xt7ns17snk5k https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7ns17snk5k/data/mets.xml Humphrey, Edward P. (Edward Porter), 1809-1897. 1859  books b97-24-37872621 English Moore, Wilstach, Keys & Co., printers, : Cincinnati : Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Cleland, Thomas, 1778-1858. Disciples of Christ Clergy Biography. Presbyterian Church Clergy Biography.Cleland, Thomas H. (Thomas Horace), 1816-1892. Memoirs of the Rev. Thomas Cleland, D.D.  : compiled from his private papers / by Edward P. Humphrey, and Thomas H. Cleland. text Memoirs of the Rev. Thomas Cleland, D.D.  : compiled from his private papers / by Edward P. Humphrey, and Thomas H. Cleland. 1859 2002 true xt7ns17snk5k section xt7ns17snk5k 




        MEMOIRS



               OF THE




REV. THOMAS CLELAND, D. D.,



rompihb from VXs Vntbat laoers.



BY EDWARD P HUMPHREY
       AND
 THOMAS H. CLELAND.



       CINCINKNAT I:
MOORE, WILSTACH, KEYS & CO., PRINTERS,
     25 WuBS FOVuTH ST UxT,
          1 8 5 9.

 



























     Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1859, by

                  J. L. SMEDLEY,

in the District Court of the United States for the District of Kentucky.

 








M]EMOIRS



                   O F

REV. THOMAS CLELAND, D. D.



           CHAPTER I.

      INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.
  IT is proposed to spread upon these pages a
brief memoir of the life and labors of the Rev.
Dr. THOMAS CLEIAND, of Kentucky, lately de-
ceased. The necessary information is supplied
in his private papers but particularly in an au-
tobiography which he prepared in 1848 This
was intended not for the public eye, but for the
use of his children and intimate friends, at
whose request it was written. These friends
have deemed it proper, however, to publish such
parts of it as are of public interest, together
with such portions as relate to his career as a
minister of the Gospel, and indicate the early
training by which the Providence and Grace of
God raised him up for the work set before him.
       3

 



LIFE OF DR. CLELAND.



  In order to a just appreciation of his charac-
ter, both personal and professional, it is needful
to survey the sphere into which his life was
cast. He was a man of his time: in many
things the product and type of the region and
the period in which he spent his days. What
was there, then, peculiar in the conditions un-
der which he came into the service of the
Church
  The first of these conditions is found in the
fact that he was one of the pioneers of Ken-
tucky; not too young to be reckoned among the
second generation of that remarkable body of
men. In the year 1789, a few months after the
first inauguration of Washington, the Cleland
family deseended the river Ohio, after the man-
ner and amidst the dangers of that navigation,
in a flat-boat floating with the stream, the
banks of which were infested with hostile In-
dians. In the following year the family settled
in what is now caned Marion county, Thomas
being in the twelfth year of his age. Sixteen
years only before that settlement was effected,
James Harrod built his log cabin, perhaps the
first in the State, near the spot now occupied
by Harrodsburg. Daniel Boone's fort on the
river Kentucky had been erected not more than
fifteen years, and the original block-house at
Lexington about eight. The terrible siege of



10

 



LIFE OF DR. CLELAND.



Logan's fort, and the brilliant march of Clarke
upon Vincennes and Kaskaskia, the disastrous
expedition of Bowman against Chillicothe, and
the bloody but decisive battle of the Blue
Licks, had all occurred at periods the most re-
mote of which was not more than thirteen,
and the nearest only eight years earlier than
the settlement of the family. The sites now
occupied by the towns of Danville, Harrods-
burg, Lebanon and Springfield, were marked
by a few log dwellings, or were covered by the
unbroken forests. Not more than eleven years
had passed since the McAfees, and McCouns,
and Armstrongs had settled near the spot
where, seventy years ago, they built a house of
worship, which they called New Providence
Church, in acknowledgment of God's protec-
tion over their infant colony; where, for forty-
five years, their descendants have received the
word of God from Dr. CLELAND's lips, and
where they have now given him a reverent
burial with their kindred. Wayne's treaty
was not formed until four years after he came
to the county, and he was a young man
of two and twenty when the century which
is now on the wane began its cycle. His
life as a pioneer lad will be described in
his own words in another part of this volume.
To that manner of early life, those who knew



