Their efforts in the direction of denominational schools, have been less successful, however, than they might have been, but for the fact that leading and prominent men in the denomination have steadily bent their energies toward the one great, absorbing interest of free public schools. It has always been, and still is, their highest ambition to see our public schools of all grades, including our fine State University, attain the highest possible state of excellence.

In the matter of organizing churches and the construction of church edifices, it seems to be undesirable to detain the reader with very much of date and detail. These things abound in the archives of the denomination, and are always accessible. Hence, my brevity on this point.

In the spring of 1850 I organized the first Baptist church in San Jose, and being still alone as a minister of my denomination, supplied them with preaching once a month for six months, when Rev. L. O. Grenell arrived, and was installed as their pastor.

In September of the same year I organized the first Baptist church in Sacramento. At the organization of this church there occurred an incident so strikingly illustrative of the uncongenial elements composing our population at that time, that it will be better than a whole page of description. In the midst of the work of adopting the order of receiving new members, the moderator read:

"It shall be the duty of the pastor, on behalf of the church, to give the hand of felowship to each newly received member."

"What is that?" asked Brother B-, from Southwestern Missouri, rising in the far corner of the room, "The pastor give the hand of fellowship! I never heard of such a thing in my life."

matters differed, and each really thought the custom of his section was the only one practiced in any country on earth. The truth was, that the population in those early times had come from every portion of the civilized world, from every nation on earth, each a mature man, fixed in all his habits, and those habits often diverse as the poles on the same subject; which made the effort to unify and consolidate them in any class of work, in any department of life, most inconceivably difficult.

Another fact shows the everywhereness from which the people came at that time. At the first observance of the Lord's Supper, in our first church in San Francisco, there were only eleven communicants, and yet they were of seven distinct nationalities.

This diversity of birthplace and home fostered a coolness and indifference to acquaintance and social life that would not have existed had they all been of one nationality. Added to this was the anomalous fact that noto ne in ten had come with any sort of intention of making a home here, or of remaining longer than sufficient time to accumulate gold enough to make him "comfortable," and then go home to enjoy it. Hence, it was no uncommon thing when soliciting a person to become associated in some one of the organizations that we were trying to establish, to meet the rebuff:

"I didn't come here to stay. I don't want to join any society. I don't want any acquaintances.'

The cost of everything needed in life was absolutely fabulous. For a few weeks after our arrival there were no potatoes in the town or vicinity. A small vessel arrived from the Sandwich Islands, her captain having gathered and brought with him the refuse of the crop on sev

"Why, the whole church give the hand of fellowship, of course!" said Brother B. "What, every member of the church give the hand of fellowship?" said the venerable Deacon Wheeler from Rhode Island. "I never heard of such a thing in my life."

These men were almost from the extremes of our country, where customs in minor

ground as too small to be used. It was made public that potatoes were in the market. I went to the designated place with my basket, and asked the huckster:

"Have you potatoes ?" "Yes," he said.

"How do you sell them ?" I asked. "A dollar and a half," he replied.

I said, "A dollar and a half a bushel?”

The new church had provided for our support, and we decided to go to keeping house. The only house to be had was one that had been erected with especial reference to accommodating us. It was 16x24 feet on the ground, a very low story and a half high, covered with undressed lumber, and lined and ceiled with cloth and paper. The owner said:

"You may have it for three hundred dollars a month, though it is worth a good deal more."

His statement was soon verified. We had just paid our first month's rent in advance, and had been in the house only a few days, when a Baptist man and his family arrived from New England, and must have a place in which to live. He came to me and said: I will give you three hundred dollars a month for one-half of your house, and will pay from the first of the month, when you took it." And he did.

Carpenters received sixteen dollars a day for their work, and physicians charged sixteen dollars a visit to their patients.

This strange mixture of peoples, plans, purposes, habits, manners, and customs often developed in business transactions the most ludicrous scenes imaginable. When we arrived there was scarcely any tea in the country on sale; and there were thousands of men in the mines who thought they could not do without their tea. In a few days a ship came in from China loaded with tea. As soon as possible the tea was landed, and stored in an immense shed or shell of a building. Messengers were sent into the mining camps, far and near, to notify traders that on a certain day a cargo of tea would be sold at auction. On the appointed day large numbers of dealers in miners' supplies from the country were present, each with a bag of gold dust, to purchase a few chests for his store. The auctioneer put up "ten chests, with a privilege." That is, with the privilege of taking more at the rate he had bid for the ten. The bidding was spirited, and the excitement increased, while a calm,

"How many will you take, Mr. Brannan ?" said the auctioneer.

