In the Current of the Revolution 3 



tial, exception to this general rule of charity. After 

 the outbreak of the Revolution, the Kentuckians, in 

 common with other backwoodsmen, grew to thor- 

 oughly dislike one religious body which they al- 

 ready distrusted; this was the Church of England, 

 the Episcopal Church. They long regarded it as 

 merely the persecuting ecclesiastical arm of the Brit- 

 ish Government. Such of them as had been brought 

 up in any faith at all had, for the most part, orig- 

 inally professed some form of Calvinism; they had 

 very probably learnt their letters from a primer 

 which in one of its rude cuts represented John Rog- 

 ers at the stake, surrounded by his wife and seven 

 children, and in their after lives they were more fa- 

 miliar with the "Pilgrim's Progress" than with any 

 other book save the Bible ; so that it was natural for 

 them to distrust the successors of those who had 

 persecuted Rogers and Bunyan. 3 Still, the border 

 communities were, as times then went, very tolerant 

 in religious matters ; and of course most of the men 

 had no chance to display, or indeed to feel, secta- 

 rianism of any kind, for they had no issue to join, 

 and rarely a church about which to rally. 



By the time Kentucky was settled the Baptists 

 had begun to make headway on the frontier, at the 

 expense of the Presbyterians. The rough democ- 

 racy of the border welcomed a sect which was itself 

 essentially democratic. To many of the backwoods- 

 men's prejudices, notably their sullen and narrow 



3 "Pioneer Life in Kentucky," Daniel Drake, Cincinnati, 

 1870, p. 196 (an invaluable work). 



