Once when Brother Nations was principal of the Farmington High School he whaled me because Barney Blue and I had thrown snowballs at Jake Schaeffer, the town truckman. I felt that the licking was coming to me and I bore no malice; only the week before I had thrown lumps of coal at Pete Anderson’s house across the street and had been warned that the hurling of anything at all would result in punishment. But after the thrashing was over, Brother Nations told me that throwing snowballs at Jake Schaeffer was a sin against God: that Christ had reference to it when he said: “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.” I could not plead that I was without sin, because it had been impressed on me by every Brother and Sister and Preacher that I met that I was practically broken out with it. But young and gullible as I was, Brother Nations’ statement sounded silly.
I could understand that from Jake Schaeffer’s viewpoint I had sinned, and grievously, because Jake was stooping over when the snowball struck and I had put a stone in the center of it to make the snow pack tighter; I was willing to admit that and repent. But what did God care if two boys smacked snowballs against a soft part of Jake’s person? It seemed to me that if God had been really interested in the matter He would have advised Jake Schaeffer not to stoop over when two boys were abroad with snowballs. Thus He might have prevented a sin. Further, if God was as intelligent as I had been led to believe, He must have known that boys cannot resist the temptation to throw snowballs, and since He made both the boys and the snowballs He was responsible for the sin committed against Himself. But Brother Nations appeared to believe that God had permitted me to sin in order that I might taste the joys of castigatory rebuke. And I did.
Brother Hickok was the only Preacher of those days to whom I gave the slightest measure of respect. I had a genuine admiration for him, but it was not because he was a Preacher or because he pretended to any inside knowledge of the customs of Heaven or the thoughts and wishes of God. On the contrary, I have heard him admit that there were things in the Bible he did not understand, and I have heard him admit that there were passages in it that he did not particularly care for. But I liked him simply because he chewed tobacco without any effort at concealment, and played lawn tennis on the courts near our home, and because I suspected, every time I saw him wallop a tennis ball or bite a chunk from a slab of plug-cut, that he was Wild Bill Hickok in disguise.
About the time Brother Hickok came to Farmington I acquired a book devoted to the adventures of Wild Bill, Kit Carson, Buffalo Bill and other heroes of the Western plains, and of them all I liked Wild Bill best. He seemed to me to be everything that a man ought to be. He had more notches on his gun than any of the others, and it appeared that he could not so much as sneeze without a redskin biting the dust. I put the question of identity to Brother Hickok rather bluntly, and told him I would respect his confidence, but he denied it, although I gathered the impression that he was a relative of Wild Bill and, of course, mighty proud of him. But I was not satisfied, and for a long time I shadowed him in the manner set forth by Old and Young King Brady in that sterling nickel novel, “Secret Service,” hoping to learn his secret. However, I never did solve the question to my own satisfaction.
But principally I admired Brother Hickok because he was the only Preacher I knew who did not proclaim incessantly that he was a Man of God and therefore entitled to the largest piece of pie, and because he was the only one who did not seem to be impressed by my relationship with Bishop Asbury. He didn’t seem to give a damn about the Bishop; his only ambition, so far as I was concerned, was to beat me at tennis, which he did. But from the others, and from the Brothers and Sisters, I got the impression that the right reverend deceased, seated at God’s right hand between Jesus Christ and St. Peter, perhaps crowding the latter a bit, had nothing to do but receive messages from the Almighty touching on my conduct, and relay them to me by whatever Preacher I happened to meet. For many years I thought that God and the Bishop had a consultation on my case every night.
I do not think that I shall ever forget Brother Lincoln McConnell, although I probably should not recognize him if I saw him to-day. I hope not. But for some eighteen long years I have cherished a compelling desire to stand him in a corner, minus his band and singers and his other aids to emotion, and then bind and gag him. After that I want to talk to him for hours and hours, embellishing my remarks with such florid words as I have acquired in various military and journalistic enterprises, and possibly inventing new ones for the occasion. He was responsible for the most miserable period of my life. But it was he, too, who definitely kept me from being a Preacher, or even a Brother, and so, perhaps, I should thank him. If he had let me alone I might at this moment be calling some other preacher Brother; I might be an intimate of God, and a walking Baedeker of Heaven; I might even be gloating over the glories of a Heaven paved with gold and populated by angels, all female, all beautiful, all amiable. Certainly I should not be given over to a life of sin; that is to say, I should not be having a pretty good time with this business of living.
Brother McConnell, as I write, is a pastor of a Baptist church in Oklahoma City, Okla., with occasional forays onto the Chautauqua platform, and is a potent force in the life of that abode of righteousness. But if reports are to be believed, there are even there those who consider him a blight. He has been the central figure in several rows that have undoubtedly redounded to the greater glory of God; he tried to prevent the citizens of his town from seeing one of the best American plays of recent years because it dealt a bit too truthfully with certain aspects of religious fanaticism, and he erected a radio broadcasting station which blanketed the city and forced the population to listen, willy-nilly, to his sermons and his ponderous pronouncements against sin.
I once wrote a magazine article in which I discussed a few of the activities of Brother McConnell, and he put me in my place in an interview which, it seems to me, shows that he has not changed a great deal since the time that I first shook hands with him as he leaned over the mourner’s bench and beseeched me to give my heart to his God. I give it here. It appeared in the Oklahoma City News, on January 27, 1925.
“He is a very small potato.” That was the reply of the Rev. Lincoln McConnell, First Baptist Church pastor.... “I have some doubt,” said the Rev. McConnell, “as to whether I should feel honored or otherwise by the repeated mention of my name in this article by Herbert Asbury without realizing that this writer cannot possibly have inherited anything more from his illustrious ancestry than his name.
“I confess that it is rather surprising to me that editors of a magazine could attach enough importance to such cheap drivel as this as to give it the position and the space they do.