ment, but to select that which was best adapted to the emergencies of the case.

At the close of the eighteenth century the institutions of the gospel had been extensively planted in Western New York; and it would be difficult to say whether the preponderating influence was on the side of Presbyterians or Congregationalists. It was a question which no one was disposed to raise, and the means of its solution are not readily to be obtained. The strength of the two denominations west of the Hudson seems to have been nearly equal, in case the Presbyterian leanings of the bodies Congregational in name be not taken into account. Nearly or quite twenty churches had been organized, although with scarcely an exception they were all in a feeble state. By 1793 the churches of Sherburne, Windsor, and Cazenovia had been gathered. In the course of the two or three years that followed, those of Auburn, East Palmyra, and Elmira were added to the list. Before or by 1800, the number was increased by those of Oxford, Bainbridge, Springport, Scipio First, Milan, Geneva, Ovid, Lisle, Naples, and probably some few others.

Thus the foundation was laid for the operations of subsequent years, and already the policy which was declared in the Plan of Union was initiated, and, with or without ecclesiastical legislation, the spirit of the leading ministers and missionaries was such as was sure to promote the results which the Plan was intended to secure.

CHAPTER XIX.

EARLY HISTORY OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN KENTUCKY, 1775-1800.

SOME estimate may be formed of the urgent claims of the great mission-field west of the Alleghanies and south of the Ohio, from the fact that the aggregate population of Kentucky and Tennessee had increased from little more than one hundred thousand in 1790 to three hundred and twenty-five thousand in 1800. A constant stream of immigration was pouring into it from the older settlements, at the rate of something like an average of twenty thousand a year. This was

during a period when New England had scarcely begun to colonize west of the Hudson, and when Central and Western New York were in process of being surveyed. The pioneers were bold and hardy men, ready to brave the hardships of the wilderness and contend with the beasts of the forest or the scarcely less merciless Indian tribes. Their lives were full of strange vicissitude and romantic incident. Constant hazard and peril seemed to become at length the necessary stimulant to healthful energy.

Among such a people, the recluse scholar, with his logical, polished discourse read from the manuscript, was not needed. Erudition and refinement were not in demand. The hardy backwoodsman required a new type of preacher,-one who could shoulder axe or musket with his congregation, preach in shirt-sleeves, and take the stump for a pulpit. Men of this stamp could not

be manufactured to order in colleges. They must of necessity be trained up on the field.

They were for the most part thus trained,-many of them after their arrival in the region; but it was wise and necessary that they should not despise learning. A happy influence was exerted over them by the pioneer missionary who laid the foundations of the Presbyterian Church in this part of the country. Rev. David Rice, better known as "Father Rice," at the mature age of fifty, crossed the mountains and found a home in Mercer county, Ky., as early as October, 1783. He was a man of education and ability and of most devoted zeal. He had pursued his classical studies in early life under the direction of the celebrated James Waddel, had been graduated at Princeton College under the Presidency of Samuel Davies, had studied theology with Rev. James Todd, been licensed by the Presbytery of Hanover, had labored as a missionary in South Virginia and North Carolina, and settled as pastor of the church at the Peaks of Otter. During the Revolutionary conflict he occupied a new and frontier settlement, and in that mountainous region and among a heterogeneous population acquired that experience which fitted him so well for his future field. Tall and slender in person, quiet in his movements, but with an alertness that continued to extreme age, he entered upon his work beyond the mountains with the energy and composure of one who knew the greatness of the task he had undertaken. Sagacious to discern the signs of the times, and quick to detect the character and dangers of the society around him, he was fully competent to expose the errors which were flooding the land, and lay solid the gospel foundations that should stay the rushing tide. His "Essay on Baptism" did good service in that Western region years before the opening of the present century, and when a print

ing-press to publish it could not be found west of the mountains. Of the cause of freedom he was a bold

and consistent champion. "Slavery Inconsistent with Justice and Policy" was the title of a pamphlet issued by him in 1792. The views presented in it were forcibly urged by him in the convention that formed the State Constitution. Nor did the cause of education find in him a lukewarm friend. While a resident of Virginia, he had officially labored to promote the cause of liberal learning. He took an active part in the establishment of Hampden-Sidney College, and had an important agency in procuring its two first Presidents, Samuel Stanhope Smith and Robert Blair Smith. Kentucky needed such a man; and when the trustees of Transylvania University met, shortly after his arrival in that region, at Crow's Station, he was President of the Board, and was ever its steadfast friend. He felt that the School and the Church had a common interest, and that Kentucky must educate her own sons. To the ripe age of eighty-three he was spared to see new laborers gather around him, and the institutions he had planted rise to the promise of a blessed harvest.

Nor was he left long alone in this new field. In 1784, Rev. Adam Rankin, who settled at Lexington. and Rev. James Crawford,' who located at Walnut Hill, came to his support. Two years later, Andrew McClure, who took the first charge of the Salem and Paris congregations, and Thomas B. Craighead, of North Carolina, whose name is associated with that of the Shiloh Church, and of whom the Hon. John Breckinridge said that his discourses made a more lasting

1 James Crawford was a graduate of Princeton in 1777. Two years later he was licensed by the Presbytery of Hanover, and in 1784 removed to Kentucky, settling at Walnut Hill, where he gathered a flourishing church. His death occurred in 1803.

impression on him than those of any other man, joined the feeble band. These five ministers, with Rev. Zerah Templin, recently ordained an evangelist, constituted the first Presbytery, October 17, 1786. Twelve congregations were already at least partially organized.

In 1790, the first missionaries sent out by the Synod of Virginia, and in fact by the Presbyterian Church. after the formation of the General Assembly, entered this field. These were Robert Marshall and the celebrated Carey H. Allen. The first was a licentiate of Redstone Presbytery. He was a native of Ireland, but in his twelfth year (1772) emigrated with his father's family to Western Pennsylvania. He was a wild youth, and at the age of sixteen enlisted as a private in the army, against the remonstrance of his mother. Strangely enough, his course now was more sober and moral than before. He abstained from all the vices of camp-life, and, when not on duty, retired to his tent and devoted himself to the study of arithmetic and mathematics. He was in six general engagements, one of which was the hard-fought battle of Monmouth. Here his locks were grazed by a bullet, and he narrowly escaped with his life. After the war he joined the Seceders, but was still a stranger to vital religion. It was under a searching discourse of Dr. McMillan that he was first brought to feel his guilt as a sinner. Now he was humbled in the dust: his self-possession. deserted him, and he fell into a state of the deepest anguish. At length hope dawned upon him, and, with new views of duty, he devoted himself to the work of the ministry.

He pursued his academical studies at Liberty Hall. His theological course was completed under Dr. McMillan. For some months he labored as a missionary in Virginia, and at the close of 1790 set out under the commission of the Virginia Synod for Kentucky.