A Higher Call: A Novel of the Ozarks

By Harold Bell Wright and Michael Phillips

Harold Bell Wright’s timeless tale of a young minister and his wayward flock—in a new edition edited by an acclaimed Christian author.

First published in 1909, The Calling of Dan Matthews tells the story of a young minister’s coming of age and the challenges he faces as he doggedly seeks to answer God’s call. Growing up in the Ozark Mountains, Dan Matthews is deeply devoted to his faith. But when he accepts a post in the Midwestern town of Corinth, he discovers a parish mired in resentment, politics, and hidden agendas.

While some troubles stem from well-intentioned but misguided individuals, others are caused by selfish and evil motives. Is it any wonder that the town’s beautiful young nurse has no desire to join such a church? Now more than ever, Dan must trust in God’s wisdom and grace as he seeks to lead in the spirit of true loving kindness.

A Higher Call is a compelling drama that challenges readers to think critically about the modern church.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Jan 1, 1990
• ISBN: 9780795300943

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A Higher Call

Harold Bell Wright

New York, 2017

A Higher Call

Originally published as The Calling of Dan Matthews by Harold Bell Wright, 1909, by the Book Supply Company

Edited edition Copyright © 1990 by Michael Phillips

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

Electronic edition published 2017 by RosettaBooks

ISBN (Kindle): 978-0-7953-5083-2

www.RosettaBooks.com

HAROLD BELL WRIGHT (1872–1944), the American novelist, was born to the farming life in upstate New York, working in the fields at an early age. As he grew he sought an education, which eventually led him into the ministry. Traveling to the Ozarks in the 1890s to recuperate from pneumonia, Wright began the work of a fill-in preacher in a little mountain log schoolhouse, remained there, and eventually was offered a regular pastorate. Over the next ten years he pastored churches in Missouri, Kansas, and California until declining health forced him once more back to his beloved Ozarks for a time of rest and seeking God.

After publishing his best-known book, Shepherd of the Hills, Harold Bell Wright went on to become one of America's top-selling inspirational authors. His nineteen books achieved estimated sales in excess of ten million copies.

Harold Bell Wright titles, edited

by Michael Phillips

A Higher Call

The Least of These My Brothers

The Shepherd of the Hills

THE EDITOR

Michael Phillips is one of the most versatile writers of our time. In addition to his reputation as a best-selling novelist, he has penned more than two-dozen non-fiction titles.

Phillips is also known as among those who helped rescue Victorian Scotsman George MacDonald from obscurity in the 1980s with his new publications of MacDonald’s works. His efforts contributed to a worldwide renewal of interest in the man C.S. Lewis called his master. Phillips is today regarded as a man with rare insight into MacDonald’s heart and spiritual vision. Phillips’ many books on the nature and eternal purposes of God are highlighted by several groundbreaking volumes on MacDonald’s work.

What many readers have not known is that Phillips’ editorial expertise in exhuming the works of his favorite authors of yesteryear has not been limited to the Scotsman. He has also edited three of American Harold Bell Wright’s most memorable titles—The Shepherd of the Hills, That Printer of Udells, and The Calling of Dan Matthews. Phillips’ conviction that the works of this novelist and man of God of a century ago are worthy of new life for our time remains as strong today as when his new editions of these two titles were first published.

CONTENTS

Introduction

1. The Home of the Ally

2. The Doctor and the Boy

3. Sammy and Young Matt

4. A Great Day in Corinth

5. Who Are They?

6. Dr. Harry and Miss Farwell

7. The Calling of Dan Matthews

8. Deborah and the Doctor

9. The Work of the Ally

10. The Edge of the Battlefield

11. An Unexpected Assault

12. Reflections

13. An Invitation

14. The Ladies' Aid

15. Dr. Harry's Case

16. That Girl of Conner's

17. The Minister's Opportunity

18. Dan Sees Something More

19. The Tragedy

20. To Save a Life

21. On Fishing

22. Common Ground

23. The Warning

24. Dr. Harry Presents Another Side

25. A Parable

26. Dan Considers Options

27. A Laborer and His Hire

28. The Winter Passes

29. Deborah's Trouble

30. A Fisherman

31. A Matter of Business

32. The Daughter of the Church

33. Hope and Charity

34. Dan Faces His Heart

35. The Meeting of Hearts

36. In His Room

37. Dan's Struggle

38. The Convention

39. The Sacrifice of Victory

40. The Revival and Its Results

41. The Trail of the Gold

42. The Victory of the Ally

43. Through the Doctor's Glasses

44. A Higher Call

45. Last Encounter

46. And Corinth?

47. The Homecoming

48. The Old Trail

Afterword

The Pharisees do not eat unless they wash their hands ceremonially, observing the tradition of the elders, and when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they purify themselves. And there are many other traditions which they observe, such as the washing of cups and pitchers and kettles.

