When I think about the old circuit riders, I sometimes envy them. They lived and preached in a time when life was not so hectic. Most of them traveled by horseback and most of the traffic they met were traveling the same way. They had time to speak, and maybe stop to talk. News from one settlement to another was carried this way. Many times, the preacher was asked to "come on to the house, and stay a spell." One of the "youngans" would run down to the creek and fetch a cold crock of buttermilk and a tub of fresh churned butter. This would be served with fresh cornbread or maybe biscuit bread. The preacher would probably read the scripture and pray for the family, and their livestock and their crops.
My grandfather would sometimes hold "revival meetings" that would last for a week or two. He would stay with a family of the church who would feed him and provide a place to sleep. In turn, he would help with the crops, and the livestock. (He was good at "horse shoeing"), he might even repair the shingle roof or move the "outhouse." Pa wasn't afraid of manual labor. No matter what else he did, every night, he would preach the Word of God, either in a church or a brush arbor.
These circuit riders served in an era when people had time to go to church. I'm not saying everybody went to church. I am saying the "church people" went to church. They didn't have so many things to distract them. There were no such things as TV, computers, video games, ball games, four wheelers and all the rest.
Were those better times? I believe families were stronger. Parents cared for their children and part of that caring was discipline. There were fewer jails and prisons, and the ones they had were less populated. Some of them had no beds. The prisoners slept on a pallet on the floor. In the morning, after breakfast they went to the fields or the woods to work. It was not considered child abuse to make a young person work in the house and the fields, and it was not considered abuse to punish a child when they refused.
I do think of some things that I consider child abuse: playing ball in 95-degree temperatures, allowing them to run the streets unchecked, taking them to the mall and leaving them, allowing "little girls" to dress like floosies and date grown men, allowing them to dictate to parents what they will and won't do. I believe these are forms of child abuse practiced by lazy and unwilling parents.
I don't pretend to be an expert on city life, even though I have been in every major city in the United states, but I'm talking about the mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee where my grandfather lived, preached, died and lies buried.
Now, someone is saying, "If it were left up to him, we would still be riding horses." I still do ride one! The difference is, it's faster and has more stamina.
See ya on the road, and remember, watch out for bikers! They have families too.
--Bill Hamilton
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