The Ensuing Cold

It is important, for the sake of spirituality, that we divide the man into three parts…
Physical, Spiritual, and Intellectual. If E = mc2 then we can divide and conclude that...

Mass (m) = Energy (E/c2) And there are three varieties...

Natural E/c2 - All mass is basically cooled plasma, the sun is the visible form of E/c2
Mental E/c2 - Our thinking can produce creativeness, light, and good things
Spiritual E/c2 - E (motivation, warmth, love) / c2 (faith, hope, charity, joy)

The Natural E/c2 in the form of mass produces a gravity that attracts other objects
The Intellectual E/c2 produces a gravity that draws us to study
The Spiritual E/c2 also has a gravity that draws and makes religion attractive

I am 56 years old and can remember back....

Civil War Generation - Only through research
World War I Generation - My Great Grandmothers
World War II Generation - My Grandmothers

And with my religion...

The Methodist - Were at their best during the Civil War Generation
The Pentecostal Holiness -Were at their best during the World War generations

The Pentecostal Holiness arose from the Methodist church of the 1800's and the methods of service were exactly like the Methodist of that time. It would be nice to go back in time and sit with the old timers at the Merrimac Pentecostal Holiness church. Old Evans Linkous used to sit on the front pew and weep like a baby. And if he looked back to catch the amazed look in my eye he would weep, "The Holy Ghost! The Holy Ghost!" And point to all the souls blessed around the altar. To the old timers the religion was accompanied with a, "Joy Unspeakable and Full of Glory!" You can hear Dallas shouting in the background in the video below. Dallas, Evans, and the singer, Preacher Vaught, have all moved on to Glory.


There was also a spirit here in Virginia like in the old Walton reruns, in which my family would all "good night" us as we were all put to bed. The revival type atmosphere died away with the old World War II generation.

And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. - Matthew 24:12

I worry, because virtue is not knowledge, that the love, warmth, hope, and goodness will basically dissipate away.

The old Pentecostal Holiness preserved the old Methodist revival that occurred 100 years before them. The man who tells this best was GC Rankin.

George Clark Rankin was sent to Georgia after his grandfather could no longer care for him and tells his story. On his belongings in a satchel he had a Colt's navy pistol of a large make. It was an old weapon, and what under the sun I wanted with it is a mystery to me to this good day. I reached the station in time to catch the eleven-o' clock train. I purchased my ticket and boarded the car for the first time in my life. I had one lone lorn fifty-cent piece left in my depleted purse, and that was the sum and substance of my finances for the rest of the trip. As the train whizzed along I looked first at the people and then through the window at the country and thought over my journey and what was to come of it. At nine o'clock we reached Dalton and disembarked. I had never been in a hotel. I saw one not far from the depot and went to it. I asked the clerk what he would charge me for a room that night and he said fifty cents. That was exactly my pile! I called for the accommodation, but before retiring I told him I wanted to leave very early the next morning for Spring Place and that I would pay him then, for no one would be up when I would leave. He smiled and took the silver half dollar. I went to my room, and solitude is no name for the room I occupied that night. After a while I fell into a sound sleep and awoke bright and early the next morning. It was not good daylight. I arose and hastened downstairs, and there sat the same clerk whom I had the night before it had never dawned on me that a hotel clerk sat up all night. I thanked him for his kindness and bade him good-bye in regular old country style.

It was not long until I was in the road and making tracks across the country to where my uncle lived. It was in 1866 and the marks of Sherman's march to the sea were everywhere visible. The country was very much out of repair and all around Dalton the earth was marked with breastworks. Every hill showed signs of war. Much of the fencing had not been restored and here and there I could see blackened chimneys still standing. After I had gotten out a few miles I stopped and took that old pistol with its belt and scabbard out of my satchel and buckled the war paraphernalia around my person on the outside of my coat. Just why I did this I cannot explain. I must have looked a caution in my homespun suit and rural air trudging along that highway with that old army pistol fastened around me. In going down a hill toward a ravine from which there was another hill in front of me I met two men horseback. There were two others riding down the hill in front of me, and as the first two passed me they stopped and looked back at the others and shouted: "Lookout, boys, he is loaded!"

