Page:Historical and Biographical Annals of Columbia and Montour Counties, Pennsylvania, Containing a Concise History of the Two Counties and a Genealogical and Biographical Record of Representative Families.djvu/87

CHAPTER VI RELIGIOUS DENOMLNATIONS The earliest influence tending to bind together the colonists in Columbia and Montour counties was a religious one. Most of the pioneers had strongly cherished religious affiliations, and were thus brought together in the practice of their individual form of worship of the Creator. These bonds of sympathy compacted the community and eventually led to some more permanent form of organization in a religious way. By this means the religious denominations in early times established the foundations of their churches which have since been most faithfully preserved and deepened, until in 1914 the strength of religious convictions has become so firmly fixed in the two counties as to be a part of the life and well-being of the entire community.

Fifty years ago it was no uncommon thing for a country minister to travel twenty miles on a Sunday to serve three congregations. Now, in 1914, the automobile has made travel so much easier that even the little country parsonage has a garage attached to it and the parson may often be seen speeding along the highways to visit a parishioner or hold Sabbath services. The auto has also proved an important factor in the reduction of the country church attendance. Farmers can now attend the larger churches in the towns and mingle with the urban worshipers there, often causing such a dwindling of attendance at the little village church that it is finally forced to close. Many of the wayside temples are now abandoned, while others are opened only at irregular and infrequent periods. The final abandonment of many of them has been delayed by the associations of the old burying grounds beside them, where fathers and grandfathers, mothers and grandmothers arc laid at rest. Many of these cemeteries are over a hundred years old—for example, Hidlay in Scott township, the Quaker burying grounds at Catawissa, Millville, Roaringcreek and Greenwood. Columbia county, and the old cemeteries at New Columbia (Swenoda), Derry, Washingtonville and Danville, Montour county. These ancient places of sepulture will always be tenderly cared for, and the old churches near will be preserved as monuments to the piety of the past.

In this year of 1914 the work of country ministers is difficult and poorly paid. Most of them serve several charges, which means holding service in one church in the morning, another in the afternoon, and a final service in the evening. The salary of the pastor is seldom large enough to warrant the purchase of an auto, but many of the ministers of Columbia and Montour counties have been compelled to draw upon their meager stipend for this purpose. Still, as in the past, these faithful pastors jog along the country roads, chatting with the farmers, cheering the downhearted, comforting the disconsolate, settling petty quarrels, praying with their parishioners, marrying them, baptizing the little ones, making their wills, and finally burying them and giving consolation to the mourning family.

Rev. A. Houtz, of Orangeville, is one of these old-time pastors carried on into the modern days, and now retired from active work. He says that the labors of the country pastor arc as hard as in the early days of the churches, but the compensation is still the same. However, he says the congregations in the country churches are more appreciative—they seem almost to hunger for the services.

The growth of the churches here has been steadily upward, as may be seen from the detailed descriptions which follow. The oldest sect, the Society of Friends, which was at one time the most important in the State, has dwindled in numbers greatly during the years that have elapsed since the first monthly meeting was established, but though the tendency of the present day for more worldly methods of worship has diminished the members of the Quakers, their deeds and records of the past, all of a beneficial and substantial character. 57