Author “Jesus Understands” – died

ON THIS DATE

Birdie Harris Bell Winsett died 12/28/1927 at Alton Park (Hamilton County), Tennessee.

Birdie was a primary school teacher in Beulah (later renamed Carter), Oklahoma.  She taught in the Beulah Home of Emmanuel’s Bible School.  While there she met and married Robert Winsett the school’s music teacher (1/15/1908); she bore him three sons and two daughters.  They early-on made their home in Fort Smith, Arkansas, where Robert’s music business was established.  (Robert wrote the 4^th stanza to “Living by Faith.”)  She was born 9/8/1876 in Arkansas and wrote “Jesus Understands.”

 

Bowed beneath your burden, is there none to share? Weary with the journey, is there none to care?

Courage, wayworn traveler, heed your Lord’s commands, There’s a thought to cheer you, Jesus understands.

Refrain

Yes, He understands, all His ways are best. Hear, He calls to you, Come to Me and rest.

Leave the unknown future in the Master’s hand, Whether sad or joyful, Jesus understands.

Read Full Post »

Married 50 Years today !

THE POEM BELOW WAS WRITTEN FOR

 

MY WIFE –

 

MARTHA SCARBROUGH BRYAN

 

 

TODAY – – – WE’VE BEEN MARRIED

 

FIFTY (50) YEARS.

 

 

KNOT  TIED  BY  LEVI W. WHISNER

 

and  J. D. WEBB, Sr.

 

 

MARYVILLE, TENNESSEE

 

– 1509 JEFFERSON AVE

Read Full Post »

Governor Austin Peay – signed, Mar. 13, 1925

On this date 3/13 in 1925 Governor Austin Peay (6/1/1876 – 10/2/1927) of Tennessee (elected 1922, 1924, 1926) signed the Butler Act into law making it “unlawful for any teacher [in the state educational system] to teach any theory that denied the story of the divine creation of man as taught in the Bible.”  The ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) [a misnomer?] announced it would back a person challenging the constitutionality of the act.  They found “their man” (man defending monkey) in John Thomas Scopes (1900-1970).  The Scopes Monkey Trial has been called “trial of the century” and pitted Clarence Darrow against three time Democratic Presidential candidate, William Jennings Bryan.  Bryan won.

Read Full Post »

PAUL W. FINCH – death, July 7, 2003

PAUL  WOOD  FINCH

P  Personally, met this prophet in the old Mid-west,

A  And liked him right away.     (We both Volkswagens had.)

U  Under three years later, we’re teaching together,

L  Led to Hobe, me a “rook,” him old enough for dad.

 

W  With the years, he’d come by Tennessee and invest

O  On young lives his ageless truth; “The Mid-east” he taught.

O  On my soul he left etchings, hungers for blessings.

D  Doubt he understood how much then, His mind I sought.

 

F  Few if any men I’ve “schooled with,” Have been more blest

I  In breadth of sharing pulpits, preaching ‘cross the globe.

N  Nor had more on their “shelf;” because he’d died to self. 

C  Commencements?  Shared some. His, long-awaited has come.

H  Happy Graduation, Sir!  What a spotless robe!

            – eab, 7/8/03   

Paul Wood Finch died this date 7/8/2003, Holland, Michigan (1:40 AM) He wrote at least two books Revival Messages, The World’s Greatest Need both published in Ireland. 

Bro. Finch is gone but a long way from being forgotten.  He was one of the most Godly men I ever knew.  And, had a holy balance much needed in his day – and as much (if not more needed today.

The above was sent to his funeral and (as I understand) was read by Leroy Adams, Jr.

Read Full Post »

DUSKING DARK

A cedar against a pink-lavender sky,

In the space between the neighboring oaks,

The silhouetted bird flies by,

The crickets sing an evening song,

A lowly cow lows, the day is closed,

While along the horizon

The pink fades and goes.

Sights and sounds the heart and mind

Senses but lets them slip.

A day is closing as others closed,

Slowly slithering beyond our grip,

The pink has departed;

Now the trees stand dark and still,

Black trees on a gray-blue sky,

As tree frogs “che che” at will.  [1]

          – eab, 10/75          

 

 

---

[1] First fall in Friendsville, Tennessee (Blount County)

Read Full Post »

Topography

I passed a field the other day,

That in summers past

Had always been in hay.

And there I saw it laid open wide,

With some gashes that

A plow put in its side.

 

Brown, yes, reddish brown,

Was the ground,

That the implement of man

Had turned down.

