p. 684 | BURNED DOWN AGAIN

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 22, 1901

BURNED DOWN AGAIN.

Saloon's Threat Again Fulfilled on Humbird's Church.

The New Voice.

Humbird, Wis., September 26 (Staff Correspondence).— The new Free Methodist church of this village, erected since the destruction of its predecessor by fire, presumably kindled by liquor anarchists, last April, was burned to the ground Sunday night, and the adjoining parsonage was totally destroyed with it.

The new church, which, though not wholly completed, had already been used for the regular Sunday services several times, was a concrete expression of self-sacrifice, undaunted Christian heroism, and patient industry.

Though positive evidence is not yet available, there are sufficient facts at hand to support the deliberate assertion that liquor anarchists, chagrined at the speedy restoration of the meeting-house, repeated the foul achievement of last spring, and fired the beautiful new house of worship. At least, animated by precisely the same damnable conception of life that nerved the saloon-reared Czolgosz to fire the assassin's bullet, the fiend of the torch destroyed in an hour what Christian industry and Prohibition heroism had built with painstaking skill.

The incendiary chose for his business the midnight hour, when a fresh autumn breeze had placed both church and parsonage in equal danger from his torch, and a time when the pastor was absent, attending the annual conference.

Humbird is a cozy little village nestling down at the foot of one of those picturesque Wisconsin cliffs; but despite its scarcely three hundred inhabitants, three saloons flaunt their indecency and defiance of law, not far apart on the main street of the place. They have licenses to sell liquid damnation to all comers, and debauch the whole village at so much per measure, but despite their lawful privileges, they defy every law on the statute book that conflicts with their imperious ideas of personal liberty, and defile the youth of the community with equal impunity.

The story of their fear and hatred of the Rev. Mr. Ghormly and his loyal supporters was told in the New Voice last spring. Though the saloon was outlawed last year, the newly elected whisky board had given three rum holes licenses two months prior to the close of the no-license year, despite the protest of the better element. The rum shops began instantly to defy all restrictions, respecting no laws whatever, in their usual anarchistic fashion. The villainous seduction of the young men of the little village, contrary to law, and the violation of every other regulation imposed by the Wisconsin statutes, aroused the temperance people of the place to vigorous indignation. Mr. Ghormly is a young man in his early thirties, who has never shown the white feather in any battle with wickedness. The son of a fearless Abolitionist, who was proud to recall his intimate connection with the “underground railway,” and who in later life had espoused the Prohibition cause with equal enthusiasm—bred from such stock, young Ghormly developed similar backbone; and in Iowa and South Dakota Prohibition campaigns he learned to love the great reform and hate the rum traffic. He has seen his father egged and mobbed in the Hawkeye State, and the characteristic argument of the liquor anarchist had no terrors for him. So it was natural that he was most prominent in this little crusade, although it was merely to require the rummies to respect the law.

One conviction was secured. This incensed the saloon men. This victory might encourage the temperance people to further agitation. The thirteen straight Prohibitionists of the community were among the leaders of the crusade. The members of the Free Methodist church, scarcely more than a score, were unanimously loyal to their pastor. His earnestness and Christian heroism, his preaching of God's truth with unvarnished plainness, won him the esteem and admiration of the community. In the midst of all this the little house of worship of the Free Methodist church was fired by miscreants on the night of April 10. It was burned to the ground. Nothing but charred timbers and formless debris were left the next morning. The scoundrels who had conceived and carried out this outrageous barbarism had fully covered their tracks. But the villainous threats of the whisky criminals were well known.

When the news had been told the whole country through the columns of the New Voice, an unlooked-for response immediately came. Prohibitionists from many parts of the United States contributed to the fund for the rebuilding of the church. Members of other denominations besides the Free Methodist sent in liberal checks to help. Even France was represented in the response. A Roman Catholic priest sent his warm sympathy, and accompanied his message with a five-dollar bill. And thus, with the hearty co-operation of his friends at home, the pastor set about to erect a new meeting-house. Himself a carpenter, after the fashion of his Master, he drafted his own plans for an attractive and inviting new church. Donning jumper and overalls, he not only superintended the work from the first, but himself wielded the hammer and the saw, and only needed occasional assistance as the structure grew steadily day after day. For weeks during the hot summer months Mr. Ghormly kept at it. His church people met in a near-by house of worship each Sunday. Everything was manifestly going happily. By the beginning of September the new building was so nearly completed as to be usable.

The week of September 16-22 was conference time. Mr. Ghormly temporarily suspended his labor on the new building, and went to the official gathering of his church. He returned to find the meeting-house, almost the sole creation of his own brain and patient industry, a ghastly pile of ashes, exactly like its predecessor. His home, adjoining, was a rubbish heap of twisted iron and blackened timbers.

Insurance covered the most of the church's loss, but the young pastor lost several hundred dollars' worth of valuable books and other property.

For the time being the anarchists seem to have triumphed. The ginmills continue night and day to defy every restriction, as if law was an old woman's whim.