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500,000 square miles, an area bigger than that part of the United States north of the Ohio River and the Mason and Dixon line east of the Mississippi River. Nor is it comprehended by the realization that in this area lived 1,500,000 people. Rather, the stupendousness of the work lay in the fact that the population as scattered over this wide area and that the people could only be reached by slow and difficult means of travel -- by steamboat and canoe or by fording swollen rivers, by horse-back, by springless open wagon, or even on foot. Yet, to the small communities and lonely dwellings where the children of the Church were found, Leonidas Polk went, 'gathering congregations, holding services, preaching, baptizing, confirming and celebrating the sacrament wherever and whenever he could find an opportunity,' as his son has written. His three missionary journeys can be likened to those of St. Paul." During the first eighteen months of his episcopate he spent only four with his family.

Bishop Polk's missionary jurisdiction included Arkansas, the Indian Territory, Mississippi,