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Show BELIC OF THE WAR.. Church That Seems Proof Against Ilr and Iffhtnlnc, In tho town of Darien, Ga., tbCTe is but one building that stood there before be-fore the war, and that building is a Methodist church, with a history, says a writer. Darien especially suffered during Gen. Sherman's march to the sea, every building in town being completely com-pletely destroyed except this particular particu-lar building. Among the buildings, destroyed de-stroyed there were several churches. When the building that I refer to was originally built the question came up of putting a lightning rod on it Theru was a decided objection to a lightning rod by some of the members of the church. One particular member was very outspoken against a lightning rod or "anything else in defiance of the will of Providence." He argued that if the Lord wanted to destroy the property ho had a perfect right to do so, for it waa -,-...,-ll fho r.r,r'a nrnncrtv. All the other churches in the town, however, how-ever, were protected by lightning rods. . The church was built in 1S3G, when there were more believers in the protecting pro-tecting value of lightning rods than there are now. From this position on the lightning rod question the church became famous as the "only church in Georgia that was protected by the Lord." It was for years, and, indeed, is today, a drawing card for Darien, and has drawn more people to that town than any other thing or incident connected with the town, if not more than all things else combined. When' Sherman's army had orders to burn the town they started at the west end of it, for the wind coming from that quarter quar-ter helped along the work. The army spared nothing, the orders being to destroy everything. It may have been that the church that is "protected by the Lord", was fired the same as other building, but the fact is that when tha army left there the next morning tha Methodist church was left standing, unscorched even, though the four buildings nearest to it, one of them a church, too, were en a level with tha ground. As far as known there was no special kindness shown the Lord'l church. If, indeed, any kindness by the army, but jut the same, it did not burn. Lots of Buildings in Darien hav been struck by lightning, which is very severe at times all along the south Atlantic At-lantic coast, but this church has never oen unfavorably affected, though it i today the only church or other iarga building there that does not have a lightning rod. |