in their destitution, but, personally they shared also
in their abundance. The best bed in the best cabin of the settler was at
his command, and the best food of the fattest larder of the neighborhood
was set before him, and this was often both abundant and luxurious.
Besides this, he was the centre of a large social influence, receiving
attentions and admirations which greatly alleviated every discomfort,
while the wife was often alone in a remote cabin, or at best in such a
house as happened to be unoccupied in some half-deserted village, and
could be rented cheap for a parsonage. There she was surrounded by her
family of half-fed and half-clothed children, with none of the
alleviations which made her husband's life not only bearable but often
enjoyable. It is no exaggeration to say that the wives of our early
preachers often suffered for want of nourishing food, while, when on his
circuit, the husband had abundance. Besides this there was the absence
of almost every domestic and social comfort which the annual and long
moves necessarily implied, and yet in mentioning the heroes of early
Methodism in Indiana these are seldom referred to. They were in all
cases the greater heroes.

But these heroic wives and their heroic husbands were not the only
heroes of that period, nor the greatest. We are so accustomed to sing
praises to those who are conspicuous because of accidental position,
that we fail to remember that in the humblest private in the ranks is
often to be found every element that constitutes the real hero, and who
is all the more worthy of recognition because never recognized. Allen
Wiley was never as great a hero in his after life as he was those years
in which he added the unrequited labors of a faithful and laborious
local preacher to the work of a diligent farmer. He became more
conspicuous but never greater.

Among the real heroes of that heroic period were the Culls, the
Conwells, the Bariwicks, the Swartzes, the Brentons, the Morrows, and
hundreds like them, who did not merely supplement the labors of the
traveling preachers, but who often led the way. Three-fourths of the
early societies in Indiana were organized by local preachers, a class of
heroic men who never figured in Conferences, and whose names are not
mentioned among the heroes of the period, but who, on the contrary, were
often held in light esteem by their traveling contemporaries because
they were not in the regular work, though often in