simultaneously that the prairies were for a long time sparsely settled. In the manuscript autobiography of the Rev. Joseph M. Bone, he tells us that when he moved to Illinois and settled in Moultrie County his nearest neighbor lived five miles distant. Yet this was in 1829, a period much later than the principal events of this chapter.

A manuscript history of the Cumberland Presbyterian church in Illinois, by the Rev. H. H. Ashmore, has been very helpful to me in preparing this chapter. Speaking of the hardships of pio

neer work on the prairies, he says:

The pioneer preachers rode over the prairies in summer traveling sometimes twenty and thirty miles without passing a house. There was danger of getting lost in the rain and fog and they were sometimes thus forced to spend the night in the open prairies without food or shelter. Wherever there were a few cabins along the skirts of the timber they were ready to preach at any hour of the week-day. On Saturdays and Sabbaths the people for miles around attended the meetings, and earnest efforts were put forth to build up congregations. Many of the early settlers lived ten miles from their place of worship, yet they were rarely absent on Sabbath. The week-day appointment was a sort of skirmish line to find a suitable place for the Sunday services and for protracted efforts. The meetings were held in schoolhouses, groves, or private residences. In the winter and spring, though the circuits were long and the appointments numerous, the preacher had to be at each place rain or shine. If high waters were in the way the preacher would place his saddle-bags, inclosing his Bible and hymn book and extra linen on his shoulder, and, in less time than a ferry could cross, his faithful horse would carry him over by swimming. No one who has not seen a snow-storm on the bare prairie can comprehend its driving fury. If the winds were changeable, as was often the case, the danger was great. At one time a terrible storm overtook three teams on the prairie. The wind changed. The horses could only go with the driving snow. The travelers were separated and lost. The same day my father was to cross that thirty-mile prairie on his way home. After the storm three awful days of suspense passed before we heard from him. At the edge of the timber and along the lanes near the timber lines the snow was too deep for man or beast to pass. Every man that could muster a strong horse was searching for the lost. They were brought in one by one, some with fingers frozen and footAt last our eyes were gladdened when my father rode up with his great buffalo coat making him look three times his usual size.

sore.

Besides the owners of the three teams lost near my father's many other people were lost in that storm. All business throughout that whole country was suspended while people searched for the lost. Roads were blockaded for weeks, and only at great risk could men mounted on the strongest horses go from one house to another. Our pioneer preachers passed through just such scenes as this. The common people in these early days were glad to have the privilege of going to church, or "meeting," as they called it. There were no railroads and but few post-offices. Newspapers were a rarity. They were glad to meet and hear the preacher and enjoy the privilege of comparing notes. People would sometimes sit and listen to a sermon two or three hours long without growing weary. If our people of this generation could go back to the days of Isaac Hill, Joel Knight, James Ashmore, William Finley, R. D. Taylor, Cyrus Haynes, J. M. Berry, Daniel Traughber, and Archibald and Neil Johnson, they would learn how the seed of the Cumberland Presbyterian church was sown in this State. These men were giants in their day. Lincoln University is largely the result of their labors.

The first presbytery organized exclusively in Illinois was in 1822. But McGee Presbytery, which was organized in 1819, included in its bounds part of Illinois. In 1822 the order for the organization of Illinois Presbytery was passed. Its original members were to be Green P. Rice, D. W. McLin, John M. Berry, and W. M. Hamilton. Rice did not attend; all the others were present. This presbytery immediately organized a presbyterial board of missions. Nine probationers for the ministry were transferred to its care. That meant circuit riding. In 1829 this presbytery had ten members in good standing. It had been obliged to silence some of its ministers. One of these cases of discipline was mixed up with the great slavery question, and shows that the church in Illinois at an early day took a decided stand on that subject.

There is a wonderful difference between the growth of the Cumberland Presbyterian church in the two States to which this chapter is devoted. In Indiana there are now (1885) but three presbyteries; in Illinois there are ten. There is one thing indicated both by recent statistics and by this early history which may help to explain the difference. In Illinois from the beginning there was a vigorous struggle to raise up a home supply of preachers. Fast-days were appointed on which all the congregations joined in

prayer that God would call and send forth men of his own choosing to preach the gospel. God answered these prayers, as he will do to-day in all our frontier presbyteries if, instead of clamoring for more preachers to come from the older States, they will ask God to call their own sons into the work.

