In the brush

by Hamilton W. Pierson

"Sisters, fare ye well,"

and shook hands with each one of them, he alone being perfectly calm amid their convulsive weeping and sobs. The benediction was then pronounced, and I withdrew as quietly as I had entered, and resumed my journey. Such labors in such a region illustrate a moral heroism that is both heroic and sublime.

REV. JAMES HAWTHORN, D.D.

I recall a very different experience with another type and class of these heroic workers for the Master.[1] Many years before, he mounted his horse and rode from his home in the Southwest, over the Alleghany Mountains, onward to Philadelphia, and thence to Princeton, New Jersey, where he sold his horse and spent three years in the Theological Seminary. He had then returned, and spent his ministerial life in preaching to feeble congregations that were able to pay but a small salary for his services. At the time I first met him he preached regularly on alternate Sabbaths to two congregations about twenty miles apart. In those months in which there was a "fifth Sabbath," he usually visited some yet smaller congregation, often at a greater distance, for the purpose of preaching to them, and perhaps administering the communion and baptizing their children. But this was only a small part of the labor he performed. The compensation he received for these services was entirely inadequate for the support of his family, and he was obliged to supplement his salary by other and more arduous labors. He spent five days each week in teaching a school in the basement of his church. And they were not such days' work as are usually given to teaching. Immemorial custom in that region had required of teachers nearly as many hours' daily labor in the school-room as were given to any other employment. Hence he usually began his labors in the school at or before eight in the morning, and did not close until five, or later, in the afternoon. His scholars were of all ages and grades of attainment, and they pursued a great variety of studies. Many of both sexes studied the higher English, classical, and mathematical branches, and completed their education at this school. This diversity in the ages of the scholars and the books they attempted to master added greatly to his labors; but from early Monday morning until late Friday afternoon he toiled faithfully in the school-room, term after term and year after year. With all this teaching, he had the other labors indispensably connected with such a school—the care of the school-room, consultations with parents, the collection of bills, and all the nameless calls and duties connected with its care and government. When to the long rides and other labors as a pastor, and the duties of a teacher, that I have enumerated, are added those of a housekeeper in providing for his family, there would seem to be little time left for the preparation of sermons. But these were thoroughly studied, and very often fully written, in hours that most others would have given to rest and sleep.

On a cold midwinter day I mounted my horse and rode with him some twenty miles to his regular appointment on Saturday afternoon. When we reached the log-school-house in the outskirts, of his congregation but a small number had come out through the cold, and at his request I preached to them. We then rode home with an old Presbyterian elder, the cold constantly increasing in severity. His heart was much warmer than his log-house. We slept in a room which he tried in vain to warm with a large wood-fire. But the water we were to use in the morning froze solid, though placed as near the fire as possible. After breakfast we mounted our horses and rode a few miles to church, though it was so cold that I nearly froze in going, and was obliged to stop on the way to warm myself. I preached to a congregation of about forty, and we reorganized the county Bible Society. Having kindly rendered me all the aid in his power, he mounted his horse after dinner, and rode home through the cold in order to be able to open his school promptly on Monday morning. At other seasons of the year, when the weather was such that the people could assemble for worship, he was accustomed to preach at the church in the morning, and at some school-house like that in which I had preached, in other and distant parts of the congregation, late in the afternoon. He would then mount his horse and ride over the roughest roads, often through mud, rain, and darkness, reaching home late at night, so that without fail he might promptly open his school the next morning. I inquired and learned of others the salary that was promised him for preaching in this manner to this congregation, twenty miles from his home, twice each month. I would state the amount, but I remember the story, told me by my genial friend, the late Rev. Dr. William L. Breckenridge, of an Irishman who desired to have a letter written home to Ireland from Kentucky, many years before, when provisions were most abundant and cheap.

After mentioning a good many things that he wished him to write to his friends in regard to America, he said:

"Tell them that I get all the meat I can eat three times a week."

"And what do you mean by that?" said his employer. "Don't you get all the bacon you can eat three times a day?"

"Yes, your riverence," was the prompt reply.

"Well, then, what do you mean by writing to your friends in Ireland that you get all the meat you can eat three times a week?"