In the brush

by Hamilton W. Pierson

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.