Warren sheaf. [volume] (Warren, Marshall County, Minn.) 1880-current, 1900-04-26
m sT T !! ! ,1lllfSS
The Itinerant Parsonage
BY G. A. Stephens.

should without heSltatlOn nave named
Jackson Williams. For Williams was
very plain youth, of a shrewd, prac-
tical turn of mind, sharp at bargain
and given to acquiring property. He
was of that type of young man who
eventually becomes wealthy in small
village communities; he was afflicted,
moreover, with confirmed defect Of
speech, which,, in itself would seem a
fatal obstacle to success as clergy
man. >.Ls.t
At the age Of 20 ':Old Jaclsy,," as we
callei him, married Rosilla Cahill,
whom we all knew as the brightest,
quickest-witted, girl in town, although
not perhaps the most beautiful. In
mind she was not little like jackson,
but was more .merry-hearted and hui
morous. In discussing, at their we'd
ding, their prospects in life, their
friends were agreed that they were
certain to prosper; OF, as one expressed
it: Nobody need worry about Jack
and Rosy! Why, they will own the
whole town by the time they are 50!''
A few months later Jackson Williams
attended series of meetings presided
over by great revivalist. He expert
enced profound change in his convic-
lions of duty; and determined to de
vote his life to the active promotion OF
the Christian religion. In the follow
ing autumn he Began to study for the
ministry at a Methodist conference
seminary, and in due course entered Oh
Ill, ~ e
that denomination. r.
1t was suspected that his young wife
was much dissatisfied with their
changed prospects; but, if SO, she re-
Trained from expressing her feelings,
even to her intimate friends, and set
herself faithfully to become help
meet to her husband in his chosen vo-
cation. a.
The ideal popular clergyman of the
present generation appears to be a per-,
sonally graceful, eloquent, emotional
man. Jackson Williams was no such
man. In the pulpit he was conserva-
tive and dry in all that he said or adj
vised, and his defect of speech helped
his cautious words in making him APP
pear lacking in zeal and eloquence.
The ideal minister's wife, too, seems
to be an easy-going woman of a social,
sympathetic ntaure, not much dis
dressed about her house or home but
inclined to take life calmly and float
with the tide. Rosy Williams was the
reverse of that type. She 1onged for
something permanent and stable in life,
and lay awake nj ghts planning how she
might save $25 a year from her hus-
bands meager, uncertain salary. When
their children, Dolly and Jackson, Jr.,
began to go to school, she became even
more solicitous to shield them from
the ill consequences of their itinerant
life
But fate seemed against her. Jack
son Williams rarely remained for more
than a year on one ''circllit' or parish
The presiding elders of his conference
had discovered his useful qualities, as
we'll as his defects as preacher. Wher-
ever there was church which was
financially weak, or lacked a parson-
age, or was in need of repairs or of re-
organization, there they sent jackson
Williams. e.
In such a place his shrewdness, thrift
and good hard sense came into play.
with the result that often in a single
year, always in two, the church was
repaired or rebuilt, or a new parsonage
erected, or the church committees re-
organized and stimulated to activity,
as the case called for. But as conse-
quence of the expenditures which he
got his parishioners to make on the
church, he usually left, to go to an
other similarly degenerate place, with
half his small salary in arrears and
his wife in despair. For there were nu-
merous run down" churches in our
state, and the presiding elders kept my 2
poor friend going. e " 7aN -
At Links Mill, where the Williamses
were stationed during the year $685.,
the condition of affairs had, as usual:
been bad. The old parsonage had
burned in October, 1897; and after the.
hre 1t was discovered that, owing to
the neglect Of the church stewards, the
insurance had been allowed to lapse
months before. -; ;. :.
Yet during that year jackson Wis
dams had contrived to get a snug lit
tie parsonage of five rooms built and
paid for, at a cost of only $500 besides
his own labor. On the other hand.
when he went to attend the annual con-
ference at Lancaster, son April 4 his sal
airy was fully $500 in arrears.
Mrs. Williams stayed at home tocare@
for her family, in some faint hope that
they would not be sent to another cir
cult, since they had but recently moved
INTO the new parsonage.
On the evening of the seventh, let
ter from Williams informed his wife
that she must again pack her house
bold goods. ''But we have not far to-
move this time," he added. ''It is only
! i've miles. They are going to send me
to Marston, down at the foot of the
lake. But the church there has no par.
sonage,' he added, ''and I suppose we
shall have to rent house until I 90
ahead and build one as did at Mills