The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 18??-1935, 1920-07-02
SIMPLE STORY
OF WORK DONE
BY One CHURCH
HOW J. M. ROBSON MADE CEN
TRIAL PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
A REAL, LIVE WIRE.
TOLD IN COUNTRY GENTLEMAN
Some Interesting Side Lights on
What Preacher Can Do for the Ad-
vancement of the Life of His Com
munlty and State.

The following story appeared in
this weeks issue of the Country Gen
tleman:
After the Rev. j. M. Robson had
shown me the $4,000 church he had
built at the cross roads out in the
country in Southern Tennessee,
asked him these questions:
HAS it been worth it? What good
has been done?"
The church is little more than a
mile out from the village of Culleoka,
of the gravel road that leads straight
south from Nashville to the Alabama
line. In Culleoka | had seen the
church that had been bone of con-
tention between the two Presbyterian
sects. There had been lawsuit for
possession of the, property. While
that litigation dragged through the
courts the church stood unused the
greater part of the time, and when |
saw the old building last February it
was sagging sidewise in forlorn and
forsaken decrepitude.
An old deacon said as we stood
looking at the ruin: THAT church
has been battle ground of warning,
wrangling factions. Because of it
Christianity has been sneered at and
held up to scorn. Truly shocking in
dictment to bring against church.
There is a Methodist church in that
village of 300 souls; trim and tidy
little church, snow white in a fresh
coat of paint, but, as an old Presby-
terrain said to me:
"You can't expect Southern Presby-
terians to get much comfort out of a
Methodist church,
At the edge of the village is Bap-
fist church, and a few miles out, in
the Scribner settlement among the
hills, is little church that has been
there since long before the Civil War.
There had been preaching in that
church, off and on, for seventy
years: but with all those churches
near at hand, with all Of that preach
ing and teaching, there were in the
Scribner settlement by actual count
in the census of 1910. 80 growu-up
men and women who could neither
read nor write. and there was in that
settlement a woeful disregard of the
Sabbath day.
Another "old residenter' Of those
hills said to ma There's been too
many churches and too many differ
ent sects a-disputin' between their
selves about predestination, and in
FAINT baptism, close communication
and immersion That's what's the
matter. Church members in these
hills has been so busy bein' hide
bound Baptists and Methodists, and
Complexities and Presbyterians they
amt had nary til1e to be Christians
at ALL"
AS stood under the big oak trees,
near the water mill on Fountain
Creek, and looked at the weather
beaten gray front of the little old
church that had been there since be-
fore the Civil War and thought of the
men and women born and raised
almost within sight of it who could
not read printed word or write
their own names, said to the silent
old church:
Il Il wish you could talk so you could
tell what good you have ever DONE"
And so, when later in the day the
Rev. Mr.. Robson took me to see his
$4,000 church, planted within easy
riding distance of those other four
churches, l wondered if he had not
simply added another church to an al
ready overchurched community, and
/ asked him what good that church
had ever done to justify the outlay
of so much money
II came here as state evangelist
for the Presbyterian Church." said
Robson. 1.-THE Presbyterian church
in Culleoka was closed to me be-
cause of the church quarrel there
| began preaching here, in farm
house, at this crossroads. We were
close enough to Culleoka for the |
who wished to come |
out here, We had this farming COM
munity to draw from. This crossroad |
leads in one direction into the un-
churched Hill country of Cuba and
Scribners, for while there was that
little old frame church, it was seldom
open, and the greater part of those
people in the hills never went to
church. So, here was my commits
sion, strong as Holy Writ, to bring
he Gospel to these people.
81 preached II in the farmhouse
IN Sundays and | preached it in the
highways and byways on week days.
=.