The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1894-09-28
Deacon Gozzele's Little Story.

You know" said Deacon Gozzle, according
TO the New York Sun. I'D often heard Of
men going away from their native village to
the city and getting rich. and finally coming
back 10 settle ana building a line house, or
building house and coming there 10 spend
their summers; or giving the town a library,
or oulIdlng new church or a school house, or
DONG something good that showed that their
heart was IN the old town. But the qUeereSt
thing of the sort l ever heard Of happened in
my town, and 1t happened in the church that
l nelOuffed TO.
There came to our church one Sunday
stranger, just an Ordinary-looking stranger IN
good Sunday clothes, and we put him as we
Always dld strangers in as good a seat as we
had. which happened to be in this case the
best seat in the middle aisle. fact for which
we were atterward very grateful. We didn't
observe anything very remarkable about this
man ne listened to the sermon, and stood up
with the rest when they sung and when the
plate was passed he dropped in a bill. That
was kind o remarkable, but not so dreadful
remarkable for folks sometimes did put bills
IN the plate in our church. But when we
came to stratghten out the collection and
count II, which we always did after meeting,
We uiu encounter the most remarkable thing
that mad ever happened in that church; the
Dill that the stranger had put in folded up so
small and quiet was a 81 600 bill.
well, II thered been an earthquake in the
town there couldn't any more people have
heard OF 1t, nor any quicker, and everybody
wondered who he was. He was stopping u
tue Motel and keeping very Quie, and next
Gay ne went away, and then everybody Won
cred if he'd ever come back He did the
next Sunday. and he went to church, and he
cropped another bill in the plate when it got
TO him folded up small, Just like the other.
IL was another thousand.
lhen there was excitement. The man
went away the next morning Just the same,
out he came back the next Sunday and put in
another thousand, and he kept coming and
gcng in that way until he d put in nine
81 ,OOObills, with the excitement growing all
the time.
There was mortgage on the church of
! @lOOUO BY this time, of course everybody
had got 1t INTO their heads that the stranger
was paying on this mortgage and everybody
! was very glad of it. 1t wasn't a poor town,
| by any means, but it was a farming town.
| "hefe cash wasn't oVerplentiful and $1,000
| seemed like great deal of money-which it
| was and this man was paying it. or every
| bouy thought he was, and when 1t came 10 the
next Sunday, the tenth Sunday, which every
| body sort OF felt was going to be the last one,
! ana the one that would tell who the stranger
| was, you couldn't get into the church. But we
! managed to make room for HIM when he
! came, and he did come, and we gave him the
/ Identlcal pew he sat in the first Sunday. Well,
/ When the plate came around he put in an
oIher. He'd done lt-hed paid the debt of
! the church.
| After that he didn't keep himself quite so
| quiet he was around the village more, and
| hrSt one ana then another recognized him.
! ana then everybody that was old enough won
uered that everybody hadn't recognized him
| from the beginning. He was born and raised
] tnere and had gone away when he was a
/ young man Of twenty to make his fortune,
! ana he d made it, not in cities, but out on the
| pains raising cattle, and nobody had met
! MN or heard of him But ne didn't look like
! cowboy when he came lack; he looked
| Just like anybody and acted so.
! HE did say atterward that paying the
Cnurch deOG was more tun than he ever
struck in his life; he was little curious in
! that way in his way of speaking; but his
/ leart, m sure, was sound as a dollar