Ira Sankey

“ It was the old and deadly peril of fighting blockades from both ends on a single track. The great rams of steel and fire had done their work, and with their common enemy overcome, they dashed at each other like madmen across the Blackwood gorge.
The fireman at the first cry shot out the side. Sankey yelled at Sinclair to jump. But Georgie shook his head: he never would jump. Without hesitating, Sankey picked him from the levers in his arms, planted a sure foot, and hurled him like a coal shovel through the gangway far out into the gorge. ”

“ I think, myself, there's no man on earth like a good Indian; and, for that matter, none like a bad one. Sankey knew by a military instinct just what had to be done and how to do it. If he had lived, he was to have been assistant superintendent. That was the word that leaked from headquarters afterward. And with a volley of jokes between the cabs and a laughing and yelling between toots, down went Sankey's double-header again into the Blackwood gorge.
At the same moment, by an awful misunderstanding of orders, down came the big rotary from the west end with a dozen cars of coal behind. ”

“ I suppose every old traveler on the system knew Sankey. He was not only always ready to answer questions; but, what is more, ready to answer the same question twice. It is that which makes conductors gray-headed and spoils their chances for heaven—answering the same questions over and over again. Children were apt to be startled a bit at first sight of Sankey, he was so dark. But Sankey had a very quiet smile that always made them friends after the first trip through the sleepers, and they sometimes ran about asking for him after he had left the train. ”

“ Every one who jumped got clear. Sinclair lit in ten feet of snow, and they pulled him out with a rope: he wasn't scratched. Even the bridge was not badly strained. Number One pulled over it next day.
Sankey was right; there was no more snow; not even enough to cover the dead engines that lay on the rocks. But the line was open: the fight was won.
There never was a funeral in McCloud like Sankey's. George Sinclair and Neeta followed first, and of the mourners there were as many as there were spectators. Every engine on the division carried black for thirty days. ”

“ On the twenty-seventh, Mr. Frank Dodd asked me to a reception given to Ian McLaren, and on the same day Mr. Sankey gave me a pass to the Moody and Sankey meetings. I did not like Ian McLaren much, but I did like the stir of human feeling in the other invitation, and Mr. Sankey’s singing pleased me, for my taste had not been either trained, or spoiled, by too much classical music; and Sankey’s singing had in it, not only a fine lyrical cry, but also that “touch of Nature, which makes all men kin.” ”

“ Sankey's, tomorrow."
The interview next day was altogether satisfactory. The carriage and bearing of the natives of India is easier, and more graceful, than that of Europeans; and the knowledge Harry had possessed, for some years, that he belonged to a conquering race, the injunctions of Soyera, his strength and activity, and his unquestioned leadership among the boys with whom he played, had given something of confidence to his manner. Mrs. Sankey was greatly taken with him, and he at once became an inmate of her house. ”

“ Sankey ran a passenger train when Jimmie Brady was running—and Jimmie afterward enlisted and was killed in the Custer fight.
There was an odd tradition about Sankey's name. He was a tall, swarthy fellow, and carried the blood of a Sioux chief in his veins. It was in the time of the Black Hills excitement, when railroad men, struck by the gold fever, were abandoning their trains even at way-stations and striking across the divide for Clark's Crossing. Men to run the trains were hard to get, and Tom Porter, trainmaster, was putting in every man he could pick up without reference to age or color. ”

“ He acted as assistant field engineer under Lieutenant-colonel McLeod, the commanding engineer of General Windham's force, and when that force fell back on the entrenchments was employed in strengthening the defences; noticing that the whole area as far as an outpost some 600 yards away was swept by the enemy's fire, he effectively connected the outpost with the entrenchment by a simple screen of mats fixed during one night. After the rebels were defeated by Sir Colin Campbell on 6 Dec, Sankey was transferred as field engineer to the Gurkha force under Jung Bahadur. ”

