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
Having smoked to their satisfaction, and the hour of midnight being
passed, I was pointed to a bed in one corner of the room which I was to
occupy. I had not been in it long before some bedfellow got in to share
it with me. I soon discovered that it was my would-be father-in-law,
and that he slept with his boots on--I suppose to save the trouble of
drawing them off and on. How or where the rest of my congregation
slept, I do not know, for, on getting into bed, I had turned my face
to the log wall, and, being exceedingly wearied with the labors of the
day and the night, I was soon oblivious to all around me, and lost in
sleep. When I awoke in the morning, my friend, who had shared the bed
with me, and who had evidently awaked some time before, greeted me with
the friendly salutation:
"How dy, partner?" his boots, at the moment, greeting my vision as they
extended beyond our bed blankets or quilts.
After breakfast, I bade good-by to the kind friends whose rough but
generous hospitality I had thus enjoyed, with many thanks on their part
for my visit, with many regrets at my departure, and with repeated
requests that I would visit and preach for them again. But my farewell
here, as in thousands of other cases, was a final farewell. I was not
to meet them again, except, as is so often sung, in one of their wild,
favorite religious songs:
"When the general roll is called."
During this visit I learned that about a hundred persons had
been converted in this neighborhood since the visit of the
Bible-distributor. Among them were about thirty members of the family
to which I have so often alluded, in which this good work had its
commencement in the reading of that little Testament. There had
formerly been no regular preaching in the immediate neighborhood, but a
Cumberland Presbyterian minister had preached once a month in a private
house not far from them. It was the house to which I had been directed,
and the family who had so kindly entertained me and circulated the
appointment for my first sermon in the neighborhood. The preacher was
the faithful man of God who had preached and officiated in the marriage
at the "basket-meeting in the Brush" which I have already described. He
had changed the place of holding his meetings, and preached regularly
once a month in the new log-house in which I preached on the night of
my arrival. In addition to his regular services, he had held protracted
meetings, and his earnest and devoted labors had been greatly blessed
in carrying forward this remarkable work of grace. Methodist preachers
had also visited the neighborhood at different times, and held meetings
at which numbers had been hopefully converted. All who had made a
public profession of religion had united with these two denominations,
and there was the utmost peace and harmony among them. The dark spirit
of sectarianism seemed as yet to have found no place among them, and
all who beheld them were compelled to say, as should be said of all
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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