offer to all freedom in Christian service.

* * * * *

THEN AND NOW.

BY MISS L.A. PARMELEE.


THEN.

Nearly twenty years ago a little company of Christians at Byron, Ga.,
decided to form a Congregational Church. Their place of worship was a
bush arbor or "bush harbor" as it was usually called. Feeling the need
of more frequent ministrations than the pastor of Macon could furnish,
they asked to have one of their own number licensed as a leader. A
Council of churches was called at Andersonville, and the candidate
presented himself for examination.

He was a working man in middle life; his personal appearance bespoke him
better fitted for the blacksmith's forge than the pulpit. His literary
qualifications reached their limit when he could slowly read from his
pocket Testament that "God so loved the world," and "Jesus Christ came
into the world to save sinners." In theology, he was prepared to
discuss, with race shrewdness and quaint corn-field illustrations, the
doctrines of election and future punishment. His Congregationalism
comprised three points,--"To live by the Bible, to have only one wife,
and to not drink whiskey"--good points for that time, and popularly
supposed to represent the new denomination.