“ After serving with the Madras sappers at Mercatur he officiated in 1850 as superintending engineer, Nagpore subsidiary force; but owing to ill-health he was at home for three years (1853–6) . Promoted lieutenant on 1 Aug. 1854, he was appointed, on returning to Madras in 1856, superintendent of the east coast canal. In May 1857 Sankey was called to Calcutta as under-secretary of the public works department under Colonel (afterwards General Sir) William Erskine Baker [q. v.] . ”

“ I suppose one never knows what is good for one, Sankey. Now as I look back I think that we have been extraordinarily fortunate. We have had some fights, just in the way we had expected, and, thanks principally to our being so well mounted, we have done very well. ”

“ Each train, in order to make the grade and the blockade against it, was straining the cylinders.
Through the swirling snow that half hid the bridge and interposed between the rushing plows Sinclair saw them coming. He yelled. Sankey saw them a fraction of a second later, and while Sinclair struggled with the throttle and the air, Sankey gave the alarm through the whistle to the poor fellows in the blind pockets behind. But the track was at the worst. Where there was no snow there were "whiskers"; oil itself couldn't have been worse to stop on. ”

“ There are no hopeless cases as seen in the instance of one who was
Saved by Sankey’s Singing
Mrs. Emily Sullivan Oakey was a well-known writer but she is best remembered by her hymn, “Sowing the Seed by the Daylight Fair.” In the winter of 1876, W. O. Lattimore, who had been separated from his wife and child by drink and had become a miserable drunkard, stumbled in an intoxicated condition into Moody’s Tabernacle in Chicago. When he came to, he realized his mistake and was about to leave when Sankey’s solo held him. ”

“ Men turned to the windows and quit talking. Every fellow felt the same—hopeless; at least, all but one. Sankey, sitting back of the stove, was making tracings with a piece of chalk. "You might as well unload your passengers, Sankey," said Neighbor. "You'll never get 'em through this winter."
And it was then that Sankey proposed his double-header.
He devised a snow-plow which combined in one monster ram about all the good material we had left, and submitted the scheme to Neighbor. Neighbor studied it, and hacked at it all he could, and brought it over to the office. ”

“ Captain Sankey said. “Of course boys must be thrashed, and provided that the punishment is not excessive, and that it is justly administered, I have nothing to say against it. Boys must be punished, and if you don't flog you have to confine them, and in my opinion that is far worse for a boy's temper, spirit, and health.”
So Ned Sankey went to Hathorn's, and was soon a great favorite there. Just at first he was regarded as a disobliging fellow because he adhered strictly to a stipulation which Mr. Hathorn had made, that he should not bring things in from the town for his school fellows. ”

“ But soon another occasion arose for these people to be cruelly persecuted. One of the men, after urging upon his fellow workers to strike, had gone back again to work. One afternoon he went to work on his allotment. About twelve of the men went to the allotment gate with tin kettles and a concertina and waited until he came out to the road to go home, and without saying a word to him walked about one hundred yards behind him, playing their concertina and singing one of Sankey's hymns, "Kind words can never die." ”

“ Foley said he was so careful of it that he let his watch stop when he was off duty just to save time. Sankey loved to breast the winds and the floods and the snows, and if he could get home pretty near on schedule, with everybody else late, he was happy; and in respect of that, as Sankey used to say, Georgie Sinclair could come nearer gratifying Sankey's ambition than any engine-runner we had. Even the firemen used to observe that the young engineer, always neat, looked still neater on the days when he took out Sankey's train. ”

“ As for Sankey and Worsly, you will admire how much matter I have forced myself to suppress concerning them; neither of which two; can receive better from any who have seen through their hollow and fawning practices towards their friends, and the cruelty and baseness they use towards others. ”

“ Whereas I have not onely here and there spoken slighty of Sankey and Worsley, but have also grated upon my Enemies, that I would not have you think that by enemies I mean all those that have at any time been angry with me, and desired to know and understand whether I had dealt well or not with them; but that by Enemies I meant the said Worsley and Sankey, with some few others, who have not onely evil hearts towards me, but designes also against the publick, and for themselves in these their undertakings. ”

