April 1, 1845, I commenced my labors in the town of F——, in Western Virginia. As soon as the object of my visit to that region was known, I received a cordial welcome from a large majority of the people, who did all they could to aid me in my work. Mr. P——, a young lawyer at that time, and since governor of Western Virginia, volunteered to go with me to every house in the town. His high position and universal popularity made the work pleasant and successful. In three days my buggy load of books were circulated in the village.

I immediately replenished my stock, and commenced my work in the country among the mountains. It was like a translation from sunlight into darkness—from a high civilization into one of ignorance and superstition, with here and there a family of wealth and refinement.

The very broken, rugged state of the country, with a sparse population, rendered it impossible for the people to support either schools or churches. Consequently in many isolated communities whole families grew up without any one knowing the alphabet, and very few places had preaching more than once in a month, and that on a week-day in some log cabin to a few women. I have visited as many as ten families in succession, in one case fourteen, without finding a Bible. It will hardly be thought strange that youth of both sexes were often found who could not tell who is the Saviour of sinners, and that when they were told of Christ dying for sinners, they would look incredulous and say, we live so much out of the way that we never hear any news. They often lived in small cabins, without any furniture but such as they made with an axe and an auger. All they raised to eat was corn and potatoes, with a few hogs; most of their meat being that of the various wild animals which abounded in the mountains. They were mostly kind and hospitable, and seemed to be sorry that they could not accommodate me better. I shall endeavor faithfully to describe one journey, which will represent many more.

About the time I went into that region, a new missionary circuit had been laid out by the Methodist Protestant church through a broken mountain country, where the gospel had never been preached; and the Rev. Mr. C—— was appointed to go round it once in each month, which required a ride of more than one hundred miles, most of the way by mere bridle paths.

He had been once or twice round the circuit before I became acquainted with him. As soon as he learned my business he invited me to go with him. He told me the people were without books of any kind, that very few could read, and that many of them were not half civilized; that at one house, where he spent the night, they cut off the skirts of his saddle to sole their moccasins, and at another the woman cut off the tail of his overcoat to make a pair of pants for a little boy. I agreed to go, and at the set time we filled each of our saddle-bags with little books and tracts, and our pockets with lunch.

The first appointment was some twenty miles distant, and we had to start the evening before. We stopped over night with a wealthy Christian family, and fared sumptuously.

The next day we rode twelve miles to the place where he was to preach. They had a church built of round logs. It had no floor but the ground, and was neither chinked nor daubed, consequently it was only used in warm weather. The house was full at the appointed hour. More than half of the congregation were barefooted, and but few had on them more than two garments. Most of the men came in with their guns in their hands, and a good supply of small game they had killed by the way. The guns were all set up in the corner of the church, and the game laid beside them.

At the request of Mr. C—— I conducted the service. The constant responses and loud amens indicated the deep interest they seemed to feel. At the close of the service I requested them to keep their seats, and told them I would go round and give each a tract or little book. More than half the families represented were destitute of the Bible. The tracts and books were received with very great joy, though few could read a word in them.

At the close we had to ride some miles to a stopping place for the night. We found the cabin small and destitute of any seats except stools. The beds were poles put through the corners, covered with the skins of deers and bears. Many of the spaces between the logs were wide enough for the dogs and cats to pass out and in at pleasure. The food was bread made of corn ground in a hand mill, or pounded in a hominy block. The meat was coon or opossum, and the coffee made of chestnuts. The night was spent in self-defence against unseen foes, and in dread of snakes. After partaking of a breakfast similar to the dinner and supper just described, and praying with the family, we left them.

Our appointment for that day was about twelve miles distant, with a constant succession of mountains to cross. We stopped at all the cabins by the way, which were about like that just referred to, with one exception; and as the house and family were different from any that I have ever seen, I shall try to describe them.

The cabin was about eighteen feet square; had been the birthplace of a large family; had neither floor—except the earth—upper story, chimney, chair, table, or bed, except a pile of straw in one corner, and an old spinning wheel and loom. The family we saw consisted of the father, mother, and five daughters, no one of which, we supposed, would weigh less than one hundred and fifty pounds. Each of the females had on a single garment made of coarse linen, held on by a drawing-string round the neck, all fleshy and hearty, while we could not see any thing for them to live upon.

