CHAPTER XII.

THIRD PERIOD. (1870-1880.)

   THIS period is one of thrilling interest. It is characterized by a great influx of people into the State and great revivals in the Church, While up to 1870 the population had grown to 122,993, in the next five years it increased to 247,280, more people coming into the State in five years than had come the preceding fifteen years. By 1880 there were 452,542, a total increase during the decade of 323,549, while the increase during the preceding decade had been less than 95,000.
   The frontier had, up to this time, extended but little, if any, over one hundred miles west of the Missouri River, except up along the line of the Union Pacific Railroad, and, there but few except railroad employees had settled. But now this tide of immigration rapidly extended over the table-lands of Butler, Seward, Polk, York, Fillmore, Saline, Gage, and Jefferson Counties, pushing out up the Republican River in the south part of the State, up the Platte and Loup in the central part, and up the Elkhorn in the north.
   If I were to seek for a single word to express the situation during this period, especially the first four years, that word would be expansion. This expansion was twofold. The growth of the older charges through accretions, conversions, revivals, and more thorough organization. Then the territorial expansion towards the west line of the State corresponding with the extension of the set-

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tlements through the vast immigration of that period. Then the growth of the population within the area already partially settled, and the corresponding growth of the Church, by the multiplication of appointments on the circuits and resultant increase in number of stations, circuits and districts. In 1863, D. S. Davis is appointed to Wahoo Circuit. He starts in with five appointments and closes up with fourteen, and out of that one circuit there has grown four stations and circuits.
   Often where there was no circuit in the beginning of the year, some presiding elder would send a man to make one, or possibly, as often happened, some zealous local preacher, or superannuated veteran, would launch out and make one. Nor were these new circuits wholly the result of the coming of Methodist settlers who only needed to be hunted up. Many of the preachers possessing the missionary spirit, would go into neighborhoods where there were perhaps no members, or not enough to organize a class, hold revival-meetings, get a number converted, and thus extend the work. Then the head of a circuit would grow to the extent of being able to support a preacher, and there would be a station made of one, and a circuit made of the rest.
   Rapid as was the growth of population and the extension of the area of settled country, the Church kept pace with the rapid advance, and few, if any, Methodists had time to backslide before the helpful itinerant visited in their homes, bringing their Gospel and the means of grace. In many cases the growth of the Church was in excess of the population, great revivals bringing many into the kingdom.
   L. W. Smith tells of some camp-meetings and reviv-

als in the southeastern part of the Territory: "In 1862, Brother Munhall and myself had a large circuit, Falls City, Rulo, Salem, and four other points, country schoolhouses, of which I have forgotten the names. In 1861 we had one of the most successful camp-meetings ever held in that part of the country not far from Falls City. Brother King was on the charge at that time. I went down from Table Rock to assist him. A week had passed with no special results. The preachers had all left except Brother King and myself. On Tuesday night I preached with unusual liberty and at the close of the sermon I invited them to stand up and sing. But we did not get to sing, as the people, when they stood up, began to fall all over the camp-ground, till about fifty were down and we had to take care. of them. The meeting continued then about eight days longer.
   "We sent out and obtained more ministerial help and the result was glorious, very many conversions. So in 1862 we continued the revival influence and gathered much from the past and had many conversions at different points that year. In 1861 L held a glorious camp-meeting on Table Rock Circuit, on the South Fork of Nemaha, at which there were many conversions."
   At the beginning of this period, A. L. Folden and J. H. Presson were on the Tecumseh Circuit, and report 300 conversions, and in 1871 this same A. L. Folden is blessed with a great revival at Mt. Pleasant, with eighty-five accessions, and at Eight Mile Grove with sixty-five. The following year, on the same charge, with John Gallagher as junior preacher, there were one hundred conversions at Weeping Water. To A. L. Folden's work on this charge, his presiding elder pays this tribute: "Mt.

Pleasant Circuit embraces the central part of Cass County. This is one of the oldest, wealthiest, and most Methodist circuits in the country. Having a live man as pastor. live men as leaders and stewards, live women at the head of the Sabbath-school, and a live membership, Mt. Pleasant is emphatically a live place. Brother Folden, having no children of his own, is nevertheless very deeply interested in the welfare of the children of others, and spares no pains in their religious instruction; and he has had the privilege of seeing all the regular attendants of the Sabbath-school at Mt. Pleasant and Eight Mile Grove happily converted to God. Had we but one advice to give to ministers and laymen, that advice would be, 'Take care of the lambs.' This is the most important work of all the departments of the Church; and this work Brother Folden most faithfully performed. Under his efficient ministry, Mt. Pleasant, Eight Mile Grove, and Weeping Water have been visited with great revivals of religion, and multitudes, old and young, have been made the recipients of saving grace. Over 150 have been converted to God. At Weeping Water, a church of the best limestone, thirty-two by sixty feet, is being erected. The walls are partly up, and the material is on the ground for its completion, and it will be finished early the coming summer. When done, it will be one of the most beautiful and substantial church edifices in the bounds of the Conference. There has been an increase in every department of the Church on this circuit the past year."
   If we follow A. L. Folden from one charge to another, we find him building churches and holding revival meetings wherever he goes. At Seward, he completes a church and holds a revival at a country appointment in

