Show SOME OLD TIME PREACHERS in pioneer days in missouri every divine carried a gun with him to church nearly every pioneer preacher in missouri was vas as expert in the use ot of the rifle as any of the laymen says a writer in the globe democrat services were usually held in a neighbors cabin notice of 0 a meeting was promptly and generally circulated and the settlers attended uniformly bringing bridging their rifles to guard against possible surprises or to obtain t a in game on the way to or from the service the practice of carrying firearms was not mot abandoned or suspended even on the sabbath an old pioneer states that on one occasion religious services yere were held in saline county when the preacher proclaimed the gospel of 0 peace with his hand and his clothing covered with blood from a deer that he had killed and butchered on his way to the meeting that morning the pioneer preachers labored without money and aad without price they gained their subsistence as did their neighbors r by the rifle and by their dally daily toil in the clearings and the cor corn n fields elds fi rev justinian williams methodist and rev peyton nowlin and rev thomas kinney ba baptists were the first preachers in saline county they preached on oil edmonsond Edmon sons creek find and in the dig big bottom old man now alln as he was called was a sedate gentleman dry as to manners and sermons but with a kind heart and good intention Intent len his colleague kinney however was of a jovial disposition and very popular he was without literary attainments tain ments but invariably provoked his congregation to laughter nowlin took him to task upon one occasion tor for his levity kinney answered well id rather preach to laughing de devils v ia s tha than to s sleepy lee P Y on nes es as y you audo do you make them cleel bleep and I 1 make them laugh my con congregation gre gation will pass yours on the road to heaven I 1 11 bet you a coonskin they will |