April 1, 1845, I commenced my labors in the town of F----, in Western
Virginia. As soon as the object of my visit to that region was known, I
received a cordial welcome from a large majority of the people, who did
all they could to aid me in my work. Mr. P----, a young lawyer at that
time, and since governor of Western Virginia, volunteered to go with me
to every house in the town. His high position and universal popularity
made the work pleasant and successful. In three days my buggy load of
books were circulated in the village.
I immediately replenished my stock, and commenced my work in the
country among the mountains. It was like a translation from sunlight
into darkness--from a high civilization into one of ignorance and
superstition, with here and there a family of wealth and refinement.
The very broken, rugged state of the country, with a sparse population,
rendered it impossible for the people to support either schools or
churches. Consequently in many isolated communities whole families
grew up without any one knowing the alphabet, and very few places had
preaching more than once in a month, and that on a week-day in some
log cabin to a few women. I have visited as many as ten families in
succession, in one case fourteen, without finding a Bible. It will
hardly be thought strange that youth of both sexes were often found who
could not tell who is the Saviour of sinners, and that when they were
told of Christ dying for sinners, they would look incredulous and say,
we live so much out of the way that we never hear any news. They often
lived in small cabins, without any furniture but such as they made with
an axe and an auger. All they raised to eat was corn and potatoes, with
a few hogs; most of their meat being that of the various wild animals
which abounded in the mountains. They were mostly kind and hospitable,
and seemed to be sorry that they could not accommodate me better. I
shall endeavor faithfully to describe one journey, which will represent
many more.
About the time I went into that region, a new missionary circuit had
been laid out by the Methodist Protestant church through a broken
mountain country, where the gospel had never been preached; and the
Rev. Mr. C---- was appointed to go round it once in each month, which
required a ride of more than one hundred miles, most of the way by mere
bridle paths.
He had been once or twice round the circuit before I became acquainted
with him. As soon as he learned my business he invited me to go with
him. He told me the people were without books of any kind, that very
few could read, and that many of them were not half civilized; that at
one house, where he spent the night, they cut off the skirts of his
saddle to sole their moccasins, and at another the woman cut off the
tail of his overcoat to make a pair of pants for a little boy. I agreed
to go, and at the set time we filled each of our saddle-bags with
little books and tracts, and our pockets with lunch.
The first appointment was some twenty miles distant, and we had to
start the evening before. We stopped over night with a wealthy
Christian family, and fared sumptuously.
The next day we rode twelve miles to the place where he was to preach.
They had a church built of round logs. It had no floor but the ground,
and was neither chinked nor daubed, consequently it was only used in
warm weather. The house was full at the appointed hour. More than half
of the congregation were barefooted, and but few had on them more than
two garments. Most of the men came in with their guns in their hands,
and a good supply of small game they had killed by the way. The guns
were all set up in the corner of the church, and the game laid beside
them.
At the request of Mr. C---- I conducted the service. The constant
responses and loud amens indicated the deep interest they seemed to
feel. At the close of the service I requested them to keep their seats,
and told them I would go round and give each a tract or little book.
More than half the families represented were destitute of the Bible.
The tracts and books were received with very great joy, though few
could read a word in them.
At the close we had to ride some miles to a stopping place for the
night. We found the cabin small and destitute of any seats except
stools. The beds were poles put through the corners, covered with the
skins of deers and bears. Many of the spaces between the logs were wide
enough for the dogs and cats to pass out and in at pleasure. The food
was bread made of corn ground in a hand mill, or pounded in a hominy
block. The meat was coon or opossum, and the coffee made of chestnuts.
The night was spent in self-defence against unseen foes, and in dread
of snakes. After partaking of a breakfast similar to the dinner and
supper just described, and praying with the family, we left them.
Our appointment for that day was about twelve miles distant, with a
constant succession of mountains to cross. We stopped at all the cabins
by the way, which were about like that just referred to, with one
exception; and as the house and family were different from any that I
have ever seen, I shall try to describe them.
The cabin was about eighteen feet square; had been the birthplace of
a large family; had neither floor--except the earth--upper story,
chimney, chair, table, or bed, except a pile of straw in one corner,
and an old spinning wheel and loom. The family we saw consisted of the
father, mother, and five daughters, no one of which, we supposed, would
weigh less than one hundred and fifty pounds. Each of the females had
on a single garment made of coarse linen, held on by a drawing-string
round the neck, all fleshy and hearty, while we could not see any thing
for them to live upon.