11

 



LIFE OF DR. CLELAND.



him will readily refer much of his manhood
and force of character, and much that was at-
tractive in him; his vigorous constitution, the
resolution with which he met difficulties and
opposition, the primitive structure of his dwell-
ing and its appointments; his frankness and
honesty, the simplicity of his manners, dress
and mode of thought and expression; the fa-
miliarity of his intercourse with all classes
of people; his genial humor; his fondness
for the implements of frontier life-the ax
and the rifle; his hearty and unostenta-
tious hospitality at home, and his exemplary
patience with what his younger brethren find
intolerable,-bad roads, bad weather, and rough
fare when on duty abroad.
  He belonged, also, to the second generation
of the pioneer preachers of Kentucky. Father
Rice, Terah Templin, Robert Marshall, and
those immediate fellow laborers among the
Presbyterians were much older than he; so were
WWm. Hickman, Lewis Craig and John Gano
among the Baptists, and Francis Poythness,
Benjamin Ogden and James Haw among the
Methodists; though the most of these were
alive when he began his ministry. He was,
however, the cotemporary, among the Presby-
terians, of Carey H. Allen, John P. Campbell,
James Blythe, John Lyle, Robert Stewart,



12

 



LIFE OF DR. CLELAND.



Archibald Cameron and Joshua L. Wilson.
Being, by a few years, younger than any of
them, he survived them all, and brought down
to the present year, the type of that generation
of powerful preachers.
  To this we add, on a wider survey of his
sphere in life, that his cotemporaries in other
professions were great men-great in any com-
parison. Henry Clay and Felix Grundy were
his seniors by a year only; Joseph Hamilton
Davies and John Boyle by two years; John
Allen, John Rowan and John Pope by from
four to seven years; while Wm. T. Barry, Ben.
Hardin and Benjamin Mills were younger than
he. Very few of these men, in the active peri-
od of life, were professedly religious, and the
points of immediate contact between the pro-
fessions of the law and the ministry of the
Gospel were not very numerous. But the in-
fluences which those classes of public men ex-
ert on each other through their influence on
the community in the bosom of which both
have their spheres, the taste for forensic elo-
quence created by great lawyers and politicians
acting on the pulpit, and the love of justice
and the sense of responsibility to God, acquir-
ed from the instructions of the pulpit, re-act-
ing on the tribunal of justice and the forum-



13

 



LIFE OF DR. CLELAND.



all these considerations must be weighed in our
estimate of public men.
  The biography now before us connects itself,
also, with the most decisive events which have
marked the progress of the Presbyterian
Church in Kentucky. His ministry of fifty-
five years, commencing with his licensure in
1803, and terminating with his death in 1858,
is covered by the period both of rapid growth
and earnest controversy in the Presbyterianism
of Kentucky. He participated as an exhorter
in the revival of 1801-2; and as an ordained
minister of the Word in the work of Grace
which was wrought in the years beginning with
1826, and terminating with 1829. He labored
in camp meetings, which then were approved
among the Presbyterians; and then in protract-
ed and sacramental meetings among all the
churches of Central Kentucky; and, indeed, in
nearly all the larger congregations throughout
the State. As early as 1803 he extended his
missionary tours as far as Wayne county, in
Kentucky; and, in 1805, he followed a wilder-
ness trace as far as Vincennes, Indiana, to preach
the word in places never before visited by a
Presbyterian minister. He was actively en-
gaged in nearly all the controversies and de-
bates through which the church passed from



14

 




LIFE OF DR. CLGLAuD.



time to time. He was a member of the com-
mission which brought to a crisis the affairs of
the Cumberland Presbytery: he took part in
the proceedings which resulted in the deposi-
tion of Thomas B. Craighead, and the defeat
of the Pelagian party: at the death of John
B. Campbell, who had led the opposition to the
New Light Theology, he took up his pen
against the Arian and Socinian errors of Bar-
ton W. Stone: he entered warmly into the con-
troversy with President Holley and his friends
in the Transylvanian University, and labored at
the foundation of Centre College when that in-
stitution became necessary to the maintenance
of the truth: he publicly defended the princi-
ples of the Protestant faith against the Roman
Catholics, the doctrines of the Divine decrees
against the Arminians, and of the covenants
against the Baptists, and the doctrines of
grace against the reformers; and, finally, he
shared in the proceedings which resulted in
the division of the Presbyterian Church in
1837. Having identified himself with what is
known as the Constitutional or New School
General Assembly, he was one of the most
venerable and trusted Councilors of that
branch of Presbyterianism.



