You will undoubtedly understand all this better presently.

My parish comprises this entire mining region, and I am upon horseback among the foothills and up in the ranges for fully a third of my time.

The spirit of the mining population, as well as of the cattlemen, while not actually hostile, is one of indifference to religious thought.

They care nothing whatever for it in the abstract, and have no use for any minister, unless it may be to marry their children or bury their dead.

I am hence obliged to meet with them merely as man to man, and thus slowly win their confidence before I dare even approach a religious topic.