Shepherdstown register. [volume] (Shepherdstown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1849-1955, 1900-07-19
THE ITINERANT PARSONAGE.

years ago, to pick from all the young
men of my acquaintance the one least
likely to become minister of the Cos
pei, should, without hesitation, have
named Jackson Williams. For Will
liams was a very plain youth, of a
shrewd, practical 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 a con-
frmed defect of speech, which in it.
self would seem a fatal obstacle to sue
cess as clergyman.
At the age of twenty-five, "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 lit
tie like Jackson, but more merry
hearted and humorous. In discussing
at their wedding 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 fifty"
A few months later Jackson Will
Jams attended a series of meetings,
presided over by a great reyiyalist.
He experienced a profound change in
his convictions of duty, and deter
mined to devote his life to the active
promotion Of religion. In the follow
ing autumn he began to study for the
ministry at a seminary, and in due
course entered on his labors as an itin-
Grant minister.
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 a
personally graceful, eloquent, emo
tional man. Jackson Williams was no
such man. In the pulpit he was con-
servative and dry in all that he said
or advised, and his defect of speech
helped his cautious words in making
him appear lacking in zeal and elo-
quence.
The ideal minister wife, too, seems
to be an easygoing woman Of social,
sympathetic nature, not much dis
tressed about house or home, but in
clined 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
how she might save twenty-five dol
lars year from her husbands meagre
uncertain salary. When their chill
dren, Dolly and Jackson, Jr., began
to go to school, she became even more
solicitous to shield them from the i'll
consequences of their itinerant life.
But fate seemed against her. jack
son Williams rarely remained for more
than a year on one Circuit or par
ish. The presiding elders of his con-
ference had discovered his useful
qualities as well as his defects as
preacher. Wherever there was a
church which was financially weak or
lacked parsonage, or was in need Of
repairs or of reorganization, 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
year, always in two, the church was
repaired or rebuilt, or a new parson-
age erected or the church committees
reorganized and stimulated to activity
as the case called for. But as a con-
sequence Of the expenditures which he
got his parishioners to make on the
church, he usually left to go to another
similarly degenerate place, with half
his small salary in arrears and his
Al