Pages 77 - 79
A history of the Tomlinson Family would be incomplete without a description of the old log church called Mt. Zion. It was the nucleus of an organization which made the neighborhood a more desirable place to live. Among the papers found in the garret at the old farm was a subscription list to build the above church. But little, if any, money was subscribed but corn at 12 1/2 cents per bushel, wheat at 66 2/3 cents per bushel, pork at 87 1/2 cents per cwt. and so many days work at 50 cents a day. The windows were placed so high that those inside could not look out and those on the outside could not look in, and thus annoy the congregation. The church as lit by tallow candles stuck in a block and nailed to the wall. The preacher, in announcing the evening service, would say that "Services will begin at early candle light. It was customary in those days for mothers to take their babies to church and after the preacher had preached an hour and a half some one of the babies would become tired and restless and start to cry. This would usually start two or three others and then it became a race between preacher and babies as which would make the most noise. This must have been the origin of loud preaching which Robert Burdett refers to in history of "The Brakeman at Church" when he says that when a Methodist preacher shouts "all aboard" you can hear him to the next station. The manner of singing in the old log church was peculiar; as the preacher had about the only hymn book and he would read off two lines and then the congregation would join in singing the two lines read, stop and wait for two more lines to be read when they would take up the tune where they had left off and continue. This was singing on the installment plan and was anything but musical. Revival meetings were held here every winter and their songs were selected with which everybody was familiar and then there was no drag in the music. The sermons consisted largely of descriptions of death bed scenes and future torment for the unsaved and the result was intense excitement and some cases of catalepsy. While such meetings would not be approved by present day civilization, they were no doubt useful in leading or scaring some people into better ways of living. Shouting was a very common occurrence.
Sunday School would be organized about the middle of April and start off with great enthusiasm committing scripture texts and working for the prizes offered for attendance, but when the camp meetings would open about the first of August, many of the officers and teachers would desert the Sunday School for the campmeetings and the Sunday School died and we learned to hate campmeetings because they killed our Sunday School, and we never attended a campmeeting to this day. Well, one year we got our prizes for attendance for the entire three months and what do you suppose we got? One of Beadle's Yellow Back Dime Songsters. The girls were given Beadle's Dime Cook Book. Children too young to read were required to spell from the old blue back speller. Have Sunday Schools made any advancement since that day?