In the brush

by Hamilton W. Pierson

CHAPTER VIII.

THE OLD, OLD BOOK AND ITS STORY IN THE WILDS OF THE SOUTHWEST.

I have never known such remarkable and pleasing results follow the reading of the Bible, without any human help, as among the ignorant people I have visited, living in wild and neglected regions in the Brush. I propose in this chapter to give a detailed account of the results that followed its presentation, by Mr. J.G. K——, to families living among the hills upon the head-waters of a stream that I thought was rightly named "Rough Creek." Mr. K—— was a venerable and faithful Bible-distributor, sixty-four years old, and he loved, above everything else, to go from house to house with the Word of God, and strive by simple, earnest exhortation and fervent prayer to lead souls to Christ. While prosecuting his labors in this neglected region, he found in one neighborhood sixteen families out of twenty without a Bible, and supplied the most of them by gift.

This region of country was exceedingly wild, broken, and inaccessible, there being no main public road leading to it. The hills were high and steep, the valleys narrow, and the people were scattered along the creeks and over the hill-sides, with no other roads leading to them than neighborhood paths. Mr. K—— told me that he never could have found all these families had not a young man who was born in the vicinity (who had since become a Methodist preacher) volunteered to accompany him as a guide. He had hunted deer, foxes, wildcats, and other game over these hills until he knew every locality and path. Entering these rude, humble cabins, they explained the nature of their work, supplied the families with the Word of God by sale or gift, and then, after kindly and earnestly urging upon them the worth of the soul and the importance of securing at once an interest in Christ, they bowed with them in prayer, and humbly and earnestly besought God's blessing upon them. There was a strange interest in these visits. The voice of prayer had never before been heard in many of these dwellings. Though their visits were so strange and unusual in their nature, they were everywhere kindly received, the mild, benignant face of the venerable distributor making him everywhere a welcome visitor. Where will not a face full of geniality and sunshine secure a welcome for its possessor?

As he was concluding his prayer at one of these cabins, the old man, who had been absent, returned, and hearing the strange sound in his house, cried out, in astonishment, "Wake, snakes!" But, on going into the house when the prayer was concluded, our visitor received him with a smile, explained to him the nature of his visit, and at once made a personal religious appeal to him. The old man treated his visitor very kindly, though he seemed to be in a very jocular mood, and replied to most of his remarks with some playful speech. But when his visitor left he went out with him, and assisted him in getting on to his horse, and invited him to call again whenever he should pass that way. But generally their exhortations were listened to with deep solemnity and awe, and their visits evidently made a deep religious impression upon the neighborhood.

Not many weeks after these visits of Mr. K——, reports were received that several persons in this neighborhood had been hopefully converted; and for a year or more I was almost constantly hearing from various sources of the wonderful work of grace that was going on there. The statements in regard to the number and character of the conversions were so remarkable that I was unwilling to make them public until I had made a personal visit to the neighborhood, and seen with my own eyes what God had wrought. I subsequently made that visit, and can truly say that the half had not been told me. My powers are not equal to the work of giving an adequate description of the great change that had been wrought through the power of God's Word and Spirit, but I will give some of the main facts.

I arrived at a house to which I had been directed, near this neighborhood, about midday, having traveled for miles in the foot-paths that led from one cabin to that of the next neighbor. Where the path was blind and difficult to follow, the people would often send a little boy or girl along to show me the way. On making myself known as a preacher, and the agent of the American Bible Society, I was at once greeted with the usual question, "Won't you preach for us to-night?"

I gladly assented, as I had made the journey to learn the real condition of things, and I was anxious to see as many of the people as possible. Word was at once sent over the hills in different directions that I would preach that night in a log-house that had been erected since the visit of Mr. K—— for a school and meeting house; and shell-bark-hickory torches were at once prepared to light me and the hospitable family that entertained me to and from the place of meeting. This house was upon a hill in the midst of the woods, and at some distance from any clearing, having been placed there on account of its central position in the neighborhood. Though the notice was short, and the night dark, and all who came had to make their way by torchlight through the forest, the house was well filled, and it was a real pleasure to unfold and enforce the truths of the Gospel, in simple language, to a group whose solemn stillness and attention showed that they listened indeed as to a message from Heaven.