15

 



LIFE OF DR. CLELAND.



             CHAPTER II.
Autobiography, Parentage and Birth-Removal to Maryland,
  to Kentucky-Settlement in Marion County-His early
  habits and manner of life as a Pioneer and Hunter-Early
  Education at Home, at Greensburg, Pisgah and Lexington.
  [WE now commence the history of his life,
as he has himself exhibited it in the autobio-
graphical sketch already described.]
  "Thomas Cleland, the writer of this brief
sketch, was born in Fairfax county, Va., May
22, 1778. About the third or fourth year of
his age, he removed with the family into Mont-
gomery county, Md., where he remained eight
years. In regard to his ancestry he knows but
little. His father was an humble mechanic; his
principal calling was that of making spinning-
wheels, but could do almost any thing in wood
or iron, that any one else could do. He was
very poor as to this world's goods, and withal
very feeble in his physical constitution. He
had only an ordinary English education, but he
possessed a good share of common sense, and
his intellect was rafher above the common or-
der. Beyond my father I have no knowledge
of my paternal ancestry.



16

 


LIFE OF DR. CLELAND.



   My mother's maiden name was Richards.
 She was a plain woman, a kind mother, and in
 domestic life rather excelling than otherwise,
 in regard to economy and good management.
 Father and mother both were highly respected
 by their neighbors and all acquaintances. Nei-
 ther of them ever publicly professed religion.
 They were very moral and friendly toward re-
 ligious people, and raised their family in good
 repute.
 The principal object that drew my father over
 into Maryland, was to take charge of an old
 mill establishment, by lease, for eight years.
 It was on Seneca creek, and owned by a widow
 Perry, and was much out of repair. Father
 being an excellent mechanic, soon repaired it
 and gained a large custom, took his wheat to
 Ellicot's mills, laid out the proceeds in goods at
 Baltimore, and established a small country store
 at home; and thus acquired a small property
 which enabled him to rise above poverty and
 advance a little in the world. During this time
 I went to school to different teachers-Timothy
 Sullivan, Alexander Penman and Geo. Dyson.
 The first two were Irish redemptioners, as they
 were called, compelled to serve for a limited
 time to pay the expense of their passage across
 the ocean. The latter was an Englishman.
Besides the common reading, he made us mem-



17

 



T8LI  OF DR. CLELAND.



orize the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Command-
ments, and the Apostle's creed. The Old and
New Testaments were read as schools books;
and here I may say I received my earliest im-
pressions, though very feeble indeed, by this
course at school. The teacher was himself an
Episcopalian, and my father's prepossessions
were that way also. I am confirmed. in this
impression from what I have heard him inti-
mate, but more especially from the fact that he
had been prevailed on to have his children
down to my sister Mary below me, " Chris-
tened," as it was called, by an Episcopalian
clergyman, who occasionally visited the family.
  [It has been already observed that his early
life, as a pioneer of the region where he spent
the most of his days, exerted a controlling in-
fluence in the formation of his- character. The
graphic skill with which he describes this part
of his career indicates the impression which it
made upon not only his memory, but his man-
hood.]
  In the fall of 1789, father made his arrange-
ments to remove to Kentucky, Washington
county, where he had procured an entry of 500
acres of forest land. My maternal grandmother
resided near Red Stone, as it was then called,
on the Monongahela river. He started Sep-
tember 23, and arrived October 9, nearly two



18

 



LIFE OF DR. CLELAND.



