Legends and Memories of St John's Chapel -
Addressed to R. A. Riddick
by Major John W. Moore 

Part XII - published in the Windsor Ledger Sept 7, 1899

You can't imagine neighbor
The deep quietude we had,
When we were in the "Forties"
And the men of every shade
Of color, and opinion
Down here in Albemarle
Were so blest with peace and plenty
And so happy one and all,
That never a land grew fair faster
As love returned 'twixt slave and master.

True way down in Mexico
We had war upon our hands,
But only faintest echo
Crossed the intervening lands.
We read in the newspapers
How "old Rough and Ready" fought
And Scott in proud Chapultepic
Things to such a pass had brought
That peace with California too
Were ours, with further gains in view.

The old feeling of the past,
Born of Nat Turner's affray,
Had largely been forgotten
By the men of a new day.
And over the country wide
Came a spirit of repose,
That would not stop to darken life
With the thought of hidden foes,
But trusting God, and their sweet wives
Made broader still their aims and lives.

Then it was, country churches
Were first seen adorned with paint
And mere shells no more sheltered
From the storm sinner and saint.
Handsome comely stately buildings
Began with us to be the rule,
And about this blessed season
We had our first Sunday School
What a blessing these my neighbor,
Unto all who toil and labor.

In the dead unhappy past,
Many thousands were content
To bring up their poor children
All without enlightenment.
Saying School and books were trifles
Only fit to spoil a child.
And their scorn of wholesome knowledge
Might provoke a modern smile,
But for the dark sad legacy
Such ne'er entailed on Liberty.

It would seem to you and me
That there would not be man,
Who would be so mistaken.
In the shaping of the plan
For the future of his children,
And their place among their peers
When in after life, no fruitage
Should reward their toil and tears,
But doomed to one ignoble round
Be at last no higher found.

It was also at this time
That out State did first essay
To bring about, among us
A far better, brighted day.
When through our borders far and near
Free tuition awaited all,
When the humblest of her children
Might upon her, at last call;
For the means of rising higher
Toward the things all men desire.

I was then a little boy
But I well remember yet,
How the people in those days
Would on Sunday morning get
Themselves, unto country churches:
And 'twas rare that you would see
Any vehicles but their carts,
While perhaps it still might be
A few would come, in double gigs
A carriage was rarest of rigs.

Then well nigh, every bad
Dressed in their own homespun,
It was indeed but rarely
Did they for the store goods run,
Saving always my old crony
The afore said Mister Rawles,
Who stuck to his old broad cloth
Through so many springs and falls,
That like old friends linked close and fast
So clung he to it to the last.

It was a wonder, Robert,
How the preachers lived at all
So little did they pay them,
What ever might befall;
That a whole half hundred dollars
As a full years salary,
Was thought a sum prodigious
And the wonder then would be
How such a pile could e'er be raised
And if it was, then God be praised.

They thought it was the duty
Of the preacher in those days,
To have his farm and cattle
And a crop himself to raise;
And for five days, in every week
To work on like a Trojan,
And not to preach for filthy pelf.
Such was the common slogan
And said a man who preached for pay
Was never wanted down their way.

These old, godly gospellers
Were at best a feeble folk,
No blinding light of glory
On their darkened vision broke,
But they loved God and his people
And they preached the best they knew,
For God blessed their humble efforts.
And rich blessings, not a few
Come on a land, then steeped in sin
The devil bossing things therein.

We'll never know it, Robert,
Never know the blessings wide,
That flowed from out such preahing
Like a mighty swelling tide,
And uprooted that fell poisin
Poor old France, had given back
As the price of her assistance,
When we were upon the rack;
When Britans heel was on our necks,
And dardanian skies all souls did vex.

So when the revolution
Ended all the tyranny,
And the last red coat departed,
And our fathers all were free;
Then the Atheists of Paris
Shipped their vile contagion here,
And it ruined hosts of young men,
Spreading wider year by year;
Fill like a tidal wave at last
The "Great Revival" blew its blast.

A host of humble preachers
Did thus mighty work for us,
They traversed this vast country
Stopping not for rain or dust,
Toiling without compensation
Other than God's promises,
Ne'er was seen a noblier crusade,
Or such grand unselfishness:
God bless and keep the memories
Of these dead Saints of former days.

That same era of "Forties"
Who yet famous otherwise,
And though its predecessor
Saw our railways first arise,
Yet so it was 'till forty-eight
That it was in our fair land,
Should any one by misfortune
Cease his action, to command,
Such lunitick was soon immured
In some dark jail and never cured.

But induced by love and ruth
We at last refuge made
For those poor helpless victims,
As good people long had prayed;
An Asylum, grand and stately,
Rose hard by our Capitol.
Now the jail no more detains them
In its dark and loathsome hold,
The hapless and unfortunate;
And mercy sooths their lost estate.

Our women too, God bless them,
Came at last to have some rights,
A brutal husband ere this,
In accordence with old lights
Could then whip her at his pleasure,
If she chanced to be his wife
Could dispose of all her property
And imbitter so her life,
That often home became a hell
But her sad tale she must not tell.

For there was then, no recourse,
Her appeal was unto God,
And in sorrowful silence
Endured his chastening sod,
But such hardships so in human
Were at last so rectified,
That now no good wife need to 
With a scoundrel long abide,
Nor can he without her consent
Take her own goods, no not a cent.