1874. At Ashland in 1875, though met, when he drove up with his goods, by a prominent official member, and told it was not wise to unload his goods; that they could not support him, and he would starve. He staid. He was blessed with a wonderful revival resulting in two hundred conversions and one hundred and fifty uniting with the Church. It is said that he made this entry in the official record: "They tried to starve me, but I wouldn't starve worth a cent." As might be expected, he is returned in 1876, and has a great revival at Coffman school-house, five miles north of Ashland. Among the conversions were two prize fighters, one horse racer, and a fiddler.
   On the South Bend Circuit we find two new churches to his credit, and in 1878 we find him on Lincoln Circuit, organizing in South Lincoln what has since become Trinity Church, the first year; and the second, holding a revival meeting at which over one hundred were saved. We see this consecrated man of God, full of faith and of the Holy Ghost, beginning, as he says, each day by singing "Nearer, my God, to Thee," attended with a flame of revival power throughout this period, and there are over 1,000 conversions in ten years.
   But others are having revivals. Isaac Burns has sixty-five conversions on the Nebraska City Circuit in 1871. Presiding elders bring in cheering reports of revivals from all over the field. J. J. Roberts is at Blair, but extends his work in the country, holding revivals in the cabins of the people, with many conversions, among them William Peck, a well-educated Prussian, who afterward became one of our ablest preachers. J. M. Adair, assisted by F. B. Pitzer, has eighty-four conversions on

the Arizona Circuit, and the membership of old Dakota Circuit is increased by five hundred per cent under the labors of S. P. Van Doozer; and J. W. Perkins reports ninety-three accessions on the Logan Valley Mission.
   Of W. A. Presson's work at Beatrice in 1871, Presiding Elder Lemon has this to say: "The past year has been a most successful year at Beatrice. At the beginning of the Conference year there was a very small society worshiping (sic) in a small school-house. Brother W. A. Presson was appointed to this charge, and on his way from Fremont, the seat of the Conference, to Pawnee City, his former charge, he went through Beatrice, finding stone walls standing in a very desirable part of town, having been built for a Union Church and left uninclosed. He bought the property and raised a subscription and began a church and finished it during the year at a cost of about $5,000, and raised all the money about Beatrice except $500 borrowed from the Church Extension Society, the whole being provided for by subscription. After the dedication of this church God poured out His Spirit and over eighty, many of the principal families of the town, were converted and joined the Church."
   Dr. Maxfield reports that Brother Presson had a gracious revival the next year. The presiding elder reports that L. Oliver was blessed in 1871 with gracious revivals in some neighborhoods on the West Blue Mission, and in some cases all in the neighborhood were converted.
   Presiding Elder A. G. White reports for the Omaha District in 1872, gracious revivals at Omaha, Fremont, and Schuyler. Of the Eldred Circuit the presiding elder tells the story of victory in these words
   "Eldred Mission was left to be supplied, and Richard

Pearson reappointed pastor. Brother Pearson came from England about two years ago, and on his arrival he was received into our Church and appointed to the north half of Saunders County, in which we had no Church organization, He was recommended for admission into the traveling connection one year ago, but affliction in his family prevented his attending Conference. He has labored the past year with great success. His is a sort of spiritual fire-brand, bearing light and heat and power all over the circuit.
   "Church interests developed on his hands, demanding more help, and Daniel S. Davis was licensed to preach and appointed assistant some months ago. These brothers have given the people a rare example of Christian love for each other and for the cause of Christ. Every week has witnessed an advance.
   "The secret of their success is they have taken counsel of God and allowed Him to lead them; and when He leads them they go 'conquering and to conquer.' These brothers report over two hundred members and probationers, and they are both recommended by the District Conference for admission into the traveling connection."
   During the time these devoted men worked they had about 200 conversions.
   Brother Davis is returned to Wahoo Circuit the next year after being received on trial, in 1873, and as noted, began with five and ended with fourteen appointments. The way things grew in those days is well illustrated in

