Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1900-04-19
The ItilGrant PARSONAGE
By G. a. Stephens.
IF ANYONE had asked me- 20 wears

h ANYONE had asked me, 20 years
1 ago, TO pick from all the young men
o. my acquaintance the one least likely
TO become minister of the Gospel, l
should without hesitation have named
jackson Williams. For Williams was
very plain youth, of a shrewd, prac-
teal turn of mind, sharp at a 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 a confirmed defect of
speech. which III itself would seem a
fatal obstacle to success as clergy
man.
At the age of % .'Old Jacky," as we
called 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; or, as one expressed
it: Nobody need worry about Jack
and Rosy, Why, they will own the
whole town by the time they are 50i'
y few months later Jackson Williams
attended series of meetings presided
over by great revivalist. He expert
enced a profound change in his convic-
tions 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 on
his labors as an itinerant minister of
that denomination.
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 a help
meet to her husband in his chosen vo-
cation.
The ideal popular clergyman of the
present generation appears to be 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
MS cautious WOTOS III LldhILS nILn d p
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
tressed 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 longed for
something permanent and stable in life,
and lay awake nights planning hOwshe
might save $25 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 Circuit" or parish.
The presiding elders of his conference
had discovered his useful qualities, as
well as his defects as n preacher. Wher-
ever there was a 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.
In such a place his shrewdness, thrift
and good hard sense came into play,
with the result that often in a single
wear. always in two, the church was
repaired or rebuilt, or new parsonage
erected, or the church committees re-
organized and stimulated to activity,
as the case called for. But as a 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 |
poor friend going.
At Links Mill. where the WilliamseS |
were stationed during the year 1898. |
the condition of affairs had. as usual. |
been bad. The old parsonage had |
burned in October, 1897: and after the |
fire it 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 vii
Iiams had contrived to get 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, on April his sal
ary was fully $500 in arrears.
Mrs. Williams stayed at home to care
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, a let
ter from Williams informed his wife
that she must again pack her house
hold goods. But we have not far to
move this time" he added. 1T is only
FIVE miles. They are going to send me
to Marston, down at the foot of the
lake. But the church there has no par
sonaye,'' he added, land 1 suppose we