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THE CASE OF THE BRANNIGANS
How I Became Missionary to Elmhurst.
[Written by A PRACTICAL SOWLE for The
Sunday Republican.
I--The Foreign Field.
There is no more beautiful village than
Elmhurst. Beloved of spring flowers and
summer birds, seasons linger around her
surrounding hills and smile across her soft
meadows as they meet. The winter pro-
longs its white sleep as if jealous of the
awakening, spring looks back till summer
wins her in the warmth of her embrace;
and Jack Frost is obliged to send for his
roughest band of November winds to tear
the last leaves from the branches and drive
their playmate west winds far away.
Most of the inhabitants earn their daily
bread in the university, whose radiating in-
fluence dominates the town; others from
factory and farm; and there is bread
enough for all, though there be none who
"live in king's houses," and the only "lilies
of the field" are those found sometimes in
the village lockup, after a too reckless cele-
bration of Saturday night.
I came to Elmhurst a stranger, and cast
about for a definite channel of work for
some of my leisure hours, believing organi-
zation simplified labor and unified effort;
and desiring to earn some right to be in
this wonderful world. After hearing the
notices for the week read from the pulpit
one Sunday morning, there seemed reason
for a lively hope that "the desert" would
"blossom like a rose," and the millennium
be ushered in by the end of the week.
Before I had been a citizen of a month's
standing my disposition was generally rec-
ognized, and I became the recipient of some
20 invitations to join charitable organiza-
tions; membership being solicited by postal-
cards, notes, printed blanks and personal
appeal. The choice spread before me was
varied as the lives of men, limited only by
giving out of days of the week. The regu-
lar program was as follows, accompanied
by its financial record of the preceding
year: -
On Monday, under the auspices of the Mc-
Call mission, the ladies of the University
sewing club met with the wife of the presi-
dent, where I found them knitting fleecy
red petticoats of daintiest wool, for re-
claimed demoiselles in Paris. The amount
contributed in money during the past year,
towards evangelizing the fallen in the
wickedest city of the world, $400.
On Tuesday the ladies of the Baptist de-
nomination met in the vestry to sew for a
missionary about to start for Japan, - a
person in whom early piety and a consump-
tive tendency had developed a zeal which
seemed to run races with them for his life.
I speculated a good deal on his probable
power over the well-mannered, languor-
steeped Orientals, and his use of the 350
American dollars, earned by these noble
women in the past year for the rich old
yellow East.
On Wednesday the First Congregational
church held "society" in the church pa-
rlors - gentlemen invited to tea - directing
their efforts straight to Africa. Amount
of contributions in money the past year,
$700.
On Thursday the Dorcas society of
the Methodist church sewed for a home for
wandering children in New York city, and
another, home for aged women, in the
Northwest. Total contributions in money
the past year to these objects and a freed-
man's educational movement, $275. On
Friday the ladies of the Universalist
society went from house to house in sup-
port of a woman doctor in India. Con-
tributions in money the past year nearly
$300.
