Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1912-10-04
Rev. John Lake Visited His
Boyhood Home.

for China. By a sweet coincidence,
my wife and l were privileged to
accept to-day the graceful hospitali-
| ty of Gov. and Mrs. J. Q. Shep-
pard in the delightful reception they
gave us; and tonight my mind is
going over that meeting with old
friends and over the events of the
past three days-days crowded with
the scenes and the memories of my
boyhood days in dear old Edgeteld
and Edgefeld county.
For several weeks we have been
enjoying the hospitality of homes
like yours in the town, and like
Brother Littlejohn's in the country,
and enjoying the blessed fellowship,
of old friends in the churches from
Republican all the way to Bethel
skipping some, to which we hope
to go later-and now the past three
days took me to my very home!
Mrs. Lake and l were fortunate
to have the guidance and guardian
ship of Mrs. Mamie Norris Tillman
on the trip-a guidance and a guar
dianship like your own dear Flor
ence's-and we met more friends
and enjoyed more royal hospitality
in three days than book of a
thousand pages could record.
Up the old Blocker road we went,
by ancient Blockerville, of which
no trace is left, past the Blocker
cemetery where lie generations of
my ancestors, past the old Lake
place" where 1 first saw the light
and the private burying ground,
where lie my fathers parents -on,
on, through the scenes of my boy
hood, fraught with memories too
tender, too sacred for Inference, to
the very top of Boles Mountain, to
the highest house in the county,
and about the highest evidence of
Edgefeld county enterprise. How
MI. and Mrs. Will Strom and their
sweet children did take the way
farers in, on that rainy night be-
fore the Sunday meeting of the
union" at Mountain creek, and on
the night following; how | contrast
ed that splendid villa-home with
the bare rock on which Col. James
T. Bacon and / sat and ate our
lunch one day, some twenty years
ago; how my heart leaped when l
stood before the great congregation
at Mountain creek, the church of
my ancestors nearly a century ago,
how can l find words to express it?
Spend eight years il a foreign
land, amid plaques and typhoons
and mobs and revolution and lone
ly, pitiless toiling-no longer lone
ly, thank God and her! drink only
boiled water in that tropical land,
preach only in foreign tongue
and then come back to native land
and childhood haunts and graves of
father and mother and kindred and
friends come back to such kind
ness and hospitality, to such ready
response to your own hearts ap-.
peal-and you will know-not
till then!
On the return journey we dined
in the home of Mr.. and Mrs.
John Minick- beloved cousins,
with other beloved cousins and
friends; we plucked spray of my
mcther's favorite star jessamine
that she and l planted together near
ly thirty years ago; we stood at the
grave of the sainted great grand
mother who dedicated me, babe
in arms, to the ministry-they even
say to the work of a missionary;
passed the homes, the Pleasant Lane
store, the bridge, the ford, the for
ests and the tields-all mine, mine,
by sight of memory's might and
loves conquest-my homes, the
homes of my people! and am
back in dear old Edgeield, ready
to meet the preaching engagements
of the next few months-till June
md then ready to sail for eight
more years in China, h appi e +,
younger, better, by Gods grace,
for the pilgrimage to all those
sacred shrines and familiar scenes.
God oless the people, old and
young, white and black, to whom
I spoke the word of Life during
those hallowed days, and, shall l
say it in closing, God bless that
sweet mother of Edgefeld's first
foreign missionary who sits in her
old home so near to the tomb of
her own June" Nicholson, and
God raised up thosr who are TO take
| bor ,lona au3 Ours when wa tOo