Life and Letters of Rev. Aratus Kent Introduction

Please send the Home Missionary to H.F. Kingsbury & Deacon Strong, Aurora,. Kane Co., for one year and charge me one dollar.

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Buffalo Grove, Feb. 25, 1850

Dear Br.

There is some little indication of seriousness which led a prominent individual to encourage me to tarry a while without knowing any thing of the very interesting case of hopeful conversion which is reported this morning. I have just left his wife in trouble and in tears. I could not see him but he is praying and confessing and exhorting others as I have heard from his father in law Dea. Perkins.

To resume my journal, I preached there week-day evenings for Br. Bergen to good congregations at Little Rock, at Somonauk and at the Sc. house near his present residence. One object was to explore the field and give him the advice he asks. He has a good library and appears to think of nothing else but to give himself to his work and though perhaps not very energetic, He seems to be respected and his labours valued, particularly at Somonauk. I passed on (Friday evening) to Four Mile Grove where I spent an hour or two with Br. I.H. Baldwin. I trust Providence has placed him in a position where he will be very useful. There is an extensive distribution around him. I am confirmed in the judgement I gave Br. Bergen, that for the next six months at Somonauk and Little Rock and for the alternative Sabbath he should visit the expiring church between Paw Paw and Ross’s Grove and labour to resuscitate it. But if the door should be closed against him (as is quite probable) that he should explore the neighboring groves such as Johnson’s, Shabbony, Knox and Meligin and report prospects and progress.

I spent the night (22nd) at Lee Center with a view to ascertain whether Br. Pearson was likely to remain on his field and after spending 2 hours with him at Grand Detour on my way to this place (23) I regret the conclusion to which I have arrived that he will probably********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************pts them to a removal; for a transient Christian is incapable of exerting any considerable influence for good, and the rage for gold threatens to cut off our means for supporting ministers and even to destroy the weaker churches.

It is a great evil in this new country that ecclesiastical instruction no longer is made a part of Sabbath duties in the domestic circle.

It is a sad thing that the churches evince so little concern about the increase of ministers and that pious parents would sooner have their sons go into a lucrative business than into the ministry.

We have dome but little on this field towards raising funds. The failure of the wheat crop for 2 years is complained of extensively. I do not discover that I have received any except $64 from the first church of Galena and $4.55 from Mount Carrol and 1.50 donations from 2 individuals besides what I have taken for the Home Missionary. Perhaps I have not urged as often and as zealously as I ought. Many prefer to return their collections in their own hands, some take up collections monthly, and some ministers themselves preach on the subject of Home Missions.

My expenses for losses, repairs, and contingencies the past year will approximate to $150. But I have kept no accounts and shall render none. I shall, however, need the balance due me after deducting what stands charged against me for which please sent a draft.

If the multiplication of roads is an indication of improvement, the field of my supervision is assuming an important position for we have rail roads and plank roads in abundance in agitation. On this field there are now located fifty missionaries of your society located. And among them there are some excellent men whose devotion to their work sustains them in the performance of great labour and under the pressure of having trials. I know them for I have shared in their straitened accommodations and witnessed their self-sacrificing spirit and the courage they evince in urging forward moral reforms in advance of a timid public sentiment, I have admired too the fortitude of their companions in sympathizing with them and even cheering them on.

Take a single illustration. It was the last missionary with whom I have spent the Lord’s day. Many with the exhausting labours of preaching daily for 2 weeks. He would not relax even for a Sabbath when Providence had sent him help, but tore himself away and preached 3 times in a distant place and came back on Monday rejoicing that he has won for his divine master a notable trophy of redeeming grace and established one more family alter, while I was left to conduct the public services for him without so much as a study or place or retirement for there were but 2 finished rooms in his house and the principal one of those was occupied by a stranger whom in her sickness they had taken in.

Eleven new laborers have been introduced and thirteen have changed their fields and 2 brethren of precious memory have fallen asleep. Five churches have been organized and none houses of worship have been built or are in progress. It gives me pleasure also to observe as I pass along that school houses are multiplying and edifices of brick and stone are fast succeeding to the rude shanties of the pioneers - so fast indeed that “the stone school house” no longer serves as a term of discrimination.

Three academies have also gone into successful operation numbering the first year of their existence near 200 pupils in the more advanced stages of education. Each of these occupies a site of surprising beauty on which 17 years ago the tawny Indian fixed his filthy lodge and by the side of a stream where he sought his food an trapped his furs. Last spring I witnessed in Minnesota a scene of revolting heathenism. It was a company of Souix at their stupid and idolatrous dance. Last month I witnessed the examination at one of these academies of 100 or more Messers and young ladies answering questions on history, philosophy and botany or performing with accuracy on the blackboard the problems given them in astronomy, physiology and the various branches of mathematics. These, thought I, afford no developments of a tendency to barbarism, but they are the legitimate results of an enlightened Christian ministry such as your society aims to establish and sustain and indeed almost every church in Northern Ill. shows the foot prints of the Home Missionary in its early history.

