Baptist Courier

(For the Baptist Courier.

MISSIONARY NEWS AND ADVENTURES.

Preaching in the Forest.-Carver's Bay Church-
Converted at a Prayer-Meeting-Georgetown-
Sea Sickness-Among the Merchants on East
Bay-The Explosion on the Planter.

Dear Courier: When a man wants to
tell something, there is nothing to do but
to let him tell it, for sooner or later he
will get it out. My recent missionary
tour was one so fruitful in adventures and,
I believe, so fruitful in blessings and in
benefits to myself and others, that you
must again let me put my mouth to your
telephone, and if you make any charge
for my message, present the bill to Cor-
responding Secretary R. H. G. So you
will "please connect" Scranton, S. C.,
and No. 1 to 3.000 (inclusive)-wish for
your sake I could say 10.000-of the
homes you visit.

I left home Friday, April 9th, 10 A. M.,
accompanied by my little seven-year-old
daughter. At Liberty Church five miles
from Scranton, I stop for an hour to con-
vene the Bethlehem Sunday School Insti-
tute. The following Sunday schools are
represented: Bethel Beulah, Evergreen,
Hebron, Black Mingo, New Zion, Scran-
ton. Elders D. N. Gore, J. L. Rollins
and C. T. Anderson, and Deacons H. Z.
Graham, J. G. James, P. McGee and
Harvey Brown are in attendance. The
missionary sermon was preached on Sun-
day by Elder J. L. Rollins and a collec-
tion of $5.25 taken; (Agents and Cor-
responding Secretaries are notified that
this amount is to be given to "the most
needy object presented to the Southern
Baptist Convention.") Leaving Liberty
Church, which is one of my mission sta-
tions, at 12 M., three hours later finds me
in front of R. D. Rollins' store, politely
requesting him to turn over $2.00 to as-
sist in paying for the lumber for the
meeting house of Pleasant Hill Church,
Georgetown county. He complies. At
sunset I have ridden thirty-two miles
and in the depths of the pine forest, tab-
acle for the night with mine host
John Owens, having first preached from
Song of Sol. ii: 1. Here meets the
Pleasant Hill Church. The next day I
preach at Mt. Zion. The same day I hold

A REVIVAL PRAYER-MEETING

at 8 P. M., at a private house. Fifteen or
twenty kneel for prayer. One young man
comes forward and "joins by experience."
He gives a calm, intelligent and Scrip-
tural religious experience-awakening-
followed by a season of indifference; con-
riction followed by deep mental disqui-
etude; conversion, followed by a con-
fession of Christ. The next day is
Sunday. I open the Sunday school
at 10 A. M., preach at 11 A. M., from
Heb. vi: 14. A walk of a mile
with my little girl and I am back to
my house where I left my horse to have
him fresh. My watch will move, so it is
nearly 3 P. M. before I can start. It
takes me until 4:30 o'clock to get lost once
and ride four miles over "the worst road
I ever traveled." (This is the road I re-
ferred to in a former letter and concerning
which I was warned that I "must have a
strong buggy and a stout horse and be
content to go two miles an hour.") It is
fearful to lead your skittish horse into a
small ferry-boat already occupied by
another conveyance, with your frightened
little daughter in the buggy, just as the
sky is black with an incipient storm. The
last nine miles from Ford's Ferry is driven
in a little over an hour, for—

"The wind blew as 'twad blown its last;
The rattling showers rose on the blast:
The speedy gleams the darkness swallowed:
Loud, deep, and long the thunder bellow-
ed."

I preached that night at 8:30 P. M., in the
Methodist church, from Isa. lxvi: 12-13.
Strange thing for a Methodist church, I
raise my own tunes. Monday is spent in
visiting the scattered sheep of George-
town Church. I divide time here be-
tween Bro. D. H. Smith, (brother of T.
P. Smith, of Charleston), and sister
Butts. The latter is a Greenville lady
and a first cousin to the estimable wife of
Rev. T. P. Lide, of Marion. I am most
hospitably entertained in each of these
homes. Monday night I preach in 'the
little church across the street' to a con-
gregation of a hundred intelligent and
attentive listeners.

Tuesday I take my first lessons in aquat-
ics. How forcibly, along with the recol-
lections of this trip on the Planter, comes
to my mind the words of the 107th Psalm.
"They reel to and fro, and stagger like a
drunken man, and are at their wits' end."
Let me say just here, my visit to the
'City beside the Sea' being for the pur-
pose of raising funds to buy lumber for
the Pleasant Hill meeting-house, was a
success. But in so much as I preferred
the water to the land route it was a blun-
der. Indeed I hesitate not to say that
Dr. Talmage's lecture on

"BIG BLUNDERS"

will henceforth be incomplete until it shall
embrace an account of this my first expe-
rience upon the Atlantic. To be tossed in
a swing in one direction has always been
sufficiently disagreeable to me, but to be
tossed in every conceivable direction until
the brain reels and the sympathizing and
outraged diaphragm, from sheer indigna-
tion, refuses to contain itself any longer—
this, this is—O misere cordea. Where
now is that picture I had drawn as I sung
to myself—

"Once more upon the deep, blue sea,
Our hearts as boundless and our souls as
free"?

