Then the people in the district were not _all_ Come-outers. Some were
Christians. And these I provoked by my disregard of the Sabbath, and by
my advocacy of views unfriendly to religion and the divine authority of
the Bible. I worked in my garden or on my farm on a Sunday, in sight of
my neighbors as they went to church. I had previously called a Bible
convention in the place, and taken the leading part in its proceedings.
I took the skeptical side in a public discussion on Christianity in the
town, and gave utterance to sentiments which pained the hearts of the
religious portion of my neighbors beyond endurance. The consequence was,
I got into trouble again, and had to move once more, or be undone.
So I moved once more. This time I resolved to make sure of a quiet home,
so I went right away beyond the limits of the States, into the unpeopled
territory of Nebraska, a country at that period ten or twelve times as
large as Pennsylvania or England, and containing less than five thousand
white inhabitants--an immense wilderness, occupied chiefly by tribes of
red Indians, herds of buffalo and deer, countless multitudes of wolves,
with here and there a bear, a panther, or a catamount, and heaps of
rattlesnakes. And here I thought I should be safe.
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