A brief excerpt from the Introduction:
I hope to prove myself worthy of a title that the aged Raccoon John himself, as a guest of honor at a Missouri public doctrinal debate between his younger colleague Moses Easterly Lard and Methodist minister W. G. Caples, gave to Caples on the first day of the debate. John Augustus Williams describes the events as follows:
It was, perhaps, just after the close of ... morning discussion, that [Smith] remarked to the
brethren who were standing around the rostrum, that he had concluded to start home the next day. Mr. Caples, who was nearby at the time, gathering up his books and papers, and who was himself a reputed wit, reached over and touched the venerable man, saying:
"Mr. Smith, don't leave until this debate is over, for I want to take a 'coon hunt with you."
"That would just suit me," replied Smith, putting his palsied hand on Caples's shoulder, "for when I go a 'coon hunting, I always like to have a good dog along."
I'm not a bit too proud to borrow the imagery, and thus in his own words, it would just suit me to be Raccoon John Smith's coon hound. The reader is cordially invited to follow the track with me, but be warned: this coon run goes over steep mountains and through dark, forbidding valleys, and it doubles back many times through a forgotten, brush-covered cemetery dotted with some pitifully small graves. To those who can't stand up to that kind of terrain I apologize, and remind them that Cochran's book is still available at their local bookstores or libraries as a more easily digestible, if sweetened, alternative; but outside the pleasant
perspectives of denominational and sectarian worldviews, hagiographies, and historical novels, for better or for worse this is just the way the trail runs.
