The Overland by James White

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · May 17, 1877

The Overland.

By James White

FRIDAY, the 11th, at 8:30 A. M., Mrs. W. and the writer took the overland train at Oakland for Omaha, and the East. After numerous valises and lunch baskets were properly adjusted by the assistance of the porter, we found ourselves well located in a good sleeper with quiet companions in travel. All along the valley until we began to climb the mountains, the road was dusty and the agricultural prospects dubious. As evening came on, there were signs of recent rains on the foot-hills, and by bed-time the air was cool and refreshing. Slept well all night as our train moved up the ascent, around among the mountain peaks, and on through the dreaded snow-sheds. Awoke in the morning feeling that we had gained a great victory over weariness, want of sleep, and a dismal portion of the road.

It was Sabbath morning, and how to spend the sacred day to the acceptance of the Lord of the Sabbath became a matter of counsel. We decided that after the morning repast from our lunch baskets of plain bread, oranges and cherries, we would spread our adjustable table with copies of the Signs, Review, Reformer, and the blessed Bible. With these, full of truth and interest, to enjoy, the hours of the Sabbath passed sweetly by. To those unaccustomed to travel, the card playing, and the hollow laugh just across the narrow isle would have been very annoying. But we have long since decided to take the world as it is, and make the best of it, and not let unavoidable disagreeables disturb us.

Thanks to the Central Pacific R. R. Company for building smoking rooms to be entered only from the platform outside, where tobacco slaves may smoke to their heart’s content, without disturbing decent people who object to taking tobacco smoke second handed. Here is one family from Oregon en route to famous Arkansas springs for the health of the head of the family. He is suffering with dyspepsia, and sinking with nervous debility; yet he is an inveterate smoker, and his lunch baskets are well supplied with swine’s flesh and all kinds of liquors. The family eat and drink three times each day in a most gluttonous and surfeiting manner, and then mourn over headaches, pains in the stomach, and great weariness.

Here is also a gentleman from San Francisco on his way to celebrated springs in Germany for the cure of dyspepsia. After eating a hearty dinner, he reports that he feels as though an elephant’s foot was on his stomach. The figure, dyspeptics being best judges, is not a bad one. But we very much doubt that this gentleman will get rid of his American elephant in his native land. The people perish for want of knowledge. Conformity to hygienic rules is the only remedy for these sufferers. There is no better land for health, with proper habits, than our own dear America. And the Pacific slope, is the grand hospital of our good country. Yet here are people rushing across the continent to obtain health by the virtues of the dirty water of mineral springs. The most healthful water beneath the heavens is the soft, pure element as it gushes from the mountains, or that which descends from the clouds. The people perish for want of knowledge.

We enjoy our plain food with a keen relish, read and write nearly all day in the trembling car, sleep in the moving, rocking cradle like the babe gently jogged by the mother’s foot, and are strangers to headaches and pains in the stomach. “How is this,” inquire fellow-travellers, “that while we grow weary, you seem rested and revived by the journey?” We reply by pointing to our vegetarian lunch baskets. There are very many fine theories in the world of little worth to live by. But, thank Heaven, the theory of how to live so as to have health and happiness, is glorious for practical life. We take a full meal of bread and fruits in the morning, less at noon, and none at night, so that brain, limb and stomach come out even with the day’s work, and all there is of us, from head to foot, rests the night long. Why people shut up in a car, or any where else, should take supper, and keep the stomach mill going while the rest of the body sleeps, or tries to, we can give no better explanation than that victuals taste good. And so the people live to eat, instead of eating to live.

Sunday morning, the 13th, we have just passed Ogden, the railroad center of Mormondom. Beside the train were displayed photographs of Brigham Young, his nineteenth wife, the notorious John D. Lee, his first wife Rachel, and others too numerous to mention. We have never desired even to see Salt Lake City, and now pass it the tenth time during the past five years, leaving its abominable heroes, and manifold heroines and their shadows behind. Their day of reckoning and retribution hasteth.

We have had rain this morning, and the mountain air is as pure as pure can be in this world. And we are passing the grandest scenery on the road. There is no card playing in this car, if for no other reason probably out of respect for Sunday. The people around us are reading or are thinking devoutly to all appearances. This pleases us. In fact, we would not object to a string of three more successive Sundays in this car for the sake of the enjoyment of quiet, sober life.

In our quiet car home, we pray for our dear children who bear responsibilities at Oakland, and for the numerous Christian friends we have so recently left. We are glad that our good people in California are to enjoy the labors of Elder Smith a few weeks longer than was anticipated. And while we feel that our work on the Pacific Coast is closing for the present, we are happy to know that not a single discouragement rests upon the cause there. For a time it was necessary that pioneers in the cause should labor to establish the cause. That being done, there are newer, wider, and no less important fields opening which demand the superintendence of such men as Elders Loughborough, Van Horn, Waggoner and others. God is raising up a noble force of young men all along the coast from New Mexico, to British Columbia. Our people in the Pacific Coast States and Territories must place their hopes in these, under Christ, for the work of gathering to the standard of truth a pure and devoted membership. Let these buckle the armor on. God bless them, and help them to use the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. J. W.