The united American : a magazine of good citizenchip., January 01, 1925, Page 24, Image 24

Page Twenty-four
the pastors stay. The church is a going
concern.
' * * *
Education has always been a strong
feature of the work of New Providence,
and the scholarship and culture of the
men whom it has called to its ministry
is a matter of careful pride. It is gener­
ally acknowledged that the inspiration
of Washington and Lee University came
principally from this congregation and
that the church had much to do with the
founding of that famous Virginia in­
stitution.
The community has an accredited high
school, with a Smith-Hughes agricultural
school in connection with it, a professor
of agriculture and a professor of home
economies.
And now let me tell you of a work of
human reclamation in which both pastor
and people shared.
Once there was a little settlement of
strangers almost in the exact center of
New Providence. The children never
went to school. Few if any of the grown
people could read or write. They
were of the purest Anglo-Saxon blood,
but New Providence people had nothing
to do with them.
And so, as the generations grew to
maturity and passed on, the two com­
munities existed, one within the other,
each avoiding the other.
The New Providence pastor set him­
self to win these people by the human
touch that makes all men divine.
First, he interested one of the girls,
16 years old, to come to the Sunday
school. Her people objected violently.
They were proud. They had never been
recognized by members of New Provi­
dence.
But somehow the girl sensed it and
she kept going to the Sunday school. It
may have been a religious motive that
first stirred her to break through the
prejudices of generations of caste pride
around her, but the thing that held her
in the Sunday school was Tnat she
learned to read there!
She took her slender flame of
knowledge back to her mountain home
and told her folks that thé New Provi­
dence people were kind and helpful. She
showed, them how the world had opened
up to her since she had learned to read,
and by and by, others drifted in. Then,
one day, old “Grandpap,” whose worl
was the only law recognized by that
mountain settlement, appeared before
the session of New Providence Church
to make a public confession of ris faiti
and to ask admission into the church.
He was accepted and then the old man
showed that he, too, could meet a true
Christian spirit half way. He stood up
before those men of the session and,
with tears streaming down his face, he
said:
“You-all don’t know what this means
to me. All my life I’ve lived here in
New Providence and the devil has been
telling me all these years that you people
of New Providence Church did not want
THE UNITED AMERICAN
me. I know now that it was a lie of the
devil’s own making.”
A primitive theology that, but honest
and sincere, and the acceptance of the
old man by the congregation marked the
end of caste lines. In addition to old
“Grandpap” ten other aged people joined
the church. Every child in that com­
munity now goes to school and they
are making good as they grow up.
And why shouldn’t it be thus ?
Two thousand years ago a Man in
Galilee was neither ashamed nor afraid
to break bread with the humble and
lowly. “I was an hungered, and ye gave
me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave
me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took
me in.”
The pastor practiced what he preached.
And what manner of man is this
Virginia pastor.
He is the Rev. Henry W. McLaughlin,
D. D., born in Marlinton, West Virginia,
of a long line of stalwart, country-loving
ancestry. He was educated at Hampden-
Sidney College and the Louisville Theo­
logical Seminary, and secured his Doctor
of Divinity degree from Washington and
Lee University in 1917.
He has been continually in the
ministry since 1896, working first in
the coal fields as a missionary, then for
two and a half years as pastor of the
Presbyterian Church at Hampton, Vir­
ginia, then in country-church work in
West Virginia. After a tour abroad in
Palestine, the Mediterranean countries
and England he was for six and a half
years pastor of the Stuart Robinson
Memorial Church in Louisville.
He married Miss Nellie Swann Brown,
whose father, grandfather and great­
grandfather were clergymen and whose
great-grandmother was the famous Mary
Moore, “the captive of Abbs Valley,”
of New Providence congregation. When
the church was looking for a pastor
fifteen year ago, it is not surprising that
they discovered Henry W. McLaughlin.
* * «
In ten years the church membership
practically doubled.
It is not so much his actual work as
a pastor that makes Doctor McLaughlin
unusual. It is what we may call his
avocations that attract the most atten­
tion to him beyond his church connec­
tions. Not only is he a gifted orator,
a fine theologian, and so prominent a
leader in church affairs that he was
one of the nominees for moderator at
the last general assembly of the
Southern Presbyterian Church — he is a
business leader whose influence is felt
far beyond the borders of Virginia.
He writes me a letterhead inscribed,
“Ad-Interim Committee on the Country
Church, appointed by the General As­
sembly of the Presbyterian Church, U.
S’., 1923, Rev. H. W. McLaughlin, D. D.,
Secretary,” and then comes another on
this letterhead: “American Hampshire
Sheep Association, H. W. McLaughlin,
Vice President.” He is also a director
JANUARY, 1925 1
of the Polled Shorthorn Society and of I
the Virginia State Fair Association.
The New Providence pastor breeds I
and develops his livestock at Maxwelton
Stock Farm, the McLaughlin homestead
in Greenbrier County, West Virginia.
Last year his Polled Shorthorns won
18 championships, 56 firsts, 20 seconds, I
14 thirds, 10 fourths, 2 fifths and 2 I
sevenths. At the 1923 International I
Livestock Exposition at Chicago, the 11
Maxwelton cattle won many honors.
The Hampshire sheep at Maxwelton II
have not been shown in recent years, but II
formerly they won many prizes.
♦ * *
j
“The man is a born leader,” said Elder I
Walter E. Beard of his congregation I
on the occasion of his tenth anniversary I
four years ago. “He can look ahead. 1 1
Eight years ago this thought struck him: II
“Here we are out in the country, all
thrifty substantial people of several ■
hundred families. We are all farmers; I
we need credit from time to time to buy 1
supplies, meet bills, feed cattle, and so I
on. Provided we keep it at home, there I
is money enough right here in the com- I
munity to take care of all the credit I
that we are likely to require — all that I
would be good for us certainly. Now 1 1
we go to Staunton or somewhere else I
to do our banking. What if something 1
happened to shut off credit again like ■
•the panic of 1907? Why not pool our ■
credit resources for the benefit of the I
people who live here?
Doctor McLaughlin made this sugges-l
tion to some of the leading men of the!
congregation and the result was the!
■organization of the Bank of Brownsburg I
under the laws of Virginia, with a capital]
of $12,000.
The little bank has more than met the!
hopes of its founders. The stock is now!
worth $220 for each $100 invested.
Doctor McLaughlin’s suggestion was I
prophetic. When credit stopped in 192011
this bank kept right on meeting the I
credit needs of its depositors without I
serious difficulty. It is said that this!
•bank had many opportunities during the I
riotous year and a half following the!
Armistice to send its funds to metropoli-1
tan centers at rates of interest far be-’ I
yond what its farmer customers could I
afford to pay. Every such offer was I
turned down, because the Bank of I
Brownsburg and its deposits are used I
primarily for the benefit of the com-!
munity — in carrying out which policy!
the bank makes good money.
Doesn’t that sound like a very practical I
application of the Golden Rule?
Modern Marriage. — The daughter:!
But, mother, you surely don’t want me!
to marry that fellow? I hate this worn- 1
out vagabond, .this dish-rag, this soft«
brained idiot — I simply detest him! I
The mother: That is all very well, I
my child! But you will have plenty of I
opportunity to tell him all this after!
you are married to him. — (Translated)!