Pastoral Surprise in Guilford, 1867

Pastoral Surprise in Guilford

Chenango Telegraph & Chronicle, March 20, 1867

 

Messrs. Editors:  I do not believe that every act of kindness and good will of a people toward their Pastor is published, or should be published in the newspapers.  But if any people show "a more excellent way" than their neighbors, let that way he made known to the public.

 

The Congregational Church of Guilford Centre [Chenango Co., NY] has practically come up to the true idea of ministerial support, and is now a model church in this respect.  The people here believe in giving a sufficient salary to their minister, so that he can comfortably live without expecting, or depending, upon a huge donation, or charitable gifts to keep soul and body together.

 

Although these people give a good support to their minister, and he expects nothing more from them but a good letting alone, yet the Parsonage has been a constant recipient of the good things which the people here enjoy, thus showing their good will toward their minister, who had not the least claim upon them, and who is therefore really the more thankful.

 

Within a few weeks two surprise parties have taken possession of the Parsonage, which managed things in their own way, while the surrendered inmates looked on with mingled feelings of anxiety, of wonder, and of joy--And as to the result of these parties, it was wonderful, how they left the V's and X's in the hands of the surrendered ones, to show, I suppose, that they had no intention to do us any harm. 

 

And the last of these parties happened to come on the evening of my wife's birthday, and when they found it out, there was a general rush, great confusion, all talking loudly and noisily on the subject, and finally concluded, without a dissenting voice of course, to give her a whipping, and they did it, with a fifty dollar whip, made of "Green Backs."  Well, when we come to the reality of these things, they afford much joy, and encouragement.  When the Pastor knows that these precious gifts come from his people, not from a sense of duty or of pity toward him, but from their good will, they are doubly precious, because he is not dependent upon them for his living, because they are gifts.

 

And thus he is cheerfully encouraged to labor earnestly and faithfully for the good of the people and the glory of God.  And God is pouring out his blessing upon this church.  We trust that many have been hopefully converted unto God.  At our last communion eight persons by profession of their faith in Christ were received into the church and we expect a larger number to unite at our next communion.  "The liberal soul shall be made fat, and he that watereth shall be watered also himself"

 

Guilford, March 14, 1867, J.L. Jones.