CHAPTER VIII. FOUR DAYS' WORK AT AUGUSTA, GEORGIA-HOMEWARD BOUND-REV. DR. VINCENT'S TRIBUTE-VISIT TO MR. MOODY'S OLD HOME-RETURN TO CHICAGO-RELATIONS WITH MR. SANKEY AND THE BRETHREN IN CHICAGO-VISIT TO KALAMAZOO, MICHIGAN-MR. BLISS' PERSONAL INFLUENCE THERE-INTERESTING LETTERS. R. BLISS remained in Augusta but five days, but was much pression on the people, and his earnest words of testimony were owned in the conversion of many to Christ. On Easter Sunday he sang in the open air, at a meeting held in the court-house square. Between three and four thousand people were present, and gave the most rapt attention as he sang "Hallelujah, He is Risen," and other Gospel songs. His afternoon service was crowded with people, and much religious interest immediately developed. April 17th, Mr. Bliss left Augusta for Chicago. Here he packed away books and papers, and made arrangements to store away furniture until he and his family should return at the close of the year to again make a home. The books then put away he was never to see again. It was to him a final disposition of his earthly effects. With wife and children he left Chicago, May 1st, for Rome, Pennsylvania, the old home, intending here to pass the summer in rest and in writing songs for the winter campaign, and commencing the work again in October. It was a very happy summer to him. Tho little invalid George was greatly benefited by the change of air and scene, and rapidly grew well and strong. Old friends came to visit them, and many dear familiar scenes and friends were visited by them. During the summer, a Normal Institute was held in Towanda, and one beautiful Saturday, all the singers came up in carriages to Rome, and passed the day with Mr. Bliss. He was happy as a child, with the pleasure of the meeting with old-time friends, and the singing under the trees of the old-time songs. He attended for a few days the Sunday School Parliament conducted by Rev. W. F. Crafts, at "Thousand Island Park;" visited the Philadelphia Exposition; sang at the Chautauqua Assembly, and greatly enjoyed its sessions and the intercourse with Christian friends there, and passed a week, that he counted a very delightful one, at the home of Mr. Moody at Northfield, Massachusetts. Mrs. Bliss was his constant companion during the summer, at all of these places. Mr. J. H. Vincent, conductor of the Chautauqua Assembly, thus writes of Mr. Bliss' services there and his personal recollections of him : The fearful tragedy of last Friday evening sent a thrill of horror throughout the country, before the names of the unfortunate victims had been announced. But what was the consternation and grief of the American church, when the telegraph made known the fact that among the unrecognized or unrecovered passengers was the evangelist and singer, P. P. Bliss, who, through his many songs, and especially through his association with Major Whittle in evangelistic labor, was so well and so widely known. Mr. Bliss was on his way to Chicago to engage in special labors. I have the impression that he had been summoned there to assist in the meetings of the week of prayer. He was accompanied by his lovely and devoted wife, who went down with him in the fated train, and who with him entered the Father's house. According to the report of one of the rescued passengers, Mr. Bliss, after the accident, escaped from the car, and then returned to save his wife. Finding that she could not be brought out, he resigned himself to her doom, and they perished together. That Mr. Bliss was one of the noblest and one of the gentlest of men. He had the delicacy of a woman and the strength of a man. His physique was magnificent. I think he was one of the most handsome men I ever met. Large, well proportioned, graceful, with a fine, manly face, full of expression. body of his was a grand instrument of music, and from its strength came forth sweetness and power. His voice was deep, of wonderful compass and pathos. As it rang out through the woods at Chautauqua, the most thoughtless would stop and listen. Its marvelous magnetic charm was intensified by the energy of the Divine Spirit, which so thoroughly possessed the body and soul of the sweet singer. To the utmost transparency of his pure and simple character he added a fervent and childlike faith. He was a rare Christian. He knew and believed and enjoyed and lived and preached and sang the Gospel of Christ. His songs were for the glory of Christ. I never knew a man more thoroughly imbued with the Christian spirit. He had one aim and one work in life. He was always on the look-out for souls. He coveted, above everything else, spiritual results. At our "Sunday School Assembly," in private conversation, in the prayer-meetings, in the eventide conferences, on the platform, everywhere, he seemed absorbed in this one great work. Last evening I received from a TRIBUTE OF REV. DR. VINCENT. 73 personal friend and Chautauqua Sunday School worker a letter in which the following allusion to Mr. Bliss will illustrate the impression he made : "I do not know how it has appeared to you, but I have been impressed with the idea that Brother Bliss grew very rapidly in grace the last year. I noticed, for instance, a great difference between the Syracuse Convention of 1875 and your Chautauqua meeting of last summer. He came to the Lake full of the Holy Ghost and of faith, and all his work was accompanied by divine power. You may not have noticed it, but I saw a change from his very first utterance on the platform; and I certainly never knew one more happy in his selections, suggestions, etc. I remember, in one of the deeply impressive meetings when a soul said he would try to seek the Lord,' quick as thought Mr. Bliss said to him 'spell it-t-r-u-s-t.' In the meetings you assigned to me I found him a helper indeed from the time he reached the grounds, prompt, unassuming, but most decided, and with that earnest, serious manner befitting the winner of souls. The felicity of his hymn and tune selections is generally known, but the force of his Christian character, his directness, energy and downright devotion should be emphasized now that we have lost him.” His was not One of the holiest, Mr. Bliss was one of the cheeriest of men. a somber piety. There was no touch of asceticism in his nature. He was as simple as a child, and full of genial humor. His personal letters overflow with playfulness, puns, rhymes, and personal thrusts of the wittiest but always of the most generous character. He lived in the light. It was the light of the Lord, and that is the light of love. He never had anything but good to say of his