No one of them knew a letter in the alphabet, or who was the Saviour of
sinners. They were children of nature isolated from the world, equally
ignorant of both its vices and its virtues. We spent more than an hour
trying to teach them the alphabet of Christianity, and then commended
them to God. They seemed amazed at what we said; God only knows the
results.
We reached the place where our evening meeting was to be held after
one o’clock, exhausted with hunger and heat. The cabin was but little
better than the one just described; it contained some kind of table
and a few stools, but had neither door nor floor, and cattle and hogs
ran into it to avoid the flies when they chose.
Mr. C----, whose patience was nearly exhausted, told the woman that we
were almost starved, and to hurry and get us something to eat, and to
make it as _clean_ and as good as she could. The children were sent to
borrow tools; a fire was soon blazing under an arbor made of bushes
near the house; a pail of meal set beside it, waiting for the _skillet_
to heat, out of which the hens helped themselves every time she turned
her back to them. The children soon returned with a little coffee-pot
minus the handle, and with a knife and a fork one prong lacking.
We were soon invited in to our dinner from under the shade of a tree
where we had observed the whole process. The table was a block of wood,
with four legs to hold it up, and a stool at each side for us to sit
on. Some pet pigs were under it waiting for the crumbs: they tramped
on our toes, which led us to kick them; but our kind hostess soon made
the children catch them and confine them behind my back in a big gumm,
a tub sawn off a hollow log, which treatment, from their noise, they
seemed to dislike very much.
Soon after our meal was finished the people began to gather in to hear
the gospel. The cabin was more than full, with the same appearance of
the congregation as last described. We supplied all with books and
tracts--in most cases with the first book they ever had. The night was
spent much like the previous one, food and lodging about the same.
The next morning we rode nine miles to meet another appointment at
eleven o’clock. By the time we reached the place I was so sick that
I had to lie down, while brother C---- preached to the people from
Jeremiah 6:16. At the close we supplied all with little books and
tracts, and received many thanks. The dinner was set under a shed
outside of the house, but the sight of it sent me out to the shade of a
tree so sick that I could not stand on my feet.
I then told brother C---- that I should be compelled to make my
escape to some place where I could get something to eat and take some
rest; and asked him to take all the books and give them away at each
appointment to the best advantage he could.
At two o’clock I was on my horse, which, happily for me, had been along
the road before, and was suffering from hunger as much as his rider. In
six hours he was standing at the steps of Mr. S----’s house, two miles
from the town of F----, from which we started three days before. I was
well acquainted with Mr. S---- and his family, having been frequently
there; but fever had dethroned my reason, which did not return till I
was taken in and my head bathed with cold water, and I had drank a cup
of coffee.
It was three days before I was sufficiently recovered to resume my
work. We had visited twenty-seven families, talked and prayed with them
all, given them books and tracts, and held three meetings. One half of
the people were without any part of a Bible. As for other books they
had none, and not one in ten could read a word.
I have detailed this one journey of three days not only to show the
condition of this portion of our country, but as little more than a
fair representation of destitute parts of many states in the Union.
If each colporteur of the Tract Society who has visited these dark,
broken, isolated regions of our country for the last eighteen years,
had kept a journal of all the ignorance and wretchedness he met, it
would have been the most interesting missionary journal the world ever
saw. Their reports would differ as widely as the reports of those whom
Joshua sent out to visit the promised land. While some would bring in
the rich clusters of Eshcol, others, with equal truthfulness, could say
that the land was inhabited by giants, whose walls were ignorance and
superstition.
I was often reminded in my journeys of the early pioneers of our
country who went through the forests, tomahawk in hand, blazing the
trees as a signal of their intended occupancy of the land at some
future time. These visits were the Christian pioneer’s way-marks, not
blazed on the trees with axe or tomahawk, but blazed on the hearts
of men in a state of nature by kind Christian words, and sealed with
earnest prayer; while the books and tracts, including many Bibles and
Testaments, were deeds of trust to those that faithfully used them;
and many by them have secured a title to eternal life.
The books were like Jacob’s well--the digger was gone--but they have
quenched the thirst of many a weary traveller on life’s journey, and
their smoked pages are still crying, “Ho, every one that thirsteth,”
come and partake of the waters of life “without money and without
price.” A poor woman who had a small tract given her, on her death-bed
had it brought to her, when she kissed it, and said, “This led me to my
dear Saviour.”