The hard-shell Baptist was the dominant
religion; with here and there a Presbyterian community, generally
characterized by superior education and intelligence, with a preacher
of so much learning as to be an oracle throughout the land.
The Methodists were just then beginning to grow into importance, and
their circuit-riders, now fashionably known as itinerants, were
passing and preaching, and establishing societies to mark their
success, through all the rude settlements of the State. These were the
pioneers of that truly democratic sect, as of the stern morality and
upright bearing which had so powerful an influence over the then
rising population.
It is more than sixty years since I first listened to a Methodist
sermon. It was preached by a young, spare man, with sallow complexion,
and black eyes and hair. I remember the gleam of his eye, and the
deep, startling tones of his voice--his earnest and fervent manner;
and only yesterday, in the Baronne Street (New Orleans) Methodist
Church, I listened to an old man, upward of eighty years of age,
preaching the ordination sermon of four new bishops of the Methodist
Church.
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