The Lumberjack Sky Pilot

While I waited for a train, a woodsman entered the station. He was dressed in a rough Mackinaw jacket; coarse socks held his trousers close to his legs, and on his hands were heavy woolen mittens. Everything proclaimed him to be a man of the camps.

"Hello, Jack," I said in greeting, "how were the woods this winter? Anything new in the camps?"

Jack jammed the Peerless into his strong-smelling pipe, struck a match and replied: "Snowed so blank hard that half the gang jumped the job, and us fools that stayed worked up to our necks trying to get out the stuff. This winter was Hades, but not quite so warm-no, not by a jugfull. Why say, neighbor, in our camp the whisky froze up and kept the bunch sober until we got a new supply."

He paused, looked me over, and began again:

"You're a preacher, ain't you?"

"I am," I replied.

"Well, then, here's news you'll enjoy. We're all thinking of joining the church-us fellows in the camps. Funny, ain't it? The gospel sharks are in the tall timber and are getting bags of game that would shame a pot hunter. The cloth has donned overalls and is preaching at us. Savvy, Preacher?-we've actually got so civilized that they're preaching at us God-forsaken lumberjacks. How does that strike you for news?"

He paused to see the effect this intelligence was having on me, then continued:

"The sermons we get are the real thing. No sun-proof paint on them, no 'by-your-leave,' but the straight goods, the pure stuff-chips, bark and timber. Everything we get is government sealed, punk proof, top-loaded and headed for the landing-which is us. It all comes our way and we hold our noses and take the medicine. What party do you happen to hitch to?"

"Denomination?" I asked, "I am a Presbyterian."

"Good! So am I. I don't happen to belong yet, but if they keep on hewing to the line, I'll have to join-or hike. Our Sky Pilot, Frank Higgins, belongs to your crowd. Probably you know him?"

"I have known him a long time," I replied.

"Shake! If you're a friend of his you'll do. He's onto his job, and if this keeps up, the guy that splashes ink on the church roll will be kept busy adding our names. There's my train."

He was gone. May the day soon come when the half jesting prophecy of the lumberjack will be fulfilled.

*****

Stately and green is the forest of the North Star State. From Lake Superior the great pineries of Minnesota extend unbroken until the fertile silt of the Red River Valley limits the growth of the pines. Two hundred miles is the width of the forest and the evergreen covers the northern half of the state. This is "the woods" of Minnesota-the center of the logging industry.

About five hundred camps mar this beautiful region with their rude shacks and temporary shelters, some of them being scores of miles from the permanent settlements. During the winter months twenty thousand men labor in the scattered camps of this vast territory, removing the growth of ages that the farms and cities may have comfort and protection. The primeval forest has been invaded, and on the zero air of the north the ring of the ax, the tearing of saws and the strange oaths of the teamsters mingle with the crash of falling trees.

The workers of the forest are called lumberjacks. In all the country there is scarcely a more interesting group of men-interesting because so wayward and prodigal in life and habit, while their forest home appeals to every leaf-loving soul. They are the nomads of the west-farm hands and railroad constructionists in summer, woodsmen in winter-with no settled abode, no place they call home. A few years ago Michigan claimed them; later their habitat was in the forests of Wisconsin; now the woods of Minnesota is their rendezvous.

LUMBER CAMP IN THE LONG, LACE-LIKE NORWAYS

The typical lumberjack is a man of large heart and little will. He sins with willing freedom, because he has almost lost the power to check his evil desires, and it is so easy to yield to the vultures who make sin convenient and righteousness hard. The saloon and brothel are ever alluringly near, while the church and bethel are slow to approach. The harpies of sin wait at every turn to prey upon the woodsman-though they damn his soul it matters not, if they obtain the cash.

The railroads push their iron arms into the heart of the wooded lands, and the villages follow the railways, desiring to be near the camps for the trade they bring. Almost without exception the first places of business are the saloons, to which are attached the outfits of the gamblers, and conveniently near are the places of shame. One new town in the pineries had between forty and fifty saloons (forty-six I believe is the number), five large brothels, and the gambling hells were many, yet the population of the place was little over two thousand. It was evident to the casual visitor that its chief industry was to separate the campmen from their earnings by preying on their weaknesses. Another village is beautifully situated at the junction of two rivers. All around it is well timbered land, and from the nature of the soil the place is destined to be of importance in the coming years, but at the time of this writing the village with its adjacent territory only contains a population of about two hundred. The village has less than a dozen houses, but six saloons do a thriving business and the brothel has appeared. You ask where the places obtain their patronage? From the camps. The foresters are the source of profit; the population of the town would not be able to keep one saloon in business. Nor are these solitary instances. The same conditions are to be found in almost every hamlet and village in the woods. Day and night they ply their sinful trade, and soon the gold, which the lumberjack risked his life to win, jingles in the coffers of the shameless or gleams in the till of the saloon or gambling hell.

Sunday is the harvest day of iniquity. The men are released from labor and pour into the villages to spend the hours of rest. The wheel, whisky and women separate them from their earnings, and like the withered leaves of autumn the strong wielders of the ax and canthook fall easy victims. One night "to blow in the stake," regrets for a moment-then back to the loneliness of the winter woods again. He is said to be a poor lumberjack who can keep his wages over night.