At the close of our services it was a rare and beautiful sight to see the audience disperse from that rude sanctuary, some on foot, and some on horseback—a father, mother, and three children upon a single horse—the oldest child in front of the father, the second behind the mother, and the third in the mother's arms, their flaming torches lighting up the grand old forest, as they set out for their homes with parting words of Christian hope and cheer.

In the prosecution of my inquiries I learned that the first person who had been converted in the neighborhood, after the visit of Mr. K——, was Mr. Jake G——, who had received a Testament in the following manner. When Mr. K—— and his guide were making their visits, they called at a house where there were eight children, and the parents were both gone from home. On inquiring of the children if their parents had a Bible, they said they did not know—meaning, undoubtedly, that they did not know what a Bible was.

Without dismounting, they gave the children a Testament, and told them to give it to their parents when they came home.

Not long after this the guide who accompanied Mr. K—— met the man at whose house they had left the Testament, and he immediately said: "I'm mighty sorry I was not at home when you and old man K—— were around with them books, for I'm mightily pleased with the little book you left at my house. Joe H—— told me you had some bigger ones" (Bibles) "at his house, and if I had been at home I would have got one of them bigger ones sure; for I'm mightily pleased with the little one. I can't read, and my wife and children can't read; but Brother Joe's wife can read, and she comes over to our house, and we get her to read out of that little book; and it's mighty pretty reading. I've heard reading afore, but I never heard any reading afore that I wanted to hear read again. But that little book I do take to mightily. Brother Fred's wife can read, too, and we get her to read out of the little book; and everybody that comes to our house that can read, we get them to read out of that little book; and—I don't know what it is—I never heard any such reading afore; every time they read to me out of that little book it makes me cry, and I can't help it."

I have already said that this man was the first person who was converted in the neighborhood after the visit of the Bible-distributor. They read "that little book" until he and his wife, and those two brothers and their wives, became savingly acquainted with its truths, and they, with many others in the neighborhood, became the humble and devoted followers of Christ. I learned that this Mr. Jake G——, who had received and who now loved his "little book," as I have described, belonged to a family remarkable for their ignorance and irreligion. Though he had eight children, his grandfather was yet alive, more than ninety years old, and still a very hardened sinner. He had come to this neighborhood from southwestern Virginia more than thirty years before. He had had eighteen children, thirteen of whom lived to marry, and nine of whom were settled immediately around him. None of his children could read a word except two of the youngest, who had attended school a little after leaving Virginia, and, though all of them had large families, all of them were without the Bible but two. One son and one daughter had married persons who had a Bible. The two Bibles that had been obtained by marriage were the only Bibles in this large family connection when Mr. K—— visited the neighborhood and supplied them all.

The father of the man who had received the Testament was sixty-two years old; had reared a family of nine children, not one of whom nor himself could read, and all of them had grown up and married but two; and that large family had never owned a Bible. The mother could read, and Mr. K—— gave her a Bible. Now she and her husband and six of their children were numbered with the people of God, and though unable to read were humble learners at the feet of Jesus.

The morning after my sermon, accompanied by a small boy, whom my host kindly sent along as a guide, I rode through the woods and over the hills to the house of Mr. Jake G——, where, several months before, the "little book" had been left by the Bible-distributor and his guide. He was among my hearers the night before, and I had sought an introduction to him, had a short conversation with him, and told him I would come and see him in the morning. I was particularly anxious to spend a few hours with him in his own home, and get the story of the great change that had been wrought in himself and in the neighborhood, from his own lips, and in his own genuine Brush vernacular.

There is to me a strange interest and pleasure in hearing one whose soul has been thoroughly subdued by the power and grace of God, who as yet knows little of the Bible, and less of the set phrases in which religious thoughts are usually communicated, give expression to the warm and glowing emotions of his soul, in language all his own. There is often in these recitals the highest type of simple, natural eloquence in the singularity, the quaintness, and the power of the language used.

