Fourteen months after, I visited this church again. The presence of God was still there, and many said they felt as if they were ready to begin again where they had left off fourteen months before. The strong prejudices against worshipping with other Christians were among the things that had been. During my brief stay many incidents were related to me. One young man told me it was “Advice to a Married Couple” that awakened him, as he was soon to be married. Three of the anxious got relief by reading the tract “What is it to Believe in Christ?” A man well acquainted in the community told me thirty family altars were reared on one Sabbath night. In one instance two families lived in one house, and both the men and their wives had joined the church. They felt that they must have family worship, but neither was willing to pray. One said he could do the singing, and the other said he would read the Bible. At last they united in asking a lame negro man that was pious, and he led in prayer. There is probably no region of our country, when all the difficulties are considered, where the Tract Society and colporteurs have done as much real good as in Western Virginia. Some of the most godly men we ever employed had visited every house again and again, and most of the books to be found in the houses were the Society’s publications. In some of the poorer districts they were even the only school-books. I have heard of schools in those mountains where one had Bunyan, another Baxter’s Call, or Saints’ Rest, and so on all through the school. We can say that in many places the work has made the wilderness and the solitary place rejoice and blossom as the rose. CHAPTER XVII. After one night’s rest at home, I left the next morning for C----, thirty miles distant, to meet my friend Rev. Mr. D----, who was with us at the commencement of the meetings at L----, and engage in another meeting. The Rev. Mr. P----, who was pastor at that place, was likewise a colporteur of the Tract Society, and had five little churches in as many different communities in the county. So he left us to hold a meeting in C----, while he was laboring in other portions of his field. I had on several occasions passed through this town, which, in a religious view, was one of the darkest I have ever visited. I saw the men, most of them young men, while Mr. P---- was preaching to a few, mostly women, standing all round the church with their heads in the windows, talking aloud, and even swearing profanely, till the preacher’s voice could scarcely be heard. As Mr. D---- was a stranger there, I informed him that we might expect open opposition. The meetings were to be conducted in the same way as those to which I have already alluded.