Without ceasing to whittle or raising his head, he, with the most utter nonchalance, replied,

"The whole d-n concern "-and Sam Brannan & Co. controlled all the tea on the coast. No matter what they paid, they were sure of ready sale and large profits

Another feature which has probably no parallel in all the commercial transpirings of the world, was exhibited in the clerkship of the mercantile houses. Five hundred dollars a month, with the privilege of doing business in the store on their own account, was not unusual. Nor was it singular, if, in six or nine months, when the sheriff sold out the store, the clerk was able to purchase it and hire his own employer. Multitudes of men, when leaving their old homes, thinking that all that was necessary was to reach San Francisco, invested all they had after paying their passage in a mercantile venture of some kind, purposing to sell on arrival at large profits. Illustrative of many, many cases, the following scene was one day witnessed by the writer. A gentleman who had just arrived sought the store of a prominent merchant, to whom he had letters of introduction. The proprietor was "not in," but the "clerk with a privilege" was; and, bowing very politely, said: "Can I do anything for you?"

The stranger said: "I hope you can. I have a little venture that I wish to dispose of."

"Yes! What is it? Let me see your invoice?"

The stranger presented it. He ran his eye over it, and saw at a glance that it contained the very articles which were in constant demand, and which no house in town could then supply. Yet he handed it back, and, with well-feigned disappointment, said:

you.

"Yes, I have. They are now landing." "I am sorry-very sorry-d-n sorry for Not suited to this market at all." "Well, what will you give me for them?" "Don't want 'em! Wouldn't buy 'em at any price! Couldn't sell 'em at all."

"Do give me something for them. They are all I have left in the world, and I must get to the mines. Beside, I am entirely out of funds, and am hungry." And as he said this, his two great, handsome black eyes each became an island, his chin quivered, and his whole manly countenance expressed woe of the deepest dye, as he turned to go. "Sorry, so sorry, you have been so unfortunate in your selection. Wish I could do something for you."

The stranger was nearly half a block off, when the clerk called and beckoned at the same time: "Say! come back! I declare, I don't want to see a man starve. I'll give you fifty per cent. on the invoice price, if I lose it all! I'll share the misfortune with you." The bargain was closed, the gold-dust weighed, and the stranger sought relief from his hunger. In less than thirty minutes the clerk had disposed of the entire purchase at more than a thousand per cent. on the cost -as he was well satisfied, all the time, that he could do.

In six months, this clerk bought the store under the hammer, turned the "boss" into the street, and is now a millionaire.

After 1851, arrivals of clergymen were more frequent; several of these were men of education and talent, and skilled in the work of the ministry. Early among these was Rev. J. B. Saxton, who is still doing yeoman service in the building of the State: soon after, Rev. O. B. Stone, who did several years of hard work, and then returned to the East.

In 1854, Rev. S. S. Wheeler, with his family, arrived, "located" at Placerville, Eldorado county, and did missionary work in Eldorado, Placer, Nevada, and Amador counties, preaching, educating, and organizing churches for ten years, until he had a fall from his horse, which unfitted him for

It is not the purpose of this paper to eulogize individuals, nor to give the details of work: but to give some faint insight (a full view cannot be presented by language) into the character of the unique and strange population that gathered here from every part of earth, rushing for the mines like the circling waters of the whirlpool dashing upon the rocks below; and to summarize the part borne and the influence exerted by the Baptists in bringing this chaotic mass of humanity into the staid habits and symmetric form of a great and prosperous State.

During the period that has been, by my predecessors in this series of articles, denominated "early" the Baptists published religious newspapers, established schools in large numbers, and organized one hundred and eight churches in the country, from Siskiyou to San Diego, and from the sea to the mountain summits.

And although some of these churches, after a time, became extinct, yet each one bore its part, served its day, did its work, and exerted a healthful social, moral, political, and religious influence, tending to the consolidation of materials and the formation of the State, just as directly and just as perfectly as though it had endured for a thousand years.

It is a fallacious idea that a

All

church that exists but a short time ought not to have been brought into existence. the churches established by Christ and the apostles became extinct one after another, but each accomplished the purpose of its existence while it lived. So with our churches in California, as in all new countries (and more so here than elsewhere, because we had a more intense newness than any other)— some had short lives, but all had active and useful lives.

As no people on earth have broader or more energetic views of human rights and "freedom to worship God" than the Baptists, so none are more consecrated to the work of securing to and establishing in the State the highest attainable excellence in every department of the government.

