Spread of English-Speaking Peoples 157 



of them who knew the right honestly tried to live 

 up to it, in spite of the manifold temptations to 

 backsliding offered by their lives of hard and fierce 

 contention. 59 But Calvinism, though more conge- 

 nial to them than Episcopacy, and infinitely more so 

 than Catholicism, was too cold for the fiery hearts 

 of the borderers ; they were not stirred to the depths 

 of their natures till other creeds, and, above all, 

 Methodism, worked their way to the wilderness. 



Thus the backwoodsmen lived on the clearings 

 they had hewed out of the everlasting forest; a grim, 

 stern people, strong and simple, powerful for good 

 and evil, swayed by gusts of stormy passion, the love 

 of freedom rooted in their very hearts' core. Their 

 lives were harsh and narrow, they gained their 

 bread by their blood and sweat, in the unending 

 struggle with the wild ruggedness of nature. They 

 suffered terrible injuries at the hands of the red 

 men, and on their foes they waged a terrible war- 

 fare in return. They were relentless, revengeful, 

 suspicious, knowing neither ruth nor pity; they 

 were also upright, resolute, and fearless, loyal to 

 their friends, and devoted to their country. In spite 

 of their many failings, they were of all men the best 

 fitted to conquer the wilderness and hold it against 

 all comers. 



59 Said one old Indian fighter, a Col. Joseph Brown, of 

 Tennessee, with quaint truthfulness, "I have tried also to 

 be a religious man, but have not always, in a life of so much 

 adventure and strife, been able to act consistently." "South- 

 western Monthly," Nashville, 1851, I., 80. 



