the Indians. (This doubtless had much to do with his going as a missionary to them. - W. T. H.) In the year 1815 I was made a class-leader in a society formed by old Brother Ashworth. 1820 I was at a conference at Nashville, when Cousin Ehenezer Hearne and others urged me to accept license to preach, which I did. That fall I went to Indiana to see an uncle, a Baptist preacher that had said there were infants in hell not a span long. We had a long talk and I was sorry for him. He professed among the Methodists in North Carolina, I heard him preach once.
"I cannot refrain from noting just here, that I have frequently, when a boy, heard the same expression attributed to some primitive Baptist preachers, but I have never heard one say it, and cannot conceive how any one could say or believe such a thing. In 1853 Rev. Wm. H. Forsythe, a noted Presbyterian minister, lived near neighbor to my brother Ro bert. who was also a Presbyterian. and told Robert that Rev. Thomas P. Dudley, a primitive Baptist preacher, had often said so from the pulpit soon after this, Robert met old Brother Dudley at the house of a mutual friend. and asked Mr. Dudley about it, when he denied it most emphatically. and pronounced it utterly absurd. We had all known the Dudley family quite well; they were prominent and influential, and Thomas P. Dudley was one of the most learned and cultured preachers I ever listened to; he and his father, Ambrose Dudley, between them, had the pastorate of Bryan's Station Church, near Lexington, Ky., for one hundred and ten years, the longest pastorate I have ever known bv father and son Ambrose Dudley served a soldier through the entire Revolutionary War, and the son, Thomas P., served three years of the War of 1812, and was in the disastrous "Dudley's defeat"; he was captured by the indians and endured the greatest hardships. I give it as my candid opinion that he could quote more Scripture. with perfect accuracy, than any one I have ever known ; time and again have I heard him call down a brother preacher when he quoted some Scripture incorrectly; and I can say further, that I have never known a preacher of any denomination that was more loved and respected by all classes of people."
The old man seems to have made quite a missionary tour through Ind. and Ill., and, on account of chills and ague, returned to Tenn. in the fall, and was appointed to the Beech River
Copyright (c) 1999, 2007 Brian Cragun.