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About The Falls City tribune. (Falls City, Neb.) 1904-191? | View Entire Issue (Sept. 10, 1909)
Reminiscences of a. Wayfarer Some of the Important Events of the Pioneer Days of Ricnardson County and Southeast Nebraska, as remembered by the writer, who has spent fifty one years here. Something More and The Last of The Old-^Camp Ground. There art* two circumstances con nected with one of the several camp meetings held on the Archer camp grounds, of which 1 made particular mention In my last contribution to these desultory recollections of mat ters and persons in the early days, that 1 deem of sufficient importance to be related ^before I dismiss the subject, i am aware that they can be of little Interest to this generation, but it may not be so with tin* few who attended those meetings and yet lin ger Among the living, not unlike the three or four old trees that yet stand on the ground, and In their day helped to shadow tin* people who woshipped there a half century ago. It is not impossible that what I write may bring to their jemem-1 brance, persons and incidents In connection with those assemblages of the religious people in those rude times, that have, by the lapse of years, become mistily obscure in their minds, if 1 shall succedd in doing nothing more, It will lx''enough to repay me for my labor, howevej uninteresting and unprofitable it may be in all other respects. It was at tlie camp meeting held there In tin* summer of ISHl, that I first met Rev. Henry T. Davis, of whom I have alread.t made mention ina former paper of this series. The country hud grown in population during tlte proceeding three years. In the ratio of not less than three to one, and the congregations then ill attendance were very much larger than they had ever been before. Tills was missionary ground and the Methodists were tile first to occupy it, that Is, as a church organization. There were of course, members of otluji* religious denominations a mom; the first settlers, but their numbers wen* not great, and no effort was made for a long time to organize distinct societies for public worship according to their several ritufvia. Three of four Methodists anywhere make a church, and if they have no house especially devoted to congre gational worship, they improvise their dwellings for th<' purpose in] winter, and the groves, in summer.] Tills lias been the practice of that denomination since Joint Wesley planted it in America in the first half of the eighteenth century. The church had become tolerably well organized in Nebraska, and was divided into two conference dis tricts, one north and the other south of the Platte River. 'Nic one south was, and Is yet, known as (lie Ne braska City district- though the country has since been subdivided into several such districts -and Mr. Davis was its presiding elder. lie had never been in (ills part of the country before, and was a compara tive stranger to everybody, except perhaps, a few of the local preach ers. Prom what 1 since learned of ills history, I should judge his age at that time, was something less than thirty, but he was very earnest. above the ordinary in matter of in telligence, and fairly well educated. From that day, till the day of his death, six or seven years ago, 1 knew him well and intimately, and 1 say it now in all sincerity, that of all the men that 1 have met and come to know, in or out of the church, he was among the very best. It may be, and 1 am inclined to think, was, owing to the strong and last lug impression' he made on my mind at that first m *eting, that in fluenced my estimate and regard for him while he lived, and has made his memory a thing for kindly remembrance foreveu. The kind of sermons we had gen erally, as 1 have remarked before, were rather primitive, rustic perhaps would be a better word, though 1 must say 1 liked them on account of their simplicity, ami want of edu cational polish, for they in every case, were redolent of sincere de votion, and breathed the spirit of true Christian piety. We were to have something out of the usual or der at that meeting, but nobody but the young presiding elder knew what it would be. Those meetings usually commenced oil Saturday night and continued all through the following week, ending on the night of Sun day of the second week. The weath er was admirable, and the first Sun day’s service saw the largest congre gation of people in the beautiful grove that had ever assembled there. It wa3 understood that the new pre siding elder was to preach the morn ing sermon and everybody, ntyself included, were anxious to hear him. When the hour arrived for com mencing the devotional exercises, the new preacher arose in the pulpit and in a clear and very pleasant voice, conducted preliminaries usual on such occasions. When that was done, and the people had hail a gool look at the youthful minister, he announced his text, which I .still remember. It may be found In one of the Epistle's of the Apostle Paul, where ,he an nounced a fact which he very decid edly believed to be true, that after the house of this tabernacle shall be dissolved, lie lmd a building of God, an house not made with hands, eter nal In the heavens. 