CHAPTER VI.
A GLIMPSE OF KENTUCKY.
Cincinnati—The Queen city—Views in reference to missionary labour—The kind of missionaries wanted in the great Valley—Walnut Hills—Lane Seminary—Dr. Beecher—Woodward College—Dr. Aydelott—The old Kentucky man—Louisville—The Galt House—View of the interior of Kentucky—Plantations—A sore evil—Kentuckian traits of character—A thrilling incident.
Cincinnati, Friday Morning, June 23d, 1837.
We reached this city, not inappropriately called "The Queen of the West," yesterday morning, and bid adieu to the Elk and its taciturn captain. Upon the whole I have been greatly pleased with Cincinnati. The whole air and aspect of the town has reminded me more of Philadelphia than any city I have seen west of the mountains. Christ Church, in this city, is a noble building, and the interior furnishes a beautiful specimen of architectural taste and skill. St. Paul's Church is also a tasteful structure, although I was not able to obtain a view of the interior. The Roman Catholic cathedral and college make a fine appearance, but the interior of the cathedral greatly disappointed me. The audience room is small, narrow, and mean in appearance. I am happy to say that in passing through this western region I find but one impression among well-informed and intelligent men in relation to the growth and progress of popery here; and that is, that it is making little or no advances, except with the increase of foreign population.
In my visit to Cincinnati I derived much information in relation to the west, as well as much personal enjoyment from the conversation and society of our most excellent brother, the Rev. J. T. B., Rector of Christ Church. He occupies a most important position on the walls of Zion, and I could not but say to myself, the more I saw and conversed with him, "Oh that we had a thousand such clergymen at the west as he." He, as well as several other intelligent clergymen in this region, assured me that it needed only a band of well-trained, devoted, godly men, to plant the Episcopal Church every where through the whole length and breadth of this vast valley. The united testimony of all is, "Send us the right kind of men—or send us none. The idea that any one will answer for a missionary to the west is a most fatal error. We want here men of enlarged and liberal views, thoroughly educated, of great prudence, energy and efficiency—men who are willing to work, and willing to keep on working till they see the fruit of their labours—and above all, pious, devoted men—men full of the Holy Ghost, and burning with a love for immortal souls, who will speak directly to the hearts and consciences of people. Give us such ministers, and no limits need be set to the establishment of the Church. But if men of another stamp are to be sent, those whose dullness, and deadness, and inefficiency prevent their getting any place among the old established parishes at the east, the result will be that our prospects here for the Church wherever they plant themselves will be for ever ruined."
I have heard these sentiments again and again from the lips of some of our most devoted ministers at the west. The body of clergy that now come here are going to give character to the Church. They are engaged in the momentous business of laying foundations. We must look not only to the immediate, but future results of their labours. In almost all places, before any thing can be done a church has to be built. I had no conception till I entered this great valley of the difficulty of finding a place in which to assemble the people for public worship. Almost the first business to be done is to effect the erection of a church. The clergyman who can inspire such confidence in himself and awaken such a degree of interest, as to lead a western community to embark in such an enterprize, must have some tact and power. Another difficulty is to induce the people to attend church. Vast numbers here have fallen into the confirmed habit of spending their Sabbaths in another way. It is an effort for them to go to church. There must be some attractions in the minister to draw this class of persons out, and they are here a very large, and respectable, and influential class. A dull, sleepy, prosing minister is not the man for the west.
In the afternoon we rode out to Walnut Hills to visit Lane Seminary, and pay our respects to Dr. Beecher. He received us with that frank, blunt cordiality, which I have so often experienced in New England, and which makes its rough and cragged hills more attractive to me than all the luxuriant fields of the west. The pleasure of our visit was not a little enhanced by the presence of Miss Catharine E. Beecher, who is widely known to the literary world through the productions of her gifted pen. I am sorry that my limits will not allow me to detail to you some parts of a discussion that we had upon several interesting topics—especially in reference to the present state of the Presbyterian Church, and of the best mode of diffusing light among the Roman Catholics. I certainly left Dr. B—— more than ever impressed with a high conviction of the brilliancy of his intellect, and the depth of his piety.