As I rode up the hill-side and hitched my horse to the rail-fence in front of his log-cabin, he came out to meet and welcome me. But there was not that warmth of cordiality with which he had shaken my hand the night before. As I entered the house with him and took a seat, he remained standing, and walked about the floor continually, with an uneasy, troubled air. He was a very tall man, was barefooted, and his only dress was a shirt and pantaloons. After some little conversation, he turned to me and said, "How much does that little book sell for?"

I could not imagine why he asked the question, but replied at once, "Only a dime, sir." (The Bibles and Testaments were sold as near the cost-price in New York as possible, but as no pennies were used in any business transactions in all this region, we were obliged to sell this Testament, costing six and a fourth cents, for a dime.)

He did not make any response to my answer, but, after some further conversation, which I tried to keep up, he came and stood directly over me, and said, in a very sad tone of voice, "Well, sir, I have only got half enough to pay for that little book, but if I had the money I'd pay five dollars before I'd give it up."

Understanding at once that he supposed I was on a collecting tour, and that this was the cause of my visit and all his trouble, I said, "Why, sir, did you suppose I had come to get the pay for your little Testament?"

"H'ain't you?" asked his wife eagerly, a slight smile of hope passing over her earnest, expressive face.

"Why, no, indeed," said I; "that book was given to you. The Bible Society gives away a great many Bibles and Testaments, and all they want is to know that people make good use of them."

"Well, I declare!" said she, her face all radiant with joy. "We've been right smartly troubled about it all the morning. I knew we hadn't got money enough to pay for it, and I didn't know what we should do. I wouldn't give it up for nothing. I know none of us can't read any, but we get it read a mighty heap. I love to have it in the house, whether we can read or not. That's the little book we're trying to go by now, and whenever they gets together the first thing is to get out the little book, and it seems like they never get tired of it."

That was one of the most moving and beautiful tributes of affection and love for the Word of God to which I have ever listened. I see her now through the lapse of years, her bright, black eyes and her face all aglow with joy, as she sat at one side of her fireplace in that comfortless cabin. The chimney, made of sticks and mud, and standing on the outside of the house, had leaned away from the opening that had been cut through the logs for the fireplace, and left a large open space through which and the logs the winds blew upon her back about as freely as through a rail-fence. Where the brick or stone hearth should have been, there was only a bed of ashes and a few smoldering fire-brands. Two beds on one side of the room and a few rough articles of household furniture numbered all the comforts of their one apartment. Such were her surroundings, and yet I had made her one of the happiest mortals I have ever seen. As I looked into her black, expressive eyes and her bright face, which must have been beautiful in earlier years, it was hard to believe that she could not read a word—that she had never learned a single letter of the alphabet of her mother-tongue.

"Well," said an old man, who thus far had sat quite mute, "I'm sure my old woman makes good use of hers; she reads it about half the time. I believe she would go crazy if you should take her Bible away."

This old man, with his hair hanging down to his shoulders, his powder-horn, pouch, and other hunting equipments hanging at his side, had entered the house with his gun in hand just as I rode up, having apparently just returned from a morning hunt. I now learned that he was the father of the man at whose house I was—the man in whose family so great a change had been wrought since Mr. K—— had given his wife the Bible. After I had satisfied them that they were not to lose their Testament and Bible, all tongues were unloosed, and I wish it were in my power to give in detail the conversation that followed.

"Can't you stay and preach for us to-night?" said the old man. "We can send word around, and you'll have a house full. I want to hear you mightily. We didn't sleep any last night, hardly. Jake came home from meeting so full, and he was trying to tell us about the sermon. You ought to stay and see the G——s; you ought to hear them sing and pray."

I consented to preach again most gladly, and after full consultation among themselves as to whose house in the neighborhood would hold the most people, and arrangements had been made for circulating the notice, they all sat down and listened intently while I read to them out of the "little book," explaining the portions read as I would attempt to explain them to an infant-class in a Sabbath-school. I remember that the great change wrought in themselves and their neighbors seemed an incomprehensible mystery to them. So, looking out of the open door of their cabin and down the hill-side, I pointed them to the tops of the large forest trees that were swaying to and fro in the wind, and said:

"You see all those trees in motion, but can not see anything moving them. And yet you know what it is. You know that it is the wind. You can not see it, but you can hear its sound."

