TABLE OF CONTENTS

FOREWORD

CHAPTER I The Rock From Which I Was Hewn

CHAPTER II Train Up A Child

CHAPTER III "O Happy Day, That Fixed My Choice"

CHAPTER IV "Every Work That Is Done Under The Sun"

CHAPTER V Whetting The Edge Of Iron

CHAPTER Vl "Woe Is Me If I Preach Not" (And Court Miss C

CHAPTER VII The Way Of A Maid With A Man

CHAPTER Vlll Persecuting The Churches

CHAPTER IX We Had Goodly Heritages

CHAPTER X On Cleaving Unto A Wife

CHAPTER XI The School Of The Prophets

CHAPTER Xll From East Texas To New Orleans

CHAPTER XIII The First Church-Owned Radio Station

CHAPTER XIV A Rocky Beginning In Monroe

CHAPTER XV The People Had A Mind To Work

CHAPTER XVI First Retirement To Clear Creek School

CHAPTER XVII Second Retirement To Knoxville p.

CHAPTER XVIII Third Retirement To Dallas p.

CHAPTER XIX Fourth Retirement To Atlanta p.

EPILOGUE

FOREWORD

Few of us are granted lives that are both long and fulfilling. Luther T. Hastings, former pastor of First Baptist Church, Monroe, and twice President of the Louisiana Baptist Convention, was educated during the close of the Victorian Age and was still preaching and teaching at Clear Creek Baptist School in Kentucky at the dawn of the Nuclear Age.

In a lifetime of over ninety-three years he helped Louisiana and Southern Baptists mature into the largest Protestant denomination in America. He started serious life as a boy behind a plow on rock hill farms of Middle Tennessee and wound up in the rear seat of a jetliner to Israel when he was ninety. It was a fitting progression for one who all his life preached and eagerly awaited a better arrival of his Lord on Olivet.

Father never planned to write his life story for any other than "Letters to My Grandchildren." This accounts for much of the homely and sometimes sentimental touches of his writings. However, the more the family lived with his manuscript, the more we realized our debt to the ever-widening circle of friends, students, and members of churches whose lives were touched by this servant of God.

Hence we offer it here not only for those who knew him well, but also for those who had only heard by the hearing of the ear. It is hoped that the reader will draw inspiration and renewed joy in the Lord from his four loves—the Lord Jesus, the Word Eternal, family and friends of all ages, and "Miss Coral"

Herewith also we thank Carol Phipps, my secretary and her friend, Karen Heath, when we served together at the Home Mission Board, for typing the manuscript. My son, John, contributed his computer expertise and my son-in-law, Ken Sehested, styled the manuscript.

C. B. Hastings, February, 1989

CHAPTER I

The Rock From Which T Was Hewn

Since my second retirement in 1958, I have frequently thought that I should write out my diary in detail to give you a coherent and chronological story of my long life, I say long, for in a few weeks from now I will be 90. In the course of nature I do not have many years at most to fulfill my purpose. With apology to Shakespeare, I have screwed my determination to "the sticking point."

With modesty I shall record enough of my success in life to inspire you to let God have His way with you, for only as I surrendered to His will and followed the leadership of His Split was I able to accomplish anything that He could record as success. On the other hand, I shall record as many of my frailties and failures as I can afford to show you that "God can strike straight licks with crooked sticks," as Dr. J. B. Gambrell used to say. God has committed heavenly treasures in earthen vessels, vessels of clay.

First, I must tell you that I Was Born July 28, 1884, near the village of Richmond, Bedford County, Tennessee, the first of six children born to Wiley Stephens (not sure it was spelled with "ph" or "v") Hastings and Mary Frances Bledsoe. There were two boys and four girls, born in this order: Luther, Beulah, Lizzie, Lessie, Roy, and Jessie. All are still living except Beulah who lived to be more than 70 years old.

My parents were poor, hard-working, uneducated country folk. Father was born three years before the out-break of the Civil War. My mother was born in June of 1864, the year the war ended. The South was destitute and devastated. Neither went to school for the simple reason there were no free public schools, and their parents could not afford to send them to private schools which were few and widely scattered. Father could read fairly well; Mother could not read nor write, nor even sign her name. What they lacked in formal education they made up with solid "horse sense" coupled with Christian Philosophy of life. Hard work, honesty self-reliance and rigid economy tolerated not one iota of trifling laziness, crooked dealing or dependence on others to do for them what they would not do for themselves. Nor would they allow a wasteful squandering of their scanty resources. They never bought a thing on credit. If they did not have the money or the produce to pay for it, they did without. You would be surprised to know just how many things they could do without. They were like the West Texas cowboy that came to the city for the first time. He wandered around in a large department store where hundreds of items were on display which he had never seen before. A sales-lady came to him and said, "Is there anything I can do for you?" "No, sis", he replied, "I ain't never seen so many things I can do without."

The house in which I was born was a two-room log house. Two large rooms were separated by a wide breeze way open on two sides. One room was the living room, the other, the company room. Attached to one corner of the living room was a boxed-up room that served as kitchen and dining room, thus giving the living room and the attached room an "L" shape.

The house was located in a narrow hollow near the northern slope of ELk Ridge, a water-shed that ran east and west for many miles. The rainfall on the south side of the ridge found its way into ELk river and into the Tennessee River, that which fell on the north side found its way into Duck River and into the Tennessee many miles nearer the Tennessee's entrance into the Ohio. I was privileged to see and photograph the house. The original log rooms were still there, but they had been enclosed by more modern structure until its appearance was completely changed .

The village of Richmond at the time of my birth consisted of a general store, a black-smith shop, a small one-room school house, a church, and about half a dozen dwellings, one of which was the village doctor's.

Father was a farmer, a share-cropper, which means that he did not own the land he tilled. If the owner of the farm lived on the farm, Father and his little family lived in the more humble tenants' quarters. The owner received a part of the produce and Father got the balance. Until I was past my sixth birthday, Father never owned any land. During those few years he must have moved to a different place each fall. As I remember we lived in at least four different places, none of them more than two miles from where I was born. The last, before moving to Marshall County in 189O, was a magnificent farm some two miles from Richmond known as the Sherrin farm. The owner had moved to Shelbyville, so we were privileged to live in his (to us) palatial house, two stories with ten rooms. There sister Lizzie was born, the third child. That made a family of five, which gave us an average of two rooms apiece. We were really living high.

Having attained my sixth birthday before we moved from there in December, I attended my first school located just across the creek from where we lived. In those days the beginner was first required to master the contents of "the chart" before he could qualify for the First Reader. I shall never forget with what awe and eager expectation I stood before that amazing storehouse of knowledge which I must master before I could move up to the First Reader. The chart consisted of large sheets of cloth arranged on a tripod similar to Bible maps in our modern Sunday Schools. The first page contained the small alphabet and capital letters. We were not even allowed to turn that sheet over until we could repeat from memory that basic portion of the vast amount of knowledge that lay ahead of us. Then we were taught to put two letters together to spell the simplest words, such as an, at, am, in, to, etc. Very soon we were introduced to the mystics of the diacritical marks, which indicated the varying sounds of letters that had more than one sound.

Wheat was one of the main grain crops in that fertile section. Father had sown several acres in wheat and the harvest was bountiful. Up to that time I had never seen a threshing machine powered by a steam engine. In fact, I had never seen a steam engine of any sort until this steam thresher moved into the field to thresh Father's crop. I shall never forget how frightened I was when Mother took me out to see this new outfit. That puffing, snorting, smoking monster nearly scared the living day-lights out of me, and Mother had to hold me to keep me from fleeing from the field! Later on we moved to Marshall County, just a mile from Talley Station, a small station on the Louisville and Nashville railroad. I was hardly less frightened when I stood for the first time on the station platform and saw the train come in.

Memory has not recorded many worthwhile incidents in my preschool days. You may be interested in two which I clearly remember. It was in the summer near my third year. Mother had occasion to go to the nearest neighbor's house not far away. Of course, she took me along. It was a hot day, the road was dusty and I insisted that she carry me. She insisted that I walk. I said, "My feet hurt." Then I began to cry, thinking that my tears would prevail. After I had insisted some more, she broke off a switch from an accommodating bush, and when she was through, I was hurting in another place and quite willing to walk! Incidentally, my parents did not know much of the Bible but there was one Scripture that they had memorized and faithfully applied as the occasion required: "He that spareth his rod hateth his son; but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes" (at the appropriate time. Proverbs 13:24). Oh, how much my parents did love me! They loved me too much to let me have my way when they knew their way was the better. The other incident I well remember was also in my third year. I was playing outside the house near an open window, talking to myself, for my sister was too small to play with me.

Mother heard me say, "When I get grown I want an organ, threshing machine and a vest." That was before I had the terrifying experience with the steam powered machine; so I must have had in mind the horse-powered thresher.

Before leaving the scenes of my birth and early childhood, let me tell you a little about my ancestors. "A little" it will be, for the absence of any records available to me and the scarcity of information I received from my parents limit me to only "a little." I only saw one of my grandparents, my father's mother. The other three died before I was born. Therefore, I missed the blessing of being associated with both of my grandfathers and my maternal grandmother. In your case the situation is reversed. You still have one grandmother and one grandfather. I hope you say "Amen!" when I express the hope that your knowledge of and association with them (though the latter has been infrequent) have been and will continue to be a joy and blessing to you as you are to them. It might be that a part of that mutual joy is due to the fact that our association with each other was limited to occasional visits, for you know that grandparents have a reputation for being grandchildren spoilers and meddlers .

The name Hastings is of English origin, and figures prominently in world affairs. Early in my study of history the dates of two world-shaking, destiny-shaping events were fixed in my memory October 14, 1066, the Battle of Hastings, and July 4, 1776, the Declaration of Independence. I cannot assure you that there were any Hastings on the Mayflower; if not, Hey were not far behind.

They may have "missed the boat" and they had to catch the next one. However, if all were on the Mayflower who are claimed as ancestors of people today, Noah's ark was a canoe compared with the Mayflower.

Somewhere along the way I got this information (or tradition): early in colonial days four Hastings brothers came over from England and settled in Virginia. From there they branched out in various directions and are doubtless our progenitors, for the name is found in all parts of the country. All He Hastings that are kin to us, so far as I know, live in Tennessee. I never thought to ask my mother where she got the name Luther, my given name. I am sure the middle name Thomas came from my Uncle Tom Hastings, a brother of my father.

Enough of that snooping around trying to find out where we came from. It is a lot more important to know where we are going than where we came from. Selahl

CHAPTER II

Train Up a Child

The scene now shifts from Bedford County to Marshall County, a county adjoining Bedford on the west. With the cash Father had, supplemented by a loan from a wealthy friend, he purchased a hill farm of 84 acres, one mile from Talley Station. There we moved December 1, 1890, four months after my sixth birthday. That was our home for fifteen years. As evidence that we did not occupy all ten rooms in the house we moved from, a two-horse wagon was sufficient to move our furniture in one load. Its main items were two double beds, a single bed, five straight-backed chairs (no rockers), a small lamp table, a home-made trunk, cook stove, dining table, two benches the length of the dining table, on which we sat at meal time, and a three cornered cupboard. Father and Mother rode on the spring seat with baby Lizzie in mother's lap. Beulah and I rode on the feather-beds (mattresses) piled on top of the furniture. Much of the fifteen miles was very rough road; Beulah and I had to hold on to whatever we could to keep from being bounced off. Of course Father had to make another top to bring the wash kettle, tubs, farm and garden tools, and sundry other items. What a contrast between the ten-room house we moved out of and the one-room kitchen, dining room, and bed room, where Uncle Charlie slept on the single bed that was squeezed in at one end of the dining table. Uncle Charlie, Father's youngest brother, had joined our family about a year before.

