John Wesley, Jr.: The Story of an ExperimentBrummitt, Dan B. (Dan Brearley)
Religion
John Wesley, Jr.: The Story of an Experiment
Brummitt, Dan B. (Dan Brearley)
Christian fiction; Methodists -- Fiction
"What do I do? Not 'I' but 'we.' Well, we work with our heads first, and
our hearts. Then we get out and go at it. Take our very first social
difficulty; in Delafield you have a dozen places to go to. Here it's
either the church or the schoolhouse--that's all the choice there is.
And the schoolhouse has its limitations. So our folks have decided to
make the church, both here and at Valencia, the center of the community.
That explains the social hall; we call it 'Community House.' Everything
that goes on, except the barn dances over east that we can't do much
with so far, goes on in the church, or starts with the church, or ends
at the church. That's the first scheme we put over. It was fairly easy,
you know, because all our country people are pretty much one lot. We
have no rich, and no really poor. And they're not organized to death,
either, as you are in Delafield."
"Do you try to have something going on every night, and nearly every
day, as Brother Drury does with us?" J.W. asked.
"Not quite," replied Marty; "we can't. We're too busy growing the food
for you town folks. But we keep up a pretty stiff pace, for the
preacher; I have no time hanging on my hands."
"I should think not," J.W. commented, "if you try to run everything.
Mr. Drury always seems to have lots of time, just because he makes the
rest of us run the works in Delafield First."
"Oh, he does, does he?" said Marty, shortly, who knew something of the
older minister's strategy. "That's according to how you look at it. I'm
not above learning from him, and I don't run everything, either. But I'm
there, or thereabouts, most of the time."
"How do you get time for your study and your sermons, then," queried J.
W., "if you're on the go so much?"
Marty turned a quizzical look at J.W. "My beloved chum, how did you and
I get time for our studies at Cartwright?" he said. "Besides, I'm making
one hand wash the other. The social life here, for instance, used to be
pretty bad, before Henderson came--that's the preacher whose place I
took. It was pulling away from the church; now it draws to the church.
Henderson started that. The people who are my main dependence in the
other affairs are mostly the same people I can count on in the Sunday
school and League and the preaching service. The more we do the better
it is for what we do Sundays."
"Then, there's another Because these people and I know one another so
well, I couldn't put on airs in the pulpit if I wanted to. I've just got
to preach straight, and I won't preach a thing I can't back up myself. I
use country illustrations; show them their own world. It's one big white
mark for the Farwell farm, as you might suppose, that I know the best
side of country life, though I don't advertise your real estate."
"I know," said J.W. "But don't you find country people pretty hard to
manage? That's our experience at the store. They are particular and
critical, and think they know just what they want."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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