The Overland by James White

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · May 24, 1877

The Overland.

By James White

WE were nearly one hundred miles east of Ogden, paper and pencil in hand, when the porter notified us that the west bound train was in sight. We brought our hasty remarks of last week, under the above caption, to a sudden close, and put it on the train for Oakland and San Francisco. This may explain the abrupt close of that article.

Here we met conductor McCandlish, with whom we formed a happy acquaintance last September on the train from Omaha to Ogden, and received his thanks for the SIGNS and Reformer. This gentleman is every way qualified to fill a higher station; but the ravages of grasshoppers, and accompanying droughts, left him where a $1200 salary as conductor of the sleepers on a railroad train is acceptable. His views of the health question, the present condition of society, and of reforms generally, are such as to form a strong bond of union between us.

Rains have fallen recently all along the road, exempting us from dust. The weather has been fine. We are having a very pleasant passage through the State of Nebraska. The prairies and almost boundless fields are delightfully green with the new grass and grain. Heavy rains have been falling for ten days, and the lower grounds are temporary lakes. On the higher lands the young grasshoppers revel in the new grass by the million, in spite of the heavy rains. With continued rains this rich soil will produce enormous growth, probably enough for both hoppers and the farmers. But should extreme drought soon follow the excessive wet, the condition of the country may be deplorable.

One of our nearest neighbors in this flying palace is an intelligent Catholic lady from Idaho. She is returning to New York in hopes to find relief from heart difficulties. Her husband was raised a Seventh-day Baptist in Tennessee. She seems to have great respect for her Protestant husband, and says the seventh day is the right Sabbath. She subscribes for the SIGNS OF THE TIMES for herself in New York, to remail to her husband after she has read. They have been in Idaho fifteen years, and have become rich by stock raising. The husband is to leave that Territory the first of June with six thousand head of cattle, and thirty men to help drive and guard. They will move eight or ten miles a day ever entering upon new grass, and thus fatten the stock for the eastern market while moving toward it.

Another neighbor is a doctor who thinks himself deserving much credit for leaving the regular practice for the eclectic. He is an inveterate smoker and pleads for eating that which tastes good. Three times a day he has partaken largely of the greasy, spiced and sweetened preparations at the eating houses, and has dozed away his time like the stupidest blockhead. When we reached Mt. Sherman at noon, we were told that there would be no chance for dinner until the train reached Cheyenne at 3:30 P. M. The doctor appeared troubled, and learning that he had two minutes, rushed out to a humble, private cottage, and as the train began to move, he was seen running with something in his hand rudely done up in a newspaper. He reached the train, opened his package, and began to eat that which a few minutes before probably was pie and sweet cake, but had been squeezed and shaken up so that it was difficult to tell which was pie and which was cake. With feelings of sympathy for the poor doctor we passed him some of our California oranges and sweet cherries. But he refused with the statement that he was not fond of fruit.

We have now partaken of our simple food of bread and fruits from our lunch baskets five successive days. We sleep as well as at our Oakland home, and are free from headaches and dullness. We are reading, writing or conversing at least ten hours each day, and are growing rested, while our friends seated around us, who spend three dollars each day at the eating houses, are getting sick and tired. We have been revising the Life of Eld. Bates for the Battle Creek press, and have done more editing and writing the past five days, than for three weeks at the SIGNS Office with the usual interruptions.

Now we do not recommend reading and writing in the cars, but we are so accustomed to car life, and to writing on the moving train, that we do not realize the least weariness or injury. Neither do we recommend bread and fruits only, to those at their homes. We speak of these as most portable and best to use day after day in a railroad train. They are simple, and fully sufficient for those shut up in a car in passing across the continent. God gave Adam the grains, fruits and vegetables for food. The great Master Chemist knew how much salt, pepper and vinegar to put in Adam's bill of fare. That which was good then, may be quite as good now.

We have passed the Missouri river, and are passing through a very beautiful portion of Iowa. The Lord has been very near and precious to us on this journey. And while we pray God to bless dear friends we have left in California, we pray for light to help in future responsibilities and trials as we near the headquarters of our eastern work, where we have spent twenty years of the best of life. A solemn, blessed weight is upon us. A great and glorious work is before those who will accept and proclaim the last message of mercy to a lost world, with its reproaches, privations, toils and joys. Thirty-six years since, we left school to point sinners to the promised One, the crucified One, the risen and ascended One, the coming One. Jesus was our theme and song then, and as we near the consummation of the blessed hope the theme is more glorious and the heavenly harmony of its sweet notes more enrapturing. J. W.