NOTES BY THE WAY | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Apr 24, 1901

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 27, No. 17.

NOTES BY THE WAY.

As stated in the Signs of the Times of April 9, our company of over two-score bound for the General Conference at Battle Creek, Mich., and other points left the Oakland Mole in a special tourist car the evening of March 21. The car was clean, new, double-windowed, and well heated. We had an excellent porter, kind and agreeable, and most of our company were Christian people. Surely there is no reason why the company should not have enjoyed the trip.

A goodly company of friends, mostly connected with the Pacific Press, came down to see us off, bringing beautiful flowers and speaking cheerful good-byes and hearty Godspeeds. Against a strong wind we were nearly an hour late at Sacramento; notwithstanding, a company of from fifteen to twenty, led by Pastor C. N. Martin, met us at the station, and serenaded us by the sweet singing of several of the songs of Zion. Not all of our party had retired for the night, and three of us went out into the station and joined our voices with theirs. Brethren Martin and Israel and their efficient helpers had just held an open-air meeting near the station, with good interest, and not a few remained to hear the singing.

IT was not a wholly unpleasant change from the flowering, fragrant orchards and gardens and green fields of the Sacramento Valley to the Sierra snows, softening and illuminating the ruggedness of the mountains. God speaks to us by the tongues of the mountains. “The strength of the hills is His,” and among the great barren mountains God has often trained His messengers and sent them forth to labor for the needy. The pure mountain air, the larger views, the freedom from contact with the superficial, the better opportunities offered for seeing God in His works, all make the mountains favorable places for seeking God and meeting with Him. “Come up into the mountain, and be there,” is His call to Moses. “O thou that tellest good tidings to Zion, get thee up into the high mountain,” is God’s call to His Gospel messenger. It was in the mountains that Elijah was trained and met with God. It was the mountain stillness and grandeur that our Saviour sought in which to commune with His Father. So God wants each of His children to get up into the heights of spirituality, commune with Him, and gather of the oxygen and ozone of life to meet the malaria and miasma of the lowlands of sordid greed and sensuality.

BEYOND the mountains were the alkali deserts of Nevada and Utah. But never was there a more favorable journey across the sand plains than ours. The recent rains had well laid the dust, the wind was favorable, and we passed over the dreaded region with no discomfort. All were interested in our journey thru Weber Canyon, with its beautiful and sublime scenery, with the quaint and curious forms which the upheavals of earthquakes and the erosion of the elements have wrought in the mountains and hills. All thru this section there are oases in the desert, produced thru irrigation by a frugal and industrious population, many of them cursed by the blighting influence of Mormonism.

SABBATH, March 23, was a good day on our train. A regular Sabbath-school was held with five classes. Immediately after Sabbath-school a brief discourse based on Gal. 6:7, by Brother J. O. Corliss, was listened to with interest by all in the car, and some from other coaches who were invited in. How true it is, as forcibly set forth in the sermon, that “whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”

At Julesburg, Colo., came the surprise and incident of our journey. Down from the summit of the Rockies at Sherman, Wyoming, an elevation of 8,247 feet, and thru Cheyenne, the evening of March 23, our train sped rapidly eastward, the latter part of the night in the face of a blinding storm from the northeast, filling the deep cuts of the railway with a heavy, hard snow. Sunday at daybreak found us at Julesburg in the very teeth of a howling blizzard. Inquiry developed many theories and no satisfactory replies. The storm increased in violence till after midday, moderating somewhat toward night. But a deep cut some miles farther east was closed, our train was stalled in the drift, and a snow plow which attempted its rescue wedged itself in and there remained till the storm was over. In the meantime an auger plow with three engines came from the east, and a great rotary driven by three locomotives came down from Cheyenne, and we were liberated after an imprisonment of thirty-five hours. While our train was the first east-bound which was stalled, before we went out there were fourteen passenger trains and several freights tied up near Julesburg by the blizzard.

THE storm was, while it lasted, exceeding fierce. Cattle were smothered by the fiercely driven snow, which stung, wherever it struck the skin, like needles. People in the town of Julesburg did not know until Sunday evening that so many trains had been stopped by the snow. They were blockaded in their houses. Nearly all the provisions in the dining cars of the train were eaten, and the railway men were told that they must seek their meals elsewhere. The people in the town dealt honestly. One hotel was “eaten out of house and home,” as the old expression goes, but it only charged twenty-five cents a meal as long as it lasted. Eggs could be found in but one or two places, but the price was only ten cents a dozen. Large loaves of bread were but ten cents each; however, the last one to be found in the town was sold for fifteen cents. Good navel oranges could be obtained for twenty-five cents a dozen, and good apples for five cents a pound. Almost no butter could be obtained, but one grocer, who had an inferior quality, and who could have sold it to those who in all probability would never have seen him again in this order of things, refused to sell it saying that it was not fit to eat. Canned goods could be obtained at reasonable prices. The people of Julesburg were humane, kind, obliging, and just, and we pray that they may find a better country and climate.

THE value of Christianity is always demonstrated under trying circumstances. It is worthless unless it can “endure grief.” With a warm car, an attentive porter, and trainmen who did all they could, even though we were anxious to get on, why should we complain? The porter said that he wished there would more Christians travel. An infidel, a trainer of race horses on his way to Austria, who was one of our company, said that he had never before thought there was anything in Christianity, but his experience with us made him doubt; there might be something in it after all. The storm was one of the “all things” which God works, with those that love Him, for good. The thing itself may be evil. We could say that, itself alone considered, it is evil; but God uses that with the other events of life so as to work out good to us and glory to His name. It is not that the things themselves by “fortuitous combination” work out good, but “we know that to them that love God, God worketh all things with them for good, even to them that are called according to His purpose.” Rom. 8:28, R. V. margin. We may not see now, but when life’s web is woven, when the woof of life’s character is finished, we will see how wisely the Weaver wrought for us.

ONE of our number was sick on the way, and a part of our car became a hospital. Having three skilled nurses, he soon grew convalescent, altho his fever had risen to 103.6°. Another, a young lady, we left at the Branch Sanitarium at Chicago, with an equal temperature, and at this writing she is rapidly recovering. One feels continually to praise God for a whole Gospel which has light and blessing and instruction for not only soul but body.

TWELVE of our company came directly on to Battle Creek, reaching here the morning of the 26th. Three of our number left us at Cheyenne for Kansas City, two at Ames, Iowa, six stopped in Chicago, three went on farther east. We found the publishers’ council well begun; brethren were here from all parts of the world, and the good Spirit of God is manifest in our meetings. For all this we praise Him.

Thus ends our good journey of nearly 3,000 miles. The railway officials of the S. P. and N. P., C. and N. W. and Mich. Central railways did all they could, and the officers of the Pullman company all within their limits to make our journey pleasant, and God’s good angels were with us all the way. More anon.

Battle Creek, Mich., March 28.