In Nacogdoches there is a wonderful elm, a tree which stood in the
primeval forest perhaps before the foot of the white man ever trod its
paths. Its leafy branches toss in the wind, green and beautiful against
the blue sky. Its old trunk has turned into sap for its own growth the
sunshine of more years than any living man can remember.
As a springing sapling it may have greeted Hernando de Soto on his
westward march. It may have looked down on La Salle journeying through
the forest to his untimely death; and on Tonti of the Iron Hand, seeking
tidings of his murdered friend. Don Ramon, lying in its shade, may have
watched the slow building of the Mission of Our Lady of Nacogdoches; and
St. Denis, riding by, may have paused to cut switches from its
down-drooping branches. Nolan, Herrera, Magee, Long, many a soldier, and
many an Indian chief in his war-paint and feathers,—all these the old
tree has seen come and go.
A soldier of another sort stood in its shade one day in 1821, and looked
upon the small yet motley group of people gathered about him. There were
a dozen or more frontiersmen, bronzed and bearded, and armed to the
teeth; there were a few Mexican soldiers, a Mexican woman or two with
coarse mantillas on their heads, and several wide-eyed Mexican children.
The man facing this group held a small book in his hand. He was not
armed. His eyes shone with a soft light, and when he spoke his voice was
full and sweet.
This was the Rev. Henry Stephenson, a Methodist preacher who had come
into the wilderness, not to found a republic nor to set up a free and
independent state, but to preach the gospel and to make straight the
paths of the Lord.
That day, under the old elm, the first Protestant sermon was preached in
Texas. At its close a sweet old hymn, which many a man present had
learned at his mother’s knee, was begun by the preacher, and one by one,
and at first half ashamed, the bearded frontiersmen took up the strain
until it floated up and away beyond the clustering leaves of the old
tree, and soared into heaven.
Eyes long unused to tears were wet when the hymn was ended; and with
softened hearts the singers pressed about the man of God to bid him
good-bye. For he was on his way to carry the gospel to the utmost
western border of Texas.
Even the gentle Mexican women joined in the cheer which followed him as
he entered the lonely forest and passed on out of sight.
IV.
SAN FELIPE DE AUSTIN.
(1820-1835.)