In the course of an hour I was at my uncle's. He was surprised to see me, but gave me a cordial welcome. The first thing he did was to disarm me, and that ended my pistol-toting. I have never had one about my person or home to this good day. And I never will understand just why I had that one. A good dinner refreshed me and I soon unfolded my plans and they were satisfactory to my kind-hearted kinsman. He was in the midst of cotton-picking and that afternoon I went to the field and, with a long sack about my waist, had my first experience in the cottonfield. We then would get ready for the revival occurring that night…

After the team had been fed and we had been to supper we put the mules to the wagon, filled it with chairs and we were off to the meeting. When we reached the locality it was about dark and the people were assembling. Their horses and wagons filled up the cleared spaces and the singing was already in progress. My uncle and his family went well up toward the front, but I dropped into a seat well to the rear. It was an old-fashioned Church, ancient in appearance, oblong in shape and unpretentious. It was situated in a grove about one hundred yards from the road. It was lighted with old tallow-dip candles furnished by the neighbors. It was not a prepossessing-looking place, but it was soon crowded and evidently there was a great deal of interest. A cadaverous-looking man stood up in front with a tuning fork and raised and led the songs. There were a few prayers and the minister came in with his saddlebags and entered the pulpit. He was the Rev. W. H. Heath, the circuit rider. His prayer impressed me with his earnestness and there were many amens to it in the audience. I do not remember his text, but it was a typical revival sermon, full of unction and power.

At its close he invited penitents to the altar and a great many young people flocked to it and bowed for prayer. Many of them became very much affected and they cried out distressingly for mercy. It had a strange effect on me. It made me nervous and I wanted to retire. Directly my uncle came back to me, put his arm around my shoulder and asked me if I did not want to be religious. I told him that I had always had that desire, that mother had brought me up that way, and really I did not know anything else. Then he wanted to know if I had ever professed religion. I hardly understood what he meant and did not answer him. He changed his question and asked me if I had ever been to the altar for prayer, and I answered him in the negative. Then he earnestly besought me to let him take me up to the altar and join the others in being prayed for. It really embarrassed me and I hardly knew what to say to him. He spoke to me of my mother and said that when she was a little girl she went to the altar and that Christ accepted her and she had been a good Christian all these years. That touched me in a tender spot, for mother always did do what was right; and then I was far away from her and wanted to see her. Oh, if she were there to tell me what to do!

By and by I yielded to his entreaty and he led forward to the altar. The minister took me by the hand and spoke tenderly to me as I knelt at the altar. I had gone more out of sympathy than conviction, and I did not know what to do after I bowed there. The others were praying aloud and now and then one would rise shoutingly happy and make the old building ring with his glad praise. It was a novel experience to me. I did not know what to pray for, neither did I know what to expect if I did pray. I spent the most of the hour wondering why I was there and what it all meant. No one explained anything to me. Once in awhile some good old brother or sister would pass my way, strike me on the back and tell me to look up and believe and the blessing would come. But that was not encouraging to me. In fact, it sounded like nonsense and the noise was distracting me. Even in my crude way of thinking I had an idea that religion was a sensible thing and that people ought to become religious intelligently and without all that hurrah. I presume that my ideas were the result of the Presbyterian training given to me by old grandfather. By and by my knees grew tired and the skin was nearly rubbed off my elbows. I thought the service never would close, and when it did conclude with the benediction I heaved a sigh of relief. That was my first experience at the mourner's bench.

As we drove home I did not have much to say, but I listened attentively to the conversation between my uncle and his wife. They were greatly impressed with the meeting, and they spoke first of this one and that one who had "come through" and what a change it would make in the community, as many of them were bad boys. As we were putting up the team my uncle spoke very encouragingly to me; he was delighted with the step I had taken and he pleaded with me not to turn back, but to press on until I found the pearl of great price. He knew my mother would be very happy over the start I had made. Before going to sleep I fell into a train of thought, though I was tired and exhausted. I wondered why I had gone to that altar and what I had gained by it. I felt no special conviction and had received no special impression, but then if my mother had started that way there must be something in it, for she always did what was right. I silently lifted my heart to God in prayer for conviction and guidance. I knew how to pray, for I had come up through prayer, but not the mourner's bench sort. So I determined to continue to attend the meeting and keep on going to the altar until I got religion.

Early the next morning I was up and in a serious frame of mind. I went with the other hands to the cottonfield and at noon I slipped off in the barn and prayed. But the more I thought of the way those young people were moved in the meeting and with what glad hearts they had shouted their praises to God the more it puzzled and confused me. I could not feel the conviction that they had and my heart did not feel melted and tender. I was callous and unmoved in feeling and my distress on account of sin was nothing like theirs. I did not understand my own state of mind and heart. It troubled me, for by this time I really wanted to have an experience like theirs.