I then opened their "little book" (for I had preferred to read to them out of their own prized treasure, that they might be sure, after I was gone, that they had in their possession all that I had read and explained to them), and read to them the story of the conversation of Christ with Nicodemus, calling their special attention to the passage: "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth. So is every one that is born of the Spirit."

This passage was apparently new, and made the whole matter wonderfully clear to them, affording them the most intense pleasure and satisfaction. So I read, and they listened to these simple comments, for an hour or more with expressions of the deepest interest, and would evidently have listened thus for hours. We then all bowed upon our knees, and, after I had prayed, Mr. Jake G——, at my request, offered a prayer, such as he offered daily as he assembled his children around that family altar; a prayer so broken, so humble, so sincere, as to move the stoutest heart. I wish I could give the whole of it; but I only remember the first sentence, "O Lord, we bow down to call on thy name as well as we know how."

I spent the rest of the day with the old man, visiting different families, and in his own, reading the Bible to them, praying with them, and listening to their simple details of the wonderful change that had been wrought among them. Their own statements in regard to the exceeding ignorance and irreligion of the community corroborated the accounts I heard of them in all the country around.

"I've known a heap of people," said the old man, as we left the house, and started off through the woods, "but I never did know as bad a set as the G——'s" (his own family). "Every one of my boys played the fiddle, and every one of my children had rather dance than eat the best meal that could be got. Every one of my boys played cards and gambled. Every one of them would go to horse-races and shooting-matches, and get drunk, and fight, and get into all kinds of scrapes. And my boy Dock—that ain't his name, but that's what we all call him—I do wish you could hear Dock pray now—my boy Dock used to get drunk and have fits [delirium tremens], and when he was gone to a shooting-match or a log-rolling, or any such place, I'd go to bed at night, but I couldn't go to sleep. I'd just lie and wait to hear him holler, and I've gone out many a night and brought him into the house out of the most awful places. And Sundays—why, I didn't hear a sermon in fifteen years. Sundays my yard was filled with people who came from all around here, and jumped, and played marbles, and shot at a mark, and frolicked, all day long. And such a thing as a hime" (hymn), continued the old man, "singin' himes or prayin', why, there wa'n't no such thing in all the neighborhood. When they first began to hold meetings around, there wa'n't nobody to raise the tunes. Now they know a heap of himes, and sometimes Jake leads the meetin', and sometimes Dock, and you ought to hear them all sing and pray now."

So the old man talked on, giving his simple narrative of these and a great many other facts, until at length we came to a log-house. This was the place where I was to preach that night, the home of a brother—the old man that had shouted "Wake, snakes!" at hearing Mr. K—— pray. He had since died, and died unconverted, and the account that the old man gave of the death of this brother was most touching. As his case grew more and more hopeless, those of his children and relatives who had been converted felt the deepest interest for him, talked with him as well as they knew how, and prayed with him; but all apparently in vain.

"I watched him from day to day," said the old man, "until I saw there was no hope for him. I knew that he must die, and I knew that he was not prepared. I shook hands with him, bid him good-by, and turned away from him, and thought I had no time to lose. I determined to try and get religion at once, and be prepared for death."

When at length his family and friends had gathered around his bed to see him die, his youngest daughter, that had lately been converted, who was about eighteen years old, but could not read a letter, agonized at the thought of his leaving the world unprepared, rushed forward, knelt at his bedside, and gave vent to her emotions in a prayer such as is rarely offered. Those who heard it were most of them as illiterate as herself, and incompetent to describe it; but from their accounts the scene was solemn, and the effect overpowering to all except the dying man. As she arose from her knees, he opened his eyes, and said, faintly, "I never expected that [to hear a prayer] from one of my children," and in a few moments breathed his last. During my visit here I asked this young lady if she could read. She replied:

"Oh, no, sir; I was always too industrious to take time to learn to read." Her arms were colored to above her elbows, where she had had them in the dye-tub, preparing the "butternut-woolsey" for the family use.

From this place the old man took me to his own house. As we went up to the door, his wife stood with her back to us, washing dishes, and he rapped at the door. She turned her head so as to see us both, but did not move her body or say a word. He then said:

"Old woman, see here!" (pointing to me), "here is a man that has come to get your Bible."