INTRODUCTION

The Calling of Dan Matthews, first published in 1909, is technically a sequel to Harold Bell Wright's bestseller The Shepherd of the Hills. Its main character, Dan Matthews, is the son of Sammy Lane and Young Matt, and Dan was raised under the influence of the shepherd Dad Howitt, after whom he was named.

However, in a spiritual sense, the moving drama involving the young minister Dan Matthews, here retitled for the Bethany series A Higher Call, is much more a sequel to Wright's first book The Least of These My Brothers. By no means, as you will see, is this a mere work of fiction. Wright's heart burned with deep conviction to proclaim two truths which both these books illuminate: the imperative reality of obeying the life and teachings of Jesus, and the loathsome unreality and hypocrisy of much that goes on within the organized church.

Notwithstanding the seemingly stinging criticisms Wright levels at dead church structure and policy, this is not an attack upon the sacred institution whose head is Christ. Rather it is a hardhitting and penetrating call for revival, as Wright urges us to purge phariseeism from our midst—from our churches and from our own hearts. Wright loved the church dearly, being a clergyman himself, and was thus heartbroken to see what it had in many cases become. This book was part of his effort to call God's people to something deeper.

Wright's words to the Christians of his day were critical in the same way that Paul's were often critical in his effort to point out error, and build up into godliness. Paul's words to the Corinthians were certainly not soft. They were a people caught up in all kinds of immorality, and the church of Corinth was known by Paul to be immature in many areas. Not only was there a moral problem in the church, there were severe divisions and factions, each with its acknowledged head and all vying for power. Thus Paul wrote to Corinth to teach and help restore the church in its areas of weakness. And as always, Paul used strong language: I appeal . . . that there be no divisions among you . . . I have been informed that there are quarrels among you . . . I cannot address you as spiritual, but as worldly—mere infants in Christ . . . you are still not yet ready for solid food, for there is still jealousy and quarreling among you . . . do not deceive yourselves . . . I am not writing this to shame you, but to warn you . . . some of you have become arrogant . . . and you are proud!

It is scarcely an accident, then, to what fictional town Harold Bell Wright sends his young idealistic minister Dan Matthews. And there are many other parallels he draws and metaphors and images he uses as well. Most have either biblical or other hidden symbolism to help convey the author's point. As has been pointed out, this is far more than a mere novel, but I will leave you to discover the additional allegorical meanings on your own.

The underlying point is this: Wright attempted to draw a portrait of modern-day Corinthianism, from which Christ's church desperately needs to extract itself if it is to—in Paul's words to the Corinthians of his day—move on to the solid food of the Spirit.

If you haven't yet read The Least of These My Brothers, I'm certain you will find it a challenging companion volume to this one.

Michael Phillips, 1990

CHAPTER ONE

THE HOME OF THE ALLY

"And because the town of this story is what it is, there came to dwell in it a spirit—a strange, mysterious power—playful, vicious, deadly; Something to be at once feared and courted; to be denied—yet confessed in the denial; a deadly enemy, a welcome friend, an all-powerful Ally."

This story began in the Ozark Mountains, the beginnings of which have already been told. It follows the trail that is nobody knows how old. It is about what happened when someone from the Ozarks followed the trail from his home in the mountains to try to help his fellowmen live the Truth. Most of this story happened in Corinth, a middle-class town in a midwestern state.

There is nothing special about Corinth. The story might have happened just as well in any other place, for the only distinguishing feature about this town is its utter lack of any distinguishing feature whatsoever. In all the essential elements of its life, so far as this story goes, Corinth is exactly like every other village, town, or city in the land. This, indeed, is why the story happened in this particular place. It might as easily have happened in your town or city. Perhaps it has.

Years ago, when the railroad first climbed the backbone of the Ozarks, it found Corinth already located there. Even in the middle of the war between the states, this county seat was a place of no small importance, and many a good tale might be told of those exciting days when the woods were full of soldiers, and the village was raided first by one side, then the other. Indeed, many a good tale is told, for the old-timers of Corinth love to talk of the war days, and to point out in the old part of town the bullet-marked buildings and the scenes of many thrilling events.

