Five Years in the Alleghanies

by Jonathan Cross

Often through the day when he would come in sight of a cabin, he would alight from his horse and kneel in the woods and plead with God for success in his visit.

He next visited the counties of M—— and R——, two large counties, with remarkable success. By this time he became a fine-looking young man, and by his constant application to reading the books as he rode along, he had become an intelligent, spiritual Christian.

We then sent him to the large county of P——, where there was in portions of it a high degree of intelligence and refinement.

In a few months he was licensed to preach the gospel. He married a lady of high moral worth, and settled in the county of H—— over four weak churches. In two and a half years he received over two hundred persons into the church on profession of their faith; then took typhoid fever, with which he soon died in the triumphs of a living faith.

Since his death I have met with five young men, who are now ministers of the gospel, who had been led to Christ by his labors, all of whom speak of him as an extraordinary man in point of piety and usefulness.

Here was a boy that in all probability would have lived and died in ignorance and sin if he had not been found by a colporteur. He has often put his hand on my shoulder, and said with tears in his eyes, “Brother C——, if it had not been for the Tract Society, I should have been a poor grubber to-day, on the way to death and ruin.”

The great secret of his success was his untiring zeal and industry. He read and studied on his saddle; the shades of the forest were his closet in the summer, and the cleft of some mountain rock in the winter. His congregations were mostly ignorant families, and his rostrum a three-legged stool in the corner. All his talents were put to use in the Lord’s work, and no doubt he has his reward. Reader, go thou and do likewise, and receive a like gracious reward.

On a Saturday evening while on my way to meet a Sabbath appointment, while descending a mountain, I met a man on his way home from mill, and offered him some tracts. “Oh,” said he, “they are of no use to me, for I can’t read, and I have no one about me that can.” I asked him if he had a family. “Yes, I have a wife and seven children.” “It is a great sin,” said I, “for you to raise a family in such ignorance.” “Oh,” said he, “there is so much harm in books, they are better without them.” I handed him two or three tracts, and told him to get some one to read them to him. One of them was, Fifty Reasons for Attending Public Worship. He took them, and when he got home showed them to his wife. “Oh,” said she, “we will be ruined now. I’ll bet that is a warrant that Middleton has got the sheriff to serve on you, and we will lose our land.” They spent a sleepless night, and early next morning they went to the nearest neighbor and told him they had got into sad trouble about their land; that Middleton had served a warrant on them, and here it was.

The tracts were presented to a man who was a class-leader in the Methodist church, and was my informer near a year after this occurrence. He took the first one, “Fifty Reasons for Attending Public Worship.” “Well,” said he, “this is a warrant, but not sent by Middleton, but from the court of heaven. God has sent you this, as you never go to church; and now you see how you have exposed your ignorance by not being able to read, not knowing the difference between a sheriff’s writ and a religious tract; and I do hope you will now attend church, and have your children taught to read.” “Now,” said my informer, “this man and his wife are both members of the church, and they are sending their children to school as the result of the influence of those tracts.”

On one occasion I left home by a stage-coach before daylight on a long journey. We stopped after ten miles to take other passengers. As usual, the way-bill was taken into the stage-office to enter their names. A man was in the office who had travelled near one hundred miles to see me at L——. Seeing my name on the way-bill, he asked if that was the man that was the tract agent. About that time I stepped in to warm myself and distribute tracts, when some one acquainted with me told him I was the agent. He then told me how far he had come to see me, and how near he was to miss me, all the time interlarding his conversation with oaths, to the great amazement of all present who knew the nature of my work. When he was through, I told him I would tell him the nature of the work in a few words: that he must get a good horse and a large pair of saddle-bags, fill them with books, and ride over these rugged mountains, and live on hard fare. With an awful oath he said he could stand all that with any fellow about the diggins. In addition to that, said I, you must read the Bible, and pray at every house. I never saw a man so utterly confounded, while those present were convulsed with laughter. I gave him a few tracts, and talked to him till he wept like a child. Although I never heard of the man again, I have hope that the conversation was not in vain.