The upcountry South Carolinans were a merry lot. Religious language and Biblical imagery were on everyone’s lips, in contexts both serious and not. John Thweatt was a fondly remembered wagoner.
Driving his wagon on a warm day, in the spring, on a return trip from Charleston, along the old road, above Orangeburg, he came opposite to a clearing, in which a man and his sons had been engaged in burning the logs. They were as black and dirty as lightwood smoke and sand could make them; as soon as John saw them, he leaped from his horse, and kneeling down, he prayed in a loud voice “Great God, be pleased to send a shower to wash these poor people, for I have often heard that nothing unclean shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, and if they should now be cut off in their present unclean condition, they never there can enter.” The amazement of his auditors may be imagined, it cannot be described.