8. College Days

I cannot give you a detailed account of this project, but it was indeed a gratifying success. Mr. Bethel was delighted!

We literally cleaned out the store! Fresh merchandise was ordered in considerable quantity, for which Mr. Bethel was able to pay in cash which meant a better discount. I had greatly enjoyed my experience as a salesman. It was a lot of fun.

When I graduated from the Theological Seminary to become the minister of a small-town church in Indiana, Mr. Bethel entreated me to stay in business with him, offering me much better wages than the $66.66 per month I would receive in my chosen profession; but I didn’t like the idea of spending my life as a merchant. One of my classmates in the Seminary was offered, on the eve of our graduation, a promising position with a firm of building contractors, and took it. His fiancée, whose father was a minister, had begged him to do it. My fiancée, whose father was a minister, expressed no eagerness to go in for more poverty and regimentation; but hoped and believed that the future would be a little less tough on us—which it was—though we had to wait many years for any sizable improvement in our income.

The cold fact is—and perhaps I should have told you earlier—that while in college I had entertained many misgivings about my choice of a profession.

To begin with: I hadn’t been given a choice. From my earliest childhood I had been told that I was to enter the ministry… Yes, I know; I could have revolted. But I kept postponing a personal decision until I was far past the point of no return.

As it turned out later, the ministry seemed to be my most suitable life work, but it certainly gave me some anxious hours as I neared the time for being addressed as “Reverend.”

It was at that point that I hesitated. I did not want to be a “Reverend.” I did not want to be revered. As “the preacher’s kid” I was supposed to be more than a little more dutiful and pious than the other kids. College had given me a brief reprieve from this frying-pan: now comes the fire.

The chief of my reasons for being reluctant to go in for holy orders was my secret wish to live a normal life, which is quite impossible in the ministry. To be a preacher implied that one considered oneself equipped to advise other people on what they should believe and how they should behave. The implication that I felt myself to be a pattern of moral precept and practice was not to my taste. Much better would I have liked the role of a layman, listening to another man expound his views on these matters.

Perhaps it was this very reluctance of mine to solve all of my people’s problems at the first try that gave me the measure of success I have had as a minister. I didn’t know all the answers, and said so. Not knowing quite what to say to the bereaved was, I think, a little better than knowing too well.

Another reason for doubting whether the ministry was my job concerned others who, unlike myself, would have no choice. In due time I would marry and there would be children, no doubt. I was well aware of the restrictions my position imposed on me. There had been plenty of innocent pleasures I had given up because some narrow-minded old sourpuss might make trouble for Papa. I was a gregarious fellow, I liked people, I wanted to be one of them. Doubtless my children would dislike the captivity that would be awaiting their arrival.

In all fairness to everybody, I must say that when my daughters joined our organization, we were luckier than most. Our girls were given plenty of liberty. And I know that there was plenty of criticism, but not from people whose friendship we prized or needed.

* * * * *