REMINISCENCES OF EARLY LIFE. 165 REMINISCENCES OF EARLY LIFE. - BY REV. JAMES B. FINLEY. It was on one of those balmy days of autumn, in the year 1788, when my father and his associates loosed their boats from their moorings at the mouth of George's creek, now Geneva, on the Monongahela, to descend the Ohio river, to the land of canebrakes, in Kentucky. These were dangerous times; for the constant, rapid emigration to that country had roused the western Indians into fury, believing the whites would soon take possession of their hunting grounds, and drive them and their families from their homes and their own native soil. They continually waylaid the two great thoroughfares, namely, the old Crab Orchard road, (leading from North Carolina,) and the Ohio river. Several boats had been captured the previous spring and summer, and their inmates either massacred or made prisoners. This made our company take precautions against attack. Every man and boy was furnished with a gun. All the boats, numbering sixteen, were put under the command of one man, who had been up and down the river frequently. The boats being numbered, were to proceed two abreast, in regular order, as far as circumstances would admit. On each of these boats were a captain and two steers men. The rest of the men were coupled two and two, to pull the oars in regular turns, by day and night. My father's boat was to lead, and was commanded by Captain James Bartley, a man of great skill and courage. There were on this boat, besides my father, three Presbyterian preachers, Carey Allen, of blessed memory, Robert Marshall, and James Welsh. The notorious Richard M'Nemer, of Shaker memory, was then a boy, and under my father's care. You will say this boat had its share of divinity, and these men were for the weal or woe of many. Mr. Allen, like a flaming minister of the cross, preached Christ everywhere, and was the instrument of turning many to God. His zeal and labors soon wore him out, and he died triumphing in the God of his salvation. He was converted to God at a Methodist quarterly meeting held in Virginia, by the Rev. Bennet Maxey. I shall never forget the parting scene. Many of my father's congregation were present, with the numerous friends and relatives of the company about to sail. My father stood on the boat and preached his farewell sermon to the crowded shore. His text will be found in Acts xx, 25, 26, 27. This was an overwhelming scene. Ministers and flocks were parting, parents and children hanging on each other's necks, weeping, and parting to meet no more until the judgment of the great day, and none knowing but in a few days all or part of the emigrants would fall a prey to the scalping-knife or tomahawk of an incensed and savage foe. At the close, Rev. C. Allen arose and gave out that beautiful hymn of Dr. Watts: "And let our bodies part To different climes repair- Did first our hearts unite; And still he keeps our spirits one, While this hymn was sung, the sobs, the sighs, and the smothered shouts of some, and bursts of cries in others, seemed to me, then a boy, to move earth and heaven. Then his parting prayer: (all, yes, all were prostrated on their knees:) his strong appeals to God were awful. I had no doubt then, nor have I now, but his petitions were all lodged hard by the mercy seat in heaven. This was the second time in my life that I had ever heard any noise at meeting. I never had been at a Methodist meeting in my life. But were I now to meet with such an assembly, I would set it down, instanter, that they were Methodists. Many of the Presbyterian ministers of this day were experimental, thundering preachers. Sinners were awakened, and fell under the mighty power of God, and cried for mercy as on the day of Pentecost. They preached the Gospel: they did not read it. At about two o'clock the boats loosed, and took up their line of march, according to their previous arrangements, and continued their course on the smooth bosom of the Monongahela, until they arrived at Pittsburg. There they were joined by eight or ten more flatboats. The scenery was all new to me, a lad just lanching into the almost unbounded wilderness of the west, there to act my part in society. My youthful spirit was all alive to the new scenes that were constantly presenting themselves to me: not then, as now, almost always in sight of some splendid farm, or flourishing city, or town. No, all was a dense wilderness, the habitation of savage men and the wild beasts of prey, some of which were almost always in sight. The timid deer, who had come from his lair to slake his thirst in the limpid stream, not at all accustomed to such a flotilla of arks, would stand and gaze, and snuff his native air, until some hunter from the boats would, with deadly aim, send the leaden messenger of death into his body, and make it a prey. Frequently they were seen to plunge into the river to swim across, and were taken by the expert canoeSometimes a turkey, in trying to fly across, would fall in the water and be taken. On one occasion a bear plunged in just before the boats; and I suppose twenty rifles were fired at him, but it seemed none could touch him. At length two men, in a canoe, put for the shore, with the design to head him; but he was out first, and having shaken himself, bid us farewell, departing for his native mountains. This was the first bear I ever saw. The Indians were frequently seen on the shore, watching man. 166 REMINISCENCES OF EARLY LIFE. manly face, "Noble stranger, who left your own country and happy home, to water with your precious blood the tree of American liberty!" But to return. This grand parent first implanted in my infant heart the knowledge of a Savior, to whom she taught me to pray for God to make me a good and useful man. I never shall forget her death. While her family and friends gazed on the last struggles of life with bleeding hearts, she was calm and composed, and talked of death as of a near friend; and when all present thought her spirit had fled, she revived and repeated these lines: "O, who can tell a Savior's worth, In a departing hour!" for an opportunity of attack; and, on one occasion, there was a desperate effort made by one who appeared to be a white man, to get some of the hindmost boats to land. He could speak English, and represented himself as a prisoner having escaped from the Indians, and in a state of want and danger. But this kind of stratagem would not answer; for it had been tried too often. The same spring, William Orr, with his family, had been betrayed, by perhaps the same person, to land, and were all killed or taken prisoners by a party of Indians lying in wait. And below the mouth of the Scioto three boats, traveling in company, were induced to near the shore for the purpose of relieving a person, as they supposed, in distress, and were fired upon by a large party of Indians lying in ambush; and, after some resistance, two of the boats were taken. The third pulled out into the stream; but while at the oars the men were all killed but one, a Methodist minister, going as a missionary to Kentucky, and he was badly wounded. The women soon plied the oars; and when they were out of gunshot from the shore, the Indians issued from the mouth of a small creek in a canoe, to follow them. The women loaded the rifles of their dead husbands, and Mr. Tucker, the wounded minister, with deadly aim, kept up such a destructive fire, that the pursuers were obliged to give up the chase or all die. So, after the loss of five of their comrades, they drew off to shore. This man lived to reach Limestone. He there died of his wounds, and was buried amidst the tears of the widows and orphans whose lives he had been the instrument ofishing that, to believe it, ocular demonstration became saving. But we met with no attack from the enemy. Captain Bartley was an intrepid, fearless, and untiring officer; and if this company had been assailed, the enemy would have heard from them; for they were well prepared for battle. Thus died my precious grandmother, on the Ohio river, in October, 1788, and the next day was buried in Limestone, now Maysville, to rest until the morning of the resurrection. So, you see Mr. Editor, it is now over fifty-eight years since I took up my residence in the western wilds. I have seen the waste places filled up with the teeming millions that now live and sport in this fertile region. My father moved to Washington, where we wintered. Here we were neighbors to the intrepid Simon Kenton, and the Words, and the Chamberses. The next spring we moved out, and settled by Stockton's station, near where Flemingsburg now stands. Nature, in her pride, had given to the regions of the beautiful Ohio a fertility so aston necessary. Every thing in this new world assumed a dignity and splendor I had never seen before. From Maysville we ascended a considerable distance from the shore of the Ohio, and when we might have supposed we had reached the top of some mountain, ready to descend into some deep valley again, we found ourselves on an extensive level. On traveling farther up into the country, it seemed as if eternal verdure reigned: the evergreen cane-brakes covering the whole face of the earth. The vernal sun, pouring from the azure heavens his floods of light and heat on this prolific soil, produced an early maturity, which was both cheer An incident occurred the day before we landed, which made the deepest impression on my mind, and has never been erased to this day. My precious grandmother took leave of us for the promised land. She was an Englishwoman. Her maiden name was Pendergrass. She was married to James Bradley, with whom she had lived about sixty years. He was an athletic and powerful Welshman. They emigra-ing and astonishing: flowers soon grew to perfected to America when young, and settled on the Delaware, above Philadelphia. My grandmother was converted to God under the preaching of the Rev. George Whitefield; and she lived a lively, growing, and zealous Christian to the time of her death. In the commencement of the Revolutionary War they moved to Carolina, and in that war lost all their sons, who fell fighting for the liberty of this country. My uncle, Captain James Bradley, fell at Gates' defeat, fighting by the side of the Baron De Kalb, and was buried in the same grave. Washington, when he visited the place, and stood by the grave of the Baron, exclaimed, while the tears rolled over his tion, and possessed all the variegated charms and odors which nature could produce, both in elegance and beauty. These wild and romantic scenes, with a forest just springing into life after a dreary winter, and fanned by the soft zephyrs breathing on this garden of nature, gave a glow of health and vigor that seemed to intoxicate the senses. The songsters of the forest appeared to feel the influence of the gladdening spring, and warbled their variegated notes in unison with love and nature. Here were vast droves of the wild buffalo and elk, the sport of the hunter, and food for the adventurer. Here, too, might be seen the sportive deer bounding through his native INDEPENDENCE OF CHRISTIAN CHARACTER. wood, the calling turkey, the cunning fox, the wily panther, the sneaking wolf, the surly bear, the cautious wild-cat, the plundering opossum, the nimble, barking squirrel, the hooting owl, the chattering paroquet; while in some limpid streams the wildgeese had convened and were holding their vernal levees. All nature seemed alive, but here was not heard the sound of the woodman's ax, no cheerful ploughboy whistling on his way to the field, no rattling of carts, carriages, or wagons; no, a silent awe hung over all these scenes of nature, and proclaimed that the God of nature reigned here. But, ah! there was a drawback on all the pleasures which the splendid scenery of this new world afforded: that was, in these wilds lay concealed a deadly foe. The Indian was seeking to avenge himself on the intruders into the land of his fathers, and the spoilers of his own home; and like the pestilence, which walketh in darkness, he fell upon and destroyed all that came within his power. Much has been said about the barbarous modes of warfare adopted by these tribes; but let it always be remembered that they were nobly engaged in the defense of their country, their families, and their natural rights and national liberties. Never did men acquit themselves with more valor, nor, according to their means, make a better defense. They were ignorant of martial tactics, deficient in arms and military stores, and inferior to their foes in numerical strength; but how long and bloody was the conflict before they yielded to the new intruders, and with what reluctance did they submit to their numerous and increasing enemies, let history testify. Their bravery was proved even in their final struggles. The spirits of the red man are now broken, and he sits and smokes his pipe, and looks on his country as lost. The pleasant hunting grounds in which he used to chase the deer and the bear, and the luxuriant cane-brakes, where the elk and the buffalo fed, which furnished him and his family with meat and clothing, have fallen into the hands of strangers. The cheerful notes of the flute and the hoarser sound of the turtle-shell no longer make the groves vocal with joyful melody. The red man is no more seen stretched before the sparkling fire, nor is the tinkling horse-bell heard in the bluegrass plains. The Indian now sits and looks at the graves of his fathers and friends, and heaves a sigh of despair, while his manly face is bedewed with the silent tear. In strains of sorrowful eloquence he tells of the happiness of ancient days, and relates to his listening children the mighty achievements of his ancestors. Gloom fills his heart, while he sees at no great distance the end of his tribe. He walks pensively to the deep and silent forests, wrapped up in his half-worn blanket, and pours out his full soul to the Great Spirit to relieve his sufferings by taking him to rejoin his tribe in another and a better world. 167 INDEPENDENCE OF CHRISTIAN CHARACTER. BY REV. R. W. ALLEN. HAVING, in a former communication, noticed the nature of true independence, we will now invite the reader's attention to some of its advantages. 1. It will secure the confidence of others. Every Christian will feel the deepest interest in the welfare of his fellow-men. He will consequently desire to do them the greatest amount of good in his power. But in order for this, he must secure their confidence. This can only be done by living according to his profession-by consistently maintaining and carrying out Christian principles. Who will place any confidence in an individual as a Christian, who is constantly shrinking from duty, especially in time of trial-who, instead of taking the straightforward course of virtue and rectitude, is constantly moving in almost every direction, pursuing plans and adopting measures which are any thing but honorable, to throw off responsibility, or to avoid certain difficulties which he may be called to encounter? Such, however much they may say and do in favor of Christianity, will accomplish but little in the regeneration of the world. Their efforts are rendered unavailing for the want of the confidence of others. It requires something besides doubtful, unstable, and transient piety, to move the world to seek for experimental godliness. If you would, therefore, secure the confidence of those around you, and thereby be prepared to do them a greater amount of good, acquire true Christian independence. 2. It will better enable us to discharge our whole duty. A wavering, unsettled, and fettered mind, under the influence of fear, momentary excitement, and wordly opinions, is ill prepared to perform what God requires; especially, where the performance of a particular act calls for firmness and moral courage, and is calculated to test the principles of one's heart. Under such circumstances, there will be a yielding, and perhaps a giving up of those great principles to which the individual had previously professed the strongest attachment. Look at the magistrate, who, while under the most solemn obligation to execute the laws of the land where occasion requires, shrinking from duty, because he fears to give offense; or the professing Christian, who has sworn allegiance to the King of heaven, swerving from the path of rectitude! How unwilling to meet the opposition of the world, or the frowns of a party; how afraid to reprove sin, and maintain the principles of righteousness! Not so with the individual possessed of true Christian independence. Other things being equal, he is enabled to perform his whole duty, however trying and difficult. The German reformer felt it his duty to go to the Diet of Worms, and such was his willingness and purpose 168 INDEPENDENCE OF CHRISTIAN CHARACTER. to discharge his duty, though his friends would dissuade him from it, that he was led to exclaim, "I will go, if I am to meet as many devils there as there are tiles on the houses!" 