Part 1 (1/2)

Eli and Sibyl Jones.

by Rufus Matthew Jones.

PREFACE.

In our busy and material lives we all need to be reminded at times that there have been and still are among us those who have deadened love of self, whose struggle on earth, far from being to ama.s.s any kind of treasures, is to bring before as many human beings as possible the great plan of salvation, the means of elevation from degradation to lofty Christian individuality, and the source of a power and a love which are making all things new in proportion as submission is given thereto.

We are not always conscious of the strength exerted around us by seemingly trivial forces, but their work is no less important in the development of the globe than the violent upheavals which overawe us by their stupendous might. So, often, quiet lives extend a wider permanent influence for the welfare of man than do those of men and women who receive the unstinted praise of their contemporaries.

ELI and SYBIL JONES have done valuable service, and have lived lives full of teaching to those who wish to enter upon a course of devoted obedience to the same Master. I have prepared this sketch of their lives and work from the love which I feel for them, and in the hope that it will interest and profit others. I am conscious that the stamp of youth is on the work, but I am certain that it has been undertaken and accomplished in the spirit of sincerity.

The visit to Liberia was wonderful in many ways, and should have been published after their return, so that their work might have brought forth more decided fruit. The letters from Palestine and Syria were written for the _Friends' Review_ by Eli Jones and Ellen Clare Miller (since Pearson). Extracts have been chosen to give their descriptions of the country and the nature of their work there.

The book has been prepared in the midst of other work, and that must in part be the apology for its imperfections. Having as a young man received invaluable help from these two Friends, and feeling that their words and lives have done much to throw light on the true path which broadens into the ”highway of holiness,” it is my hope that this simple recital may in a measure repay what I owe them and find a place of usefulness in the world.

3d mo. 13, 1889, FRIENDS' SCHOOL, Providence.

CHAPTER I.

_EARLY YEARS._

”Man is the n.o.bler growth our soil supplies, And souls are ripened 'neath our northern skies.”

The man whose early life was pa.s.sed in the isolation of primeval forests, and who grew to manhood carrying on an unceasing struggle to turn the rough, uncultivated soil into productive fields, gardens, and pasture-lands, has worked into his life something which no coming generation can inherit or acquire. He has missed the broad culture of the schools and universities, he cannot gain the intellectual skill which long study gives, but he has had a training which lays a foundation for the keenest judgment and for prompt decision in complicated circ.u.mstances, and his soul in solitude has taken in truths of G.o.d which often escape men lost in the tumultuous world of business and pleasure. The men who were born during the first quarter of a century after our national life began have nearly all been characterized by special traits which will perhaps not appear again in the more developed growth of the nation. It has not astonished us to see a man leave his little cottage after twenty-five years of toil and go through all the grades of honor, reach a position from which he could hardly go higher, and finally depart from a life unspotted, respected by mankind.

But in this development there is no chance: he mounts by a law which, if we knew it, is as unvariable as that of gravitation. The powers of the mind and soul seek a field in which they may be put to work at profit. It cannot be uninteresting to follow the course of a man who has shown--at least to those who have known him well--that there was something in him of value to the world. In measuring the worth of any man, we must not be dazzled by the glare of earthly glory, but calmly inquire what he has done that has built itself into other lives, and we must look beyond outward things to see in how far he has been the honored tool of the Supreme Worker.

The family of Jones is a large one, and its genealogical table would make a long story. Welsh John succeeded Welsh John, and was called John's son until time wore the name down to Jones. Generation after generation they held their place and did their work among the Welsh hills, until one of them was called upon to steer the Mayflower with its precious load to Plymouth. Eli Jones writes in a letter dated 1st mo. 9th, 1888: ”I have been reading Bonvard's _Plymouth and the Pilgrims_, from which I learn that Isaac Robinson, son of the Rev.

John Robinson, pastor of the Pilgrim Fathers, was an early settler at Plymouth, and that he became a Quaker. Our grandmother Jepson was a Robinson, and, for aught I know, great-great-great-grandniece of this very Isaac Robinson. The captain of the Mayflower was a Jones. With him we claim kindred, and that claim is readily allowed. Now, if our great-great-great-grandsire was the venerable patriarch who led in prayer and gave the memorable parting charge[1] to the Pilgrims, and if his son, our great-great-greatuncle, was, as history relates, a trading man in the colony and a 'convinced Friend,' it is certainly fitting that we should take a lively interest in what occurred among our kin in 1620.”