Looking at me a moment, she responded:

"You talk too much," and resumed her work.

We then entered the house, and he informed his wife and daughter who I was and that I was to preach that night. After I had talked with them a while, it was proposed that I should again read and explain the Bible to them. At his son's house, as they had all been so wicked, I had read, among other portions, the account of the persecutions and the conversion of the Apostle Paul, and given them a simple sketch of his subsequent history, and then pointed out the parts of the "little book" that this man who had been so wicked had been inspired to write. This story was almost if not entirely new to them, and they were greatly interested in it. When the family were seated, and I was about to read to them, the old man said to me:

"Can't you read that again that you read up at Jake's? That about—that—that—that what do you call him?"

"Paul," said I.

"Yes, Paul, Saul, Paul. Read that about Paul. If that don't hit the nail on the head better than anything I ever heard afore!"

I, of course, consented, and went over the story again for the benefit of his family, and the facts seemed to lose none of their interest to the old man by their repetition. Having spent all the time desirable in reading and praying with this family, there were still a few hours before the preaching service began. Shall I introduce my readers more fully to this home in the Brush, and tell them how this time was passed? The house contained but a single room. The daughter of whom I have spoken was about eighteen or twenty years old, tall and large, wore a butternut-colored woolsey dress that she had probably spun and woven, and was barefooted. I had not been long in the house before she retired from their only room, in which I sat, and in honor of my arrival reappeared in another dress. I do not know where she made her toilet, only that it was the same ample and magnificent dressing-room first used by Mother Eve. The material of the dress in which she appeared was old-fashioned cheap curtain calico, with waving stripes some two or three inches wide running its entire length. Preferring perfect freedom and the comfort of the cooling breezes to considerations that would have been influential with most of my lady readers, in thus making her toilet she had chosen to remain stockingless and shoeless. A massive head of dark-brown hair, cut squarely off and pushed behind her ears, hung loosely down her neck.

When the dishes were washed and all the after-dinner work accomplished, and she was prepared to sit down and enjoy the conversation, she took from the rude mantle-tree above the fireplace a cob-pipe, and filled it with home-grown and home-cured tobacco from an abundant supply in a large pocket in her dress. Lighting her pipe, she took a seat at the right of her father, while I occupied a chair on his left. Soon large columns of smoke began to rise and roll away above her head as gracefully as I have ever seen them float around the head of the most fashionable smoker with the most costly meerschaum. Bending her right arm so that she could clasp the long stem of her pipe with her forefinger, she rested the elbow in the palm of her left hand. Then, placing her right limb across her left knee, she swung the pendent foot slowly, as if in meditative mood, and yielded herself to the full enjoyment of her pipe and our conversation. Her name I should have said was Barbara. She was of a quiet, taciturn disposition, and rarely said anything, except as she was appealed to on some matter by her proud and happy father.

I have met some people who were so ignorant in regard to rustic manufactures that they did not know what a "cob"-pipe was. For the sake of any that may be similarly uninformed, I will describe one. It is made by taking a section of a common corn-cob some two or three inches in length, and boring or burning out with a hot iron the pith of the cob some two thirds of its length, and then boring or burning a small hole transversely through the cob to the base of the bowl already made, and inserting in this a small hollow reed or cane for a stem. These pipe-stems are long or short, from a few inches to two or three feet, according to the preference of those who are to use them. I have often been told by old smokers that no pipe was as pleasant or sweet as a cob-pipe. The great objection to them is that they have to be renewed so frequently.

Seated as I have already described, the hours passed away to the evident satisfaction of my entertainers. It is not an easy matter to maintain a conversation for several hours with those who have never read a word of their mother-tongue. Their stock of ideas is necessarily rather limited. But a very large experience in mingling with this class of people had given me such facilities that I was evidently already installed as a favorite in the family. I asked a great many questions in regard to the children and grandchildren, which were answered with the interest which always pertains to these inquiries. At length the old man returned the compliment by inquiring very particularly into my own family affairs. When pressed upon this subject, as I almost universally was by families in the Brush, I was compelled to tell them that my family was very small—as small as possible—just that of the Apostle Paul; in plain language, that I was that quite unusual character, a clerical bachelor. The old man was astonished. I think he was gratified. His face glowed with some new emotion. He was evidently willing on our short acquaintance to receive me as a son-in-law. Turning his pleased, animated face to me, and leaning forward in his chair, he lifted his right hand, and, pointing with an emphatic gesture to his daughter, said:

"Well, preacher, my gals is all married but Barbara here, and she is ready, sir."

