Eighteen Years.
A REMINISCENCE OF KENTUCKY.
Every, profession or business has its own peculiar experiences, and it has often seemed to me that the world of readers would be wiser, and they who make books for them would be far more interesting and instructive, if every writer would describe things from his own actual point of view, trying honestly to hold the mirror up to nature and life with his own hand from his own position. The genuine diary of a physician, or lawyer, or clergyman, or merchant, or banker, if recording his own impressions during his years of activity, would be as interesting as any fictitious sketches, and far more instructive, whether to the old who are always glad to fight their battles over again, or to the young whose battles have not yet begun. I do not make this remark by way of preface to any ambitious portraitures of professional scenes and labors, but merely to introduce a few slight sketches of professional travel that seem quite as well fitted for the present purpose as any more elaborate essay.
I have just returned from a visit to Kentucky after an absence of seventeen years. I was at the city of L——— at various times in the years 1836–37, and have never forgotten the impression left by the place and the people. The first years of a minister's professional life are far more significant than those of any other profession; for usually he takes upon himself the full burden of his cares, and in most cases he has as much labor and anxiety at twenty-five as at fifty. In one respect, indeed, he has more care at the outset of his career; for he is
