The American Missionary | Page 3

volume of two
hundred and six pages. We have read it with great interest so far as we
have been able to understand its dialect. Within our comprehension we
find Jesu, the one word in all languages for all people, Simone Petro,

Johane, Marta, Maria, and Lazaru and many other such proper names.
We congratulate our young people at the South that so soon they have a
representative performing such literary work for the people of Africa.
Much of such work seems drudgery, but it is necessary to opening the
light of life to the people who sit in darkness. A booklet in the same
language gives a catechism and some of the songs of the gospel, ten of
which are translations by Mr. Ousley of some of the dearest of the
gospel songs.
* * * * *
THE SOUTH.
* * * * *
WHAT I FOUND IN THE CUMBERLAND MOUNTAINS.
BY REV. C.W. SHELTON.
First. There are living in this mountain country two millions of white
people, until recently isolated from, and untouched by, the civilization
of which we are so proud. No centennial anniversary commemorates
their growth in wealth and intellect. As their fathers lived, so until
recently, have they. One hundred years have witnessed but little
progress, almost no change, in their condition. The open fire-place, the
spinning-wheel and the home-spun jeans are familiar sights. Forgotten
by the rest of the world, they, in turn, forget that beyond these
mountain peaks, marking the limit of view and generally the limit of
interest, a nation has pressed forward to take its place among the
foremost of the earth. And yet no color line has excluded, no
reservation boundary separated, this people from their fellow
countrymen. Their lack of energy and the stagnation of their minds, is
the explanation of this condition of things.
Secondly. I found this mountain people naturally American; in deepest
sympathy with our free government; loyal to the old flag in the hour of
its greatest danger; fighting, suffering, dying, that the Union might be
preserved. To one who has spent any length of time on our western
prairies settled so largely with an emigrant people, the great difference
between the American born and educated people of the mountains, and
the naturalized American of the prairie, constantly emphasizes itself.
Here no new language has to be acquired, no new form of government
understood. A common interest, a common sympathy, a mother country,
binds one at once to this people as it never can to the American

importation which is found at the West.
Thirdly. I found homes and a home life, or rather the want of it, which
one would hardly believe possible among a white population in this
country.
The following illustrations are correct representations of what I found
to be average mountain cabins. Seldom do they contain more than two,
often only one, room. A single window, an open fire-place, and a few
home-made articles of furniture, comprise the whole. The home is
begun when its founders are yet children. Ignorant and poor, the boy
has "took up" with the girl, and it may be they are legally married. A
building-bee is announced, a little cabin erected, a few pigs bought or
given, a few trees girdled, some corn planted, in so crude and shiftless a
way that even an Indian, in his first attempts at farming, would be
ashamed to own it, and home life is begun. Into this home of poverty
and ignorance come the children. The families are large--eight, ten,
twelve, and sometimes more. The mother is too ignorant herself to
instruct, and had she the ability, neither time nor strength to accomplish
it are at her command. Life to her is a struggle. At twenty she looks
thirty-five, at thirty-five she is old. Always she has a tired, hopeless
expression, which simply to look at almost starts the tears. The children
have something of the same expression; the babies even seem to realize
that it is a sober, sad world they have come into. I do not remember
seeing a laughing, cooing baby in all the cabins I visited.
[Illustration: MOUNTAIN CABIN.]
[Illustration: MOUNTAIN CABIN.]
Educationally, I found this people far below the emigrant on the prairie.
Seventy per cent. of the whole two millions cannot read or write. The
schools are the poorest. The school houses are built of logs; a hole is
cut for the window; the ground serves for a floor, slabs for seats, and
the teacher is strictly in keeping with all. Bare-footed, hair unkempt,
snuff stick in her mouth, scarcely able to read herself, she is the
example--the ideal toward which her pupils are to strive.
Religiously, I found that these people, almost without exception, were
"professors," and "had jined" not a Christian church,