No Man's Land: A History of El Camino RealNardini, Louis Raphael
History
No Man's Land: A History of El Camino Real
Nardini, Louis Raphael
El Camino Real de los Tejas National Historic Trail (Tex. and La.); Louisiana -- History
Murrell could mimic the voices of many people and was an excellent
actor. In each community where he preached he adapted their tone of
voice and mannerisms. One of his favorite gospels was the one he called
“Directions”. As he addressed his audience he may have been standing in
the pulpit of a church, or atop a stump or standing in the bed of a
wagon, wherever a crowd gathered Murrell felt that he should preach to
them.
“Directions,” he would shout, “always when one begins a journey, he has
a destination. The road to this destination is similar to the Road of
Life, often along this road one has to inquire about directions, and it
is so through the Journey of Life, one must follow directions laid down
by the Church and the Ministers, they are the sign posts that point the
way. Quite often a man while traveling this road, decides to take a
short cut, instead of following the Good Book as laid down by the
Church, these short cuts become his mis-deeds or his sins.
We shall assume that this Bible is the Book of Judgment and in it will
be the names of every living person on the face of the earth. By each
name there are two columns, one for his assets or his good deeds of life
and the other column for his mis-deeds, which we shall call his
de-sets.”
From here on Murrell becomes the actor in what he called, The Drama at
the Gates of Heaven.
“Batiste had made the journey through life and was knocking on the Gates
of Heaven, a voice from within asks, who knocks? Batiste answers and
gives his full name. The voice is that of St. Peter who looks up
Batiste’s record of life in the Book of Judgment. Then St. Peter
explains to Batiste, we take out the pages which contain your assets and
place them on one side of the scales of justice and on the other side we
place the pages of your de-sets. If your assets out-weigh your de-sets,
then naturally you can come in, as we place your assets and de-sets upon
the scales we will review them.”
(Now Murrell becomes the comic for the benefit of his audience). “Right
here Batiste on May 25, you done de-setted enough to carry over on the
next three pages. Boy, you was really de-setting that day.
Here, we see your Pastor found you hunting on Sunday and you had a nice
bag of squirrels, the Pastor spoke to you about it and you gave the
excuse that you had your days mixed up. Again he caught you fishing on
Sunday and a nice bunch you had too, you gave the excuse that you had
your days mixed up again.
Now, if you had given the Pastor some of those squirrels or fish, then
those de-sets of that day would have turned into assets. But all along
the Road of Life you gave the excuse that you had your days mixed up.
‘Now,’ said St. Peter, as he looked at the scales, ‘because you had your
days mixed up you now have your directions mixed up. You all done come
the wrong way’, and he shut the door in Batiste’s face. Batiste begged
for another chance but this could not be, as you know you can only
travel the Road of Life once.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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