months, and there remained until father built a
flat-boat, in which to descend the Ohio river.
We left the last day of November; I was in
my twelfth year, and on account of a recent
illness had to be carried to the boat. The de-
scent of the river in these times was perilous,
frequent attacks were made by the Indians on
boats descending, attended sometimes with
severe loss of life and property. We ascertained
that they had made frequent attempts of this
kind. Boats were fired on both before and
behind us. But a kind providence interposed
in our behalf-being safely conducted until we
reached a small stream called Goose creek, a-
short distance above Louisville, Ky. I was
sick the whole time, confined to my bed, but
soon after recovered.
  We were compelled, for want of better ac-
commodation, to remain in our boat two weeks.
Afterward, a small cabin, about twelve feet
square, was obtained, a few miles out from the
river, belonging to Col. Richard Taylor, father
of the renowned hero of Monterey and Buena
Vista. This residence was in the edge of a
dense cane-brake. Here we were saluted every
night with the howling of wolves.
  In the meantime father had gone to look for
his land, and, if possible, to have erected a
hasty building for our accommodation. He



19

 


LIFE OF DR. CLELAND.



reached the neighborhood, examined the pre-
mises, selected the spot, engaged the workmen,
and then was taken with a violent attack ot
pleurisy, a disease to which he was liable, and
which ultimately ended his days. He was ab-
sent more than six weeks without our knowing
the cause. Thy family were in painful suspense.
The Taylor family, old and young, were very
hospitable and kind to us. William, Hancock,
and " Little Zack," as General Taylor was then
called, were my playmates. Mrs. Taylor con-
ceived a great fondness for my mother, and
treated her as a sister.
  At length father returned, very feeble in-
deed; we had well-nigh lost him. About the
last of April we started for our new home, at
which we soon arrived in safety. Every thing
was new, rough and wild. A large cabin, with
open cracks and puncheon floors, homely poles
with boards across for ceiling, a tall dense forest
all around, bears, wolves, with all manner of
venomous reptiles in profusion. There was no
time to be lost. Owing to father's illness and-
late arrival, the season was far advanced. The
mattock, the ax and maul were put speedily
into operation; father having a delicate consti-
tution, could not labor out, or do any thing in
the way of farming. But there was one who
had been an inmate of the family some eight or



20

 



LIFE OF DR. CLELAND.



ten years, a maternal uncle, familiarly called
" Uncle Sammy" (Richards). He had been
brought up a farmer. He was our leader. The
ground was laid out, and at-it we went day and
night. I was from a child fond of an ax-al-
ways my favorite tool. Our force was my
uncle and myself, two colored boys and two
colored women. Up came the grubs, down
went the saplings and undergrowth. Several
acres were covered with the brush, the result of
the days of chopping and grubbing. At night
the fires sent forth light all around from the
brush heaps burning here and there as fast as
we could put and pile on. This was amuse-
ment, as well as work, and had to be continued
in order to keep pace with mattock and ax,
until ten or eleven o'clock at night. Late in
the season as it was we made out to inclose and
cultivate twelve acres of ground. Every blade,
top and ear, were saved, and carefully secured,
which, with pumpkins, and a cellar well stored,
with potatoes, we made quite a flattering ap-
pearance for persons unaccustomed to the arts
and toils of farming. These were indeed times
that tried men's souls, and bodies too. I was
now twelve years old, May, 1790. Here com-
menced a new era in my juvenile life, every
thing to do to obtain a livelihood-the forest to



21

 



LIFE OF DR. CLELAND.



clear away, buildings to erect, the hand-mill to
push around to obtain bread. Sometimes 1
was mounted on a three-bushel bag of corn to
take to the nearest mill, which was thirteen
miles distant, three miles below where Spring-
field now stands, then an unbroken forest.
  I soon became from necessity, as well as from
inclination, an active, fierce, and persevering
adventurer, after wolves, bears, etc. For feats
of activity, such as jumping, racing and climb-
ing trees, my equal was not to be found. No
one had more ambition to excel in log-rolling,
horse-racing, corn-husking races, than myself.
For my hardy endurance, and well-known
strength, I carried the soubriquet of " Pine
Knot" and " Jackscrew." In all these danger-
ous positions, in house raisings, athletic exer-
cises, and night huntings, etc., I was wonder-
fully preserved by an unseen hand, reserved, I
trust, for noble deeds, which at that time had
not the shadow of an existence in my thought-
less and untutored mind.
  Energy and perseverance were two distin-
guishing traits in my character. I vaunted my-
self upon my external morality, and had the
approbation of parents, neighbors, and all. As
to my early religious impressions, the removal
to this country, the novelties continually pre-



