NEW TIMES, NEW MANNERS; THE SLIDING SCALE OF TIME; THE LARGE CONGREGATIONS OF KNOTT'S ISLAND; THEIR GIFTS; PUBLIC PRAYER

In viewing Knott's Island now, (1907) but little can be seen to remind one of the long, long, ago. The relics of old time, if any, are but few--the world hurries, and time has about finished its work along the olden times. The lye stand, the log of log-wood, the carding and spinning and the weaving, are no more. In garret or out-house one may still find an old spinning-wheel and here and there a loom; these are mere curiosities for the young; it would take an old grandmama to give them the proper turn and motion; and these grandmamas are gone. There may be some ancient mama still left on the Island, as elsewhere, and if she still has her old companion piece with her she may yet spin a little yarn for socks and stockings; for to these old ones old-time work is still alluring and facinating. There may still be one who would not scruple to weave a web from cotton warp and woolen woof, just to please the old man, or to thwart a rag carpet from that old, old loom; but all this I doubt.

Go to church now, not only on Knott's Island but in all portions of this county and you will find no one bedecked in the old homespun; instead, you will find the young women and their mamas arrayed in latest fashions, in the latest style fabrics--a bevy of butterflies; while the boys strut around in their best.

Mail and press facilities, aided by efficient art and skill, bring for a song the latest styles and patterns from New York, or Paris even; and so artistically are these fabrics made, who can tell the ten cent cotton gauze from the dollar a yard, except on close inspection.

The sliding scale of time has truly worked wonders in the past seventy five years; and few but the very old can fully realize the great changes within that time. To a boy or a girl then a dollar was a big thing and a few of them were a fortune; but now--old man, be quick, get within the fence-lock and let that little, tight-ankled, and well clad urchin pass, astraddle his $30.00 bicycle. Lads and lassies attend Sunday-school now, sing their songs, vie with each other in making speeches, and then make love in their attended homeward march.

Well, this is far better than killing birds and robbing their nests.

The old heads, who don't feel disposed to keep up with modern ways, look on with wonder at the head-long rush of the present young race and cry "halt you are approaching a precipice;" but these old ones are left unheeded still farther behind--wondering what can the matter be.

Knott's Island, of course, small as it is, and cut up into lots and small farms to accommodate its 600 inhabitants, cannot furnish a wealthy class of people. These people earn their living by the sweat of their brow; but a more hospitable and charitable people, according to their possessions, cannot be found in the old North State. It is astonishing how such a mass of people can get a fair living in such a small territory and its surrounding waters and marshes; nevertheless they do, and three or four merchants are kept busy in supplying these people with the good things of Earth. What the men lack in making a year's score, the women supply with chickens and eggs.

This is a place where an honest way-farer without a cent in his pocket will find food and a friendly lodging; it always was so, and it is so yet.

Go to this place look at the large congregations that at the ringing of the bell or the tooting of a horn gather at church or picnics in their proper seasons; they are there: Where do they come from: Yes you may be sure they are there, and if a hundred dollars is wanted for church purposes, Sunday schools, or a lodge, I cannot put my eye on a place three times its wealth and population that can be induced to respond so quickly.

At these gatherings, the poor and more wealthy are all alike as to dress.

These people are in many respects peculiarly gifted in carrying on Sunday Schools and church worship. This Island has had the good fortune, for seventy-five years or more, to be furnished a very intelligent class of preachers, as intelligent as Virginia could afford, to take charge of the membership and instruct them in church work; the Island has been quick to learn of them, and in such work it inflow very efficient.

PUBLIC PRAYER LEADERS OF OLD

Within my memory this Island had raised more public praying people than any country place, I am sure, within fifty miles. Here are some of the old-time exhorters and prayer leaders who, these many years, have passed away: Timothy Bowden, Caleb Ansell, Dennis Simmons, John B. Jones and son E. W., N. W. Dudley, Waterman Waterfield; and many others in revivals when the spirit moved them. Later on came others, but few of them still live: another Timothy Bowden, Devana Waterfield, and maybe some other Waterfield, John Waterfield, Andrew Ansell, Thomas White, and a Miller or two, I believe, Wilson Cooper, Tully Capps, another Caleb Ansell and son Caleb, and I am sure those are not all the list, but they are all that occur to me now. There may be a half score or more who lead in this line but as to them I don't know of.

Go to church most anywhere in our County, let the preacher call on a brother to lead in prayer, and four times out of five you will hear the same prayer you heard this brother pray a year or so ago. They don't pray to suit the occasion. There are very monotonous and tiresome public prayers in most country places, and Knotts Island may not be entirely free; but I do think the most of these old-timers did not repeat the same prayer every time they were called on to lead, except good old brother Dennis Simmons, he did.

I always thought that Caleb Ansell, of old, could put one of the best prayers, one that best covered the situation, that I have ever heard; and, with the proper amount of pathos, that moved the congregation to sympathy and emotion. The above named John Waterfield was this old man's grandson, and prayed very much like the old man. The last time that I recollect attending a revival meeting on the Island (it was a night meeting) there were some mourners at the "mercy seat." Looking on, as in past days, it struck me that the meeting was somewhat in a lagging state for Knott's Island.

Their brother John Waterfield had been absent a day or so in E. City to obtain the usual certificate for Life Saving Service, and just arrived at this night-meeting. The preacher in charge saw and felt the drag, and at this moment he found the arrival of his brother John, and he helloed out, "Brother John, brother John Waterfield, come right here and pray for these mourners; come along."

His brother John went at the call, for on the Island there is no backing out at a big meeting.

I had heard him pray before, and his prayer throughout resembled his grandfathers so much as to impel me to listen attentively.

It reminded me of prayers prayed for mourners on that Island seventy years ago. The preacher had, mind you, invited his brother John to pray for these mourners, and that is just what he did. He didn't pray for the heathen; he didn't pray for the whole world; he didn't pray for the whole population of the United; he didn't pray for the whole state; neither did he pray for Princess Anne circuit; he didn't go around his elbow to get to his thumb, but a more earnest and soul-stirring petition for the conversion of the mourners assembled there, was seldom heard elsewhere than on Knott's Island.

In five minutes, every phrase of that meeting was changed; mourners were converted, the church was moved and singing rapturously.

Later

News has just been brought me that John Waterfield is dead; he was found in his boat dead, this Fall 1907. He was buried in the church lot, the spot he had selected while he lived. This lot is not a burying ground, but the church submitted, and there he sleeps in the soil that was so sacred to him. Wilson Cooper died also a year after 1908.

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