Jack is not always a willing victim. Often by knockout drops he is reduced to insensibility and robbed. He may complain of the treatment, but he is helpless through lack of evidence, and is told to "go up river," or is hustled unfeelingly out of town. "He's only a lumberjack and is better off when all in." This is all the sympathy the Ishmaelite receives. No place is open to him except the one he should avoid. The churches are too weak to meet the large demands, and so no place of refuge opens its doors of hope to the prodigal. The balm of sympathy comes to him limitedly; humanity is as cold as the frozen streams of his winter's retreat. Civilization is viewed only as a place of unbridled license where the law favors the spoiler. God is dead. Christ is only a word of convenient profanity. The church has forgotten the prodigal while caring for the souls of the saved. Thus he views life. In his wretchedness he labors for the keepers of the gates of death and is satisfied, if, by the sweat of his brow, he can win an hour of forgetfulness in the place of riot and shame.

No picture was ever painted so dark as to exclude all light. God made it so. Even in the neglected sons of the lumber-camps is seen a hopeful ray-for their hearts are as rich in charity as their lives are dark with sin. Their sympathies can easily be touched. It is through the open freedom of their generous nature that the reforming power of the gospel can enter. The only remedy for the campmen is the sustaining power of the Man of Nazareth. When they shall learn to know the Christ of God as the Savior of men, the darkened lives of the foresters will be transformed, and the fruits they shall bring forth will be the wished for deeds of righteousness.

When the Rev. Francis Edmund Higgins, the Lumberjack Sky Pilot, began his work among these neglected Ishmaelites, no religious society was making an effort to raise the moral and spiritual condition of the campmen. The Catholic church, then as now, devoted itself to the hospital work in the nearby towns, but no denomination invaded the camps to lead the bunkmen to right living. At the time of this writing the Presbyterian church is the only religious organization having special missionaries in the lumbercamps.

Regardless of denominational prejudice, the work of Frank Higgins appeals to the whole Christian church, not only on account of its peculiar type, but also because of the interesting man conducting it. Fitted by nature and training for his work, he is striving with heart and hand in a large and lonely field. He is the pastor of a large and scattered flock which for long and weary years has known no shepherd. Depraved men are being reached, lifted and kept for God through him-men alone are his parishioners.

Seldom is a pastor more beloved by his people. The rough but kindly hearts of the lumberjacks go out to this fearless minister who self-sacrificingly breaks the bread of life to the husk-fed prodigals of the far north country. The lumberjacks will fight for their Sky Pilot; and even the ranks of the enemy-the saloonmen, the gamblers, the brothel keepers-are compelled to admire this earnest Christian minister who is valiantly fighting a hard battle for God and righteousness.

The Rev. Frank Higgins is a resolute character, full of zeal and undaunted courage. God gave him a strong body and he is using it for the Giver. That rare virtue we call tact, or sanctified common sense, shows itself in all his dealings with men. False dignity is absent from him, but the dignity of sterling purpose and determined endeavor is ever present. He is no slave to custom, but is a man who does things in his own way, and does them well. The title the loggers have conferred upon him is one of affection; he is the Lumberjack Sky Pilot, and if you heard his forest parishioners speak that name, you would realize that his ordination was threefold-ordained of God, by the presbytery and by the lumberjacks.

Frank E. Higgins was born in the Queen City of the West, Toronto, Ontario, on the nineteenth day of August, 1865. He was the seventh child to come into the home, but the only one to survive the vicissitudes of infancy. His parents were both Irish, but his father, Samuel Higgins, was born in the Dominion, and for some years prior to his death kept a hotel in Toronto on the site where the Walker House now stands. In this house Frank was born. Ann Higgins, the mother, first saw the sun in the Ulster settlement of Ireland, her parents bringing her to Canada when she was four years old. Samuel Higgins died when Frank was seven years of age.

Two years after the death of Frank's father, Ann Higgins married John Castle, an Englishman, who shortly afterwards moved the family to Shelburne, Dufferin County, Ontario. Here in the untouched wilderness the settlers began to force an opening for cabin and crops. The country was new. Few white families were near, but on the Higgins homestead were several camps of Sioux Indians. The land was forest covered, the towering cedar and hemlock stretched their graceful fingers heavenward, the spreading maples delighted the eye, and the white robes of the slender birch lent variety to the sylvan scene. With painful effort the sentinels were felled and squared for cabin and sheds, and fields of grain succeeded the fallen forest.

The companions of Frank Higgins were the children of the Sioux Indians, whose tepees were near the homestead. With the children of the Indians he took his lessons in woodcraft, learned to draw the bow, or childishly labored at the tasks of the growing braves. One of his early recollections is of secretly carrying a loaf of bread from his home to trade with an Indian youth for bow and arrows. Perhaps the subsequent strapping he received had something to do with the permanency and vividness of the recollection. For three years the Indians were his constant playmates. From the warlike Sioux, fearlessness was imbibed, their love of the forest became his, and an ineffaceable delight in tree and stream was stamped in the character of the growing boy. "I feel it now," he said to me, but recently when we were in the city together, "I want to get back to the solitudes where the trees have voices and every stream a story. I love the camps rather than the cities. I have never passed from my boyhood love-my first love-the trees, the hills, the brooks. In the pineries I feel as if I were a boy back in the old days again."

STEAM-JAMMER AT WORK

These were days of gold and purple when the child was learning the mysteries of life, days of ceaseless roaming in which nature taught her truths through leaf and twig, through dew and whispering breeze. He was nature taught-all that touches "the wild and pillared shades" belongs to his free, frank nature. Unknowingly he was beholding the beauty of his future kingdom and unconsciously equipping himself for the years of zealous toil among the white nomads whose weapons are the ax, the saw and the peavey-a change in equipment and complexion, with the same stage setting.

