USA > Mississippi > The pioneers, preachers and people of the Mississippi Valley > Part 20
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those old preachers were bitterly opposed to whisky and slavery. Old brother Craven, when once preach- ing in the heart of Virginia, said, "Now here are a great many of you professors of religion; you are sleek, fit, good-looking, yet there is something the matter with you-you are not the thing you ought to be. Now you have seen wheat " -- most of his hearrrs were farmers-"wheat which was very plumy, round, and good-looking to the eye; but when you weighed it you found it only came to forty-five or fo. ty-eight pounds to the bushel. There was some.hing the matter. It should be from sixty to sixty three pounds. Take a grain of that wheat between your thumb and your finger; squeeze it, and out pops a weevil. Now, you good-looking Christian people only weigh, like the wheat, forty- five or forty-eight pounds to the bushel. What is the matter? When you are squeezed between the thumb of the law and the finger of the Gospel, out pops the negro and the whisky bottle." Old father Axley, preaching on one occasion, cried out, " Alı, yes ! you sisters here at church look as sweet and smiling as if you were angels ; and one of you says to me, 'Come to dinner,' and I go; and when I go, you say ' Sit down, brother Axley awhile, while I go about the dinner ;' and you go to the kitchen, and I hear something crying out, "Don't, Missus," and I hear the sound of slaps, and the poor girl screaming, and
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the sister whaling and trouncing Sally in the kitchen as hard as she can. And when she has performed this office, she comes back looking as sweet and smiling as a summer's day, as if she had been saying her prayers. That is what you call Christianity, is it ?" It was in this way that these old preachers preached. The style was adapted to the people. They understood this, where they could not have un- derstood profound disquisitions respecting original sin. This old brother Axley was sent in 1806-7 into Attakapas County, Louisiana, to travel there as a missionary. He was about five feet eight inches in height, strong and sinewy, accustomed to all man- ner of exposure and suffering. Among this rude border populace, of whom a large component are French Catholics, he had not much to expect in the way of comfort. He had no money, was very hungry, and indeed reduced nearly to starvation, when he came riding up to a plantation. They knew him by his coat to be a preacher, and they wanted none such in their houses. The old gentleman entered and asked if he could have a dinner and supper and night's lodging.
"No."
The only persons present were a widow lady and some children and black people.
" No," said the woman, "you cannot; we don't want any such cattle here."
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Here, then, was a prospect of sleeping another night out in the cold. He had nothing to eat, and perhaps he ran an actual risk of perishing by starva- tion. He thought of the lonely journey, and of the perils that compassed it. Then his faith lifted him to the better, brighter world of heaven, its rest and reward for the wayfarer ; and he thought of the good Father, and of the angels that are sent to succor and minister, and his heart presently filled with overflow- ing gladness ; and he struck up a hymn, for he was a great singer. These men were all great singers, and when they could not carry a point by speech, they often fell back upon a song :
" Peace, my soul! Thou needst not fear Thy great Provider still is near, Who fed thee last will feed thee still ! Be still, and sink into his will."
He went on with his song, and, looking about him, saw that he was gaining ground. He sang three hymns, and by that time the woman and all the chil- dren and negroes were crowding to hear him, with tears in their eyes.
As he concluded, the old lady shouted, " Pete, put up the gentleman's horse ! Girls, have a good sup- per for the preacher!" And thus the preacher was lodged and fed for a song.
Axley came to Baltimore to attend a general con-
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ference in 1820. There was a dispute about a tech- nical question-whether presiding elders should be elected by preachers or not ; and there had been a great deal of warm, not to say hot discussion about it. Brother Axley was silent. He did not say a word, until at the end of the session, the bishop called upon him to offer a prayer. He knelt to lead the devotions, and began thus : "Now, O Lord, thou knowest what a time we have had discussing, argu- ing, about this elder question; and thou knowest what our feelings are; we do not care what becomes of the team-it is only who drives the oxen."
He used the directest mode of getting to the centre of a subject. He preached among a people who were sharpshooters, and who practised driving a nail with their rifles at fifty yards. And as they practised close and sharp-shooting with the rifle, so did he with his tongue.
