It
came back. Again it was carried away. Again it returned and this
time was taken clear to the river.
Once a much loved aunt came to visit at his home bringing the
little sister a beautiful, new doll. That night she trotted off to
bed hugging the new treasure close. The boy did not love dolls;
but when he saw the old, rag baby left lonely and forsaken be
quietly picked it up and carried it to bed with him.
Years afterwards, when on a canoe trip on the Moose River, a
disconsolate looking little Indian dog came and sat shyly watching
us while we broke camp. We learned that the Indian owners had gone
to the bush leaving him to fare as he might through the coming
winter. When our canoe pushed out into the river there was an
extra passenger. We brought him home to Congers, where he
immediately carried consternation into the neighbouring chicken
yards, convinced that he had found the finest partridge country on
earth.
When sixteen the boy went to attend the Angola (Indiana) Normal
School. Here his decision for Christ was made. He was baptized
and united with the Church of Christ. Three years later his
teaching took him to Northern Michigan where be found a wider range
than he had yet known, and in the great pine forests of that
country he did his first real exploring. Here were clear, cold
streams with their trout and grayling, and here, when his work
admitted, he hunted and fished and dreamed out his plans, his
thoughts turning ever more insistently to the big, outside world
where his heroes did their work.
He entered the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 1893. High
strung and sensitive, with a driving energy and ambition to have
part in the larger work of the world, be suffered during the early
part of his course all the agonies that come to those of such a
nature while they grope in the dark for that which they are fitted
to do. He reached out in many directions in his effort to provide
the needful money to enable him to take his course, but without a
sense of special fitness in any. It came however with his earliest
attempts in journalistic work. The discovery with its measure of
self-recognition brought a thrill that compensated for all the dark
hours. He now felt assured of success.
His life in the University was one of varied and unceasing
activity. In his studies history, literature, psychology claimed
his special interest. He was an enthusiast in athletics, and found
his field in running and boxing. The contest was as the wine of
life to him. He was active in the literary and debating societies,
and prominent in the Student's Christian Association, attending and
taking part in the work of the local branch of the Church of
Christ. His first newspaper work was done as an amateur on the
college press. Then came assignments from the local dailies and
correspondence for the Detroit papers.
He possessed the "news sense" to an unusual degree, delighting to
take "beats" from under the very feet of his brother reporters.
In 1897 while he was still in Ann Arbor, just before Dr. James B.
Angell, President of the University, left on his mission to Turkey,
a telegram came from a Detroit evening paper directing him to see
Dr. Angell and ask why he had changed his date of sailing.
Dr. Angell was not in the habit of telling reporters what he did
not wish them to know, and when asked the question replied:
"Haven't a word to say. I really don't know anything new at all."
Then with a smile which he fondly believed to be inscrutable, he
remarked: "Why, I don't even know whether I'll go to Turkey or
not."
A few minutes later those last words of the President were reported
over the wires, without the sarcasm and without the smile. That
very evening, in big headlines on the first page, it was announced
that there was some hitch, and that President Angell might not go
as Minister to the Court of the Sultan.
The correspondents of the morning papers hastened to see President
Angell, who insisted that if he had made such a remark it was in
fun. But it was unavailing. The despatch had stirred up the
officials in Washington, and the morning papers that printed the
President's explanation printed over it the official statement,
that the Porte was objecting to Dr. Angell, on account of his close
relationship with the Congregational Missionary Board.
After his graduation in 1897, he took a position on the staff of a
Detroit evening paper. Much of the two years of his newspaper work
there was spent in Lansing covering State politics. In this line
of work lay his chief interest, though he by no means confined
himself to it.
His work made it possible for him to indulge his bent for dipping
into the by-ways of human life. Utterly fearless, resolute,
persistent, there was yet in his manner a beautiful simplicity, a
gentleness and interest that rarely failed to disarm and win
admission where he desired to enter. Added to this equipment were
a fine sense of humour, a subtle sympathy, and a passionate
tenderness for anyone or anything lonely or neglected or in
trouble. So, as only the few do, he learned "Why."
Here amidst the struggles and temptations, the joys and
disappointments, the successes and mistakes of his busy life, one
hero rose surely to a place above all others, a place that was
never usurped - "the man, Christ Jesus," worshipped in the years
that were left, not only as the Redeemer of the world, but as his
ideal hero.
This was his manliest man, so grandly strong and brave, yet so
inexpressibly sweet-spirited and gentle, with a great human heart
that, understanding so wholly, was yet so little understood; that
in the midst of overwhelming work and care and loneliness hungered
for human love and sympathy, giving so generously of its own great
store, receiving so little in return.
