The War in the Northwest 277 



and good hunter might follow whatever creed he 

 'wished, provided he did not intrude it on others. 

 But backwoods Calvinism differed widely from the 

 creed as first taught. It was professed by thorough- 

 going Americans, essentially free and liberty-lov- 

 ing, who would not for a moment have tolerated a 

 theocracy in their midst. Their social, religious, 

 and political systems were such as naturally flour- 

 ished in a country remarkable for its temper of 

 rough and self -asserting equality. Nevertheless 

 the old Calvinistic spirit left a peculiar stamp on this 

 wild border democracy. More than anything else, 

 it gave the backwoodsmen their code of right and 

 wrong. Though they were a hard, narrow, dogged 

 people, yet they intensely believed in their own 

 standards and ideals. Often warped and twisted, 

 mentally and morally, by the strain of their exist- 

 ence, they at least always retained the fundamental 

 virtues of hardihood and manliness. 



Presbyterianism was not, however, destined even 

 here to remain the leading frontier creed. Other 

 sects still more democratic, still more in keeping 

 with backwoods life and thought, largely supplanted 

 it. Methodism did not become a power until after 

 the close of the Revolution; but the Baptists fol- 

 lowed close on the heels of the Presbyterians. They, 

 too, soon built log meeting-houses here and there, 

 while their preachers cleared the forest and hunted 

 elk and buffalo like the other pioneer 'settlers. 6 



To all the churches the preacher and congrega- 



6 Ramsey, 144. 