When evening came I was ready for Church service and was glad to go. It required no urging. Another large crowd was present and the preacher was as earnest as ever. I did not give much heed to the sermon. In fact, I do not recall a word of it. I was anxious for him to conclude and give me a chance to go to the altar. I had gotten it into my head that there was some real virtue in the mourner's bench; and when the time came I was one of the first to prostrate myself before the altar in prayer. Many others did likewise. Two or three good people at intervals knelt by me and spoke encouragingly to me, but they did not help me. Their talks were mere exhortations to earnestness and faith, but there was no explanation of faith, neither was there any light thrown upon my mind and heart. I wrought myself up into tears and cries for help, but the whole situation was dark and I hardly knew why I cried, or what was the trouble with me. Now and then others would arise from the altar in an ecstasy of joy, but there was no joy for me. When the service closed I was discouraged and felt that maybe I was too hardhearted and the good Spirit could do nothing for me.

After we went home I tossed on the bed before going to sleep and wondered why God did not do for me what he had done for mother and what he was doing in that meeting for those young people at the altar. I could not understand it. But I resolved to keep on trying, and so dropped off to sleep. The next day I had about the same experience and at night saw no change in my condition. And so for several nights I repeated the same distressing experience. The meeting took on such interest that a day service was adopted along with the night exercises, and we attended that also. And one morning while I bowed at the altar in a very disturbed state of mind Brother Tyson, a good local preacher and the father of Rev. J. F. Tyson, now of the Central Conference, sat down by me and, putting his hand on my shoulder, said to me: "Now I want you to sit up awhile and let's talk this matter over quietly. I am sure that you are in earnest, for you have been coming to this altar night after night for several days. I want to ask you a few simple questions." And the following questions were asked and answered:

"My son, do you not love God?"

"I cannot remember when I did not love him."

"Do you believe on his Son, Jesus Christ?"

"I have always believed on Christ. My mother taught me that from my earliest recollection."

"Do you accept him as your Savior?"

"I certainly do, and have always done so."

"Can you think of any sin that is between you and the Savior?"

"No, sir; for I have never committed any bad sins."

"Do you love everybody?"

"Well, I love nearly everybody, but I have no ill-will toward any one. An old man did me a wrong not long ago and I acted ugly toward him, but I do not care to injure him."

"Can you forgive him?"

"Yes, if he wanted me to."

"But, down in your heart, can you wish him well?"

"Yes, sir; I can do that."

"Well, now let me say to you that if you love God, if you accept Jesus Christ as your Savior from sin and if you love your fellowmen and intend by God's help to lead a religious life, that's all there is to religion. In fact, that is all I know about it."

Then he repeated several passages of Scriptures to me proving his assertions. I thought a moment and said to him: "But I do not feel like these young people who have been getting religion night after night. I cannot get happy like them. I do not feel like shouting."

The good man looked at me and smiled and said: "Ah, that's your trouble. You have been trying to feel like them. Now you are not them; you are yourself. You have your own quiet disposition and you are not turned like them. They are excitable and blustery like they are. They give way to their feelings. That's all right, but feeling is not religion. Religion is faith and life. If you have violent feeling with it, all good and well, but if you have faith and not much feeling, why the feeling will take care of itself. To love God and accept Jesus Christ as your Savior, turning away from all sin, and living a godly life, is the substance of true religion."

That was new to me, yet it had been my state of mind from childhood. For I remembered that away back in my early life, when the old preacher held services in my grandmother's house one day and opened the door of the Church, I went forward and gave him my hand. He was to receive me into full membership at the end of six months' probation, but he let it pass out of his mind and failed to attend to it.

As I sat there that morning listening to the earnest exhortation of the good man my tears ceased, my distress left me, light broke in upon my mind, my heart grew joyous, and before I knew just what I was doing I was going all around shaking hands with everybody, and my confusion and darkness disappeared and a great burden rolled off my spirit. I felt exactly like I did when I was a little boy around my mother's knee when she told of Jesus and God and Heaven. It made my heart thrill then, and the same old experience returned to me in that old country Church that beautiful September morning down in old North Georgia.

I at once gave my name to the preacher for membership in the Church, and the following Sunday morning, along with many others, he received me into full membership in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. It was one of the most delightful days in my recollection. It was the third Sunday in September, 1866, and those Church vows became a living principle in my heart and life. During these forty-five long years, with their alternations of sunshine and shadow, daylight and darkness, success and failure, rejoicing and weeping, fears within and fightings without, I have never ceased to thank God for that autumnal day in the long ago when my name was registered in the Lamb's Book of Life.

