionary literature. Mr. Laflamme made out a list of the churches he thought we could visit. He had been collecting money for Woodstock College for two summers, and was thoroughly acquainted with the pastors and churches. He had been in College since he was fifteen. He was tall, handsome and graceful; carried himself erect and combed his dark red or auburn hair in pompadour style ; had studied elocution and had a splendid, well- trained voice ; was magnetic, fascinating, and, like his name, a veritable flame of fire. From the very day that he decided to be a missionary, he threw himself into it with all his heart and soul. Confident of his own ability, he was in no way abashed to stand before the largest audiences in our city churches. I wTas quite bashful and retiring; so we formed a great contrast; and perhaps this made our work all the better. As he wras acquainted
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF .JOIIX E. DAVIS 63
with the, churches, I let him do the corresponding with the pastors and manage the book fund, while T was made treasurer of all the funds we should receive.
Having- made our preparations as rapidly as possible, and having gotten our list of churches printed in The Canadian Baptist, we went forth on bur first tour. We spoke every night in the week — five nights in Baptist churches and on Saturday nights to an audience of young- men in the Y.M.C.A. building of whatever place we happened to be in. We spent our Sundays in tow^ii and city churches and generally spoke four times each. When, we had been out about two weeks, T sent our beloved Treasurer, T. S. Shenstone, two hundred dol lars. We continued our journey for a little over three weeks. We had worked so hard that both of us were feeling the need of rest; and indeed Mr. Laflanime had so spent himself that he was nearly exhausted.
In the books we had bought, Mr. Laflamme wrote on iho fly leaf: "This book is a gift to you on condition that you read it through, pray over it, talk about it and lend it to others." One of the books \vas Dr. Pierson's "Crisis of Missions," and we gave a copy of it to every pastor and to the women's Circles. When our books were all distributed, we received fifteen dollars from one of the Circles to purchase a fresh supply. Besides the collections that were given us, I sometimes received ten dolhirs enclosed in an envelope; so that when we arrived in Toronto, after a little over three weeks spent among the churches, T had not only nearly two hundred dollars more to forward to the Treasurer, but also sufficient to meet all our travelling expenses. We stayed in the College a few days and rested, and spoke in the Toronto churches on Sunday. While speaking in the Dovercourt Road church, we met Mr. S. J. Moore, Superintendent of the Sunday School, who gave Mr. Laflammi' fiftv dollars toward his book fund. This
64 THE LIFE STORY OF A LEPER
enabled us to buy more books and foreign missionary literature and was just what we had been praying for.
After the College closed, we went East on another tour among the churches. On this tour we visited Trenton, Belleville, Brockville and some of the churches in the Ottawa Valley. I then had the privilege of spend ing' two days with Mr. Lanamme in his OWTII home, at Winchester; after w^hich wre went to Ottawa for a Sunday. From there we worked our way down to Montreal and 'spent the next Sunday in the churches of that city. While speaking in the Oilvet church on the Sunday morning, I exhibited a chart showing how much money was expended annually by the people of America for liquor, for pleasure-seeking and for to bacco, and how little on missions. At the close of the meeting, Mr. Lanamem went down to one door and I to the other, to shake hands with the people. To our surprise, a great many left from one to five dollars each in our hands. Among other gifts I received a paper 011 which was written the letters, "I.O.U. $25.00. Call at my office to-morrow morning and you will receive the money." Signed A. Smoker. Before wre started on this trip to the East, some of the members of the Board told us that if we could raise fifteen hundred dollars, they would send out a third man to India along with us in the Fall. Hence we had been speaking about this in all the churches, and had received gifts towards it wherever we went. In the evening we spoke in the First church, and there, too, we had a good reception and were handed additional amounts for the third-man fund.
AVe also spent a mem.ora.ble day writh the churches in London. When we appealed for gifts for the third- man fund, we receixed over two hundred dollars. Many servant girls and girls working in factories came and gave us a dollar each at the close of the service. We toured on west as far as Windsor and had splendid
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN E. DAVIS 65
meetings in Sarnia, Owen Sound and many other places. By the time we returned to Toronto about one thousand dollars in gifts and pledges had been secured. Tn the month of June we attended every Association we could possibly reach.
While on this trip, we were constantly speaking on the same platform with Dr. T. H. Rand, who repre sented our educational work, and with the Rev. Alex ander Grant, the Superintendent of Home Missions. Mr. Grant was a wonderful character and usually held the audience spellbound for a whole hour. It was hard to begin an address on Foreign Missions after ten o'clock at night, following so great a speaker. There was some thing about Foreign Missions, however, that appealed to the hearts of the people, and they gave us a splendid hearing wherever we went. Often the meetings did not close till eleven o'clock. After spending two weeks in this work, we again returned to Toronto.
Ordination.
After a few days' rest, an Ordination Council was called in Bloor Street church, when Messrs. J. B. Ken nedy, H. F. Lanamme and myself were examined and ordained. Among those who .laid hands on us were the Reverends Joshua Denovan, John Deinpsey. AY. I\. Anderson, Alexander Grant, James Grant, Dr. J. Tl. Cnsllc, Dr. B. D. Thomas, Dr. Malcolm McVicar, Dr. John McLaurin, and others whose mimes I cannot recall now. Dr. McLaui;in had readied home by this time and he gave a stirring address on Foreign Missions that evening; and Mr. Denyvan preached one of his characteristic sermons on the text, "Preach the \Yord: be instant in season, out of season : reprove, rebuke, exhort .with all long-suffering and doctrhi"." II'1 emphasized the point of bring "instant in season and out of season" and especially urged that we should
66 THE LIFE STORY OF A LEPER
preach the Word "continually out of season." This caused a smile in the audience, but it always lingered in my memory.
Marriage and Farewell.
During the Winter that I became so interested in Foreign Missions, I had communicated the fact to the lady who was to be my partner in life. She was in full sympathy with me and ready to accompany me to the ends of the earth on so grand a mission. Our marriage took place on the 26th of July, 1887, at her mother's residence. We went to Niagara Falls on our wedding tour, and from there to Poplar Hill, to say farewell to my brother and his wife. Returning home, I preached in the Port Hope church for three Sundays, during the absence of their pastor. I also visited the Peterborough churches and spoke on Foreign Missions.
We then began to make preparations and to pack our ,boxes for India, and on the 3rd of September we left my wife 's home for. Toronto, where I spoke in Jarvis Street church on Sunday. On Monday Mr. Laflamme, Mrs. Davis and I went to Brantford to attend a farewell meeting in the Park church. There was a large number present and the seating capacity of the building was taxed to the utmost. We had a splendid meeting and did not get to bed till after twelve o'clock. On Tuesday evening we were back again in Toronto, and were present at a final farewell meeting held in Jarvis St. church. Here, too, we had a grand meeting, and the money we still needed to make up the fifteen hundred dollars for the third-man fund was given to Mr. Laflamme that night. Attending these meetings and going without sleep half the nights was very trying, but we set our faces toward India, feeling . that we had many warm friends, who were remember ing us in their prayers. Senator McMaster and a large
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN E. DAVIS 67
party came to see us off. "While bidding us good-bye, Mr. T. S. Sheiistoiie, our beloved Treasurer, kissed his hand and put it to my wife's cheek. She never forgot that act of gallantry. We took the train for New York about two o'clock in the afternoon; the members of the Board and many other friends were on the platform and waved their handkerchiefs till we passed out of sight.
CHAPTER V. The Passage to India (1887).
In New York, Messrs. John N. Forman, Robert P. Wilder, Mr. Laflamme and myself addressed an audi ence of six hundred young men in .the 23rd Street Young1 Men's Christian Association building. On the following- morning, the 10th of September, w^e went aboard our ship, and to our surprise, met Dr. and Mrs. Malcolm Me Vicar and Rev. Malcolm McGregor, who had seen our names in the paper and came to the ship to bid us farewell. So we had Canadian friends with us to the last. At ten o'clock a little tug took our ship, the "Arabic ' ' of the White Star Line, out of the harbor ; and with flags flying and bands of music playing, we steamed out past the Statue of Liberty and bade fare well to America.
The weather was pretty rough during the first two days, and not many of the passengers appeared on deck; but we had a pleasant voyage most of the way. We were just ten days on the trip. We landed at Liver pool early in the evening, and after getting our goods through the Customs, took train for London.
We spent the next ten days purchasing our outfit and waiting for our ship to sail. The steamers were so crowded that we were unable to get a berth on any line from London, and were obliged to go back to Liverpool and take passage on the SS. "McKenzie" of the Clan Line for Madras.
