"Boys, he is the fust minister as has had the sand to come up here, and I'll stand treat for him." It is a great pleasure to add that the man who did this is to-day a Christian. One man is found on our grand round, living with a wife and a large family in a church. The church building had been too cold to worship in, and so they gave it to him for a parsonage. The man had his study in the belfry, and had to tack a carpet up to keep his papers from blowing into the lake. This man's life was in constant jeopardy, and he always carried two large revolvers. He had been the cause of breaking up the stockade dens of the town, and ruffians were hired to kill him. He seemed to wear a charmed life--but then, he was over six feet high, and weighed more than two hundred pounds. Some of the facts that this man could narrate are unreportable. The lives lost on our frontiers to-day through sin in all its forms are legion, and no man realizes as well as the home missionary what it costs to build a new country; on the other hand, no man has such an opportunity to see the growth of the kingdom. There died in Beloit, recently, the Rev. Jeremiah Porter, a man who had been a home missionary. His field was at Fort Brady before Chicago had its name. His church was largely composed of soldiers; and when the men were ordered to Fort Dearborn, he went with them, and organized what is now known as the First Presbyterian Church of Chicago. This minute-man lived to see Chicago one million two hundred thousand strong. We should have lost the whole Pacific slope but for our minute-man, the glorious and heroic Whitman, who not only carried his wagon over the Rockies, but came back through stern winter and past hostile savages, and by hard reasoning with Webster and others secured that vast possession for us. As a nation we owe a debt we can never repay to the soldiers of the cross at the front, who have endured (and endure to-day) hardships of every kind. They are cut off from the society which they love; often they live in dugouts, sometimes in rooms over a saloon; going weeks without fresh meat, sometimes suffering from hunger, and for a long time without a cent in the house. Yet who ever heard them complain? Their great grief is that fields lie near to them white for the harvest, while, with hands already full, they can only pray the Lord of the harvest to send forth more laborers. Often there is but one man preaching in a county which is larger than Massachusetts. He is cut off from libraries, ministers' meetings, and to a large extent from the sympathies of more fortunate brethren, and is often unable to send his children to college. These men still stand their ground until they die, ofttimes unknown, but leaving foundations for others to build on.