There is an old friend of mine, my first presiding elder, yet living in Illinois-Peter Cartwright-who was one of those old preachers in the West, and has many of their peculiarities. I may give you one incident of this man's life, as a specimen of their physical courage and prowess ; for it was sometimes necessary for them to fight with carnal weapons, and many of them had obstinate combats with the roughi pioneer people-and commonly came off victorious. Cartwright, in common with most of those early old
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preachers, was a strong opponent of slavery. Now the question was being canvassed in Illinois, between 1818 and 1823, whether this institution should be ingrafted upon the Constitution, when the State was applying for admission into the Union. The old gentleman resolved to remove to Illinois, and take a land in the quarrel. He had been living in Ken- tucky and Tennessee, and had preached there for a quarter of a century, when he was appointed to Illi- nois as presiding elder, and had a circuit from Galena on the northwest, to Shawnee-town on the sonth-a district nearly as great as the entire country of England. Around this he was to travel once in three months, at a time when there were no roads, scarcely a bridge or ferry-and keep his regular appointments to preach, Sunday after Sunday, besides attending love-feasts, and administering the sacra- ments. Then, after preaching on the Sunday, he would generally announce a stump speech for the Monday, and call upon his fellow-citizens to come and hear the question discussed, whether slavery should be admitted or not. Of course, taking a poli- tical side, he was regarded as a politician, and there was a good deal of angry feeling about the old preacher. On one occasion, he rode to a ferry upon the Sangamon River ; the country about was rather thickly populated, and he found a crowd of people about the ferry, which seemed to be a sort of gather-
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ing place for discussing politics. The ferryman, a great herculean fellow, was holding forth at the top of his voice about an old renegade, one Peter Cartwright, prefixing a good many adjectives to his name and declaring that if he ever came that way he would drown him in the river.
Cartwright, who was unknown to any one there, now coming up, said : "I want you to put me across."
" You can wait till I am ready," said the ferry- man.
Cartwright knew it was of no use to complain ; and the ferryman, when he had got through his speech, signified his readiness to take him over. The preacher rode his horse into the boat, and the ferry- man commenced to row across. All Cartwright wanted was fair play; he wished to make a public ex- hibition of this man, and, moreover, was glad of an opportunity to state his principles. About half way over, therefore, throwing his bridle over the stake on one side of the boat, he told the ferryman to lay down his pole.
" What's the matter ?" asked the man.
" Well," said he, "you have just been using my name improper, and saying that if I ever came this way, you would drown me in the river. I'm going to give you a chance."
"Are you Peter Cartwright ?" " Yes."
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And the ferryman, nothing loath, pulls in his pole, and at it they go. They grapple in a minute, and Cartwright being very agile as well as athletic, suc- ceeds in catching him by the nape of the neck and the slack of the breeches, and whirls him over. He souses him down under the tide, while the compa- nions of the vanquished ferryman look on, the dis- tance insuring fair play. Cartwright souses him under again, and raising him, says : "I baptize thee in the name of the Devil, whose child thou art." He thus immerses him thrice, and then drawing him up again, inquires : "Did you ever pray ?"
"No," answered the ferryman, strangling and choking and dripping in a pitiful manner.
"Then it's time you did," says Cartwright ; "I'll teach you : say 'Our Father who art in Heaven.' "
" I won't," says the ferryman.
Down he goes under water again, for quite a time. Then lifting him out, " Will you pray, now ?"
The poor ferryman, nearly strangled to death, wanted to gain time, and to consider the terrors.
" Let me breathe and think," he said.
"No," answers the relentless preacher, "I won't; I'll make you," and he immerses him again. At length he draws him out, and asks a third time, " Will you pray now ?"
"I will do anything," was the subservient answer. So Cartwright made him repeat the Lord's Prayer.
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" Now let me up," demanded this unwilling convert.
" No," says Cartwright, " not yet. Make me three promises : that you will repeat that prayer every morning and night ; that you will put every Metho- dist preacher across this ferry free of expense ; and that you will go to hear every one that preaches within five miles, henceforth."
The ferryman, all helpless, barely alive and tho- roughly cowed, promised ; and Cartwright went on his way.
That ferryman joined the church afterward, and became quite an eminent and useful member.
Peter Cartwright, I say, was my own presiding elder. This is a veracious story ; and I might go on for pages giving you anecdotes of these Methodists, their peculiar powers, their odd original ways, their methods, their perils, and their success. They were an urgent sort of people : very pressing, deadly in earnest-their souls were firmly convinced of the truth of what they were saying-there was no eva- sion, equivocation, or doubt about it ; they therefore spoke straight to the mark, and did what they had to do. They had their faults and their defects, no doubt. Who has not? Doubtless they may have been lacking in nicetics and elegances-the refine- ments and beauties of civilized society ; but they were adapted to their condition and exactly filled their station. It is much the practice to ridicule
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ministers of the Gospel; to treat them decently as it were out of pity, as debilitated beings, half-way be- tween women and children-with a kind of conde- scension and patronage. And the question is often asked, with what is meant to be tremendous em- phasis and overpowering sarcasm, "What have the ministers done; and what are they doing now ?" I beg leave to say in their behalf that they ask neither patronage nor condescension ; neither compassion nor pity. They are able to do their own work, and have done it ; and if your country along this Atlantic sea- board fails to furnish abundant and superabundant evidence of their possession of the noblest elements of the ministerial character-sublime courage, indo- mitable energy, daring self-forgetfulness, lofty, ar- dent, absorbing, and efficient Christian piety-then I say go west of the mountains, and in those noble pioneers who bore to the starving and perishing mul- titudes in the wilderness the means of grace-who hastened when most need was, not waiting for mere human helps, bringing manna, such as was at hand, and amply sufficient for spiritual food, here and here- after-go and find among them some of the sublimest elements of human character that this or any other country ever furnished. These constitute a most com- plete and unanswerable refutation of the mean, and base, and slanderous insinuations which are so unhap- pily current throughout a large portion of our society.
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Perhaps I cannot more appropriately conclude this lecture than by giving a hasty summary of the life and character of one of the more prominent of the early western preachers; and for the same natural reason already alleged, my instance will be taken from among those of the Methodist denomination.
Of Bishop Asbury I have barely spoken, and of his abundant labors. That mere mention must on this occasion suffice.
Peter Cartwright, also already alluded to, a man yet enjoying a green and vigorous and useful old age, and one of the most characteristic and efficient of the western pioneer preachers, was born in Amherst County, Virginia, in 1785, the son of a Revolutionary soldier; was taken to Kentucky by his parents a few years afterward, when they settled there; and was brought up in Logan County, a district so wild, wicked, and infested with desperadoes and refuges criminals, as to be popularly known in that region as " Rogues' Harbor." A strong, active, sharp-witted, jovial young fellow, he grew up a horse-racer and gambler, in embryo at least, and went on until he was sixteen, in the high road to all the vices of that rude and lawless period and community. Then he was suddenly converted, with one of the inexplicable convulsive changes which we hardly dare consider or seek to analyze, lest on one hand we find delusion, or on the other prove deficient in reverence for the ope-
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rations of the Holy Spirit. He sold his race-horse, burned his cards, fasted and prayed, read the Bible, and after laboring under fearful anguish for months, at last, at one of the numerous camp-meetings held in consequence of the great gathering at Cane Ridge, found peace in believing, by another revulsion as sud- den as that which had plunged him into an agony of remorse and dread three months before. He joined the Methodist church in 1801 ; that body then num- bering, in the Mississippi Valley, about two thousand five hundred souls, all told. It contained in 1787 just about ninety-five souls. Now it contains, within the same territorial limits, not less than three quar- ters of a million.
Cartwright was licensed as an exhorter in 1802, and as a preacher six years afterward. From that time until this, for more than fifty years, he has been a steadfast and most efficient laborer in his chosen field. The brief summary which he gives in his auto- biography-one of the most entertaining books ever written-of the totals of his work, may be condensed somewhat as follows: His entire loss by non-reecipt of the regular Methodist allowance-formerly eighty dollars a year, all over that sum to be handed over to the church-and by robbery, casualties, etc., $6,000 ; extras received to offset against this, $2,000; amount of money given in charity, ete., $2,300 ; number received into the church, 10,000 ; number
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baptized, children and adults, 12,000; funeral ser- mons preached, 500; total number of sermons preached, at least 14,600.
The crowded years of this long and busy life were marked from week to week with the strangest occur- rences, the natural results of the wild unfettered thoughts and life of the West ; often most grotesque and at first sight coarse, and even ridiculous, silly or absurd to an eastern man; and yet requiring but a brief consideration to discover how peculiarly fit and proper were the rough repartees and even the comical tricks, practical jokes, and ready physical force with which this hardy soldier of the church militant upheld his authority, or silenced his oppo- nents at camp-meetings, or in controversy with the ignorant fanatics, the deceivers, and the rabid secta- rians of his rugged field.
When a Baptist preacher was drawing off his con- verts, he drove him away by joining his band of believers in character of a Christian, and then at the place of immersion confounding him by suddenly leaving him the alternative of admitting him into the church unimmersed, or taking the responsibility of denying him Christian fellowship unless rebaptized.
IIis old-fashioned Methodist hatred for fashionable ornaments comes quaintly out in his story of a rich man, who could not find peace in believing until he had torn off his shirt-ruffles and thrown them down
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in the straw at the camp-meeting ; after which, "in less than two minutes God blessed his soul, and he sprang to his feet, loudly praising God !"
A " book-learned " minister once tried to confound him by addressing him in Greek. With ready wit he listened, as if intelligently, and replied at some length in the backwoods German, which he had learned in his youth, which the other took for IIebrew, and was confounded. And the old man proceeds to compare the educated preachers he had seen to a " gosling with the straddles."
The camp-meetings were almost always infested by rowdies, who often organized under a captain and did all in their power to break up the exercises by noise, personal violence, liquor-selling and drinking, riotous conduct, stealing horses and wagons, and all manner of annoyances. Once Cartwright blocked their game by appointing their captain himself to the business of preserving order. Again, the captain of the rowdies was struck down among the "mourners" just as he had come quietly up to hang a string of frogs round the preacher's neck. Once he con- fronted their chief with a club, knocked him off his horse, and as his discouraged companions fled, se- enred him and had him fined fifty dollars. Once he captured the whisky which the rowdies were drink- ing, and when they came up at night to stone the the preacher's tent, he had already been among them
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in disguise and learned their plan, and singly drove them all off' with a sudden sharp volley of pebbles.
Again, he sent a liquor-seller to jail for selling on the camp-ground, had himself and four bold friends sum- moned by the timid officer as a posse, and never left the culprit until he had paid fine and costs; and when the enraged rowdies undertook to beat up the preacher's quarters at night, he drove off one of their leaders by hitting him a violent blow with a " chunk of fire," and another with a smart stroke on the head with a club, which drove out his "dispensation of mischief." At another time, he had himself and five stout men summoned by a frightened peace-officer, secured a whisky-seller who had been rescued by his fellows, then took the deputy-sheriff, who would have ordered the prisoner released, and seizing thir- teen more of the mob, had them all fined, or made to give security on an appeal. One more whisky- dealer, who kept a loaded musket by him, the shrewd and fearless Cartwright secured by night in his own wagon, scared him handsomely, fired off his musket, threw away his powder, and drove him away, beaten and ashamed.
Discussing doctrines with a boastful Baptist pres- byter, he silenced him with a question witty and inge- nious, whether its implication is true or not, viz. : " If there are no children in hell, and all young children who die go to heaven, is not that church
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which has no children in it more like hell than heaven ?"
Coming to a new circuit, he found at his first appointment but one solitary hearer, and he a one- eyed man; but preached his very best to him for three-quarters of an hour. At his next coming, this hearer had so sounded his praises that he had a large attendance, and a great revival followed.
When a certain woman used to disturb his class- meetings, he hoisted her out of doors by main force, and then held the door shut by standing inside with his back to it, while he went on with the exercises. When a fat and unbelieving old lady troubled him at camp-meeting by kicking her daughters as they knelt to pray among the " mourners," he caught her dexterously by the foot and tipped her over back- ward among the benches, where she bustled about a long time to get up, because of her size, while the victorious preacher went straight on with his exhort- ing. There was a dance at an inn where he stopped, and no room to sit in but the ball-room. A young girl politely asked him to dance with her. He led her out on the floor, and as the fiddler was about to strike up, said to the company that it was his custom to ask God's blessing on all undertakings, and he would do this now. Instantly dropping on his knees, he pulled his partner down too, and prayed until the fiddler fled in fright, and some of the dancers
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wept or cried for mercy ; then proceeded to exhort and sing hymns, and did not cease his labors until he he had organized a Methodist church of thirty-two members, and made the landlord class-leader.
