Wherever he stopped at night, after family prayers, which he asked the privilege of conducting if not asked; he sat until very late before the open light-wood fire and prepared the outline for his next day’s sermon. Frequently he was forced to camp in the forest; then he built a great fire and by its light worked long and zealously upon another sermon. He knew the solitudes; and having lived the life of those to whom he preached, he knew his hearers and from homely incidents in their lives or from the parables illustrated his sermons, talking to half a dozen primitive settlers with the same conscientious fervor as when his audience was of considerable proportions because of some social or political gathering in the neighborhood. After the first few months he was treated with respect by all the residents of his district. Occasionally visitors were not so respectful. Once at a distant county seat, he put up for the night at a tavern where several lawyers, attending court, were quartered. Seeing him reading his Bible before the fire, and rather to test his mettle than in an irreverent spirit, they began discussing the subject of religion; but he seemed not to hear. When the time came to retire the landlord, as was the custom of the country, invited him to lead the evening’s devotions. He read a chapter, then all knelt in prayer. In his deep, kindly voice he prayed: “* * * O Lord! Thou hast heard the conversation tonight, pardon its folly * * *” and the lawyers, impressed by his earnestness and repentant of their folly, asked his pardon also. It was at no small cost of danger and privation that he preached the gospel to these distant settlements. He never carried a rifle and had never felt that his life was in danger. Several times when he sat alone at night by his wilderness camp fire he would hear a stealthy tread behind him, but knew better than to turn or even move in a startled way. Sometimes he would hear the steps approach very near and after several minutes silently steal away again. He knew his girdle had again protected him. Once or twice several Indians came out of the night and sat beside his camp fire talking with him in the Mingo tongue; and once several of his Mingo friends spent the night at his camp fire. They were in the country for the purpose of attacking some isolated settlement; and when he asked them to leave the “Long Knives” of his district alone, they reluctantly consented. When it was rumored Indians were about, the settlers offered to act as guard to his next appointment; but he assured them he was in no danger when unarmed and unaccompanied. This they came to believe.