3. It is requisite to our security against temptation and sin. Many have been led into sin and into acts of gross immorality, for want of true independence. { Are not those crimes of which so many have been guilty, who once bore the Christian name, in most instances, to be attributed to this? See instances in the prevarication of Abraham in Egypt; the neglect of duty toward his children, in Eli; and Peter's denial of his Lord. True independence is a fort to the soul, always ready to protect and defend it against every enemy, amid all possible attacks and dangers. A vacillating, obsequious mind, is always exposed to temptation and sin. The walls of the garrison are broken down; the enemy comes into the soul, and frequently takes undisputed possession. How many of the mighty have fallen! Fallen in an unexpected hour! Independence would have furnished them with a sure garrison against the bribes, solicitations, and temptations by which they were ruined! 4. It gives peace of conscience. "For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience." An individual can only have peace of conscience when he does right-when he firmly and honestly does his duty. Conscience then approves and approbates. But a timid, servile, and fluctuating mind is always halting, and in suspense. However clear and plain duty may appear, it hardly knows whether to perform it or not. Outward circumstances must be looked at, the feelings, wishes, and views of others must be consulted, before it can determine on the course to pursue. If the plain course of duty would seem to militate against pecuniary interests, popular opinion, or the views and feelings of those much respected, why, it must be abandoned-at least partially. Such a mind is constantly reproached and stung by conscience: it enjoys no peace. How delightful and pleasant to survey the scenes and events of past life, to such as have acted with a noble, Christian independence! They see no shrinking from duty, no giving up of principles, and no vacillating course to satisfy the caprice of others. All has been done resolutely, manly, firmly, in an honorable, dignified, and Christian manner. Their path has been as a shining light. Their course has been even, consistent, and triumphant. How delightful to retrospect such a life! And what pleasing emotions must such a retrospection necessarily inspire! Conscience acquits-God approves. 5. It is indispensable to the attainment of true and permanent honor. Most individuals are seeking, in some way, for honor. But the measures adopted for its attainment, evinces that it is for the vain, evanescent honor of the world. Who is seeking for true honor-the honor that comes from God? Are the fearful, the fluctuating, and the wavering? Are those who will sacrifice their conscience to the notions of others, to the love of applause, and to the desire of advancement? No, true and immortal honor is never thus obtained. Those only will possess it, who, by a habitual, fixed purpose of mind, and unshaken confidence in God, pursue the straight and narrow path. Such was the course of the prophets and apostles, and such was the course of the Savior of mankind. They were above the pompous and ostentatious display of worldly glory-uninfluenced by the trappings of pride, or the embellishments of fancy. What is all the poor, short-lived honor of earth? Can it make you rich, happy, or triumphant? Rather seek for unfading, immortal honor; but this can only be secured by patient con{tinuance in well doing. "If any man," said the Savior, "will serve me, him will my Father honor." Glorious honor! 6. It is indispensable to our usefulness. Every individual should labor to do the greatest amount of good-to make the world better-to add something to the mass of human happiness, and to lessen the amount of human misery. In order for this our course must be uniform, fixed, and consistent. We must possess that independence of character which will give us an ascendancy over the fear of man and every unholy influence-which will lead us to act, and always act-to feel, and always feel; and which will enable us to endure hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ. Such will not run in vain, nor labor in vain. They shall gather jewels to deck the Savior's crown at his general coronation. 7. It will lead to a peaceful and triumphant termination of our Christian career. It will bring all our religious labors to a glorious and successful issue. They will end in peace and triumph. Hear the apostle: "I am now ready to be offered; the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith; henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them, also, that love his appearing." How joyful! how triumphant! He had run for the prize: he was now about to receive it. His toils, labors, and sufferings were about terminating for ever. The crown of heavenly brightness already appeared in his view. With this independence, all our labors must be crowned with complete success. Without it, they will end in shame and disappointment. Obtain, then, the independence of the Christian character, and with this pursue the path of holiness, until you hear it said, "Well done, good and faithful servant." Life's journey will soon terminate-the crown will soon be given. "Be ye steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord: inasmuch as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord." WOMAN IN