NOTES IN THE SADDLE.
BY FIELD-SUPERINTENDENT C. J. RYDER.
There is no department of work in the great field which is being developed by the A. M. A. more thrillingly interesting than that of the mountains of Kentucky and Tennessee. A recent trip, one of several already made through that region, has greatly increased my appreciation of this work, and confidence in the grand success which is even now opening before us. I have just been over the ground covered by our missionary work and have been impressed with the vast opportunities, as well as the imperative needs which exist on every hand in this mountain region. Let us go over that field together. New and strange phases of life meet us at every turn.
We enter the mountain regions of Kentucky in which the A. M. A. has schools and churches, a few miles north of Knoxville. Indeed the first station of the Kentucky missions is in Tennessee. This part of the work is under the direction of Rev. A. A. Myers. This region has only recently been opened to the outside world. Coal fields are abundant, and timber of the very best kinds still stands in vast forests on the hillsides and along the streams. These trees shoulder against each other like an army of giants marshalled to defend the wild freedom of their mountain home against the impertinent intrusion of the “humans,” as the mountaineers call men. These brave defenders, however, are fast falling beneath the axe of the lumberman. In the yard of a single mill, seven million five hundred thousand feet of walnut timber was piled ready for the market. This same mill cuts on an average ten million feet of lumber, of all kinds, in a week.
A rough, but interesting mountaineer, who sat near me in the freight caboose, in which I rode from Knoxville northward into the mountain region, told me that he kept eight yoke of cattle at work all the time in bringing lumber from the “benches” on the sides of the mountains to the “slides.” These benches are small plains, or miniature plateaus upon which the larger forests grow, as the soil is deeper and richer, being formed from the wash of the mountains above. They draw the logs to the edges of these benches and let them over the slides, down which they dart, as the arrow flies from the string of a bow. It is in this country, so rich in mineral and timbered wealth, that a large part of the mountain work of the A. M. A. lies.
The vast army of men crowding into this region to gather its wonderful wealth, makes still more imperative the necessity for Christian work here immediately. A new railroad is pushing its way from Corbin through Barboursville, and pointing toward Cumberland Gap, through which it will probably pass out into Virginia. The whistle of the locomotive is the reveille awakening other thousands to the possibilities of this region, and bringing them together here. You see, therefore, that this field claims our attention and our help, just as every new region of the West does, as it is rapidly filling up through emigration from other parts of our own country and from other lands. There are also the communities of mountaineers, for whom these churches and schools were planted, who have a claim upon us. Within a few years, hundreds of coal mines will pour out their black streams along the railroads, many of which are as yet unbuilt. Furnace fires will light up the darkness of the night along the hillsides. These small towns will be great centers of commercial and industrial importance.
Such is the country, and such are the circumstances, surrounding the work here. “What has actually been done?” you ask, and it is a very natural question. Nine churches have been organized, and are doing faithful work for the Master in this region. Four schools have been wholly or partially supported by the A. M. A. for some time, and their influence is felt far and wide. In the Williamsburgh Academy, between one and two hundred bright, earnest young people gathered in the chapel for the opening exercises of the school. These scholars range in their studies from first primary to higher normal. Many teachers from other schools come here to complete their otherwise imperfect preparation for their work. The work of the academy is not that of intellectual training, with a little religion tacked on to make it palatable with Christian people; it is Christian training which the pupils receive here.
I rode with Brother Myers forty-four miles on horseback, much of the way through a driving rain-storm, to visit some stations which we could not conveniently reach by rail. At Corbin, which is to be the junction of the new railroad with the present railroad, we have a beautiful site for a church building—some lumber already on the ground—and we ought to push the building to completion at once. People came out from their cabins along the roadside as we rode past, and eagerly asked: “When are you coming to take up a meeting with us again?” Children especially crowded around our horses when we stopped, to inquire about the Sunday-school, to get a pleasant word from Bro. Myers, which he never failed to give, and to receive some little paper, or brightly colored card with a Scripture gem upon it. His pockets seemed to be always full of these children’s traps.
There are four church buildings ready to be dedicated, and two pastors, native mountaineers, one a graduate of Berea College, awaiting ordination. And so the work moves on in a wonderful way, for it is God’s way.
This is only one part of the work which the A. M. A. is pressing forward in these mountain regions. I had hoped to have space to speak of the work in Scott and Morgan and Cumberland Counties, Tenn., but cannot now. The large academy building at Mount Pleasant, Tenn., of which our readers of The American Missionary have heard an occasional word, is already completed, and will be ready for dedication in a few weeks. It is a grand building, a cause of wonderment to the simple mountain people, who ride for tens of miles to see it. I shall speak of it more at length hereafter. This school and church work is like the rising of the sun of a brighter and better day over this Cumberland plateau.