1 do not give* it verbatim, but all Bible readers will readily recognize it and know where to find it. Upon this text the preacher de livered a discourse upon the Immor tality of the soul, it was a complete surprise to me, and quite an agree able one withal. 1 expected one In keeping with the occasion,which every body knows-who know anything of the old fashioned camp or revival meet ings,—are Intended for the conver sion of sinners, and to recruit the army of the faithful. It was so en tirely different from anything 1 had heard in Nebraska, and on a theme that lias occupied the attention and engaged the thoughts of men iu all times,* that it not only pleased me then, but It was one of the impell ing causes that lead me iu all the years since, to not only study the question for myself, hut to examine the works of the great men of the world who have thought and written on the subject. I cannot say tunt he ad valu ed any new argument in favor of the affirm ative of the proposition, but he gave many ingenius suggestions and rea sons— in. harmony with some given by others for believing that the hu man soul is an eternal essence, tin created and indestructible, lie first attempted to prove his pos ition by premises furnished by holy writ, and secondly by those drawn from the whole body of nature around us. On the whole, however, the discourse, which was undenialdy- an able one, was largely made up of assumptions and conclusions from pemises that lacked the essential ole ment of demonstration. As for in stance, he referred to the fact that Socrates, the world renowned philoso pher at Athens, had proclaimed the doctrine nearly five hundred years before the Christian era, but omitted to give any reason advanced by that philosopher for believing so. Had lie read,the Pliaedo, the dialogue giv en to the world by Plato, in which the fact of the soul's Immortality is assorted by Socrates, which I have reason to believe he had not, I an» inclined to think he might have been In doubt whether the reasons given for the philosopher's belief are suf ficient to establish its truth. To my mind all tliui is valuable about the assertion is the faet that the great philosopher made it. It is cer tainly true that he believed it, and it is not entirely certain that he was able to coin that belief into “words sufficiently to become intelligible to oth<v’s. People know many things of which they are unable to account to others, and for which they can give no reason. That service was of real value to me, for, besides being a something unlooked for, it set me on a train of investigation and research that might otherwise have been indefinitely post poned, or never undertaken, and which I have continued with sonie industry ever since. lie, like many others before and] .since, erroneously gave the Grecian! philosopher the honor of being the] author of the doctrine that the human' soul is immortal. Herodotus is au thority for saying that the Greeks borrowed the idea from the Egypt ians, and it is now known I hat the iiralimans centuries before that time believed in, and taught the same doc trine. In the argument between Arjuna, the ancient ruler of India, and the Holy One Krishma, as found in the Itlnigaved-tiita, an episode in a Hahnniu Iipic— the god in urging the king to give battle to liis Enemies who were being led by ids kinsmen whom he was reluctant to kill, assured him, that though he might kill, he could not destroy them, saying: “There is no existence for what does not exist, nor is there any non-existence for what exists.” That is to say: what docs not exist, cannot exist, and what does exist, cannot cease to exist. This is the perfect idea of immortal existence, and comprehends tile spreading uni verse, and all that is therein con tained. All science is agreed that what we call matter is indestruct ible. II that be true, and there is abundant proof that it is, why should the soul, tlie intelligent, living, es sence of the creature man, tie less durable than the frail earth house In which it is confined in this state of existence. My own notion of the fact is, that no human record lias been kept of when and where the doctrine of im mortality was first promulgated, but rather, that man ns such, has the fact revealed to him in and through his own nature, that is, that the consciousness of continual existence inheres in the soul Itself, and is a part of that knowledge which trails. rends all experience. However. I do not wish to enter into a discussion of the question here, even if I were competent to do so, which 1 am not. but to tell of a strange experience o! mine in a wild waste, on a pleasant \ Sunday in a day when I, and all the world about me was young, but now far away in