Page:History of Goodhue County, Minnesota.djvu/414

 346 HISTORY OF GOODHUE COUNTY of the chills and had to go to bed, the people in the meantime patiently waiting until the spell was over, after which I got np and administered communion. On September 24 I bade the good people of Vasa farewell, and was exceedingly glad to find an ox team to take me down to Red Wing. Soon after I had left, on September 30, a meeting was held by the congregation at Vasa for the object of electing a pastor. It was then unani- mously resolved to extend a call to me. The sum of $200 was guaranteed as salary for the first year, with the expectation that the congregation at Red Wing, which desired to participate in the eall, would contribute a like amount. With a view that most of my parishioners in Indiana, who owned no land there, would go along with me to Minnesota and settle there, I accepted the call and moved to Goodhue county in the spring of 185ti. I was in my twenty-third year and had been married nearly one year. I knew that a life full of hardships was before me. but I had made up my mind beforehand, with the help of God to conquer or die. I told my excellenl young wife that we should have to swim or else to sink, and she consented to do her part. "May 25. 185(1. the first Sunday after Trinity Sunday, I preached my introductory sermon a1 Vasa, in Peter Wilson's new log house, which was tilled to overflowing. My sermon was on the text for the day. treating of the rich man and Lazarus, and I tried to tell my new parishioners thai it was better for them to be truly pious with poverty and go to heaven with Lazarus than to be ungodly with riches and go to hell with the rich man. I told them plainly that my object in coming here was to preach and teach the pure gospel of Josus Christ, and by study, earnest and patient work, to build up a Christian congre- gation, not by periodica] extraordinary efforts and occasional high steam, but by diligent and faithful instruction in the word of God. Looking back now upon those years, we have witnessed many movements and changes, but I have no occasion to regret or change my standpoint which I took from the first, and I modestly think that my labor, under God's blessing, has not been altogether in vain. For several weeks we lived at Peter Nilson's in the same room in which I preached. Our whole property con- sisted of a bedstead of the rope bottom kind, a plain, square table, an old bureau, an old cooking stove and a few books. Bacon and flour were high at Red Wing, and it cost $4 to bring a sack of flour and a ham home to Vasa. In the spring of 1856 a log house, designed for a school and meeting house, had been put up on Mr. Willard's farm, but it was not completed at the time when I arrived, and it took the whole summer to get it in order for winter use. However, we used it for divine service during the summer, after the floor was put in.