But the sons and daughters of the passing generation, with their own sons and daughters, like better to look forward, and to talk of the great things that are coming—the proposed new factory, the talked-of mill which will bring jobs and money to the area, the dreamed-of electric line which is to be extended out from the city, or the arrival of the Businessman from Somewhere back east who will invest in land and vacant lots to build new homes and hotels and business enterprises.

The Doctor says that in the whole history of Corinth there are only two events worth remembering. The first was the coming of the railroad, the second was the death of the Doctor's good friend, the Statesman.

The railroad did not actually enter Corinth. It stopped at the front gate. But with Judge Strong's assistance, the fathers and mothers of Corinth recognized their golden opportunity and took the step which the eloquent Judge assured them would result in a glorious future for all. If the train line would not come into the town, then they would extend the town to meet it. They would grow, he said, in the direction of the line, encompassing and surrounding it so that every train to come along would pass right through town, bringing with it people and wealth and progress.

So they left the beautiful, well-drained site chosen for the town's expansion by those who cleared the wilderness, and stretched themselves out instead along the mud flat on either side of the sacred right-of-way—that same mud flat being, incidentally, the property of the patriotic Judge. The sites for future buildings were neither so flat nor so dry and solid as those on the other side of town, but, said the Judge, progress and prosperity lay with the rail line.

Thus Corinth took the railroad literally to her heart. The depot, the switching and freight yards, the red brick section house, and the water tank all sit squarely in the very center of the town. Every train while stopping for water (and they all stop) blocks two of the three principal streets. And when, after waiting in the rain or snow until his patience is nearly exhausted, the humble man or woman of Corinth decides to go to the only remaining crossing, he always gets there just in time to meet a long freight train backing onto the siding. Nowhere in the whole place can one escape the screaming whistles, clanging bells, and crashing of drawbars. Day and night the rumble of the heavy trains jars and disturbs the peacefulness of the little town.

Though the railroad did more for Judge Strong, it did do something for Corinth as well. Not much, but something.

For a time the town grew rapidly. Fulfillment of all the Judge's prophecies of prosperity seemed immediate and certain. Then, as mysteriously as they had come, the boom days departed. All the mills and factories and stores and shops that were to be began to be established elsewhere. The sound of the builder's hammer was no longer heard. Loads of lumber and supplies no longer rumbled through town. The Doctor says that Judge Strong had come to believe too much in his own predictions, or at least, fearing that his prophecy might prove true without his getting his share of the wealth, refused to part with more land except at prices that would be justified only in a great metropolitan area.

Neighboring towns that were born when Corinth was middle-aged flourished and became cities of importance. The country all around grew rich and prosperous. And now every year more and heavier trains thunder past on their way to and from the great city by the distant river, stopping only to take on water. But in this swiftly moving stream of life, Corinth is caught in an eddy. Her small world has come to swing in a very small circle—it can scarcely be said to swing at all. The very children stop growing when they become men and women, and are content to dream the dreams their fathers' fathers dreamed, even as they live in the houses the fathers of their fathers built. Only the trees that line the streets have grown—grown and grown until overhead their great tops touch to shut out the sky with an arch of green, and their mighty trunks crowd contemptuously aside the old and broken sidewalks.

The old part of town is given over to weeds and decay. The few buildings that remain are fallen into ruin, except as they are patched up by their poor tenants. And on the hill, the old Academy, with its broken windows, crumbling walls, and fallen chimneys, stands as a pitiful witness of an honor and dignity that is gone. Neither inhabitants nor town has grown. Inside and out, upon buildings and inside hearts, are signs of stagnation.

Poor Corinth! Gone are the days of her true glory—the glory of her usefulness, while the days of her promised honor and power are not yet fulfilled.

And because the town of this story is what it is, there came to dwell in it a spirit—a strange, mysterious power—playful, vicious, deadly; a Something to be at once feared and courted; to be denied—yet confessed in the denial; a dreaded enemy, a welcome friend, an all-powerful Ally.

Weep not, therefore, for Corinth. Weep instead for her people, who think they stand so high within themselves. For they have joined forces with the Ally without realizing it. Weep for those of your own town and your own churches who are part of the Ally's army, yet know it not.

But for Corinth, the humiliation of her material and commercial failure is forgotten in her pride of the finer success of national recognition. That self-respect and pride of place, without which neither man nor town can look the world in the face, has been saved for Corinth by the Statesman, who gave it, if not riches, at least a name to be held in high esteem.

Born in Corinth, a graduate of the old Academy who went on to become town clerk, mayor, county clerk, state senator, then United States Congressman, the Statesman's zeal for advocating a much discussed political issue of his day won for him national notice, and for his town everlasting fame.

