The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1899-02-08
MORM0NS IN KENTUCKY.
"A promising Field for the ProseIytine H,
ders' Sending Out MANY Missionaries.

A Promising Field for the ProseJv,ins H,
ders. Sending Out MANY Missionaries.
A press dispatch from Lexington XIV
says:
Eastern and southeastern Kentucky is
becoming promising field for the pros
elytlng Mormon elders who are sent ont
from Salt Lake City to secure CONVEX 9
TO their peculiar religion.
Elder Kimball, president of the Soutb-
ern Mormon propaganda, has his heads
quaters at Chattanooga, Tenn, and he
intends to send at least one missionary
to each county in the south, and es.
pecially in the mountain districts last
year President Kimball sent out 235 miss
slonarieS, and he says the work has inst
begun. He says he will probably send
out nearly twice that number durino tho
present year. These missionaries travel
on foot through the mountains, stoppinp
with the simple farmers and loggers
They have been roughly treated on sev>
eral occasions, but they do not seem to
mind it, and continue their work as if
nothing had happened. In Metcalf
county they have built little frame
church at cost of about 81 900, but this
is the only place of worship they can call
their own. They usually preach in The
little log school houses, which are all
too far apart, and their audiences seldom
number 100 souls. In Lewis county the
Mormon missionaries have met with
considerable opposition, and in several
instances violence has been done them.
They have preached in some of the
churches, however, and have made few
converts. At Cumberland Cap, which
is little town just across the Kentucky
line from MiddlesbOrOugh, the Mormon
elders tried to secure the use of one of
the church buildings for revival, but it
was promptly refused and they were
given to understand that the quicker
they got out of town the better. They
went to Harlan, Lee county, Vir
GINA. The missionaries made considea>
BILE Roadway and they may build a
church in that state this season.
They have been we'll schooled in the
doctrines of Christians until thew can
hold their own and more, too, with the
mountain preachers. The Mormon
preachers will debate with these native
theologians and they always get the best
of the argument. In their regular ser>
mons the MOrmons are earnest, at times
dramatic, and always ready with an APP
Dropriate answer to the many questions
asked them when they are in the pulpit.
Your average mountaineer does not hes>
itate to ask public speaker, be he pol
iticlau or preacher, whatever questions
come to his mind when the speaker is
talking. And woe be unto the speaker
to a mountain audience who cannot
answer such questions without getting
mad. If he should show bis temper he
would be hooted out, and if he refused
to 60 in that way some one in the audi
ence would draw his "forty-five" and at
tempt to shoot him out. When the
Mormon preachers first came to Ken>
tucky it was generally supposed by the
mountaineers that they would preach III
favor of polygamy, but of course they
did nothing OF the kind, and now they
are having much less trouble than they
did at first. 1t is believed by conserva>
tive missionaries that they will make
hundreds of converts in eastern and
sourthetn Kentucky this yea.