Part 12 (1/2)

I would say to him as Daniel said, 2426 years ago, to King Darius, who visited, very early in the morning, the cavern where he was confined. The king asked him, in a mournful voice, if his G.o.d, whom he served, had been able to deliver him. Daniel said, ”O King, live forever!” It has been the belief of good men, in all ages of the world, that they were going to have a better and happier existence in the future after this life had pa.s.sed away. Darius had spent a restless and sleepless night fasting. No instruments of music were brought into his presence, his mind was too much troubled thinking of the prophet, who lay in the lions' den.

Thinking how his faithful servant had been divested of his scarlet robe, golden chain and office, and might be devoured by the lions. In the early gray of the morning the king hurried to the cavern and cried out in a sorrowful voice to his friend and said, ”Daniel, O Daniel, servant of the living G.o.d, is thy G.o.d, whom thou servest continually, able to deliver thee from the lions?” Daniel answered the king and said, ”O King, live forever. My G.o.d hath sent his angel, and hath shut the lions' mouths.”

Daniel was aware that the King wished him no evil, but had set his heart on him to deliver him and that he had labored hard to save him. He knew, that the king had been caught in a snare which was set for him by the crafty princes. That he had been persuaded by them to sign a decree, which according to law could not be changed. It was gotten up, through jealousy and envy, for the purpose of taking Daniel's life. When Daniel heard the doleful voice of the king, calling him, he answered, and with an honest heart exclaimed; ”O King, live forever!”

This was not wis.h.i.+ng, as some might suppose, that the king might live forever, on the earth, in his natural or mortal state, or forever reign over his kingdom in this world, but this acclamation was ”Live forever.”

As it was evident he could not live long in this world, Daniel wished him a better existence in a future state.

Man has not been able to find, in this world, the land of perpetual youth or spring of life. Nearly all the veteran pioneers, who have fought with the forests of Michigan, and labored for themselves and others, until they grew old, and wrinkled and their heads were silvered o'er with gray, have pa.s.sed from the storms of life.

They failed to find such a land as Ponce de Leon, looked for in Florida, in the year 1512. He was so delighted with the variegated flowers, wild roses, ever green and beautiful foliage, and the fragrance of the air, that he thought that these woods must contain the fountain of life and youth and that that must be the place upon the earth where men could live and never grow old.

When I was quite young, a few years after our settlement, I think in 1838, Mr. Elijah Lord came and settled about a mile and a half north-west of father's. He came down with his oxen by father's place to get small, hard-maple trees, out of the woods, that he wanted to take home and set out on his place. He was then about a middle-aged man. He set out the trees on both sides of the road, running through his place, for about eighty rods, in front of his house. I asked him if he expected to see them grow up; he said he did not set them out for himself, but for the benefit of other people, for the good of the generations that would follow him.

Some years after that, I visited Mr. Lord in his last sickness. He looked very much older than he did when he planted the trees. He looked careworn and sad; his locks were gray and he was very feeble. He was fighting his last battle of life and he soon went to that bourne, whence no traveler returns. He was a good man, a deacon of the Presbyterian church at Dearbornville at the time of his death.

The hard maple trees, which he set out, are grown up to be large trees.

When leaved out, they have the most beautiful tops, with the most perfect symmetry that could be imagined. They make splendid shade for the road.

In summer weather, when the rays of the sun were very hot, thousands have enjoyed walking under their protecting boughs. The poor horses and cattle that travel that road alike enjoy the benefit of those trees. The farmer as he is going or coming from market and stops his team, to rest under their shade, enjoys their cooling and refres.h.i.+ng influence. The pedestrian, who sits down by the fence to rest his weary limbs, takes off his hat and with his handkerchief, wipes the perspiration from his brow, as he fans himself with his hat talks to his neighbor about the price of things and the beautiful shade, that is around and over them. Neither of them know anything about the benevolent man, who over thirty-five years before set out the maple trees, whose shade they enjoy and which protects them, from the scorching rays of the sun, and makes them so comfortable.

Now, in looking at the shortness of human life, which is compared to a hand's breadth or to the vapor, which appears in the morning is seen but a little while and then vanishes away to be seen no more; and thinking that the pioneers stopped but so short a time to enjoy the fruits of their toil and the labor of their hands, I would exclaim again in language similar to that of the good man of old, ”O, pioneers, pioneers, live forever!”

O, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?

Like a swift fleeting meteor, a fast-flying cloud, A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave, Man pa.s.ses from life to his rest in the grave.

The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade, Be scattered around and together be laid; And the young and the old, and the low and the high, Shall moulder to dust and together shall lie.

So the mult.i.tude goes, like the flowers or the weed That withers away to let others succeed; So the mult.i.tude comes, even those we behold, To report every tale that has often been told.

For we are the same our fathers have been; We see the same sights our fathers have seen; We drink the same stream, and view the same sun, And run the same course our fathers have run.

The thoughts we are thinking our fathers would think; From the death we are shrinking our fathers would shrink; To the life we are clinging they also would cling; But it speeds for us all like a bird on the wing.

Yea! hope and despondency, pleasure and pain, We mingle together in suns.h.i.+ne and rain; And the smiles and the tears, the song and the dirge.

Still follow each other, like surge upon surge.

'Tis the wink of an eye, 'tis the draught of a breath, From the blossom of health to the paleness of death, From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud, O, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?

--_Selected._

It appears to me that it will be interesting to men, who in the future shall live along the Ecorce and enjoy their beautiful homes and farms, to know who were the brave, sacrificing, benovolent men who first settled the country, and were a few of the many who have made the State of Michigan what it will be to them.

I give together the names of some of those early worthies whom I have mentioned before in this sketch. They were the first settlers of the southeast part of the town of Dearborn. Their names are arranged according to the time of their settlement along and near the Ecorce with the years and seasons of their settlement in the wilderness.

Joseph Pardee--Fall of 1833.

John Nowlin--Spring of 1834.