Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1888-09-26
A REMARKABLE MAN.
The Manner I'm which a Colored Preacl,
Learned to Read the Bible.

Learned to Read the Bible.
Rev. Nathan Smith, primitive Baptist
preacher, is tall and slim, and at the first
glance would not be taken for any more than
an average negro but, says the Macon Ca
Telegraph, Rev. Nathan Smith is in some re-
spects very remarkable man. He claims
to be hfty-two years old, though he does not
look 1t. and enjoys in his declining years the
reputation of being an honest as well as a
sensible man.
The manner in which he first learned to
read, how he was struck with the ''sperit,''
and how he began preaching, seems like
chapter from hoodooism. and yet the story
is told IN the most tstraight-forward manner,
in all earnestness and in manner that de-
fies denial.
AT an early age, while plowing as a slave
in Mississippi cotton field, he says he was
suddenly felled to the ground by something
like dull thud, that changed the whole
course of his life. 1t was the ''sperit'' that
struck him, he says, and Immediately he
| saw scenes brighter than the sun had ever
| shone on before; there was all brightness
above him and below an awful gulf. The
trees around in the woods bowed TO him as he
looked at them, and every thing was greatly
changed. For several weeks he remained
under the spell and during that time his
master thought he had lost his mind.
$50 had" said Smith, $50 far as tenn
| poral things were concerned" Finally he
came out from under the spell, and ono
night he had dream, or rather vision.
He saw something like pot boiling over, and
| out of the steam came little man with an
open bookin his hand. Placing it before tho
dreamer, the little man pointed to the book
of John and told him to read. Smith was
conscious of the fact that he did not know
| one letter from another, and in an instant
| remembered how he had pored over the lit
| tie black Testament given him by his uncle,
and which he kept locked up in his trunk
But he could not resist, as much as he
| tried, looking at the book, and then, to his
! great amazement, he read the book of John
as readily as any body could have done. He
read the book through to the end and then
read other books. They were as easily read
as the first. Thus. in a single night, he had
learned to read. The little man then van
ished as he had appeared, and the balance
of the night was spent in finding himself
preaching to crowds of people, of walking
up and down among the congregation and
saving souls
The next morning when he awoze he went
TO his trunk, and, taking out the little black
Testament, opened it, and the first word to
meet his eye was John. He tried to read.
and he found that he could read as well as
he did the night before when told to do SO
by the little man. Then he went to an old
negro on the place, who was preaching
around, and told him that he could read the
Bible The old man told him that he did not
know word In the book. Smith opened his
Testament and read aloud The old negro
was astonIshed, and told him he must be q
preacher, that he had been ordained TO
preach. That was thirty-fve years ago, and
/ in that time he had read the Bible, news
papers or any thing in the shape Of read
ing, and yet was never taught q letter.
When his master refuged from Missis-
sippi and settled in Americus, Smith was
one of the party. In 1861, when the Federal
Government had work done in Anderson
vile, Smith was one Of the hands, and it
was while there that he was induced to at
tend general meeting Of Primitive Bap-
lists The text for the morning was a verse
Smith had read when the little man
showed him the way 10 read. This i'm
pressed him very much and that night he
was taken into the church In a short
while afterward he went 10 preaching aud
has kept it up. He had . church in Laur-