At the breakfast table wre met three young lady missionaries, and found that one of them, Miss Johnson, was going right to Cocanada with us. They belonged to the Brethren. For the past fifty years two move ments have been going on in the Church of England. Several thousands of the High Church party have become Catholics, while probably from fifty to a hun dred thousand Low Churchmen have left the Church
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN E. DAVIS o9
'and formed themselves into a body called the Brethren. Some of their leaders are sons and daughters of clergy men. The father of one of these young ladies was a rector. In many respects they hold the same views as the Baptists. They accept the Bible and the Bible only as their Creed. They believe in regenerate church membership, and baptize believers only, and that by immersion ; but unlike Baptists, they do not believe in an ordained ministry. They are very spiritually minded and are among the best gospel preachers I heard in India. They have a small Mission not far from our own, and I learned to love and esteem them for their works' sake.
About ten o'clock we weighed anchor and were towed out of the harbor. The "MeKenzie" carried a great deal of freight and only a few passengers. It was small, and the least rough weather made it pitch and roll terribly. We had a pretty rough passage through the Bay of Biscay. Mr. Lafiamme and Mrs. Davis were both sick, and although I kept on my feet, ] did not feel any too comfortable.
By the time we reached the Straits of Gibraltar the iveather was fine and the sea calm. We had a look at the great fortress as we passed by. The British have tunnelled out the rook rnd placed hundred-ton guns that can throw shells right across to Africa. Thus it is said that in time of war they hold the key to the Mediterranean. As we steamed slowly down the sea, we couldn't help but admire the beautiful sunsets. On Sunday Mr. Russell, a missionary who was going to teach in the .Madras Christian College, conducted the service ;md preached a very able sermon on the text, ''Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?"
After another day or two we arrived at Malta, and our ship' anchored right near the spot where St. Paul and his fellow-prisoners landed so many years ai>;o. The
70 THE LIFE STORY OF A LEPER
Captain came over and showed us the place where two seas meet. There was a large creek coming from the Island into the sea, and the waves meeting with this stream of water kept up a continual splash of foam. As we looked at the spot and realized that this was the Island of Melita, of which we had so often read in the Acts of the Apostles, the place seemed almost sacred to us. Mr. Laflamme and I went down to our cabins, knelt in prayer, and thanked God for bringing us thus far on our journey in safety. We were 011 the same business that St. Paul had been on over eighteen centuries previous, and we prayed that as God had spared his life and had used him to bring the gospel to the West, so in His love and mercy He would spare us and permit us to carry it back again to the farther East.
After leaving off some of the goods and taking on coal, we again proceeded 011 our journey. The next day the sea was so calm that the passengers had a day of sports, and we missionaries took part with the others in the games. A large rope was tied to a spar high up on the mast, and quite a number competed in climbing the rope hand over hand. In this competition Mr. Laflamme came first. He went to the very top and took hold of the spar with his hands. No one else was able to climb so high, not even the officers of the ship. He also came first in the potato race and Mr. Russell second. I succeeded in getting first place in pitching ropes on pegs, and in pitching bags of sand into a hole in a box ; and when all the games and races were over, we ended up by having a tug-of-war. A list of the names of the gentlemen passengers was prepared and a young man and I were asked to choose sides. There were some coffee planters on board in the second-class compartment, but I had not met any of them. They were big strong fellows, and my opponent having secured first choice, and being acquainted with them,
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN E. DAVIS 71
chose' all the large, heavy men. When we went out to pull, there was only one other man .as heavy as myself on our side, and three of us were missionaries. We had besides, the first engineer, who was a very small man. When the Captain saw how apparently unequal to our opponents we were in weight and strength, he wanted the men to make some changes, but they were unwilling to do so. Mr. Laflarnme and I had been accustomed to pulling on tugs-of-war, and placed our men about a yard apart, so that they would not step on one another; and I cautioned all of them to keep their feet tight on the floor. When the word was given, our opponents seemed to pull us quite easily, and we slid along aluout a yard on the deck. They then began to jump in the air and shout. In a moment we had the advantage of them. They were crowded so closely that they trampled on one another and fell in a heap on the deck. We then changed sides and succeeded in drawing them up on the deck as easily as we had drawn them down. The Captain and the ladies clapped their hands and cheered us vigorously. They couldn't understand the secret of our success, but it was easily explained. We were sober, while some of our opponents were rather the worse of liquor and very unsteady. After this day of sports, the officers and passengers showed us mission aries much more respect than they had done at first. This gave us an opportunity of speaking with many of them personally about their spiritual welfare.
A week later we arrived at Port Said. The weather had been gradually growing warmer and the double canvas awning had been put on over the decks to pro tect us from the sun. While our ship was anchoring, about a dozen small boats came out from the port con taining hawkers who were selling all kinds of goods and curios. They had pieces of wood from Jerusalem and many things from Egypt. There were a lot of
72 THE LIFE STORY OF A LEPER
young boys swimming about in the water like fish and calling out: "Have a dive, Mister, have a dive," and the passengers were throwing small silver coins into the sea. and watching them dive and catch the coin and bring it up again. They were almost naked and a wild- looking lot of lads, but they did a good business, for many of the passengers threw them in six-penny bits. While waiting here a missionary belonging to the Brethren came on board and invited us to go ashore. We were glad of the opportunity, and had a pleasant visit with him and his family. Ha told us that sixteen different languages were spoken there, and that he had engaged colporteurs to sell Bible portions and dis tribute tracts among the various nationalities. It was a very wicked place and needed half a dozen mission aries to reach the people. After dinner we had prayer together, and Mr. Laflamme and I left him a little gift to assist him in his work.
When, our ship had taken on sufficient coal, we entered the Suez Canal, got stuck in the mud in one of the Bitter Lakes and spent a good part of the night in trying to get out again. Finally we succeeded, entered the Canal proper and steamed slowly on till noon next day. While passing along the Canal we noticed that they were digging it wider,' and saw hundreds of men and camels busy at work. The camels had a large box fastened to a saddle on their backs, and the drivers made them lie down while the men filled the box with earth. Then they would goad the camel and it would groan, and make a terrible noise, struggle to its feet and go slowly up the Canal bank with its load to the place where they dumped it, and then return again. Many men and women were carrying baskets of earth on their heads. There were Turks, Arabs, Egyptians, Greeks and Hindu coolies engaged in this work. They were almost naked, and we began to realize that the
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN E. DAVIS T3
East was very far removed from the West. Everything in the shape of civilization and modesty and cleanliness had been left behind. The toilers moved very slowly and kept up a sing-song as they did their work. We soon found out that that wras the manner of the East; for wherever you go you find people singing .at their work.
The Canal is about ninety miles in length, and when we arrived at Suez the Captain told us to look north ward toward the Arabian Desert. It was a great sea of sand, and while looking at it we noticed a little green spot with some palm trees about it. "There," said the Captain, "are the wells of Moses, and this is the place where the Israelites crossed over the Red Sea. We looked over to the Egyptian side and could see a range of hills, and understood how the Israelites were hemmed in by the mountains and the sea and Pharaoh's army. There was the old caravan route over which Jacob and his sons travelled when they went down into Egypt, and the route, too, over which Joseph and Mary and the child Jesus journeyed when they made their escape from Herod, who sought- the young 'child's life There were merchants and travellers with camels and donkeys laden with goods going down into Egypt just as they had done in days of old. Women and children were mounted on donkeys and camels, and the men with sandals on their foot, wore walking over the burning sands, driving their beasts of burden. The respectable among the Jews and Mohammedans were all veiled, so that we could not see their faces. How strange it seemed to us that wo should be there and see the very place whero the waters were parted, and where God's people walked through on the dry land! As we thought the matter over and realized that our Saviour had once passed that way, we again retired to our cabins to lift up our henrls in prayer
74 THE LIFE STORY OF A LEPER
and thanksgiving to our Heavenly Father, for per mitting us to see this place of which we had read so often in our childhood. The dress of the people and their manners seemed to recall all the Old Testament stories to us, and we could understand the Scriptures better than we ever did before.
When we had taken on sufficient coal, the ship weighed anchor and we steamed out of the harbor. It was in October, the weather was fearfully hot and we were obliged to sleep upon deck at night. Our cabins were so suffocating that we could not get our breath. We proceeded slowly down the Red Sea thirteen hun dred miles to Aden. Here we took on more coal and left off a few bales of goods. The British Government has a garrison of a few thousand soldiers at this port.
