It is just one sermon a month; or, if
they are peculiarly favored, it is three sermons a month. The children
are left at home. They run wild like so many young apes, and wander
along the streams or through the forests; or, if they are brought by
their parents to the meeting, there is nothing especially for them.
It will be well for us to ponder well the inevitable consumption and
slow decay that is surely wearing out these Old Baptist churches. Like
the house of Saul, they are growing weaker and weaker. What a contrast
between their condition now and seventy years ago. Then the United
Baptists were the most powerful religious body in the great West. Then
Jacob Creath and Jeremiah Vardeman could, if they had been so
disposed, have elected the Governor of Kentucky. Then the Baptists
were strong in the affections of the people, and strong in the memory
of those men who had, through incredible toil, obloquy, poverty and
loss of goods, planted the Baptist cause in the American wilderness.
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