"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."