tal vigor, shrewdness, extraordinary
knowledge of human nature, many of them by overwhelming natural
eloquence, the effects of which on popular assemblies are scarcely
paralleled in the history of ancient or modern oratory, and not a few by
powers of satire and wit which made the gainsayer cower before them. To
these intellectual attributes they added great excellences of the heart,
a zeal which only burned more fervently where that of ordinary men would
have grown faint, a courage that exulted in perils, a generosity which
knew no bounds, and left most of them in want in their latter days, a
forbearance and co-operation with each other which are seldom found in
large bodies, an entire devotion to one work, and, withal, a simplicity
of character which extended even to their manners and their apparel.
They were likewise characterized by rare physical abilities. They were
mostly robust. The feats of labor and endurance which they performed,
in incessantly preaching in villages and cities, among slave huts and
Indian wigwams, in journeyings seldom interrupted by stress of weather,
in fording creeks, swimming rivers, sleeping in forests,--these, with
the novel circumstances with which such a career frequently brought them
into contact, afford examples of life and character which, in the hands
of genius, might be the materials for a new department of romantic
literature. They were men who labored as if the judgment fires were
about to break out on the world, and time to end with their day. They
were precisely the men whom the moral wants of the new world at the time
demanded.

[Footnote 43: A prominent clergyman of the Methodist church. His History
of Methodism is a work of great research and value. A native of
Pennsylvania.]

* * * * *

=_Francis Parkman, 1823-._= (Manual, pp. 496, 505.)

From "The Conspiracy of Pontiac."

=_145._= HUNTERS AND TRAPPERS.

These rude and hardy men, hunters and traders, scouts and guides, who
ranged the woods beyond the English borders, and formed a connecting
link between barbarism and civilization, have been touched upon already.
They were a distinct, peculiar class, marked with striking contrasts of
good and evil. Many, though by no means all, were coarse, audacious,
and unscrupulous; yet, even in the worst, one might often have found a
vigorous growth of warlike virtues, an iron endurance, an undespairing
courage, a wondrous sagacity, and singular fe