“American’s haven of eternal rest,
Found a little farther West.”
On the Sabbath after the completion of the Memphis and Charleston railroad, a large number of the sand-hillers came to Iuka Springs, to witness the passing of the cars. Arriving too early, they visited a church where divine service was progressing. Whilst the minister was in the midst of his sermon, the locomotive whistle sounded, when a stampede took place to the railroad. The exodus left the parson almost alone in his glory. The passing train caused the most extravagant expressions and gestures of wonder and astonishment by these rude observers. It was an era in their life.
Once while standing on the railroad-track, I observed a crowd of these people coming to see the “elephant.” They came so near, that I overheard their conversation. One young lass, of sweet sixteen, with slattern dress and dishevelled hair, looking up the road, which was visible for a great distance, thus expressed her astonishment at what she saw: “O, dad! what a long piece of iron!” Soon the whistle sounded; this they had never heard before, and came to the conclusion that it was a dinner-horn. As soon as the cars came in sight, they scattered like frightened sheep, some on one side of the road, and some on the other. Nor did they halt till they had placed fifty yards at least between them and the track.
Superstition prevails amongst them to a fearful extent. Almost every hut has a horse-shoe nailed above the door, or on the threshold, to keep out witches. In sickness, charms and incantations are used to drive away disease. Their physicians are chiefly what are termed faith-doctors, who are said to work miraculous cures. They are strong believers in luck. If a rabbit cross their path, they will turn round to change their luck. If, on setting out on a journey, an owl hoot on the left hand, they will return and set out anew. If the new moon is seen through brush, or on the left hand, it is a bad omen. They will have trouble during the lunar month. When the whippoorwill is first heard in the spring, they turn head over heels thrice, to prevent back-ache during the year. Dreams are harbingers of joy or wo. To dream of snakes, is ominous. To dream of seeing a coffin, or conversing with the dead, is a sign of approaching dissolution, and many have no doubt perished through terror, occasioned by such dreams. Fortune-tellers are rife amongst them—those sages whose comprehensive view knows the past, the present, and the future. They seek unto familiar spirits, that peep and mutter, for the living to the dead.
They have many deformed, and blind, and deaf among them, in consequence of the intermarriage of relatives. Cousins often marry, and occasionally they marry within the degrees of consanguinity prohibited by the law of God. Perhaps this divine law forbids the marriage of cousins when it declares, “Thou shalt not marry any that is near of kin.” The sad effects on posterity, both mentally and physically, lead to the conviction that if the law of God does not condemn it, physiological law does.
These sand-hillers do not (when no serious preventive occurs) fail to attend the elections, where the highest bidder obtains their vote. Sometimes their vote will command cash, and sometimes only whiskey. It is sad to witness the elective franchise, that highest and most glorious badge of a freeman, thus prostituted.
The proverb holds good—Like people, like priest. Their ministers are ignorant, ranting fanatics. They despise literature, and every Sabbath fulminate censures upon an educated ministry. The following is a specimen of their preaching. Mr. V—— is a Hard-shell Baptist, or, as they term themselves, “Primitive Baptists.” Entering the pulpit on a warm morning in July, he will take off his coat and vest, roll up his sleeves, and then begin:
My Brethering and Sistern—I air a ignorant man, follered the plough all my life, and never rubbed agin nary college. As I said afore, I’m ignorant, and I thank God for it. (Brother Jones responds, “Passon, yer ort to be very thankful, fur yer very ignorant.”) Well, I’m agin all high larnt fellers what preaches grammar and Greek fur a thousand dollars a year. They preaches fur the money, and they gits it, and that’s all they’ll git. They’ve got so high larnt they contradicts Scripter, what plainly tells us that the sun rises and sets. They seys it don’t, but that the yerth whirls round, like clay to the seal. What ud cum of the water in the wells ef it did. Wodent it all spill out, and leave ’em dry, and whar ed we be? I may say to them, as the sarpent said unto David, much learning hath made thee mad.
When I preaches, I never takes a tex till I goes inter the pulpit; then I preaches a plain sarment, what even women can understand. I never premedertates, but what is given to me in that same hour, that I sez. Now I’m a gwine ter open the Bible, and the first verse I sees, I’m a gwine to take it for a tex. (Suiting the action to the word, he opened the Bible, and commenced reading and spelling together.) Man is f-e-a-r-f-u-l-l-y—fearfully—and w-o-n-d-e-r-f-u-l-l-y—wonderfully—m-a-d-e—mad.—“Man is fearfully and wonderfully made.” (Pronounced mad.) Well, it’s a quar tex, but I said I’s a gwine to preach from it, and I’m a gwine to do it. In the fust place, I’ll divide my sarment into three heads. Fust and foremost, I show you that a man will git mad. 2d. That sometimes he’ll git fearfully mad; and thirdly and lastly, when thar’s lots of things to vex and pester him, he’ll git fearfully and wonderfully mad. And in the application I’ll show you that good men sometimes gits mad, for the Posle David hisself, who rote the tex, got mad, and called all men liars, and cussed his enemies, wishen’ ’em to go down quick into hell; and Noah, he got tite, and cussed his nigger boy Ham, just like some drunken masters now cusses their niggers. But Noah and David repented; and all on us what gits mad must repent, or the devil’ll git us.
Thus he ranted, to the great edification of his hearers, who regard him as a perfect Boanerges, to which title his stentorian voice would truly entitle him. This exordium will serve as a specimen of the “sarment,” as it continued in the same strain to the end of the peroration.