Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1893-04-20
GENERAL ASSOCIATION NOTES.
What Happened to the Man Who Did Go
to Great Bend.
BY REV. b. oonDLKY. D. D., LAWRENCE, kAs

In the March Telephone Brother
Pinch tells what happened to the man
who didn't go to Great Bend. After |
reading of his doleful lot we all pity the |
poor fellow, and still we cannot help
feeling that 1t is ''good enough for him. 80
But after reading the article I have
been wondering what would happen to
the man who did go. l think first of
all he will experience several surprises.
He will be surprised to find so fine a
town ''far out upon the prairie, % with
elegant homes, electric lights and a
rushing trade. He will not realize that
he is 800 miles from the Missouri river.
He will be surprised again to find so
large meeting. 1t is going to be the
largest meeting of the General Associa.
ton ever held in Kansas. All the
hurches are preparing to send dele
gates, and all the ministers are going.
except the one of whom Bro. Pinch
writes. The ladies' missionary societies
are not going to send any delegates.
They are just going themselves. The
Christian women of Kansas are going
to be there, that is, all the active work
ers among them. In little while the
women are to vote, and the Congrega-
tional women are going to become ac-
customed to public responsibility by at
tending the great Woman's Missionary
Meeting at Great Bend.
This man will be surprised too to find
so good meeting. 1t will be the best
meeting of the Association ever held.
1t would be the best on general princi-
pies. The last meeting is always the
best, for we are growing and improving
all the while. But there are some
special features to this meeting which
no other ever possessed. No other
| meeting has had Graham Taylor or DR..
Beaton, or their equivalents. These
men are right down to date In their
| matter and methods. They will give
you the latest and the best in their lines.
| The provision for music and other
things are new features in our Associa.
ton and will be a surprise to the man
who measures things by what he has
seen before.
| The man who goes to Great Bend
will receive new inspiration for his
work. He will be lifted onto higher
plane. He will be able to preach better
He will find preparation easier and
preaching will be more of delight. The
time spent in the journey will be made
up many times by the greater facility
with which he will work. His mental
machinery will become oiled and will
| run far more smoothly and throw off
its. products far more rapidly. The
| papers and addresses, and especially
the fellowship, will wake up every dor.
{ mant faculty, and fill his mind with sug-
gestions and themes which will just cry
out for treatment. He will find himself
so pressed with themes that he will
hardly know which to take first. His
4
minister is lately" If they have been
whispering among themselves about a
''change," they will begin to whisper
| about raising his salary for fear they
will loose him. 1t is a great mistake
for man to think that every day spent
away from his parish is a day lost.
/
with keen minds, and warm with the
touch of fellowship, one day is worth a
dozen. Nowhere else so much as in a
minister's work are the words of the
poet found true:
| "We live in thoughts not breaths.
In feeling not in figures on dial
| We should count time By heart throbs,
| He lives most who thinks most, feels the nob-
lest, acts the best.''
The man who goes to Great Bend too
will escape the embarrassments and
notifications of the man who didn't go.
When friends from abroad ask him
different parts of the state he will not
blush to think how little he knows OF
them. When he reads of some broth
er's labors or trials or successes, he
will say to himself, s'I took that broth
er by the hand last spring." And
there will be glowing sense of fellow
ship pass over him though 900 miles
away. He will feel that he has touched
the four corners of the state, and has
a sort of share in all that is being done