It grieves me that I can report so few tokens of God’s special presence with the churches but there are some Sac. worshippers enjoyed during the year extraordinary manifestations of divine grace. We hail with joy these gracious visitations, but to narrow down the estimated fruits of an Evangelical Ministry to what is achieved during these brief periods of refreshing would be like measuring the usefulness of the Solar Orb by reckoning the value of a single shower produced by the overpowering heat of a mid summers day but forgetting all the time the dews of every night and the countless benefits which in other ways be communicated, but the precise value of which we are unable to gage.

We need in this limited field 17 more to occupy the points of importance which claim attention. There for the most part are scattered settlements which require much preparatory work, i.e., preaching to small congregations gathered in log cabins, exploring the ground to find the central point where the largest number can be accommodated and visiting from door to door to compel attendance by winning their confidence and esteem until a love for the truth shall become a motive superseded to the personal influence of the missionary and are there no men at the east who can be spared for this department of service. It is an important work for before the missionary shall have reduced to order the heterogeneous families located there, others will come in faster than he can win them to advantage.

I have laboured to impress upon my younger Brethren the importance of preaching from house to house and in some instances have accompanied them in the detail of this service.

During the year I have travelled according to my log book 4977 miles in the stage, steamer, waggon and the last 913 on horse back. I have preached 97 times and in most instances to the destitute, and I have been looking after young men for the ministry and turning the hearts of their fathers to his children with special reference to that subject.

Yours in the Gospel,

A. Kent

From your silence and from hints of his earlier history I suspect you do not appreciate as I so the present value of Br. Clary as a discreet and holy man. If you deem it worth your while, make inquiries of his Brethren in Wisconsin.

[marginal notes]

Charge me with $2.50 just handed me by Col. Loomis of the Army.

I have distributed about half your reports and of Barris sermon.

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Galena, March 16, 1850

How to cure a cold.

Under the conviction that abstinence and exercise are the best inducements to carry off a cold, I left home last Saturday only half sick and minus my dinner; rode 25 miles in the face of a strong east wind.

There I met a joyous welcome and having secured my horse in a “sucker stable,”^* and “careful & sparing ate my bread.” I followed my guide for a distance of 2 miles to the place of my evening’s appointment on foot and in the dark over morasses and bogs where a single misstep would have plunged me in the slough of Despond.

Our synagogue was void of a ceiling except as a few boards were thrown across the joists and these but partially covered with shingles and the heavens. A fire already burnt down was still flickering upon the large hearth which extended well nigh across the end of the building, while the rough wind was coursing joyously between the logs and through the broken windows.

A congregation of 24 sitting in darkness quietly waited our arrival and while my guide was gone in quest of a light we spent the half hour in remarks about the California excitement which son ran into a discussion upon the merits of those Reverend gentlemen who are gone to the land of gold. With a great unanimity we arrived at the conclusion that ministers were men of like passions as others, and the preacher himself pushed the matter yet further and affirmed that God had of purpose employed those earthen vessels that he might have all the glory of what ever good was done by their instrumentality, which is in fact the leading thoughts in the text (2 cor) which he that day been studying as the basis of his sermon on the morrow and which they were invited to hear.

Two candles were at length procured but they proved to be of little service, for their was neither table nor chair in the house and the frolic wind forbade their resting on the writing shelves which were attached to the logs. In attempting to preach, therefore, I held my bible in one hand and my candle in the other which prevented me from displaying any of the graces of oratory, except as I now and then set down my candle upon the floor. One of the kind neighbors made an effort to relieve my embarrassment and to construct a chandelier by thrusting a bit of a rail into a crevice but failing in this as - as frontier life is inventive of experiments- he then thought himself to reach up and set the light upon a board over our heads. This seemed at first a lucky hit, but soon failed of its object for the wick was too large for the candle and the light became so dim as to be of no service. And I was obliged to lay aside my meager skeleton and trust entirely to such ready thoughts and brilliant scintillations as the excitement of the occasion would elicit.

Having dismissed the congregation we retraced our steps over the same bogs and marshes but not with the same light, for the crescent moon had gone down. Thick clouds muffled the stars and we only the faint and inky glimmering of the prairie fires in the distance.