SOCIETY. WOMAN IN SOCIETY. BY REV. J. F. TUTTLE. A POET has written words which, from him, are strange. From earliest infancy his mother had treated him cruelly. She had blasted the good tendencies of a heart not worse than other natural hearts, and had so brutalized filial affection, that at her death, the son coolly dispatched her corpse to the family vault under the care of some friends, and he meanwhile amused himself at a game of boxing! And yet this man wrote these words: "The very first Of human life must spring from woman's breast; Your first small words are taught you from her lips; Your first tears quenched by her, and your last sighs Too often breathed out in a woman's hearing, When men have shrunk from the ignoble care Of watching the last hour of him who led them." Perhaps in wandering over the earth, a wretched pilgrim, his sorrows had at times been softened by a woman's kindness. Strange, indeed, had it not been so. Perhaps his own mother sometimes forgot to be brutal, and let her woman's heart give way to unutterable tenderness toward her deformed first-born. Perhaps the misanthrope had seen a woman's gentleness and kindness in some family, making a father, a husband, a brother, or a son happy, and like sweet sunbeams falling on hearts without the circle of home; or perhaps his true soul of poetry had conceived an ideal of what a woman ought and might be, in a world too harsh, bitter, and inhuman, without some such antagonistic element to chasten and restrain. But be the cause what it may, such sentiments from Lord Byron seem strange; nor are they less true because he uttered them. The love of the Savior for the family at Bethany was very great. One member of this family always is associated in our minds with ideas of purity, gentleness, and love: it is Mary. At the feast at which Jesus and the restored Lazarus were sitting as guests, Mary pours on the Savior's head and feet precious and delightful ointment. The act is peculiarly pleasing to him; but the disciples regarded it as a waste. The box of spikenard was worth forty-two dollars! Judas cannot restrain the urgency of his covetous heart, and openly declaims against such want of frugality. The Savior interposes. His words are touching. He is soon to leave them, and they can show him, personally, no more kind offices. Indeed, so soon is he to leave them, that this act of love may be esteemed his anointment for burial. Mary's work was one of love. The fragrance of her heart immortalized her story. And now, wherever Bibles and Testaments are read, the world over, this sweet incident is read and admired. The immortality of Mary of Bethany is more certainly gained and more widely trumpeted, than had she been entombed with VOL. VI.-22 169 crowned heads, and men more kingly than kings, in Westminster Abbey. These names will perish; but the name of Mary never. At millions of family altars, and by all that hear of Christ, is this touching story read, and this true woman loved. This beautiful incident furnishes my theme. The Savior is still in the world, and if there be a Mary, she may still do him kindness. The deed may not be recorded in Matthew's record of good news, but it may be engraven deeply on grateful hearts—it may be lisped by infant tongues-it may be told and retold at happy family altars, and, if not on earth, yet in heaven, be rehearsed as immortal, and clothe the author with fadeless glory. All men are Christ's brethren, in a most important sense; and when we meet the most debauched, besotted, abandoned man, we do not know but he will shine with lustre bright as Paul. "Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of these, my brethren, ye did it unto me;" and "inasmuch as ye did it not unto one of the least of these, my brethren, ye did it not unto me." Jesus Christ is still in the world, and the woman who sighs to emulate Mary of Bethany, in showing love to the Savior, and reap the reward, can do it. To treat with kindness any human being, however low he may be, because she hopes in him to see a friend of Christ, will secure to the Mary who does thus the the benediction of God, and immortality in heaven, as certainly as did that act at the feast at Bethany secure these rewards to the sister of Lazarus. The influence which woman can exert on society is my theme. In developing this, I shall not hesitate to speak of her evil influence as well as her good. Let us see her power at the fountain heads of society. And here facts are more forcible than disquisition. Let me present two. I have alluded to the first already. Lord Byron was afflicted with a deformed foot, and when young, submitted to the most excrutiating operations to have it restored. But it was of no avail. His mother was a proud, passionate, and wicked woman. Her passions burned so fiercely that they quenched maternal yearnings. There is no proof that her son was of worse disposition than other children. But in that boy's mind lay coiled up a fearful power to augment or blast happiness in the world. Let us see the fashioning which this young Boanerges received at his mother's hands. All who have read the life of Byron must have shuddered to hear him speak of his mother, and in this must have seen the damning power this mother exerted at the very sources of life. Byron's biographer takes occasion, at least three times, to speak of this; and the passages are so remarkable that I will quote them entire. The first is brief, but it reads volumes of warning. "On the subject of his deformed foot," says Moore, "he (Byron) described the feeling of horror and humiliation that came over him when his mother, |