“The next morning she returned and requested my wife to read it to her, which she did. ‘Well,’ said she, ‘it is a nice thing to read; I do wish I could do it.’ She took the tract home, and returned the next day to have it read again; and during the reading, the tears ran down her cheeks. ‘Oh,’ said she to my wife, ‘do you think I could learn to read?’ ‘Yes,’ she said to her, ‘no doubt you can.’ So my wife got a New England primer we had, and went over the letters a few times with her. She took home both the primer and the tract. The next morning she returned again, and while the tract was reading, her face was lit up with joy, and peace came into her soul. In a few hours she was able to repeat the alphabet. ‘And now,’ said she, ‘if you will only learn me how to put two of them together, and give them a name, I can learn myself.’ This was soon done; and as soon as she went home, she taught her children all she had learned. In a few months she and her children could read all that was in the primer. We have now a good church here, and she and most of her children are members of it. She seldom sees a tract but with tears of joy she exclaims, ‘If it had not been for one of these little tracts, I and my children might have remained in ignorance and sin.’”
One of the great difficulties I had to encounter was the large number of families that could not read. These I found every day. When I would show my books and urge them to buy, the reply was, “Oh, none of us can’t read.” I soon saw the necessity of planning some means to remedy this evil, and began to establish little Sunday-schools in each neighborhood. I would hunt up the best reader I could find for a teacher, furnish them with a small library of books, give them the best direction I could how to conduct it, and set them to work. Although some of these schools were very superficially conducted, and in many cases there was nothing done in them but teaching young and old to read, still they had the effect of rousing the mind to the acquisition of knowledge, and preparing the way of the Lord. Many of these schools accomplished great things, and resulted in the establishing of little churches. Others seemed to fail, except so far as they woke in the minds of some a thirst for knowledge.
Some families I could not prevail on to take a book as a gift, for fear there was some trick about it. Clock pedlars had been through some portions of the country a while before, sold the cheap clocks at thirty dollars apiece, and took notes for the pay, which had been collected in many cases by distress-sales. They would tell me how they had been treated, and that they were afraid I should send some one for the pay. I often avoided this objection by lending the book, and writing on it, “Loaned till I call for it.”
Another great difficulty we had to encounter with these unlettered masses was their prejudice against education. Almost every day I had to meet this objection: “Oh, I don’t want my children learned to read; it will spoil them. I have got along very well without reading, and so can they.”
CHAPTER VIII.
I had now been about ten months in the colporteur work, and seeing the great necessity for scores of men to engage in it, I thought I could raise the salaries, and employ one or two others to carry it on. I soon raised $150 to pay a man for a year, and Providence directed me to a good man to do the work. I then succeeded in finding another good man, and raising his salary; and in one month, by the Divine blessing, I raised and paid over for the support of colportage $750, and these efforts were continued till the colporteur work was extended throughout the more destitute regions in all Western Virginia.
I had made an arrangement to visit R—— county, some forty miles distant, and spend a month in colporteur labor. On my way I had to cross a river by a ferry-boat. Two travellers crossed with me. When we mounted our horses on the opposite side of the river, one of them asked me if I was going on a long journey with such a heavy load on my horse over that mountain country. I told him I had my horse loaded with religious books, and some Bibles, and that I was engaged in supplying destitute regions with the word of life, and would soon lighten my load.
“Why,” said he, “are there any families to be found without the Bible?” Yes, I told him, there were many in all parts of our country. “Well,” said he, “I don’t believe there is a family in my county without a Bible.” Said I, “What part are you from?” “From Green county, Penn.” “How far,” said I, “from the town of C——?” “Five miles,” said he.
Four weeks ago, I replied, I was there, and made an address before one of the Presbyteries of the Cumberland church, in which I spoke of the destitutions of our country and our mode of supplying them, when the Rev. Mr. H—— followed me with a speech in which he said “he believed one third of the families in C——, in which we were then assembled, were without the Bible.” Another minister present doubted it. I told them I was there to visit the town, and would begin the next morning. A good man volunteered to go with me. We spent three days at the work, and found that out of one hundred and fifty-seven families, fifty-four had no Bible.
On my way to R——, late in the evening I began to inquire for some place where I could spend the night, as the indications seemed to be that a hard night’s lodging was before me. As I inquired at each little cabin, they told me that “Parson W——,” a few miles ahead, kept lodgers. As these mountain miles are slowly measured by a tired man and horse, I did not reach “Parson W——’s” till near nine o’clock at night. When I entered his little cabin, he and his wife and granddaughter were at a supper of corn-bread and buttermilk. I asked for lodging, which was granted, and was at once invited to supper. As soon as the parson was done eating, he went and put up my horse.