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[Illustration: THE HAWK’S NEST, OR MARSHALL’S PILLAR.
FAYETTE COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. PAGE 167.]
FIVE YEARS IN THE ALLEGHANIES.
[Illustration]
Published by the
American Tract Society,
150 Nassau-Street, New York.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1863, by the American
Tract Society, in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the
Southern District of the State of New York.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
The Preparation 5
CHAPTER II.
The milestone--The elegant young man--The collier--The
rich lady 15
CHAPTER III.
The grog-shop--The rolling mills--The Universalist 27
CHAPTER IV.
The new “relagin”--The hard father and his little
daughter--The deserted homes--The stolen books 37
CHAPTER V.
Book preachers installed--“Caught with guile”--The
clenched fist--Review 49
CHAPTER VI.
Governor of West Virginia--Surprising desolations--The
lodging--The dinner--“Blazing the trees” 57
CHAPTER VII.
The hunter seeking books for a Sunday-school--The
first sermon--Clock pedlars 68
CHAPTER VIII.
The “Ironside” preacher and distiller--Wife and
granddaughter 75
CHAPTER IX.
A church dignitary--“Have you let Washington into
heaven?” 81
CHAPTER X.
The pistol--The surveyor’s son--A public-house--“You
have prayed plenty”--The pocket-Bible 89
CHAPTER XI.
The summit of Cheat mountain--The “fellow that
wanted to colport”--The sheriffs warrant--Wishing
to be a _tract_ agent 97
CHAPTER XII.
The wickedest man in the county--The bully--The
shooting match--A gang of desperadoes 111
CHAPTER XIII.
A night on guard--Old Randal Lucas 119
CHAPTER XIV.
“No church, no preacher, no Sunday-school, no day-school”--A
young lady’s success 128
CHAPTER XV.
“No such place as hell”--The busy lawyer--A Trinity--The
great work in L----, and in U---- 137
CHAPTER XVI.
A Pentecostal season--Service in a graveyard--A Seceder
church 151
CHAPTER XVII.
The Spirit’s blessing at C----, and near Marshall’s
Pillar, and at L---- B---- --Col. S----‘s household 163
CHAPTER XVIII.
Grieving the Spirit--Striking effects of the Anxious
Inquirer 176
CHAPTER XIX.
Work of grace at L---- --The German professor--The
wealthy young lady--“Don’t be offended”--A
distinguished civilian 188
THE CONCLUSION 201
FIVE YEARS
IN
THE ALLEGHANIES.
CHAPTER I.
“It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.” In all my
connection with the scenes here truthfully described, as in the
training and discipline of earlier years through which I was brought
into them, I have been _led in a way that I knew not_.
I was born on the border of Western Pennsylvania and Virginia, within
the wilds of the vast range of the Alleghanies, where the howl of
the wolf, the scream of the panther, and the Indian’s tomahawk were
my dread. In infancy my father died, and a few years later my pious
mother. But God raised up a foster-mother, and in her family an
intelligent Scotch female teacher, who made me her special charge
during my first year at school. Here, in connection with faithful
preaching from a tent in the woods on the Sabbath, and instruction in
the log-cabin day-schools, I received those rudiments of education, and
was indoctrinated in that sound system of faith and morals from which
“old Scotia’s grandeur springs.”
Conscious of my ruin by sin and need of the “new birth,” as set forth
in old standard works of Flavel and Boston which I read, for three
years from ten to thirteen, I was often deeply impressed as to the
state of my soul. I attended constantly on preaching and the monthly
examinations, committed to memory catechisms and scriptures, and
wrestled with God in prayer that I might be truly converted and become
a minister of the gospel; and sometimes I indulged a trembling hope in
Christ.
But among the snares and flatteries of ungodly companions, my alarm
and faint hopes of salvation gradually subsided. I was at length led
to show my _manhood_ by tobacco-chewing, card-playing, and even
profanity. Next I was enticed to read works on Universalism, and for
four years sought to stifle conscience by arguments to prove that all
will be saved. Yet a still small voice was whispering, “The soul that
sinneth it shall die;” and though jovial in company, when alone hell
would seem to flash up before me in all its horrors. Two great powers
were striving in my heart: one to lead me into deeper sin; the other
crying, “Turn ye, turn ye; for why will ye die?” At seventeen I went
with an ungodly young man into the then wilderness of Central Ohio,
where for half a year I heard no sermon, hunted on the Sabbath, threw
off restraints, and as it were dared the vengeance of God. Oh how
astonishing the mercy of God, to continue to strive with such a rebel!
When I arrived at eighteen, I spent two or three nights in a week at
the card-table, to “kill time” and drown the whispers of the Spirit.
I thought of enlisting in the army, and then resolved to go to sea:
but in the providence of God, a young woman just then engaged my
affections; thoughts of the army and the sea were dislodged, and in a
few months we were married, depending on our personal exertions for the
means of support.
We rented a piece of land, and entered upon the scenes and
responsibilities of real life. After six months, I was seized with
acute inflammatory rheumatism, and the verdict of the physician was,
that the disease was incurable, and I must die. Every feature was
distorted with agony; and yet the agony of soul at the thought of
being dragged into the presence of God with all my sins unpardoned was
unspeakably more terrible. I saw that I had shut my heart against the
calls of God’s word and Spirit a thousand times, and that I deserved
the deepest hell. I tried to pray, but there seemed to be no God
to hear, no Saviour to intercede, no Spirit to comfort my lost and
wretched soul.