Few school privileges came to the forest lad. When he should have been at his studies there was no school to attend; when the school came, only brief periods were allowed to him. At twelve he took his place by his stepfather's side and assisted in supporting the family. Every hand was needed, and the boy's little counted for much. There was ground to clear of trees and underbrush, there were rails to split and fields to fence, and in the winter logging, claimed his labor for the cash it gave in return.

Dufferin County could offer few advantages in those days. Its sparsely settled condition meant absence of amusements and communal privileges. Most of the new settlers were of English blood, and while they were willing to stint and sacrifice, yet they demanded the presence of the church. A church was organized near the Castle home, to which John and Ann Castle gave their united support. Frank's stepfather was a godly man, in whose life was reflected the spirit of our Master's teaching. Service and fellowship were the watchwords of the home. Of material wealth the cabin could not boast, but in spiritual gifts its occupants were far from poor. It was largely through these examples of Christian living that Frank Higgins acquired a knowledge and interest in the things of God.

When Frank was eighteen years old a wave of religious awakening swept through the community, and the stepson of John Castle was one of the first to surrender to the Master. Immediately he interested himself in the welfare of his companions, doing personal work among them. The result was that most of his companions joined the company of believers. These young men then organized a semi-weekly prayer meeting in the schoolhouse and Frank Higgins led the first meeting. Nine of those who attended those prayer meetings have since gone forth to preach the everlasting Gospel. There must have been good stuff among the settlers of Dufferin County.

The ministry always had its charms for Frank Higgins. Long before he united with the church, the desire to preach had possessed him. Many were the sermons he delivered to the cattle, stumps and trees, while going the rounds of his daily labor. On one occasion the stepfather and hired man hid behind the stumps that they might receive edification from the discourses that so often wasted their sweetness on the desert air. Unaware of their presence, Frank worked a while, then, laying aside his ax, mounted a log and began his sermon to the stumps. Vigorously he chided them for their inactivity. Emphatic were the woes he pronounced upon them who were at ease, while the harvest called loudly for workers. Enthusiastically he bade the stumps march forward and with unsheathed sword take possession of the Promised Land. The hidden ones, suppressing mirth that almost injured them, silently thrust their heads above the hiding place and looked with forced solemnity at the big, lonely preacher. So unexpected was their appearance, that he, who a moment before was willing to lead an army of stumps to victory, retreated to the cover of the forest, pursued by the convulsing laughter of his friends. Years afterwards, when commenting on the above incident, he said: "You see, it was a sermon to men after all. I had intended it for stumps, but it produced action among men." He laughed.

Men have always been his auditors. From the time of his stump sermon they have listened to his story of the Cross, and today among the stumps of the pineries he preaches with results that cause the angels to laugh in gladness.

At the age of twenty Frank Higgins returned to Toronto, the city of his birth, where he resided with relatives. He there entered the public schools, taking up the studies which the conditions in Dufferin County prevented him from acquiring in boyhood. It took courage to enter the sixth grade of the city schools, a big brawny man among babes. Unaccustomed to cities and civilization, he felt ill at ease away from his native woods. His hands were better acquainted with the ax than with the pen and pencil, but he stuck to his task while the blush of shame mounted his cheek as he sat among the little children of the grade. His teachers did not find him an apt scholar, but they bowed before the originality of his untutored mind.

Three years were spent in the grades and two in the high school, after which he left the Dominion of Canada and came to Minnesota, at the age of twenty-five.

In the fall of 1890 he began lay preaching in the Methodist Episcopal church at Annandale, Minnesota, and for two years labored in that field; doing very successful work. He was fortunate in the companionship of Dr. A. M. Ridgeway, a young physician who had recently begun to practice in the village. This friend did all he could to cover the defects of the frontiersman and to aid him to self-improvement. It was largely through Dr. Ridgeway's persuasion that Higgins gave up his work at Annandale and went to Hamline University to continue his studies. For two years he applied himself to books, but owing to the scarcity of funds he was compelled to preach on the Sabbaths, and the small salary thus obtained helped to support him in the University. The name of the late Rev. L. M. Merritt, of Onesta M. E. Church, Duluth, Minnesota, is held by him in revered memory for the timely encouragement and assistance rendered him at this period.

In 1895 the way opened for him to enter the service of his mother church. The Presbyterian Church at Barnum, Minnesota, was offered to him and the layman found himself in the denomination of his youth. The work at Barnum, Minnesota, changed the whole course of his life.

RIVER CREW ON LAKE BEMIDJI

The new field to which Mr. Higgins went was a lumber town. Barnum, Minnesota, had a population of less than four hundred, but the nearby lumber camps added considerably to its business interests. The Presbyterian Church at that place was weak, and when Presbytery sent the young Canadian there to advance the cause of Christ, it also took him under its care as a student for the ministry, and assigned studies suited to his special case.

At Barnum, Frank Higgins first came into touch with the loggers of Minnesota. On all sides were the camps crowded with men who felled the forests during the winter, and in the spring floated the logs over lake and river to the large sawmills farther south.

Shortly after he changed his residence to the lumber town, he went with several friends across the country to where the river drivers were at work on the Kettle River drive. It was spring. The ice-locked lakes and rivers were once more open, and now the accumulated logs that had been placed on the icy lakes and streams were floating with the current to the city mills.