Fortunately he married a few months after we moved and they moved into their own house. That gave us some relief by reducing our family from six to five—Father, Mother and three children.

The house was located far up in a hollow, hedged in by hills on the north, east and south, leaving the west open for exit. When we saw anyone coming up the rocky road, we knew they were coming to our house for there was nobody living further up in the hollow. Our nearest neighbor was about quarter of a mile to the west of us. The barn was a tumble-down shack, and nearly all the fences needed repairing or rebuilding. But it was our home.

Whoa! Wait a minute; back up! I forgot to record a very humorous incident that occurred a few weeks before we moved from the Sherrin place to our new home. We were in need of a new two-horse wagon and the harness for the team. After some persuasion Father agreed to take me with him to Shelbyville, ten miles away, to purchase them. He rode one of the mules and led the other. Since I was too small to manage the other mule, I rode double behind Father. As we were coming into the edge of the town, I observed two wires stretched from pole to pole along the side of the street. The poles were about 12 or 15 feet high. I asked my Father, "Pa" (we always called our parents Pa and Ma), "What are them wires up there for?" He was a man of few words and not a person to go into detail, He replied, "Folks talk on them." That left my unagination ????? to supply the details. The only way "folks" could talk on "them wires" was for them to climb the poles and sit on swinging wires while they carried on the conversation. I had never heard of the telephone. That was my first introduction to the device that is so widely used today. Moral: Parents, take time to explain things to young, inquiring minds.

Now back to our log-cabin home! Remember that there were three girls born after me before my only brother was born. Until they got old enough to assist Mother with the household chores, I was Mother's "little girl" as well as Father's boy. Until I was old enough to help him on the farm, my duties in and around the house included: toting (look up the word "tote" in your dictionary) in stove-wood and in the winter tithe Redwood; toting water from the spring about 100 yards away. On "wash day" when much water was needed, that spring seemed like it was a mile away. I had to operate the old-fashioned cedar dash churn ("Ma looks like the butter just won't come!"), rock the baby to sleep in her home-made cradle, and iron the "flat work" on ironing day after each week's wash. In the summer-time wash day was not complete till Mother rounded up the children and gave us our weekly bath in a tub of rinse water. I am not so sure but at times after we had been playing in the dirt she would put us through the tub of soapy water. At any rate when she got through with us the dirt was gone along with patches of hide!

There were other tasks assigned as the occasions required. Our parents believed that "an idle brain is the devil's workshop," and they saw to it his "satanic majesty" did not have a chance to set up shop around our house. However, "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy," as the saying goes. So at intervals between assigned tasks we found time to play. Our favorite pastime was building play houses and "ridy horses." We would roam over the yard, the barn yard, and other near-by spots, looking for broken pieces of pottery, glass, and dishes—any material that could be used to build our "made-out-like-houses." Our favorite location for these was under the wide-spreading branches of a large beech tree, not so far removed from Mother's ever-watchful eye but what she knew where we were and what we were doing. Never down through the years have we ever lived in a real house that was as spacious and luxurious as those we built between the rugged roots of that old tree. Only late in life did our parents have just one carpeted room—the parlor; but every room in our houses was carpeted with beautiful, soft green moss and decorated with flowers in season.

Just across the road from that beech tree there were some bushes and young trees which nature had formed in such a way that we could mount their bent-down branches and imagine we were riding prize-winning horses. Our imagination and initiative enabled us to enjoy our simple, at-hand play-things far more than the modern child enjoys his vast array of "store-bought" toys and gadgets. I made my wagons, bows and arrows, slings, kites etc., and I took care of them.

I was in my seventh year when we moved to Talley Station community. Of course, I was allowed to go to school. I was allowed to go, not made to go for I had an enormous appetite for knowledge. I loved books, and would have spent hours each day reading, but for the simple fact that I had no books to read. Until I was at least 12 years old there were only three books in our house, not counting my few text books: a very small-print, cheaply-bound Bible which could not have cost more than 40 cents, the story of Daniel Boone, and the account of the awful Johnstown Flood in Pennsylvania, May 31, 1889. The school house was located about 200 yards from the Louisville and Nashville railroad depot in Talley Station. The small school yard bordered on the railroad's right of way, so we had the delightful privilege of seeing the two trains pass each day. From our house to the school was about a mile. The length of the free-school terms depended on the available money; sometime only four months in the year—never more than six. When the free school closed, there would be period of "pay" school, provided enough money could be raised through subscriptions to pay the teacher at the rate of $2.00 per pupil per month. Only a few times was I permitted to attend the "pay"'school. ????Father could not spare the money and as I grew older my services were needed on the farm. He introduced me to the plow at twelve. If our fields had been level, I could have handled the smaller plows at ten, but our fields were steep, rocky in places, and had stumps.

I never had a teacher, in any school, from the first to the last (seminary), that I did not love and respect—some more than others, of course. The great majority of them were devout Christians with high moral and spiritual standards. The first fifteen minutes of each morning at Talley were give to reading a portion of the Scriptures, without comment, and the singing of hymns that we learned in Sunday School. I shall never forget the thrill that was mine when my voice had changed from the "gosling stage" to that vocal maturity that enabled me to sing bass. One morning we were singing "In the Sweet Bye and Bye." For the first time my booming bass came out clear and right on time in the chorus repeats. At recess one of the pretty girls about my age said, "Luther, your bass was so pretty this morning." I nearly had a romantic fit! You should have heard me the next time! That reminds me of a story that was told about Theodore ("Teddy") Roosevelt, one of our greatest presidents. At times he gave the impression that he highly recommended himself. So the story goes that he dreamed that he died and went to Heaven. After being welcomed by St. Peter at the gate an angel was assigned to lead him around and give him every attention that would contribute to the enjoyment of his new home.

Of course, there are several flaws in that story, the chief one being that pride will have no place in Heaven. Pride was what turned the Garden of Eden into "Paradise Lost."

I hear the school bell ringing—"time for books." I attended the Talley school off and on for at least twelve years, and went as far as they taught in that loosely-graded school. The main courses were reading, writing, spelling, arithmetic, grammar, geography and history. The last teacher I had was Professor Leonard, a man in his seventies and very learned. He could have graced some university chair, especially in Latin. In my last year he offered beginner's Latin. Three of us dared to enroll. Thus I got my first taste of foreign languages which later included Greek, German, French and Hebrew. Although he was the most learned teacher I had at Talley, he was not the one that influenced my life most during those changing and sometimes turbulent adolescent days. That honor goes to Miss Blanche Phillips. She was in her early thirties, I guess, so kind and understanding. She took a special interest in me.

One day when she and I were talking, she said, "Luther, what do you intend to make of yourself ?

"I don't know, Miss Blanche; I wish I knew."

She looked down into the recesses of my heart with those tender, soft blue eyes and said "Luther, first make a man!"

Another most wholesome ingredient that went into my moral and spiritual nature during that formative period were the McGuffey's Readers: First, Second, Third, and on through the Sixth. We never went further than the fifth at Talley. They not only embodied sound teaching methods in simplicity and effectiveness for the beginners, but beginning with the third of the series, the stories, poems and varied reading exercises all had in them some moral or even spiritual flavor. I have said that I could hold a revival meeting using the Third Reader. The wholesome ingredients were not couched in stilted, theological and philosophical jargon but in simple, beautiful, easy-to-understand language.

Here are some of the lessons indelibly impressed upon our plastic minds: God, the Creator; the Holy Bible, prayer, forgiveness, industry, helpfulness, unselfishness, obedience to our parents; wrong-doing never goes unpunished; resisting temptation, and on and on. Do you want my humble opinion proudly expressed? It was a sad day when those readers were taken out of the public school. I confess that I have not seen the modern readers, but I know that the Supreme Court and the supremely foolish Madeline O'Hare would not approve them in our schools today! Nowhere in McGuffoy's do you Omd even a hint of "child self expression!" I tried that on my parents a few times. They would express themselves, and I would express myself to the contrary. But they had the final word, sometimes punctuated and underscored with the rod of correction. It is possible that they were wrong a few times, but I was wrong most of the time. I have lived to honor them for loving me too much to let me have my self-determined, self-expressed way. As Billy Graham would say "The Bible says, 'Children, obey your parents."' But many children today act as if it said, "Parents obey your children."

CHAPTER III

O Happy Day That Fixed My Choice

At this point it will be easy to shift from the home and the public school to that third Heaven-born, divinely-given institution that contributed so much to my life—the church. My parents were members of the Hannah's Gap Baptist Church, small country church about a mile from my birth place, just over the ridge from where I was born. The church was served by a non-resident preacher and it was listed in the association as a "fourth time" church, which meant that preaching services were held only one Sunday a month. However, it was the custom of such churches to have a Saturday morning service and monthly business meeting, preaching again Saturday night and two services on Sunday. If the church had a Sunday School, I do not remember attending it. The Baptist cause in that part of Tennessee at that time was completely over-shadowed by the Methodists and Christians ("Campbellites"). Baptist churches, especially in the country, were undeveloped except in the basic doctrines of their faith. They knew why they were Baptists and were ready to give a reason for the hope they had in Christ. They had only one revival meeting a year. It had to begin at Hannah's Gap the second Sunday in August, and usually ran two weeks. It was the rarest thing that anybody was saved except in the revival. It wasn't expected and, of course, it didn't occur. When we moved to the Talley Station community, there was no Baptist church for miles around. My parents still retained membership in the Hannah's Gap Church, at least ten miles away as the crow flies. The roads were very steep and rough in places, however, the crow would most likely detour around them as we had to do when we attended the services where our kin and friends lived. When we did attend, which was seldom, usually at revival time, we had to go horseback (muleback too) or in the farm wagon. Whichever way, there was many a jolt. When we moved to Talley there were three of us children and I was less than eight years old. This is how we loaded up when we went horseback: Father rode the mule and I rode behind him. Mother rode the horse with Beulah behind her and baby Lizzie was in Mother's lap. Of course, when we out-grew that arrangement and other children came along, we had to hitch the team to the wagon and all rode in the wagon. You are acquainted with "Shake-Well-Before -Taking" instructions; well, we were shaken well as we were taken.

In the spring of 1891, a few months after we had moved into the Talley community, Beulah and I began attending Sunday School in a little Methodist Church, Mt. Zion, located about a mile from home. I was nearly seven and she was four. Weather permitting, we walked. The road was steep and rough in places, very rough on our Sunday shoes when we got big enough to graduate from bare-foot to shoes. Since our parents were not brought up in Sunday School they did not go with us. They did go to the preaching services which came once a month at Hannah's Gap Church. They encouraged us to go to Sunday School and admonished us to behave ourselves, for to their way of thinking Sunday School was a good thing for children and a few women, but not for grown-ups, especially men. Now don't blame them too severely, for after they had worked hard six days from before sunup, with even Sunday chores that could not be omitted, they literally regarded Sunday as a day of rest. Rest they did, as much as their free time permitted. Why didn't they hitch up the team to the wagon and all go? For the simple reason that mules (for we had few horses) had pulled the plow, the harrow, and the wagon six full days and they too needed and deserved a rest

As you may imagine, that little Sunday School was not a standard one according to modern requirements. There were only three classes, the "card" class, a class for adolescents, and a mixed class for the few men and women. The attendance was never over 40 I am sure. Beulah and I were in the card class composed of the smaller children up through ten or twelve years. It was called the card class because each Sunday's lesson was on a card. On the front was a beautiful colored picture illustrating the "Golden Text" and on the back side was a simple but thrilling story. Each Sunday we were given the card for that day with the admonition, "Be sure and come next Sunday and get your card." We would not have missed it except for some unavoidable reason.

