Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1918-10-16
WHEN the PREACHERS WORKED. r

4 Baptist minister over in West
Virginia has broken into the general
press dispatches by digging coal six
days in the week and preaching on
Sunday He is doing a good job digging
ard getting out mans quota OF coal.
The chances are that he is doing as
| good job of preaching on the seventh
! day. Such men usually have some
thing 10 say worth while and say it as
they dig coal-~ith the idea and pur-
pose Of getting results.
OF course for a minister to dig coal
nowadays is curiosity of news but in
those older days il was not only fire.
guent but common for the minister to
have some occupation for week days
and work at il. Some OF the elder
preachers farmed. some did one thing
and some another. 1t was a common
thing 10 see the minister in charge OF
three or four little country and village
conversations in overalls on week
days. The fact is that he PRETTY nearly
had 10 do something TO help out the
salary" of potatoes. sorghum and
donation parties" But at that some
how those old fellows. lacking the olo-
gical training OF the schools and graces
OF diction in the pulpit managed TO
make religion a very vital thing to the
people they served. To be sure they
had the advantage of the old time
thermal units in birthstone over the
modern preacher and they used the
curses of scripture side by side with
its blessings to point their argumenta-
ton. \ "mourners bench" was
mourners bench in those days and the
mourning sincere and often vociferous.
Conviction" settled down like cloud
in the "protracted meeting" and was
kept kindled thru the Sunday services
Of the year Religion was rather
austere to be sure The service re-
tanned considerable Of the puritan
still Entertainment had not entered
| the pulpit or taken possession of the
pews. The minister, plain man with
narrow conception of the whole duty
| of man spoke plainly and to the point
calling a spade a spade, hewing to the
line wherever the chips might fall. The
old men who prayed at The quarterly
meetings" and at prayer meetings may
| have been ignorant but they spoke as
| to a Face behind a veil in truth be-
| lievins and in the full acceptance that
not one thought Of theirs was unknown
and noted by their Creator. With all
reverence and much fear as well as
love there was an intimacy with God
among those elder people. Their creeds
were austerely simple. God rewarded
and He punished. The individual stood
| in court. The law was plain but with
recommendations TO mercy. II it was
simple it was serious.
| But everybody worked N those days
| 1t was a hard handed and toll worn
| congregation. ana ldlIllNS IN tlosS
| days was laborious and i'll paid. The
poor are usually the most pious. Some
how poverty builds severe theology.
1t also creates bond. And the bond
between the hardworkins preacher and
his hard working congregation was
! extremely close.
1t is a long cry from the cross roads
church with it's row Of hitching posts
bordering an ill-kept front yard. its
churchyard, grass grown and little
tended with its Struggling rows Of
"gravestones" to the splendid churches
of the period and the swelling pipe
organs; a long way also from the
callous handed dominic" of the old
time to the carefully educated and
highly read minister Of the present.
Indeed it is a far cry from old creeds
to new ones. And it is n open ques-
ton between them still.