toils of the pioneer
preachers. Those sacrifices and toils were great, yet many of them were
of the character of those made by a young preacher in the Western
Conference about the beginning of this century. In one of his journeys
alone, over the Cumberland Mountains, Bishop Asbury lost his way, and
night coming on, he was about to dismount and prepare to sleep out, when
he was met by a young man, a hunter, who took the tired bishop to his
father's cabin and extended to the stranger the best accommodations that
home in the wilderness afforded. The bishop, true to his calling,
preached to the family and left an appointment for the preacher on that
circuit, who soon organized a class of mountaineers, with the bishop's
guide as class leader. In a short time he became a local preacher, and
soon after, he was admitted into the Western Conference. A few years
later at a session of the Conference, he was guest at the same house
with the bishop, and while the bishop was engaged in writing, he was
engaged in telling the young lady of the house how many sacrifices the
itinerant had to make for the church and for Christ. In spite of his
powers of abstraction, the bishop heard the preacher's story, and
turning from the table, he said: "Yes, Benjamin, I can testify to the
sacrifices you have made for the church. There never was a more
hospitable home in the Cumberland Mountains than that you left to become
an itinerant. I never slept better in my life than I slept on that bed
of bear skins in your father's cabin. It was such a contrast with the
accommodations I was about to prepare for in the woods alone, that I
have never forgotten it--and that corn bread baked in the ashes! And
that venison! And, Benjamin, you have sacrificed all this for the
church! You could not sacrifice more, for it was all you had to
sacrifice--a home in the mountains, a good gun, and a hunter's life--all
for the itineracy."

And such were the sacrifices that many of the heroes made, whose fame
has come down to us. They never lived as well before, never dressed as
well nor fed as well, and yet their fare was not always sumptuous, nor
their garments of purple and fine linen, but both food and clothing were
better than the average of those to whom they preached. The story of
Allen Wiley is an oft told story. We have heard of his large circuits
and of his districts, extending from the Ohio at Madison, to Fort Wayne,
embracing all of the present North Indiana Con