Then there was a class for the teenagers and young adults. If they had a dozen present, it was something to brag about. Also there was the group of adults, men and women, taught by Mr. Conrad, merchant, postmaster and depot agent for the railroad. He was a fine man in every respect, a devout Christian and an excellent Sunday School teacher. I am sure I did not skip the teen-agers class; but I do not remember much about it. For some reason I found myself in Mr. Conrad's class before I was in my middle teens. His teaching made a great impression on me .

The membership of the church, for the most part was composed of "old-time, shouting Methodists." In their revivals many of them, men and women got happy and were not ashamed to praise the Lord by shouting, especially when someone was saved for whom they had been praying. The preachers were not very learned. They frequently broke the King's English, but they also broke sinners' hearts with their straight-forward, spirit-filled messages of repentance toward God and faith in Jesus who so loved sinners that He was willing to die to save them .

Such powerful preaching, plus the shouting of those happy saints brought conviction to my heart. In one of the revivals in my sixteenth year I went forward to the "mourner's bench," got down on my knees, and confessed to God that I was a sinner and asked Him to help me trust His Son as my Saviour. A sweet peace came to me as I surrendered and I publicly testified that I was saved, but I did not offer myself for membership. Several of my schoolmates were also saved that night. On the way home as Mother and I trudged along the dusty way, I talked with her about my next step. She was so happy that I was saved. She would not stand in the way if I wanted to join the Methodists, since it was so far away to Hannah's Gap but she and Father were members there and she would be happy if I would join with them. That settled the matter with me. The Hannah's Gap revival was due the next week.

I could not wait until they could go with me, so I begged Father to let me have one of the mules to ride the ten miles over there for a morning service. There I presented myself for membership on public profession of my faith in the Lord and asked for baptism.

In those days, when anyone presented himself for membership on profession of faith for baptism he (or she) was required to stand up and tell the church what the Lord had done for him. Some would stammer and stutter, and frequently they would break down in tears as they concluded their testimony with the words, "I know I am saved, and want to see others saved." The desire to see others saved was regarded as one sure sign that work of saving grace had been wrought. The one that I desired to see saved was my sister Beulah. Later in the week I again persuaded Father to let me have a mule. I borrowed a neighbor's buggy and took her to the meeting. She was gloriously saved. Sunday we all went to the closing of the meeting. That afternoon Beulah and I along with several others were baptized in the beautiful waters of the creek that flowed by the church. However, to get "much water," the place for baptizing was about a mile down the creek. As we came up out of the watery grave we joined the congregation in singing "Oh Happy Day That Fixed my Choice".

The custom of requiring converts to relate their experience was based on the idea "if you have it, you can tell it." The discontinuation of that requirement, I fear, has resulted in churches baptizing many who have not had an experience of saving grace. This is said, not to create doubts, but to sound a warning.

Although my membership was in a Baptist church, my spiritual growth depended more upon what I received at Mt. Zion due to the fact that I could not attend the Hannah's Gap services regularly. One of the things I enjoyed so much at Mt. Zion was the song services. How I loved to sing those grand old hymns! The leader was "Uncle Tite" Adams, an elderly man whose voice was raspy and cracked, but he loved the Lord and he helped us get the most out of the songs. He beat the tempo perfectly, never missing a beat. However, his metronome speed never was above 40 whether we were singing "Amazing Grace" or "I Am Bound for the Promised Land." As we sang the latter in that slow, craggy tempo, we wondered when, if ever, the saints would get to that happy land! Even so, there was in that tempo a much-to-be-desired joy not possible in the present day "whoop-em-up", "faster, please," "spizerinktum style"—namely, we had time to pronounce the words and get their meaning. All my dentures can do now is slur over many of the words and skip others in an effort to keep up with the director and accompanist. (Now don't you tell anybody what I've said!)

In the absence of a piano or organ to give the pitch, "Uncle Tite" had a "C" tuning fork. Did you ever see one? When the song was not in the key of C, he had an interesting way of starting from that tone and arriving at the desired key. Ask me about it sometime. I will explain and illustrate the procedure. Once a year "Uncle Tite" would conduct a week's singing school in which he taught us sight reading and many fundamentals of music. We learned to read the shaped notes, for not many country folks could read the round notes. The notes had different shapes which indicated their position on the staff. The names of the notes, in the ascending scale, were Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti, Do. I was twenty year's old before I learned to read round notes.

CHAPTER IV

Every Work That is Done Under the Sun

It is time to get back home and to work on the farm. At the age of ten there were many things I could help father do, such as hoeing, pulling weeds, piling brush for burning, etc. As I grew older he needed my help in many ways. For instance, there was much virgin soil that had to be cleared. By the time I was 12 I was at the end of a cross-cut saw and he at the other, sawing timber to be split into rails and fence posts for fences; sawing fire wood and stove wood; helping around the barn with the stock, and on and on. I could handle the smaller plows before I was in my early teens. But when it came to handling the heavy, steel-beam turning plow with two mules turning the soil in the spring in preparation for planting, that called for the strength of a strong teen-ager. That I was. All of the tillable land was hilly, but some of it had unbelievable steep places to cultivate. To give you an idea of how steep they were, take a pencil. Draw a right-angled triangle. The hypotenuse will represent the slope of some of the ground over which I struggled with a team and heavy turning plow. The strenuous exercise of farm life and the simple but wholesome food Mother prepared were responsible for my strong body and the vitality I still have at this advanced age Other activities included splitting rails and building rail-fences; splitting fence posts, digging holes for them and stretching barbed wire; quarrying rocks, hauling and building them into rock fences and retaining walls; cutting and hauling logs to the sawmill and hauling back the lumber for the various building projects; riving and drawing shingles to cover those buildings; grubbing stumps and saplings in preparation of virgin soil for cultivation; harvesting wheat, rye and oats in early summer and corn in the fall; hauling small grain shocks to the threshing machine (sometimes the wagon would turn over with a load of unthreshed ???? grain); mowing out fence-corner with a scythe in the hot summer-time after the crop was "laid by;" etc., etc.! Even when it rained or the weather otherwise prevented out-door work there were always numerous indoor jobs that had to be done: sharpening tools, shucking and shelling corn, mending harness, half-soleing ???? shoes, working in the shop such as shaping axe handles, making plow stocks, shaping mauls, and on and on. Although father was a farmer, he was also handy with carpenter tools and had a pretty good kit. In the summer-time after crops were laid by he would engage in carpenter work, building houses and barns for others as well as for us. I learned to use these tools and helped him in these projects. So you see there was no time for me to get away from home, get with a rowdy bunch and go cavorting all over the country, getting into mischief of all kinds.

I have mentioned my love of books. We all had a great love for music but there was no musical instrument in our home, except the mouth harp and the French harp (harmonica), until I was in my teens. Along came a man selling "roller organs." It was a small, portable instrument weighing not more than 15 pounds. It was called an organ because it was a reed instrument. The roller was wooden, about the size of a small rolling pin and some ten inches in length. It bristled with short brass pegs so arranged that as the roller was turned with a crank the pins would depress the keys and the bellows would release the compressed air that activated the reeds. When the roller was in place and the operator turned the crank, out "rolled" the music. The instrument and ten rollers (one tune to the roller) cost $10.00, if my memory does not err. Some of the tunes were sacred, such as "Jesus, Lover of my Soul", "Rock of Ages", "When the Roll is Called Up Yonder." Others were of the popular variety, "Home, Sweet Home", "When You and I Were Young, Maggie", "Dixie", "Yankee Doodle Dandy", and others.

From early childhood I tinkered with all kinds of musical instruments and could at least make joyful noise on the following: French harp (harmonica), guitar, banjo, fiddle (country name for the city violin), bass fiddle in school orchestra, parlor organ, piano, Pipe organ, baritone horn in the university band. While in Haynes McLean Preparatory School a good friend, Will Lane, gave me $25.00 to pay for piano lessons. My teacher must have thought I was a potential Beethoven. Before I could run the scales accurately she had me practicing on Beethoven's "Adieu to the Piano." The $25.00 was soon spent and I was unable to take any more lessons. I had learned a lot more about music than I was able to put into practice. When I took my last lesson, I could not play acceptably "Jesus, Lover of My Soul." Some weeks later, while doing janitor work in the studio after everyone had left, I sat down before the piano and with a hymn-book before me I began to try to play the more familiar hymns. Almost instantly my clumsy, large-knuckled fingers seemed to know just where and when to strike the keys. I never took any more lessons, but with practice here and there, as I had an available piano, I finally acquired the ability to play any of the hymns. I have never been able to play classical music on the piano. I cannot execute the double movement of the left hand. Through the years I have studied music on my own until I have a fairly good knowledge of the wonderful art of music. As you may know, I have composed some hymns and presently I am working on an anthem based upon the first three verses of Psalm 103. One of my hymns, both words and music, was published by Broadman Press, Favorite Gospel Songs (Copyright 1965), entitled "Lead Me, Savior."

CHAPTER V

Whetting the Edge of Iron

The best I can remember, I was 18 when I finished school at Talley Station. There was no graduation, no diploma given. I had gone as far as the school was prepared to take me. That summer I stood examination for a Primary Teacher's Certificate with a view to teaching. I passed, got my certificate and was chosen to teach a small primary school near Hannah's Gap at the tremendous salary of $30.00 a month. For some reason the school was abandoned and my contract cancelled before time for school to begin in the fall. What a disappointment!

I had heard of Haynes-McLean Preparatory School in Lewisburg, the county seat of Marshall County. I so much desired to go there and get enough education to qualify me for a Secondary Certificate and give myself to the teaching profession. There were two seemingly insurmountable obstacles: my father needed my service on the farm and he had no money to pay for board, tuition and other expenses. Our growing family necessitated the building of a new house. Prior to that we had built a new barn. In the late 90's we had suffered two almost complete crop failures and other reverses. All of these things added up to a situation that seemed to make it impossible for me to realize my ambition to get any more education. The future looked dark for this poor country plowboy. But there is a saying, "The darkest hour is just before dawn."

On a hot August day, Father and I were way up in the hollow above our house sawing winter firewood. About the middle of the afternoon, a well-dressed man suddenly appeared on the scene. He was Professor W. D. Hudgins, Principal of the school I longed to enter. He had heard of me and my desire to further my education. Father explained the situation I have described and assured him that he wished I could go to school, but the situation made it impossible. Mr. Hudgins then suggested that I come to the school some day and see if some arrangement could be made whereby I could work my way through school. Father said he would think about it and if at all possible he would let me go for the conference. That was in the summer of 1903. Imagine how my hopes were dashed into the dust when Father decided that he could not do without my help on the farm. I would just have to give up the idea of going to school.

Things rocked along until the next summer. I was hoping against hope that some way would be found for me to go to school. In the meantime Professor Hudgins had been replaced by Professor M. M. Summar as Principal of the school. He was in the community one day soliciting students and some one suggested that he go see Luther Hastings. He promised Father that he would give me work around the school to pay for my tuition and books, and that he knew a family that would give me my board for my help in the house and yard where boarders were kept. Father finally consented to let me go if those arrangements could be made.

A few weeks before the Fall term of 1904 was to begin, I went to Lewisburg and with Mr. Summar's help it was arranged that I should get my room and board for the help I could give Mrs. W. A. Leath, who operated a boarding house for teachers and students of the school. The house adjoined the school campus. Since I was handy with carpenter tools, there was always some repair work on buildings and fences of the school and Mother had trained me to be helpful around the house. Mrs. Leath was a fine, motherly, Christian woman. Her husband was a retired Methodist minister and in very poor health, so she had to supplement his income operating the boarding house. I drew water, built fires, brought in coal, washed dishes, swept rooms and kept the yard in order. They received me as a member of their family. I owe Mrs. Leath an eternal debt of gratitude for helping me during the three years I was in school there. I needed her and she needed me. Her husband died the next spring. They had three children, two girls, Mary and Virginia, in their middle twenties, and a son, William, in his early teens. If she has not passed away within the past few years, Miss Mary is still living in an old folks home in Memphis. Neither of the girls ever married. They were school teachers. William became a Congregational minister and held some prominent pastorates in the North. He died a few years ago.

In addition to a full course in school and my duties in the Leath home, Mr. Summar kept me busy after-school hours and Saturdays. He was a friend indeed, for he was a friend in my need. He was a devout and faithful member of the Baptist church, a small church with not more than 100 members, worshipping in a shabby, one-room building. I united with the church and received much spiritual benefit in the services. Those years meant more than I can tell in the strengthening of my faith and the enlargement of my vision. There in my senior year I announced that I felt called of God to preach AND teach.

I enjoyed every phase of school life and engaged in every part of it, literary, athletic, musical, dramatic, public speaking. Friendships were formed that have lasted down through the years. There was never a dull moment. When I left home to go away to school, although I was going not more than 12 miles from home, I was sure that I would get so homesick I would have to come back every few weeks. Not so, not that I loved home less but because I was so in love with my new connections that I had no time to get homesick. I loved my teachers, the student body, the Leaths and the members of the church, even though Baptists were looked down upon in that town. With pardonable pride I can now say sixty years later they are the largest congregation in Lewisburg, worshipping in a modern building with around 1,000 in Sunday School. During my three years there I discovered a new world far more exciting than the one Columbus discovered in 1492!

After I had been in school two years I was offered the position as principal of the country school just half a mile from where my family had moved in December 1905, some 15 miles from Talley in the northern section of Marshall County. The salary was $50.00 per month. How could a poor country boy turn down a fortune like that? When I was 16 years old, my second cousin, Rube Hastings, persuaded my father to let me come and work for him four months, March through June, at $13.00 per month on his steep and rough hill farm just over the hill from ours. Now six years later I was to get nearly four times that amount as a teacher in a public school. Besides, I had the privilege of being with my family and attending church with them at the lovely counts y church located just across the highway from the school.

My assistant was Mrs. Will Hastings, whose husband was a distant cousin of ours. She was nearly old enough to be my mother and had teen-age children under me while she taught the smaller children. Her maturity in age was a great help to me in many ways. Her youngest child, Fnel, age six, is now a District Judge living in Memphis, Tennessee. I taught one year, the fall and spring terms, and then returned to Haynes-McLean for my senior year, graduating in May, 1908, as valedictorian of a class of six, three girls and three boys. Only three of us are still living: Will Murray, Kate Alford Armstrong and I. Will and Kate still live in Lewisburg. Dunng the past 20 years we have been able to gather together and recount those happy days at "dear old Haynes-McLean." The school was discontinued some eight or ten years after my graduation. The city bought the property and erected a city high school. In 1965, the 31st of July, a reunion of the school's alumni had a big picnic at Henry Horton State Park adjoining the school grounds where I had taught 58 years before. Will and I were there. Kate was sick and could not attend. I met so many I had not seen in more than fifty years.

CHAPTER VI

Woe Is Me If I Preach Not (and Court Miss Cora)

A number of important events occurred in 1908, the year of my graduation. I have not yet come to the time when my diaries will aid my memory, but the events I now record made such a deep impression on me I am sure that memory will not go far astray, especially in exact dates.

At the invitation of a small country church three miles from Lewisburg, I preached my first sermon the first Sunday in May. The name of the church was Mars Hill. Professor Summar was kind enough to lend me his fine horse and buggy, and Will Murray accompanied me. The parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:3~ 37) was the basis of my sermonic effort. In Paul's first Epistle to the Corinthians (I Corinthians 2:3), he says, "I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling." And so was I with the little group gathered to hear me in my maiden effort to preach the Gospel. On the way back to Lewisburg, Will commented: "Well, Luther, I've heard a few worse sermons, and a lot of better ones!"

The Baptist Church in Lewisburg was too weak numerically and financially to support a pastor full time, so it teamed up with the Smyrna Church (located just across the Pike—graveled road—from the school where I taught) and called the same pastor, who gave each church two Sundays a month alternately. Dunng my school days Brother C. A. Ladd was the pastor. A few weeks before my graduation he resigned and the two churches agreed to use me as interim pastor through the summer months until I would be going to college, or until they should call a permanent pastor. As I remember, the two churches paid me $100.00 a month. What a contrast between that and my wage as a farm hand eight years ago—$13.00! Since I stayed at home and did not have to pay for room and meals, I was able to save almost all of my income, which would be needed when I should enroll in college in September. My main expense was "hack" fare to and from Lewisburg on the Sundays I preached there. I transferred my membership from Lewisburg to Smyrna, since my family's membership was there. Not until they all get to glory will the faithful members of the two congregations know how much I owe them for their patience in letting me practice on them and for the encouragement they gave me. I'm sure many of them could join my friend Will in saying, "We've heard a few worse sermons, and a lot of better ones."

I need to back up, and explain why my family moved from Talley to the Smyrna community. When I left home in September, 1904 for school, Father was deprived of my much-needed help on the farm. Although he was not quite SO, he had worked so hard through the years, his physical strength was not equal to the rigors and hardships of the steep, rough hill farm. Mother and the girls often went into the fields to help where they could, and they managed to plant and harvest a crop in 1905. A first cousin of mine wanted to buy the place and made Father a good offer.

Providentially, Father was led to find and purchase the little farm in the Smyrna community. It comprised only 24 acres, but it was river-bottom land, level and as fertile as the Nile Valley. All of it was under cultivation except about four acres which were divided into garden, yard, barn lot, and a small cow pasture. This portion of the acreage was located on the high bank of Cane Creek that emptied into Duck River at the back side of the tillable land. The Spring freshets would cause the river to overflow and back up the waters of Cane Creek over nearly the whole cultivated land. When the waters receded, a rich covering of sediment was left to enrich the soil. With reasonable seasons, those twenty acres would produce more corn, wheat, oats and clover than the hill farm produced, especially after several severe spring floods had washed off so much of the top soil. Then the preparation and cultivation of the small farm was so much easier on Father's diminishing strength. What a pleasure to plow in soil without a stump or rock and level as a table top! The sale price of the hill farm was about the same as the purchase price of the river farm.

Now, back to my pastorates, and other events in the summer of 1908. It was in the last days of June, or the first of July that under the guiding providence of God I met Cora Brownlow, who later was to become my wife, and the mother of our two children. This is how it came to pass. The Baptists had a summer encampment at Estill Springs, some 40 miles from Lewisburg by rail. From what 1 had heard about the programs, it offered a spiritual feast that I needed. So I decided I would spend a week there. I boarded the train at Lewisburg on a Monday morning. It was a passenger train that ran from Columbia to Estill Springs on a branch of the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis that connected with the main line at Estill, which ran from Nashville to Chattanooga. As I entered the car, I saw six beautiful young ladies grouped in seats facing each other and engaged in spirited conversation. I took a seat on the opposite side of the car, opened a window, and hardly took my eyes off the passing scenery as we came to venous stations with which I was familiar: Belfast, Talley Station and Petersburg. I greeted by name many of those who habitually came to see the train.

At Talley someone said, "Hi there, Luther, where are you going?"

"I'm going to the Encampment at Estill Springs."

That announcement caused a noticeable excitement across the aisle, and one of the party ventured to say, "Oh, that is where we are going!" That broke the ice and we introduced ourselves to each other. One of the group was Cora Brownlow. She was in charge of the Y.W.A. group in the First Baptist Church of Columbia, and was chaperoning a group to the Encampment. Being a bashful country boy, I had scarcely learned to be at ease with only one young lady, so you can imagine how flabbergasted I was in the midst of that bunch of cackling pullets. However, we had a good time and by the time we arrived at our destination we had gotten pretty well acquainted

Soon after we passed Petersburg, one of the girls detached herself from the others and, much to the scarcely-concealed disgust of the others less brave than she was, asked if she could share the seat with me. Of course, I blushingly gave permission. Now, you are thinking that was Miss Coral Not so. You see, Miss Cora was the chaperone and must set the example of behavior for the others. The young lady was very charming and we soon were engaged in easy conversation. During the week she was my croquet and bowling partner, and we were frequently together at the Encampment. Everybody looked upon her as the special friend of the young preacher. And, to tell the truth, it would have been easy for me to fall for her. At least I was leaning in her direction! But, something happened.

One of the prominent speakers on the program that week was Dr. George H. Crutcher. He and his wife had been missionaries in Mexico. He contracted smallpox, and as soon as he had sufficiently recovered they returned to the States. He resigned from the mission work, and was engaged in evangelistic work in connection with the Women's College at Murfreesboro. He lived to a ripe old age, but earned to his grave the facial scars of smallpox. He was mighty in the Scriptures, and when he was preaching under the power of the Holy Spirit, his countenance glowed with a light not seen on land or sea that hid the ugly scars.

After the evening meal we would all gather on the long veranda of the main building for vesper services conducted by Dr. Crutcher. He gave opportunity for testimonies concerning Christian experiences, and some dedicated their lives to the service of the Lord wherever He wanted them. Among the latter was Miss Cora, who said she felt the Lord wanted her to dedicate her life to the winning of souls to Christ. Her evident sincerity and spiritual fervor thrilled everyone, especially the young preacher from Lewisburg! He said to himself, "What a wonderful wife she would be for some preacher," never imagining that I would be that preacher!

Dr. Crutcher's parents and other relatives lived in and near Lewisburg and were members of the Baptist Church there. When he knew that I was the interim pastor, we had several conversations about the future of the work. He suggested that it would greatly strengthen the cause if the church would agree to let him hold a tent meeting of at least two weeks. Of course, I was right in for it. He said that as soon as his services at the Encampment were concluded, he would come to Lewisburg and make arrangements for the meeting, the church willing. The church was enthusiastic about the matter. Permission was granted by the county authorities for him to pitch his tent on the shaded courthouse lawn, and the services were to begin the third Sunday in July.

Dr. Crutcher had known the Brownlow family in Columbia for some time. He had been in their home many times and Miss Cora's parents had been with him in revival meetings to do personal soul-winning. He suggested that the church and pastor invite Miss Cora to come and help in the meeting, thereby giving her an opportunity to put into action her recent dedication. The church agreed and I heartily seconded the motion. Her parents gladly gave consent for her to come, but she must be accompanied by her sister Kittye. It was arranged at first for them to have a room and meals in the rooming house of one of our leading members. But there were a number of young men who were more interested in trying to date these attractive girls than they were in the revival, so we arranged for them to be entertained—where do you suppose? In the county jail! Well, not exactly in the jail, but in the living quarters of the jailor ???? and his wife in the front part of the new jail. So for the rest of the time they were "jail birds."

It was a great meeting. Many were saved, a goodly number united with the church, and Baptist stock went up several points. The more I observed the Spirit-filled and heaven-blest ministry of Miss Cora, the more I was convinced that she would make some preacher a wonderful wife. And why shouldn't I be that preacher? In other words, the love bug had bit me!

Members of the Smyrna church drove in for many of the services, and they began to say, "Why can't we have Dr. Crutcher come to us at the close of the Lewisburg meeting?" Providentially he had no engagement for the weeks following, so it was arranged that after a week's rest he would begin a meeting at Smyrna in August. Up to this time I had not been ordained. It was planned that a council would be called, composed of pastors and deacons of other churches, and I would be ordained in an afternoon service the first day of the meeting. Dr. Crutcher conducted my examination and preached the ordination sermon. Those who composed the council and laid ordaining hands upon me included my good friend, Professor Summar, who served as clerk of the council. It was a great service and was a boost to the meeting.

Great crowds attended and the spiritual tides were running high. In the middle of the second week, Dr. Crutcher got sick and I had to take over. The Lord was with me and we had conversions right up to the close of the meeting Sunday night with baptizing that afternoon in the river. Among the ones baptized was my brother Roy. One saved in the last service was Clarence Reynolds who later married my sister Lessie. As he passed our house that night on the way home he was singing "The Old Account Was Settled Long Ago."

I should have told you that when the church invited Dr. Crutcher, they also extended an invitation for Miss Cora and Miss Kittye to come and help; Miss Cora to do personal work and Miss Kittye to sing. Of course, I heartily concurred in the invitation, and their contribution to the success of the meeting was great indeed. One of the special objects of prayer and concern was the bachelor son of one of the most prominent families in the community, wealthy members of our church. This son had never made any profession of faith down through the years. He was at least 40 years of age. Of course, Miss Cora became interested in his salvation. She not only prayed for him, but had personal contacts with him, explaining the plan of salvation and urging him to accept Christ as his Saviour and master. En the last service as the invitation was being given and several were coming forward, she went to him and in her charming way asked if he would not go forward and confess the Saviour as his Saviour. After some reluctance he went forward, but declined to request baptism and church membership. He died a few years after that, but he never was baptized and never identified himself with the church. It is to be hoped that he fell as much in love with the Saviour as he did with Miss Cora, but that is part of another chapter.

CHAPTER VII

The Way of a Maid With a Man

I, too, was head over heels in love with her, but I realized for the good of the meeting I must conduct myself in such a way that it would not be apparent that I was in love with this charming Christian young lady. After the meeting there were only two weeks until I would be going off to college, and if I was going to get any courting in I would have to get busy. Finally I "screwed my courage up to the sticking point" and without writing or phoning her that I was coming, I boarded the train at Lewisburg for Columbia, 19 miles away. I arrived at the depot in Columbia about 11 A.M. and phoned her that I was in town, and if it was agreeable I would love to see her. I don't know how I thought I would get to her house three miles from the depot. She, of course, was very much surprised but offered to come for me. In a little while she drove up in a buggy and away we went to the country home to which her parents had moved after her father retired from banking.

Now words fail to describe my feelings when she told me that J---, the wealthy bachelor of Smyrna had suddenly appeared unannounced a little before I phoned. That meant that I didn't have the shadow of a chance. I might as well have her turn around and take me back to the depot and I would take the first train back home. We hadn't been in her home but a little while until I--- had her off in a room to himself. I was left with Mother Brownlow to entertain me out on the front porch until Father Brownlow came along and asked if I would like to go with him to the barn and see his fine horses and cattle. Of course, I said I would be delighted, but if I had said what was in my heart, I would have said, "Mr. Brownlow, it so happens that I did not come to see your pedigreed stock. I came to see your adorable daughter, Coral I want to stay close by so that when that other guy leaves, I can file my claim to her heart and hand."

I thought he would never get through introducing me to this one and that one and the rest of the stock. I verily believe his horses and cattle manifested more interest in me than I did in them. Like the man and wife that took their ten children to the circus to see the monkeys and other animals. When they asked the admission price, the man asked if all of those children were theirs. "Of course they are!" was the reply.

"You may go in free," the man said. "My animals will get more fun out of seeing your children than your children will get seeing the animals."

Finally we went back to the house and found to my delight that J---????? had departed. A glance at my watch revealed the fact that it was just 40 minutes until my train was due, and it would take the biggest part of that time for Miss Cora to get me back to the depot. The black boy quickly harnessed the horse to the buggy and we headed for the depot. Now if any fellow ever courted in a hurry, I did. In my heart I hoped we could get to the depot too late for me to catch my train, but we drove up just three minutes before it came rolling in. She committed herself to my assurances of love, and a desire that she become my wife no further than to assure me that she admired me and she would have to think and pray over the matter. I bade her a sad farewell and boarded the train with the feeling that I was running a poor second in the race for her affections. Not many girls ever got two marriage proposals within two hours, but Miss Cora did. Years later, as she would tell about her two proposals in one day, I would remind her of the saying "It pours when it rains after a long dry spell!" And then I would say, "You had been through a long dry spell hadn't you?" How mean can some husbands be—at times!

Before we parted she agreed to correspond with me. From that first of September, 1908 when I entered college, until we were married, March 5, 1913, our chief medium of communication was through letter-writing, with a few personal contacts interspersed at conventions, State and South-wide, encampments and visits in Mt. Pleasant, Columbia, Memphis and Chickasha, Oklahoma. She kept nearly all of my letters and I kept many of hers. As we moved from place to place down through the years, the box containing those "love missals" has not been left behind nor destroyed. I have spent several days before beginning this page reading scores of them. I have not counted them, but I can safely say there are at least 300, some of them 20 and even 30 pages in length. I feel like a bee in a honey bucket as I read our avowals of love for each other, and our unswerving devotion to each other, praying the Lord to guide us in our final decisions. I cannot begin to copy the voluminous correspondence—that would make a huge book—but I will copy the letter I addressed to Miss Cora after I returned from the visit to Columbia and proposed to her. Here it is:

Not many days after writing this letter I packed my trunk with my few earthly possessions and boarded the train in Lewisburg for Jackson. I had to change trains at Columbia and I had time to call Miss Cora over the phone. She repeated what she had written to me in answer to my letter, namely, that she would pray for me each day and would write me. She was sure that God had great things in store for me and that I would make a great preacher if I would pray, study my Bible, keep humble and seek to win the lost to Christ.. Those words of encouragement sent me on my way rejoicing as if on wings.

Up to this point, I am sure that you have been wondering if Miss Cora was the first and only sweetheart I ever had, for remember that in 1908 I was 24 years old. Of course I had "puppy love" romances with different girls in school, but nothing ever came of them. Before I entered Haynes-McLean in 1904, I thought I was desperately in love with a country girl that attended the Mt. Zion Church. I proposed to her, and she accepted. When I went off to school, she just gradually faded out of my memory when I realized what a foolish thing I was about to do: marry and take on the responsibilities of rearing a family before I was 20 years old, when I was so poor I couldn't buy a whole pack of shoe-strings at a time! (Of course that is slightly exaggerated. I recently read of a fellow who said his folks were so poor they had to buy shoe-strings one at a time. I had to work that story in somewhere!)

Just think what would have happened, or rather wouldn't have happened: Haynes-McLean, no college and no seminary, no Miss Cora, no Brownlow and Jeanette, no John, Larry, Nancy, Gail and Roger, no one thousand other things that have made my life so rich and, in some measure, useful! Let us thank God that His providential care includes prevention as well as positive direction. Even then He allows us to have enough of our own foolish ways to convince us after we have suffered the dire consequences of our folly that we would be much better off if we allowed Him to hinder us more often. Some day you too will be wrestling with the age-old problem of Divine sovereignty and human free will.

CHAPTER VIII

Persecuting the Churches

With the money I had saved from my sullener interim pastorates, plus $125.00 the Smyrna Church gave me in addition to the salary, I was able to pay all debts and enroll in Union University, Jackson, Tennessee. A few weeks after enrollment, the President of the college called me into his office and informed me that a church in Memphis had written him asking him to suggest a ministerial student who could serve them until they could call a permanent pastor. Their pastor had just resigned. Imagine my surprise when he asked me if I would go to their aid. "Dr. Conger, I appreciate your thinking of me, but I am not qualified to undertake such a responsibility. That is a big city church and I am just a little country preacher, just ordained two months ago, and don't have enough sermons in my barrel to wad a gun." If "them's not my very words," they express the way I felt. His insistence and my need of money to keep me in school overcame my reluctance and I agreed to go.

For four months, as I remember, I went by train to Memphis each Saturday, went to a hotel for the night and preached; at least, that is what they called my efforts twice on Sunday. I went back to the hotel for the night and caught the early Monday morning train back to Jackson, arriving in time for my first class. The good Lord was with me in answer to my prayers which could be condensed into Peter's distressing cry, "Save, Lord, or I perish!" La Belle Place, was the name of the church, and by a strange coincidence, George Sherman, later to become my brother-in-law, was once pastor of the church, not the one I succeeded. His name was Lawless. Think of a church having a "Lawless" preacher succeeded by a plowboy, sermon-less preacher. The church must have prayed the Lord, "Save, Lord or WE perish," for the Chief Shepherd heard the cry of the flock and sent them one of the best preachers in Tennessee.

At the risk of over-extending this story, I must tell you about an incident that occurred one night while I was preaching. I was stammering and sputtering like a T-model Ford about to quit. My confusion was aggravated by some young people back under the balcony who decided that they had rather talk to each other than listen to my babblings. All of a sudden without any indication of what I was about to do, I closed my eyes, lifted my voice in prayer (?), telling the Lord to please remind those disturbers that they were in His House and for them to behave accordingly. "Amen!" I then tried to resume my broken, wobbly line of thought. At the conclusion of the service the offending couple dashed out of the building and I never knew their names until twenty years later, three years after I had gone to Monroe as pastor. At the end of a morning service a stranger lingered to speak with me. He said, "Jones is my name; I am from Memphis. I was a member of La Belle Place when you were interim pastor. Do you remember the night some young people were about to take the service away from you and you stopped and prayed for them?"

"Indeed, I do."

"Do you know who the ring leaders were?"

"No, and I prefer not to know, for I fear I have not forgiven them."

"Well, I am going to tell you any way. They were C. B. Hall and the girl he later married. He was your assistant pastor here two years before he resigned to accept a similar position in the First Church, E1 Dorado."

"C. B. Hall! I never met a man I loved more than C. B. Hall, and when he left here I felt that he could never be replaced."

"Your unique rebuke that night was the beginning of their conversion. He and the girl he was with that night were gloriously saved and joined the church soon after your ministry was concluded. C. B. felt called of the Lord to preach; he and Mrs. Hall went to the Baptist Bible Institute, New Orleans, and this church called him from a church in Mississippi."

"Well, well, miracles will never cease!"

Of course, C. B. knew that I was the one they were disturbing that night; but as long as he lived (he died in his pulpit a few years ago) he never mentioned the incident, and I never mentioned it either. I suppose his conscience was still troubling him to some extent and he decided that silence was better than confession to me, for he had confessed to the Lord and He had forgiven him. Besides he was quite stare that I did not know who the offenders were and there was no need to disclose their names twenty years later. Just a few weeks before his death, we visited in their home in Winnsboro, Louisiana, while on one of our western trips, and I had the blessed privilege of telling them again how much we loved them and what they had meant to us. "Mirabile dictu!"

During my four years in college scores of incidents occurred that clamor for recording, but I must move on, else I will never get to the end of my story—sixty-six years yet to go. In my senior year (1911-'12) I was chosen editor of the 1912 annual, Lest We Forget. Accompanying my graduation photo is the following, prepared not by me, but by Stella K. Anderson, Associate Editor:

LUTHER THOMAS HASTINGS....Tennessee

"His modesty is beautiful, his piety deep and constant."

Graduated from Haynes-McLean School, Lewisburg, Tenn.

This shows that I identified myself with all phases of College life: scholastic, athletic, musical, public speaking, editorial, literary, etc. Add to those activities my full-time pastoral work, revivals, conventions, and other denominational gatherings, and my weekly (finally daily) letters to Miss Cora, and you see that I led a pretty full life!

There are a few special events that I must record. In the Spring of 1909 I suffered a severe attack of erysipelas (a form of blood poisoning) in the face and head, accompanied by very high fever (105 -107) and swelling. Yes, I really had the "big head" and my face was a fright, swollen and a purplish red. The high fever threw me into delirium, which caused me to turn against my roommate, Herbert Mount. I got the idea that he was planning to kill me and when he would come into the room in the dormitory, I would scream until he disappeared. I simply would not allow him in the room during my waking time, although he was desirous of waiting upon me and doing everything he could to make me comfortable and nurse me back to health. The college doctor was very kind and dear Mrs. Shelbourne, our dormitory "mother," was a real mother to me. They phoned my father to come. When he arrived I did not know him. He remained three days, at which time I had taken a turn for the better. It took me three weeks to regain my strength and get back into school and church activities. The faculty and student body had special prayers for my recovery and manifested other tokens of concern. I really was a sick boy!

After my interim ministry in Memphis, the next great challenge along that line was the invitation of Dr. Virgin, pastor of the First Baptist Church in Jackson, to supply for him the Sunday that he would be at the Southern Baptist Convention in Baltimore (1910), near the close of my sophomore year. It was the church where most of the faculty and student body attended, so you can imagine with what fear and trembling I stood before them for those two sermons. At the morning hour I preached on David slaying Goliath. I finally got the giant killed, but I was nearly dead too. That night I preached on "They are without fault before the throne" (Revelation 14:5).

Right after I had concluded my ministry in Memphis, a small country church (Cane Creek) about three miles from Jackson, called me. It was one of the oldest churches in the association. In its small membership there were some of the choicest saints, who were so kind to me. It was only a "fourth-time" church. Soon other fourth-time churches called and I had full time work. The salaries were small but together I received enough to keep expenses paid. Here is a complete list of churches that I served during the four years of my college career: (unless otherwise indicated, they were fourth-time) Cane Creek, Middleburg, Toone, Pleasant Plains (halftime), Bemis.

Cane Creek, my first real pastorale, was the only one that I kept until after graduation. Now I must tell you about a wonderful thing the ladies of that church did for me. In the fall of my Junior year (1910) I was called to go out to a secondary school and supply a week for the Principal who had been called to another state on the occasion of his father's illness and death. I taught eighth and ninth grades and received $5.00 a day. Near the school in this fine rural community was the Pleasant Plains Church. They had just become pastorless and had invited me to come before them the Sunday following the week I was teaching, which was the Sunday I was due at Cane Creek. About the middle of that week one of the Cane Creek deacons, having found out that I was out of Jackson teaching, called and said, "We are sure that you will be with us Sunday, your regular day." "No," I said, "I have accepted an invitation to preach for the Pleasant Plains Church. That does not mean that I would resign from Cane Creek if they should call and I accept."

"That will certainly upset our plans for Sunday; Christmas is nearly here and Santa Claus is planning to be present. Can't you change your plans and be with us."

"Sorry, I cannot. I will send you a good supply."

I sent R. E. Guy, even at the risk of "Santa Claus" substituting his name for mine. When I arrived at my dormitory after the evening services, Brother Guy was there and handed me a small package, a beautiful Elgin watch and chain from the ladies of the church! I still have that watch. It keeps good time after 64 years. Since I was not there to receive it in person, they threatened (?) to keep it and give it to the next pastor! But "all's well that ends well;" the church called me and I was allowed to keep the watch after I had genuinely apologized and expressed heartfelt thanks to the dear ladies, among whom were some lovely girls!!

Graduation week provided one thrill after another until I was almost overcome with the honors, awards and congratulations expressed in so many ways. My dear parents and Jessie (ten years of age) were there. You can easily imagine the immense joy and pardonable pride the occasion afforded them. Poor, dear Mother! In all of her 48 years she had hardly been out of "hollering" distance from home! We all wept unashamed tears.

Immediately after graduation, I took the train for Columbia to assume the enormous responsibility as pastor in response to a call given some two months before. Between trains in Nashville I purchased a typewriter which would serve me in business correspondence and outlining sermons and, with Miss Cora's reluctant permission, would shorten the time required to write her, for our exchange of letters was getting to the hot and furious stage. Understand, I did not abandon the pen for the typewriter, but many of the longer epistles of love were typed.

I secured a comfortable room within a block of the church and got meals next door. The church had recently built a beautiful, brick, six-room home for the pastor. But it was not intended for a bachelor pastor. The church still owed a considerable amount on its construction, so they found it very convenient to have an unmarried pastor. They rented the pastorium and applied the rental to the debt. However, it was not long after I arrived until it was rumored that their pastor was in love with a former member of the church, one of the most popular and consecrated young ladies in the city of Columbia. (Need I tell you her name?) If I could persuade her to come back and occupy the home as wife of their pastor, they would be willing to forego the rental even though they would have to take me Alto boot."

Of course, I was willing to co-operate to the fullest extent. But she was not yet willing to commit herself to the idea. The letters flew back and forth, but "hope deferred" did not make the heart faint, for "faint heart never did win fair lady." Therefore my letters became more and more persistent, even though at times hers seemed more resistant. I believe she was waiting to see how I was doing as pastor of her church which contained many of her kin and friends.

Although my ministry in Columbia was brief (less than a year), it was by no means fruitless. Many things were accomplished. Perhaps the outstanding achievement was the grading of the Sunday School and the introduction of a plan of study that would enable the leadership to become more efficient. The baptismal waters were regularly troubled as the young pastor seemed to become more and more entrenched in the hearts of the membership, including "her" kin and special friends who, I feel sure, kept her informed.

The First Church was the leading church in the association, which fact imposed upon the pastor an associational leadership and responsibility that greatly added to his tremendous duties as pastor. Through the summer revival meeting season, I was invited to hold more revivals than I could find time to hold. Then in the fall there were many associational activities that depended upon my counsel and leadership.

CHAPTER IX

We Had Goodly Heritages

Now I must back up a bit and tell you about Miss Cora's parents and family. J. P. (James Pole, but he was usually referred to by his initials) Brownlow, her father, married Jane Ussery just before the Civil War broke out. He left his young wife and their first child in the care of her people in Giles County, Tennessee, enlisted in Forrest's Cavalry which was one of the most famous Confederate fighting units. He was in many of the most bloody conflicts in Middle Tennessee, was wounded and rose to the rank of First Lieutenant. Their family rapidly increased, nine children having been born to them. One, possibly two, died in infancy. Miss Cora and her sister, Kittye, were the last ones given to their parents late in life, after they thought their days of child-bearing had ended

In 1890 the Brownlows moved to Mt. Pleasant where Mr. Brownlow operated a grocery store and organized and operated a bank. He was a business genius. The Mt. Pleasant bank grew to be a sizeable and serviceable institution, which he later turned over to his youngest son, Cecil. He moved his family to Columbia where he and his older son, Joe, organized a bank that is still doing business. This move to Columbia was made some time in the early '90's, I am sure, for his bank was the only one that survived the financial crash of the middle '90's.

Father and Mother Brownlow were originally members of what was popularly known as the "Hardshell Baptists." They afterwards joined the Missionary Baptists and became the most ardent, consistent and persistent soul-winners. Father Brownlow was what was then known as an "exhorter," which means that in revival meetings he would get up, relate his conversion experience, quote John 3:16, or some other well-known Scripture and with genuine spiritual ardor, would exhort sinners to repent of their sins and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ as their only hope of salvation. They would come and fall upon their knees, calling upon God to have mercy on them while loved ones and friends knelt with them and prayed for them to make a full surrender. Sometimes Mother Brownlow and other saintly ones would shout the praises of the Lord as their souls overflowed with the love of God. Yes, they were not ashamed to shout in those days and their "hallelujahs" would sometimes melt the hard hearts of sinners to penitential tears and they would soon be rejoicing in the sweet assurance that their sins were forgiven and washed away in the blood of the Lamb.

Let me pause to give the vital statistics of the Hastings and Brownlow families:

December 18, 1857 - February 4, 1937

Mary Frances Bledsoe Hastings:

James Polk Brownlow:

Jane Ussery Brownlow, wife:

Father and mother Brownlow had nine children, two of whom died in infancy. Cora and Kittye were the youngest; the other five who lived to be married were: Belle (died at birth of third child); Sallie, married George Sherman, the mother of John, Jeannette and Hester, John, Joe and Cecil, all of whom died after I came to know the Brownlow family in 1908.

My mother was Mary Frances Bledsoe, father's second wife. His first wife died at the birth of their child, who also died. Father had an only sister, Martha Ann. She married a Morton. When he died in 1907 (?), Aunt Sip, as she was affectionately called, came to live with us. She outlived father and mother and died in the home of sister Beulah September 27, 1950. Twins were born to her and Uncle Zack—still born; they never had any more children. She was the kindest, most unselfish, most accommodating person I ever knew. She was so precious to us.

And now I must back up again to the point where I digressed to record vital statistics of our two families, an altogether too skimpy record. After moving to Columbia, the Brownlow family soon established itself as one of the most prominent and influential families in the city: in business, in social affairs and especially in religious activities. The directors' room in Father Brownlow's bank was also a prayer room where he had many a prayer with men who came to transact business. He took them into that room where he talked and prayed with them about their souls and the true riches laid up in Heaven's bank and available to all those who by faith draw checks on it for their spiritual needs.

After some twenty years, Father Brownlow retired and turned everything over to Joe. At that time Brother Sherman was pastor of the First Baptist Church in Chickasha, Oklahoma. He persuaded Father and Mother Brownlow to move out to Chickasha and bring with them Cora and Kittye, the only children not married. Through Brother Sherman's influence Kittye became a member of the faculty in a college in Chickasha, teaching voice. She had a marvelous talent in music, both in piano and in voice. Cora (somewhere along the way I have dropped the "Miss," so from here on it will be just Cora) became associational worker with young women as well as helping in revival meetings.

Father Brownlow was busy helping Brother Sherman and also helping in the associational work. It was not easy for them to leave their many friends and kin in Columbia and Maury County and move to the faraway land of Oklahoma, but they were happy in the work of the Lord and that was sufficient compensation for their loss. The move to the west was In 1912.

Cora and I kept up our correspondence and we met occasionally at State and Southern Baptist Conventions and encampments. The first Southern Baptist Convention I ever attended was in 1911 in Jacksonville, Florida, the end of my third year in college. She and Kittye attended that convention. Next year the convention met in Oklahoma City, just 40 miles from Chickasha. At this convention we definitely decided to get married. The only question was when. I would be graduating in a few weeks and would be going to Columbia as pastor. Would it be wise to take her back home as a bride and occupy the new pastorium? We would make it a matter of earnest prayer to know the will of the Lord.

In August after the Oklahoma convention, Cora had to have an appendectomy and ovarian operation. All of one ovary was removed and a part of the other. The surgeon could not assure her that she could ever become a mother, but thought that her chances were more than 50 percent. This, of course was a matter of great concern, for if we married, we wanted a family. The doctors who waited upon her at the birth of our two children said it was a miracle that she was able to bear children.

At this time Kittye decided that she needed more training in voice for the position she held. She would go to New York and study under a very fine teacher, but Cora must go with her. Just two, possibly three weeks after the operation, they left for New York, secured a small apartment and Kittye began her voice study. As her returning strength would permit, Cora would go sight-seeing and take care of the apartment. She also tried to keep up answering my letters—one a day and sometimes two. She made a remarkably fast recovery from her operation. Some weeks after their arrival in New York, Marie Brownlow, their brother Joe's oldest daughter, joined them. As Christmas was drawing nigh, the burden of our correspondence was the question of our getting together at Christmas and making final arrangements for the wedding. Should I go to New York or should Cora go back to Chickasha where I would meet her? Since Kittye's study would be extended beyond Christmas, it would not be desirable to leave her there alone, so it looked like I would be going to New York. But Marie decided she would not go home for the holidays and she would stay with Kittye and let Cora go back to Chickasha, Oklahoma. Father Brownlow made arrangements for me to room at the hotel, since the little cottage in which they were living did not have sufficient bedroom space for Cora's sweetheart. I was there some eight or ten days.

After much prayer and serious thought:, we set March 6, for the wedding. It was decided that I would resign from the Columbia church, as it did not seem wise that I continue there after we married. The Chickasha Association was in need of an associational missionary. Brother Sherman and Father Brownlow were sure that the board, on their recommendation would elect me as their missionary. This was done in the January meeting. The idea was that I would serve in that capacity until the first of September. I would resign and we would enter the seminary at Fort Worth. This we did.

The Columbia folks knew that we were seriously contemplating marriage, but when I offered my resignation, it really created a sensation. They sought to persuade me to bring Cora back home and remain their pastor. But ,when they knew that I must get my seminary education and had selected Fort Worth, they saw the wisdom of our plan.

CHAPTER X

On Cleaving Unto a Wife

Before I record the GREAT EVENT in Chickasha, I must relate two humorous events—humorous to others but rather embarrassing to me—that occurred in the morning services that I conducted in Columbia before leaving. I had prepared the morning message— what little preparation I was able to make in the exciting circumstances—with the church congregation in mind. I had selected as a text (more pretext, I fear) 2 Timothy 4:7,8: "I have fought a good fight," etc. If Paul had been standing behind me and looking over my shoulder when I selected that part of his swan song, he would have laughed out loud and said, "Where are your battle scars? Oh, I see. They are in your back. What sort of course was it that you finished in less than a year? Yes, you kept the faith—you did not preach it much!"

In my preparation I failed to note the immediate context, verse 6: "I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand." In reading the Scripture lesson before the sermon, I began with verse one. As I was finishing verse 5, "make full proof of thy ministry," my eyes glanced over verse 6, "For I am now ready to be offered," etc. Oh, it will never do to read THAT verse; I'll just skip it hoping that no one will notice the omission. But in that congregation, as in all churches I suppose, there is at least one person who is the pastor's "thorn in the flesh." Well, mine was an old maid who took a fiendish delight in teasing and embarrassing the pastor. At the conclusion of the service I took my accustomed place at the main exit to shake hands with the folks and speak a word of consolation to any who might be on the verge of fainting at the thought of having to give up their "beloved" pastor. As they passed out, I nearly "passed out" when I looked down the line and saw my "thorn" with that tantalizing smile that always preceded the storm. As she took my hand, she cried out loud so that all could hear, "Preacher, how come you to omit that verse, 'I am now ready to be offered up'? You sure are about to be offered up, and you have my sympathy!" Poor soul, she was really expressing her jealousy of Cora Brownlow and not her sympathy. If there had been a three inch crack in the floor, I would have passed down as well as passed out!

The second incident occurred during the closing minutes of the evening service. It was the custom among most of the churches that when a new pastor came to the city, the churches, would call off their evening services and join the congregation in welcoming their new pastor; and when a pastor resigned, the custom would be repeated. The other churches called off their services and joined in "welcoming the departure" of the outgoing pastor. The house was filled to its utmost capacity and I brought an evangelistic message. I made my strongest appeal for people to be saved and announced that the invitation hymn would be number—, "I am Bound for the Promised Land; Oh, who will come and go with me, I am bound for the Promised Land." I observed that the congregation, led by the choir, did not enter into the singing with the zest I expected, and before the first stanza was finished there was a spirit-quenching levity that passed over the congregation. I looked around and the choir was almost convulsed with laughter, led by my brother-in-law to-be, Joe Brownlow, the very personification of dignity. His "holding-back straps" had broken, too. Needless to say, no one was saved. If possible, I felt more deflated than at the morning incident! How I wished that my train would be leaving in thirty minutes instead of the next morning. I had checked out of my rooming house the day before and was the guest of Joe and family until I should leave Monday. They got home from church before I did, and as I walked up to the front door I [Did he mean to write "they"? Editor] was singing, "I am Bound for the Promised Land!" Preachers, be careful how you select invitation hymns!

Now back to Chickasha and the GREAT EVENT. I left Columbia the next morning after the last Sunday in February, terminating nine months' ministry. I stopped in Jackson that night and renewed many acquaintances among the faculty and student body. I was asked to conduct chapel the next morning. Of course, I announced that I was "bound for the Promised Land." I related the incidents I have just recorded. The faculty and students roared with laughter, and concluded the service by singing "I am Bound for the Promised Land."

I resumed my westward journey soon after chapel service. I had a lay-over in Memphis of some hours during which I contacted many friends by phone. After a night's ride I arrived in Chickasha Wednesday morning. Brother Sherman met me at the depot and took me to the hotel, only three blocks from the church and the cottage home of the Brownlows. I barely had time to bathe, shave and change clothes before I was due at the Shermans where I would meet Cora and her parents and we all would have dinner there. That was Wednesday and the wedding was to be Thursday. So the rest of Wednesday and all of Thursday were filled with exciting activity in preparation for the event. It was to be a home wedding. As I remember, some 150 invitations were mailed to friends and relatives of the two families. Scores of beautiful and useful gifts came from far and near. Ladies of the church helped decorate, and the artistic display of the gifts added to the beauty of the several rooms.

Standing room was at a premium as Brother Sherman impressively spoke the meaningful words of the ceremony. The wedding cake and the individual cakes were the gift of a dear, long-time friend in Columbia. She baked them and so securely packed them for shipment by express that not one was even slightly mashed. They were delivered at the Brownlow home just four hours before the wedding. You may be interested to know that when we moved to Dallas in 1967, we found a member of the Park Cities church—a Mrs. Davis—who lived in Chickasha and was present at our wedding in 1913.

I know you would like for me to relate many more details of the wedding, but I am not gifted in writing up social occasions, describing what the bride wore, etc. After I had made those stupid mistakes in Columbia, you may wonder how I got along at the wedding. Of course, I was a nervous as a rabbit's nose, but at least I did not act like the nervous groom I heard of: at the conclusion of the ceremony he kissed the minister and handed the bride a ten-dollar bill.

In conclusion, I will sincerely say, "We were marked and have lived happily ever since." God surely intended it. If ever there was a match made in Heaven, ours was. We were so glad that Father and Mother Brownlow could be with us, not only because it afforded them the privilege of sharing our joys of the occasion, but because we were the recipients of Father Brownlow's generosity in sharing the expense of the event. In that connection, I might record the fact that after it was definitely decided at the time of my Christmas visit that the wedding would be in March, the question of the engagement ring came up. We looked at some at the local jewelry, and she agreed with me that they were too expensive for my meager finances. So, we resorted to the Sears-Roebuck catalogue and she selected one priced $20.00. I placed the order and in due time it came to her, but I did not have the privilege of placing it on her finger. I might also add that the marriage license cost me $2.00, and I gave Brother Sherman a whole $5.00 bill. So that made her cost me $27.00. But what a BARGAIN I did get.

The Executive Committee of the Chickasha Association was kind enough to allow my salary to begin March 1, though the wedding did not occur until the 6th. Therefore, we had no time for a honey-moon trip. Brother Sherman had obtained the pastor's permission for me to preach at the morning hour in the First church. I went to the Michigan Avenue church for the evening service. I preached to a large crowd, many of whom were curious to see and hear Cora Brownlow's brand new husband!

I found the field ripe unto harvest whether in towns, villages or rural sections. Wherever I went I sought to render a varied ministry, not only in the saving of the lost, but in the enlisting of the saved in the various activities of the churches: Sunday School, B.Y.P.U. (it was then), W.M.U. and its organizations down to the Sunbeams. Cora went with me as much as her physical strength and home duties would permit and rendered invaluable service in personal soul-winning and work with the women and children.

One of the most needed and helpful phases of my ministry was the conducting of Sunday School Institutes using as a guide one of the most helpful study course books the Sunday School Board has ever published, The Convention Normal Manual. Since it was a farming community, it was not always practical to undertake a revival meeting in the busy spring time; but I could enlist the leadership members in the study of the manual, holding both day and night services. One of the most delightful meetings of this sort was held at the small town of Purcell. The pastor was T. L. Holcomb, a graduate of Union University, a year or two ahead of me, and one of the best friends I ever had. What a joyful time we had together talking over old times at Union.

According to the scanty records I have, my ministry of six months ended September 7. A summary of my work as reported to the association shows the following: conversions, 201; reclaimed, 54; baptisms, 138; by letter, 60; one church organized with 17 charter members; an undetermined number of "Institutes;" many subscriptions of the Foreign Missions Journal and the Home Field. With deep gratitude to God, I must say that those six months were one of the most intensely active and richly rewarding periods of my whole ministry of equal length of time.

CHAPTER XI

The School of the Prophets

The next thing on schedule was to get ready to move to the Fort Worth seminary. In the meantime Father and Mother Brownlow, who had been living with us—or was it the other way around?— had yielded to easily understood "home sickness" and planned to return to Columbia. They said they would visit back there until we could find a house and get settled, and they would rejoin us; but at their age and in their hearts I am sure they knew that they were going back to their earthly home where they would remain until the Lord summoned them to their bright eternal home. That is what happened. Mother Brownlow "fell asleep in Jesus" the following March 9 (1914) just six months from the time they left Chickasha. Father survived her four years and six months. He and sister Kittye, Mrs. Buck Howard since June, 1913, visited us a few days in Jacksonville, Texas, only a few weeks before he joined Mother Brownlow in glory. After her death Father lived with Kittye and Buck in Columbia. His funeral was attended by more people than any other funeral in the memory of many of his friends. What a fruitful life, what a glorious "home going!" He being dead still speaks and will continue to speak until Jesus comes. The same is true of his devoted companion!

Since they were supposed to join us later in Fort Worth, they turned over to us all the furniture, enough to furnish a small four or five room cottage. When we and our furniture arrived at Seminary Hill, no house was immediately available and we had to store the furniture and take a room in Fort Worth Hall, taking our meals in the dining room. This was a providential arrangement, for since some time in July or August it was definitely and joyfully revealed to us that our first-born was due to arrive around April 1, and Cora needed the rest and release from house-keeping during the early months of her condition.

We finally secured a house and moved in time to get ready for the arrival of our darling baby girl, Mary Frances, born early in April, I'm sorry I do not remember the exact date. I know it was a Sunday morning in a small hospital near the seminary. Although we knew it was near the time, we agreed that I should go to my appointment some forty miles away on Saturday, hoping I would get back in time to perform my fatherly duties, namely, anxiety, nervousness and just plain stupidity. It was a country appointment and I could not be reached by phone and I did not get back until Monday morning. Our baby was more than 24 hours old when she first cast eyes upon her adoring daddy! Mother and baby were doing fine and papa gradually recovered and readjusted to this new phase of marned life.

Our cup of joy was over-flowing. Cora made a quick recovery and was able to care for our baby, including breast feeding. You will forgive my fatherly pride when I say our baby was beautiful: dainty and perfectly formed, with light golden curly hair and light blue eyes—a perfect blonde. She came to be the pet of Seminary Hill, causing her parents' bosoms to swell with pardonable, parental pride. [Alliteration wholly unpremeditated!]

She had perfect health, cheerful and smiling until she was nine months old. She contacted a severe cold that went into pneumonia. Of course, she was the object of prayerful concern on the part of the faculty and student body, her anxious parents, and the skillful attention of the seminary physician. The Great Physician heard our prayers and blessed the means used. Later we found that the drastic eatment ????? of pneumonia in those days, before the modern miracle antibiotics, called for the use of a powerful drug, creosote. In Mary Francis' case the use of the drug was efficacious in the immediate relief from pneumonia, but later it proved to be a contributing factor in her death when she was 15 months old. The details of that heartbreaking experience will come later.

