The farmer and mechanic., 1911-08-29

(ETOm the 81
Tomorrow ends the happiest and
truest OF my vacations since l left
North Carolina more than ten years
ago-tomorrow / turn my face toward
Atlanta. For several years when
looking months ahead to my annual
vacation month of August and before
invitations to supply in Northern cities
had begun TO come in, | have invar-
iably entertained the idea Of doing
Just what | have done this time.
have come.
Back Homo.
I have refreshed my soul. I have
recovered my youth. From some vaca-
tions | have retuned to my work with
the sense that nothing had been gain
ed, sometimes with the feeling that
som thing had been lost. But now
know that the best thing for any eN-
lie North Carolina preacher IS TO come
home, touch the mother soil for the
physical man, the quiet hooks OF long
ago with book or two for the MIND.
and the dear old churches OF child
hood for the spirit. | have fairly IN
three weeks accomplished the back
trail to my cradle.
I began at the beginning of me
straight from Atlanta to Clayton,
ohnston county, and there to the
spot the inch and square Of dirt
where / will be buried and mingle
my dust with my mothers and her
peoole-the Ellington's. | saw again
The Spot on Which l was Born
The schcol-yard with boys actually
playing on my background as though
it was theirs. | went down to the
creek to find a certain frOthy pool
and the red-bellied family | left there
nearly thirty years ago. Alas, the old
creek seemed but a trickling weary
brc of hn
gone With it's ancient pledge of
swift bite and its thrilling perch. I
pilgrimed alone to the site Of Old
Johnston Liberty Church where [
learned the great old hymns and
saw rather than heard my grandfath-
er whose name I bear, preaching with
many tears flowing down his cheeks.
The house was utterly gone. only the
hill, covered with gravel and spots Of
close-knit moss on the ground and the
same trees and my clear memory pic
lures We're there fO1 me. The old
graveyard and its headstOnes, except
for a very few had been many years
removed nearer to the town. L fol-
lowed them and spelled out the names
and dates again to make sure. The
city of that dead has grown fmmeas-
| urably. The graveyards prosper also
| in this world Of ours We multiply
and replenish the earth to grow big
| In that cemetery I saw such a com
pany Of my own blood [ was i'm
pressed with the large place the Ell
| lingtons had held in the life and his
tory Of that comm munity-one-third of
all the dead buried there were within
| this one family founded in that sec
| ton at the birth of my grandfather
Ellington and my Grandfather Avera
close by the first of the nineteenth
century. It is a great hour in the
world when the good, strong stocks
! Of a man and woman meet as hus
band and wife as they met in these
two The truly poignant hours Of
civilization are the wedding hours Of
good men and women and, as for
that the bad also.
MY next journey was to
Ny Fathers Birthplace.
near old Mays Chanel church,
| in Chatham County. This was old
vacation ground. I slept with the
murmur Of Rocky River in my ears
again: went swimming in its swift
| flow. brought water from the same
spring and on Sunday preached at
Mays Chapel. That is historic Bap-
tist land. 1t was one of the main
rallying points Of the Sandy Creek
association in the day when that body