Legacy

This is the story of the journey to truth taken by the Reverend James P. Hopkins.  The Reverend Hopkins was a preachers kid from the relatively small town of Thomasville, Mississippi. His father the Reverend Alvin D. Hopkins had pastored a small protestant church with a congregation that ran from fifty to eighty souls each week depending on whether it was harvest time or not.  That was a practical part of a congregation that included farmers, who knew sometimes missing church was unavoidable.

James had grown up in a laid back fairly small town and was influenced heavily by his father.  James had come to know the Lord when he was about fourteen.  At sixteen James had heard the call and decided he would be a preacher like his father whom he greatly admired.  Now the Reverend Alvin D. Hopkins had never had a college education.  He was a self taught bible scholar who had to talk fast and pass many tests to be ordained.  That was an accomplishment even in 1945, as most pastors had gone to college.  Some even to Seminary.

Of course Reverend Alvin was pleased as punch over his son James wanting to go into the ministry.  It took a great portion of Alvin’s like savings to see that James not only went through college, but Seminary as well. James did quite well in both.  After graduation he came home and announced he was going to take maximum advantage and go to New York City where there were no end of sinners to be saved.  Now that was a fact no one would argue, but was it right for James?

James father the Reverend Alvin kept asking James whether or not he had prayed through about it to find out if that’s where the Lord wanted him to be.  James response was why bother the Lord with the obvious. New York was where he’d do the most good.

The Reverend Alvin couldn’t convince James otherwise, so off James went to set the world on fire and save New York City.  The Reverend Alvin began non stop daily prayer for James, for even though he was a simple man he knew James was not acting wisely, but like a youth full of himself.

James arrived in New York City well credentialed which didn’t mean squat, because Preaching wasn’t like looking in the help wanted ads for a job.  No indeed, not like looking for regular types of work.  Knocking on church doors didn’t get James anywhere either.

James enthusiasm was waning a bit, when he passed a storefront on a back street next to a soup kitchen he saw a sign saying space available.  James started to perk up, he said to himself, it’s a starting point, I’ll open sort of a store front mission and begin preaching and saving.

It took most of James reserve funds, but he did it. The place was usually packed and James would preach his heart out.  It didn’t take James long to figure out that his preaching wasn’t attracting anyone.  The place just filled up with street people looking for a place to stay warm after they were fed at the soup kitchen next door.  Most of the time, most of the packed house simply slept.

James was getting very disillusioned and running out of funds.  No one ever put anything in the plate, except one old guy who tossed in a collar button.  James was beginning to suspect that saving souls in New York City required more dynamic persons than he, and persons very well funded to go the distance.

James had worked at a local lumber yard while in high school.  He though he may as well go home and try and get that job back.  After all a big boy should at least be able to feed himself.  Problem was James didn’t have the price of a train ticket home.  So James having no other choice hopped a freight heading in that general direction.

After getting on what appeared to be an empty boxcar and getting settled down for a long ride, James eyes began to adjust to the mostly lack of light in the box car.  He noticed sitting at the other end some bum, hobo was a nicer word, but James was still a bit snooty and suspicious of the other party.  It never occurred to James that the other party might have felt the same way about him.

After about twelve hours the train began to slow down and the bum on the other end said, we’d better jump off here at the top of what’s called Pilgrims Grade while the train is slowed down.

James asked why anyone would want to jump off here.  The bum explained that in about ten more miles the train would stop in Culvers Burg and the Railroad bully boys would grab and beat up anyone they caught riding the trains without tickets.  That James could understand, so they both jumped off.

The bum said he would just walk into Culvers Burg because he had relatives there that would help him.  The bum pointed to the right side of the track and said just about a mile as the crow flies there is a small farm that you can probably earn a meal or two at.  Then come back to this area around two P.M. and wait for a train with a blue engine, it goes through Culver Burg without stopping.  James thought that was good advice and thanked the bum.  Then James headed in the direction he been told to.

Sure enough there was an old farm stead.  It didn’t look like much; wasn’t even sure it was inhabited.  As James got closer he could hear chickens clucking, so he knew someone must live there.

He found an old widow woman, about ninety years old sitting in her rocking chair on a small rickety front porch just crying hers eyes out. Her name was Molly Jackson.  She and her husband had made an extremely meager living off the little farm for almost sixty years. Her husband had died four years ago. When James asked her why she was crying all she could do was point up.  James looked up and said oh my!  Half of her roof was gone, at least the shingles off it.

Molly then being able to stop crying for a moment said a stiff windstorm three days ago had blown off a lot of her shingles and scattered them all over.  She didn’t know what she could do. Now James being an old softy forgot his own troubles for a moment and asked if there were nails and a hammer about anywhere.  Molly said there was out in the barn, which for some reason wasn’t damaged by that wind storm.

