It is but simple justice for me to add that, in all my extended travels in the Southwest, this is the only instance where I have had the slightest interruption in the discharge of my professional duties. I have uniformly had that kind, cordial, and hospitable reception for which the people are so justly famed. All my readers will understand that whisky was the sole cause of this exceptional case.
CHAPTER XI.
EXPERIENCES WITH OLD-TIME METHODIST CIRCUIT-RIDERS IN THE SOUTHWEST.
In my extended horseback travels in the Southwest, I made the acquaintance of a great many itinerant preachers, and spent a good deal of time with them in riding around their circuits. I found them, as a rule, a genial, laborious, and self-denying class of men. In general, they had hard work, rough fare, and, so far as this world is concerned, very small pay. But they understood all this when they entered upon this itinerant life. They did not toil for earthly reward. They labored for the salvation of men and the glory of God. Their richest present compensation was the peace and joy that ever pervade the souls of those who, in simplicity and godly sincerity, yield themselves to the toils and privations of this high and glorious calling. In this the richest pleasures and the sweetest joys attend those whose self-denials are the greatest and whose toils are the most severe.
Almost without exception, I found my ministerial brethren in the Brush men with perfect health. This I attributed very largely to their out-of-door life, their horseback-riding, and the fact that they communed far more with men and nature than with books. More than this, I found them cheerful men. They loved and enjoyed their labors. They enjoyed their long rides to preach to a dozen or more at an out-of-the-way appointment—enjoyed preaching, praying, singing, shouting—enjoyed laboring with "mourners in the altar" until late in the night, and they could scarcely speak for hoarseness—enjoyed seeing them "come through" (the vernacular for conversion), hearing them shout, and receiving them into the church—enjoyed class-meetings, quarterly-meetings, camp-meetings, love-feasts, and conference—enjoyed the familiar and affectionate greetings of parents and children, the cordial welcome, and the free and unrestrained social intercourse that awaited them in their pastoral visitations in the Brush—enjoyed with the relish that comes from real health and hunger the "good things" the sisters provided for them, especially fried chicken. I have heard it said a great many times that many of the dogs in the Brush knew a preacher as soon as he rode up to a house, and, anticipating the call that was sure to be made upon them, would start out unbidden and run down the chickens for the coming meal, and bring them to the house. I can not vouch for this remarkable canine sagacity of my own knowledge, but I can say that, when riding the circuit with these brethren, I have often seen the dogs start after the chickens upon a very slight intimation, and run them down for our supper as soon as we rode up, and received from the sister, all aglow with joy at our coming, the cordial invitation to "'light" (alight). I speak of all the enjoyments I have thus enumerated from personal knowledge, for I have been with many of these good brethren in all these scenes.
But other and strange scenes were almost constantly occurring in the prosecution of these labors. On one occasion I started out with a young preacher to visit several of his week-day appointments. His circuit was known in the conference as "Brush College." It was so called because young preachers, without wife or family, were invariably sent there. They were sent there if they had a great deal of zeal, and there was any doubt as to its permanency; for the trials and discouragements they would there meet would thoroughly test their sincerity and their perseverance. They were sent there if they were thought to be lacking in humility, or, in the language of the Brush, if they had the big-head; for roughing it there would be certain to relieve them of any inflated notions of self. They were sent there not unfrequently because, in their entire devotion to God and his service, they were more than willing to go anywhere and suffer anything if they might lead men to that Saviour whose love glowed in their souls a pure and ceaseless flame. Such was the devout character and spirit of the young circuit-rider whom I accompanied on his week-day visit to Rocky Creek.
It was an intensely hot day in July. As we neared the place of meeting, we passed two or three old women on foot, accompanied by a boy about a dozen years old, who was carrying a brand of fire and swinging it to keep it alive. As the weather was so uncomfortably warm, it was entirely beyond my ability to comprehend what use they could make of fire, and, turning to the preacher, I said,
"What can be their object in carrying that fire with them to the meeting this hot day?"
He smiled as he saw my puzzled look, and simply answered,
"You will soon see."