From Aden we took our course through the Indian Ocean towards Ceylon's spicy Island. After a day or two, the Northeast monsoon broke upon us, .and for five days and nights we had pretty rough weather, and were obliged to sleep down in our cabins with all the port-holes closed. The air was so hot and suffocating that it was almost impossible to get any sleep. Our little ship rolled and tossed about so much that nearly all the passengers were sick. My dear wife was very, very ill and under the doctor's care for some days. One night I thought the storm had lulled considerably, and so got up and opened the port-hole. As I stood there breathing the fresh cool air it seemed so invigorating that I thought I would risk it, and so climbed into my berth, leaving the port-hole open. I soon fell fast asleep ; but presently a huge wave swept in and covered all our cabin floor. A little of it splashed into my face in the upper berth, and Mrs. Davis was almost smothered by it. I jumped up as quickly as possible and screwed the port-hole shut again. The water was two or three inches deep on the floor, and as the ship rolled, our valises and
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN E. DAVIS 75
shoes were being carried from side to side of the cabin. Mrs. Davis had to get up and I threw all her bedding and mattress out into the passageway, and the stewards brought fresh bedding. When everything was changed she got back into bed, and the stewards and I dipped and mopped up the water. Then I climbed up into my berth again, but either the rocking of the ship or some thing I had eaten for supper made me very sick, and I vomited terribly. In the morning Mr. Laflamme said he felt the shaking in the night and wondered what was the matter ; then he he"ard a big noise in our room and concluded that at last I had succumbed to the heaving of the ocean. I thought of an English emigrant wrho wrote a diary on his trip out, and one of the entries read as follows: "And now the ship am 'eeving and I am 'eeving too." There rs an old saying that "misery likes company." Mr. Laflamme had been seasick so much that he felt quite comforted when he saw me sick also.
After a long and tedious journey we reached Ceylon and our ship cast anchor in Colombo harbor. Here wo went ashore and spent part of the day with an Kn»-lish. Baptist missionary, visiting the Cinnamon Gardens, the Buddhist Temple and other places of interest. While at the Temple I bought a prayer-wheel. The Buddhist devotees had a prayer written and wound round a roller inside of the wheel, to which a short chain with a brass ball was attached. Taking it by the handle, they would keep it turning round and round and round to unroll and roll up again the prayer that was on the inside. They sat near the image of Buddha, repeat in"1 prayers as fast as they could and turning this wheel at the same time. They believed that the more prayers they could say the more merit they would have. I offered them a rupee for one of their prayer- wheels, and they lei me have it. They wore beads and
76 THE LIFE STORY OF A LEPER
by means of these kept count of the number of prayers that they offered up to Buddha during the day. This seemed a strange kind of worship to me, but it was only the beginning of what I was to witness in India.
Madras and Cocanada.
From Ceylon we proceeded on our journey to Madras and arrived there on the 5th of November. Mr. Lanamme and I took our trunks and baggage and went ashore in an open boat. There was no real wharf, and our ship stood at anchor some distance in the sea. The boatmen swarmed about us, shouting and singing and gesticulating, like a. tribe of wild monkeys. They agreed to take us and our luggage ashore for two and a half rupees ; but when we got into the boat, they asked Mr. Lanamme to pay them for putting on the luggage. This he promptly refused to do. The steam was coming rapidly out of the waste pipe just ahead of us, and they shoved the little boat forward, so that Mr. Lanamme might get a steam bath. At this he gave them a handful of copper coins, but still they would not go. Finally he hammered three or four of them over the back wTith his cane, and then they let the rope loose from the ship, picked up their oars and rowed away toward the shore. As they rowed they kept up a sing-song all the way, and as some of them knew a little English, I could hear them repeating the refrain : "We are taking some great foreigners to shore, and they are very rich men, and will give us a big present." So by the time we reached land we were prepared for more trouble. The boat stuck in the surf a little distance out from shore, and they took us on their backs and waded through the water to dry land. Then they brought our luggage and put it on two little carts and drew it to the Custom House Officer. After we had got it through the Customs, we learned from the Officer what we should pay them to take our
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN E. DAVIS / <
luggage to the American Mission House. .We then jumped into a carriage and were driven there ourselves. Here we found old Poonam, a native butler, in charge, and we paid him so much a day to buy and cook our food. After dinner the men arrived with our luggage, and we paid them and gave them a present of eight annas; but they were not at all satisfied, and kept howling about on the front verandah like a pack of pariah dogs. We didn't pay any attention to them, and went into our bedroom and lay down to rest for a little while ; but by two o 'clock they were still on the veran dah, and Poonam would not send them 'away, because he and they were in league. If they got more money out of us, he would get a share of it, so he let them howl away and continue to annoy us. Finally I put on my boots, and grabbing up my slippers, gave two or three of them a slap on the back and chased them out into the road. This was a great relief to Mr. Laflamme, for he didn't want to be compelled to chase them off the verandah with his cane. Towards evening we went back to the ship and brought Mrs. Davis and Miss Johnson ashore.
We spent five days in Madras waiting for a coasting steamer to take us on to Cocanada. While here Miss Day, daughter of Rev. Samuel Day, founder of the American Baptist Telugu Mission, met us and took us to her bungalow, where we met a number of Telugu Christians and saw her Caste Girls' School.
Madras is a very scattered city. Besides a large garrison of soldiers stationed at Fort St. George, there JUT quite a number of English merchants and a large population of Eurasians. From here we sent a telegram to Mr. Craig, informing him of our arrival and the probable time he might expect us at Cocanada.
On the fifth day our little coasting steamer arrived and we took our baggage and got on board. The next
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morning we halted opposite a town called Masulipatam. Here the Church Missionary Society has a College and ,a large number of Christians. Our ship stood at anchor about six miles from the shore, and soon a number of small boats came out and took back some cargo and the mail. Then we weighed anchor and proceeded on our journey.
That was our last night on board ship. The Captain told us we would reach Cocanada about daylight the next morning. We were all very eager to get to our destination and very tired of being tossed about on the ocean. Mr. Laflamme and I were up while the stars were still shining, looking for a glimpse of land. Finally we saw a lighthouse, and the Captain told us that we were just close to Cocanada. Here also there is no harbor and the sand bars compel the ships to stand at anchor five or six miles from the land. When the day dawned and we could see the palm trees on the shore, we again went down to our cabins to give thanks to our Heavenly Father for watching over us and bringing us safely to our field of labor.
Just as the sun was rising, we saw in the distance a little steam launch tossing up and down on the waves and coming steadily toward us. As it drew near we recognized Mr. Craig, and he waved his white umbrella at us. We soon got a cup of coffee and a biscuit, and leaving our luggage in the hands of little Subbarao, who was to be our Telugu munshi, we got on board the launch and went ashore with the mail. Here we found two carriages ready to take us to the Mission house, and met Mr. George White, the deacon of the English Baptist Church. We were glad to be on terra firma again. It was not half so much of a terror and was a good deal firmer than the little ship on which we had spent five dreary weeks coming from Liverpool to Madras.
CHAPTER VI. Missionary Apprenticeship.
As we drew near the Mission Compound we saw a sign board above the gate posts with the inscription, "Canadian Baptist Mission." The native Christians had built an arch with the boughs of trees and hung with garlands of flowers, and forty or fifty of them, with a number of school girls, lined the road from the gate up to the Mission house. As we passed under the arch, they greeted us with a hymn and salaamed to us most respectfully. We returned their salaams and were glad to see they appreciated our coming.
Soon we were in the Mission house and were greeted by Mrs. Craig and Miss Hatch. It was the 12th day of November, 1887. The monsoon rains were just over and the trees and foliage in the large fourteen- acre compound were beautiful and green. Mrs. Craig had breakfast ready for us, and soon we were gathered about the table and busy at conversation. We learned that the native people were going to give us a welcome in the church in the afternoon. When we had finished breakfast, Dr. Cummings of the American Mission, Miss Hatch and Mr. and Mrs. Craig sang a welcome hymn. Then we all knelt in prayer and Mr. Craig and Mr. Still well returned thanks to our Heavenly Father for bringing us to join their depleted ranks. After this we laid ourselves down for a little noonday rest, and a man outside pulled a punka over us. A pnuka is a board about eight inches wide and eight or ten feet long, to the bottom of which canvas a foot deep covered with fancy cloth is attached. A rope goes from the middle of the punka out through the wall, and a man sits there and pulls it to and fro over a little pulley. This makes a nice cool breeze, so that one can sleep without being wet through with perspiration.