Gone, 'like a vain pageant faded.' There
is no poetry about sea-sickness. Arriving
in Charleston Tuesday, at 3 P. M., I take
up my abode with Bro. I. V. Bardin.
If any of your readers wish to do busi-
ness with a kindly-hearted, unassuming,
genial-spirited man who gives his personal
attention to the minutest parts of his busi-
ness, I can recommend this Baptist broth-
er to them. Wednesday is passed among
the merchants down on East Bay. If
any one thinks that collecting funds for
church building is easy work, he has only
to try it to be undeceived. Till human
nature undergoes a radical change the
collector's office must continue to be a
thankless one. The right hand column
in the subjoined list will indicate my suc-
cess in getting funds to build Pleasant
Hill meeting house, while the left gives a
partial summary of my morning and after-
noon calls.

(The two first contributions
were reported in a previous communica-
tion):

I. V. Bardin $10.00.

Geo. A. Norwood &
5.00.

J. H. Parker &
5.00.

Pittman Bros....
5.00.

J. W. Wagener & C
10.00.

Smith. McIver & Co
5.00.

M. M. Bird & Co
5.00.

Welburn & Peiper,
5.00.

J. H. Murdoch (Bardin & Murdoch)....
5.00.

McLoy, Rice & Co.
3.00.

Cash.
2.00.

T. W. Stanly
1.00.

R. Graham
1.00.

R. E. Carnes (Bishopville
1.00.

Cash...
3.00.

Thursday morning the boat made the
return trip, and I have an appointment to
preach that night in Georgetown. On
Saturday morning at 9 A. M., I am to
meet brother Owens at the mill to buy
lumber for the church, and at 11 A. M. to
preach at Beulah. The distance to the
boat is considerable, and the street cars
have not generally begun operations, so I
come near being left. At 7:30 we are un-
der way, I have been hurrying up the
stewardess to give me a berth and have
just stowed away my baggage. I am leav-
ing my quarters, my little daughter walk-
ing just in front of me, when I hear a re-
port in the direction of the engine similar
to

THE FIRING OF AN ANVIL,

followed by a hissing sound. There is an
evident rush towards the rear of the boat
—a rush of steam and a rush of feet. In
ten seconds the steam is everywhere.
The cabin passengers-about twenty-five
in number-are crowded together in the
rear of the saloon. There is anxiety in
every face. I have my little girl in my
arms. Soon we cannot see each other.
My little daughter says: "Oh, pa, I can't
breathe!" I rush to the side of the boat
and hold her over where the stream of
air runs clearer. The city, the water
everything is wrapt out of sight. The
clerk of the boat is the only official who
appears. One or two girls are crying.
Most of the gentlemen—to show that they
are men-are declaring "It is nothing,"
most energetically. Your missionary
takes off first his overcoat and then his
coat, having first deposited the Pleasant
Hill trust fund in the pockets of his pan-
taloons. He has two to swim for if there
is swimming to be done. My apprehen-
sions were that if (as proved to be the
fact) there had been an explosion, the
sides of the boat adjacent to the engine
had been staved or fractured in such a way
as to admit the water. Apart from this
danger, however, the sense of suffocating
from the steam is distressing. The wind
favors us and helps to clear it away. Eyes
are turned longingly towards the city,
which is scarcely a mile away, to see some
boat or boats start to our relief. There
are none. In ten or fifteen minutes' time
confidence and composure are measurably
restored. I look over the sides of the
boat to the deck below. A colored man
is on the deck just in the act of trying to
move himself. He is evidently disabled.
Passing quickly into the saloon, I see
three men whom I recognize as sufferers
from the accident. The first, on my right,
is a French Canadian, Leopold Francis
Beausang, first mate of the Boat. His
hands and face and neck are fearfully
burned. The stewardess is applying sweet
oil and flour. On my left is a man dress-
ed in blue pants and shirt; his name has
not been reported. He is painfully but
not dangerously scalded. W. T. Ham,
the engineer, is further on; he is suffer-
ing intensely from the effects of the heat-
ed steam which had enveloped him.
These had groped their way up from the
deck below. Still on the deck were Geo.
Bunson and Simon Doctor, two colored
deck hands, wounded, and Jake Washing-
tton, another colored hand, dead.

From this time until we reach the pier,
an hour and a half later, there is not a
moment lost. Poor Beausang, who seems
suffering the most, would not allow me to
leave him one moment. In about thirty-
five minutes-long enough for the boat
to have gone down or burned up two or
three times-a cutter comes and takes
away the two colored men. Simon, be-
sides being burned, has his thigh broken
by the cylinder. It is an hour and a half
before a physician, Dr. Simons, arrives.
At 9 A. M., just two hours after the acci-
dent, we are towed back to the wharf.
Beausang died at his home late Thursday
night. The steam had been inhaled to
such an extent as to produce inflamma-
tion and swelling of the mucous mem-
branes of the throat and head, and suffoca-
tion was the result. He was not proba-
bly a religious man, though he attended
at least occasionally, the Sailors' Chapel
where brother L. H. Shuck now officiates.
From the time of the accident until 4 p.
M. I left him only for an hour and a half,
and prayed with him both on the boat
and in his house. He frequently called
upon the Lord, praying that He would
"pardon his sins for Christ's sake." Si-
mon Doctor died at the hospital.

Friday morning I returned home by
rail, having traveled 260 miles, preached
six times, paid eight religious visits, re-
ceived one for baptism, collected $52.00
for church building, $12.00 for Bibles,
and $1.00 for THE COURIER: held one
church meeting and one prayer-meeting,
elected one deacon and convened one Sun-
day School Institute; having lost my
road once in a wild and desolate country,
been overtaken in one thunder storm, and
came near being blown up in a boat. Now
I am reminded of another verse of the
107th Psalm. "Oh that men would praise
the Lord for His goodness and for his won-
derful works to the children of men."

S. M. RICHARDSON.

Scranton, S. C., April 19th