Miss Barbara retained her hold upon the long stem of her cob-pipe, and smoked on, wellnigh imperturbable at this sudden culmination of affairs, though I think that, like myself, she was somewhat startled and moved, for I could see an evident increase in the swinging movement of her still pendent right foot.

"Well, Preacher, my gals is all married but Barbara here, and she is ready, sir."

But I must pass over other and interesting incidents of the day. Night came, and with it the congregation that had been promised. Temporary seats had been provided, and the log-cabin was closely packed. As the last of the company were arriving, it began to sprinkle, and as our services progressed the rain fell in torrents. There was grandeur in the storm as the wind howled among the trees and the rain beat upon the roof but a few feet above our heads. As the most of the company could not read, and all were very ignorant, my sermon was as simple as I could possibly make it. It was listened to with an eager interest, reminding me of the words of the prophet: "Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of my heart." Those simple babes in Christ had as yet no idea of a meeting without special efforts for the conversion of the impenitent; and, in response to my appeal made after the sermon, a little girl, some twelve or fourteen years old, came forward to be prayed for. As she started, the audience were greatly moved. She was the great-grandchild of the hoary-headed and hardened sinner who had raised his large family as I have already described, and who still lived and looked on unmoved at the wonderful work God was doing among his children and his children's children. She was the eldest daughter of Dock G——, and after I had instructed her and pointed her to Christ as best I could in these circumstances, and several prayers had been offered for her, her father knelt by her side and poured forth the yearning desires of his burdened soul in her behalf. It was a prayer of confession of parental unfaithfulness, of thanksgiving for what God had already done, and of earnest, importunate wrestlings for one that was a part of himself and must live for ever. It was a prayer such as I had never heard before. I did not wonder that his father had said to me in the morning, "I do wish you could hear Dock pray now." Though he could not read, his mind was evidently of a superior order, and the language of his prayer was not such as he had acquired by hearing others pray, but was entirely his own. It was deeply affecting to hear such familiar thoughts, uttered in language so strange and unusual.

As the rain continued to pour in torrents and the night was fearfully dark, the meeting was continued to a late hour, and I was gratified in hearing them sing and pray a long time. Their hymns were mostly those that they had learned by hearing them sung by others, and their prayers were the simple, earnest utterances of those who seemed evidently to have been taught of God. At length the meeting closed, and though the rain still poured without abatement, and the night was fearfully dark, several of the company, who had left young children at home, started out in the storm to make their way home through the woods and across swollen streams by following, without torchlight, their winding neighborhood paths. But the most of the congregation remained until near midnight, when the rain abated and it became lighter. Others now started for home, some on foot and some on horseback, to find their way through the forest for two or three miles, up and down hills and across streams, where I had found it a difficult matter to make my way by daylight. With a number so large that I did not undertake to count them, I spent the night in their cabin, and received from the family the kindest treatment it was in their power to bestow.

First of all, at the close of the meeting, the cob, clay, and all other pipes were brought out, and family and guests sat down to enjoy a social smoke and chat. Though I have spent so many years where tobacco is grown and almost universally used, though I have enjoyed the hospitality of a great many families where the mothers and daughters both chewed and "dipped," I have never learned to use the weed. Though I do not smoke, I have very often been most thoroughly smoked. In this company of social smokers, composed of old men and young men, old women and young women, I was more favored than I have often been in the most elegant apartments of the most magnificent dwellings. The fireplace, several feet long, filled with ashes, made an ample spittoon, and the large "stick" chimney, aided by the winds that circulated freely through the cabin, afforded what I have so often wished for—an ample funnel for the escape of the smoke and fumes of the tobacco. Uncultivated as this company was, it was evident that they were gifted with capacities for enjoying the weed equal to those of the most refined circles I have ever met.

