My anscestor Samuel A. Cravath –
writing about his early childhood in Oberlin Ohio in the 1840s:
There was still considerable wild game
in the woods, such as squirrel and turkeys, partridges, quail and
some deer, which helped out the family larder materially, but food
and dress were frugal and plain in the whole Oberlin colony as part
of its religion and covenant.
One of the articles of the Covenant
read: “That we may have time and health for the Lord's service,
we will eat only plain and wholesome food, renouncing all bad habits,
and especially the smoking and chewing of tobacco, and deny ourselves
all strong and unnecesarry drinks, even tea and coffee, as far as
practicable, and everything expensive, that is simply calculated to
gratify the palate.” - “We will also renounce all the World's
expensive and unwholesome fashions of dress, particularly tight
dressing and ornamental attire.”
This plainness and
frugality of living soon became a bone of contention in the colony
and of fervent prayer even in the meetings. All a man's property
except for this frugal fare was supposed to be dedicated to the Lord
and many a colonist began to feel that perhaps his neighbour was
using a part of what belonged to the lord upon himself and his
family. The general poverty, however, made plain living easy.
Economies were
practised to raise money for missionary purposes, that came very near
privations. Think of a parent hiring his child to go without butter
on his bread for a whole week, and week after week, in order to give
five cents for the missionary box on Sundays. And the bread was
quite often corn bread. Yet this was not an uncommon method of
'earning' money for missionary purposes, tho' I confess it never was
a favourite with me in my early childhood.
I was taught that
there was speical merit in such methods of raising money for it was
genuine altruism – the denial of selfish appetites for the good of
others. I could deny myself one or two meals a day on one or two
days, but when there was no meat, nor gravey, nor milk, and I had to
dine on dry bread and potato, my love for the heathen was overome by
love of butter, and the heathen had to go without the five cents
unless I could find some other way of earning it.
Oberlin was founded
as a manual labour college and colony. It was expected that every
teacher and student would perform about four hours of manual labor
each day and that this would be sufficient to feed and clothe him and
pay for his expenses in college. The education was thoroughly
Christian. It was not long before it had assembled a community in
which questions – moral, religious, social, political, dietary and
phrenological were discussed with eagerness and enthusiasm. Every
crank in the country seemed to bring his grist to Oberlin where it
was ground and sifted for him with thoroughness and dispatch not
always satisfactory to hime. But there are always some in every
community who are caught by such things and Oberlin in its earlier
years became a hotbed of 'isms.'
Some thought it
wrong to eat meat. Some thought themselves perfect, but it was
observed that few thought their neighbours so. Some thought it wrong
to laugh and joke or attend places of amusement. I recall an old man
who used to make long prayers and speeches about the sinfulness of
children playing. His arguement was simple: “Waste is sinful.
Play is a waste of time, hence sinful.” My elders used to tell
a story over me apropos of one of the prayer-meeting speeches. I had
fallen fast asleep, while the speaker was droning along about the
sinfulness of play. Suddenly I spoke out saying: “I'll play
anyway Mary, Here's the sled.” I do not remember making the
speech, but I do remember a vigorous punch in the side and a vigorous
shaking, until I was awake.
As I look back upon
those years (1841 to 1848) they seem to me to have been years of
tremendous religious stress. Religion was the real, serious,
business of the whole community, while ordinary employments occupied
subordinate places. Planting and harvest could wait, but the Lord's
work and worship could not. I do not say this was the actual fact,
but it is the impress that was made upon my mind in childhood.
Sabbath could could hardly be called a day of rest from a child's
point of view. Immediately after breakfast came morning prayers -
“prayers” I say because it was expected that not the parents
only, but other members of the family should follow with a brief
petition. The reading of the Bible was also participated in by every
member of the family down to the smallest child who could read. Then
came the Sabbath school lesson which must be “learned by heart,”
then the Sabbath School in town, a mile and a half away from 9
o'clock in the morning until the time of the forenoon service; there
a sermon two or more hours long; then a noon prayer-meeting for those
who did not go home for dinner; then the afternoon service
corresponding in length to the forenoon; than and afternoon or
evening prayer-meeting in the school house near home and evening
prayers. There were also numerous midweek meetings. Religion was the
“strenous life” and “woe unto those who are at ease in Zion.”
What do I make of
what my ancestor wrote about his own childhood?
It is now over a
century and a half later – and I am have already spent a decade
with Sheba and the family here in Thane, India. It would seem that
there would be nothing in common between SA Cravath us us. But
reading these words that Samuel Cravath wrote near the end of his
life resonate in a number of ways.
