A  few  months  ago,  in  December,  1855,  there  died,
in  the  city  of  Cincinnati,  a  man  nearly  ninety  years
of  age,  whose  name  was  "William  Burke.  He  had
been  almost  in  the  van  of  these  pioneer  ministers.
He  entered  the  West  when  the  contest  with  the
Indians  was  at  its  hottest.  He  travelled  through  what
is  now  Western  Yirginia  and  jSTorth  Carolina,  Ten-
nessee, Kentucky,  and  Ohio.     There  was  scarce  r


60  THE   RIFLE,    AXE,    AND    SADDLE-BAGS.
settlement  in  all  this  vast  region  where  he  had  not
preached,  or  a  cabin  where  he  had  not  prayed  with
the  inmates.  So  poor  was  he  oftentimes,  that  his
clothes,  as  he  himself  said,  "  were  patch  upon  patch,
and  patch  above  patch,  nntil  the  patches  themselves
were  worn  ont,  and  bare-kneed,  and  bai-e-elbowed ;"
without  a  cent  in  his  pocket,  or  a  friend  to  give  him
a  new  garment,  he  mnst  needs  go  forward  in  the  ser-
vice of  his  master.  After  three  and  twenty  years  of
unremitting  toil,  having  experienced  hardshii)s  and
sujffering  beyond  description,  he  lost  his  voice,  and
was  obliged  to  abandon  his  vocation.  Selling  out  his
stock  in  trade,  saddle,  bridle,  horse,  and  saddle-bags,  he
found  himself  in  possession  of  two  hundred  and  thir-
teen dollars,  as  the  total  receipts  for  his  twenty-three
years'  labor.  And  now  let  me  give  you  some  facts
from  the  history  of  one  of  my  own  friends,  whom  I
loved  well-nigh  as  a  father — one  of  the  noblest  men
that  ever  trod  this  globe.  He  left  us  nearly  six  years
ago.  Although  not  one  of  the  earliest,  he  was  in  the
field  at  a  sufficiently  early  date  to  entitle  him  to  the
name  of  a  pioneer  preacher.