80
THE LIP^E STORY OF A LEPER
At 2 p.m. the bell rang and we went over to the native church. Here the Christians and the school girls were gathered to welcome us. After the singing of a hymn and prayer, the native pastor, Jonathan Burder, gave the address of welcome in Telugu, and old Ezra, the head master of the Girls' School, interpreted it for him in English. We thanked them all, assured them that
THE COCANADA MISSION HOUSE.
we had come to spend our lives among them, and asked them to pray for us that we might be granted the strength and ability to learn their language, in order that we might preach the Gospel to them and to the heathen in their own tongue. The church was all dec orated with flowers, and they put a wreath of flowers
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN E. DAVIS 81
around each of our necks and a garland of camphor balls. This is the way Eastern people express their joy in greeting those who come to visit them. It was all new and strange to us. Their singing did not have much music in it ; tthe tunes seemed to consist of one or two notes only. They all looked just alike to us. I thought 1 would never learn to distinguish one face from another.
After the welcome meeting was over, we wandered about the compound, looking at the cocoanut and palmyra palm trees, the casuarina and cotton trees, and the cactus, which grows from ten to eighteen feet high in the tropics and whose flower comes out in the night and closes up at the approach of the tropical sun. All along the verandah of the Mission house were large and small pots, full of plants and flowers of almost every variety. They were so beautiful and so luxuriant that it seemed as if we never grew tired of looking at them. About five o'clock we had dinner, and in the evening went clown to Jagganikapuram to attend a welcome meeting given us by the English Baptist church. This little church is mostly composed of Eurasian people. The old East Indian Company's agents married native women; so Europeans and Asians wore blended together and these are now called Eurasians. They are a warm-hearted people and appreciate vory much the kindness of the missionaries. They had tea and cako sorvod to all who gathered, and afterwards the deacon, Mr. AVhito, gave us an address of welcome, to which wo replied with feelings of gratitude and thanksgiving; for it was good to moot in this hoathen land a little band of men and women who spoke our langiuigo and who loved our Saviour. As we drove homo that night through Bazaar Street, crowded with thousands of people having the marks of their gods painted on their foreheads, and saw the Mohammedan Mosque, with its sullen worshippers, 1 could not help
82 THE LIFE STORY OF A LEPER
wondering: why it was that these nations had been left so long without the gospel.
The next morning we began the study of Telugu. We had procured our grammars in Madras, and little Subbarao, the Telugu munshi, was on hand to give us our first lesson. He had taught Mr. Stillwell, Miss Frith and Mrs. Craig, and hence had considerable ex perience. He would open his mouth very wide, put his tongue up in the roof of it, and show us how to sound the hard "d" and "t" and all the aspirate letters. He was the liveliest little fellow I ever saw. One day I couldn't remember what the word "pamu" meant. He jumped up, seized a cane, began to strike on the floor and to pretend that he w^as very much frightened and was trying to kill something. Of course it came into my mind that it meant "snake. " This was the dramatic way he had of doing almost everything. Mrs. Craig named him "Jack-in-the-box." He was a very good little teacher, especially for beginners, and as we learned ten or twelve new words every day, we soon began to put them into sentences; but it was a long, hard fight to pronounce the words properly. One day Mr. Laflamme told his *"boy" to put his clothes out in the sun. The "boy" looked at him, somewhat sur prised that he should make such a request. Mr. La flamme repeated it, and the "boy" said, "I can't put your clothes in the sun, Master; I haven't any ladder long enough to go up to it." Mr. Laflamme saw his mistake and said, "Never mind, you can. put them in the sunshine." The Hindus never speak of putting things in the sun, but in the sunshine. We- were fre quently making mistakes of that kind and causing much laughter among the people.
We studied Telugu hard through the week and
*A personal servant. Pie may be a man of seventy, but is called "boy."
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN E. DAVIS 83
preached in English on Sunday. We soon got ac quainted with Miss Folsom and the Timpany School. To know her was to know one of the Lord's saints; her quiet, modest and retiring manner made it difficult for a passing stranger to get acquainted with her, or to know her real worth; but as I was Manager of the School for seven years, I realized wThat a treasure we had in her and what a grand work she was doing for the Eurasian community.
The winter season in South India is about like Canadian weather in June, only the sun is very much more powerful, and we had to wear very large, thick, pith hats to keep us from getting sunstroke. We enjoyed the cool season very much, and in January the missionaries from the Maritime Provinces came down from the North and we had a joint conference. It did our hearts good to meet these older missionaries, who had spent many years in work among the Telugus. As we listened to their stories of joy and sorrow, of encouragement and disappointment, and saw their undaunted faith in the power of the gospel to attract and transform the vilest characters, we began to realize to some extent what a great work God had called us to.
The winter months soon passed and the heat was growing more intense and hard for Mrs. Davis to bear; so we went to Pentakota, about forty miles up the sea coast. There, on a point of land jutting out into the sea, was an old warehouse, that had once been used to store jroods, when the place was a shipping port; but times had changed, the ships no longer called there, and the owner of the building had given it to the mis sionaries for a summer resort. It was a rough, bare, dreary kind of place, but it was ten degrees cooler than Cocanada. The sea breeze blew strong at night. This gave us an opportunity In sleep and rest ourselves and keep fresh for our studies during the daytime.
84 THE LIFE STORY OF A LEPEK
While here we read the Vikramaka Tales. As they are a good example of Hindu mythology, I will relate one. Vikramaka was a great and powerful king, who did heroic deeds and performed wonderful feats, like the old heroes of Greece and Rome. He was also very fond of hearing something new; hence he sent for and entertained every traveller that passed by his castle. Upon one occasion there came a Sanyasi, a kind of hermit, who lived in the woods and who made great pilgrimages to sacred shrines. Having heard that he was a very wonderful character, the -king sent for him and asked him what he had seen and if he could tell him anything new. The Sanyasi replied that he had travelled over three worlds, heaven, earth and hell, and that in one of these countries, about three million miles away, there was a small lake, and in the lake a pillar of gold. Every morning as the sun rose, this pillar came up out of the lake and gradually ascended till at noon it touched the sun. In the afternoon, as the sun declined, it came slowly back, and in the evening sank again into the lake. Vikramaka said he would like to visit that lake and see this wonderful thing himself; but the distance was very great and it would take a lifetime to get there. The hermit told him he need not trouble himself about that, that he had in his possession a bottle of juice, which he extracted from a sacred plant, and all they had to do was to rub a little on their legs, then think of the place to which they wished to go, and immediately they would be there. The king was very glad to hear this and gave the hermit a banquet, after which the two left the ^palace alone. The hermit unrolled his garment, took from it the vial containing the sacred juice, rubbed a little on his own and the king's legs, and then said, "Just concentrate your mind on that lake, think you are there, and you will be there." Almost before he had time to put the
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN E. DAVIS 85
bottle back in its place, they were landing on the shore of the lake, waiting for daylight. Presently the day dawned, and as the sun appeared above the horizon, the top of the pillar of gold slowly rose above the surface of the water. The king was a brave man, and taking off his upper garment, he swam out to the pillar, mounted it, and as the sun rose higher, the pillar TOO ascended. At noon, as the pillar drew near the sun, the heat was so terrible that Vikramaka was in danger of being burned to death. There seemed little hope for him to escape, but the sun, wrho is a great god to the people of the East, seeing how brave the king was, very graciously cooled off and spared the king's life. In the evening, as the pillar came, down and sank into the lake, Vikramaka swam ashore. Putting 011 his upper garment, he told the Sanyasi he was wearied and hungry and wished to go back to his palace. The won derful juice of the sacred plant was again applied to their legs, and in a moment they were transferred three million miles through space, comfortably seated in the castle and served with a sumptuous repast by the king's many servants.
One young Hindu, who had learned some English, told me that the English, people needn't boast about their railway trains. He said they used to have shoes which enabled them to step twenty-four miles in a single step, and their hermits and holy men could travel much faster than the train. \ asked him where those shoes were now. "Oh," he said, "after the com ing of the Knglish our people sinned and left off the wrorship of the gods; consequently the gods were angry with us and took them and other wonderful things away from us. ' '
We 7-eniained in Pentakota till the first of June, and then spent a few days in Tuni. The Tuni mission house had been vacant since Mr. Currie's death, and T wrote
86 THE LIFE STORY OF A LEPER
to Mr. Craig and Mr. Stillwell, suggesting that I re main there, for I felt sorry to see the poor Christians left alone ; but word had come from the Board that I should be stationed at Cocanada, and that Mr. Craig move to Akidu. So we sent our things away in carts, and Mrs. Davis was carried in a palanquin by twelve bearers from Tuni to Samalkota, while I rode on horse back. Six men at a time carried the palanquin; about every mile they changed and the other six took their places. The three men in front called out "Ho! Ho!" and the three behind answered "Aha ! Aha ! " ; and thus they kept up a sing-song all through the night. It was a long, tedious ride for me ; for I had to keep close to the palanquin, lest when we passed villages where there were liquor shops, the men would put the palanquin down and get drunk. Once or twice through the night they stopped at these wayside shops and drank pretty freely, but I kept urging them on and promised them a present if they arrived at Samalkota before sunrise. The heat was terrible, and I knew it would not do for us to travel in the daytime. When tired of sitting on the horse, I got down and walked for a change, and just as the day was dawning we arrived at Samalkota, covering a distance of about thirty-five miles. The English officers thought it was a wonderful feat, for they do not usually ride or drive a horse more than ten or twelve miles a day in the hot season ; but I was so strong in those days that I did not feel tired. We spent the clay with the Stillwells, and that night rode in their carriage to Cocanada.
