The minute-men at the front are the nation's cheapest policemen; and strange as it may seem, these men stand in vital relations to all the great cities of the country from which they are so far removed. It is a well-known fact that every city owes its life and increase to the fresh infusion of country blood, and it depends largely on the purity of that blood as to what the moral condition of the city shall be. Therefore it is of the utmost importance that Zion's watchmen shall lift up their voices day and night, until not only the wilderness shall be glad because of them, but that the city's walls may be named Salvation and her gates Praise. Let us make the rounds among our minute-men to see how they live and what they do. Our road leads along the Grand Rapids and Indiana Railway. All day long we have been flitting past new towns, and toward night we plunge into the dense forests with only here and there an opening. The fresh perfume of the balsam invades the cars, the clear trout-streams pass and repass under the track, a herd of deer scurry yonder, and once we see a huge black bear swaying between two giant hemlocks. At eleven P.M. we leave the train. There is a drizzling rain through which we see a half-dozen twinkling lights. As the train turns a curve we lose sight of its red lights, and feel we have lost our best friend. A little boy, the sole human being in sight, is carrying a diminutive mail-bag. The sidewalk is only about thirty-six feet long. Then among the stumps we wind our slippery way, and at last reach the only frame house for miles. To the north and east we see a wilderness, with here and there a hardy settler's hut, sometimes a wagon with a cover and the stump of a stove-pipe sticking through the top. After climbing the stairs, which are destitute of a balustrade, we enter our room. It is carpeted with a horse-blanket. Starting out with a lumber wagon next morning, with axes and whip-saw, we hew our way through the forest to another line of railway, and returning, are asked by the people in the settlement, "Will it ever be settled?" "Could a man raise apples?" "Snow too deep?" "Mice girdle all the trees, eh?" etc. Five years later, on a sleeping-car, we open our eyes in the morning, and what a change! The little solitary stations that we passed before are surrounded with houses. White puffs of steam come snapping out from factories. A weekly paper, a New York and Boston store, and the five- and ten-cent counter store are among the developments. Our train sweeps onward, miles beyond our first stop; and instead of the lonely lodging-house, palatial hotels invite us, bands of music are playing, the bay is a scene of magic, here a little naphtha launch, and there a steam yacht, and then a mighty steamer that makes the dock cringe its whole length as she slowly ties up to it.