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The lake of the red cedars, or, Will it live?. Ball, T. H. (Timothy Horton), 1826–1913. 
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PORTER COUNTY, ILLINOISDrawn by Herbert S. Ball.

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The Lake of the Red Cedars;
OR,
WILL IT LIVE?

THIRTY YEARS IN LAKE.
A RECORD OF THE FIRST THIRTY YEARS OF BAPTIST LABORS IN THE COUNTY OF LAKE, STATE OF INDIANA.

BY

Y. N. L.

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"Other men labored and ye have entered into their labors."

"He who ploughed and who sowed is not missed by the reaper, He is only remembered by what he has done."

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CROWN POINT, IND.
T. H. BALL, PUBLISHER.
1880.

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Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1880,
BY T. H. BALL,
in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

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CONTENTS.

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APPENDIX.

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INTRODUCTION.

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THE author presents this little volume to the reading public, especially to those into whose hands it may chance to come of the religious world, fully aware that it lacks that charm which fiction possesses to attract and to interest a large class of readers. He has himself read too much of the best literary and religious fiction in our language not to know the fascination and the power which that species of writing justly claims; yet he believes also in the power of truth, and he thinks there are some, like himself, who will sometimes read with proper relish unvarnished truth.

He offers no apology for the biographical cast of this work, believing that biographical or even autobiographical writing, when candid, fair, just, and truthful, may be read with profit.

Neither has he any apology to make for the small number of families entering, to much extent, into the narrative, feeling sure that if, in this respect, the record is truthful, it is all that the reader can justly require. Indeed, this volume may be considered as a memorial, to a great extent, of Judge HERVEY BALL, of Cedar Lake, whose life-work of thirty years it especially commemorates; and also of those connected for a time with him in efforts to do good, of whom are here named Hon. LEWIS WARRINER and RICHARD CHURCH.

And the question whether the lessons taught, in regard to the success of effort, especially in page: 6[View Page 6] regard to the success of FAMILY RELIGIOUS TRAINING, are of sufficient encouragement, and weight, and interest to justify this publication, the author leaves to the judgment of an unprejudiced, intelligent, and fair-minded public.

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So far as is at present known by geographers, the grandest lake region of the world is in North America. From Erie and Ontario, advancing in a northwesterly direction across Huron, Michigan, and Superior; across the Lake of the Woods, Winnepeg, and Winnipegosis; across Deer Lake, Wollaston, and Athabasca; across Great Slave Lake to the Great Bear Lake of the North; a chain of lakes is found unequalled elsewhere in the world. The next approach to such a region seems to be the cluster of lakes in Africa near the head waters of the Nile.

The five Great Lakes, Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario, are well known as the largest connected bodies of fresh water upon the surface of our earth. Around these magnificent reservoirs of pure and crystal water are many smaller basins, in British America and the United States, that may well be called picturesque, or beautiful, or lovely. Among the uncounted thousands of these lakes and pools, some in their woodland solitude, some in their sunny, prairie beauty, a few are known to every general reader.

The Lake of the Red Cedars is small compared with even the Lake of the Woods, the winding shores of the latter making a circuit of three hundred miles. This is only eighteen miles from the southern bend of Lake Michigan, and its page: 7[View Page 7] entire circuit is about eight miles. In size it compares rather with the English than the American lakes. It lies in that broad prairie region southwest of Lake Michigan, and is itself a mirror of beauty on the edge of one of the most beautiful prairies east of the Mississippi.

Here center, at least for some time, the events on these pages to be recorded; because here lived that family largely instrumental, at the first, in connection with two other New England and Cedar Lake households, in building up, the religious and educational interests, the spread of which characterizes New Englanders.

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Thomas H. Benton, once a United States Senator, gave to the reading public, especially to the political world, an account of the thirty years during which his place was in the senate chamber. Such a narrative of political events and such a review of the distinguished actors in those events might be expected to interest the present and future statesmen of the land. Thirty years is quite a space in the life of a nation so young as ours. And the events on the arena of public life, which aid in making up a nation's history, are often brilliant, always of interest. And the Congress of the United States is a place to which we may reasonably look for great men and worthy deeds.

But the religious world may well claim events equalling in interest, excelling in importance, those in which politicians figure and which their historians record;--events which form a part of the unfolding of the great plan of Providence in page: 8[View Page 8] respect to the Messianic kingdom and interests, subordinate to which kingdom, subsidiary to which interests, are the events concerning the rise, the progress, and the fall of nations. The long lines of recorded history that come down to us from Assyria and Egypt, from Persia and Palestine; through Babylon, Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome; given by Herodotus, Xenophon, Thucydides, Tacitus, by Menes and by the Medes; filled with the exploits of the great, brilliant with many deeds of earthly honors; all show, when read aright, preparation for the world's last Monarch; all point more or less directly to him whom Paul announced when standing on Mars' Hill as the man ordained to be earth's last Judge.

As it is considered in the theories of the religious world,--although denied in practice by some religious teachers in the great cities,--that no great difference exists in the value of human souls; as it is considered that every spot upon this earth where human beings dwell, whether noted or unrenowned, is included in those authoritative words that were spoken on the Mount of Olives by that man into whose hands the power of the universe was committed, Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature; and as the field is one, the vineyard one, the laborers employed, fitted, overlooked, rewarded by One; all common members of one body, the eye not saying to the hand, I have no need of thee, nor the head to the feet I have no need of you; therefore on these pages the author proposes to record some facts concerning the work performed by the Baptist laborers in a single county of a single state lying near the great page: 9[View Page 9] center of inland commerce, trade, and enterprise. He does this remembering that of about the same thirty years, from 1837 to 1867, William Garrett, of Alabama, has compiled a large volume of political facts and narratives for that great state.

And now as he commences this unassuming little work, in such marked contrast with the two great works named, in reference to this labor performed by this generation of Baptists in this little portion of the Lord's vineyard, he asks the question,
WILL IT LIVE?

The state of Indiana has as yet no enviable reputation religiously among her sisters. It has been said, and probably with truth, that there is more unconsecrated wealth in Indiana than in any other state of this Union.--It has a public school fund of twenty and a half millions.--It has been said that for no state is there so much need of prayer. And the county of Lake has not yet become noted for large benefactions or extensive revivals. As was said of old, so of its laborers may well now be said, What do these feeble Jews? Nevertheless, Will not their work live? If Wordsworth had any right to say of his literary labor, I perform it in the full consciousness that it will be immortal, much more fully may it be said of this vineyard labor, "It will not, cannot die." Its results must live, if Christianity is truth, when the names and deeds of Benton and Calhoun, of Webster and Clay, the four great compeers once in the halls of Congress, cease to be spoken by men or to be renowned upon the earth. The Baptist churches in Lake may go down, the Baptist cause in the county may die out, but the destinies page: 10[View Page 10] once shaped for eternity, the grain reaped or ripened and ready for the Lord of the harvest, will continue onward in the endless ages. One soweth, another reapeth; both will yet rejoice together.

"He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him."

  • "The angel reapers shall descend,
  • And heaven shout, Harvest home."
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