22

 


LIFE OF DR. CLELAND.



sented, and the avocations in which I was
nceessarily engaged, left no room for their
operation.
  [His fondness for the diversions of the woods
was a marked peculiarity in his taste through
the whole of his life. This peculiarity was
due to the sports of his youth in a country full
of game. Those which he describes below re-
late to the year 1793-4, when he was only fif-
teen or sixteen years of age.]
  I resumed more vigorously than ever the
various avocations and pursuits of the day-
farming, log-rolling, and hunting wild animals,
coons, foxes, wild cats and wolves. The two
latter were very mischievous, depredating upon
our sheep, pigs, etc. In the course of some two
or three years I had trapped in wolf-pens more
than a dozen large, full-grown wolves, and in
one way and another, twice as many of the
wild-cat race, and smaller game without num-
ber. Both from necessity and inclination, I
had declared war against the whole concern.
Ambition, energy, perseverance and determina-
tion, carried me on regardless of danger.
  Never was I alarmed by these animals but
once. It was early in March, the moon was
shining brightly, the air was soft and balmy.
While I was standing quietly waiting for the
return of my dogs, I saw three large wolves



23

 



LIFE OF DR. CLELAND.



coming directly toward me. They came within
less than ten steps of me. Hearing the noise
of them approach among the leaves and sticks,
the fleetest dog sprang right toward them. I
saw the foremost spring to one side, while the
other two fled backward, with all the dogs in
full pursuit. Being alone, I feared the one
that had been left behind might attack me, I
stood with my ax, the only weapon I had,
ready, my heart palpitating, and my eyes all
around me; but I saw him not. The dogs, on
their return, gave him a second chase, and after
returning I made all haste homeward, the dogs
all ahead, I could not keep one behind me, but
kept looking back, not knowing but that I
might be pursued. One of the dogs having
gone aside from the road, I passed him, walk-
ing briskly. He came in behind, now close up
to me. As I looked back, I was sure it was a
wvolf. The ax is drawn in the twinkling of an
eye, with earnest cry for the dogs, "H Here, here,
here." But before the blow was given, I was
happily relieved by the whining voice and
wagging tail of one of my favorite dogs. This
panic was more agitating than the first. But
I arrived home, and crept softly into bed, and
made no report of my adventure to the family.
  On another occasion the dogs treed A wild-
cat early in the night. Thinking it to be a fox,



24

 


LIFE OF DR. CLELAND.



I went up to make it jump off, that the dogs
might have a race. But in this I was mistaken;
it was a wild-cat. It growled fearfully, and
came at rue. I knocked it off with my fist, it
sprang to the ground and eluded the grasp of
the dogs. They ran it almost out of hearing,
but returned still in chase. It treed not far
distant. I sent a small negro boy I had with
me for my shot-gun. He came, and I fired at
it twice. I climbed up again, and as it came
toward me I again knocked it off. He again
eluded the dogs, and took another tree larger
and higher than either of the preceding. I
again fired at him, but to no purpose. Again
reloaded, then felled a smaller tree against the
one he was on, climbed up till near him, I shot,
he fell. I triumphed and returned home at
midnight. It was the largest animal of the
race that had ever been seen.
  [The account which he gives of his school-
boy days is interesting, as indicating the means
of education which were in use at that early
period in the history of Kentucky. In the
summer of '92 or '93, his father sent him and
his youngest sister to school, six or seven miles
distant, going on the Monday and returning on
the Friday of each week. Two or three years
afterward, when in the eighteenth year of his
age he resumed his course of study.]
       4



25

 


LIFE OF DR. CLELAND.