Fatigued as I was with the ride and the walk and with my exertions to interest and instruct a company of pioneer worshippers, I was soon snugly recumbent in the loft of the cabin and protected from the wind by quilts neatly pinned around my bed. I was presently locked in the embrace of a delicious repose : thus verifying the passage of holy writ. The sleep of the labouring man is sweet whether he eat little or much. (But instead of the Proverb, the north wind driveth away rain exciting circumstances suggested another, the east wind is sure to bring rain. True this is apocryphal but it is the result of my own observation. I awoke in the night, and heard the drops pattering upon the roof just above my head, and this would have been soothing as music but as I looked forward to public services, and as I reflected that my saddle was perched for safe keeping upon the poles which should have supported the roof of hay, had it not been eaten away by the animals which it was designed to protect.

The Sabbath came and the clouds hung heavily over us. The place of meeting was 1 1/2 miles distant and there was no conveyance for that Christian sister whose hospitality I had shared. The ground was full of water and she could not walk thither as she had done when I preached there before, and it was one of the coldest days of winter. As I took leave I cheered her disappointment by saying that it was better to be denied the privilege of public worship than to despise it as so many do.

We had another open house and another strong east wind but in lieu of the large fire place we had a box stove capable of containing about six gallons of smoke besides what escaped from its broken sides and which would have rendered the place a Bochim but for the wider breaches in the sides of the house.

I enjoyed some comfort and experienced some enlargement for the time being on setting forth the glory of the gospel-treasure, and the wisdom of God in employing human agency to reveal it to mankind.

But when the heavens gathered blackness, I remembered the message of Elijah to Ahab: “get three down that the rain stop thee not.” And having dismissed my congregation abruptly that they might escape the shower, I mounted my horse there being 10 miles distance between me and my second appointment. And I was apprehensive that by a little delay I might be arrested in by course by the streams, which were being rapidly swollen.

In the event it proved to be a heavy storm of rain & hail accompanied with the frequent peals of thunder immediately over and around me.

Drenched by the shower, I reached the church in time. But they did not expect that I should encounter the storm, and we spent a little time in reading the scriptures and prayer with the few that were assembled when opportunity was afforded me to dry my clothes. In the evening I had a small congregation and after public service I retired to rest early; and this morning I awoke refreshed by sleep and rode home on the frozen ground against a cold west wind evidently humidified by the medicine I had taken albeit the doses were unpalatable and heavier than I had thought necessary. I had the satisfaction also to reflect that I had preached the gospel message to more than 60 souls who are destitute of the state of religion. Pardon this egotism.

^* An enclosure of logs with leaves and branches thrown over some poles intended for a shelter from the storm but which by its drippings keeps the animals as wet longer than if they stood out in the open air.[Kent’s footnote]

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Galena, April 13, 1850

Dear Br.,

Your letter asking permission to have a deed of Mr. & Mrs. Hopkins executed to me is received and I give my permission. But if that is all that I have to do in the matter you might have presumed this far as a friend and much more as your agent.

Br. Holt is to be installed Ap. 24.

The Guernsey frocks are still in hand. I deposited 6 with Mr. Blanchard [Galena’s Methodist minister] who was sanguine he could sell them, but he has sold but 3 and thinks they will not go off here at all.

Mr. Whitney declines being ordained at Stillwater and prefers coming down : does not give his reasons. I do not know therefore as I shall go up there except you think it best. I can form no better judgement than you, at this distance, of his necessities. I have enough to do nearer home but will cheerfully go if it is thought best.

I expect to go across the state in 2 or 3 weeks and shall make it in my way to call on Br. Loughead. I think his application has been prepared and has failed to reach Br. Badger.

At the meeting of Galena Pres. just closed I saw Br. Lord & Powell. They both expect to leave their present positions. I pointed out to Br. Powell 7 vacancies continuous, Sharon, Prophets Town, Union Grove, Garden Plains, Como, Lynden and Gap Grove, exclusive of Buffalo Grove, Dixon, (and Grand Detour if Br. Pearson leaves). “Men of Israel help” send us some men that are willing to occupy these new fields.

We want more than any others some men like Br. Wright of Stark County. We want a missionary under direction of Presbytery. We want a Bushnell or Williston, a man of experience and some tact for that species of labour.

Yours enclosing a draft for $81.48 is received.

Your Brother,

A. Kent

[Chapin Papers- Beloit College

Letter from Kent to Professor Emerson]

Galena, April 17, 1850

Rev. & Dear Sir:

Your son has given and I accept the challenge to write you a few lines. This is undertaken on my part, in consequence of his confession that he brought not a line from you which he never delivered.

I remember with ineffaceable impressions some things in relation to Tutor Emerson, one of which is my visit to his room near the close of my college life to consult with him in relation to my future course.

