Cayton's weekly. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1916-1921, 1918-05-04
WOULD FISH SUNDAYS


vival Of more or less protracted nature,
his efforts were always gratifyingly sue
cessful After the crops had all been 'laid
by'-that is, needed no more cultivating,
and only wanted time to ripen for the har
vesting to begin-which was not later than
the Goth of July, the most of the farm hands
were given a semi-vacation from their
strenuous labOrs for almost one month Dur
ing these semi-idle days they visited their
friends, five and ten and occasionally twenty
miles from home, which Of course made them
look forward to this season with a great
many happy anticipations. The state of
Mississippi, it is safe to say, has about 20 per
cent more cOlored than white citizens and IN
some Of the river counties the colored popu-
ation is about eight to one over the white
population and this great excess of colOred
population is largely responsible for there
being about 20 to l colored preachers over
the white preachers, but the most of the col
Ored preachers are pastoring large cOngre-
cations and, some of them as high as four
congregations, and he serves these by alter
mating his services from one to four every
Sunday, from whence he gets the cOgnomen,
circuit rider The above is true OF both the
Methodist and Baptist divines, who are
powerful preachers. - These semi-vacation
periods affords these preachers splendid op
pOrtunities to increase the membership or
their respective churches from among the
'worldly people, and they are by no means
slow in taking advantage Of the opportunity,
and so they begin to lay their plans for ''our
'tracted effort" as soon as the March winds
are lulled to sleep by the soothing April suns.
Brother preachers living twenty or more
miles away are invited to assist in the COM
ing " 'vival' and the pastor never loses an
ton the soul-stirring qualities in the pulpit,
of the brother or brethren who are expected
to assist him in his summer & 'tracted meet
ing Now the crucifiXion horror had been
thrashed over so often that Elder Brown,
the hero of this storyett, came to the con-
cluson that sinners would no longer fall for
it and so he reasoned with himself and con
Guided something must be sprung, if in the
coming 'tracted effort the church got it's
former harvest Of sinners and back-sliders.
Not wanting to fal short Of adding his usua4
number of summer Christians to his church
roll he set his think box to working overtime.
Large numbers of colored persons, when the
preaching and praying were unusually eX-
citing, were converted in the summer and al
most an equally large number back-slided in
the winter when the nights were long and the
music soul-stirring and dancing in order,
VI
summer Christians and winter devils. There,
however, were always less winter bacl-slid-
ers than summer Christians, which accounted
for the superhuman efforts Of the preachers
to take as many as possible at the 'tracted
effort'
The two forms of sin that worried the
preachers most were winter dancing and
springtime Sunday fishing. Who fished on
Sunday committed an almost objectionable
sin and for Christian to partake of fish
knowingly, caught on Sunday, was as sacri-
ligious as for a sinner to drink the wine left
over from Sacramento services. One of
Elder Browns churches was located near
Pearl river and fishing in that stream is al
ways good and some Of the deacons and
members of this church would steal away
Sundays and fish all day and the sinners of
the community would 60 fishing on Sunday
and boast about it and with sin and satin
stalking about the land like that and as
he thought of the fate Of Sodom and Gomor-
rah he wOu]d tremble in his heart lest that