Читать книгу Life of Charles T. Walker, D.D. ("The Black Spurgeon") - Silas Xavier Floyd - Страница 11

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The Rev. Mr. Walker soon became noted as a preacher in and around Augusta. Possessing a fair knowledge of the Bible, and at all times an earnest and enthusiastic speaker, the people literally crowded to hear the “boy preacher,” as the Rev. C. T. Walker, on account of his age and youthful appearance, was called for a good many years after he entered the ministry. October 1st, 1877, he was called to the pastorate of the Franklin Covenant Baptist Church, near Hephzibah, and assumed the duties of the office on the first day of January, 1878. This was the church of which he was a member, of which his father had been a deacon, and of which, before him, two of his uncles had been pastors. Calls to other churches followed in rapid succession, and by the time he reached his twenty-first birthday, February, 1879, he was pastor of the four following churches: Franklin Covenant Baptist Church, near Hephzibah, Ga.; Thankful Baptist Church, Waynesboro, Ga.; McKinnie’s Branch Baptist Church, Burke County, Ga., and Mount Olive Baptist Church, in the suburbs of Augusta, Ga. If it seem strange that one man should be the pastor of so many churches, it may be stated that it is customary in the country districts of the South for one preacher to be in charge of several churches. He will give about one Sunday in every month to each church. Sometimes the churches served by one pastor are all in the same county. Sometimes they are separated by many miles. Of course, no real pastoral work can be done in this way. Of necessity the people suffer; no continuous, well-organized spiritual training can be kept up. But, as a rule, the country churches are unable to properly pay their pastors, and but for this system which allows one minister to pastor several churches, there are many churches which would be without any pastor. Even under the present system it is very difficult for the majority of pastors to secure anything like proper remuneration.

The Rev. Mr. Walker, nevertheless, was not to be doomed to the drudgery of pastoring several churches at one and the same time. After a little more than one year’s service, he resigned all of his other churches to become pastor of the First Baptist Church at LaGrange, Ga., in the early part of 1880.

It was with very great regret that the churches which he had been serving consented to his withdrawal. Two of them voted to increase his salary if he would decide to continue to serve them. He had done good service, and these struggling churches felt that it would be difficult to find any one who would be able to serve as well, as faithfully, and as acceptably as he had done. Hence, they objected to his removal. Especially was it hard for him to withstand the entreaties of his home church. The members of the Franklin Covenant Baptist Church held a mass meeting protesting against the withdrawal of their pastor and urging him to remain with his own people. When he announced to them his final decision, to the effect that he felt that the Lord was calling him to the new field of labor and that he would obey what he believed to be the call of the Holy Spirit, the whole congregation broke down in tears. It was a sad and trying experience in the life of the young preacher.

During the summer months of 1876, 1877, 1878 and 1879, the Rev. Mr. Walker taught school in the Franklin Covenant Baptist Church building. That is another thing that is peculiar to the rural districts of the South. In many places, perhaps in the majority of places, the public schools are conducted in church edifices, the States having no funds for buildings for schools and the people, as a rule, the white people as well as the colored people, being too poor to erect separate school buildings, find it convenient to use the church building for school purposes. As a school-teacher he was successful, so far as the conditions of the time and his own attainments warranted. It must be confessed, none the less, that he taught school as a means of support and to help him in paying his own expenses while attending the Augusta Institute.

June 19th, 1879, Rev. Mr. Walker was married to Miss Violet Q. Franklin, of Hephzibah, Ga. To them four children were born. Three children are dead. One son is still living—Master Jonathan Walker, a lad yet in his teens. One daughter, Mrs. Alberta Walker Hughes, left a daughter at her death, and this grandchild is pet of Dr. Walker and wife.

Dr. Walker remained in LaGrange for nearly three years. While there he was a busy, active, energetic, influential and successful pastor. It was while there that he gave promise of his future eminence as a soul-stirring, soul-saving evangelist. He conducted two of the most eventful revivals ever held in Western Georgia. More than four hundred souls were savingly converted, and more than three hundred were added to the church which he pastored. After these meetings, he received many invitations to conduct series of meetings in the leading Georgia cities, and accepted as many as he could well afford to accept without injury to his own work at LaGrange. At LaGrange he also established a school for Baptists, and was instrumental in having a large frame building erected for this purpose. The school finally grew into the LaGrange Academy, a large and influential Baptist High School. It was at LaGrange, also, that he read law for nearly two years under Judge Walker, one of the ablest members of the Georgia bar, and, though he was never admitted to the bar, it is evident that his legal learning has stood him in good stead in the exposition of many a Scripture passage, and, though the law may have lost a brilliant expounder, it is certain that a great leader and teacher was saved to the church and religion.