The other institution founded in 1878 was the Kansas Chautauqua Assembly. It was organized by the Rev. J. E. Gilbert, then a pastor of a Methodist Church in Topeka, who was an active Sunday School worker and started other assemblies during his different pastorates in the Middle West. It was held for three years at Lawrence, then at Topeka for two years, and finally in 1883 located at Ottawa, about fifty miles southwest from Kansas City. Most of the Assemblies already named were held upon camp grounds, but the Ottawa Assembly was unique in its location upon the large Forest Park just outside the city, leased for this purpose by the authorities. Being public property, no cottages could be built upon it, but a city of three hundred tents arose every summer, and after a fortnight were folded and taken away. For nearly twenty years this Assembly was under the direction of the writer, and in every respect followed the lines laid down by its parent Chautauqua. Buildings were put up for classes, which served as well for the annual agricultural fair in the fall. In our first year at Ottawa, our normal class was held out of doors, the members seated upon the unroofed grand stand of the Park, and I was teaching them with the aid of a blackboard. Clouds began to gather rapidly and a storm seemed to be in prospect. I paused in the lesson and said: "I am somewhat of a stranger here--how long does it take a thunder storm to arrive?" "About two minutes!" responded a voice from the seats; and instantly there came a rush to cover, leaving the history of the Bible to care for itself. We were just in time, for a minute later it was blowing a hurricane, bending the great trees and breaking their branches. I had heard of Kansas cyclones, had been shown a "cyclone cellar," and only the day before had taken dinner in a house of which one end had been blown clean off by a cyclone. As we stood in a building which we had named "Normal Hall," I asked a lady by the window, "Is this a cyclone?" She glanced without and then calmly said: "No, this is a straight wind." In ten minutes the tornado was over and we reassembled for the lesson. Kansas people seemed to accept occurrences like this as all in the day's work. One weather-story of Kansas reminds of another. On my first visit to that State in 1882, the last year of the Assembly at Topeka, I was standing in front of the hotel, thinking of the historic events in Kansas,--where the Civil War actually began, though unrealized at the time,--when I saw nearby a rather rough looking, bearded individual. Thinking that he might be one of the pioneers, with a story to tell of the early days, I stepped up and began in the conventional way by remarking: "I don't think it's going to rain." He looked me over and responded: