In a former chapter I was just starting for the copper regions. Come with me, we will board the train bound for Marquette.

For some miles our way ran through thick cedar forests; then we reached a hard-wood region where we found a small village and a number of charcoal kilns; a few miles farther on, another of like character. Then, with the exception of a way station or siding, we saw no more habitations of men until we reached the Vulcan iron furnace of Newberry, fifty-five miles from Point St. Ignace. The place had about 800 population, mostly employed by the company.

Twenty-five miles farther on we reached Seney, where we stayed for dinner. This is the headquarters for sixteen lumber[164] camps, with hundreds of men working in the woods or on the rivers, year in and year out. They never hear the gospel except as some pioneer home missionary pays an occasional visit. There are some 40,000 men so employed in Northern Michigan.

After another seventy-five miles we glided into picturesque Marquette, overlooking its lovely Bay, a thriving city of some 7,000 population, the centre of the iron mining region. Here we had to wait until the next noon before we could go on.

Our road now led through the very heart of the iron country. Everything glittered with iron dust, and thousands of cars on many tracks showed the proportions this business had attained. We have been mounting ever since leaving Marquette, and can by looking out of the rear window see that great "unsalted sea," Lake Superior.

We soon reached Ishpeming, with its 8,000 inhabitants. A little farther on we[165] passed Negaunee, claiming over 5,000 people, where Methodism thrives by reason of the Cornish miners. After passing Michigamme we saw but few houses.

Above Marquette the scenery changes; there are rocks, whole mountains of rocks as large as a town, with a few dead pines on their scraggy sides; we pass bright brown brooks in which sport the grayling and the speckled trout. Sometimes a herd of deer stand gazing with astonishment at the rushing monster coming towards them; then with a stamp and a snort they plunge headlong into the deep forest. Away we go past L\'Anse, along Kewenaw Bay, and at last glide between two mighty hills the sides of which glow and sparkle with great furnace fires and innumerable lamps shining from cottage windows, while between lies Portage Lake, like a thread of gold in the rays of the setting sun; or, as it palpitates with the motion of some giant steamboat, its coppery waters gleam with all the colors of the rainbow.

[166]Just across this narrow lake a royal welcome awaited us from the pastor of the First Congregational Church of Hancock. This fine church is set upon a hill that cannot be hid. The audience fills the room, and pays the closest attention to the speaker. They had the best Sunday-school I ever saw. Everything moved like clockwork; every one worked with vim. In addition to the papers that each child received, seventy-five copies of the Sunday School Times were distributed to the teachers and adult scholars. The collection each Sunday averaged over three cents a member for the whole school, to say nothing of Christmas gifts to needy congregations, and memorial windows telling of the good works in far-off fields among the mission churches. It was my privilege to conduct a few gospel meetings which were blessed to the conversion of some score or more of souls who were added to the ch............