CHAPTER XXI
“MULTITUDES, MULTITUDES IN THE VALLEY OF DECISION” (Joel)
In the fall of 1889 we felt that the Lord was calling us to California. We obeyed the voice, made ready and started at once, not, knowing one person in that part of the country. I will give a condensed description of our journey to California and of the country. As we traveled along, the cars rolling through one State after another, we noticed the difference in the climate. Some States were given wholly to vegetation, everything green and beautiful; some were mining districts, vast wealth in minerals of different kinds; many stone quarries of beautiful, stone, which many of the finest mansions of New York and Chicago are built beautiful valleys. On either side were the high mountains reaching, as it seemed, almost to the clouds. In a little while we found ourselves passing along over the tops of these mountains. Again we found ourselves sweeping over the plains and deserts. Sometimes for hundreds of miles there was not a shrub or tree to be seen, nothing but yellow sand at times was visible; then again nothing but black sand for miles and miles. As far as the eye could see, the ground was as level as a floor—no vegetation on it. As we came on further into California we saw a great change The plains were cultivated, covered with grass, trees and shrubs and vegetation of all kinds, As we looked upon all these grand and wonderful works of creation, our hearts were filled with love and tenderness, and we could look up and say: “My Father, the God of heaven, hath made all these.”
At last we. arrived safely in the great city of San Francisco, and stopped; at a hotel for a few days. Being very tired from our long journey and summer’s work, we felt we must seek a quiet place to rest both mind and body, so we took a journey of sixty miles to Pascadero, a small town in the valley surrounded by mountains.
We commenced meeting in Oakland, California, October 28, 1889. The wet weather had set in. We pitched our tents during
a rain, such as was never known in Oakland before. People
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