In addressing such an audience the speaker was always gratified and rewarded by the closest attention. I have never seen such listeners as the people in the Brush. They gave a speaker not only their ears but their eyes, and their whole attention. They seemed unwilling to lose a word that he uttered; they yielded themselves to his power. Their faces moved and glowed responsive to his sentiments; and his own mind was animated and enkindled by this sympathy of his audience. I suppose the chief reason of this very marked attention was the fact that the most of these people read very little, and very many of them could not read at all. Hence they acquired the most of their information on all subjects, religious and secular, by being good listeners. Preachers and politicians, the pulpit and the stump, were their chief sources of education. The school and the press were comparatively powerless. Political, theological, and all other controverted questions were settled in the minds of the people by oral discussions. Henry Clay once presided over a theological discussion between the Rev. Alexander Campbell, the founder of the sect popularly known as "Campbellites," and the Rev. Dr. N.L. Rice, of the Presbyterian Church, which was continued through several days, and attended by a large concourse of people. This debate was but a type of hundreds, probably of thousands, that have been held in all parts of the Southwest. Let either a Calvinist or an Arminian challenge the other to discuss the question of the "Perseverance of the Saints," or "Falling from Grace," and, however remote and wild the region, the people for miles around would abandon work and business, and attend for days upon the discussion. Such debates on the question of Baptism have drawn crowds together in this manner times without number. Any petty lawsuit would bring together the most of the people in the neighborhood, to hear the speeches of the opposing pettifoggers or lawyers. County and circuit-court days were the great days of the year, when the people left their homes en masse, and went up to the county-seat in neighborhood cavalcades, and hour after hour, and day after day, listened to the speeches of the opposing counsel. In cases of unusual interest and excitement, such as a murder trial, I have known a very general turnout of the wives and daughters, and have seen them sit for hours together and listen to such speeches. As already described in a previous chapter, political discussions on all questions, State and national, were still more universal and popular, and stump-speeches delivered to these crowds did more to decide the minds of the people in regard to the questions discussed than newspapers and all other causes combined.