the past, l shall, never forget that sermon nor the place at which I heard it. It was like finding a bunch of fresh bloom ing roses or a cool spring of wat er in a desert. I talked with Mr. Davis about that sermon many times since, but not till after the circumstance had be come ha:«y and indistinct in his mem ory. He seemed to be astonished at , the accuracy of my recollection of what he said on that occasion after so long a time. It was not a mere .matter of memory, but because my whole attention was enlisted in the 'subject matter of the sermon, the manner of its delivery, and the man who was delivering it. if the dead, like the ghost of Hamlet's father, are permitted to revisit the scenes of this life, I have thought many times of Hi" solid satisfaction those people surely take in coming back to the spot on earth where they made their -first start to heaven, and in holding phantom camp meetings on the old grounds over Archer way, under the whispering trees, in the stillness and solemnity of the night. The other circumstances to which I referred was a kind of mixture of Hie sublime and the ridiculous. It was so strangely ludicrous, pathetic, laughable, solemn, fun-provoking, tragic, and alround farcial comedy, as to be wholly unlike any other experi ence of my whole life. It came about in this wise. As wo all know the Civil war became a fixed fact in the spring of 1861, shortly after the inaugeratlon of Mr. Lincoln as presi dent of the United States. Some engagements between the hostile armies had taken place, including the battle of Bull Hun, which proved so disastrous to the Union forces, be fore the date of holding the camp meeting I am writing about. It was very natural to expect that some thing would he said about the situa tion at this meeting, or at least that some good brother or sister might pray for the country of Washington and his compatriots in the old Re volution, but strange to relate, not a word was uttered in sermon or prayer about our national trouble. Nobody said anything about that however, and die daily and nightly exercises went on at the camp ground, precisely as though the na tion was at ponce with all the world instead of being threatened with ter tutorial disruption and national death. This state of tilings continued till the afternoon ol' the second Sunday, | when nn adjournment over to Falla City was had, to hold a night meeting there to talk over the project of building a church in the near future The meeting was held in an empty house, and not a very large one, somewhete near the middle of the block,south of the present post office. There was a pretty large attend ance of quite orderly people, and at tlie proper hour the services * com menced with a song or two and then a prayer by a good old Methodist peacher from the town of Peru in Nemaha county, of the name of Burns. The old man had a good deal of the spirit of Bunker Hill about him and a decided love for the starry banner that was then being shot at by some discontented people down south in war like array. The petition lie put up was much like others we are accustomed to hear on such occasions, hut pretty soon the repression that had kept everybody silent on the matter that was upper most in the minds of everybody dur ing the whole camp meeting week was thrown aside, and the E. I’luri hus Unum side of the man of God turned up when lie asked the Father 10 tless our president and the brave ru n—lie did not get any further, for it t. is point bedlam broke loose, with stamps cn tho floor, clapping of hands and wild yells of "Bully for you,” “Give ’em Hell," “Hurrah for Burns,” etc. Cheers for Lincoln and the boys ia “blue,” etc. The vld father's ;nay<r was never finished, and all thought pf a serious religious meeting was thrown to the winds, and the balance of the evening, after quiet was restored, was devoted to speech making of a patriotic char acter, in which Elder Davis, and I think every preacher in attendance participated. It transpired that the sil ence of tlie camp meeting on the subject of tlie war, was the result of the subordinate preachers waiting for the posiding elder to lead off on th(' subject, and that Iiis silence arose out of tlie fact that he was a stranger to the people whose temper touching a question, which in some localities was a delicate one, was unknown to him, and lie was unwilling to mar tlie harmony of the meeting by in troducing a theme that might prove a firebrand among them, hence he had allowed the meeting to proceed leav ing it to some other gentleman better acquainted with the people to set the patriotic ball in motion. Father Burns did that to the queen's taste. In tlie course of my life I have seen many public meetings of all di s criptions, but never one that at all resembled that. The conditions that differentiated this from ail others, will not, in all probability obtain again, and it is to be devoutly hoped they never will. 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