James got the hammer and nails and spent the next few hours gathering up shingles from all over a wide area where the wind had dumped them.  James said a little prayer that asked the Lord to make sure he found all the shingles.  The Lord honored that prayer.

James worked another day getting the shingles back on the roof.  He thanked the Lord for lack of rain.  That caused James to grin, because people usually pray for rain.  That night Molly fixed him a large supper.  James was famished by then and gobbled it up, never complaining that it was mostly eggs and some greens.

James asked Molly if there was anything else he could do while he was there.  Molly said she was running short of medicines.  James having no funds didn’t know how he could help her with that problem.  Turned out he could after Molly explained that she relied on natures natural cures for almost everything.  She compounded a lot of folk medicines from herbs and plants found in the very woods James had come through.

Molly described the various types of herbs and plants she need and how to find them.  So armed with that shopping list James went back to the woods.  He did very well in finding an abundance of the needed ingredients.  Then as she instructed step by step, James laboriously compounded quite a supply of different medicines.  That supply should last Molly quite a while.  It was time consuming and energy sapping work as once you got started you had to stay with it as to not spoil a batch.

That night James bunked in the barn and slept like a log as he was good and tired.  In the morning after an unusual but belly filling breakfast.  James told Molly it was time for him to resume his journey.  Molly thanked James profusely and on the spot praised the Lord for sending her such an Angel.  That took James back a couple of steps. He knew he was no angel, and apparently not much of a preacher either.  But he knew the pain of disillusionment, and figured why spoil her positive thoughts.

Sure enough about two p.m. here came a train slowing down as it neared the top of Pilgrims Grade, it had the fore mentioned Blue Engine. So James hopped in a boxcar knowing this one wouldn’t stop.  As in the other one as his eyes adjusted he spotted another bum.  Then he said to himself, I shouldn’t think that word, I don’t know his situation and I’m certainly not his judge.

They had ridden a couple of hours together when the fellow asked where James was headed.  James said he was trying to get home to Thomasville, Mississippi.  That fellow passenger must have been an experienced rider of the rails, because he told James that this train wouldn’t get him there.  He went on to say that this train would however stop in Spencer City, and if there he would catch the train with the Red Engine, it would take him all the way to Thomasville.

Wow! thought James, everything route wise is color coded sort of.  Now there were no Railroad Bully Boys in Spencer, so James got off the train rather leisurely. James inquired around of seedy looking fellows and found out the Red Engine train would be along in about two hours.

Molly had given James three hard boiled eggs for the road.  James thought they would at least help assuage his hunger so he headed over to a little park nearby to sit on a bench and eat his three eggs and find a drinking fountain if he could. James had just finished his last egg when a small child about five years old suddenly chased his ball into the street in front of a fast coming car.  The child got his feet tangled up or something and sprawled right in the middle of the road.

James took it all in and quicker than an eye was on his feet running, he swooped up the child and safely got them both out of the way of the car with only a couple of feet to spare.

Now the child didn’t realize what had almost happened, but his mother did.  She got hold of her child and didn’t know what she wanted to do most, hug him or spank him.  She was in tears when she thanked James.  She said he must have been an angel sent by the Lord.

That set James back again, he didn’t know what to say past he was glad he could help.  He thought what’s with all this you are an angel bit, sent by the Lord.  James thought the Lord never sent me any place, that’s my whole problem.  I never took the time to find out what the Lord wanted, I was to busy with what I wanted, and now look at the mess I’ve made.

Well the train with the Red Engine finally showed up. So James hopped another freight.  The information that other fellow had given him was correct, it took him right into Thomasville.

Now as James headed home from the Railroad yards he had to pass the only other church in Thomasville.  Strangely enough it had a sign out front that read “Pastor wanted”.  That got James attention and as he stood there looking at it, a fellow that turned out to be Deacon Crandall came up and said “are you James?”

James said I am but how did you know who I am?  Deacon Crandall said he was expected, but running late.  His father had said that you should have been here three days ago.

Now James was educated, but not to the point of being educated out of common sense, and even though James had been as stubborn as a mule, he didn’t have to be hit over the  head with a two by four more than once to get the picture.  It seemed to James that indeed some angels acting as God’s steering committee were indeed busy and probably looked like the two fellow boxcar riders he’d encountered.

Needless to say at this point one thing led to another.  James realized that it is appointed unto some to be a fiery evangelist and too others to be a small flock Sheppard.  Both serve the Lord.

That is how all the two churches in Thomasville came to be pastured by a Reverend Hopkins.