A grey-haired old man, a Baptist, whose custom it was to do so, once interrupted the amusing stories he was dealing out to his congregation, by calling out sternly, " Make us cry, make us cry ; don't make us laugh !" With equal sternness, and turning short and sharp upon him, Cartwright instantly answered, " I don't hold the puckering strings of your mouths, and I want you to mind the negro's eleventh com- mandment, and that is, 'Every man mind his own business.' " The abashed old man was silent.
While Cartwright was candidate for the Legisla- ture of Illinois, he sought out a man who had spread a slanderous story that he had tried to escape paying a note, by perjury. Finding him in a public place in a crowd, he told him to acknowledge his falsehood there and then, or he would " sweep the streets with him to his heart's content." The coward acknow- ledged his lie ; and if he had not, the fearless preacher would surely have chastised him as he promised. While he was in the House, afterward, an enraged opponent threatened to knock him down if he finished a certain course of remark. Cartwright finished it, and when the House adjourned, marched straight up to him and asked him if he was for peace or war?
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" Oh, for peace," was the answer; " come home and take tea with me." So they went, arm in arm; and when the company, including the governor and his wife, were about to eat without asking a blessing, Cartwright said plainly, " Governor, ask a blessing." The official blushed, apologized, and requested the preacher to do it, which he did.
IIe once had a discussion with an infidel, who ruled the Bible out of evidence ; to which Cartwright submitted, and in his turn would have ruled Tom Paine out. And when his adversary flew into a rage at this, and cursed and blasphemed, the preacher in his turn filled with righteous wrath, seized him by the head and jaw, and rattled his teeth together like so many pebbles. The angry man would have struck him, but was prevented, and afterward became his friend.
But the time would fail me to relate the innumer- able singular experiences of this wonderful old man. Such as he are the real pioneers of Methodism in the Mississippi Valley ; strong, fearless, active, ready, quick-witted, jovial, even humorous and jocular, rough, as able as the best in a free fight, yet kindly, pure, sensible, fatherly, benevolent, unwearied in self-sacrifice and well-doing; wise in counsel, tho- roughly practical, yet the personification of idealists in their prompt appreciation of whatever was proper for their use, whether fashionable or not ; often set in
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some narrow prejudice and bitterly sectarian, yet broad and liberal in views of church government, and showing and wielding with effect all the quali- ties which constitute rulers of men. And above all, filled and overflowing with the love of Christ and the ardent desire to save souls. Such were Peter Cart- wright and his noble brethren of the early church of the wilderness.
I might occupy pages in commemorating the noble and admirable qualities of others of the great Metho- dist leaders ; of Henry B. Bascom, the young Apollo of the West, the lofty orator, and noble useful Christ- ian and minister ; of the veteran preacher James B. Finley ; of many others of the great army of devoted men, some now gone to their last account, some yet living and laboring among us -- still at work within my own beloved church. But I must close. Whole volumes have already been written upon the lives of Cartwright, Bascom, Finley, and others. It would be presumptuous and useless to attempt more in this place than this passing allusion.
Lecture IX.
WESTERN MIND;
ITS MANIFESTATIONS,
ELOQUENCE AND HUMOR.
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WESTERN MIND :
ITS MANIFESTATIONS, ELOQUENCE AND HUMOR.
THE query was propounded in the "Edinburgh Re- view " more than a quarter of a century ago, " Who reads an American book ?" The question has been often asked, both on this and on the other side of the Atlantic, why have we not an American litera- ture ? I should now hardly be willing to concede that we have not. It would be a strangely ignorant or prejudiced Englishman who would pretend that we had not. And yet it would not be strange if we had not. The demands upon American mind have been of too pressing and urgent a character to allow it to devote much time or attention to the specific pursuit of letters. Here was a continent to subdue ; a wilderness to be reclaimed; mountains to be scaled ; lakes, oceans and gulfs to be joined together ; and meantime the supplies for daily necessity and daily consumption to be raised, and conveyed to mar- ket. Men must have bread before books. Men must build barns before they establish colleges. Men must learn the language of the rifle, the axe and the
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