The Real America in Romance, Volume 10 | Page 6

"blue drilling" and next Sabbath the whole family got into the wagon and drove off eight miles to Bear Creek to "meeting."
The people of the west were as thorough a combination and mixture of all nations, characters, languages, conditions and opinions as can well be imagined. Scarcely a nation in Europe, or a State in the union, that did not furnish emigrants for the great west. The greater mass from Europe were of the humble classes, who came from hunger, poverty and oppression. They found themselves here with the joy of shipwrecked mariners cast on the untenanted woods, and instantly became cheered with the hope of being able to build up a family and a fortune from new elements.
The Puritan and the planter, the German, the Briton, the Frenchman, the Irishman and the Swede, each with his peculiar prejudices and local attachments, and all the complicated and interwoven tissue of sentiments, feelings and thoughts, that country, kindred and home, indelibly combined with the web of youthful existence, settled down beside each other. The merchant, mechanic and farmer found themselves placed by necessity in the same society. Men must cleave to their kind and must be dependent upon each other. Pride and jealousy give way to the natural yearnings of the human heart for society. They began to rub off mutual prejudices. One took a step and then the other. They met half way and embraced; and the society thus newly organized and constituted was more liberal, enlarged, unprejudiced, and of course more affectionate and pleasant than a society of people of like birth and character, who would bring all their early prejudices as a common stock, to be transmitted as an inheritance to posterity.
Depending only on God and nature, the simple backwoodsman came to regard God as his only master and, like the Swiss patriot, would bow his knee to none other. Men were left free to adopt such religious views and tenets as they chose, and the generous laws protected every man alike in his religious opinions. Ministers of the gospel and priests, being presumed to be devoted to humanity, charity and general benevolence, were precluded by many State constitutions from any participation in the legislative authority, and their compensation depended wholly upon the voluntary aid of those among whom they labored in charity and love. In the wide district where the Stevens lived, the country was too sparsely settled to support a stationed minister, and "preaching" was a luxury. Unsustained by the rigid precepts of law in any privileges, perquisites, fixed revenue, prescribed by reverence or authority, except such as was voluntarily acknowledged, the clergy found that success depended upon the due cultivation of popular talents. Zeal for the great cause mixed, perhaps, with a spice of earthly ambition, the innate sense of emulation and laudable pride, a desire of distinction among their cotemporaries and brethren, prompted them to seek popularity, and to study all the arts and means of winning the popular favor.
Travelling from month to month through dark forests, with such ample time for deep thought, as they ambled slowly along the lonesome horse path or unfrequented roads, they naturally acquired a pensive and romantic turn of thought and expression, which is often favorable to eloquence. Hence their preaching was of the highly popular cast, such as immortalized Peter Cartwright. The first aim was to excite the ministers; hence, too, excitement, or, in religious parlance, "awakenings," or "revivals" became common. Living remote from each other, and spending much of their time in domestic solitude in vast forests or wide spreading prairies, the "appointment" for preaching was looked upon as a gala-day, or a pleasing change, which brought together the auditors from remote points, and gratified a feeling of curiosity, which prompted the pioneers to associate and interchange cordial congratulations.
As yet no meeting house had been erected in all the region where the Stevens lived. The meeting on Bear Creek was at the home of Mr. Moore, who was the happy possessor of a "double log cabin." One cabin or room was cleared of furniture, and sawn boards, placed on sticks of wood on end, furnished the seats. These were occupied and the "entry" between the cabins was filled by children. The preacher, who was also chorister, took his position near the door so as to accommodate those without as well as those within. He opened his saddle-bags and, pushing back his soiled linen, took out his bible and hymn-book and, proceeding to "line a hymn," "started it" himself, the congregation all joining.
Fernando Stevens had heard from his sister about these wonderful meetings; but he had never dreamed that a score of voices could raise such an uproar, and he ceased admiring his new shoes, while he fixed his eyes in terror on the capacious mouth of