In the brush : $b or, Old-time social, political, and religious life in the southwestPierson, Hamilton W. (Hamilton Wilcox)
History
In the brush : $b or, Old-time social, political, and religious life in the southwest
Pierson, Hamilton W. (Hamilton Wilcox)
Missions -- Southwest, Old; Southwest, Old -- Social life and customs
I do not propose to give anything like a full account or even a summary
of the work accomplished in my special mission by all these long rides
and years of earnest and cheerful labor in the Brush. That has not been
my object. It has been rather to describe the manner of performing
these labors, the incidents connected with them, and to portray the
character, manners, customs, and peculiarities of the people who
received me so cordially, and with whom I mingled so freely in their
rude homes. But I should fail to give a full and true idea of their
social and moral condition, especially as indicated by their want of
education, and their destitution of Bibles, if I did not give some of
the results of these labors. I have described the manner in which I
explored different counties, organized or reorganized Bible societies,
and secured the appointment of distributors to canvass them.
One of these men, Mr. Guier, a well-known citizen of the county,
visited five hundred and fifty-eight families, of whom one hundred
and sixty--more than one fourth--were destitute of the Bible. They
contained four hundred and thirty-five persons. In sixty-four of
them either the husband or wife, or both (according to their own
statements), were members of some Protestant church. Sixty-two Bibles
and ninety Testaments were sold, amounting to one hundred and fourteen
dollars and eighty-five cents; and thirty-three Bibles and six
Testaments were given away, amounting to ten dollars and forty cents.
Mr. Guier communicated to me the following facts in connection with his
labors:
"I visited a man at his house, and asked him if he had a Bible. He said
no. I told him he ought to have one. He said he was not able to buy. I
told him that I could sell so cheap that any man could buy. He said he
had not paid for his land yet, and he had no time to read. I then took
up my saddle-bags to go, and offered him a Bible as a gift. He said:
'Stop, sir; I will pay you for it. I would not have my neighbor to know
that you gave me a Bible.'
"I found a poor widow at work in her garden, who told me she had no
Bible, and no money to buy one with. She was a church-member, and very
anxious to have a Bible, but she was not willing to receive one as a
gift. She said she had a kind neighbor, who would always lend her
money when he had it; but her little son was some distance from home,
at a blacksmith-shop, and she could not send for the money. As she was
so anxious to get a Bible, I found her son, and went with him to see
the neighbor, who loaned her one dollar and twenty-five cents to get
the Bible she wanted. May God bless it to her!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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