After several hours traveling through a rough and new country, parts of which were cut over lands, scenically uninviting, the party arrived at the point of the river where the men, who, in the parlance of the loggers are called "riverpigs," were at work. In midstream the men were sacking logs with peavey, or directing with pike pole. From log to log the skillful drivers leaped, now riding on the huge timbers, now wading in the shallows, or following the logs from the shore. It seemed an easy thing to do, to ride the swift moving logs, but only a master can keep his place on the unsteady, rolling steed.

In a bend of the river, below the place where the drivers were working, the large flat-boat called the wannigan, was tied. The wannigan is a floating bunkhouse, cookshed and store combined. In it the men make their home during the drive. The supper hour was near when the visitors arrived at Kettle River; the journey had been long, so the disturbing blast of the cookee's horn was a welcome sound. In response to the call the rivermen hastily made for shore, and headed for the grassy place near the wannigan. The example of the workers was followed by the visitors, who helped themselves to iron knives and forks, tin spoons, cups and dishes. The wet drivers sat around the campfire and ate with a heartiness that comes from a life spent in "God's own open air."

The men lounged about the fire after the meal, and the topics of the village and the happenings of the river were discussed. Just as the sun was tossing back his lingering kisses at the sleepy forest and ever wakeful river, the riverpigs requested Mr. Higgins to give them a gospel service. It was a surprising request, coming from such a source, for the river drivers looked and acted as if they cared not for these things. The preacher had heard their fluent profanity as they directed the logs, and when they asked for the gospel he could not veil his surprise. But the request was in harmony with the hour. Nature was worshiping. The solemn hush of the evening was upon tree and stream and even the ceaseless babble of the river came only in whispers. Man felt a desire to join in the Creator's praise, and where is there a better sanctuary than in the cloistered halls of the greenwood, on the banks of a crystal stream?

Taking a log for a platform, unaided by Bible or hymn book, Mr. Higgins began the service. "Nearer My God to Thee" was the hymn, and the men of the pickpole joined heartily in the song, "Jesus Lover of My Soul;" they sang until it seemed that the sunset joined in the praise and the trees of the field clapped their hands in timely melody. Over the running river the tall pines caught up the music and bowed in reverence, while the echoes answered back, "Oh, Receive My Soul at Last."

With what supreme interest the men about the camp-fire listened to the old, old story of Christ who loves the wanderer! The shades of night fell low upon the darkening earth while the preacher spoke of The Light of The World, and the men sat wrapped in thoughts of things they had forgotten or never known. Recollections of the home tree came back to some, and the sweet lullaby of a mother stole into minds long forgetful of home and other days. At the spring of boyhood they drank again, and the counsels of youth came with hallowed sweetness to the men seated in the playing shadows of the dying fire.

Faces long strange to tears were furrowed. Wishes were born that later became realities of good. Like a voice from another world came the benediction to the group about the bright glowing embers. From across the stream the echo floated back, and the "amen" of nature came like a mother's tender prayer.

On the morrow when the visitors were returning, several of the rivermen went to the preacher and spoke of the pleasure they had derived from the service.

"We're away out here in the timber and it ain't often the church comes our way," said one.

"If some preacher would come here once in a while, he could give us a lift. The Lord knows we need it," added another.

"Can't you come and give us a turn?" they asked.

In response to the extended invitations, Mr. Higgins often went to the drive on Kettle River. An appreciative audience was always waiting-an audience that would gladden the heart of any minister who was anxious to deliver God's message.

Prior to his visit to Kettle River, Mr. Higgins had never been on the drive. Everything about the work was new to him, but he joined the riverpigs on the stream, and added to their merriment by his unskilled attempts at logdriving. Taking the long pickpole, the preacher mounted the floating log, while every driver looked out of the tail of his eye for the soon-coming moment when "his reverence" would descend to the depths-"so far," said one of the men, "that he would draw down the log with a suction." In the midst of their work the drivers shouted advice and encouragement.

But a laugh does not deter a man like Frank Higgins. The love of the forest and river was in his blood, and the strong body and determined will welcomed the difficulties of the river. Even the discomforts of a sudden bath did not cool his zeal. He believed that if these men were to be his hearers he must know how to appreciate their labors, and that appreciation could only be acquired by passing through the intricacies of the calling. So skill came with practice, and a knowledge of the drive after many sudden descents into the flowing waters.

This was a part of the equipment for ministering-a strange preparation-but men whose labors demand strength of limb and skill of body are more likely to listen to him who can prove his physical ability. In the estimation of some, manual labor may not preserve the dignity of the cloth, but it adds to the dignity of the man. The lumberjacks and rivermen have no admiration for him who is fearful of hardship, or succumbs before the strenuous labor which they themselves must daily perform. The pineries is no place for weaklings, nor the drive for the fearful. Among these men physical prowess wins where mental powers fail to get a hearing, but the combination of both, backed by a strong desire to serve, is a combination sure of success.

"When you are in Barnum I want you men to remember me," said the preacher to the drivers. "My home and church are open to you. You are just as welcome as the people of the village."

Shortly after the above invitation the boys came to town. It was Sunday, and the hour of the morning service. Three big rivermen entered the church and took seats in the rear of the building. They were dressed as the necessities of their vocation require, flannel shirts resplendent in fighting colors, broad belts, and heavy spike-soled boots. It was no small sensation their presence created. Barnum was a lumber town, but although accustomed to the lumberjacks and drivers, it had never seen them in church. The saloons were their known retreats.