Row after row of little hills,

With valleys and daises,

Thrown in for frills.

 

Now – the farmer hadn’t planned

To leave those flowers.

As witnesses of nature, brittle towers,

But nature’s not as weak

As may suppose.

And the strongest things

She has she always grows.  –eab, 5/69

“Dictated” to Martha as I drove our black ‘68 VW along a back road above Townsend, Tennessee.

Read Full Post »

It is more important that you trust the Rock of Ages than that you know the age of the rocks.

                – William Jennings Bryan, Bible and Its Enemies, The

                                 (Chicago: Bible Institute Colportage Ass’n, 1921) 39.

 

No mental processes can stop the mad race for money.  Man must be born again. 

                – William Jennings Bryan, Bible and Its Enemies, The

                                 (Chicago: Bible Institute Colportage Ass’n, 1921) 43.

 

Evil forces do not hurt for men to do their bidding.  Today is the day (5/5/1925) that a young high school biology teacher, John Scopes, was arrested for teaching the “theory of evolution” in Dayton, Tennessee. 

William Jennings Bryan, a Christian rightly defended the Bible and right in the “Scopes Monkey Trial.”  Mr. Bryan, three times contender (Democrat) for the presidency of the US, died shortly after this historic trial.

Read Full Post »

Why Spring?

The grand Lord knew, after the white and the blue,

Of the cold, crisp fortnights of chill,

After stark star lights and short day sights,

And iced-over bridges at the bottoms of the hill,

After sleet’s solid rain and the snow flakes again,

And the humdrum of life in confinement;

That man needed to sing – he needed spring –

The Lord’s annual perfection of refinement.   -eab, 3/29/80

Penned in Friendsville, Tennessee, located in western Blount Co.

Read Full Post »

William Jennings Bryan – birth, Mar. 19, 1860

…Self — the most popular of all the false gods…

                                – William Jennings Bryan, In His Image (NY: Fleming Revell Co., 1922), 75.

 

There is more science in the twenty-fourth verse of the first chapter of Genesis…than in all Darwin wrote.

                                – William Jennings Bryan, In His Image (NY: Fleming Revell Co., 1922), 94.

 

What shall it profit a man if he shall gain all the learning of the schools and lose his faith in God?

                                – William Jennings Bryan, In His Image (NY: Fleming Revell Co., 1922), 118.

 

…The worship of the intellect — an idolatry as deadly to spiritual progress as the worship of images…

                                – William Jennings Bryan, In His Image (NY: Fleming Revell Co., 1922), 127.

           

One can afford to be in a minority but he cannot afford to be wrong.

                                – William Jennings Bryan, In His Image (NY: Fleming Revell Co., 1922), 189.

 

…Confucius…Buddha…Mahomet…Hindu [followers of these] except where they have borrowed from Christian nations…have made no progress in fifteen hundred years.

                                – William Jennings Bryan, In His Image (NY: Fleming Revell Co., 1922), 202.

 

War is not a private affair; it disturbs the commerce of the world obstructs the ocean’s highways and kills innocent bystanders.

                                – William Jennings Bryan, In His Image (NY: Fleming Revell Co., 1922), 231.

 

The preacher should be the boldest of men because of the unselfish character of his work.

                                – William Jennings Bryan, In His Image (NY: Fleming Revell Co., 1922), 261.

William Jennings Bryan was born this date (3/19/1860) in Salem, IL.  He was Democratic contender for the US presidency three-times and Secretary of State under Woodrow Wilson until he felt Wilson compromised and Bryan resigned.  He has been called America’s best-known fundamentalist between the uncivil war to the great depression.

 

As a Presbyterian layman, lawyer, and Christian, he defended and won (1925) for the state a victory against the teaching of evolution, in the Tennessee “Scopes Monkey Trial.  Bryan College is named for this great man.  He is also know for his “Cross of Gold” speech 7/8/1896, Chicago.

 

 

Read Full Post »

Final Victory

Lord, You’ll have to defeat the devil. 

We don’t have the strength.

We can’t do it alone, we can’t do it at length.

Lord, You’ll have to defeat the enemy,

Time and time again,

But there’s coming a day,

O glorious day,

When the battle will end.

 

There’s a the battle will end,

For the blood-washed of all ages,

The simple and the sages,

The kings and their pages.

There’s a final victory coming,

When the battle will be won.

Trials will end, Christ will descend,

The Father’s Redeeming Son.  – eab, 3/78

Written in Friendsville, Blount County, Tennessee. 

Read Full Post »