Night comes on, but the woods are as light as day with electric lights. Rustic houses of artistic design are on every hand. Here, where it was thought apples could not be raised because of mice and deep snow, is a great Western Chautauqua. Eighty thousand people are pushing forward into the northern counties of this great State. Roads, bridges, schoolhouses,--all are building. Most of the settlers are poor, sometimes having to leave part of their furniture to pay freight. They are from all quarters of our own and other lands. Here spring up great mill towns, mining towns, and county seats; and here, too, our minute-man comes. What can he do? Nearly all the people are here to make money. He has neither church, parsonage, nor a membership to start with. Here he finds towns with twenty saloons in a block, opera house and electric plants, dog-fights, men-fights, no Sabbath but an extra day for amusements and debauchery. The minute-man is ready for any emergency; he takes chances that would appall a town minister. He finds a town without a single house that is a home; he has missed his train at a funeral. It is too cold to sleep in the woods, and so he walks the streets. A saloon-keeper sees him. "Hello, Elder! Did ye miss yer train? Kind o' tough, eh?" with a laugh. "Well, ye ken sleep in the saloon if ye ken stand it." And so down on the floor he goes, comforting himself with the text, "Though I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there." Another minute-man in another part of the country finds a town given up to wickedness. He gets his frugal lunch in a saloon, the only place for him. "Are you a preacher?" "Yes." "Thought so. You want to preach?" "I don't know where I can get a hall." "Oh, stranger, I'll give ye my dance-hall; jest the thing, and I tell ye we need preaching here bad." "Good; I will preach." The saloon man stretches a large piece of cotton across his bar, and writes,-- "Divine service in this place from ten A.M. to twelve to-morrow. No drinks served during service." It is a strange crowd: there are university men, and men who never saw a school. With some little trembling the minute-man begins, and as he speaks he feels more freedom and courage. At the conclusion the host seizes his big hat, and with a revolver commences to take up a collection, remarking that they had had some pretty straight slugging. On the back seats are a number of what are called five-cent-ante men; and as they drop in small coin, he says,-- "Come, boys, ye have got to straddle that." He brings the hat to the parson, and empties a large collection on the table. "But what can I do with these colored things?" "Why, pard, them's chips; every one redeemable at the bar in gold."