Sabbath Day in Walnut Ridge

Copyright © 2007¹

Chapter 3 of the book
Boyhood Memories & Lessons
by
Isaiah Reid

This article is also available in the complete paperback version.

THERE ARE OTHER FACTORS than nature around us whose environments have large part in molding and shaping all young life. Parental influence is both pre- and post-natal. Doubtless there are hereditary tendencies in our nature which largely affect us; but greater, perhaps, are the early home life influences. I remember Bishop William Taylor² told us, when speaking of the children born in Africa, that they were not born heathen, though born on heathen soil, and that if they were taken before they had learned the ways of their people, they were no more heathen than our children. This makes but little place for hereditary influence, and places the more weighty bulk of evidence in favor of early life and teachings.

Traveling in review the byways of my early life, I notice there is much in hereditary and early family life that has helped to make me what I am, though it was not until later years I came to any commensurate idea of its importance. My grandparents, though not like Timothy’s, Greek and Jewish,³ were nevertheless in their way marked—Scotch and Scotch-Irish. On the paternal side, Grandfather Reid⁴ was Scotch. Living for a time in North Ireland, he married Mary Clyde, from Dublin. Later they came seeking a home in America, and located for a number of years in South Carolina. In 1815 they re­moved to Indiana. My maternal parents were McKnights, from Glasgow.⁵ Both my parents were American-born. All of my family for generations were old-line Scotch Presbyterians of the real old Covenanter type, as a number of them are yet.

Detail from an early cover of Traditions of the Covenanters.

The history and The Traditions of the Covenanters⁶ were more in mind and more often the subject of conversation, and indeed more priz­ed in my boyhood, than the history of the United States. My early mind was filled with these things before I learned to read for myself, by hearing of them in conversation, in the pulpit, and by the family reading. I often had my heart wrung with the history of their persecutions and mar­tyr­doms. Claver­house⁷ with his dragoons and their bloody deeds were more familiar to me than the story of the brave men who gave us our own country, where such demons are impossible. The stories of the Cam­erons,⁸ the Hutch­insons,⁹ Mar­garet Wilson,¹⁰ and kindred other records were often rehearsed.

In our home the Psalms were sung in daily worship, and the Westminster Cat­e­chism memorized and repeated every Sunday evening. “Occasional Hear­ing,” as they called attending the meetings of other denominations, was count­ed a cause for discipline. The old doctrines of Calvinism, and at­titude of the church towards Catholicism, and all doctrinal error, and iden­ti­fication with the Government of the United States because it did not actually name Jesus Christ in the Constitution, and other evils which it sheltered or compromised,¹¹ were the staple of the long sermons and the frequent conversations of brethren when they met together.

Sunday, or Sabbath, as we called the day, was a real day of worship and rest. The family restraint was good for us. The family practices were such as are much needed now. In fact, Sunday began on Saturday, when plans were laid and work arranged so as to secure the worship and rest need­ed. Mother did up her baking so that there was but little to do the next day. Wood was prepared winter and summer. Clothes were made ready and shoes were cleaned and put in order, and the wagon or carriage also made ready. Somehow we woke up with the sacredness of the day on us. There was an un­usual quiet. Mother went about her work quietly. Father was out for the need­ful morning chores and back before breakfast, reading something suit­able for the day. All boisterous play and noise were soon hushed into com­parative silence. We understood the usual plays and sports of the week rested, as well as the plow, axe and hoe. Balls and ball clubs were to be untouched. The gun was not to be taken from its place. There was no hunting and ranging over the coun­try with neighbor boys, going fish­ing and swimming, or even absenting ourselves from church. The rule with all our people was to all go to church, if possible, and families sat together. There was no gathering of a lot of unruly young men in one place, nor a bevy of giggling girls in another.

The home had all been tidied up, or “redd up,” as they used to say,¹² on Saturday evening, the secular reading and books all put aside. The rule was, religious reading for Sabbath. Breakfast over, we gathered for morning worship. A Psalm was sung, a chapter read, and prayer offered. Between that and church time we had a siege of learning catechism questions, or memorizing a Psalm, or any religious reading we chose after our memorizing had been done.

Church lasted from about 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., save half an hour for “interval,” when we talked, walked around, and ate cold lunch we had taken with us. You see, the people were few at best and the people of our church widely scattered, and they could not climb these hills and travel over the long roads more than once a day. So they held two long services when they got together. They did seem like a whole week to me. As I could not in my first years understand what was being talked about, I had to tax myself in putting in the long hours in which I had to find something to interest myself. The seat would get awful hard. All the trying of new positions would not answer but only for a short time, while the preacher climbed up to his “sixthly.” Then I would whisper to mother and get leave of absence. How free I felt as I ran out and away under the great green trees, where I stayed just as long as I dared. Trees and squirrels and birds and flowers had some interest, for I could understand them better than the preacher.

When at last the benediction was announced, somehow new life came into me at once when the “Amen” had been said. If ever a boy enjoyed a dinner, I did when we reached home Sunday after the long service. Dinner over, general quiet reigned till chore-time, when we went each to our special part. We never had night meeting in all my time. It was a country place. Around the evening fire in the winter, or in the after­glow of the sum­mer sun dying behind the orchard, we had reading for a time, then began the Sunday recital of the Catechism, in rotation, each one going only as far as he had memorized, and all who were able going en­tirely through.

I have contrasted often the hard Sunday on a camp-meeting ground, or the exacting work of a pastor, with this grand old day of rest and worship, and longed for one more just such a day. I felt new all over, and all through Monday morning as I went afield for work. It actually seemed as if I was made over. The very horses and dogs seemed as if rested also, or else I thought they did. Nor was this all. The fields had lain quiet all day and they seemed to have gathered new life also. The young corn appeared as if laughing as the plow passed the hills. The clover fields had added wealth and halos of new glory. The meadows and wheat and oat fields moved in billowy waves of living green as the fresh winds fanned them in passing. The birds sang ringing notes, and the bobwhite rang out his note with special cheer from the edge of the meadow.

There was no blue Monday in our almanacs at that time. A sabbath well spent is a week well begun. The want of quiet in our present Sunday ex­cessive activity is a great defect in many respects. Demanded as the activity is, never­theless it shortens life and uses up the workers.

Such were some of the formative influences that have contributed all these years to shape my life and to lay foundations for the present building, and still yet hold life in channels which fix destiny marks on it. I carry certain defects as well as great features of sterling value. Fidelity to principle holds me as bands of steel. The lack of a better social element in my forefathers’ church life follows me persistently. The want of more joy and conscious victory in their daily living follows ever with me. The life of ex­pectation rather than a life more full of realization is a kind of result of dwelling so much on the Solemn League and Covenant¹³ and the going to death rather than recant, instead of dwelling more on the actual realization of the blessings of salvation in everyday life.

But for all these, and more, how well loyalty to conviction, even to the death, the sanctity of the Sabbath, reverence for the house of God, the place and authority of the Bible, the indoctrination of the catechism, and the preservation in the security of the Christian home fully atones! Who can ever estimate the value of these in the formation of character and the shaping of life?

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