Before beginning the service Mr. Higgins went down to the drivers and bade them welcome.

"We thought we'd drop in and see if you'd make us as welcome in the gospel shop as we made you in the bunkhouse," said the spokesman. "I guess he has, Bill," he said, turning to his friend.

After that they came to the little church whenever they sundayed in town. With the trio came others, for they knew they would be hospitably received. This proved to the minister that the man who wants a larger parish has only to remove the fence that encloses his present one.

As often as his pressing duties would allow it, the missionary followed his new found flock. The distance was great to Kettle River, yet he walked to the camp that service might be held on the bank of the stream. From the memories of the men who heard and of him who preached, the pleasure of those sunset gatherings will never be effaced. Kettle River drive was more fruitful than preacher or logger dreamed.

Although Mr. Higgins grew to manhood in a timber country, yet he never had visited a large lumbercamp until the winter following his residence at Barnum. In his youth he had logged in the forests of Dufferin County, Ontario, but the lumbering was on a small scale-it was only the logging of farmers. Around Barnum, Minnesota, the camps were operated by the lumber kings of the west. The winter's cut was counted in millions of feet, not by hundreds or thousands.

In the fall of 1895 a delegation of lumberjacks came to the Sky Pilot's home in Barnum and asked to be taken into the circle of his ministration.

"We need you just as much as the camp of drivers you preached to in the spring," they said, and they looked the part they professed.

Camp after camp petitioned for his services, and so the work grew until all the logging camps around the village were receiving occasional services from the unordained man who served the Presbyterian Mission Church at Barnum. The field was large, white for a willing harvest, but the laborers were few, few indeed-only one.

Mr. Higgins had recently married, and through the union encouragement and effectiveness was given to his work in village and camp. In October of 1895 Mr. Higgins was married to Miss Eva L. Lucas of Rockford, Minnesota. Miss Lucas was an active church worker in her own town, and after her marriage the bride often went with her husband to the filthy camps and furnished music on the little portable organ. Her presence was appreciated by the foresters, and with the lead of the organ the music was bettered.

These were days of exacting labor and little pay. In his spare moments Frank Higgins was trying to supplement the loss of university and seminary training, and the midnight lamp glowed in the study as he sought to prepare himself for ordination. There were sermons to prepare, calls to make, the dead to bury, and a thousand unexpected duties that are ever attendant on a village pastorate. But louder than all the demands was the ever increasing Macedonian cry from the camps for services and assistance. So much to be done and so little one could do in comparison to the demand! Frank Higgins never asked for "flowery beds of ease." His physical strength was unlimited, and he loved action rather than repose. With the joy of a strong man he attacked his work and found an increasing happiness in duty done. A few days after one of his visits to the camps, two lumberjacks came to his door.

"We want you quick," they said, "we've brought one of the boys from the camp to his homestead. He's asking for you. He's a very sick man."

In company with the woodsmen Mr. Higgins went through the forest to the log cabin of the homesteader. The doctor had just arrived. Turning to Mr. Higgins, the physician said:

"If we could get him to St. Luke's Hospital in Duluth there would be a chance for him. He cannot obtain the necessary care here in his shack."

Mr. Higgins volunteered to accompany the sick man. They bundled the patient snugly into a sleigh, drove to the depot, and in a short time were in the hospital.

Only a few minutes passed before the physician in charge came to Mr. Higgins and said:

"There is no chance for your friend's recovery. You had better break the news to him, for he is beyond our help."

Gently, tenderly, the rough camp preacher told the dying man of his condition and asked him to make preparation for the nearing end.

A SMALL CONGREGATION

The lumberjack looked up at the weeping minister, and smilingly said: "Thank God you came to the camp that night. I heard you preach of a Savior, and all my being longed to know him. It was the first time in twenty years I had heard the gospel. I was raised in a Christian home, and that night all the lessons of childhood came back to me. When the lanterns were put out, and the bunkhouse was silent, I got on my knees and prayed the forgiving God to forgive the past, and make me a better man. That night Jesus Christ brought his strong salvation to me, and I was forgiven." He paused through weakness and was still, then opening his eyes, now clouded with the mists of death, he looked at the minister.

"Brother Higgins, go back to the camps and tell the boys of my Savior. Go back and tell the old story to the lumberjacks. They need you worse than the towns do. Tell them of Jesus who can make them live, go back to the lonely camps." He ceased to speak. More feebly came the breath, and soon the spirit returned to the God who gave it.

The minister was left with a problem greater than any he had yet attempted to solve. In the corridors of the hospital he walked through the long night, carrying a sense of duty and sacrifice he had never known before. "Can it be possible that God wants me to take up this work?" he asked. "Has God spoken his will through the dying man?" Ambition rebelled against the sacrifice; fond wishes refused to be set aside, but with every tempting prospect came the command of the dying man, "Go back to the boys and carry the story of Jesus." It sounded clearly. No man could misunderstand it. That night all his plans were changed. Ambitions, such as come to all young men, were swept away. The large pulpits of which he had dreamed were superseded by the log or barrel which held the Bible in the camp services, and the future audiences were men rough clothed, rough visaged, who dwelt not in homes of opulence, but slept in the hay-filled bunks in the log camps. That night in the hospital he consecrated himself to the service of God in the logging camps.

