The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1896-07-01
SARGE PLUNKETT,
PluEkett Talks About a Church on
WheeIa.
atlanta Constitution.

atlanta Constitution.
I learn from an editorial in the Con.
stitution that a church is to be put on
wheels and rolled about the country
for the benefit of catching the bicycle
riders,
This is another departure to por,
suade folks into the church. 1t means
neutrality-suspicious. it means an ao-
knowledgement that allthe departures
of late days have been a failure, and
that the church is growing weaker in
it's influence and being overshadowed
by other things.
Anyhow, you did not use to have to
move a church around on wheels to get
a congregation, nor you did not have
to offer premiums to get young people
to church, nor work: any schemes in
church matters. In those days the
church was the great thing-greater
than all else-the young people were
taught that it was a most glorious
privilege to visit them, and they look
ed to the preachers and to the mem
bers as better than common folks and
there was a striving to arrive at such
perfection. The vilest sinners had a
reverence for churches and church
people and rowdies respected the old
preachers presence like they did the
presence Of women.
Boys and girls in my young days
walked six or seven miles to church
and were glad Of the privilege. It
would be all right for the bicycle rid
ers who go in drovea along the ooun-
try roads every Sabbath day now to
meet q crowd Of old Time country peo-
pie on their way to church as they
used to appear. No doubt the bioy-
clists would stop and guy them or turn
round and follow them as great curl
%osities.
The old-timers not only walked
great distances to get to church, but
if you could meet them in the road
you would find them observation-disclosures
off and shifting the grit" for dear
life that they might be in time to
catch every word and hear every song.
You need not think that the boys were
not accompanied by their pretty sweet.
hearts, for the girls went and walked
and carried their Sunday shoes just
the same as the boys. These old-tim-
ers would have a place to stop at the
spring branch close by the church and
there they would wash their feet, put
on their home-knit stockings and Sun
day shoes and walk into church as
proud as.queens and fully conscious
that they had done nothing to desc
crate the Sabbath day. Them old
timers would have thought mighty lit
tie of these crowds who romp around
over the country roads every Sunday
on bicycles and it would sound nigh
ty strange to hear hat a church was
to be put on wheels to catch them out
on the roads. =
1t strikes me as it strikes Brown
hat instead of starting up new church
es we had better get back to old time
ways. There is s6%nething wrong
somewhere, and if it is not corrected
this will soon be a land of sin and in-
fidelity, People say that Brown and
1 are wrong; that folks.are better and
and times are better than they used
to be. The most of folks think that
we have outlived eur time, are old TO-
gies and got no sense, aud sometimes
I am nearly ready to agree, but when
we hear such propositions as building
a church on wheels just for the catch
ing of these Sabbath breakers. it strikes
us that somebody else is foolish and
not us.
I do not know who is responsible
for the careless feeling about churches
that makes it necessary to study
schemes TO have the young people at
tend, but I do know that it was not
once sc. have seen the day when it
was the pride of both old and young
to 20 to church-the married and the
unmarried. The young mother went,
and it was a matter of pride to take
the babe, and if there happened to be
twins both were carried in some way,
and the mother with twins was just
twice as proud as the mother with
one. The young mothers Of this day
are almost forbidden to carry their
babes to church. 1t is not fashiona-
Bile in these days, and SO the babe is
left at home with some careless nurse.
while the mother rushes to church
and back. OF course, nc afectionate
mother could enjoy the services like
she could with her babe along, and
the 20 sequence is that the mothers
are getting so they do not wish to go
to church, or else they think babes
are a nuisance and rather have none,
but if the truth was known, I expect
o lot of babes have wished they had
never been born.
People say that such things as car.
ryiDg the babes to church would be
heathenish now. They would disturb
the preachers. But what has been
done can be done again, aud the
churches were reverenced under these
old customs, and it strikes me that we
should get back to them. And it was
not such a hard thing to do, this
thing of taking the babies to church.
Pallets were spread down on the meet
ing house floor in old times, and the
babies just lay there and kicked and
crowed while the old preacher preach
ed, and if one happened to cry a moth
err would take it outside under the trees
and nobody was disturbed and nobody
cared.
1t may be that a better plan might
be arrived at in these progressive days
for the management of these matters,