In the brush

by Hamilton W. Pierson

"I commenced my labors, and found his partner in a mill destitute; then one of his hands, having a family; then an old neighbor, who was a church-member. The squire gave it up, and said it was necessary to have colporteurs.

"In some of these destitute neighborhoods they told me that no person had ever visited them before with Bibles and Testaments. They occupied a very broken country; their houses were cabins scattered over the hills and up narrow valleys, with very small patches of ground fenced in around them, generally with no bars, and always with no gates. I traveled among them, following the rocky beds of the streams, and frequently led my horse up and down the steep hills, and pulled down fences, till at night I was so tired I could scarcely walk. I have had many discouragements, many taunts and sneers to bear from those who had not the love of God shed abroad in their hearts; but then I have had the smiles, the assistance, and the warm coöperation of Christians to hold up my feeble hands, and cheer up my desponding heart. I have found such families with six, eight, and ten Bibles in a single house; I have found many who have thrown open their doors and bid me welcome to the hospitality of their homes, who, by their kind words and their questions respecting my work, caused me to forget the sneers and taunts of others, and made me adore the Almighty for the success with which he crowned the labors of his servants employed in his vineyard. May the Lord inspire the minds of Christians with greater zeal for the dissemination of his Word!"

In another county Mr. Temple visited seven hundred and three families, of whom eighty-three were destitute of the Bible. His sales of Bibles and Testaments amounted to ninety dollars and forty cents, and his donations to the destitute to forty-three dollars and twenty-five cents. The exploration of the county revealed a much greater amount of poverty and destitution of the Word of God than he had expected to find. The following are some of the incidents connected with his labors:

"A poor widow with five children had no Bible, but she had a small Testament, which she got her children to read to her, as it was difficult for her to read such small print. She had long been anxious to get a Bible, and was delighted when I told her I had Bibles for sale, but she feared she had not money enough to get one. She was greatly pleased with the large Testament and Psalms, as she could read the print. She gathered together all the money she and her children had, and made up twenty-five cents, for which I gave her the Testament and Psalms. In another neighborhood I was told by a good many persons of a poor widow that had no Bible, who was very anxious to get one. Her Bible had been wet and ruined in moving from North Carolina, and she had been several years without one. She had been saving money from the sale of eggs and chickens to get enough to buy a Bible. When I reached the place, I found a poor cabin in an old field, and everything indicating great poverty. A chair was standing in the door, which was open, but there was no one at home. I wrote in a Bible, 'Presented by the Bible Society,' and left it in the chair, and rode on.

"I heard of one old man who had nine grown children, and had never had a Bible or Testament in his family. I was told that he was a skeptic and very profane, and that I had better not visit him, as he would treat me roughly. I found him plowing, and talked with him a long time about farming, and at length about our dependence upon God for crops, and finally told him I was selling Bibles. He invited me to dine with him, and I went to his house and sold him a family Bible, and also sold Bibles to a married son and daughter. The old man did not use a profane word during my visit, and I was never treated better by any man. He thanked me for my visit, and begged me to call on him whenever I passed that way.

"I visited a house and found no one at home. As the family was evidently very poor, and I had learned that they had no Bible, I wrote on one, 'Presented by the Bible Society,' and left it between the logs, near the door, where they would be sure to find it when they came home. I rode on about two miles, and called at another house. As soon as I showed my Bibles, one of the women said she was sorry she was not at home, as she had no Bible and had long been anxious to get one. She thought she had money enough to get a thirty-cent Bible, and if I would go back with her she would buy one if she could. I then told her I had left a Bible for her, and where she would find it, and she thanked me very warmly for the gift.

"I visited another family that had no Bible, and sold them one. As the children were looking at my books, I heard a little girl, about ten years old, say that she wished she had money enough to buy one of these Bibles; that her mother, when she talked with her before she died, had told her she must get a Bible as soon as she could, and read it, and be a good girl, and meet her in heaven. I inquired her history, and learned that she was an orphan. I then gave her a Bible, and she commenced reading it. Dinner was soon ready, but she could not be induced to stop reading long enough to eat, and when I left the house she was still reading her new Bible."

Father Eggen, a veteran Bible distributor, said: "One man told me he had a neighbor who was very poor, who had no Bible, and I gave him one to send to him. I afterward called on this family, not knowing it was the same. The house was without floor or loft, and was inclosed by nailing rough boards upon posts that were driven into the ground. It had a stick-and-mud chimney on the outside, and was without floor of any kind, the family living on the ground. The man followed making split-bottomed chairs, and was very poor indeed, but he insisted upon paying for the Bible that had been sent to him, and did so.

"In one neighborhood where there was a small supply of Bibles and Testaments at a store, the man who had them, a professing Christian, insisted that there was no necessity for employing a distributor to go around; said that, if people wanted Bibles, they could easily come to the store and get them. I, however, went through this neighborhood, and found in one day fifteen families without a Bible. Some of them were very large families, and had been destitute for many years."

It is now (August 1, 1881) more than twenty-three years since I resigned my commission as an agent of the American Bible Society. During the last week I have visited the Bible House, examined their well-preserved files of letters, and read the correspondence between Secretary McNeill and myself during the last months of my connection with the Society. Some extracts from these letters will appropriately close this brief review of "work accomplished in the Southwest."