The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-05-18
PREACHINGG WORD TO HARDY
 MOUNTAINEERS
Unordained Men Deliver Sermons Only When
 Spirit Moves

A visitor from '.out no'th in the United States" enters the fastnesses of the Southern Highlands on the wrong foot unless he steps with cir cumspection, walking the narrow trails along their mountain shadowed creek beds, dignified adventurer, with noth- ing to reveal or conceal, writes Nellie Ballou in the New. York Times. To be urged to attend church meet ing is a token that one has been looked over, talked over beside cabin fEafths, and finally adiudged discreet and well meaning, in spite of the misfortune of having been reared in lreathen territory. The Kentucky mOuntaineers cMlI out siders "furriners" and mean it. One feels the force of the term as inevitable. even while bashing in the kindliness of those clear-eyed people of the hills. It was well toward a fortnight before enough of my neighbors had mentioned church meeting to- assure me that + would be welcome there. So to church set out the following Sunday morning.
 I had expected to be early, so as not to make a conspicuous entrance, Nbut the sound of weird chant rising and falling struck my Consciousness. as I neared the little church at ''Hollybush.
 Has the meeting been going on longT asked big mountaineer lean ing against the edifice with a propsie tary attitude. He looked frightened. and repeated my question more slowly and with reassurilg smile.
 He shifted swelling of his left cheek to the right side, spat unerringIy past me. blinked solemnly and said:
 Just tuning up, I reckon, maybe. sis ter. Walk right in and hep yourself to any place you feel like settin'. Some of the preachers. hit seems. is late.
 A Big Attendance
 The one room of the building was we'll filled to its single door with women and children. Three or four mothers on benches near the. wall were nursing their babies. Others were standing, talk. ing in whispers to one another; some stood with eyes fixed on nothing in par ticular, singing a wailing chant. recognized the words as those of an old hymn used to hear my grandmother sing, but there was no distinguishable tune.
 The hyman which I had heard died a natural death five verses after my en- trance. and another was started by an old, old woman of great piety. Few modern ears would have recognized the performance as music, but that does not brand it as lacking in appeal or even beauty of it's own. The words are sung to Hong meter" common to pioneer churches, but seldom heard now outside the isolation of the mountains. The second hymn recognized as Shall l Be Carried to the Skies on Flowery Beds of Ease? ?p Every note was drawn out and thes intervals were subjected to wailing slurs reminiscent of the Hawaiian RIIitar
 They call our type of music ''soft singing" and look upon it as fit only for secular purposes, chasing it with their own survivals of folk ballads-d0Ieful lighteners of long evenings.
 The distinction is neatly made At close range this mountain hymn sing ing is nothing short of deafening hut from a distance it takes on weird sane tity that grips a listener with it's primi- tive cry of man Godward.
 The Preachers Arrive
 During the preliminaries the preach CTS had been arriving, and seating them selves in a row upon a bench near the stove, A hush settled over the people, and the coming in and wandering out again became less, though it continued during the progress of every service attended in this part of the country, without regard to what was going on. l Practically third of all the grown men in attendance in this community proved to be preachers of the gospel Many of them, while hoeing their steep hillside patches hear the call of ''the sperrit," as they say. Most of them are unlettered, but earnest. They preach without training or preparation and without material reward. In fact, they look with scOrn upon ministers who ac- eept money for a living they have not earned by manual labor.
 l One notable fact concerning these men might be taken to heart by public speakers in more enlightened environs They will not preach unlesg "the sper- rit'' gives them something to say. I attended one meeting at which only one preacher of the several present was moved to speak or even to. pray when called upon. The rest, one by one, de- clined regretfully, but with simple hon esty; and the congregation received it in the same manner, although one could see they were disappointed after com
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