Unusual talents were combined in this man, with rare integrity of purpose and purity of life. He was a good man, a righteous man, desirous of helping both his neighbor and mankind. Politics to him meant a way whereby he might serve his fellows. However men differed as to the value of the measures for which he fought, no one ever doubted his belief in them nor questioned his reasons for fighting for them. It was not at all strange that such a man should have won the respect and friendship of the truly great leaders of the nation. But with all the honors that came to him, the Statesman's heart never turned from the little Ozark town, and it was here among those who knew him best that his influence for good was greatest, and that he was most loved and honored. Thus, all that the railroad failed to do for Corinth, the Statesman did in a larger and finer way.

After the Statesman died, it was the Old Town Corinth of the brick Academy days that inspired the erection of a monument to his memory. But it was the Corinth of the newer railroad days that made the cast-iron monument. And under the cast-iron, this newer Corinth placed a life-sized portrait figure of the dead statesman, with a quotation in small cast-iron letters from one of his famous speeches upon an issue of the day.

The Doctor argues in most vigorous language that the broken sidewalks, the uselessness of the railroad to the town, the presence and power of that Spirit, the Ally, and many other conditions in Corinth are all due to the influence of what he calls that hideous, cast-iron monstrosity. By this it will be seen that the Doctor is something of a philosopher. Thus the town goes on immortalizing his dead friend by an equally dead monument, rather than living by the life principles which made the Statesman the man he was. If he were here, the Doctor says, "he would be the first in line to tear down that statue! He'd want his life to stand for life, not death! He'd want to be remembered for how he treated people, not for some speech he made."

The monument stands on the corner where Holmes Street ends in Strong Avenue. The Doctor lives on the opposite corner with his wife Martha. It is a modest home, for they have no children and the Doctor is not rich. The house is white with old-fashioned green shutters, and over the porch climbs a mass of vines. The steps are worn very thin and the ends of the floorboards are rotted badly by the moisture of the growing vines. But the Doctor says he has no intention of pulling down such a fine old vine to put in new boards, and that the steps will outlast either he or Martha anyway. By this it will be seen that the Doctor is also something of a poet.

On the rear of the lot sits a woodshed and stable, and on the east, along the fence in front and down the Holmes Street side, grow the Doctor's roses—the admiration and envying despair of every flower-growing housewife in town.

A full fifty years of the Doctor's professional life have been spent in active practice in Corinth and in the country round about. He declares himself worn out now and good for nothing, except to meddle in the affairs of his neighbors, to cultivate his roses, and—when the days are bright—to go fishing. As for the rest, he sits in his chair on the porch and watches the world go by.

Old Doctors and old dogs, he growls, we are both equally useless, and yet how much—how much we could tell if only we dared speak!

He is a large man, the Doctor—big and fat and old. He knows every soul in Corinth, particularly the children. Indeed, he helped most of them to come to Corinth. He is acquainted as well with every dog and cat, every horse and cow, knowing their every trick and habit, from the old brindle milker that unlatches his front gate to feed on the lawn, to the bull pup that pinches his legs when he calls on old Granny Brown. For miles around, every road, every lane, bypath, shortcut and trail is a familiar way to him. His practice, he declares, has practically ruined him financially, and come near to wrecking his temper. He can curse a man and cry over a baby. And he would go as far and work as hard for the illiterate and penniless backwoodsman in his cabin home, as for the president of the Bank of Corinth, or even Judge Strong himself.

No one ever thinks of the Doctor as loving anyone or anything, and that is because he is so big and rough on the outside. But everyone in trouble goes straight to him, and that is because he is so big and kind on the inside. It is a common saying that in cases of serious illness or bad accident a patient would rather hear the Doctor cuss, than listen to the parson pray. There are other physicians in Corinth, but everyone understands immediately when his neighbor says, Call the Doctor. No one ever calls him Doc.

After all, who knows the people of a community so well as the physician who lives among them? To the world, the Doctor's patients were laborers, bankers, dressmakers, cleaning-women, farmers, teachers, preachers; to the Doctor they were men and women. Others knew their occupations, he knew their lives. The preachers knew what they professed, he knew what they practiced. Society saw them dressed up, he saw them in bed. The Doctor has spent more hours in the homes of his neighbors than he passed under his own roof, and there is not a skeleton closet in the whole town to which he does not have the key.