this incident. He sometimes traveled sixty-five miles on Sabbath and preached four times, often not having time to eat his meals. At what was called Cottonwood, he went for the first time to preach at 2:30 on the Sabbath. While preaching, a woman jumped up from her seat and cried out, addressing her husband, "Jake, you married me when I was seventeen years old, and I was a Christian then, but have been afraid to tell of it, though it has been forty years." He broke down, saying, "Why, I did n't know it." She came to the altar to rejoice that she had found courage to confess Christ before men, especially before her husband, and he came, seeking and finding the Savior. Brother Davis continued the meetings five days and the results were sixty-five conversions and a new class.
   Another incident occurred during this meeting, showing how God's Spirit can get hold of the worst cases. Davis had visited an eccentric and noted character called "General" Dane, and been welcomed to stay if he would take care of his own horse. This Brother Davis preferred to do, and staid. About daybreak one morning Dane said to him, "I want to speak to you." He led the way to a large elm-tree, and pointing to a limb, he said: "Several years ago I caught a horse thief with the stolen horse, and knowing him to be guilty, I hung him to that limb. Now, is there salvation for me?" The pastor answered, "That depends on your motive." Dane explained that before that all the horse thieves who had been caught and brought to trial had been acquitted, and he was tired of that and decided to execute one, anyhow. Davis then said: "The sin was a crimson one, but the promise is that 'though your sins be as scarlet, they shall

be white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.'" He took courage, sought the Lord, and was happily converted.
   Another case was that of a fiddler by the name of G. W. Damon. During a meeting held by Brother Davis, Damon's wife came to the altar. On the way home he told her that thing must be stopped. The next night she got ready to go to the service and he said, "If you go, I will leave you." She answered, I have always been a true, obedient wife to you, but when it is a question of saving my soul, I must obey God rather than man." She started to the service and he, taking his fiddle under his arm, started off in the other direction. By the time he went half a mile he said to himself aloud, "What a fool I am to leave the best woman on earth because she does not want to go to h--l." He turned at once and hastened back home, leaving his fiddle, and hurried on to the place where the service was held. She had gone in and he followed. When the invitation was given, Damon rose and said to his followers in sin: "You have been keeping step to my music, now follow me and I will play you a tune that will end in heaven." And with that he went to the altar, and altar and aisles were soon filled with penitent seekers. But Damon was not converted at the altar, and about two o'clock that night, he cried out to his wife, "Carrie, you must get up and pray for me or I will be in hell before daylight." He was gloriously converted. He was soon after licensed to preach and served the Church in after years as a supply, doing some excellent work in that capacity.
   But this rapid expansion, especially during the first three years of this period, is seen in the increase of dis-

tricts. Up to 1869 there were not enough charges to make more than two districts. True, in 1865 they tried three districts, but in two years abandoned one of them and went back to two.
   But in four years from 1869 there were six districts. But in nothing is this expansion seen more than in the increase in membership, from 1870 to 1874. This increase is over 3,000. That is, there were as many accessions to the Church in these four years as there had been in the entire fifteen preceding years. While from 1874 the advance is not so rapid, yet another 3,000 is added in six years, making a total of over 6,000 additions in the ten years, or three times as many as had been added in the preceding fifteen years.
   It was during this third period that an era of railroad building began which determined the drift of population, built up innumerable towns that became centers of trade for the rural population, and must be seized and held by the Church. As we have seen the Union Pacific had already been extended through the entire length of the center of the State in 1867, the connecting link completing the great transcontinental line to the Pacific Coast having been formed at Ogden in May, 1869. Though the portion embraced within the State of Nebraska had been completed several years, for some reason there had not been attracted along its line a sufficient population, or people of such a character that even the Methodist Church could get hold of and organize into Methodist societies. Only three appointments west of Kearney, a distance of nearly 300 miles, appeared on the list as late as 1880, and only one of these, North Platte, had developed any strength, and that only had a membership of