O. C. Wheeler.

VIEWED with respect to the distribution of power, the present position of England's central government suggests that after a long series of experiments, the nation has returned almost to its point of departure. The primitive government of the existing English stock in England was the government of an isolated community, in which the whole power rested in the hands of the freemen, and was exercised immediately by the whole body itself, or by its agents. This was a form of government adapted only to the limited area of the primitive settlement. When these primary groups became united, and the area of the enlarged dominion became so great as to prevent the whole body of freemen from participating directly in the affairs of the state, the first step was taken towards setting up the rule of an aristocracy presided over by a king. Immediately after the union of the petty kingdoms of Anglo-Saxon England into the kingdom of Ecgberht, the popular element of the nation did not participate in the affairs of the central government. The circumstances of expanded dominion had relegated the activity of the great mass of the people to local concerns. The conditions were, therefore, favorable to the existence of an aristocratic government; and that the aristocracy which governed the English people between the tenth and thirteenth centuries was something more than an aristocracy of wealth or of birth, is sufficiently indicated by the name of the assembly through which its power was exercised. This was England's experiment with a pure aristocracy; and the ease with which it was maintained at this time was due principally to two causes: first, the ignorance of all but the few; second, the absence of any tried and approved means by which the great body of the people could put forth their power while scattered over all England. The discovery and application of means by which the power of the people could be exerted under these con

ditions closed the period of aristocratic exclusiveness in English politics. There followed a new experiment in the distribution of power.

The admission of city and county representatives to Parliament, in the thirteenth century, was an invasion of the aristocratic monopoly in government, and was a step towards the introduction of the democratic element to coöperation with the aristocracy. The immediate departure from aristocracy was, however, very slight; inasmuch as the counties in the beginning could be represented only by members of the nobility, and the representatives of the cities were elected by exclusive corporations. But even this slight concession was followed by a reaction in the form of the disfranchising statute of 1430. From this time onward the political history of England shows movement along several lines: first, to increase the functions of the central government at the expense of the local organizations; second, to increase, in the central government itself, the power of the Lower House at the expense of the Crown and the Lords; third, to make the Lower House the creature of a larger and larger number of voters. These changes have resulted in making the ministry merely a committee of the Lower House, and the Lower House a committee of the enfranchised part of the population. The connection between the English ministry of today and the great national party which it represents is scarcely less immediate than that which existed between the original Saxon settlers and their elected officers. The Crown and Lords still exist, but an independent decision on the part of either is no longer to be thought of. Under the constitution, the Crown is endowed with the power of an absolute veto, but its exercise at present would be regarded as a revolution, so completely has custom superseded the law of two centuries ago. And the House of

Lords has, under the same constitution, the power to reject any measure passed by the Commons. But no sooner is there manifest, on the part of the Lords, a disposition to exercise this power, than the nation begins to bestir itself to coerce them to conform their action to the will of the dominant party. The forms of these institutions still continue, but their ancient power has drifted back to the freemen, who exercise it in the most direct manner consistent with their large numbers. The action of the ministry must conform to the will of the majority of the Commons, and the majority of the Commons must be in accord with the majority of the electors. In this necessary harmony of the governmental executive and the bulk of the electors, is the ground for the statement that after several centuries of experiments in the matter of the distribution of power, the English people have returned to a position not essentially different from that from which they set out.

If we attempt to explain this drift of political power in England, we shall find an important cause of it in the difficulty-perhaps in the impossibility-of so distributing this power that the several departments of the government shall be held in a just and even balance. If this balance is disturbed by one department receiving more power than is necessary to place it in equilibrium with the other departments, this one department is thus enabled to encroach on the others, and, in the course of time, to dominate in the government. The power to loosen or tighten the national purse-strings was the specially efficient possession of the Commons, and constituted the principal advantage over the other departments, which have finally succumbed to its supremacy.

If the political drift which we have observed in England has an efficient cause in an inevitably unequal distribution of power, we must look for a similar tendency, or a tendency to the supremacy of some one department, wherever an attempt is made to distribute power derived from the nation. Assuming the permanence of the fundamental principles of human nature, and the con

tinuance of the dominant social tendencies which are revealed in history, the course of England's political progress appears as the type of the necessary evolution of popular government. This gradual drift of power towards some given point in the organism is illustrated by the history of federal governments. Even the brief history of the United States shows this tendency of power in the relation of the States to the Federal Government. It was supposed by the makers of the Federal Constitution that they had so distributed the political power of the nation between the State and Federal Governments that there would be no encroachment of the one on the other. But, by placing the power of final interpretation in one of the organs of the Federal Government, as it was necessary to do in order that the federation might be held together, conditions were established favorable to the gravitation of power toward the center; for the human quality of the government made it more than probable that, in cases of doubt, the interpretation would be always in its own favor. For this and other reasons, wherever in the history of the world we find a federation having an internal organization sufficiently strong to maintain its own existence, we observe an inevitable drift of power from the several States to the central government. This is true of all the federations, from the Achæan League to the United States, that have been sufficiently permanent to win a place in history. Each of these governments shows the failure of an attempt to distribute the national power in such a manner as to preserve the State and Federal Governments in equilibrium.

The specific movement of power which has been observed in the history of the English government, is manifest also within the central government of the United States. There is to be noted, however, this difference in England, the absence of a written constitution and the possession of sovereign power by the national legislature, have permitted this body, without an appeal to any higher authority, to modify the government, or to shift the preponderance of power from