As one by one they went down into the waters of baptism, it was the voice of Levicy Chafin Hatfield that led in that best-loved hymn tune of the mountains:
| On Jordan’s stormy banks I stand and cast a wistful eye Toward Canaan’s fair and happy land where my possessions lie. I’m bound for the Promised Land, I’m bound for the Promised Land. Oh! who will come and go with me, I’m bound for the Promised Land. |
The hills gave back the echo of their song.
It was a day of rejoicing.
As for Uncle Dyke Garrett he continued to journey up and down the broad valley and through the hills, preaching the Gospel of repentance, forgiveness, salvation. Above all he told of the baptism of Captain Anderson and his six boys.
From the very first Dyke Garrett was more than a preacher.
Along lonely creeks into quiet hollows he went to pray at the bedside of the dying, to comfort the bereft, to rejoice with the penitent. In the early days he was the only visitor beyond the family’s own blood kin, so remote were the homes of the settlers one from the other. Like a breath from the outside world were Uncle Dyke’s words of cheer, while to him they in the lonely cabins were indeed voices crying out in the wilderness. Nor did flood nor storm, his own discomfort and hardship deter him. Winter and summer, through storm and wind, he rode bearing the good tidings to the people of the West Virginia ruggeds.
And now here he sat this autumn day in 1937, alert and happy for all his ninety-six years. Bless you, he even talked of fighting!
“If anyone jumped on these United States without a good cause,” he declared vehemently, “I’d fight for my country—” Uncle Dyke didn’t quibble his words. “That is to say if Uncle Sam would take me. Me and my sword!” Again he faltered, adding reflectively, “But after all the Bible is the better weapon. With it I can conquer all things.”
Slowly he arose from his chair and Aunt Sallie and I did likewise.