The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-10-13
M EN w o M E N
 A ND T H 1 N c s

DCAhB CA [CA e<>A~So A&~ ~A- home of one of my old Baptist friends, R. B. Posey.
 l do not know what I would do if were tied up in the city without a chance to get out in the country. can get along very we'll until fall comes, then the woods. fields and streams call to me in an irresistible way.
 
 But it is more than nature which cries out to me with such an overpow- ering note, as 1t is hard for man to shed the habit of years and not feel the loss of them. For seventeen years when the autumn leaves began to turn, I began my trips to the Baptist associa- tions.
 l have travelled in many lands I have gone through my varied experiences, for mine has been a fulfil life without any dull times in it, and I enjoyed my childhood, my youth, my young man hood, and am still having a good time in middle age and looking forward to continuing joy when the winters snows and summer suns will find me an old man.
 I am glad that I took big bite out of life for while I feel fit and am con- fident that my best years are ahead crest of the hill and the descent is be- fore me. l know this to be true as I am already drawing on the past and get pleasure out of remlniscening which is sure sign that age is creeping slowly may be but surely on one.
 
 I have tasted life and found 1t good and have often laughingly said that if the good Lord let me live as long as want to. that that portion of the Old Testament which sets out the fact that Methusaleh was the oldest man will have to be rewritten and my name in serted for his. So far as am concerned this Is a mighty good old world and want to keep alive long time in order to write about Men, Women and uhhSos iVA lihu daiiJ ihtCt CSL III all three of them.
 Some of my friends wonder knowing the various points at which I have touched life that can find pleasure in what pastor Wagner on his visit to America from France called the simple life" It was a wonder to the society bunch out of which I made the transi- ton into the religious world that l could be satisfied with the change from the fast ways of the club and what it representa- to the slower ones of the parsonage and what it stood for.
 
 For more than twenty years I found my happiness in the ordinary duties of a pastor or editor of denominational paper; and it was only the exigencies of the war and the calls for public service that I gave up the regular pastorate and sold the religious paper to be freer to work along secular lines I have by no means relinquished my ministerial career as I preach nearly every Sunday, and also find chance to use my pen in behalf of Christianity
 
 I have said this much as a basis to show that during the fall I miss att tendance upon the numerous religious gatherings held in the various portions of the state and while I manage to get to few, it is not as of old a con- tinuous performance. When I began as young lawyer here in Birmingham, had anyone foretold that the time would arrive when I would get genuine joy out of religious gatherings in the day and pleasure out of night spent in country homes around firesides where family prayer was wont to be made, ] would have considered it huge joke.
 
 But through the year I learned to love it, for found that outside the noise and clamor of the city there wera rest spots where people still took time to be comfortable and hospitable. In looking back over my wanderings up and down the world, there are no more precious memories than those I have of days spent in country churches and nights spent in country homes. count as my richest heritage that in hundreds of humble farm houses throughout Alabama there is a place at table. a chair by the fire. a bed ready for me, and better than creaturea Comforts, a Voihi NSACchiO II ciii >i w ~A eS'
 
 All these things came flooding in upon me as I drove up to the gate with Brother Posey and got down and-went in to meet his dear wife. They are all alone at home now, the boys and the girls have gone out into the world and made names for themselves, and fathers and mother are staying by the farm and waiting from weekend to week end to have their children come and be with them over Sunday. It's~out of such homes that the manhood and the womanhood of this nation comes.
 
 I admire we'll laid out grounds under the master hand of landscape artist. l. get pleasure out On walking through the green houses of florist. I find joy in walking through well-kept city park. But somehow there is noth- ing which enraptures my whole being as a farm house set in grove with its old time flower garden, and the fields all around. The geraniums with their brilliant coloring are hard to beat and Mrs Posy has a wonderful collec- ton of them in full blobm.
 In the grove Is the largest specimen of sassasfras that I have ever seen It grows up about sixty feet and I tried to reach around it with both arms ane The walnut trees were in fruit. The oaks were fine specimens. and the elms about as large as grow in Ala-' bama. I was also interested in the bronze turkeys strutting in the sun as I was in the chickens running to and fro. got a peep at two fine porkers fattening for the winter killing, and