No one of them knew a letter in the alphabet, or who was the Saviour of sinners. They were children of nature isolated from the world, equally ignorant of both its vices and its virtues. We spent more than an hour trying to teach them the alphabet of Christianity, and then commended them to God. They seemed amazed at what we said; God only knows the results.

We reached the place where our evening meeting was to be held after one o’clock, exhausted with hunger and heat. The cabin was but little better than the one just described; it contained some kind of table and a few stools, but had neither door nor floor, and cattle and hogs ran into it to avoid the flies when they chose.

Mr. C——, whose patience was nearly exhausted, told the woman that we were almost starved, and to hurry and get us something to eat, and to make it as clean and as good as she could. The children were sent to borrow tools; a fire was soon blazing under an arbor made of bushes near the house; a pail of meal set beside it, waiting for the skillet to heat, out of which the hens helped themselves every time she turned her back to them. The children soon returned with a little coffee-pot minus the handle, and with a knife and a fork one prong lacking.

We were soon invited in to our dinner from under the shade of a tree where we had observed the whole process. The table was a block of wood, with four legs to hold it up, and a stool at each side for us to sit on. Some pet pigs were under it waiting for the crumbs: they tramped on our toes, which led us to kick them; but our kind hostess soon made the children catch them and confine them behind my back in a big gumm, a tub sawn off a hollow log, which treatment, from their noise, they seemed to dislike very much.

Soon after our meal was finished the people began to gather in to hear the gospel. The cabin was more than full, with the same appearance of the congregation as last described. We supplied all with books and tracts—in most cases with the first book they ever had. The night was spent much like the previous one, food and lodging about the same.

The next morning we rode nine miles to meet another appointment at eleven o’clock. By the time we reached the place I was so sick that I had to lie down, while brother C—— preached to the people from Jeremiah 6:16. At the close we supplied all with little books and tracts, and received many thanks. The dinner was set under a shed outside of the house, but the sight of it sent me out to the shade of a tree so sick that I could not stand on my feet.

I then told brother C—— that I should be compelled to make my escape to some place where I could get something to eat and take some rest; and asked him to take all the books and give them away at each appointment to the best advantage he could.

At two o’clock I was on my horse, which, happily for me, had been along the road before, and was suffering from hunger as much as his rider. In six hours he was standing at the steps of Mr. S——’s house, two miles from the town of F——, from which we started three days before. I was well acquainted with Mr. S—— and his family, having been frequently there; but fever had dethroned my reason, which did not return till I was taken in and my head bathed with cold water, and I had drank a cup of coffee.

It was three days before I was sufficiently recovered to resume my work. We had visited twenty-seven families, talked and prayed with them all, given them books and tracts, and held three meetings. One half of the people were without any part of a Bible. As for other books they had none, and not one in ten could read a word.

I have detailed this one journey of three days not only to show the condition of this portion of our country, but as little more than a fair representation of destitute parts of many states in the Union. If each colporteur of the Tract Society who has visited these dark, broken, isolated regions of our country for the last eighteen years, had kept a journal of all the ignorance and wretchedness he met, it would have been the most interesting missionary journal the world ever saw. Their reports would differ as widely as the reports of those whom Joshua sent out to visit the promised land. While some would bring in the rich clusters of Eshcol, others, with equal truthfulness, could say that the land was inhabited by giants, whose walls were ignorance and superstition.

I was often reminded in my journeys of the early pioneers of our country who went through the forests, tomahawk in hand, blazing the trees as a signal of their intended occupancy of the land at some future time. These visits were the Christian pioneer’s way-marks, not blazed on the trees with axe or tomahawk, but blazed on the hearts of men in a state of nature by kind Christian words, and sealed with earnest prayer; while the books and tracts, including many Bibles and Testaments, were deeds of trust to those that faithfully used them; and many by them have secured a title to eternal life.

The books were like Jacob’s well—the digger was gone—but they have quenched the thirst of many a weary traveller on life’s journey, and their smoked pages are still crying, “Ho, every one that thirsteth,” come and partake of the waters of life “without money and without price.” A poor woman who had a small tract given her, on her death-bed had it brought to her, when she kissed it, and said, “This led me to my dear Saviour.”