Having smoked to their satisfaction, and the hour of midnight being passed, I was pointed to a bed in one corner of the room which I was to occupy. I had not been in it long before some bedfellow got in to share it with me. I soon discovered that it was my would-be father-in-law, and that he slept with his boots on—I suppose to save the trouble of drawing them off and on. How or where the rest of my congregation slept, I do not know, for, on getting into bed, I had turned my face to the log wall, and, being exceedingly wearied with the labors of the day and the night, I was soon oblivious to all around me, and lost in sleep. When I awoke in the morning, my friend, who had shared the bed with me, and who had evidently awaked some time before, greeted me with the friendly salutation:

"How dy, partner?" his boots, at the moment, greeting my vision as they extended beyond our bed blankets or quilts.

After breakfast, I bade good-by to the kind friends whose rough but generous hospitality I had thus enjoyed, with many thanks on their part for my visit, with many regrets at my departure, and with repeated requests that I would visit and preach for them again. But my farewell here, as in thousands of other cases, was a final farewell. I was not to meet them again, except, as is so often sung, in one of their wild, favorite religious songs:

"When the general roll is called."

During this visit I learned that about a hundred persons had been converted in this neighborhood since the visit of the Bible-distributor. Among them were about thirty members of the family to which I have so often alluded, in which this good work had its commencement in the reading of that little Testament. There had formerly been no regular preaching in the immediate neighborhood, but a Cumberland Presbyterian minister had preached once a month in a private house not far from them. It was the house to which I had been directed, and the family who had so kindly entertained me and circulated the appointment for my first sermon in the neighborhood. The preacher was the faithful man of God who had preached and officiated in the marriage at the "basket-meeting in the Brush" which I have already described. He had changed the place of holding his meetings, and preached regularly once a month in the new log-house in which I preached on the night of my arrival. In addition to his regular services, he had held protracted meetings, and his earnest and devoted labors had been greatly blessed in carrying forward this remarkable work of grace. Methodist preachers had also visited the neighborhood at different times, and held meetings at which numbers had been hopefully converted. All who had made a public profession of religion had united with these two denominations, and there was the utmost peace and harmony among them. The dark spirit of sectarianism seemed as yet to have found no place among them, and all who beheld them were compelled to say, as should be said of all those of different names who profess to be the disciples of Christ, "Behold how these brethren love one another."

At the time of my visit and for some months before, the only regular preaching in the neighborhood was that once a month by Mr. W——, the Cumberland Presbyterian minister. But they held a prayer-meeting which was conducted by themselves on all the other Sabbaths, and once during each week. At these meetings they read the Scriptures, and sang and prayed, and with tearful eyes and warm and glowing hearts rehearsed to their friends and neighbors the simple story of the love and grace of God as it had been manifested to them. To those who had been familiar with their former lives, there was a convincing, an almost resistless, power in their services, and they had often been owned of God in the salvation of souls. Many had been induced to come long distances to attend these meetings, and had gone away, saying, "Surely this is the work of God, for only his power could enable such people to offer such prayers." I was told that even the little children had caught the prevailing spirit, and had commenced a "play" that was entirely new in the neighborhood. When their parents were gone to night-meetings, as they often were, the little children who were left at home alone entertained themselves by playing "meeting"—going through with all the services as they had seen them at the meetings they had attended with their parents. I tried to learn of one mother—the one who was so grateful that she was not to lose her "little book"—what her children would say at these meetings, but she could only tell me of one little fellow four or five years old, that she pointed out to me, who would get up and very seriously repeat over and over the words, "Oh, them dear little children in heaven! them dear little children in heaven!"

I was very greatly interested in learning from the remarks that I heard in both this and the surrounding neighborhoods of the uniformity of sentiment in regard to the religious character of this work. In a long conversation with a man who had known these people from his boyhood, and whose Christian heart had been greatly rejoiced at what he had seen and heard, I said:

"There must be a very great change among them?"

"Indeed there is," said he, emphatically. "It's a smart miracle!"

Among all the persons of different classes that I saw, I met no one who seemed to doubt in the least that it was a genuine work of grace. "It is the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes."