The Waterbury Democrat., 1937-11-18


 approximately seven thousand square miles, about one hundred and seventy-five thousand people of which three hundred and seventy five are known to be Catholics. From the Alabama state line to our furthest outpost is about one hum dred and twenty-five miles.
 How have we been received? No preacher of the word of God could ask for kinder, more considerate, more intensely religious audience than we have had. There has been no single instance of hostility, the schools have been opened to us free ly and willingly, each night men are on hand to help in arranging desks, motion picture equipment, or to do us any service they can. Children throng our trailer bringing so many apples that were we in the north we could sell them, the last and big gest gift from a "share-cropper" child was bag of hickory nuts. Elsewhere we might be inclined to treat these gifts lightly but these are real treasures to the people here, all they have and I'm sure our Sav- four himself likens these gifts to the widows Mite" He praised ln the long ago.
 The audience may be a trifle un- orthodox from churchman's point of view; the children sometimes romp and play and talk during ser- vices, he may look down and dis cover one or two mothers nursing their babies during his sermon; per- haps some of the children may give him competition as he breaches. In one school house, at Alto, the people were so packed in that they over- flowed to the platform from which I spoke. A four year old child, blond hair, blue eyes and all dressed up in pink coverall suit walked up be- side me, looked me over carefully, turned and looked at the audience, waved his hat at them, did a little dance while he hummed softly to himself, then went back to his parent and sat down and all the time I kept on preaching.
 What do we do when the babies start crying? Nothing-and no mis- sion has passed without two or three shouting to high heaven dur ing the sermon. Do we ask that they be taken outp Neverl If we can't shout louder than the babies we should be ashamed of ourselves; too often we find that the mother has walked from one to three miles car- rying the baby in her arms-and many times in the rain-as the roads are too muddy for carriages. We tell them that when the baby cries he is really saying his prayers and we should not object to that. Strangely enough crying babies do not annoy these people at alias they would city people-nor do they bother the missionary
 It is an inspiring sight to look down the road from one of these country school houses after dark to see in the distance two or three, swinging lanterns as the people walk in from miles around to hear the revival" services. Outside of the local school house one night we counted six wagon teams. twelve cars, three mules they ride in on mule bacD which picked up fami- lies and carried them in. One old man of 83 rode in on horseback: one family walked four miles, an- other six. This last family consisted of mother and two strapping sons ! who walked six miles each way. We found that out and drove them to and from their home each night thereafter as when we drove them the two girls, nine and seven yeats of age could also come.
 On several occasions we learned that many of the people who had 10 walk along muddy roads or over fields carried their shoes tied around their necks until they came to a place near the school house where they could put them cn. People who will walk miles bare footed on a cold night to take psrt in divine service deserve all the praise we can give them and merit our very best efforts to help them.
 On one mission gave out medals of the Mother of God after explain ing that the wearer in carrying the medal was placing himself under Mary's protection. We have given out more than seven hundred and the people wear them very proudly. At this niSsion-"Gum Creek" "a youngster of ten or eleven asked me for a medal of Jesus Mother" Do you know what it means to wear a medal of Mary?" I asked. "Yassur", came the reply" 1t means that the one who gave 1t to you has to bury you when you die." I found out, to my relief, that such was not the gen- eral impression or we should have a large funeral bill ahead of us. He was leaning little too heavily, perhaps, on the thought of finan- cial protection. ..,
 What has been the response thus far? We have talked to an audience total of $500 non Catholics in the past eight weeks and of these ap- proximately 100 are under instruc- tion in Bible Glasses" They may eventually find their way into the Church but at the present time are interested chiefly in religion, and not particularly in the Catholic re- ligion. Each night one of the mis- sionaries conducts a class in one of the places where we have given mission while the other takes care of the regular mission services. By far the most important part of mis- sion activity here is the "follow-up work At least in two places there have been outright promises of ground for a church or chapel if we would locate in the neighbor. hood. These people. long negIected 1