Wherever he stopped at night, after family prayers, which he asked the privilege of conducting if not asked; he sat until very late before the open light-wood fire and [pg 251] prepared the outline for his next day’s sermon. Frequently he was forced to camp in the forest; then he built a great fire and by its light worked long and zealously upon another sermon. He knew the solitudes; and having lived the life of those to whom he preached, he knew his hearers and from homely incidents in their lives or from the parables illustrated his sermons, talking to half a dozen primitive settlers with the same conscientious fervor as when his audience was of considerable proportions because of some social or political gathering in the neighborhood.
After the first few months he was treated with respect by all the residents of his district. Occasionally visitors were not so respectful. Once at a distant county seat, he put up for the night at a tavern where several lawyers, attending court, were quartered. Seeing him reading his Bible before the fire, and rather to test his mettle than in an irreverent spirit, they began discussing the subject of religion; but he seemed not to hear. When the time came to retire the landlord, as was the custom of the country, invited him to lead the evening’s devotions. He read a chapter, then all knelt in prayer. In his deep, kindly voice he prayed: “* * * O Lord! Thou hast heard the conversation tonight, pardon its folly * * *” and the lawyers, impressed by his earnestness and repentant of their folly, asked his pardon also.
It was at no small cost of danger and privation that he preached the gospel to these distant settlements. He never carried a rifle and had never felt that his life was in danger. Several times when he sat alone at night by his wilderness camp fire he would hear a stealthy tread behind him, but knew better than to turn or even move in a startled way. Sometimes he would hear the steps [pg 252] approach very near and after several minutes silently steal away again. He knew his girdle had again protected him.
Once or twice several Indians came out of the night and sat beside his camp fire talking with him in the Mingo tongue; and once several of his Mingo friends spent the night at his camp fire. They were in the country for the purpose of attacking some isolated settlement; and when he asked them to leave the “Long Knives” of his district alone, they reluctantly consented.
When it was rumored Indians were about, the settlers offered to act as guard to his next appointment; but he assured them he was in no danger when unarmed and unaccompanied. This they came to believe.
Slowly his reputation as an exemplary citizen and a preacher of power and conviction was made, and his influence as an earnest advocate and defender of the new Union made his district the strongest Federalist section of Kentucky. Yet more slowly there spread about a belief that he was gifted with the miraculous power of curing by laying his hands upon the head of the sick. It was told that several times after he did this and kneeling prayed beside his bed, the raving of delirium ceased and after a long sleep the patient speedily recovered.
As head of the Presbytery Father Rice began to get letters and to be importuned: “Send us Reverend Calvin Campbell; our district is much more populous than the one to which he has been assigned and needs just such a preacher. * * *” Special messengers were sent to him from the Can Run and Forks of Dick’s River churches requesting that he help in their protracted meetings. These invitations were declined, because his large district which was growing rapidly provided more labor than he could perform.
[pg 253] Thus it came about that Dorothy saw less and less of her husband. She too was busy, else she might have rebelled at the loneliness or by importunities have hindered her husband’s work. Mrs. Campbell had grown feeble; there were baby clothes to make; and many people visited them, coming to Kentucky or returning to Virginia; these must be cooked for and entertained. Every hunter or trader of the district thought it a duty to call at the preacher’s house and stopped overnight or remained for a meal. They left a ham of venison or a brace of turkeys or a deer skin for Mrs. Campbell; and always wanted to know how soon their preacher was coming to their station. At the end of the first year Dorothy, because of these inquiries and John’s mail, realized that her husband, locally at least, was becoming a famous man and paying the price of greatness.
Father Rice in the spring of 1791 rode up to the house one afternoon and said to Dorothy: “I have come to help Calvin out for a couple of weeks; but he must pay me back by attending the Presbytery and filling my appointments at Danville, Lexington and Little Mountain.”
John came home that night; the next day they preached to a big gathering at Powell’s River Meeting House. After the meeting, which beginning in the afternoon lasted until eleven o’clock, he rode home alone, leaving Father Rice to follow in the morning. It was nearly two o’clock when the long ride was ended; but it gave him a few hours more with his wife.