My friends - Today we are looking at another of the delightful narratives written by Dr. Alexander Gordon Wilson, as taken from his little book, "Fidelity Folks". Dr. Wilson(the son of Dr. Marquis Pillow Wilson) was born in Fidelity - better known to us as New Concord - and was raised there to an adult. Today's essay is entitled "Sulphur Springs Church", and is a sentimental reminder to us of how things used to be in the old country churches. -B +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ SULPHUR SPRINGS CHURCH -Dr. A. Gordon Wilson "Fidelity Folks" Much of my childhood revolved around Sulphur Springs Church, which has now been moved to Fidelity because of the great Kentucky Lake flooding the area in winter. The nearness of the church to my home made me a Methodist, even though my parents were Presbyterians. This same nearness made our home the official headquarters of preachers during protracted meetings. And many visitors came to our house when the season was not suitable for dinner on the ground. Some of the fields I cultivated were near the church, with the result that I passed it nearly every day of my life. Hence the sadness at seeing it disappear as a building, though the organization continues intact in the village. Sunday School froze out at Sulphur Springs late in the fall and did not return until the first Sunday in April. Then we started all over again, with good smelling Sunday School books and bright cards. April meant spring, and spring meant wild flowers in bloom around the church and small fish building their nests in the shallow creek. April meant new leaves, and odors of blossoming vegetation drifting into the church through the open windows and somewhat softening the harsh theology that we had to listen to. All through the summer we kept up attendance rather well, unless the young people wanted to go a farm wagon up the creek to a foot-washing at a Primitive Baptist church or planned to go still farther away to some all-day meeting with dinner on the ground. The preacher came pretty regularly on second Sundays through the good months and always staged a protracted meeting right in the hottest, dustiest part of the summer. All this kept the Sunday School going, but I doubt whether the working of miracles could have made it "evergreen," that is, lasting through the cold months. Winter was for neighborhood visiting and rabbit hunting and parties. No night ever got too cold for us to ride horseback miles to a frolic, however easily a mere Sunday School might freeze out. Right now I could go through the catechism I used to say every Sunday when I was a little boy. It was not the Shorter Catechism or any published form but concerned itself with the oldest, wisest, strongest, and other famous people of the Bible. It became such a matter of associative memory that if the teacher had suddenly asked us who swallowed a whale, we would have yelled "Jonah" before we could think, if we ever thought, anyway. The catechism was not a part of the lesson proper. The lesson, for the very small ones, at least, was printed cards in question-and-answer form. Big Sister or Mother taught it to us by rote. Since there were only a few questions, we soon had our lesson said and had to be kept quiet while the elderly people discussed with more heat than light some abstruse points in theology raised by the lesson for the day. I always shone on these drills, for I had a good memory and an auctioneer's voice and could drown out six to ten ordinary youngsters. For rewards we got cards, much like the ones mentioned in TOM SAWYER. I never knew of any one's trading cards as Tom did, but some of us might have if we had not feared the "wrath to come," or, more specifically, our parents. One year I attended Sunday School every Sunday and had a perfect lesson, whatever that meant; consequently, I got a Bible for a reward. Since then I have taken several degrees and have had some college honors, but none of them made me feel as big as I did when I marched down the aisle of the little country church to get my Bible. At Sunday School, as at church, people were kept separated into the two sexes, just as the Lord had made them. The men sat one side, from the Amen Corner, with its elders and respectable gentlemen, back to the disorderly bunch near the door. We even invented the term "Awomen Corner" to designate the dignified group of elderly women. At Sulphur Springs, unlike many country churches, there was a middle row of seats where men and women could sit together. This space came to be largely for young courting couples. Then there was, later times, the choir, where it was very appropriate for the sexes to sit together. To sit either place and fan one's best girl with an open-and-shut fan while all the bad boys of the neighborhood looked on is one of the hottest jobs I ever tackled. Fidelity, though loudly proclaiming its individuality, feared to be different. Consequently, when other churches of circuit and some of the Baptist churches got organs, sentiment began to develop for an organ at our church. Some conservative members opposed the idea, saying that they could find no organ in their Bibles. They could not find any buggies, either, but they never thought of that. The persistent souls ultimately got the organ, paid for it, and installed it in our church. It was thought best to enlarge the preacher's little platform to include the choir loft. When the new organ was dedicated, along about 1897, the whole area turned out, Methodists and Baptists and Christians, those who approved of organs and those who did not. I as a child singer did my part in the Children's Day exercises with which we began the new era. From the day that we got the organ our music changed. Formerly we had sung only to the monotonous lining of the parson on preaching Sundays and from memory an Sunday School mornings. Now we had to have new songbooks. Only rarely did an old-fashioned Preacher like our superannuated Methodist dentist-preacher insist on having at least one lined hymn a service. We got to singing snappy songs from newer books and increased the tempo of our religion a bit. The old-timers, who sat down in the church and not on the stage, had difficulty in keeping up with, and sometimes came in a length behind, the choir. The organist did her best to keep us all together and by degrees got the older ones to stay fairly close to the rest of us. The organ loft, made of wide planks, looked somewhat bare. Some good women suggested that it be carpeted. The same conservatives opposed and lost. And so a carpet was put on the choir loft and down the two aisles to the doors. When all this was done, the church looked dressed up and must have tempted the preacher mightily to discuss the worldliness of his congregation, but for some strange reason he did not. And the organ, with its new brightness, brought a whole reform into the little old church and helped keep it alive until the great power dam backed the waters of the Tennessee River up the creek and covered forever the site of Sulphur Springs. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++