He now began to look about the field in which his life work was to be done. The extent of the field and the intensity of the need was appalling. While there were Christian men in the camps, and many whose lives were moral, yet these were few in comparison to the crowd who wasted their lives as did the younger son in the parable.

Ordination was now his great desire, for he wished to go to the men as one who could minister to all their spiritual needs. But ordination was far off. The studies were not completed, and would not be for several years.

The spring after his decision, he was surprised on entering his home to find it filled with a crew of lumberjacks who were returning from the camps.

"Mr. Higgins," began the spokesman, "We've dropped in today to tell you how we've enjoyed the preaching in our camp. The boys want me to make a spiel, but the saw is more in my line. You've treated us white, have given us more advice than we've digested, and never asked to see the color of our money. But this is no one-sided affair. The boys have all chipped in, and here's your stake for service rendered." As he closed he handed the minister a check for fifty-one dollars.

In all his work the missionary had not asked for financial assistance. The boys at first thought he was preaching for "what there was in it," but when he asked not for money, they realized that love and devotion was the impelling cause. "The lumberjack is no cheap skate," so they gladly gave in return.

Through the benevolence of the woodsmen, Mr. Higgins saw a new possibility. He was willing to give himself to the work, but it was necessary that living and incidental expenses should be met. How to finance the mission work was the question, but now he saw the boys would pay a large part of the attendant expenses if some one would organize the work. The barriers were being removed; the doors were opening. Only, ordination had yet to be received.

The work at Barnum was followed by his taking charge of a church in New Duluth, where the mill hands formed a large part of the population. Acquaintance with the men and their work led to an interest in him, and soon the church was on its feet. The same success that was seen at Barnum followed the New Duluth work, and after a short period of labor there, he was asked to take the Bemidji church. Here in the heart of the logging district the real work of his life began, for as never before he learned the ways of the lumberjack.

In the spring of 1899, Frank E. Higgins began his work in Bemidji. The Home Missions Committee of Duluth Presbytery had invited him to assist the little group of Christians in the new town, where assistance was badly needed, for the place was in the heart of the logging district, and was infamous for its traffic in evil. The hosts of sin were well organized, but righteousness needed the encouragement of a strong man.

The Bemidji field was first opened to Christian work by Mr. S. A. Blair, the Sabbath School missionary of Duluth Presbytery, in 1896. In those days no railway reached the place, but the pine forest beckoned to the logging companies and the Mississippi river offered an outlet for the logs. Bemidji could only be reached by following the rough trails through the swamps and around the hills from Walker, Minnesota, thirty-five miles away. Most of the supplies were carried up the lakes and rivers and toted over the portages to the new village.

When Mr. Blair started on his thirty-five mile tramp to Bemidji, the Baptist denomination also decided to send a man to organize for them. But the rains descended and the floods came, until the poorly made roads were more impassable than ever. Not relishing the flooded condition, the immersionist gave up the task-for once water interfered with the Baptist growth. But Mr. Blair, prior to his conversion, had been a lumberjack, and none of these things moved him. Wading the depths and fording the streams, he at last arrived at the hamlet on Lake Bemidji, and organized the work. Later a church was partly built by Mr. Blair, and occasional services were held. It was to take charge of this field that Mr. Higgins turned his steps to the north. He had seen the conditions of the woodsmen in Barnum and other towns, yet he needed the Bemidji experience to show him their real poverty of soul, and their utter helplessness in the face of open, alluring vice. Here he saw them at their worst, given over to shame, encouraged in degradation. They were as sheep without a shepherd, a prey to every spoiler and evil designer.

It would require one whose ability is far above mine to pen a picture that would adequately set forth the low plane of life found in the early days of Bemidji. Since that time it has changed for the better, but it is still influenced by the past and is far from a moral Utopia. Nature has done everything to make the place attractive and restful. Lake Bemidji and Lake Irving are inviting sheets of water with a shore line of nearly fifty miles. The great Father of Waters joins their crystal bodies, and at the point of meeting the little city of Bemidji is built. Every part of the city is pine-covered. Those who platted the place removed only the larger trees, and the homes rest in the shelter of the constant green. Like a huge emerald in a setting of purest silver is the green sheltered city with its rippling lakes and flowing river.

Nature had contributed lavishly, but when man came he brought with him the defects of humanity and painted the fair location with the blackness of unlicensed vice, filling the Eden of beauty with the blight of Sodom. It was a town with a wide open policy, in which saloons abounded, brothels flourished and gamblers worked unmolested. It was known as one of the most shameless places in the state, and in those days seemingly lived up to its reputation. The police force was little more than a name, for the saloon men were "the powers that be." It was to the interest of the liquor men that the town be run as wide open as possible, and the business interests as represented by the liquor sellers were far from the Puritan mould. A convenient double blind was on Justice. The Law was roped and thrown. Rum was the real owner of the town. It was above the Law. It was master.

Gambling was connected with most of the saloons and numerous devices were in sight to attract the indifferent. Not satisfied with what came to them, the runners of the saloons and dens went into the camps to drum up trade for their respective places of business-creating a sentiment that would induce the boys to visit their dens of vice.

The brothels were large and accessible, being near the center of the town. In one of the places a large number of negresses was kept to pander to the bestial instincts of the men.