As I was recovering, “The Afflicted Man’s Companion,” received from a
friend, was greatly blessed to me, and I resolved by God’s help to live
the life and die the death of the righteous. The struggle now began in
earnest. Such was my agony of soul, that I often went to the woods and
rolled on the ground for hours. Most of those around me, for miles in
every direction, were living in neglect of God; intemperance fearfully
prevailed; there was not one religious friend to whom I could reveal
the feelings of my heart. I tried to surrender myself to Christ, but
in vain. A voice seemed to follow me continually, “He that is ashamed
of me and of my words, of him will I be ashamed before my Father and
his holy angels.” I felt that a public acknowledgment of Christ and his
cause was the only way of relief; but I shrunk from the duty, wishing
to be a secret Christian, and go to the Saviour, like Nicodemus, by
night. This distress continued for some months.
At length I was enabled to ask a blessing at my table, which seemed
a hard task before my then irreligious wife; and after this it was a
struggle of six months before I could summon courage to commence family
prayer, even on a Sabbath evening. This duty was then performed, and
peace of mind followed. After a few months I made known the state of my
mind to the officers of a church some miles distant, and was admitted,
though with many sore misgivings and fears that I had no right to the
Lord’s supper, and was self-deceived.
God graciously removed these doubts, and I felt the claims of Christ to
do something for others. I first engaged in loaning such good books as
I could get, especially The Afflicted Man’s Companion, Doddridge’s Rise
and Progress, and Pike’s Persuasives to Early Piety; feeling assured
that no one could prayerfully read either of these books without being
converted.
When I was in my twenty-third year, a devoted Christian settled in a
very wicked community about five miles from me, where he started a
Sabbath-school. I went to see it, and was greatly pleased with it. At
the close, I was introduced to Mr. P----; and to his influence, under
God, more than to that of any other individual, is to be traced all
I have been enabled to do for the salvation of souls. He told me all
about the management of a Sabbath-school, and how to get books from
the American Sunday-school Union, which had just begun its heaven-born
work in our country. I immediately set to work, raised five dollars,
procured ten dollars’ worth of books, and opened a Sabbath-school
in my own house. The room soon became too small; but God put it into
the heart of an irreligious neighbor to offer a larger room, where
the school was continued for a year, and where I also held a weekly
meeting, usually reading one of Burder’s Village Sermons. More room
soon became necessary, and a large school-house was built; and there,
for twelve long years, the Sabbath-school and religious meetings were
kept up, until nearly all the youth and most of the adult population in
the neighborhood were brought into the church.
This Sabbath-school and that of Mr. P---- were the means God used to
build up a good congregation in one of the most wicked and hopeless
communities.
With these results before me, as soon as I heard of Colportage my heart
beat with joy at the thought that the poor would soon have the gospel
preached to them, and that thousands of children, untaught at home,
would be reached by soul-saving truth adapted to their opening minds.
But the question came into my mind at once, “Who will go into these
ignorant communities, and deny themselves the comforts of home, to do
this work?” little thinking that God, by fifteen years training, had
selected me for that very work in the Alleghanies.
An incident that occurred some years previous made a deep impression
on my mind. The ecclesiastical body with which I was connected had
requested the officers of vacant churches to visit all the families in
those churches, and talk and pray with them. I shrunk from the task;
but encouraged by Mr. P----, I entered on it with fear and trembling.
By the time the first visit was paid I felt as if I should like to
spend my days in such a work. Late in the evening of my first day I
stopped at a house where the man and his wife were members of our
church. A young man was present who was to be married in a few days. I
had some acquaintance with him, and asked him if he had ever felt any
concern about his soul. He said, “A little sometimes, but not much.” I
urged him to seek first the kingdom of God: and his righteousness, and
said to him, “For aught you know, before another morning you may be
dead, or on a sick-bed from which you may never rise.” At midnight that
night he woke up sick. In a day or two I was sent for. He told me the
moment he woke sick he thought of what I said, and felt that he should
never get well. He lingered three months; but more than a month before
he died he professed his faith in Christ. From that time till he died,
he daily urged his ungodly, intemperate parents to repent and meet him
in heaven. The father soon became much distressed about his soul; and
a year after, he died a most triumphant death, committing his children
to my care for religious instruction. Within a few years the mother
and most of the children were united with God’s people. All attributed
their salvation to the exhortations of that son and those of us who
attended him and his father. This encouraged me to try to do more.
On the morning of October 20, 1844, I rose in peace, with my happy
little family around me; but a holy Providence ordered that in twelve
hours my dear wife was to be in the cold embrace of death, and that her
death was to be the first of a chain of providences to lead me “out
into the highways and hedges.”
The next Sabbath morning our pulpit was occupied by Rev. Mr. W----, who
presented the moral and religious wants of our country, and tenderly
appealed for laborers. At the close of the service I was introduced
to him, and he accompanied me to the new-made grave of my beloved
companion. The band that had bound me to my home was loosed. On Monday
morning the preacher called on me again; preliminaries were arranged;
and I was commissioned as colporteur for Western Virginia, consenting
first to labor a short time among the colliers in Western Pennsylvania.