brethren. He never carped nor criticised. He saw in others what he had most of in himself. He "took to" people. He loved his fellow men. I am not competent to speak of Mr. Bliss as a musician. No doubt many of his songs lack the fire of true poetry and the ring of the immortal music, but when he sang them the words became poetry, and the melodies the very soul of music. Many of his productions have real merit, and will live and be sung for a hundred years to come. They are charged with the sentiment and the force of the living Gospel. "I am so glad that our Father in Heaven" will be a child-song in the church of the future. "If there's only one song" of his that remains, it will be that one. His "Almost Persuaded" has the solemnity of eternity in it. Many a soul has been led by it to immediate decision. "Still there's More to Follow," has kindled the faith of the believer and led him to seek more of the wondrous "grace" and "love" and "power" which are the burden of it. "The Light of the World is Jesus" is a song which derives peculiar significance from the tragic end of its author. Did he sing at the last : No darkness have we who in Jesus abide ? That the prayer of the song moments I cannot doubt. "When Jesus Comes," was fulfilled in his last Oh, let my lamp be burning, When Jesus comes. I can hear him sing again, out of the tempest in which his earthly bark was foundered, as his redeemed spirit looked upon the shores of the glorious land just beyond: Bright gleams the morning, sailor, uplift the eye, Glory, glory, hallelujah!' pull for the shore." Mrs. Bliss was in every way worthy of the noble companion of her life and death. Like him she was remarkably pure and simple. She was the means of his conversion, and she encouraged him to put forth his earliest efforts as a musician. How her rich alto voice would pour forth its volumes of music as they stood together on the Chautauqua platform! I have heard them again and again sing at night to an immense concourse of people, and amidst the stillness of the grave the people would hear these voices of the Lord calling to them as out of eternity. And the orphaned children! How often in our travels together have those dear parents talked of the treasures of heart and home. May the Father of the fatherless be the protector of the little darlings! I sincerely hope that Mr. Moody's call for a penny collection in all the Sunday Schools of the country, January 14, will receive a prompt and liberal response. The circumstances combined to render the disaster of the Friday eveningthat fearful holocaust-the most horrible of all modern accidents. The terrible crash of eleven cars as they fell seventy feet, the howling winds, the crushing ice, the freezing waters, the drifting, blinding snow, the raging fires, and the black, starless skies! What agony did the victims experience! No mortal tongue can describe it! But that tempest was to our dear Bliss and his wife the "whirlwind" in which they were caught up, as by a "chariot of fire," into the kingdom of the Eternal. Whether killed by the fall, or the waters, or the fire, it mattered little to them. Whether the struggle was for but a moment, or protracted for many minutes, it was for them to look the dear Lord in the face-the Lord whom they had trusted and loved so long-and all was well. And all now is well. How can we account for such a wonderful visitation? Are good men so plentiful that the Lord can remove one so useful just at the time of his largest promise? What does it all mean? Well, we are not called upon to explain it. God does not require His servants to account for or to defend His administration. But we do see a few things in the visitation which give us some light and consolation. 1. The departed brother and his wife were ready. They were ripe for heaven. Why should we mourn or wonder when the chorus of the skies is made stronger and sweeter? 2. The songs our dear brother wrote are still with us. And they have received a new sweetness and significance and power by the tragic end of the singer of them. 3. This death has startled into new activity and consecration the workers in all the churches. Who can estimate the intensified convictions, the strengthened purposes, the redoubled diligence among that blessed brotherhood who are at work in America-and all this, under God, caused by this solemn call. 4. By the peculiar method of the divine providence in the present case, a holy Christian life is brought before the public. Brother Bliss now preaches with a tongue of fire to the millions. Tens of thousands who had never seen nor even heard of the departed are now brought face to face with his lovely character, and with the Christ he so faithfully proclaimed. 5. But is there no ministry in the sphere to which he has been removed, for such a royal soul as his? Dear Bliss! The memories will come-his face, his noble form, his gentle manners, his fervent prayers and appeals, his deep absorption in the one beautiful work of his life! Farewell, dear friend! Our hearts bleed at the thought that we shall see him no more here! The world seems lonely without him! But we shall meet yonder! Plainfield, N. J., January 4, 1877. J. H. VINCENT. While at Northfield, in September, Mr. Bliss accompanied Mr. Moody to Greenfield, Brattleboro, Keene and adjacent towns, and sang at meetings. Mr. Moody conducted. He writes: "September 18, 1876. Just returned from a week with Bro. Moody, in his home at Northfield, driving one hundred miles over Vermont, Massachusetts and New Hampshire hills, and holding eleven meetings." He greatly enjoyed this visit, as did also Mrs. Bliss, although both would laughingly mention Mr. Moody's habit of making the best use of his visitors that he could, as manifest by his using them at eleven meetings in a week. October 1st, Mr. Bliss arrived in Chicago, and was present at Moody and Sankey's opening service. He was the guest, at this time, of Mr. H. M. Thompson, of the Brevoort House, and here completed several of the songs that appeared in Gospel Hymns No. 2. He did not participate in any of the Chicago meetings in a public way, but for three weeks was a constant attendant, and was greatly blessed in the remarkable services that opened Mr. Moody's work in Chicago, and in the personal contact with Mr. Moody and Mr. Sankey, with the latter of whom he spent most of his time, removing for a couple of weeks to Mr. Sankey's hotel, that they might be uninterruptedly together. Until this time they had never been much together in the work, but had arranged for their hymn books mostly by correspondence. Now, they had what both had long de |