Soon after our arrival at the seminary, the Chief Shepherd was gracious enough to provide me with small churches to shepherd (perhaps to practice on would be the more appropriate term for my ministry). The financial remuneration was not large, but sufficient to meet our necessary expenses. The churches served during my three and a half years in the seminary were: Bluffdale, Selden, Valley Grove and Tolar, and Addison, Oklahoma. All except Addison were in Erath County, Texas. Two (Selden and Valley Grove) were out in the country from Stephenville. The other two were located in Bluffdale and Tolar, small towns on the Santa Fe Railroad. A part of the time I was preaching at four fourth-time churches; at other times, one half-time and two fourth-time. I would leave Fort Worth Saturday morning on the Santa Fe and return Monday morning in time for classes. Money was not the only remuneration received, especially from the country churches. They would load me down with fruits, vegetables and fresh meat in season. I would leave home with a suitcase In which were my Bible, an extra handkerchief, shaving outfit and nightgown (a now out-of-date masculine, nocturnal equipment), and I would return with that piece of luggage bulging with good things to eat. It sure helped on the grocery bill.

There was an elderly couple in the Selden church that took a special delight in thinking up unique ways of doing nice and helpful things for their pastor. When we opened the suitcase on one occasion, we found several large bell peppers—more than we could eat before they spoiled, so we divided with our across-the-hall neighbors, the Perry Evans. Some days later we were down to the last two peppers and they were so withered I was about to throw them in the garbage. On opening one of them, out fell a silver dollar. We hurriedly opened the other one and out fell another silver dollar. Those dear old people had made a slit in the stem end of the peppers and inserted the silver coins. Excited, we ran across the hall, banged on the kitchen door and said, "Here, you can keep the peppers, but please let us have the stuffing!" But they vowed and declared that theirs were not stuffed. I immediately wrote our friends and told them how very much we enjoyed "stuffed" peppers, especially when they were stuffed with silver dollars.

I have already introduced Dr. George Crutcher, the man who wielded such an influence on me in the beginning of my ministry and was instrumental in lounging your grandmother into my life in the meetings he held in Lewisburg and Smyrna. Now he comes on the stage of action again: this time, February, 1914, soon after Mary Frances had recovered from pneumonia. A few years prior to this date he had become State Mission Secretary (now called Executive Secretary) of the Louisiana Baptist Convention, headquarters in Shreveport. He came to the seminary to enlist some students in evangelistic work during the three summer months. He would arrange for them to hold meetings in needy places. They would be on a stated salary and the offerings Could be turned into the Shreveport office. Although it Could mean that I would be absent from precious wife and darling baby three whole months, the experience and the financial remuneration would compensate in a large measure for the sacrifice entailed. Brother Sherman and Sister Sallie said they would take care of Cora and the baby. Prior to this time he had accepted a call and moved to Holdenville, Oklahoma. So at the close of the seminary term the last of May, I bade them a sad farewell, put them on a train for Holdenville, and I took the train to Eunice, Louisiana, my first meeting, deep in the heart of south Louisiana Catholicism.

When I got off the train and looked around, I thought I had landed in some run-down town in Italy. The little Baptist congregation met in a one-room building that was about to fall down, a disgrace to the name church, and the Baptists were nobodies. The Sunday the meeting began was some feast day of the Catholics, a day of frivolity and all sorts of worldly activities. There were numerous booths on the sidewalks selling almost every imaginable thing, including alcoholic liquors donated by the saloons which were far more numerous than churches. I had something of Paul's feelings when he arrived in Athens: "His spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the whole city given to idolatry." I had a "spiritual spasm" and I knew no better than to lash into those modern Philistines with the "jaw"-bone" of a zealous young preacher. I minced no words. I didn't call a spade a dirty device for removing soil from one place to another, not appropriate for dainty ecclesiastical hands to handle. Some were astounded, some infuriated and some were gloriously saved and baptized in the mill pond, the banks of which were ringed with the curious and cursing. Later on, while pastoring in Monroe, I was told by one of the members of the Eunice church that my life had been threatened and without my knowledge, he and another man followed me each night as I went from the church to the hotel. Members of the church said that was the greatest meeting ever held within their memory. Today the Baptists in Eunice are the leading people with a magnificent church building and just a few miles from there is located Acadia Academy where hundreds of young people have been educated in a truly scriptural and spiritual atmosphere.

I held meetings in other predominantly Catholic towns with varying success. My last meetings were held in towns located in Central and Northwestern Louisiana, the last one in a church in Shreveport. What a wonderful time I did have!

Before taking you back to Holdenville to be reunited with my precious wife and darling baby from whom I had been separated three long months, I must record one more happy event. My second meeting in south Louisiana was in Campti, a saw-mill town located in the central part of the state. There began the acquaintance of one of the noblest and best known men I ever knew—B. B. McKinney, the "sweet singer" of Southern Baptist Israel. He was two years younger than I and had just begun to lead singing in revival meetings. His home was near Minden. Dr. Crutcher had discovered him and through his influence Ben was being kept busy in summer revivals. He led the singing in two, possibly three, of my meetings. His rapid rise in the field of evangelical music was phenomenal, fifteen of his hymns appear in The Baptist Hymnal. He wrote the words also of many of them. His tragic death in 1952 in an auto accident brought great grief to the thousands that had been blest by his sweet music and equally sweet personality. I sent his widow a message of sympathy; her acknowledgement of it was in the title of one of his most popular songs, "Have Faith in God." He, being dead, still sings in "the Invisible Choir." And multitudes on earth will continue to sing his songs until Jesus comes.

You can well imagine my joy when I embraced my loved ones again. Cora was in good health and Mary Frances was a smiling, healthy baby. While there, Cora met a fine Christian girl who felt that the Lord wanted her in missionary work, but her people were too poor to send her to the Seminary Training School for Women. The annual meeting of the association was held in Holdenville that summer, and your grandmother made an appeal for that group of churches to raise the money to send Grace Elliott to seminary. En a few weeks she was happily enrolled and President Scarborough helped out in her expenses by giving her the operation of the telephone exchange. Soon after graduation she applied to the Foreign Mission Board, was accepted and sent to China. There she met and married Dr. M. T. Rankin, who later became the secretary of the Board.

When we went to New Orleans in 1920, your grandmother's class of young married women and her G. Al's supported a mountain girl in Sylva Academy in Western North Carolina. The girl's name was Winona Hooper. After graduation at the academy she went to college, graduated there and resumed to her mountain people and became a teacher in the academy. In September 1933, we took Brownlow to Mars Hill Junior College, located in the mountains near Asheville, where he was enrolled. On our way back home we visited Winona in her home deep in the mountains a few miles from Robinsville in the southwestern tip of North Carolina. To get there we had to drive our new Plymouth over one of the roughest roads any car ever traveled. But it was worth it to see Winona and have her profuse and genuine expressions of appreciation for what your grandmother and her G. Al's had done for her. Winona had several brothers and sisters. They were living in a two-room cabin with a ladder leading up into a loft where evidently a number of the children were bedded down on pallets. Rarely have I seen such poverty. I thought of the words of the poet: "Full many a gem of purest rays serene, the dark unfathomed caves of oceans bear;" not only the oceans, but mountains too.

Soon after reunion with my happy little family in Holdenville, we returned to Seminary Hill for my second year—a year filled with serious study, many joys and two sad events. In December little Mary Frances contracted a cold that developed into pneumonia. I have recorded the progress of her illness and the weakened condition in which she was left due to the strong medicine used in combating the pneumonia. After the close of school in May, 1915 we returned to Tennessee to visit our people and proudly show them our darling baby. Father Brownlow had sent the money for our train fare. Columbia was our first stop. After visiting Cora's relatives in Columbia and Mt. Pleasant, we went to see my people in Marshall County. The June weather was so hot and enervating, the water was hard (limestone), the change of food, plus the weakened condition of bowels from the pneumonia—all combined to induce an attack of cholera infantum, a disease common to children in the summer. We immediately summoned the physician, Dr. Culbertson who, by the way, was brother to Jessie Culbertson, a member of my Haynes-McLean graduation class, a fine Christian, sympathetic and understanding man. After he had examined her and learned of her past illness, he told us that she was in a serious condition and advised that we hurry back to Columbia where we could get the services of a baby specialist. There were not many autos in the community at that time. A wealthy man, who by the way, was the man that proposed to Cora the same day I did seven years before, had the largest, most comfortable car in the community, offered to take us to Columbia. How kind! In my heart I freely forgave him for trying to beat me in the race for Coral Someone told us that he had said that he was not worthy of such a fine Christian girl and was glad that she married Luther Hastings, one of the finest young men he had ever known!

Although we were in Columbia in less than two hours and had her under the doctor's care immediately, we realized that she was growing weaker by the hour. As I recall, we arrived in Columbia Thursday. The Saturday following she went to sleep in the arms of Jesus who seemed to whisper, "I can take better care of her than you can, and I will give her back to you some sweet day." Of course we were heart-broken, but His sustaining grace enabled us to be submissive. The funeral service was held in the First Baptist Church Sunday afternoon with her white, flower-draped casket placed in front of the pulpit from which I had proclaimed the blessed Gospel of peace and hope through Jesus our Saviour during my ministry as pastor. Her precious little body was laid to rest in the Brownlow plot in the Columbia cemetery. How empty were our arms as we turned sorrowfully but trustingly away from her flower-covered grave. During the seven years of my ministry I had stood many times on the minister's side of the casket seeking to comfort the bereaved; but this was the first time I—and we—had sat on the other side of the casket looking up into the face of the minister as he sought to comfort us with the comfort wherewith we had comforted others.

Prior to this event, Father Brownlow had been the prime mover in establishing and supporting a mission of the church in South Columbia, a manufacturing community. He planned and made arrangements for me to hold a tent meeting beginning the very day that Mary Frances was buried. Of course, I did not conduct either service that day, but I did begin Monday night. Rarely, if ever in my long ministry, have I felt the presence and power of the Holy Spirit more than during the two weeks of the meeting that resulted in a large number (I have forgotten how many) of conversions and baptisms.

Just a few hours before Mary Frances died I was watching alone at her bedside. Cora was almost in a state of collapse and we had persuaded her to lie down in an adjoining room. I knelt by our precious child's bed and fully committed her to the Lord, assuring Him that, whatever was His will, I would with His help preach His blessed Gospel as long as He would give me breath. It took Cora a few days to get over the shock of having to give up our first-born, so she did not begin attending the services until nearer the middle of the first week, and then over the protest of sister Kittye, who felt that she would not be equal to the emotional strain. But when Father Brownlow mentioned to her that there was a large number of young women attending and he felt that she could lead them to the Lord, she said, "Let me go; the only way I can get rid of this heavy burden is to get the burden of lost souls on my heart and lead them to Jesus." As I remember, it was the following Sunday night when she was kneeling with several and praying for them at the altar and a number were happily saved, Cora rose up and began shouting the praises of the Lord. She was instrumental in leading several, including hard sinners, to an acceptance of the Lord. While kneeling at the mercy seat, Heaven came down, our souls to greet! What a meeting! All glory to God!

Soon after the close of the meeting it was necessary for us to bid our loved ones and friends a fond farewell and return to the seminary, for my little country churches needed our ministry. They asked me to conduct the summer revivals. Again and again the Lord was with us in great power. Down through the years I have been made to realize that one of the purposes the Lord had in mind in our bereavement was to enable us to comfort others with the same comfort wherewith He had comforted us. Read 2 Corinthians 1:36. Many times I have said to those that sat on the opposite side of the cas