“ There was, however, a somewhat profane Boston journalist—I. A. M. Cumming, as he styled himself—who covered the revival meetings for "the spiciest paper in New England," the Boston Sunday Times (circulation 60,000) , and then published a collection of his revival pieces under the title Tabernacle Sketches, with illustrations by an equally irreverent artist named Haskell. [83] Cumming claimed that Sankey had first realized his powers of song one night on the western prairies when he frightened off a band of Apaches, who were about to attack his party, by striking up "What Shall the Harvest Be?" ”

“ They then determined to ruin Petty's reputation in order to discredit the Government under which he served, singling him out for attack, because he had made himself obnoxious by his watchfulness in circumventing their intrigues. "Sectaries," he says, "are always of perverse mind and jealous." Besides, there were especial reasons for the extreme bitterness against him. Sankey, his opponent, had the ambition to cut a great figure. The under-surveyors were discontented. The personal collection of the debt owed to him by the army had contributed to his unpopularity. ”

“ Political glee clubs at first monopolized his genius, but after his conversion in 1857, the Sunday School and Church opened wider fields, in which he has since labored with increasing usefulness. In June, 1870, at a Christian Convention in Indianapolis, after a morning service, where Mr. Sankey led the singing, he met, for the first time, Mr. Moody. "Where do you live! Are you married? What business are you in?" at once inquired the Evangelist; "I want you." "What for?" "To help me in my work in Chicago." "I cannot leave my business," replied the now astonished singer. "You must," said Moody. ”

“ When Parliament met in March, Sankey, also a member, took an early occasion of bringing up his charges against Petty. In Burton's "Diary" [8] we find a report of Sankey's speech. The following are the opening words: "I open the highest charge against a member of this house that ever was; such news has not been of a long time; a high breach of trust. It is against a great person. .... He is both cook, caterer and hunt; is commissioner and surveyor; has had the disposing of two million acres of land. He is a man of great parts, but has highly wronged them. His name is Dr. Petty." ”

“ He next appears as one of the military junto which called together the Committee of Public Safety, and helped Lambert to drive out the Rump. Then, believing himself to be at last master of the situation, he immediately threatened to detain Dr. Petty in London by force; but Dr. Petty availed himself of the general confusion to escape to Dublin, which, of the two cities, was then the safer place to abide in. [43]
Sankey soon after left London to command the regiments from Ireland in Lambert's army in the North of England. ”

“ All nature, in fact, was vocal of Sanchia by day; and at night, presently, she stole white-footed down the slant rays of the moon and fed his soul upon exhalations of her own. Idle as he might have appeared to one who did not know the man—for beyond the routine of his handiwork he did nothing visible—he was really intensely busy. Out of the stores reaped and garnered in those meditative years was to come the substance of his after-life.
But no man in England may live three years in a grass valley unreported; his fame will spread abroad, scattered as birds sow seeds. ”

“ Sanchia, new to courtship, was quietly elated, and her amusement did nothing to diminish her elation. She had never been wooed before: there had been nothing of the kind in those shuddering days when she and Ingram, trembling in each other's sight, had mutely cried across the waste of London for balm upon their wounds. The flattery of attentions had never been hers, nor the high credit of admiration so respectful as the good merchant's. He esteemed her the fairest and holiest of women, was as timid as a boy in her company, gasped like a fish and grew unmannerly hot ”

“ I've done that sort of thing—Sanchia knows. Now I must trouble you to advance. I'm sick of life on these terms: you could make life worth living. I must really trouble you: sorry to seem languid, but I am languid. You, with your fine sensibilities, ought to be the first to feel that; but no: you wait, looking exquisite, with eyes like blue-black water, and a mouth, a mouth like a flower. You soft gossamer beauty, I could crush you where you hover; but you won't come and be crushed. Certainly, you are cruel. ”