sixty-nine and five probationers. But we had already gone as far as Sidney, and were on the ground eagerly watching developments, and ready to seize any point and effect all organization at the first opportunity.
   It was during this period that the great B. & M. Railroad built its line out from Plattsmouth through the rich and populated counties of Cass, Saunders, and Lancaster, and the unsettled or sparsely settled counties of Saline, Fillmore, Clay, Adams, and Kearney. Then extending south to the Republican River, pushed its line westward along the valley of that river through the entire length of the State, to its destination at Denver.
   In the meanwhile the St. Joseph and Denver line was constructed along the Little Blue through the counties of Jefferson, Thayer, Clay, Adams, and Hall, to its destination at Grand Island. In the north part of the State the Chicago, Minneapolis and St. Paul was extended from Omaha to Sioux City, and a branch of the same system was extended from Emerson thirty miles west of Sioux City to Norfolk, and the F. E. & M. V. pushed its line far to the Northwest along the valley of the Elkhorn. At the same time the Midland was built west from Nebraska City through Lincoln and Seward westward, and the Atchison line was built from the southeast corner of the State to Lincoln.
   These railroads no longer waited for settlements to be formed and then built to them, but inaugurated the new idea of sending out their experts and engineers and ascertained where settlements might be made, and built their lines into those sections of the State that best suited their purpose and took possession of the territory that naturally belonged to their system, and proceeded to develop it by attracting settlers.

   These railroads are of interest as bearing on the religious development of the country. First, they have vastly increased the amount of work which presiding elders as well as bishops can do, and have frequently aided the work on the frontier by giving free transportation to presiding elders, reduced rates on material for churches, in addition to the usual half-fare rates extended to all clergymen. In the next place they change and determine the centers of population, collecting many of the inhabitants into villages. It often happens that what were once prosperous and strong rural circuits, with churches and parsonages, are hampered or obliterated by the construction of a railroad and building of a town near by, and the building up of a church in the town. This was the case with old Mt. Pleasant, one of the strongest rural circuits, when the Missouri Pacific was extended up the Weeping Water and Nehawka established. In this way our rural work has been very much curtailed.
   These facts have been set forth in detail because the operation of these combined causes brought about in these few years the extension of the frontier almost or quite to the west line of the State. A line west of Jefferson County, in the south part of the State, and extending to the west of Cedar County in the north, with still much unsettled country east of that line, and being all average distance of about sixty miles west of the Missouri River, marked, with sufficient accuracy the extent of the settlements at the beginning of 1870, except along the Union Pacific Railroad, being less than one-sixth of the entire area of the State. To this narrow strip, averaging sixty miles in width, which it had required fifteen years to set-

tle, much of it being still frontier work, there were suddenly added 200 miles along the southern tier of counties, and 100 to 150 miles along the center and northern portions, being a scope of country nearly three times as great as was settled during the first fifteen years. East of the line referred to there were 117,000 people settled in 1870, while to the west there was not to exceed 5,000, and these principally along the line of the U. P. R. R., and they were mostly employees of the railroad.
   Another fact of great significance must be noted in passing if we would understand what it meant to take and hold Nebraska for Methodism during this trying period. While the number of missions requiring help increased from thirty-one in 1870, to eighty-seven in 1879, and while at the same time the capacity of the people to support their pastors had diminished by reason of the grasshopper scourge, the Missionary Society had not been able to respond to this vast increase in the demand with any increase in the appropriations, these being $5,050 for 1870 and $5,000 for 1879. So the average for each mission receiving help in 1870, aside from what was appropriated to the district for the presiding elder, was $125, while in 1879 it had dropped down to $43.
   About the same time, 1878, Dr. Maxfield, in his report, makes the following significant comparison: "The district (North Nebraska) has at work this year fifteen preachers, exclusive of the presiding elder. Of these, eight were appointed by the bishop and seven are supplies. To aid in their support the Missionary Society appropriated $1,170. Another Church having eight men in the same field appropriates for their support over $3,000. That is, our appropriation, divided equally among

sixteen men, gives about $73 to each, while theirs, divided in the same way among eight men, gives above $400 each. When we consider that the great difficulty to meet and overcome in this frontier work is the support of the preachers, we can understand the great disadvantage under which we labor when we are compelled, as we are, to work side by side with these competing Churches, backed by so much larger outlay of money than our own."
   But to understand the full significance of this comparison we must remember that all the $3,000 or more appropriated by our sister Church went to the eight pastors, while $400 of our $1,170 went to the presiding elder. Deducting this we have left $770 to be divided among fifteen pastors, reducing the average to a little over fifty dollars, a few dollars above the general average for 1879.
   It is greatly to the credit of our sister denomination that she made such bountiful provision for the comfort of her missionaries in the home field. But is it not even more to the credit of Methodism that with one-eighth of the amount of missionary money for each pastor she could still find devoted and self-sacrificing preachers enough to man her work, and that they and their successors have done their work so well that the membership of the Methodist Church is nearly four times as great as that of this same sister denomination?
   This feature of Methodism by which she is able to keep up the supply of workers under all circumstances has been alluded to before in a general way. To some of those who have been prominent as leaders in some of these sister denominations, who put special emphasis on the comfort of the home missionary, the fact has been inexplicable. One said to the writer: "I can't under-

