The End of a Sinner

“Twenty years ago I came to this country. During these twenty years I have done my utmost to preserve and defend the faith of Mount Olivet Church.”

The person who spoke was Preacher Bonds. The place where he spoke was in his own pulpit. The persons to whom he spoke were his twenty members, who were the fragments of the once thriving and powerful rural church. Bonds was at his best on this particular Sunday morning in April, and he had planned to give his hearers a sort of history of the events during his twenty-years pastorate at Mount Olivet.

The morning was a most beautiful one. All nature wore a smile. Only those who have experienced the rare joy of taking a stroll through the wooded dell in the famous Ozarks on a spring morning can fully appreciate the scene. Spring had made her long-delayed journey from the southland, and by the strength of her warm and winning ways had forced grim old winter to a hasty retreat northward, and now exulted in her unchallenged sway. All the birds on this morning seemed to have come out to help her in her celebration. A red-bird, perched on the tip-top twig of the venerable oak which stood near the church, bathing his crimson feathers in the morning sun, warbled his sweetest notes to his mate in a hawthorn thicket across the field. Rollicking robins were vying with each other in their quest of worms in the meadow east of the church. A gray squirrel chattered in a hickory tree nearby and scattered particles of bark all around. A red-headed woodpecker sat in the round door of his cozy house in an old snag and seemed perfectly content in his utter inability to sing. Frolicsome spring lambs amused themselves by butting each other off a low stump down in the old Gramps cow pasture.

The Church itself showed signs of dilapidation. The belfry on the roof had been torn away and the old rusty bell, silent for many years, stood exposed to the ravages of summer and winter. Its only purpose now seemed to be to afford a shelter for the wasps which from year to year built their nests in its dome. The brick chimney, which projected from the roof near the rear of the building, had lost its crowning bricks and presented a very jagged aspect. For the accommodation of the squirrels who were accustomed to take up winter quarters in the attic of the church, the woodpeckers had pecked numerous holes in the paintless walls. The eaves were daubed with mud carried by the pewees in the building of their yearly nests. Bats, at their own good pleasure, came in and out through the paneless windowsashes and found daytime repose on top of the sagging beam which, just above the windows, spanned the room.

The physical condition of this Church house formed a fitting counterpart to the spiritual condition of the people who worshipped there. Physical, spiritual, and moral spelled the trinity of its decay.

Preacher Bonds’ sermon that morning ran something like this: “Twenty years ago I came to this country. Well do I remember the first few months after landing here. Some of the older members will recall the mighty religious fight that was just beginning in those days between the holiness heresy and the doctrines of the Bible as believed in by this church. Those few who are here this morning who have known me and have been my co-workers throughout these years, I am sure, testify to the steadfastness with which I have stood by the work. I said when I came here that God had sent me here to fight the doctrine of holiness. I still hold to my mission. I have stood four-square against that doctrine and all its advocates, and I still stand. I have used every means to put it down. But strange as it seems, this heresy appears to have grown fat upon our opposition, and the more we have fought the more it has flourished. Even at this very hour not a mile from here, in the schoolhouse, there is a group of people five times as large as this audience worshipping the Lord in what they call the “beauty of holiness.”* (Psalm 29:2) They have for a preacher, as you know, old man Benton, who twenty years ago was cast out of this church for teaching crooked doctrine. He has had no preparation whatever for ministerial work, but in some way he has been able to keep his bunch together for nearly twenty years; and now since he is an old man, it seems that they still persist in following him.

“In the early days of my pastorate here my strongest supporter and co-laborer was Deacon Gramps. This name will sound familiar to some of the older members. Gramps owned the beautiful farm just to the west of this Church. A good many years ago through some play, fair or foul, Gramps was charged with a criminal act and was convicted and sent to the penitentiary, where three years ago he died. His wife went to St. Louis to live with her son, and departed this life shortly after moving there. You are all more or less familiar with the Gramps story, so I shall leave it, as it is not at all a pleasant topic to discuss.