  But now commences a new era in my juve-
nile life. My father having seven children to
provide for, and being in moderate circum-
stances, not only from this consideration, but
also from lattering representations made to
him by several young lawyers of his, acquaint-
ance, that a fine harvest for that profession was
in full prospect in Kentucky, was induced to
select me for that profession, thinking, if I suc-
ceeded in that calling, I could more readily
support myself in future domestic life. With
this object in view, and having previously made
the necessary arrangement for books, boarding,
etc., I set out with him for Greensburg, county
seat of Green county, on first day of January,
1795.  We arrived late in the evening, and
lodged with Mr. John Allen, the place selected
for my boarding. I was now in my eighteenth
year. I was first under the superintendence of
Jas. Allen, Esq., who was a young lawyer and
clerk of the county. With him I commenced
Rudiman's Latin grammar, which I went
through in two weeks, including the revision.
During my stay there, some eight or nine
months, I read all the Latin authors commonly
used in those days, amounting to nine books,
from Corderius to Ovid inclusive. I also com-
mitted to memory several lengthy orations
Cicero against Verres, Cataline, etc. These I



26

 


LIFE OF DR. CLELAND.



sometimes, for amusement, as well as practice,
delivered at the top of my voice from some of
the tallest poplar saplings, which yet remained
on the unimproved lots of the newly laid off
town. The spot had been formerly cultivated,
but long since abandoned on account of the
Indians, and now had grown up into a dense
and flourishing thicket, or young forest. From
this elevated position my oratory could be heard
all over this new and growing village. The
orations were selected from the " Art of Speak-
ing," a book of the 12 mo. size. I memorized
from two to three pages of this book from day-
light to breakfast in the morning.
  Time rolls on. The spring of '96 arrives.
My eighteenth year is closed. My studies must
be resumed. The "Kentucky Academy," re-
cently established at Pisgah, Woodford county,
is my next place of location. At this Institu-
tion I spent eighteen months of the most inter-
esting and important portion of my early life.
Here I entered upon a most ardent and perse-
vering pursuit after literary acquirements.
During all the time of my sojourn here, I pur-
sued my literary studies with uncommon ardor
and industry. My candle was often burning
until 12 or 1 o'clock at night, after all had
long laid down to sleep. Many nights I slept
not more than four hours. Never did any one



,7

 


28          LIFE OF DR. CLELAND.

read with more avidity, a novel or romance,
than I did the story of Dido and Eneas in Vir-
gil. I sometimes got 400 lines at a lesson. I
read the Odes of Horace in nine days, includ-
ing the revision. Passed rapidly through the
" Satires," " Cicero's Orations; " then the Greek
Testament, Lucian's Dialogues, and then was
forwarded with the foremost class, which had
just commenced the second book of XenepbhoT's
Cycropaedia, which author was as far as I ever
went in the dead languages.

 


LIFE OF DR. CLELAND.



           CHAP TER          III.
Early Religious Impressins-At Twelve years of Age in
Maryland-At Fourteen at Home-At Eighteen in Greens-
burg-At Nineteen at Pisgah-At Twenty-two at Lexington
-Sudden Death of His Father.
  AFTER spending twelve or fourteen months at
Pisgah, he found his health giving way under
his severe course of study, and returned to his
labor on the farm and to his sports in the woods.
In the autumn of 1799. when he was in the
twenty-second year of his age, he went to Lex-
ington to finish his education, at the Transyl-
vania University. But his studies were, in
the course of a few weeks, suddenly terminat-
ed by the death, first of his mother, then soon
afterwards of his father. These events chang-
ed the course of his life. But it is necessary,
at this point, to go back in the narrative, and
trace the progress of his religious experience
from the beginning up to the close of his resi-
dence at the university, and the death of his
parents.
  [Of his early religious impressions he thus
writes:]
  Of these I was not wholly destitute in those



29

 



LIFE OF DR. CLELAND.



days; but how to account for their origin and
character I have found no small difficulty. I
was considered a retiring and unassuming back-
woods boy. Nothing rash, vile, outbreaking
or immoral in my character. From what I
read at school, and incidentally learned else-
where, I believed in a judgment to come; ever-
lasting happiness and misery. "Eternity," for-
ever, " Endless duration," were fearful terms,
and terrible for me to think upon. I knew no
religion but external morality; and, because I
did not swear and do many other wicked things,
I considered myself in a tolerably safe condi-
tion. Yea, I thought I kept my accounts with
my Maker pretty well squared up. I knew no
more of utter sinfulness-the need of regener-
ation-the agency of the Spirit-the need of
atonement-the mediation of Christ, etc., etc.,
than a dark, untutored Indian. The thought
that I might die suddenly; that death might
unexpectedly overtake me before I had straight-
ened up every thing, was perplexing. How
I got the impression, I can not tell; yet, I firm-
ly believed that, if any thing should remain
against me unadjusted, and father or mother,
or any one else, would pray for me after death,
all would be right, and no charge would be
against me at the day of judgment. But here
again I became unsettled and doubtful. I was



