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Michigan By Rev. S. N. Griffith
Kalamazoo is the-county seat of Kalamazoo county, situated upon the river of the same-name, and nearly midway on the Michigan Central Railroad between Detroit and Chicago. It is surrounded by a rich, well-watered and fertile-country, by numerous small prairies, the largest of which is Prairie-Ronde, and also dispersed throughout the county are many quiet and' romantic lakes, clear and pure. The village is regularly laid out, adorned with elegant and substantial buildings, with comfortable and' tasty residences, and beautified by trees and shrubbery. Without designing to make any invidious comparisons, it may perhaps be safely
affirmed that Kalamazoo is the most picturesque of all the pleasant villages of Michigan."
But, to come to the close of his speech, he says: " But a little while since and Kalamazoo was known only as the haunt of the Indians. Today no spot in Michigan is a spot of more attraction and beauty. We do not claim," he says, " for it the splendor of Rome nor the quiet of Paradise, nor the commercial prospects of an overgrown metropolis, nor the literature of a Cambridge ; we lay claim to none of these. We speak of it as an inland settlement, (still in its infancy), possessing as much native loveliness, claiming as much intelligence and refinement, giving as much evidence of taste, and having before it as auspicious a future as any other village of its age in the almost boundless West." Again he says: " There is ample room for improvement. Yet where is there a village where morals take a higher stand or a wider range ? Where will you find one whose sky is pierced with more church spires,'whose courts are more unanimously pressed with attentive hearers, and whose pulpits are more ably filled, or the Gospel is proclaimed with a less uncertain sound?"
EARLY HISTORY OF METHODISM
Page 30
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