While on this tour I visited the town of L----, near the centre of
Western Virginia, and made arrangements to remove there in a few weeks.
There are few towns of the size which I have ever visited where I have
met with a more noble people. There was wealth, intelligence, and
the highest degree of refinement. This town became the centre of my
operations for three years.
The distance we had to go in moving there was about one hundred and
fifty miles, up and down mountains most of the way, with scarce any
thing like a road in many places: a family of five, two of them
children, in a one-horse carriage, with the necessary equipage for such
a journey.
On the afternoon of the third day we began to ascend the Cheat
mountain, which required nine miles travelling to reach its summit,
and eight miles down the other side to its base, with only one house
all the way, and that on the top of the mountain, called at that time
“the mountain house of entertainment.” It was a large rude log-house,
without comfort. By the time we reached the top of it I found my horse
very much fatigued, and the sun about setting. We concluded we could
not descend the mountain that night with safety, as there was no moon,
and the whole way was through a dense pine forest.
When we came to this house on the very top of the mountain, we found a
number of covered wagons that belonged to families moving westward, and
a crowd of people of all colors about the house. I asked for lodging.
“Yes,” said the landlord, “lodging plenty!” My family went into the
house, and I went to see my horse taken care of. On my return I found
them without any place to sit down. After looking through the house,
and finding but two or three apartments, and such a crowd of people, I
asked the landlord how he would lodge us all. “Oh,” said he, “you can
lie down a few at a time, and soon as you get asleep I can stand you up
against the wall.”
Though it was in September, and very warm in the valleys, yet it
was cold on the top of this mountain, and we were all shivering. I
asked the landlord, who by this time was playing the violin for our
entertainment, to make us a little fire. But there was neither wood nor
supper. The females were stowed away in one room for the night, and the
rest lay on the floor or sat by turns till the morning came.
As we had no toilet to make in the morning, we were on the way down the
mountain at an early hour. The first house we reached was a log-house,
where they kept entertainment. All was neat and clean. We called for
breakfast; and while it was preparing, we had our morning devotions,
which had been noticed by the landlady. When we came to our excellent
breakfast, she asked me to christen her children, of which she had
quite a number. I told her I was not a preacher, and had no authority
to administer ordinances. She insisted most earnestly that I must do
it; that no one had ever prayed there before, and she did not see any
reason why any praying man could not christen children; that they
had been living there for years, and never heard a sermon or seen a
preacher as they knew of; and if I would only do it, they would not
charge me one cent for breakfast. After preaching them the best sermon
I could, and giving a good supply of little books, we went on our way.
In two more days we reached L----, our place of destination, in safety,
and in a few hours had a house rented and were living in it.
For three years I travelled almost constantly; sometimes in a buggy,
but mostly on horseback, making from six to eight thousand miles each
year, distributing tracts and books in cabins and mansions, collecting
money, and employing men, till I had the cooperation of _over fifty
colporteurs_. The many interesting facts and incidents which occurred
during these years would fill a large volume. A very few of them I
shall attempt to relate.
* * * * *
A Mr. W----, whom we had employed for some years, a man of much more
than ordinary piety and qualifications for the work, while visiting in
the mountains, came to a poor cabin occupied by a man, his wife, and an
only son. They were very poor. The father made his living by grubbing,
and took the boy with him to pick the brush, he being at this time
about sixteen years old. They carried home their wages on their backs,
mostly in some kind of food. The mother made what she earned by her
spinning-wheel; and while at that, had taught her son to read the
Testament, though she was not religious. Mr. W----, after talking and
praying with them, gave this boy a copy of Baxter’s Call, which was the
means of his conversion. Before he could join the church, the neighbors
aided in getting him a suit of clothes.
He immediately set about to improve himself in every possible way.
There was no school near; and if there had been, he had no means to go.
His first efforts in learning to write were, by copying the letters
out of a book with his finger in the snow. He borrowed and read all
the books he could get, and attended a little church where there was
preaching once each month.
About two years afterwards I received a letter by some private way from
this same boy, D. W. S----. On opening it, I made out its contents with
some difficulty. It was an application to become a colporteur. In the
letter he referred me to the Rev. Mr. R----, who lived in town. I went
to him, showed him the letter, and asked him if he knew the writer. He
laughed: “Yes, very well; I received him into the church. D---- is a
good boy, but he is without education, and knows nothing of the world;
he has never been ten miles from home in his life.”
I wrote the young man a kind letter, saying I hoped he would make a
colporteur some day, and advised him to go to school a while.
The next thing I heard from him was a rap at my door. When I opened the
door, an awkward-looking youth near six feet high stood before me, with
the same suit of clothes on him he had got over two years before. The
pants were several inches too short, and the coat-sleeves as deficient;
indeed, the coat was little more than a big patch on his back. Said he,
“I am the _fellow_ that wrote you a letter about wanting to _colport_,
and I have come to see about it.” I invited him into the house. He was
all in a tremor of excitement. When I opened the parlor door he looked
in with amazement, and in walking to a seat avoided stepping on the
white spots in the carpet, which was the first one he ever saw. He was
so embarrassed he could scarcely speak.
After talking a little while about crops, etc., he became composed.
He then told me his desires to do good, and all about his conversion,
which was entirely satisfactory. As it was late in the evening, I
invited him to stay for the night; and by the time we got his poor
old pony of a horse, not worth five dollars, put away, tea was ready.
When he sat down he looked confused. I had much conversation with him
that evening. At length I invited him up stairs to bed. On the way up
he held by the railing to avoid treading on the narrow carpet in the
centre.
In the morning he was up whistling psalm tunes bright and early. As
soon as I was dressed I called him and told him I had reflected over
the matter very carefully, and had come to the conclusion that his
want of education and knowledge of the world would not justify me in
employing him.
I saw his countenance change in a moment and the tears start in his
eyes. “Oh,” said he, “_I do want you to give me work, for I do feel
that all I want to live for is to work for Christ._”
I cannot describe my feelings as he uttered these words. Here was a
depth of devotion beyond any thing I had met. After some minutes’
silence I said to him, “There is a region of country on the head-waters
of the Elk river where there never has been any preaching; if you will
go there a month without any commission, I will see you are paid.”
His countenance was changed in a moment, and lit up with joy. In less
than two hours I had a pair of colporteur’s saddle-bags filled with
books and tracts, and he was on his journey to that destitute region,
some forty miles distant. Soon after, some stock raisers who had been
in that region buying cattle, told me they heard that the Tract Society
had a great man out there; that the people were wonderfully pleased
with him; that he was giving them books, and teaching them to read them.
At the end of the month he returned, all his stock had passed into the
hands of the people, and he gave me a glowing account of the people’s
wants and his success. He said it would take another month to get over
that region, and he wanted to go back. After aiding him to dispense
with his boy clothes, I started him with another load of books,
cautioning him to avoid showing off his new suit as much as possible.
Another month’s work was done with great success, when he returned
almost a new boy in his whole appearance. He had gained confidence by
being constantly among people that did not know as much as he did.
I then had him commissioned for P---- county, a very mountainous
region, and very destitute of the means of moral improvement. In a few
months he had visited every family in the county. In many families the
bare mention of his name will start tears in the eyes of the people,
and the tracts that he distributed have been sewed together and covered
with deerskin as remembrances of the man that left them.
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.