GC Rankin also makes reference to the old Cripple Creek camp meeting. Our services were exactly like these 100 years before us. The Civil War and WWII generations were very kin in the fact that they worshiped the Lord with all their heart, soul, and body.

I passed my examinations and that year I was sent to the Wytheville Station and Circuit. That was adjoining my former charge. We reached the old parsonage on the pike just out of Wytheville as Rev. B. W. S. Bishop moved out. Charley Bishop was then a little tow-headed boy. He is now the learned Regent of Southwestern University. The parsonage was an old two-and-a-half-story structure with nine rooms and it looked a little like Hawthorne's house with the seven gables. It was the lonesomest-looking old house I ever saw. There was no one there to meet us, for we had not notified anybody of the time we would arrive.

Think of taking a young bride to that sort of a mansion! But she was brave and showed no sign of disappointment. That first night we felt like two whortleberries in a Virginia tobacco wagonbed. We had room and to spare, but it was scantily furnished with specimens as antique as those in Noah's ark. But in a week or so we were invited out to spend the day with a good family, and when we went back we found the doors fastened just as we had left them, but when we entered a bedroom was elegantly furnished with everything modern and the parlor was in fine shape. The ladies had been there and done the work. How much does the preacher owe to the good women of the Church!

The circuit was a large one, comprising seventeen appointments. They were practically scattered all over the county. I preached every other day, and never less than twice and generally three times on Sunday. I had associated with me that year a young collegemate, Rev. W. B. Stradley. He was a bright, popular fellow, and we managed to give Wytheville regular Sunday preaching. Stradley became a great preacher and died a few years ago while pastor of Trinity Church, Atlanta, Georgia. We were true yokefellows and did a great work on that charge, held fine revivals and had large ingatherings.

The famous Cripple Creek Campground was on that work. They have kept up campmeetings there for more than a hundred years. It is still the great rallying point for the Methodists of all that section. I have never heard such singing and preaching and shouting anywhere else in my life. I met the Rev. John Boring there and heard him preach. He was a well-known preacher in the conference; original, peculiar, strikingly odd, but a great revival preacher.

One morning in the beginning of the service he was to preach and he called the people to prayer. He prayed loud and long and told the Lord just what sort of a meeting we were expecting and really exhorted the people as to their conduct on the grounds. Among other things, he said we wanted no horse- trading and then related that just before kneeling he had seen a man just outside the encampment looking into the mouth of a horse and he made such a peculiar sound as he described the incident that I lifted up my head to look at him, and he was holding his mouth open with his hands just as the man had done in looking into the horse's mouth! But he was a man of power and wrought well for the Church and for humanity.

The rarest character I ever met in my life I met at that campmeeting in the person of Rev. Robert Sheffy, known as "Bob" Sheffy. He was recognized all over Southwest Virginia as the most eccentric preacher of that country. He was a local preacher; crude, illiterate, queer and the oddest specimen known among preachers. But he was saintly in his life, devout in his experience and a man of unbounded faith. He wandered hither and thither over that section attending meetings, holding revivals and living among the people. He was great in prayer, and Cripple Creek campground was not complete without "Bob" Sheffy. They wanted him there to pray and work in the altar.

He was wonderful with penitents. And he was great in following up the sermon with his exhortations and appeals. He would sometimes spend nearly the whole night in the straw with mourners; and now and then if the meeting lagged he would go out on the mountain and spend the entire night in prayer, and the next morning he would come rushing into the service with his face all aglow shouting at the top of his voice. And then the meeting always broke loose with a floodtide.

He could say the oddest things, hold the most unique interviews with God, break forth in the most unexpected spasms of praise, use the homeliest illustrations, do the funniest things and go through with the most grotesque performances of any man born of woman.It was just "Bob" Sheffy, and nobody thought anything of what he did and said, except to let him have his own way and do exactly as he pleased. In anybody else it would not have been tolerated for a moment. In fact, he acted more like a crazy man than otherwise, but he was wonderful in a meeting. He would stir the people, crowd the mourner's bench with crying penitents and have genuine conversions by the score. I doubt if any man in all that conference has as many souls to his credit in the Lamb's Book of Life as old "Bob" Sheffy.