We had our Conference early in June that year. Mr. and Mrs. Craig left for Akidu, Mr. and Mrs. Gar- side for Tuni, and 1 was put in temporary charge of the work at Cocanada and Ramachandrapuram. In addi tion to this, I was Manager of the Timpany School and the native girls' boarding school. Mr. Lanamme went
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN E. DAVIS 87
to Samalkota to get away from all English-speaking people, that he might acquire the Telugu language more rapidly; so the pastorate of the English Baptist Church also fell to me. The native Christians came to me with all their burdens and sorrows, their court cases and their persecutions, and I conducted the monthly meetings for the workers and paid their salaries. These things kept me so busy that I found it very difficult to get time to study the language, but by a good deal of persistence I managed to pass the examinations by the end of the first year, when we had our annual Confer ence. I was appointed to full charge of the Cocanada, Ramachandrapuram and Peddapuram fields. Pedda- puram at that time included also what is now the Pithapuram field.
The Maritime missionaries again came down from the North to our joint Conference. I was very glad to meet them; for up to that time i knew almost nothing about the Maritime Baptists. I soon learned that they had pretty stiff backbones and stood firmly for Baptist principles. There was an old dispute between the Baptists and the British and Foreign Bible Society. The Baptists wished to have the Greek word "Baptism a" translated literally, but the Society wished* to translit erate it into Telugu and call it "Baptismamu." There were also other things the Baptists objected to in the translation, such as the preposition "en" being trans lated to mean "with." We had a letter before us from the Secretary of the Society, and some of our brethren were willing, in order to have one version for the Chris- tians of all denominations, to make a compromise; but the brethren from the Maritime Provinces were very firm, and said they would not put a veil or a cloak over any word in the Bible, to shut out its true meaning from the Telugu people; hence we and our American Baptist brethren expended thousands of dollars to get
88 THE LIFE STORY OF A LEPER
out our own translation. Dr. Jewett had part of the New Testament completed before the dispute with the Bible Society arose, and he had also had it copyrighted. Had he not done so, we wrould have been compelled to accept the Bible Society's translation. Now we could have compelled them to accept ours, had we wished to do so. But having secured one for ourselves, we left them perfectly free to get out their own translation. Someone in England a few years ago said, "The Baptist conscience is the rock on which the faithful will yet build." But I would not go so far as that. I would rather say that Christ Jesus Himself will always be the foundation on which true souls shall build.
After our Conference was over, I packed up my things and started on a tour over the Ramachandra- puram field with Mi1. Craig and Mr. Laflamme. That was my first experience in village work among the Christians and the Hindu population. The weather was cool and we preached four times a day each. We made a very rapid trip, hurrying from village to vil lage, as Mr. Craig had not much time to spare. We spent about ten days on the trip, and I got acquainted with the Christians and had prayer with some of them in their own houses. When we reached home, I again got my outfit ready and started out with two ox-carts and a tent for a tour, over the Pithapuram field. This time I was alone, and work on that field was new to me. I frequently rode all night in the ox-cart and then preached and examined schools all day. The Christians were scattered far and wide, and so the distances to be covered were great. It was a long, hard tour, and in one village, where we were preaching to an attentive audience, we were suddenly checked by the appearance of a portly Brahmin. I had been speaking on sin and atonement. When I ceased he stepped forward, and looking at the crowd assembled, said: "These Chris-
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN E. DAVIS 89
tians have been talking' about sin; bnt I would like to know what sin is. What color is it? Is it white? Is it red? Is it yellow* Is it black? What form has it? Is it square or is it round? Show me sin, if yon are able." And then, raising himself on his toes and hold ing his head aloft in the air, he said: ''There is no such thing as sin. Get to your- houses, every one of you! Go ! Go !" And in less time than it takes to write it, the crowd vanished. The Brahmin followed them and we were left standing alone. The reader may imagine what a. surprise it was to us, but this man belonged to the priestly caste, and the people were afraid to disobey him. But we were not to be defeated. We went down to the lower part of the village and saw a number of men weaving cloth. They invited us. to a seat on the verandah of one of their houses, and we sang and preached the gospel. They also bought some Scripture portions from us when we left. '
I spent three weeks bumping over the roads in the ox-cart by night and preaching and praying with the Christians during the day. I had very little time for rest or private devotion, for there was always someone at the tent door waiting for an opportunity to come in and tell me about his troubles. Some had cases in court and needed advice ; some had lost their dear ones and needed sympathy; some found the struggle for existence very hard and needed a word of cheer and encouragement ; and thus from six o'clock in the morn ing till eight or nine at night 1 was kept so busy that I could scarcely find time to take my meals. Some came for medicine and some for notes to the hospital assist- *ant; for it' they went to the hospital without a note from me, they would have to give a bribe to the medical officer in charge before he would give them any medi cine. The hospital and dispensary belongs to the Government, and the medicine is supposed to be </iven
90 THE LIFE STORY OF A LEPER
to all free of charge ; but this is rarely ever the case, because the hospital assistant is a native and is always looking" for a present. The same is true of some magis trates in the courts; unless they get a bribe they will not conduct the case properly, and often they take bribes from both parties, throw the case out of court, and leave the two disputants to settle their own trouble. I was new to the ways of the country at this time; but I soon learned to do all in my power to keep our Chris tians from going to law about anything, for it was almost impossible for them to get justice from the courts. At the end of three weeks I was pretty tired, so returned to Cocanada for a change and to get a little rest and some good food.
While at home I usually spent three nights out of the wreek in preaching to the outcaste people in the different suburbs of the city, conducted the English church prayer meeting and preached in English on Sundays. . There was a brick wall between our Telugu chapel and the road. I had a portion of the wall cut off and a pair of gates put in its place These gates were opened on Thursday nights and on Sundays, so that Hindus passing by might come in to our services. Above the gate I placed a signboard with the following inscription written in Telugu: "Jesus said: I am the Way, the Truth and the Life." This was printed in large letters, so that passers-by might read and have at least one text of Scripture. I made another tour on the Kamachandrapuram field and became better ac quainted with the Christians and my native assistants. There were a good many asking for baptism, and we received about thirty into the Muramanda and Nalluru churches. I did not understand the native character at that time and received candidates much more easily than I did in after years.
The cold season soon passed by, and in April the
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN E. DAVIS 91
grass and the leaves on the trees began to wither and dry up ; and as my wife suffered a great deal from the heat, we got on the steamer and went north to Bimli- patam, and from there by jinriksha to Chicacole, w^here we met Mrs. Archibald and Miss Wright. From here we accompanied Mrs. Archibald about fifty miles to Parlakimedi, and from thence to the top of a moun tain called Davagiri, where we spent the hot season with Mr. and Mrs. Archibald and Mr. and Mrs. Churchill. On our way to Chicacole, Mrs. Archibald showed me where an English officer's wife was buried, about a hundred years previous. She had been very kind to the native people during a famine, and now they had made her a goddess and came to her tomb to worship her. This is probably the way the people have come to have so many gods. Every king or wealthy person who had been charitable and fed the people during times of famine, becaume a deity after his death, and mythical stories wrere written about him. The spirit o!' worship is in them, but they know not what they worship, and there is no one to show them the way, none to tell the old, old story of Jesus and His love. My heart used to be almost broken, sometimes, when I thought of the millions of souls that were groping in the darkness after God. We spent a pleasant vacation with our friends in the North and returned to Cocanada in June, refreshed. and strengthened for ony work.
