He was of the methodist persuasion--a sect
which, among those who have sojourned in our southern and western
forests, may confidently claim to have done more, and with motives as
little questionable as any, toward the spread of civilization, good
habits, and a proper morality, with the great mass, than all other known
sects put together. In a word, where men are remotely situated from one
another, and can not well afford to provide for an established place of
worship and a regular pastor, their labors, valued at the lowest
standard of human want, are inappreciable. We may add that never did
laborers more deserve, yet less frequently receive, their hire, than the
preachers of this particular faith. Humble in habit, moderate in desire,
indefatigable in well-doing, pure in practice and intention, without
pretence or ostentation of any kind, they have gone freely and
fearlessly into places the most remote and perilous, with an empty
scrip, but with hearts filled to overflowing with love of God and
good-will to men--preaching their doctrines with a simple and an
unstudied eloquence, meetly characteristic of, and well adapted to, the
old groves, deep primitive forests, and rudely-barren wilds, in which it
is their wont most commonly to give it utterance: day after day, week
after week, and month after month, finding them wayfarers still--never
slumbering, never reposing from the toil they have engaged in, until
they have fallen, almost literally, into the narrow grave by the
wayside; their resting-places unprotected by any other mausoleum or
shelter than those trees which have witnessed their devotions; their
names and worth unmarked by any inscription; their memories, however,
closely treasured up and carefully noted among human affections, and
within the bosoms of those for whom their labors have been taken; while
their reward, with a high ambition cherished well in their lives, is
found only in that better abode where they are promised a cessation from
their labors, but where their good works still follow them.
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