As far removed as it is possible to be

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes

“The population of this vast mountain region is divided into two distinct classes, as far removed in character and environment as it is possible for people to be. First, there are those who live in fertile valleys along the rivers and the railways, with the very best religious and educational advantages, and who are equal in intelligence and refinement to any people in America.

“[People of the second group] do not live in these favored valleys, but far back from the main lines of travel in small clearings by the watercourses, almost entirely removed from the outside world, with few advantages for learning and few opportunities for improvement. The extreme poor live ‘back of beyond,’ beyond the towering mountains, locked in narrow coves, without teachers, without physicians, without comforts and conveniences.

“There is not to be found on this continent a people whose condition is more appealing in its pathetic need, or who are more deserving of the Church’s interest and help, than the thousands of American highlanders living at our own doors in the Southern Appalachian Mountains.

“No people are more responsive to the gospel, more appreciative of the school, and at the same time more capable of intellectual and spiritual development.

“Much has been written about their indolence, ignorance and poverty, but it is not always remembered that their condition is the result of isolation on the one hand and of neglect on the other.

“Well-nigh impassable mountain ranges have shut them off from contact with the world and its progress, and for generations the Church has neglected them, in the barrenness of their life.

“It is difficult to say who is more to blame, those who have neglected or those who have been neglected.

“Wherever the responsibility, it does seem strange that conditions should be as they are in the old sections of our country “so near to Jerusalem of so many denominations.” Possibly that is the very reason. Nearness is always the severest test of missionary zeal.

Rev. Homer McMillan
“Unfinished Tasks of the Southern Presbyterian Church”
Richmond, VA, Presbyterian Committee of Publication, 1922

More articles on missionaries in the region:

East Tennessee was considered the ‘pits’ of the mission(Opens in a new browser tab)

Nurses who are glad to serve & who do not count too closely the hours of service(Opens in a new browser tab)

Laura Lu, Lay Leader of Lutherans(Opens in a new browser tab)