"This is not the land of hypocrisy. It would not here have its reward. Religion is not the road to wordly respectability, nor a possession of it the cloak of immorality."—Personal Narrative, p. 128.
Of the sporadic nature of much of the religious effort on the frontier, Professor Buck says:
"In spite of the tremendous exertions of the pioneer preachers, many of the remote settlements must have been practically devoid of religious observances, and even in the older settlements the influence of occasional visitations, however inspiring they might be, was often lacking in permanence."—Illinois in 1818, p. 179.
Of the lack of permanence there may be some room for a difference of judgment; there certainly was lack of continuity. As in Kentucky and southern Indiana, and for a time in southern Illinois, there was no expectation of a regular weekly religious service conducted by any one minister, but preachers moved in extended circuits and no considerable settlement was long without occasional religious service.
There was much godlessness in many of the early settlements. John Messenger wrote in 1815: "The American inhabitants in the villages appear to have very little reverence for Christianity or serious things in any point of view."
While there was some attempt at Sabbath observance, Reynolds says:
"In early times in many settlements of Illinois, Sunday was observed by the Americans only as a day of rest from work. They generally were employed in hunting, fishing, getting up their stock, hunting bees, breaking young horses, shooting at marks, horse and foot racing, and the like. When the Americans were to make an important journey they generally started on Sunday and never on Friday; they often said; 'the better the day the better the deed,'"—Reynolds: My Own Times, p. 80.
One must not infer from the irregularity of religious services that the people in these new regions were wholly without religion. Professor Buck says:
"The spiritual welfare of the Illinois pioneers was not neglected. The religious observances, with the exception of those of the French Catholics, were of the familiar type. The principal Protestant denominations at the close of the territorial period were the Methodists and the Baptists, the latter classified as 'regular,' or 'hardshell,' and separating. Presbyterianism was just beginning to get a foothold. The ministers were of two types—the circuit rider, who covered wide stretches of country and devoted all his time to religious work, and the occasional preacher who supplemented his meager income from the church by farming or some other occupation."—Buck: Illinois in 1818, p. 173.
Governor Ford has left an account of the unlearned but zealous frontier preachers, of their sermons, and of the results of their work, which cannot easily be improved upon: