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MY LAST PASTORATE
The church is eighteen miles south of Lake City and west of Worthington, where I lived
ten miles. I had had a flourishing pastorate with that church some thirty years before,
and resigned to give a fellow pastor fill work, as he was dependent on the pastorate for
his living, while I had a large plantation to help me along. It seemed to prove to be one
of my mistakes, for he was a misfit and it took thirty years and a new generation to call
me to return. I found my clerk and deacons sleeping in the graveyard, and the old members
left were less vigorous than I was. There was a vast difference between my last pastorate
and first preaching station. There was forty-five years of time; I do not know how many
sermons, prayers, baptisms, funerals, failures and successes. No one tried to read while I
preached, and I came no way near missing my dinner. One of them said I was the strongest
pastor they ever had. Thus ended my last pastorate with a compliment. Now, I am somewhat
out of practice in preaching, but it’s in my system, and I know it when I hear it;
but I am too old to make chances to preach it, as I did fifty years ago.
G. W. S. Ware
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