In the beginning of that year, 1889, we met .our Maritime brethren at Bimlipatam, where we had a joint Conference. Mr. Laflamme preached the Conference sermon on the text, "But ye shall receive power, after the Holy (Jhost is come upon you; and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth," Acts . 1 : 8. He dwelt upon the unfulfilled commission. Eighteen hundred years had passed by
92 THE LIFE STORY OF A LEPER
and the uttermost parts of the earth were still without the gospel. Fully half of the human race had never heard the name of Jesus Christ. He asked us why this was so. Was it because the Holy Spirit was not suffi cient for these things, or was it because the Christian Church had been asleep and had not been mindful of the last request of her dying Saviour? It was a heart- searching sermon, and at the close of it, Mr. J. E. Still- well and I both rose and asked the missionaries who wished to remain to come up near the front of the little chapel, and there we knelt and prayed through the long hours of the night till the breaking of the day, be seeching our Heavenly Father to fill us with the Holy Spirit that w^e might have power to witness for Him in this land of awful darkness. The next day we sent that memorable appeal home to our Board, asking for a missionary to every fifty thousand of the people, and for a native pastor or evangelist to every thousand. From that time onward our number began to increase. Three single ladies had joined us at the close of 1888, and two married couples — Messrs. Brown and Walker, with their wives — came out in the Fall of 1889, in answer to our appeal. The outlook was growing more hopeful, the number of baptisms was increasing, and sometimes I felt. the presence of. God very near.
CHAPTER VII. The Revival and the Hypnotist.
I toiled steadily on till September, 1890, and by that time I was convinced that our Christians were living far away from God. They had come out from such awful darkness, and were surrounded by so much stealing-, lying, cheating and deception that they had brought a good deal of it with them into the church; •and the more I thought of the matter the more bur dened I became, till at last I could endure it no longer. I resolved that they must either show more of the spirit of Christ, more signs of genuine conversion, or be turned out of the church altogether. So, one Sunday I announced that I would preach in the chapel every morning and evening during the next week, and asked as many of them as could possibly come to be present at the meetings. I spoke on the holiness of God and the a wf ulness of sin, on heaven and hell, on the deceit- fulness of the human heart and on the great need of being cleansed by the blood of Christ. I was so deeply wrought upon by the Spirit and so full of grief and sorrow over the careless lives of the Christians that I spoke with groat earnestness and power. I had a naturally strong voice, and a lady who was staying with us at the mission house told me she could hear every word I said in the chapel. After I had preached night and morning for nine days, I felt almost discour aged. I didn't know the people and didn't realize how troubled Iliey were. I thought they were spiritually (load, and that their hearts wore as hard as stone. When I went home that night I could not sleep, but walked the floor in my dross ing- room, cried to the Lord to undertake for me, and confessed that I was not suffi cient for those tilings. At two o'clock my wife woke up and lold me I had better »-o to bed or I would bo sick, for I had had malarial fever a short time boforo: but 1 couldn't lie down then. 1 was waiting for the Lord's
94 THE LIFE STORY OF A LEPER
answer to my prayer. About three o'clock I got assur ance that the Lord was going to give me the victory. Then I lay down and slept till I heard the bell ringing in the morning. I sprang to my feet, dressed myself, and taking a cup of coffee, hurried out and made my way over to the chapel. The Christians were all there and were singing a hymn. I didn't know what I was going to preach on; but while they were singing a hymn I opened my Bible at the 37th chapter of the Prophecy of Ezekiel and read to them the vision of the valley of dry bones. I told them how the Israelites had sinned, and were not only spiritually dead, but like so many dry bones. I then applied it to their own case. I admitted they had given up the worship of idols, had professed faith in Christ and had been baptized; but there appeared to be no spiritual life in them ; and like those. dry bones, it seemed impossible for them to be revived. But as the Lord told His prophet to prophesy upon the dry bones, so He had told me to preach to them. God had mercy on the dry bones of Israel, and perhaps His day of mercy had come for them. I read on to where, while the prophet was speaking, there was a rattling of the bones, and bone came to his bone, the muscles and sinews came upon them, .and the flesh and skin covered them, but still there was no life in them. They were just beautiful corpses; and a corpse, how ever beautiful, is only fit for the grave. I had spoken to them from the first in a pretty severe tone ; and now I turned and spoke to them tenderly. I told them how the father, watching for the return of his prodigal son, scanned the horizon day by clay to see if he could get a glimpse of him anywhere ; how he longed for his return, and how, wrhile he was yet a great way off, his father ran to meet him and fell 011 his neck and kissed him. I told them that perhaps they were still far away, but if only sick of the world and ready to say, "I will arise
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN K. DAVIS
95
and go to my father's house," God was sure to meet them. Then, as I read how the prophet besought the Spirit to come into those corpses that they might live, saying, "Come from the four winds, 0 Breath, and breathe upon these slain that they may live" — Just then, Jonathan Burder, our native pastor, sprang to his
TELUGU CHAPEL, COCANADA, SCENE OF REVIVAL
fed and said: "The Spirit is come! The Spirit is come!" And in i\ moment ten or twelve men were on their f"c1 at once, all trying to confess their sins; and it was only after some difficulty that I got them to sit down and allow one to speak at a time.
Old Aaron had the floor. He was an aged man with a long grey beard and wore a long snuff-colored coat,
96 THE LIFE STORY OF A LEPER
which is the cqmmoii color the hermits and devotees wear in the East. He was trembling from head to foot, and leaning on his cane with trembling hand, he told us in brief his life's story. When a young man he had first heard the gospel through the Lutheran mission aries, was baptized by them and taught in a village school. He had a beautiful voice, was a great singer, and could also play the violin well. He said he knew nothing about a new heart. He had come to the con clusion that idolatry was wrrong and had accepted Christianity as his new religion, much in the same way one puts off an old suit of clothes and puts 011 a new and better one ; but it had made no serious impression on his life. He had been in the habit of drinking from his boyhood and continued to do so ; and as he was far away from the missionaries and they didn't know how he was living, he frequently got drunk and committed all kinds of sin, until the heathen people could endure him no longer; hence they set fire to his schoolhouse and burnt it down. When the missionaries found out the trouble they took his work away from him, and he became a cook for an English officer. After working some years in this capacity, he met Messrs. Bowden and Heelis of the Grodavery Delta Mission. He heard them preach about the new birth, was led to read his New Testament, and after attending their services for some months he w^as truly converted. He then gave up his position as cook and accompanied Mr. Heelis in preach ing the gospel. For three years he remained faithful and had much joy in his Master's service. He could sing and preach so well that the missionaries made a favorite of him, and once more the devil tempted him. He became very proud of his ability, thought himself superior to the other native evangelists, and finally went back to his old habit of drinking again. The missionaries were very much grieved, and were com pelled to dismiss him. He then went to Burma and
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN E. DAVIS 97
secured employment as butler for a British officer ; but after two or three years he was taken sick with malarial fever and nearly died. Mr. Timpany was then in charge of the work at Cocanada. Aaron confessed his sins to him and to the church, was received into fellowship, and Mr. Timpany secured him the position of village Munsiff in Racepetta. Here he was the head of the new village and in receipt of a government salary ; but after a year or two this position proved to be too great for him. He again fell into sin, lost his position and Mr. McLaurin had him excluded from the church. And now he was old and ready to die, and had asked God to forgive him. He also implored us to receive him again into the church, which wTe did, and he remained faithful until death.
We spent most of the forenoon listening to confes sions. Some claimed they were never really converted, but most of them said they had experienced the joy of the Lord in their hearts before they were baptized, and while Mr. Timpany lived had remained faithful; but after his death they had grown cold and wandered away. Two brothers from Nallakuduru confessed to the sin of adultery. In the afternoon Miss Simpson, and Miss Baskerville held a special meeting for the women, and similar confessions were made there. I conducted a noonday meeting in the Rest house, where Mark, a charter member of the church, who had been a great help to the missionaries from the beginning, and who was the treasurer of the church, confessed to having fallen into that common sin of the East, just a week before the meeting began. One man and his wife told me they hadn't slept all night, and recalled a hymn that said, "Our sins like a mountain rise between us and God." The husband stated that his wife was crying all night, that he was holding her hand, and they were both on their knees confessing their sins and praying and asking God for forgiveness. Mr. J. R.
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Stillwell came down to assist me for a day or two and said he had never seen anything like it in India. One of the native men told me that it was a common saying among them that though a white man might confess his sins, a black man never would. But he said they had all learned that the Holy Spirit could make a black man confess just as easily as He could a wrhite man. It was a general time of cleansing, there was a spirit of repentance and contrition, and when the meetings were over, a great burden was lifted off my heart. I had come to know my native brethren and they had learned to love and trust me. After a few days' rest, Jonathan Burder and I went to Muramanda, where we conducted similar meetings for a week, and from there we went to Nalluru and spent a week in that church; and though the results were not so great in these churches, which were located at a distance from the missionaries, yet there was repentance and confession of sin wherever we went, and the Christians were greatly revived and strengthened. This was the first revival ever held among the Telugus of our Mission.
