Mr. Clark was noted for refinement and simplicity. His personal appearance and dress were noticed for neatness. His habits, of which he scarcely appeared conscious, were those of the gentleman. Though he used tobacco, he never acquired the filthy practice, still very common in this country by rude and ill-mannered young men, of spitting about the fire place, stove, and furniture. If he had occasion to discharge the saliva, he invariably stepped to the door, though it might have been in a log cabin. He used the bath frequently by resorting to some retired spot in the creek or river. For many years, and until the close of life, he bathed his feet in cold water at all seasons of the year. We have known him walk a quarter of a mile, in extreme cold weather in the winter, to a spring or creek that he might lave his feet and wade in the cold water. Long practice made this habit a luxury.[56]
In all his personal intercourse, and manner of address, one could perceive not only good breeding, but a nice sense of propriety. His visits in families were no less effective in moral cultivation, than his public preaching, though that was impressive and interesting, and the instruction given highly scriptural and evangelical. He possessed a gift not very common, and probably little cultivated by ministers, in introducing the subject of personal religion, in a pleasant, conversational way.
A stranger, on witnessing his mode, would have seen nothing ministerial, dignified, or professional. There was no change in the tones of his voice, and effort made to introduce a subject not relished by the party. There was no affectation of concern for others, no cant, nothing in style or mode that differed from his conversation on ordinary topics. Young persons, unused to be addressed on such a subject, soon found themselves in the presence of a familiar friend. No man could make a more touching appeal to the mother of a young family, and while he awakened her maternal feelings to the moral and eternal welfare of her offspring, he scarcely failed impressing on her own conscience concern for her personal salvation.
It was a pleasure to him, and a gratification to the families he visited, to write out the family record in his peculiarly neat and correct chirography, in the household Bible. And when a new Bible was purchased, its possessors waited many weeks, and even months, until Father Clark, as every one familiarly called him, visited them and made the record. These Bibles are preserved to this day, and may be found among the descendants of the pioneer families, dispersed as they are over a wide extent of territory. The first immigrants to Iowa, and several families who went to Oregon, carried these copies as choice memorials of a much venerated man.
For the last fifteen years of his life there was so much uniformity in his labors, that were we to follow out this period in detail, it would be but a repetition of the same things from year to year. Such incidents as are necessary to spin out the thread of the narrative and finish the portraiture of this good man, will be crowded into the concluding chapter.
CHAPTER XIV.
His mode of Traveling.—Excursion in Missouri, 1820.—His monthly circuit in Missouri and Illinois.—A night Adventure.—A Horseback Excursion.—Origin of Carrollton Church.—Faith and Prayer.—Interview with Rev. J. Going.—A “Standard” Sermon.—An Affectionate Embrace.—Comforts of Old Age.—Last Illness and Death.
One of the peculiar physical characteristics of Father Clark, even to old age, was his habit of walking. The ordinary mode of traveling for ministers and all other persons who journeyed, both men and women, was on horseback. Carriage roads were infrequent, and buggies, the vehicle of modern times for traveling, were seldom seen on these frontiers. Females rode on horseback to Kentucky and Tennessee, to see their friends, on journies from four to eight hundred miles. But Father Clark had some singular scruples against using a beast of burden; and to one of his personal friends he intimated a religious vow while on the circuit in Georgia, that so long as man oppressed his fellow man, he did not feel free to use a horse. He was never accustomed to the management of a horse, as every frontier man has been from childhood, and he felt unhappy, if not in real fear, while riding one. Hence in nearly every tour he made, he walked.