30

 



           LIFE OF DR. CLELAND.      31

not assured that father or mother ever prayed
at all; or, if they did, possibly I might be for-
gotten, and then all was over with me. I could
not do the work myself, nor by any means
awaken their attention and sympathies in my
behalf. Here then was the crisis,-the turning
point. What course should I pursue Why,
just this; Imust be good-altogether a good man
before I die. But how to be that good man,-
who is he Where is he to be found If I be-
come a lawyer, will that do No, all lawyers
go to bell under a curse-" Wo unto lawyers."
So thought I then. What of doctors Never
knew but one-the one who doctored me for the
bite of a mad cat-the scars of which still re-
main. The doctor may be a good man, but it is
very uncertain. A preacher! ah! that is the man,
the very mnin for me. No mistake about his be-
ing a good man. The very act of preaching is
proof certain as holy writ, that he is a good man.
No man would preach; nay, no man could preach,
unless he was a good ma". So I concluded to
make sure of the matter. I must somehow get
to be a preacher, in order to make sure of the
good man when I come to die. From that day
singular as it may be, I never wavered, never
hesitated one mormenit, as to what I would
choose, were I ever called into public life.
Here I find the origin, the very gem, or per-

 


LIFE OF DR. CLELAND.



haps the embryo existence of my earliest
thoughts and impressions; erroneous as they
were, that first directed and fixed my deter-
mination towards the ministry.
  [This statement appears to relate to the period
of early youth, before the removal of the fam-
ily to Kentucky, and consequently while he was
not more than twelve years of age, after the
settlement of the family in Marion county.]
  In the summer of 1792 or 1793, father sent
me and my youngest sister to school, about six
miles distant, to a Methodist preacher, Rev.
Thomas Kyle, with whom we boarded from
Monday till Friday evening, weekly. On a
certain day in every month there came along
the Circuit Rider, who, by request of our teach-
er, heard the pupils rehearse a small catechism
at the close of the forenoon session. This he
did as we stood in spelling ranks. I stood head
uniformly, had memorized the catechism, and
answered with the rest. He then proceeded
to prayer and exhortation, with great vehe-
mence and effervescence, until nearly the whole
female part of the school became in a perfect
uproar, crying for mercy, exhorting careless
brothers and some others of the inale sex to re-
pent and give up their hearts to God.
  The scene lasted, perhaps, for one hour, when
all became still as ever. The preachers retir-



32

 


LIFE OF DR. CLELAND.



ed; our dinners were eaten; playtime was at-
tended to in the usual style, so that no one
would have known that any thing unusual had
occurred. Father hearing of these things, and
not liking the course pursued, requested and
obtained permission to withdraw sister and my-
self on these occasions. This was granted with
some reluctance. I withdrew to some retired
place, and either read or cyphered, during the
religious exercise which increased in noise and
vehemence. When over, all was lively and
gay as ever. On my return to the school-house,
I was hailed with the jocular, sportive lan-
guage, "Here comes the lost sheep," "here
comes the prodigal," etc.
  After the usual playtime was over, I was in-
structed by the teacher (being furthest ad-
vanced) to open school, and superintend until
his return, which was after three o'clock, P. M.,
that being the hour to which his fast extended,
according to the catechism we had been taught.
One question was, "H ow often did the ancient
Christians fast  " Ans.-" Every Wednesday
and Friday, till three o'clock in the afternoon."
  The girls, increasing in their zeal, held,
through the summer, any playtime, religious
meetings in the woods, sometimes in one
place and sometimes in another. You might
hear them at the top of their voices nearly a
       5



33

 


LIFE OP DR. CLELAND.



mile. One or two lead in prayer, until all join-
ed in the outcry. Sometimes they were inter-
rupted by the howling of the wolf; or, more
likely, some of the biped race aping