At the close of that year in casting up my accounts I found that I had received three hundred and ninety dollars for my year's work, and the most of this had been contributed in everything except money. It required about the amount of cash contributed to pay my associate and the Presiding Elder. I got the chickens, the eggs, the butter, the ribs and backbones, the corn, the meat, and the Presiding Elder and Brother Stradley had helped us to eat our part of the quarterage. Well, we kept open house and had a royal time, even if we did not get much ready cash. We lived and had money enough to get a good suit of clothes and to pay our way to conference. What more does a young Methodist preacher need or want? We were satisfied and happy, and these experiences are not to be counted as unimportant assets in the life and work of a Methodist circuit rider.

I believe that the old Civil War and World War revivals will totally dissipate away in my lifetime. Leaving us in a world of annoying cold and darkened hearted people.

Now as touching things offered unto idols, we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth. And if any man think that he knoweth any thing, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know. But if any man love God, the same is known of him. - 1 Corinthians 8:1-3

"Knowledge puffeth up" I cannot tell you the churches in my area that did well with the old WWII type preacher. They get a pastor with a Masters degree, and because the man has no spiritual stuff, ends up driving the congregation away.

Pavel Mosko said:

That sort of thing does not need to happen. Unfortunately, Pentecostalism does not usually stress certain classic Christian themes like reverence, the handing down of tradition from generation to generation etc. as much as the more ancient end of the Christian World does.

Take Care.

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We Pentecostal Holiness come out of the Methodist revival 100 years before us. The Methodist revival was best in the 1800's, and the Pentecostal Holiness revival was best in the 1900's. One was the Civil War generation, and the other the World War generations. I was fortunate to have experienced the tail end of the later. I wish the generations were to have handed down the spirituality I was accustomed to growing up. If we would have maintained our spirituality I would have dubbed us superior to all other brands of Christianity.

I have tried to preserve this revival at my site at youtube.com/rockytopva. The videos have not done bad as I am at 1,641,790 views. Spiritually I must cry along with the old song, "Carry me back to old Virginny"

Pavel Mosko said:

I actually think one big problem in this are is the "New Wine Skin" paradigm that many Spirit filled believers have. They think that solution to every problem is some kind of new strategy and often don't seem to come across like they have any sort of respect for some of the older aspects of their heritage etc. And I will add many don't seem to recognize the spiritual worth of having churches, and practices etc. endure from generation (even though the Bible actually has a lot to say about it!).


Incidentally, this has been a theme I've thought about a lot and am planning on posting a thread on it on the Spirit Filled / Charismatic board sometime in the very near future, if your interested.

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I was looking back on my old high school days and can’t remember any practicing Christians. One of my old high school teachers passed away and there was no mention of any kind of Christian funeral service. In this world everything seems to be about getting the most out of this present life, with no thoughts of the other. The fear is to lie on ones death bed having not experienced it all, as if there is no pleasure in the afterlife.

As far as strategies, I welcome any Christian church congregation to try something new, while looking over their shoulder to see how all of that goes over.

Pavel Mosko said:

I actually think one big problem in this area is the "New Wine Skin" paradigm that many Spirit filled believers have. They think that solution to every problem is some kind of "new strategy" and often don't seem to come across like they have any sort of respect for some of the older aspects of their heritage etc. And I will add many don't seem to recognize the spiritual worth of having churches, and practices etc. endure from generation (even though the Bible actually has a lot to say about it!).


Incidentally, this has been a theme I've thought about a lot and am planning on posting a thread on it on the Spirit Filled / Charismatic board sometime in the very near future, if your interested.

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Here is an Oriental Orthodox service with a Charasmatic feel... Thoughts???

bekkilyn said:

One of the issues that I run into as a new Methodist pastor is that people are reluctant to get too enthusiastic in church. I'm often the only one yelling "Amen" after a hymn or music and haven't really been able to get anyone else besides me to clap along with some of the livelier music. (Did "Turn the Radio On" this past Sunday!) They seem to enjoy it though so it's probably more a mixture of being "shy" along with they've probably been taught to behave a certain way in church that's hard to break out of. I think I sometimes irk those who are more formal and liturgical than I am.

For preaching, I focus on the gospel and let the Spirit take it from there. I agree with the need for more revival in general.

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In his journal, Francis Asbury frequently writes about attending and preaching at camp meetings. He shares reports of large attendance and many conversions. He saw camp meetings as vital to evangelistic ministry.

