As soon as I arrived in
East Dennis each faction tried to pour into my ears
its bitter criticisms of the other, but I made and
consistently followed the safe rule of refusing to
listen to either side, I announced publicly that I
would hear no verbal charges whatever, but that if
my two flocks would state their troubles in writing
I would call a board meeting to discuss and pass
upon them. This they both resolutely refused to
do (it was apparently the first time they had ever
agreed on any point); and as I steadily declined
to listen to complaints, they devised an original
method of putting them before me.
During the regular Thursday-night prayer-meet-
ing, held about two weeks after my arrival, and at
which, of course, I presided, they voiced their diffi-
culties in public prayer, loudly and urgently calling
upon the Lord to pardon such and such a liar, men-
tioning the gentleman by name, and such and such
a slanderer, whose name was also submitted. By
the time the prayers were ended there were few un-
tarnished reputations in the congregation, and I
knew, perforce, what both sides had to say.
The following Thursday night they did the same
thing, filling their prayers with intimate and sur-
prising details of one another's history, and I en-
dured the situation solely because I did not know
how to meet it. I was still young, and my theo-
logical course had set no guide-posts on roads as
new as these.
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