On Strong Avenue, across from the monument, is a tiny four-roomed cottage. At the time of this story it was badly in need of paint, and was not in the best of repair. But the place was neat and clean, with a big lilac bush just inside the gate, giving it an air of home-like privacy. And on the side directly opposite the Doctor's, there was a fair-sized, well-kept garden, giving the place also an air of honest thrift. Here the widow Mulhall lived with her crippled son Denny.

Denny was to have been educated for the priesthood, but the accident that left him such a hopeless cripple shattered that dream. And after the death of his father, who was killed while discharging his duties as the town marshall, there was no money left for Deborah Mulhall to buy even a book.

When there was anything for her to do, Deborah worked out by the day. In spite of his poor, misshapen body, Denny tended the garden, raising such vegetables as no one else in all of Corinth could raise. From early morning until late evening the lad dragged himself out among the growing things, and the only objects to mar the beauty of his garden were Denny himself, and the huge rock that seemed to grow out of the ground right in the very center of the little field.

It is too bad that rock should be there, the neighbors would say as they occasionally stopped to look over the fence, or to order their vegetables from him for dinner. And Denny would answer with his knowing smile, Oh, I don't know. It might be a bad thing if it should ever take to rolling around. But it lies quiet enough. And do you see, I've planted them vines around it to make it a bit soft-looking. And there's a nice little niche on the back side that does very well for a seat now and then when I have to rest.

Sometimes, when the Doctor looks at the monument—the cast-iron image of his old friend, in its cast-iron attitude, forever delivering that speech on an issue as dead today as an edict of one of the Pharaohs—he laughs, but sometimes, even as he laughs, he curses as well.

But when, in the days of the story, the Doctor would look across the street to where Denny, with his poor, twisted body, useless, swinging arm, and dragging leg, worked away so cheerily in his garden, then the old physician, philosopher, and poet declared that he felt like singing hymns of praise.

It all began with a fishing trip.

CHAPTER TWO

THE DOCTOR AND THE BOY

Martha says that everything with the Doctor begins and ends with fishing. Martha has a way of saying such things as that. In this case she is more than half right, for the Doctor does indeed so begin and end most things.

This story begins on the Doctor's first trip to the Ozarks.

Whenever there were grave cases to think out, knotty problems to solve, or weighty decisions to make, it was his habit to steal away to a shady nook by the side of some quiet, familiar stream. And he confidently asserts that he owes his professional success, and his reputation for sound, thoughtful judgment on all important matters, to this practice more than to anything else.

It is your impulsive, erratic, thoughtless fellow, he will argue when in the mood, who goes smashing and banging about the fields and woods with dogs and gun. Your true thinker slips quietly away with rod and line, and while his hook is down in the deep, still waters, or his fly is dancing over the foaming rapids and swiftly swirling eddies, his mind searches the true depths of the matter, and every possible angle of the question at hand passes before him.

For years the Doctor had heard much of the fishing to be had in the more unsettled parts of the Ozarks, but with his growing practice he could find leisure time for no more than an occasional visit to nearby streams. But about the time Martha began telling him that he was too old to stay out all day on the wet bank of a river, and his assistant Dr. Harry had come to relieve him of the heavier and more burdensome part of his practice, a railroad pushed its way across the mountain wilderness. The first season after the line was finished, the Doctor decided to go and cast his hook in new waters.

Ever since that fateful trip, throughout all the years that came after, those days so full of mystic beauty lived in the old man's memory as the brightest days of his life. For it was there he met the boy—there in the Ozark hills, with their great ridges, clothed from base to crest with trees all quivering and nodding in the summer breeze, with their quiet valleys, their cool hollows and lovely glades, and their deep and solemn woods.

And the streams! Those Ozark streams! The Doctor questioned whether there could flow anywhere else on God's earth such clear and sparkling waters as run through that land of dreams.

The Doctor left the train at a little station where the railroad crosses White River, and two days later he was fishing near the mouth of Fall Creek. It was late in the afternoon. The boy was passing by on his way home from a point farther up the stream. Not more than twelve, but tall and strong for his age, he came along the rough path at the foot of the bluff with the easy movement and grace of a young deer.

He paused a moment when he saw the Doctor, as a creature of the forest would pause at first sight of a human being. Then he came forward again, his manner and bearing showing frank interest in this newcomer to his home region, and his clear, sunny face flushing a bit at the presence of a stranger.

Hello, said the Doctor, with gruff kindness, any luck?

The boy's quick smile showed the most perfect set of teeth the physician had ever seen, and his young voice was tuned to the music of the woods, as he answered, I have caught no fish, sir.

By these words and the light