It is in Butte that we find the heart of the great copper region of
Montana. From the hill north of the city, ore to the value of a million
and a half dollars has been taken. When Brother Van made his first
visit there he found but fifty residents. Not only is it now a busy
city of forty thousand inhabitants, but the character of the community
has entirely changed. The settlers of that period were of American
birth and parentage. To-day the great majority of the miners are from
distant countries. The pioneers of the days of Brother Van’s young
manhood lived the hearty open life of the wind-swept plains; the
newcomers from Europe must toil in the dark mine shafts or amid the
dust and roar of the mills and smelters.
Coming as these workers do for the most part from southern and
eastern Europe, differing greatly in customs and in language from the
older population, they must be given special guidance, if they are to
find the real America of their dreams. They will attain the kind of
citizenship which will make them able to take a really helpful place in
the life of the country only as we interpret Christian ideals for them.
It was for these ideals of democratic brotherhood that the young men of
America went abroad and for which thousands of them gave their lives.
Is America now to show to those who have come as strangers to us, and
who do such a large share of the hard work of our country, that these
ideals of democratic brotherhood are being put into practise for the
benefit of all?
Brother Van found a frontier region when he stepped ashore from the
river boat at Fort Benton on that July morning in 1872. He threw
himself into the life about him, and his years of service have brought
friendship and hope and courage to lonely men and women and to aspiring
young people all over a great commonwealth. Cowboy, Indian, and miner
have welcomed his help, for, as they put it, he “prayed lucky.” There
is need to-day――there will always be a need――for the same ministry that
Brother Van has been carrying on in his founding of new churches, and
in his friendly visiting in lonely homes, and in his preaching anywhere
and everywhere the word of cheer and of faith that his whole life
taught. And as a part of the same great task to which he has devoted
all his years, Brother Van will tell you that there is need for another
kind of scouting to-day in the land of the shining mountains.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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