In a letter to a Methodist preacher dated December 2, 1802, Asbury writes, “I wish you would also hold campmeetings; they have never been tried without success. To collect such a number of God's people together to pray, and the ministers to preach, and the longer they stay, generally, the better.” He then concludes with a reference to Matthew 4:19, “This is fishing with a large net” (p. 477).

A typical camp meeting lasted 8-10 days, sometimes longer. Families would pitch a tent on the grounds and attend preaching, Bible studies, and class meetings throughout the day, and sometimes long into the night. - “Fishing with a large net”: United Methodist camp meetings – The United Methodist Church

bekkilyn said:

One of the issues that I run into as a new Methodist pastor is that people are reluctant to get too enthusiastic in church. I'm often the only one yelling "Amen" after a hymn or music and haven't really been able to get anyone else besides me to clap along with some of the livelier music. (Did "Turn the Radio On" this past Sunday!) They seem to enjoy it though so it's probably more a mixture of being "shy" along with they've probably been taught to behave a certain way in church that's hard to break out of. I think I sometimes irk those who are more formal and liturgical than I am.

For preaching, I focus on the gospel and let the Spirit take it from there. I agree with the need for more revival in general.

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We had a Methodist evangelist preach at our old Baptist church and hold revival meetings. We would all gather for prayer after the message. I brought a friend who testified as, “never prayed so hard.”

I bought a message, it is from the mid 1970’s, and have uploaded it on YouTube.

God does not want us cool, cold, or Lukewarm....

So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. -Revelation 3:16

“It is not fitting, when one is in God's service, to have a gloomy face or a chilling look." -Saint Francis

I was born on a military base to a

1. Dad - Who studied to be a priest in Catholic seminary
2. Mom - Brought up Pentecostal Holiness and on a farm

We moved up in central Michigan when I was in grade school where I got a paper route and a motorcycle. The school of the time was very wild. You could hear the 70’s rock and roll all the time with young people out in the fields smoking dope. One day while on a route a church bus stops and the driver yells out the door that I needed to be in church.The next thing I know the whole family is attending the local baptist church. The whole youth group would go to church and also party it up with the others of the day. I ended up growing my hair long and falling in with the times.

When I was seventeen I moved in with my grandmother and attended a party with the young people. I had thought I had snuck in the house good enough, but just as I had got in bed my grandmothers light turned on. There at the doorway my grandmother stood with tears running down her cheeks soaking into her nightgown, making for, I do know, the most pitiful sight (and most powerful sermon) I have ever see. I told her I would not do that again and kept my word.

So I fell in with the Pentecostal Holiness people. I would work the restaurant in the mornings, the hayfields in the afternoon and go to the revivals at night. We had a wonderful youth group and would go to the many functions. I came into a Pentecostal Holiness Church that was in revival. The old guys would sit back in the pew and weep while the people before them were being laid out in the Spirit. If they looked back and catch the amazed look in my eye they would weep, "The Holy Ghost! The Holy Ghost!" As they pointed to the souls blessed around the altar. After being in such an environment for months one evening while laying on my bed reading Nikki Cruises "Run Baby Run" I felt the Holy Spirit speak to me for the first time to put the book down. When I did he says again, "Where is all that stress, tension, bad feelings, and the like?" In which examining my soul there was nothing there but pure beauty, and in the words of George Clark Rankin,

"As we returned home the sun shone brighter, the birds sang sweeter and the autumn-time looked richer than ever before. My heart was light and my spirit buoyant. I had anchored my soul in the haven of rest, and there was not a ripple upon the current of my joy. That night there was no service and after supper I walked out under the great old pine trees and held communion with God. I thought of mother, and home, and Heaven.

"I at once gave my name to the preacher for membership in the Church, and the following Sunday morning, along with many others, he received me into full membership in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. It was one of the most delightful days in my recollection. It was the third Sunday in September, 1866, and those Church vows became a living principle in my heart and life. During these forty-five long years, with their alternations of sunshine and shadow, daylight and darkness, success and failure, rejoicing and weeping, fears within and fightings without, I have never ceased to thank God for that autumnal day in the long ago when my name was registered in the Lamb's Book of Life." - The Life of George Clark Rankin

What I ran into I can only describe as a light and an energy that delighted my soul. The old WWII generation would normally have small farms, work local jobs, and it was church at night. The people would work hard Mo-Fr, town on Saturday, and church on Sunday. There were blue laws that kept the places of businesses closed on Sunday, making for I can only describe as an area of Wesleyan culture.