Another fact doubtless had its influence in causing this superior growth in Illinois. At an early day some of the oldest ministers of the church made this State their permanent home. Among these were Samuel McAdow, one of the three men who formed the first presbytery of the church. David Foster and D. W. McLin also cast their lots permanently with the pioneers of Illinois. The first preachers of the church made preaching tours in Indiana, but none of them settled in that State; and when a later generation of Cumberland Presbyterian preachers made their homes there a large portion of the ground was preoccupied. From the first it was a maxim of our people not to build on other men's foundations, but to go among the destitute. With very few exceptions our preachers have conformed to that maxim in the past, and do still conform to it.

CHAPTER XIX.

PLANTING THE CHURCH IN MISSOURI AND ARKAN. SAS, 1811 TO 1829.

TH

So willing to toil and travel,

To suffer and watch for all,
So near in heart to the Master,

So eager to hear his call,—

They spent their souls in the service sweet,

And only in death could rest at his feet.

—B. M.

HE first great tide of American emigrants to Missouri Territory began in 1816. There were Cumberland Presbyterians in that first tide, and the usual cry soon began to come, "Send us a preacher." In 1817 the first Cumberland Presbyterian sermon was preached in the Territory by Green P. Rice at the little French village of St. Louis. The first Cumberland Presbyterian preacher to settle in Missouri was Daniel Buie. He was a citizen already established in Howard County and had regular preaching places when R. D. Morrow made his visit to that country in 1819. In a graphic history of Buie's emigration to Missouri we are told that he made the journey in 1818 in a one-horse cart.

In April, 1819, the ladies' missionary society at Russellville, Kentucky, requested the presbytery to send the Rev. R. D. Morrow on a preaching tour through Missouri Territory. The presbytery agreed to the plan and the missionary board fixed his salary at twenty dollars per month. He had to make his own appointments and "blaze his own way" in more senses than one. A letter of instructions was placed in his hands and he was commended to God and sent forth on his responsible mission. Mounting his horse, equipped for travel through the wilderness, he started on his long, solitary journey. Could he have foreseen the glorious work for Jesus to which God was leading him his heart would have leaped

for joy. He carried bell and "hobble" for his horse and rations for himself. Besides these things there were a few books in his saddle-bags. The wilderness between Logan County, Kentucky, and Alton, Illinois, was passed with only his horse for a traveling companion. Crossing the river he proceeded up to what is now Pike County, where he preached to a few settlers, among whom were three Cumberland Presbyterians. Proceeding westward he held his next meeting in Callaway County. At that meeting were grown men who had never heard a sermon in their lives. Many such there were in that territory-children of pioneers who penetrated the wilderness long in advance of the general tide of emigration. Settling down on some rich prairie perhaps ten miles from the nearest neighbor, these pioneers brought their children up without schools and without churches.

In just such a home amid just such destitution was our now venerable brother, the Rev. J. T. A. Henderson, reared. His rich manuscript autobiography, now before me, describes the joy of the whole family when they heard of a Methodist preacher making an appointment for occasional preaching within reach of their home. When this family and one other settled near Round Prairie, Missouri, there was no other family within a circuit of ten miles. It was many a long year before there was any school within reach. Having neither post-offices, newspapers, nor stores, the pioneers lived a lonely life. There was plenty of game and plenty of prairie grass. In some parts of the territory the grass grew higher than a man's head when he was mounted on his horse. At a later day this grass teemed with a species of flies so numerous that they sometimes killed the traveler's horse as he rode across the prairies. It is a touching thing to read Mr. Henderson's account of his rapture when at last his home was surrounded with neighbors who employed a school-teacher. Into such sparse settlements of pioneers Mr. Morrow penetrated, proclaiming the gospel and planting the standard of our King.

When time for the meeting of Logan Presbytery drew near, Mr. Morrow saddled his horse and made the long journey back to Kentucky. He was one of those who never failed to be present at the judicatures of his church. At this meeting he was pitied and crit