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When
I was a boy the matter of becoming a minister, like that of
becoming an editor, was much simpler than now. While newspaper
people of that day opposed schools of Journalism on the ground
that editors were born, not made, church people were pretty sure
that going into the ministry was more a matter of a call from
above than a choice among professions. Although this opinion is
still very generally held in the religious world, the importance
of education has come to be very generally recognized.
Practically every sect now has its theological seminaries.
Here
in Paris we once had a minister who boasted that he was “a one
book man”, by which he meant the Bible. He considered it a
waste of time to read any other sort of literature. Among people
of even modest schooling he was greatly handicapped. With
ministers who were lacking in schooling, however, it usually was
due to circumstances rather than to choice. Most of them were
converted during revival meetings. The revivalists all were
ambitious to provide their denominations with additional
preachers, neglecting no opportunity to influence young men to
enter the ministry. If they could get some education, well and
good; if not, the Lord would provide. With such salaries as were
paid back there, the Lord had to very nearly do that thing.
Due
to the fact that so many ministers took literally the admonition
to multiply and replenish the earth, the salary problem was
further complicated by large families for which those ministers
must provide a living. In villages and on rural fields the
income usually ranged from $500 to $1,000 a year.
The fact that rural congregations were on a once-a-month
basis made it necessary for the pastor to keep a horse and buggy
for transportation, and to have four churches within driving
distance of his home.
Instead
of increasing their subscriptions to a point where the total
would enable the pastor to live in comfort the rule was to help
out with donations. When a farmer would kill hogs there always
was quite a surplus of spare ribs, backbones and sausage, from
which portions were sent to the ministerial home. At intervals,
the sisters would organize donation parties, on which occasions
members would swarm in on some prearranged date, with things
they could most conveniently spare. After an evening of fun and
a season of prayer the party would disperse, leaving the pastor
and wife with quite a muss to clear up.
Even
on their meager salaries those ministers were expected to tithe.
Always there was at least one brother who could quote that
admonition of the old prophet, Malachi, “Bring ye all your
tithes into the storehouse.” Thus, after getting the lowest
possible figure from the prospective pastor, the pulpit
committee could figure that ten per cent of the sum would come
right back into the treasury.
The
minister was expected to piece out his income by holding revival
meetings for other congregations and from weddings. It would
have been considered rather unethical for them to take a fee for
preaching a funeral, though heaven knows they earned it by the
lengthy sermons the times demanded, and by the efforts they made
to preach people into heaven. The wedding fees amounted to very
little. I recall an instance in which the pastor of our Paris
Christian Church was called to say the ceremony on a nuptial
occasion at a farm home nine miles away. It was a dark, rainy
night. The mud was quite deep. It was necessary to get a team,
buggy and driver from the local livery stable, at a cost of $5.
After the ceremony the groom took him aside and thrust an
envelope into his hand, which he put into his pocket. All the
way home he debated with himself whether the envelope contained
$10 or $20, or even more. Because of the lateness of the hour
when the wedding supper and festivities were over, and because
of the terrible roads, he did not get back to Paris until 3
o’clock in the morning. Then, hurriedly lighting a lamp, he
opened the envelope of a look at his fee. It contained two
one-dollar bills. On another occasion the happy bridegroom
inquired of the minister how much he charge for a job like that.
When told that he made no charge but that the law allowed him
$2, the bridegroom handed him fifty cents and said, “Then take
this; we’ll make it $2.50.”
Those
poorly paid preachers and their families were imposed upon by
all classes of the population. Instead of going to hotels when
on official missions to town churches, the State Home Mission
Secretary, the State Foreign Mission Secretary, the orphans’
home secretary, the denominational organ’s publisher, the
returned missionary, and agents of a dozen other sorts, all of
whom were in quest of money, would bill themselves on the local
pastor. When they called on brethren in their homes, the pastor
was taken along to introduce them and put in a plug for the
cause. People who became stranded in a town invariably called on
the preacher for entertainment or a cash subscription. He was
expected to sit up with the sick, to visit the infirm, and to be
a contributing member of every local organization. Any of his
members who took the agency for a book or a household article or
a denominational publication visited the preacher first of all,
and with full assurance that he would not dare turn them down.
If the story of their hardships and sacrifices could be compiled
into a book it would make a volume of tremendous proportions.
A
young man who served as pastor of our local Baptist Church went
to the Louisville Baptist Seminary after entering the ministry
and getting married. Only by the strictest economy and
self-denial were he and his wife able to live in a cheap two
room apartment. One rainy Saturday night a family of four that
had run out of gas and become stranded just outside their home,
applied for food and gasoline. The young minister invited them
in. The young wife set all the food they had before them. The
young minister handed over enough of their meager savings to pay
for five gallons of gas, to speed them on their way. As the door
closed behind them and the young wife burst into tears of
distress about how the next week’s supplies would be financed,
the husband sought to comfort her by saying, as so many other
hard-run preachers have said under similar circumstances: “The
Lord will provide.”
Later
in the evening, as the preacher and his wife like to tell it,
there was a knock on the door. Both feared to answer it for fear
there would be another demand on their badly strained little
treasury. Instead, it was a young couple who wanted to get
married. After the ceremony the bridegroom gave the preacher a
ten dollar bill. To the distressed wife this was like manna from
heaven. To the young husband it was just another indication of a
Christian philosophy he had imbibed from older ministers to the
effect that people should do what is right and leave the rest to
the Lord.
Source:
When I Was a Boy by Jack Blanton
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