[1] John Robinson's charge is as follows: ”I charge you, before G.o.d end his blessed angels, that ye follow me no further than ye have seen me follow the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord has more truth yet to break forth out of his holy word. I cannot sufficiently bewail the condition of the Reformed churches, who are come to a period in religion, and will go at present no further than the instruments of their reformation. Luther and Calvin were great and s.h.i.+ning lights in their times, yet they penetrated not into the whole counsel of G.o.d. I beseech you remember it--'tis an article of your Church covenant--that you be ready to receive whatever truth shall be made known to you from the written word of G.o.d.”

Much later, after many settlements in different parts of New England had failed, and the Pilgrim and Puritan colonies were in prosperous growth, three brothers bearing the name of Jones came to this continent. One of them found a forest home on the bank of the Androscoggin River, six miles from Brunswick, in the towns.h.i.+p of Durham and District of Maine. Quite a large number of friends collected here, and a meeting-house was built not far away. There was a large Friends' meeting at Deering, near Portland, and the name of Jones was common among its members. The monthly and quarterly meetings at each place were frequently visited by Friends from the other, necessitating a foot-journey of fully forty miles through almost pathless woods. The house is still standing in which Abel Jones was born. He determined to leave his home and go farther north. He travelled on horseback up the Kennebec River as far as Va.s.salboro', and then rode ten miles east to the north-eastern end of what is now China Lake, in earlier times often called the ”Twelve-mile Pond,”

because it is twelve miles from Augusta, the State capital. His young bride, Susannah Jepson, rode on horseback from North Berwick, a distance of one hundred and fifteen miles. She was attended by her brother alone, and brought only what a pair of saddlebags could hold.

Here in a little house, in the year 1807, their first child was born and named Eli. A letter was at once sent to the young child's grandfather and grandmother at Durham. The letter came to the nearest post-station, twelve miles away, and was taken in charge by an elderly Friend who lived there. He volunteered to start out at once to carry the letter to its destination, thinking it might contain valuable information. As he listened to its contents at the end of his journey he made the significant remark, ”Is that all there is in it?” and jogged back home.

One's first thought would be that if a child was to be brought up in the Maine woods, it would make very little difference in what part of the State the spot happened to be; but it is not at all so. As a young life is very susceptible to outward scenes and every-day events, we can hardly estimate the moulding influence of little things.

The life of the few families in the early history of China would be exceedingly interesting if we only had a graphic sketch from the pen of one of its settlers. Owning the acres they cleared and tilled and the houses in which they dwelt, they called no man master, but they bowed in reverence before their heavenly King and obeyed His commandments. They did their day's work week after week, little thinking that a generation would come which would wish to follow the story of their trials and triumphs, their joys and sorrows; and now almost all that is left us is the inherited strength from their st.u.r.dy lives and a few stories of their sufferings.

Without doubt, nothing in nature had more influence on the bent of Eli Jones's mind than China Lake and its beautiful sh.o.r.es. A boy placed on the bank of a lake stretching off seven miles becomes inheritor to a domain more vast than the acres of water it contains. He feels that he owns so much of this world's glory, and this feeling of owners.h.i.+p lifts him out of the common, dull round of life. Year by year he owns more in proportion as his soul expands and he sees more of G.o.d's work and G.o.d's love in the painted sunsets beyond the western sh.o.r.e and in the forests above and below the placid waters. No one who has not experienced it can appreciate the worth of a lake to a boy. It is not simply because he can fish there, or can swim there, or can make a rude boat and so float on its surface. That is its chief worth to the thoughtless boy, but it was not all to the keenly perceptive child who was father to the man Eli Jones. It was his great playmate whom he loved. It was at the same time his teacher, whose ”various language”

spoke a Father's presence and His love.

It is very monotonous toil changing a rough forest to a productive farm, but a youth becomes a familiar friend to stumps, hillocks, and rocks; to him the mounds are Indian graves, the tall stones mark the final resting-places of mighty chiefs, and his imagination fills the round of work with marvellous scenes. Very many, doubtless, see only their work and the fruit of it, but there are a few who see mysteries and learn lessons wherever they are placed, so that monotony is changed to endless variety. Eli Jones was one of those boys who make gain from ethereal things.