4 The Winning of the West 



hostility toward all rank, whether or not based on 

 merit and learning, " the Baptists' creed appealed 

 strongly. Where their preachers obtained foothold, 

 it was made a matter of reproach to the Presbyterian 

 clergymen that they had been educated in early life 

 for the ministry as for a profession. The love of 

 liberty, and the defiant assertion of equality, so uni- 

 versal in the backwoods, and so excellent in them- 

 selves, sometimes took very warped and twisted 

 forms, notably when they betrayed the backwoods- 

 men into the belief that the true democratic spirit 

 forbade any exclusive and special training for the 

 professions that produce soldiers, statesmen, or 

 ministers. 



The fact that the Baptist preachers were men ex- 

 actly similar to their fellows in all their habits of 

 life, not only gave them a good standing at once, 

 but likewise enabled them very early to visit the 

 furthest settlements, traveling precisely like other 

 backwoodsmen ; and once there, each preacher, each 

 earnest professor, doing bold and fearless mission- 

 ary work, became the nucleus round which a little 

 knot of true believers gathered. Two or three of 

 them made short visits to Kentucky during the first 

 few years of its existence. One, who went thither 

 in the early spring of 1776, kept a journal 4 of his 

 trip. He traveled over the Wilderness Road with 

 eight other men. Three of them were Baptists like 



4 MS. autobiography of Rev. William Hickman. He was 

 born in Virginia, February 4, 1747. A copy in Col. Durrett's 

 library at Louisville, Ky. 