stand how you can keep men in the field on such small salaries; we can't get our men to do it." Another asked me how many presiding elders we had in Nebraska, and when I told him fourteen, he asked if they all hustled round like I did. I told him I hoped they were all doing better work than I was. He then said: "That is where you beat us, in providing this thorough supervision of the work." While the first could think of no explanation, the second was only partially correct, though doubtless the presiding eldership has been of great value in mustering and inspiring and directing the forces. Any complete explanation will place first of all the genius and ideals of Methodism and the spirit of self-renunciation and entire devotement to Christ and his cause, and conviction of duty, with which every one who enters her ministry must be possessed. Without designing any invidious comparison, I venture to give quaint old Father Janney's putting of the case: "While some of the other Churches when they enter a field, put the emphasis on ministerial support, and say a preacher must have a fair salary, and after this is secured, the people may have the Gospel, Methodism approaches the same field, putting the emphasis on the needs of the people, saying the people must have the Gospel, whether the preacher has a comfortable support or not." While this putting of the case may not be quite just to some of the other denominations, some of which worked side by side with us, their ministers making many sacrifices, it certainly puts well the case of the Methodistic view of Church work and ministerial duty. These preachers must have had a passion for souls, and a profound, overmastering conviction of duty.
   All this is referred to as showing the tremendous re-

sponsibility of the Church to conserve whatever there was of the religious life among this vast multitude of settlers, by hunting them up in the dugouts, organizing them into classes, circuits, districts, and Conferences, and supplying them with pastors. Some of the frontier districts when formed included vast regions of unorganized work, and sometimes less than half of the charges assigned were supplied with pastors from the Conference, leaving the work of finding men for the balance, and for the settlements not mentioned, or yet to be made, in the charges assigned him, to the presiding elder. Only men of the highest executive and organizing ability, with a spirit of self-sacrifice and devotion to the work, who would shrink from no hardship which the interests of Zion required, would meet the demand. They must somehow find the men to man this vast field, with little or nothing to offer in the way of an inducement, unless an opportunity for hard work on small pay in laying the foundations of the Church would be considered inducements. C. W. Wells, who entered the work as we have seen in 1871, and who was one of the most faithful and efficient pioneer preachers we have had, received from the people for the first seven years of his work less than an average of $175 a year. His experience could be matched by scores of others. Can these presiding elders find enough men to do this hard work on these hard terms.
   This will be no easy task. When the Beatrice and Covington Districts were formed in 1871, and the Kearney District in 1873, more than half the charges on each of these districts were left to be supplied, and this was true of the Kearney District each year throughout A. G. White's administration. Where can they find the men?

   Certainly they can not depend on the theological schools to turn out enough to supply this demand. Nor will they be able to secure the transfer of enough experienced men from other Conferences. In nothing has the Methodist Church showed its hard, sanctified, common sense in the administration of its work more than in the policy of getting the best material possible, and seizing on the best available talent to be had at the time, and by any and every means keep the work going, look after the scattered flocks, and get these organized into classes, and then get sinners converted. Or, reversing this order, have some itinerant or some local or superannuated preacher go into neighborhoods where there were no members, or not enough to effect an organization, hold a revival meeting, and in that way get enough to organize a class; and perhaps extend this process to a number of neighborhoods and soon have classes enough to form a circuit.
   Methodism's readiness for this great emergency lay largely in the fact that in addition to her army of regulars, which consisted of the effective members of Conference, she had provided a great reserve force, consisting of her local preachers, supplemented in these times by the supernumerary and superannuated preachers. These may, as compared with the regulars, be called the Militia, to be called into action on occasions when the regulars were not present in sufficient numbers, or not available. And the Church hesitated not to call out the militia when the battle was on, and the question at issue was whether Christ or Satan should have Nebraska. True, there were some in this militia that were not so well equipped by learning as might be wished, but they

had the root of the matter in them. Though destitute of the training of the schools, they showed that they had "been with Jesus and had learned of him," and understood by experience the great plan of salvation. And as American independence had been won principally by men who were ill clothed, fed, or equipped, according to the prevailing military standards of the day, but being true patriots and understanding the value of liberty, and being led by such men as Washington, achieved success in the establishment of the cause of freedom for which they contended, so these untrained and poorly equipped local preachers, who yet like Stephen, the deacon, being "full of faith and power, did great wonders and miracles among the people," and being skillfully led by such men as Davis, Maxfield, Lemon, White, Pritchard, Giddings, and Van Doozer, contributed greatly toward the winning of that great battle and saving Nebraska for Christ.