It would be difficult to give a description of those early day conditions. A citizen of the town remarked, "You can't put enough black in the picture when you try to paint the early Bemidji." In justice to the moral element of the place we must add that there were always those who strove for better conditions, and the efforts they made have met with some success, for the moral conditions of Bemidji in 1907 are vastly superior to the conditions at the time of which we write.

It was early in 1899 when Mr. Higgins became a resident of Bemidji. The Presbyterian church had been organized but a short time, yet it was in a state of coma that was rapidly passing into death. Only two members could be found. A church building had been erected, but because of financial difficulties it had not been finished and was far from attractive or comfortable. Frank Higgins' task was to find the scattered adherents, then complete the building.

For want of a more suitable place of residence, the unfinished edifice became the meeting place and manse combined. The few houses obtainable were mostly rude shacks whose exteriors were covered with tar paper, instead of weather boards, and even these temporary structures, poor and inadequate, were hard to obtain.

During the early part of the Bemidji ministry, Marguerite, the only child of Mr. and Mrs. Higgins, came to bless the parents' hearts and add joy to the missionary home.

The years at Bemidji were strenuous, but successful. The unfinished edifice was enlarged and completed during the first year of the layman's work. The year following found him building the cozy manse, while the membership grew with increasing steadiness. In connection with the church at Bemidji was a station at Farley, and during the third year a little chapel was erected there. By this time the Bemidji congregation had outgrown the capacity of the building and in the fourth year a more commodious and suitable church was built.

In these full years the camps had not been neglected. With the erection of the numerous buildings, to which he had contributed manual labor as well as superintendence, Mr. Higgins' hands were seemingly well filled. In addition to these duties, however, he every winter gave his personal attention to nine camps and regularly visited three of them each week. The seven addresses a week, the miles between the camps, and the pastoral calls consumed the hours, leaving no time for leisure and idleness, while from all sides came the demands of the foresters for religious instruction and services.

One morning when he returned from the camps, Mrs. Higgins told him of an urgent call from the Sisters' Hospital. Hastily he went to the ward and there found Will McDonald, a Highland Scotchman, at the point of death. McDonald had met with a serious accident in the camps. The Sky Pilot and the teamster were well acquainted. McDonald's boyhood days were spent among the bonny hills of the homeland, in a quiet Christian home. In early manhood he came to Minnesota and followed the winter woods. There, amidst the rough life he forgot his early instruction and traveled the ways to which temptation so readily pointed.

On entering the ward the preacher tried to cheer the dying man, but the woodsman turned to him and said:

"It's no use, Frank, the jig is up. I've got to go. I'm nearing the landing with a heavy load. Do you think I'll make the grade?"

He was a teamster and had hauled many heavy loads up the grade, and now he was thinking of the unknown way he was traveling and the possibilities of the journey.

"Yes, you can make the grade, Will, but you will have to look for help," said the preacher.

"You mean I'll have to get another team of leaders to help me up the grade?" he asked.

"That is it," said Mr. Higgins, "but thank God, McDonald, you have the greatest Leader to give you a lift-the Lord Jesus Christ. Every man he has helped has made the grade. Listen, Will, while I read you something." Taking out his pocket testament, he read the story of the prodigal, and how by the Father's help he made the grade. Then came the strengthening text setting forth God's love for a lost world and the needlessness of perishing. "Turn to him, Will, and the grade will be easy."

Kneeling by the bed, the missionary prayed to the loving God for help, asking that the poor broken prodigal might make the grade and safely arrive at the heavenly landing. In the ward the other lumberjacks heard the prayer, and while the tears fell over faces unaccustomed to them, the boys uttered in silence a sympathetic prayer that Will McDonald might reach the hill-top.

A few hours later Mr. Higgins called again at the hospital. The screen was around the bed and by the side sat the sister of charity with book and beads. The Sky Pilot knelt by the Scotchman's side, and when the dying man saw the visitor a smile came upon his face.

"You're right, Frank, a great Leader is Jesus Christ. I couldn't have made the grade without him. I needed his help, and he is strong. I'm going up the grade easily, we're going to make it sure."

A moment more-the missionary bent close to catch the words, for McDonald was passing rapidly away. "Tell the boys I've made the grade," he whispered, and with a smile was gone. He had left the valley; the unfading green of heavenly plains was before him. He was with the great Leader, through whose divine strength many a poor prodigal has made the grade.

The Presbyterian church has always stood for an educated ministry. The demands it makes of its candidates for ordination are of the highest order, and it is well that this should continue. The system of doctrine taught by it demands thorough preparation for the effort of Presbyterianism has ever been directed to the intellect rather than to the emotions. It believes that men should be educated into the Kingdom rather than persuaded into it.

Ever since the night of consecration in St. Luke's Hospital, where the dying man pleaded with him to "go back to the camps and tell the boys of Jesus Christ," Frank Higgins had desired to devote all his efforts to missionary work among the lumberjacks. He felt that he could labor more successfully if he went into the camps as an ordained minister rather than as a layman. There were many who felt that a layman could do the work as effectively as an ordained man, and some even claimed that a layman could do better work in such a field. Frank Higgins did not agree with the latter, and results have proven the correctness of his judgment. "The lumberjacks want no flunkey, but the real thing," as one expressed it. "We don't want a Sunday school teacher, but a full baked Sky Pilot who has got all the degrees agoin'." Mr. Higgins knew this, and wished to go to them as an ordained man, hence his persistence in the pursuit of ordination.