It may be of interest to some of you to know just how the doctrine of holiness ever got started in this community. Well, this old man Benton, whom you all know as the leader of the holiness movement, used to be a member of this church. For many years he lived a consistent Christian life in this church, so they tell me. About twenty years ago he spent a whole summer herding cattle down in the hills about thirty miles from here. While he was down there in the woods all alone with nothing to occupy his mind, he fell to musing on the death of his little girl, who died a good many years previously to that time, and it seems that he became mentally unbalanced, at least on religious matters. According to the information given me, he came in contact at this time with a religious paper teaching strange doctrines, and he embraced these doctrines and began advocating them with great zeal. As I said before, he was excommunicated from this church for teaching such doctrines, but in leaving the church he took a number of our most trusted and tried members, for instance, the Gray family. Those were the days of great excitement in this community. It was about this time that I was called to the pastorate of this church. A few months after my coming Benton and his bunch got an evangelist from over east, somewhere, to come here, and he made a mighty stir along heretical lines and many of the best citizens of our community were drawn into the delusive net. Some of us, in those days, stood firm in the faith and employed every thinkable means to stamp out the nefarious cult; and allow me to humbly say that had it not been for Deacon Gramps and me and a few other faithful ones, our cause at that time would have been completely lost.

“But I stand today, my brethren, as I have always stood—unalterably opposed to the program of the holiness movement. First, I oppose holiness itself—the doctrine that a man can live free from sin in this life. How foolish, how utterly ridiculous, the idea. We all sin. Our fathers sinned, we sin, and our posterity will sin. Do you see that streak of sunshine that comes in at the window and falls upon the floor? See in the sunlighted atmosphere a million dust particles. Let the air represent our lives and let the dust particles represent our sins, and you will have an idea as to how many sins we commit. Away with the holiness doctrine.

“Secondly, I stand opposed to the doctrine of divine healing as taught by Benton’s outfit. The days of miracles are past. They ceased with the apostles. Jesus Christ has no more power to heal me of sickness today than has the horse which I rode to church this morning. In these days of great learning, when men are able to cure diseases by medicine and surgery, there is no need of divine healing, and every man who claims to be healed by divine power makes himself an ignoramus and a liar. Away with this doctrine.

“Thirdly, I stand opposed to the doctrine of oneness, or unity, as taught by Benton and his disciples. They lay great stress on this doctrine. They say there is but one church and that when a man is converted he becomes a member of this one church. Brethren, I do not believe this new doctrine. I still hold to the faith of our fathers. I believe that according to the Scriptures we become members of the church by water baptism and by no other method.

“Brethren, let us stand by the faith of those who have gone before. We may be few in number, but let us be unmoveable. Let us refresh our faith with thoughts of those whose lives have left sacred spots on the field of memory. Let us think on such men as Preacher Crookshank and Deacon Gramps, who were noted for their courage in defending the faith.

“As the noon hour is drawing near, I must bring my sermon to a close. Tonight at seven-thirty I shall preach on a favorite subject of mine—the Hellish Heresy of Holiness. But, in conclusion, let me say that I still feel heavily the burden of fighting old man Benton and his group. I am growing somewhat gray, but I’m still in the fight. I aim to push the battle. I believe that in defending his faith a man is justifiable in using almost any means imaginable. Let us pray: Lord, we thank Thee for this hour in which we have defended Thy cause. Lord, bless this church and curse those who seek its harm. Smite any person or persons in this community who seek to propagate false religion. And now may the grace of Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost rest and abide with us now and forever, amen.”

So closed a service a picture of which today still hangs on the walls of the memory of those present.

How hidden is the path of one’s future. When Preacher Bonds mounted his sorrel horse at the church that noonday, just as he had done for many, many years, little did he think that the same sun which afforded him a chance to illustrate in his morning sermon the multiplicity of his own sins would, before setting that day, shine upon his lifeless form.

It so happened that day that Preacher Bonds invited one of his brethren home with him to dinner. As he and this member, who was a pillar in the church, rode along the country road to Bonds’ home, Bonds gave the member a full outline of his intended sermon on the Hellish Heresy of Holiness. When the two men had reached the barn of the Bonds’ premises and had fed their horses they started for the house. They were just passing in at the yard gate when Preacher Bonds staggered and fell to the ground. He was carried into his house and placed on a cot, and a doctor was called; but within a half-hour from the time he fell at the gate his breath ceased and he began his eternity. The doctor pronounced his death due to heart trouble. There was no sermon at the church that night on the Hellish Heresy of Holiness. The following day Bonds’ remains were started on the journey to Kentucky, where burial took place at the old boyhood home.

With the passing of Bonds the last candlestick was removed from Mount Olivet church. Bonds’ sermon was the last one of the sin-you-must type preached there. The church was entirely disbanded and the dilapidated building finally fell into the hands of those who came after Jake Benton. In recent years the old church has been torn away and replaced by a beautiful white building surpassing even the former beauty of the old one. Over its door were written these words: The Church of God—the Pillar and Ground of the Truth. Over the pulpit this motto hangs: “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!”* (Psalm 133:1) To the left on the wall are these words: “Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases.”* (Psalm 103:3)