rudely-barren

Updated: May 29, 2025

Humble in habit, moderate in desire, indefatigable in well-doing, pure in practice and intention, without pretence or ostentation of any kind, they have gone freely and fearlessly into places the most remote and perilous, with an empty scrip, but with hearts filled to overflowing with love of God and good-will to men preaching their doctrines with a simple and an unstudied eloquence, meetly characteristic of, and well adapted to, the old groves, deep primitive forests, and rudely-barren wilds, in which it is their wont most commonly to give it utterance: day after day, week after week, and month after month, finding them wayfarers still never slumbering, never reposing from the toil they have engaged in, until they have fallen, almost literally, into the narrow grave by the wayside; their resting-places unprotected by any other mausoleum or shelter than those trees which have witnessed their devotions; their names and worth unmarked by any inscription; their memories, however, closely treasured up and carefully noted among human affections, and within the bosoms of those for whom their labors have been taken; while their reward, with a high ambition cherished well in their lives, is found only in that better abode where they are promised a cessation from their labors, but where their good works still follow them.

William Gilmore Simms - Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia