Soon after this, a Methodist clergyman of Indiana, by the name of Mahan, proposed having a written discussion in the Golden Era. He agreed to write twelve letters; but six or seven exhausted his resources. Subsequently, he tried his hand at discussion with B. F. Foster, in the Herald, and was handsomely defeated.
I made a long journey through Northern Missouri into Iowa; thence to St. Joseph; then down to Western, Kansas City, Independence, Lexington, Booneville, back to St. Louis. Traveled twelve hundred miles, all on horseback, and lectured most every day. In most of the towns and villages on this route I had no references, and generally wrote to the postmasters to make appointments. The principles of the liberal faith were entirely new to most of the people, and as notices of my meetings were published pretty extensively, large numbers attended, some going ten, twenty, and thirty miles. I had much controversy in public, and many conversations in private, concerning the new doctrines. Found some who received them with glad hearts, and many others who were disposed to investigate before they condemned. Received but little compensation for my labor and time, but obtained many subscribers for the paper.
Have room for only a few of the incidents of this journey. In Kirksville, a minister asked many questions, and finally came to the sage conclusion, that reason was carnal, that I was an emissary of the devil, and that he would say no more to me; but gave notice, that he should reply to my discourse the next Sunday. In Greentop, found a settlement of believers from Tennessee. They were excellent people; often visited them in subsequent years; but the war dispersed them, and I understand, they are scattered over the plains of Nebraska. Kirksville, near by, was one of the battle-fields of the rebellion; rebel Porter’s forces were there routed and ruined, and the town was much injured. Colonel Linder, one of my friends, was an active man in the Union cause. I traveled on what was called the “Mormon Trace,”—a road from Nauvoo to St. Joseph, the route the Mormons journeyed when they went from Nauvoo to Salt Lake. It was generally through a wild region, but the face of the country was rolling and pleasant. About sundown one day, I rode up to a cabin and inquired the distance to the next house.
“Ten miles.”
“Will you keep me to-night?”
“I reckon so; the old woman is powerful sick; I have a heap of ailments in my cabin.”
“Are there any settlements up the creek?”
“Oh, yes; right smart sprinkling.”
There were fifteen men and women belonging to the house, and how we were all to be disposed of that night, was rather a puzzler to me, as there were only two rooms in the cabin; but there was really no difficulty on that score. The principal room answered four valuable purposes, although it was not more than twenty feet square—it was a kitchen, dining-room, sitting-room, and bed-room. True, there were only two bedsteads in it, but when bed time arrived, the floor was covered with blankets, which afforded ample sleeping accommodations. I was conducted into the “parlor bed-room,” which was entirely void of all “modern improvements.” It was made of round logs, without any weather-boarding, plastering, ceiling, or “chinking;” the stars could be seen through its sides and roof, while its floor was clay, covered about six inches deep with water. In one corner of the pen some stakes were driven into the mud, rails fastened to them, on which a straw bed was laid, with a blanket or two. That was my bed; no, not mine, but our bed; for soon a big fellow stretched himself on one side of me, and he was followed by another, who laid about six feet of flesh and bone across the foot of the bed. I was tired, and slept first-rate all night, and crawled out of the den in the morning much refreshed.
Mine host said he had been on the frontier all his life; did not own the land he occupied—was a squatter—and wanted to sell his “improvements,” to go farther west, where he could hunt bear and buffalo. He said he was a Baptist; and when I told him of my faith, he declared he did not want to go to heaven if all sinners are to go there.