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.