Immoral Pictures.
* And now, lest my readers should think that our Christians in India were unworthy of the name, let me tell you a little about the conditions in which they lived and something .about their environment. I had not been long in Co Canada when the native pastor took me through Pagoda Street, and when we came to the large Hindu temples, we saw some boys looking up at the images of the gods and laughing. The pastor called my -attention to these images, and as I looked at them 1 was amazed, for all up and down the front and sides of the temples were nude images of the gods and god desses in the act of adultery. The stories in their sacred books relate tales of shame. One god steals another god's wife from him; heaven itself is a place
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN E. DAVIS 99
where lust is gratified, and-most of the songs the people sing are about those things. The high-caste people build a wall seven or eight feet high around their houses to lock their wives and daughters in during the clay, while they are away at work, lest they should commit sin. There is no common decency between men and women. They use the vilest language when speaking with one another, and when this is the case among the educated and high-caste people, what can one expect from the poor outcaste? The Christians are isolated; many of them cannot read or write ; their brothers and relations are all heathen ; heathen worship and heathen customs are going on all around them, and they never hear anything that is good or pure or true, except when they come to church on Sunday. Ts it any wonder that some of them fall? The longer I lived in India the more I sympathized with the Christians, and the more careful I became about receiving candidates for baptism.
A New Mission Station.
In November we welcomed three more new mission aries, Mr. and Mrs. McLeod and Mr. Barrow. We had asked God for more missionaries, and year by year our number was increasing. I realized that I was unable to care for the work on so many fields, and at the beginning of 1891, Mr. J. R, Stillwell and I secured land in Peddapuram, and the former built a bungalow there for a new missionary. In August I made my last tour over that field in company with Mr. Walker, and then handed the work over to him and said good-bye to the Christians.
The Hypnotizing Brahmin
In September my touring on the Ramachandra- puram field began. I spent a Sunday with the church in Muramanda, and in the evening preached in a vil lage across the canal. When \vc returned to the boat,
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the native pastor and evangelist requested me to come back to Muramanda 011 Monday morning to preach to the caste people. I was in a hurry -and did not wish to go ; but they pleaded so hard that I could not refuse them, I found out later on what they wanted me for. I arose early on Monday, and taking a light breakfast, I walked two miles across the fields over to the village. We went down to Weaver Street, and there in a broad open place began to sing hymns to attract the people. By the time we had sung two hymns a large crowd assembled, and I stepped forth into the open square and began to address them. Seeing that there were many Brahmins in the assembly, who frequently deny the existence of sin, I began by telling them of what I had seen in different parts of the world. I told them that I had visited several countries on my journey out to India, and that .wherever I travelled I found churches or temples or a building of some kind erected for the worship of God ; also, as I passed through their own vil lage, I noticed that they, too, had built several temples. I asked them what was it that made all men, whether white or black, build places of worship ; and as no one answered me, I went on to tell them that there was another thing that attracted my attention, namely, that in all countries there were magistrates, courts and policemen, jails and prisoners; and putting these two things together, I had come to the conclusion that all men had some consciousness of sin. If there was no sin, there would be no jails and no prisoners. If there was no sin, there would be 110 temples, no sacrifices, no priests and no worshippers. I told them the Moham medans made long pilgrimages to Mecca to worship at the tomb of Mohamet ; that they themselves frequently made pilgrimages to Benares and other parts of India to worship at sacred shrines or bathe in holy waters, and that to account for these things, I concluded that all men were oppressed by a sense of sin and a desire
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to get rid of their burden. From this premise I began and preached unto them Jesus.
While I was speaking I noticed the crowd was be coming; greater and greater, and I was surprised to see people from other villages there. I spoke to them for fully an hour and they gave me the very best attention. When I had finished, an intelligent-looking Brahmin stepped forward and said to me: "What you have told us is all very good and we have enjoyed your address very much, but," said he, "there is a man here that has great power given him by the gods." He said they would make a circle in the sand, two yards in diameter, and place twenty-five rupees in the centre of it; then they would make seven marks in the sand, a yard apart, so that the last mark should be eight yards from the. circle. This man would stand at the edge of the circle and repeat over a charm, and after he had repeated it a sufficient number of times, anyone that could walk forward over these marks and take the money out of the circle, might have it. I said, "Alright, I'll be very glad to try it." "Well," said he, "before you do so, 1 must tell you the danger you are exposing yourself to. Five years ago there was a man on the other side of the river who tried to take the money, and just as he got to the edge of the circle, his feet turned around to the back of his legs, and he has been walking back wards ever since; another man about a year previous made the attempt, and when he got part way over the marks, his mouth went around to the side of his ear, and on Saturday in this village a Mohammedan man stepped over two marks, fell down in a faint and had to be carried to his home." And my native pastor told me this last statement was true. "Xow," said he, "if you succeed in taking that money, we'll believe that Jesus Christ is the true God; but if not, we will believe that this man has grot the true God." T said, "Alright, T am ready to try/* and taking up my little folding stool, I
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went up and sat down at the end of the marks made in the sand. They then began to beat drums and blow their musical instruments. The man came and sat down on the edge of the circle, and I noticed that he had a flashing pair of eyes, that seemed to look through one at a glance. He fixed his eyes intently upon me and began to repeat his charms. After I time I dropped my head, as though T were under his spell. The music stopped and they told me I might go forward. T arose and walked quickly towards the circle, but just as I reached out for the money, a little juggler from the other side grabbed it up and ran away. There was a great dispute ; many of the farmers took mj side 'and said I had beaten the man fairly, and had been cheated out of the money.
The crowd had become so great that there was scarcely room to move, and the hypnotizer said the place was so small and so crowded that the charm wouldn't work; but if I would go to Rajah's park, about a quarter of a mile away, he could bring me under his power. The native preachers begged me not to go; for they said he would get men to go up in the trees and throw stones on my head, and then say the gods had killed me. I told them T didn't care if there were ten thousand devils up there, T was going to show the people that this man was a fraud. T believed that he possessed hypnotic power, for I could not help feel ing the influence of his gleaming eyes; but T was not at all afraid of him ; so I accepted the challenge and went to the park. We waited there till eleven o'clock. Three or four thousand people gathered, but the Brahmins did not come. T then wrote a brief note and sent it to the master of ceremonies, saying that I was going to tell the people that this man was a fraud and go back to my boat, unless he came in fifteen minutes. We sat in the park and waited. After about twenty minutes we heard the native band playing, a great crowd of
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Brahmins came marching two by two, and at the head of the procession was the hypnotizer and the little juggler. They circled round us, playing music for some time. At last they drew the circle, measured off eight yards and again made their marks in the sand. They then told me that I might sit at the far end of the marks while the man was preparing his charm. As I rose and walked over to the place assigned to me, I noticed that they had only put one rupee in the circle, and I knew then that they were beaten. They beat their drums and blew their horns for nearly half an hour, while he kept repeating his charm and fixing his eyes upon me. When all was ready, they told me I might come forward once more, and I walked rapidly over the marks, determined to get that rupee. But before I could get there, the litlle juggler grabbed it up and ran aw-ay in the crowd. I laughed at them and reminded the one who was man ager of his promise to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, if no harm came to me when I walked over the marks. I tried to speak to the people, but the Brahmins made such a noise I could not be heard. They said they would make the circle one yard in diameter, and the little juggler would sit on the edge of the circle and make the rupee fly off in the air as I approached. I told him that the rupee had been flying off too much already, and that they had just been humbugging me all the forenoon. But they wouldn't let me speak, unless I would try this new experiment: so I consented, and while they were preparing the circle, the hypnotizer came over to me, salaamed very politely and asked me to please go away. He said: "I can't do anything to you, and you have spoiled all my profit to-dnv." \o won dei-, for he and the juggler were accustomed to play all kinds of sleight-of-hand tricks, and were gelling money out of the people.