For one, I actually
went to a graduation at Oberlin College. I think it was one of my
brothers' school-mates in the mid-1990s. The contrast could not have
been starker. There was not a shred of religiosity to be seen. One
of the graduates dressed up as a roman soldier and did not wear a
shirt. The college president at the time was roundly disliked by the
students - and a goodly number of the graduates took small stones
along with them as they got on the stage. Each one of them, then
gave their stone to the college president as he shook their hands and
gave them their diplomas – leading him it seems to have to fill his
pockets with their stones.
I remember the
high-light of the college president's speech was a plea for greater
mutual understanding. As his centrepiece he talked about a Chinese
picture which some said was a bird – and others a fish. But in
reality it was both. The picture frame had a corrogated middle in
which the image of the fish was painted on one set of faces, while
the image of the bird was painted on the faces which were at a 90
degree angle to the fish image. The soppy president then
triumphantly brought out this contraption and proudly showed what a
wonderful insight this had made to the task of getting along
together.
The fact that this
was actually two different images that had been cleverly place near
each other – and hence is of no use at all to the challenges of
coming to understandings about basic truth issues - seems to have
escaped the keen eye of the unloved president.
But reading the
other parts of Samuel's childhood resonates with us in a number of
ways. For one, I have grown up in a pattern not too far different
from Samuel's. We were in a commune setting (at least in some of
the early days of OM) where having private property was considered
wrongish – since we had left everything to serve the Lord. Most of
our clothes were second-hand – so living the simple, frugal life
does not ring too odd to me.
The severity of
privation that Samuel remembers is of course quite foreign to me –
as is what clearly is a state of religious fervor that left very few
opportunities for young Samuel to follow Christ on his own accord.
However, the filling up of all hours with meetings is not only
familiar, but rings eerily true of our lives right now. We worship
on Sunday mornings from 10 am to 1 pm in one of the homes we
regularly meet in, then from 6-7 pm we have a gospel meeting. On
Tuesday nights we go as a family to lead a Bible study in the home of
one of our staff. On Wednesday nights a few men come over from
9.30-10.30 pm for prayer at our place. On Friday nights we have a
Bible study from 9-11.30. In addition we are now preparing for the
Vacation Bible School so have been holding Thursday night meetings to
gear up and pray for that. Sheba has a Lady's fellowship that
normally meets on one Saturday a month – I meet with fellow Elders
normally once a month too. And then we have 30 mins of morning
prayers at 9 am every day at JSK and often are part of a small ward
prayer at 5.30 pm with those who are admitted JSK and their
relatives.
So where does that
place us on the religiousity scale. Obviously pretty high. Do we
see echoes of the life that little Samuel Cravath faced? Yes we do.
But here is the
biggest difference. It was the difference for me when as a boy I
would attend church and yearn for the hymns to end – especially
those which had 7 or 8 verses in them (and were sung lustily and
often off-tune by the grown-ups). The difference boils down to how
real Jesus is to me. In my own childhood I had believed in Him, but
beyond that He was not the central to who I was – and was hardly
the Lord of my life.
Coming
to a quickening in my faith in High School – especially two pivotal
years at Woodstock School – started a process of spiritual
formation where God has increasingly become the focus of my life (and
since we married 12 years ago – of our lives).
Would
a casual observer see any difference between our spirituality and
that which Samuel Cravath describes of his early years in Oberlin? I
would hope so – but would not be surprised to be tarred with the
same brush of being some kind of wacko holy-roller.
Can
all of these meetings become an end in itself? Yes, it certainly
can. We can become people who are just trying to do religious things
– and be so 'good' at being 'busy for God' that we forget the
actual worship of the Lord in the first place. Jesus Himself faced a
family situation where Martha bustling away in the kitchen, preparing
food for Jesus and his merry men – was angry with her sister Mary
who chose to sit at Jesus' feet and listen to Him. How easy it is to
be so busy that we actually miss out on enjoying our Lord.
Reading
the words that were typed out 111 years ago, which speak of a boyhood
time over 60 years prior – I am surprised at how much I can
identify with this well-written anscestor of ours. Samuel Cravath's
story rings true – my only sadness is that he seems unable to
clearly state what he believes himself. Perhaps it is natural for a
person who owned and edited a newspaper in the Iowa town of Grinnel
(another small college town) to hold his own beliefs to his chest –
while describing 'the facts' in as neutral a voice as possible.
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