This question rested with tremendous pressure upon my mind at that time whether I should become a minister and whether I did right or wrong, you must bear the responsibility of having encouraged me to go forward.

I have a 1000 times been distrustful of myself, but I do not recollect that I was seriously repentant of having entered upon the duties of the sacred office but I do repent daily and sorely of delinquencies. I did not intend to write about myself but egotism most naturally comes up when one is at a loss for a subject. I will only add that we should be very happy to see you in Galena and “to bring you on your way” to Minnesota if you have courage to venture so fay into the American forests.

With sentiments of great respect and affection, I remain your brother in the Lord,

A. Kent

I must be allowed to enter my protest against men being employed to make ministers for the West who never come to the west. Come and stand on some ??? top and look over the land.

Barber’s Grove, Alias Crete, May 8, 1850

Rev. Mr. Badger D.D.

Dear Br.,

In accordance with your request for information concerning Brs. Loughead & Birge and agreeably to my own preconceived plan I have made investigation of the circumstances of both so far as I have been able.

I called on Br. Loughead on Thursday - rode with him about 20 miles on Friday in the south east part of Grundy County in the rain. On Saturday I rode to Nettle Creek whence John Loughead resides and where he expects to organize a church. I preached there on Sabbath and rode over to the Unitarian Church near Marsailles (alias Grafton Church) where Br. Basset preached a while and preached there in the afternoon to a large congregation (i.e., 75). That church is offered him to preach in and I have advised that he supply those 2 churches each alternate Sabbath. We sent Br. Phillips (my travelling companion from Hazel Green who was not well and needed a journey) to the south west part of the county : to Vienna where a church is soon to be organized. Br. Phillips returned and preached for Br. Henderson in the evening (10 miles). Br. Langhead preached at Dresden & Au Sable.

After the best judgement I could form, I have advised that Br. L. preach on the alternate Sabbath at Vienna one part of the day , on the other to the Brookfield Church where a Br. Marsch, a licentiate, lives if they should desire his services. It is some 6 or 8 milees from Vienna. If not wanted there, he will preach at some point more to the east where there is a heavy settlement. We have concluded that Dresden does not offer inducement to occupy a whole Sabbath & perhaps Br. henderson will preach on week days to them.

Br. Loughead seems encouraged and I hope that he will now give himself wholly to his work as he promised to do. The 4 churches (2 not yet organized) are Marsailles & Nettle Creek, Vienna, and Brookfield. If it should be judged best to have him occupy the latter field.

Monday I went by a straight course to Wilmington, and had much conversation with Br. J. Porter, Col. Stewart (Scotch) and Br. Cowan (colporture) respecting Br. Birge. He labours in W. and they know his capabilities & indulge no sanguine hopes of his success and yet seemed unwilling to advise that he be dropped at once. Br. P. thinks him penurious.

I reached Momence (50 miles due south of Chicago on the Kankakee and near the south line of Will co.) about 10 am and made full proof of the doctrine of the saints perseverance in my efforts to get information untrammeled. I ran about on foot all the rest of the day, probably 8 or 10 miles, to see the men whose names were appended to the paper and others. And the views of those men whom I saw may be summed up in a few words that though Br. Birge is inefficient and too much taken up with his family cares, yet they admit that society has been improved since he came and that “it was as well as they could do for the moment.” Momence is a thriving little village that is expected to become the depot for a larger district south and east.

Br. Birge came home in the evening was very glad to see me, had forgot to send his application to the committee. He gave me a long account of his labours & prospects and to my inquiries about his spirituality, his studies, & his pastoral visits his answers were general and indefinite.

The next day I visited Br. Gilbert at Barber’s Grove and preached in the evening. They are threatening to build a church worth $1500 at Crete or Woods Corners where village pride and cupidity wish to figure. I advised him to persuade them to be content with a smaller house or to sell the pews before commencing which he thought might be done. I did not get all the information I wished but think Br. G. is doing pretty well, I urged them to be more prompt in their applications. There is a great disposition to put off these applications. I think a short article on the subject would be appropriate.

I attended the convention at Chicago, having some misgivings about it. They were overcome by the indications of Providence, that I should come near them about that time and I was invited to preach the installation sermon for Br. Loss.

We had a pleasant and interesting meeting the results of which were more satisfactory than I anticipated. They will appear soon in the Herald.

We spent a night with Br. Drake and conversed with him and his deacon about their prospects and I administered a gentle rebuke to them (as I did Br. Gilbert) for their lack of prayer meetings. They are building a church but in the mean time hold meetings in 2 places 2 1/2 miles apart preaching twice in one school house the same day. I recommended once every Sabbath at each school house and a prayer meeting & S.S. to fill up the day.