Early Ministers Had Little Learning

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