A glimpse of nineteenth century religious life on the American frontier, and appropriate elucidations
Samuel Rogers, who "preached all over the wilds of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri," was quoted by R. Richardson in Memoirs of Alexander Campbell, vol. 2, p. 331, as follows:
I was born in old Virginia, November 6, 1789; moved to Kentucky in 1793; settled in Clarke county, Kentucky, until 1801. Moved then to Missouri, called Upper Louisiana, then under Spanish rule. My mother, a pious Methodist, sewed up her Bible in a feather bed to keep the priests from finding it. This was the only Bible I ever saw until I was grown. My father urged my mother to leave her Bible, as it might give her trouble in this new territory,...
(IS IT SO DIFFERENT TODAY?)
...but she said she must have it to rad to her children, and she did read it to us much, and by her piety and counsels tried to impress its truths upon our minds and hearts. As I was the eldest child, this was all the preaching I heard until a grown man.
Consider a mother to whom it was so very important that she read the Bible to her children, and children who were blessed to grow up learning from the Word of God Himself: