200 History of Methodism 



ersing the wilds, before they could reach the seat of 

 the second Georgia Conference, they found themselves 

 exposed to very serious difficulties and dangers. Some- 

 times they were compelled, after traveling through 

 the day, exposed to all the rigors of the season, to take 

 up their abode in houses made of logs, which admitted 

 through their crevices the piercing spirit of the north- 

 ern breeze, and, after obtaining a slender repast, to 

 find repose on the unyielding floor. Sometimes they 

 missed their way through the trackless forest, and oc- 

 casionally traveled sixteen or eighteen miles without 

 seeing a human being but themselves — in their prog- 

 ress fording many deep, rapid, and dangerous rivers. 

 Sometimes, although they carried provisions with 

 them, they could not find it convenient to take any re- 

 freshment from an early hour in the morning until 

 night had gathered her sable mantle around them. To 

 relieve the solitude of their journeys they were occa- 

 sionally intercepted by large congregations that as- 

 sembled in stated places to wait their arrival. To these 

 they preached the word of life, sometimes in houses, 

 as Bishop Asbury describes them, " open at the bot- 

 tom, top, and sides;" yet much success seemed to 

 ci own their labors. The scenery, also, with which they 

 were surrounded, sometimes appeared romantic and 

 highly picturesque. Extensive vistas, expanded wa- 

 ters, towering pines, rustling breezes, the flight of 

 birds, and the starting of trembling fawns, all con- 

 spired to impart an exhilarating solemnity to their 

 spirits, and to raise their thoughts from nature "up 

 to nature's God." On one occasion they found them- 

 selves illuminated at a late hour of the night by the 

 blaze of pine-trees that had been accidentally set on 

 fire. At certain seasons of the year the planters find 



