The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 18??-1935, 1901-09-13
PEOPLE OF The
MOUNTAINS.
An Interesting Lecture Delivered by
Dr.. Guerrant.
Local Ministers Decide to Continue
the Meeting Begun by
Him.

tive discourse, and was listened to with
rapt attention by the large audience
present. He took for his text the scrip
Jure commencing with the verse I'm
asmuch as we did it unto the least of
these, my brethren, We did it unto me. -
He said he wanted to talk to the PEG
Pile of the audience about their neigh
bors. People who live for self alone
would never get to heaven. The great
est JOY that comes to Christian soul
is from doing something for others.
The Cumberland mountain country
extended from Tennessee through North
Carolina, Kentucky, Virginia and
West Virginia. 1t was 100 miles broad
and several hundred miles in length,
and is inhabited by $500, 900 people.
He knew those mountain people init
mately. He served through the war
with some of them, and on the battle
field they were as brave as the bravest,
After the war he went. among them
for years as physician and later as a
minister, and he was prepared to say
that there existed nowhere on the face
of the earth harder, Drawer, truer
race of people than the people of the
Cumberland mountains. Through their
veins courses the purest strains of the
old Anglo Saxon blood. There are no
foreigners among them, and only a
sprinkling of negroes. They were our
own people; they were Tennesseans
and Kentuckians. Poor indeed they
ale; he had been in many homes that
didn have So worth of property in
the whole house; but they were no
poorer than Jesus Christ who was the
poorest man that ever lived, for he
had not where to lay his head. And
these people are living yonder in the
very shadow of our homes without the
gospel and without Christ. More than
one million are without the gospel !;
thousands of them never saw Bib e.
DR.. Guerrant said he determined sey-
eral years ago that he would help
them He said he determined that he
! would not go to his Father with their
blood on his hands, and he had been
travelling among them for years and
telling them of the Savior who died to
save them. He said he went to his
people and said to them we must help
) those people. He had organized 81
churches in the mountains himself.
The people commenced to send mission
aries to them and there are 45 preach
ers, men and women, in the noun
tains to- day. Preachers are paid only
from $50 to $50 per month. But some
of them are scholarly, educated men,
and the equals of any man in the pull
pit in Tennessee or Kentucky. The
people are sustaining the work; from
8 all over the land from Maine to the
Gulf, donations are sent. No collec
y tions are taken up; no one is asked t.
help. Contributions are voluntary, ant
money is sent directly to the office o.
the mission work at Louisville. He
was sorry to say that very little hell
had come from us. They did not ever
r know where next months expenses
d would come from, but the work would
be taken care of. In one stretch O
] one hundred miles the speaker sale
9 there was but one church
y Preaching occurs only in the fall, an(
then the funerals are preached. L
= taxes three days for funerals from
q Friday until Monday. And everybod.
goes, for miles throughout the valley
y They go to church right after break
r fast, and stay all day long. Some o
= them walk fifteen and twenty miles
'' and many of them without shoes
They meet out in the woods, and Their
in the groves God S first temples, the.
pay their simple but earnest worship tt
. their Maker The funerals must b.
preached, no matter how long the per
= son has been dead. DR.. Guerrant salt
= he preached one man funeral who hat
q been dead 81 years. He preached tn
. funeral of one woman's husband will
the widow sitting ON the front sea
= with her second husband. He told o
one man who committed suicide and a
the funeral ito make it impressive
I the mountaineers took the dead man
" clothes, stuffed them, and hung then
!, to the same limb he had hung himsel
:. from. A fight ensued at this funera
and two men were killed and severa
wounded.
The origin of the mountain fueds l
because of the clannish nature of tn
h people. They are like the Scots, AM
$ when YOU make one family mad, yo
must fight the whole relationship, t
> the 42nd cousin, throughout the valley
No church service can be held at night
# The people are afraid of being killed
l And vet the country is as thickl
" settled as yours, said DIR. Guerrant
8 ''You never get out of sight of tn
II mountain home. The cIeverest an
most hospitable people in the worl
are the mountaineers; they will Sc
their last piece of clothing to entertal
stranger. No people are more patri
otto than the people of the Cumber
l. land mountains. They love their coun
IS try with patriotic devotion; the
: love their native hills, their beautitu
G. streams. and the songs of their bird
N with passionate devotion. There /
IS the mountains they live, loving liberty
d thinking the same thoughts and Twin
% in the same manner as their father
r. did before them one hundred years agC
ID They are our people; what will We d
with themY We have been lettin
them die for one hundred year.
y Mothers are putting their babes in Il
NJ ground and old men whose hair
la frosty with years, are going down
re the grave without ever hearing
* Jesus Christ. They are our own coui
g. trymen, and they are perish1ng. VIII
viii YOU do with themG Ionder
the mountains of your own state the
live, without Bibles. without Sunda.
RI schools. without preachers, ,withoI
~ God or Christ Children and their p
NJ rents are dying by ten thousands wi
"a never heard the gospel. He that gi
,W eth TO the poor lendeth to the Lord.
- If Won like that security, help q