"When I saw the juggler sitting on the edge of the circle, I told the people that his hand was quicker than
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their eyes. He would have a cobra and a mongoose fighting to attract their attention, and then grab the rupee before I could get to it. I asked him to let my preacher put his cane on the rupee, and then I knew it wouldn't fly off in the air. But he. refused to do this, so I took a carpenter's pencil out of my pocket and made a red cross on one side of the rupee and a blue one on the other. Then I said to the juggler: "Now if that rupee isn't there when I come forward I am going to put my foot on your neck and tear your clothes all off your body and take the rupee away from you.* I pretended I was very angry at the way they had treated me, and I walked back to the end of the marks once more. After beating their tom-toms for about ten minutes, they said I might come forward. Just as i started, the juggler got frightened, grabbed the rupee and ran away into the crowd as fast as he could go, .and I did not see him or the hypnotizer again. I then got up on the stump of a tree and spoke to the people. I told them that this was a sham, that they were con stantly being deceived and cheated by the Brahmins and the priests. Again I preached to them and told them the old, old story of Jesus and His love, and entreated them to forsake their idols and turn to the one true God, who created them and was ready to save them. When T was through, the Brahmin manager told the crowd that T had a greater charm than the hypno tizer, and that I kept repeating that and counteracting his charm ; hence he had no power over me. One of the Shudras called out and said: "The Doragaru (missionary) has a greater God than we have and that God helped him to overcome the hypnotizer." The Christians then began to sing: —
"Stand up, stand up for Jesus, Ye soldiers of the Cross ; Lift high His royal banner, It must not suffer loss."
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It was one o 'clock when we left the park and came down to the village. Crowds were everywhere through the streets, and many of the caste women had come out of their houses, expecting to see me carried back dead or in some way disabled. The Christians continued to sing hymns, as we marched through the village. It was a great day for them. Many of the farmers told me they had been watching the trees, to see that no one climbed up them to throw sticks or stones on me while we were in the park. When I got back to my boat I was very tired and had a little sun-fever from being so long out in the terrible heat. As I reflected on the phenomena of hypnotizing, I made up my mind that though there were some men who possessed a great deal of magnetic power, yet the larger factor in the process depended on the person that was hypnotized. People who believe in ghosts and fairies easily imagine they see them, and those who believe in charms are easily charmed. I did not believe in any of these things; hence this celebrated Brahmin was unable to exercise any influence over me.
Self -Support.
During my second year in India I had come to the conclusion that our native Christians must do more to support the gospel than they had done in the past. They were very poor, and the great majority of them came from the outcastes and had but little to give. While heathen, they were compelled to give by their elders and their priests. When cholera or any sickness broke out in the village, each family had to bring offer ings to the gods. When they built their temples or repaired them, a tax was levied on each family, and they were forced to contribute the amount required of them. 1 1' they did not do so, they would not be allowed to draw water from the well, and no one in the village would give them any work. Their gifts during the
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year amounted to a good deal, but they were not free will offerings, and when they became Christians and were free to do as they wished, they seemed unwilling to make any sacrifices for the cause of Christ. AYhen they first came out, they suffered so much persecution that the missionaries had not demanded very much of them; but as their number increased, persecution to a large extent ceased, and it was a bad training for them to be allowed to think that they were too poor to bring an offering to their Lord and Master, who had given His life for them.
Having talked the matter over with my fellow- missionaries and with the native pastors and teachers, I made a crusade through the churches and endeavored to impress on the minds of the Christians the obligation they were under to support their own pastors and teachers. I found them very indifferent about the matter, but generally they were ready to believe any thing that I could prove to them from the Bible. After a good deal of hard work, I managed to get them to give two or three rupees a month towards their pastor's salary. The pastors themselves were not very willing to look to their own people for support. They found it much easier to receive their monthly salary from the Mission. This made them free and independent. They could spend their tiiut? au^ way they wished* tba Christians did not pay them and had no right to de mand their services. There was no proper relation between the pastor and his people. But as soon as the native churches began to support their own pastors, then the latter were under obligation to them, and were bound to visit the sick and be present to conduct the prayer meetings and Sunday services. It was a long, hard fight to introduce this new system, and I con tinued to teach and preach it during all the 'years I spent in India. Upon one occasion I spoke for two
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hours to the students in the Seminary on self-support, for it was necessary that the students should realize that they were going out to serve their own people and not to work for the missionaries. Mr. J. R. Stillwell heartily co-operated with me in this good work. He had been giving the boarders three suits of clothes a year and a head cloth; but the estimate for carrying on the work had been cut down by the Board at home, and he accordingly took away one suit from them. They were very angry about this and threatened to leave the school. They had always been provided with three suits, hence thought they were being treated very un justly ; but Mr. Stillwell had their confidence and love, and when he explained the wrhole matter to them, they became reconciled and settled down to work again, thinking it would only be for one year. But when Mr. Stillwell saw that they were able to get along without this additional suit, he took it away from them altogether.
CHAPTER VIII.
Gurumurti, the Timpany School and Samalkota.
New missionaries were coming out year by year, and it was necessary for us to open up new stations. In January, 1892, I visited Ramachandrapuram with a view to securing land, if possible, for that purpose. It was the centre of the county. There was a government office, a sub-magistrate's court, a police station, a dis pensary and post-office. I had passed through it several times before and had made up my mind that it was the proper place for a missionary to live. There was a Local-fund bungalow for European travellers a short distance from the village, and near this was some vacant land. It seemed to be the only suitable site to build on, for the coiuitry all about it was watered by the canals, and was low and wet and likely to be unhealthy. There were some large mango trees on this site, and underneath one of these Jonathan Burder and I kneeled and asked God to give us this spot of ground for a new mission station. Upon inquiry, I found- the land was owned by two lawyers who lived in Cocanada. One of them had been a great friend of Mr. Timpany, and was very favorable to our work. The other was a proud, bigoted Hindu. Naturally I went to the one who was friendly and he promised to do his best to secure the site for me. He fixed the price at about three hundred rupees per acre, and said if I was willing to give that, he could induce his partner to sell out his share. But it was not until July that I was able to get an agreement written out and permission to build on the land. At the July Conference Mr. and Mrs. A. A. McLeod were appointed to take charge of work on the Ramachandrapuram field. Mr. McLeod and I toured over the field together, and on the first of August I handed over the work to him. Later in the year we got the deed of the land, but having made a payment on it and secured permission to build, Mr. McLeod erected a
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temporary house* with walls and roof covered with palm leaves. Here he and his wife lived and labored till they were able to build a new bungalow. I had begun my work with the care of three fields, but by this time I had handed over Peddapuram and Ramachan- drapuram and was left free to develop the work on the Cocanada field. I let Mr. McLeod have our native pastor for a month or two, to tour with him until he could get acquainted with the work ; while I used my bicycle and visited many of the villages on the Coca nada field, single-handed, preaching the gospel as best I could to the people. I had no workers outside of the town to help me, but during 1893 I opened up an out- station at Venkatakrishnapuram and placed a worker there ; then I secured land at Coringa and built a house and placed a teacher in that village. I also bought a house in Jagganaikapuram, for there we had some caste Christians and there was no suitable place for them to live in. That year, too, I bought the Davies Memorial Compound, which is now occupied by the ladies. The other missionaries were away to the hills, and I spent the hot season in Cocanada, caring for the work. This Compound had suddenly come into the market, and I hastened to secure it, lest it should be sold to the Hindus.
The Baptism of a Caste Man and His Daughter.
Gurumurti, a Shudra man, during Mr. Timpany's time had been employed as a teacher in the girls' boarding school, and had learned very much of the gospel. As a boy he had attended a Christian school in Vizagapatam. Under Mr. Timpany's strong Christian influence he had been led to accept Jesus as his Saviour, but lacked the courage to come out and be baptized. He used to attend church occasionally, and often told me that he read his Bible every day and had prayer in his own home. He had taught his eldest daughter to
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read the Bible, and as she had an excellent memory, she could recite whole chapters of the Gospel of John, without making a single mistake. His wife and his cousins were all bitterly opposed to the Christian religion, and though he often told us that he would be baptized soon, we did not believe that he would have courage to leave everything for Christ. But one Thurs day night he came to our prayer meeting and said he wished to be baptized. The Christians all knew him and the church very readily accepted him as a suitable candidate for baptism. We advised him to go home and tell his people, and then come back Sunday morning and be baptized. This he did, and so after the morning service I baptized him, with some others. He was afraid to go home, so remained in the Compound with our native pastor1.
On Monday morning I rode on horseback over to Eacepetta, visited the Christians, and preached to the Malas. When I returned, there were thirty or forty men in our Compound. They had hold of Gurumurti and were dragging him along toward the gate. The native pastor and four or five Christians were holding on to him and trying to pull him back. He, too, was struggling to get away from his relatives and his own caste people. I took in the situation at once, and urging my horse forward, I dashed toward the crowd at full gallop. They, being frightened of the horse, let go of Gurumurti and scattered in every direction ; upon which he made his way back to the mission bungalow. I jumped from my horse and asked them what was the matter, and why such a. crowd of them had com^ into my Compound without permission. I told them that Gurumurti was forty years of age, that he had been a Christian for a long time, that he had come to us of his own accord, and that he might go away again if he wished ; but that I was not going to </