Systematic Theology has its difficulties to the seminarian, but more for him who attempts to master it alone. This and other studies composed the task that Presbytery had placed before Frank Higgins, and it was necessary that a knowledge of these be obtained before the coveted "laying-on-of-hands" be granted. In the presence of his studies he saw the handicap in which he was placed through lack of scholastic training, and with the multitudinous demands of his large field he lacked the time for mental attainments. The nearest Presbyterian pastor was ninety miles away, so he could look for little assistance from that quarter. He could not get advice and instruction from others, he must labor alone.

For seven long years he struggled with his studies, often with disappointing results and with the feeling that it would never be said of him as of Paul, "much learning doth make thee mad,"-although his unsuccessful attempts to acquire the desired learning threatened to this end. Time and again the Presbytery refused to grant the petitioner's request for ordination. Meeting after meeting he came before them for examination, but still they did not feel that they could solemnly set him aside to the work of the Christian ministry. The action of the Presbytery must not be misunderstood. The members saw the lack of training, the mental defects of the man, the rough exterior of the petitioner-for there was little about him to suggest the pulpit-and while they loved and admired the hearty, consecrated missionary, they hesitated to confer the rite of ordination upon him. They were men who knew the standards of the church and felt that, measured by the plumb-line of Presbyterian custom, he did not meet all its requirements. They were only men, and as such were compelled to judge by exteriors. It was not strange that they hesitated, for the sentiment of the church is against the ordination of men who have not qualified in the full course. Stones there are, however, that no contrivance of man can make to shine, yet they fill a niche in the building where a glazed surface would be a conspicuous defect. Such is Frank Higgins. Try to polish him and he is still the same, but a rough ashler is as necessary to the building as a smooth and perfect one.

One of his examiners asked him, "What seminary did you attend?"

"I never saw a seminary," he answered.

"What is your college?" was asked.

"My college is the Bible and yonder forest, as I believe God intended," he replied. "I do not ask for ordination because I am qualified by the schools, but because God calls me, and there is a work waiting for me."

According to custom, the candidate was asked to withdraw while the discussion was held. For three hours the presbyters discussed his case and when the vote was taken the desired privilege was withheld.

Later in the session, in his remarks before the gathering, Mr. Higgins said: "I need not tell you that the decision of this body is disappointing, for I have long desired the boon of ordination. During the last seven years I have appeared before you many times, and asked to be set aside to the ministry. I know my insufficiencies; no man can know them better. I do not blame you for with-holding "the-laying-on-of-hands," but I was ordained of God long years ago to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ, and although unsanctioned by man, I shall still preach the message with which he has provided me. I have asked ordination for the last time. I am satisfied with the call of God. It is sufficient for me. I ask no more." While he spoke, the spirit of God told of the inner life of the candidate and the brethren saw the consecrated heart.

At a special meeting held shortly afterwards, the Presbytery reconsidered its action, and Frank E. Higgins was ordained. While the Presbytery had hesitated, it has never regretted its final action. It has never ceased to rejoice in the labors of the determined, undiscouraged man who amidst manifold labors and difficulties, worked, waited and prayed seven years, like Jacob of old.

His oft-repeated prayer for ordination having been answered, he looked to the camps as the field of his future endeavor. "Lord, open the door," he had asked, and the door was opened. At the time of his ordination the Bemidji congregation was building the new church. Mr. Higgins helped in the manual labor. One day while he was shingling the tower a boy brought him a letter requesting him to come to Winona Lake, Indiana, and consult with the Evangelistic Committee relative to the conditions in the logging camps. As a result of the conference Frank Higgins was commissioned to take charge of this work in Minnesota. The appointment was made in August, 1902, and with it came the real opportunity for which he had waited since the night in the hospital. He was going "to tell the boys of Jesus Christ."

Shortly after his return to Bemidji the Rev. Frank Higgins took a strange ministerial, or rather, unministerial vacation. The woodsmen of winter are farm hands, railroad constructionists and wanderers in summer, and Mr. Higgins decided that he would acquaint himself with the summer life of the men. His visits to the camps during the past seven years had already given him a knowledge of their winter conditions. Donning the clothes of a laboring man, he mounted a freight train and started on a long western trip of quiet investigation. In western North Dakota he labored for several days as a harvest hand, meeting many of the men he had preached to in the Minnesota camps. From this place he shipped with a gang of laborers and worked as a scraperman on a new railway in Montana. Shortly afterwards he was with the pick and shovel gang at The Dalles in Oregon, only to leave and work as a deck hand on a boat going down the Columbia river. Portland, Oregon, ended his western trip.

In all parts of his hobo trip he found the winter woodsmen, some laboring, some leisurely passing the warm and sunny days in idleness. Mr. Higgins visited the larger churches wherever he stopped and as a workingman entered their doors to see the reception they would tender to a man who apparently belonged to the wanderers. The trip broadened his experience and gave an insight into the life of the nomads among whom he was shortly to take up permanent work. He saw the life as one who had lived and experienced a portion of it. He felt the pangs of hunger, encountered the slights and rejections, the hardships and lovelessness to which their lives were subjected, and out of the knowledge came a broader sympathy, a more ready ability to help.

When he returned to Bemidji the new church was ready for dedication and after a few weeks he left the pastorate to give himself wholly to the twenty thousand men of Minnesota's camps. The field was ready and he now became in reality, "The Lumberjack Sky Pilot."

FILLING THE WATER-TANK-THE STREET SPRINKLER OF THE FOREST