healthy, interested, money-giving constituency about it, and so he
gave in a way to induce others to give, and aids no institution where
the Bible and moral training are neglected. I scarcely need tell my
intelligent readers this person is D. K. Pearsons, M.D., LL.D., of
Chicago, now eighty-six years old.
I have given, in brief, a sketch of his work in this connection,
first because of his direct association with it, and secondly,
because it pointedly marks what we have tried to show from historic
facts in all the chapters--that Power higher than man's power can be
traced and studied.
We often speak of all such as "accidental happenings." _Were they?_
Did the four Flathead chiefs accidentally, in 1831-32, appear in the
streets of St. Louis upon their strange mission and there meet their
old friend the great red-head chief? Were Drs. Whitman and Spalding
and their wives accidentally in Oregon? Was his heroic ride to save
Oregon in 1842 an accident? Was it accidental that he was on the
border in 1843 to lead that great immigration to Oregon in safety?
The Oregon of to-day was dependent upon the safety of that great
company in 1843. Was it all accidental that Congressman Thurston met
Dr. Pearsons in 1848-49 at Chicopee, Massachusetts, and by "words
fitly spoken," that forty-five years after he had rested in his
watery grave were found to be "apples of gold in pictures of
silver"?
We all view such events from different standpoints, and I do not stop
to argue, only to state facts historically accurate. There are
accidents in the physical world from violated laws certainly, but in
the moral uplift of the race there seems to be an invisible hand, and
an agency greater than man's power. Wise as the race has grown, we
cannot understand and explain the mysteries that surround us. I see
the poor young Doctor in 1848 struggling to master his professional
work, and I see him again in 1894, old and rich, and in January of
that year, he sat musing by the fire in his winter home in Georgia,
and he took his pen and wrote:
LITHIA SPRINGS, GEORGIA, January, 1894.
TO THE PRESIDENT OF WHITMAN COLLEGE, WALLA WALLA,
WASHINGTON:--
_Dear Sir:_
I will give Whitman College fifty thousand dollars for endowment,
provided friends of the College will raise one hundred and fifty
thousand additional,
Yours,
D. K. PEARSONS.
[Illustration: REV. S. B. L. PENROSE, PRESIDENT OF WHITMAN COLLEGE]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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