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GI4RSI > BARNEY 30.01.04 10:45l 96 Lines 7752 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 39825-GB7FCR
Read: GUEST
Subj: The Rev WF Marshall remembered......................
Path: ON0AR<ON0AR<GB7FCR
Sent: 040130/0943Z @:GB7FCR.#16.GBR.EU #:39825 [Blackpool] FBB-7.03a $:39825-GB
From: GI4RSI@GB7FCR.#16.GBR.EU
To : BARNEY@WW
Hello there! How are ye all doin?
This is the time of the year when those of us who revere the memory of the late and great Rev. WF Marshall have two dates we remember especially - October 31, 1954, the culmination of his ministry in Castlerock and January 27th, the date of his death in 1959.
We usually associated him with Sixmilecross and its "suburb", Drumlister, and rightly so, for that's where he spent his youth under the tutelage of his father, the local schoolmaster. As he said in one of his poems, "he toed a line of chalk upon a schoolroom floor."
Few of us however, associated him with Aughnacloy, and we should, for it was there on June 26th, 1913, that he commenced his ministry in the Presbyterian Church and he served there until April 1916, when he was called to this home church in Sixmilecross, where he ministered until going to Castlerock 12 years later.
In those days towns were not as near as they are today - in terms of time anyway for he has written: "It took me over three hours to travel from my home to the church, where I was ordained" - but that was in a pony trap. "Aughnacloy was then half-a-day's journey from Sixmilecross."
He went on to write: "The world was much bigger then - and that world was different. The country life was quiet, the roads were safe, even if the white dust of them lingered on the hedges.
Motor cars were few and far between, we had just stopped staring at every one we saw. Horse jaunting cars rattled still to the Fair Days, shawls were common, and cinemas were for cities only."
He remembered `Band of Hope' concerts. 'Catchmy-Pal' meetings, both advocating temperance, evangelical services held in little cottages, open air preachers on Fair Days - all gone now, and who can deny that the world would have been better off had they remained!
In a little book published by Montgomery of Omagh over 50 years ago he wrote: "When I travelled to my ordination in Aughnacloy on that far off day in 1913, 1 went in a pony trap - and it took us over three hours. We didn't even take the short cut by Dunmoyle and Knockconny, the other road was better. So down into Beragh we went, out on the broad road, up to Ballygawley and along to Aughnacloy.
My young driver prayed that he might see a Clogher Valley train, which he had been told was one of the most noteworthy features of the landscape.
His prayer was granted, much to the annoyance of the pony, which literally rose to protest against the monster and nearly spilled the pair of us on the county road."
After the service of ordination and the fuss and good-natured chat which followed among all sorts of people from near and far he wrote: "A wave of loneliness swept over me when friends departed in the darkness and I was left behind."
In other words he was homesick, only 25 years of age and charged with the responsibility of hundreds in a strange town and district, three hours journey from his home and hearth.
Three hours then - half an-hour at the most now! "That was the start of three years ministry," he later wrote, "during which I received much kindness and forbearance from the people. I have happy memories of friendships formed during that time many of which endure to this day (1938) and I hope will remain with me until my dying day."
However, like every other church and place, some people differed with him - indeed some seemed to go out of their way to make things awkward for both him and themselves.
Some objected to the playing of an organ, and to the singing of what they termed "human hymns".
Evidently they hadn't read the Psalms which bids us all to "Make a joyful noise unto the Lord" and to "Sing unto the Lord a new Song" and still again another which bids us to "Praise the Lord with the sound of the trumpet, the timbrel and the dance, loud cymbals, stringed instruments and organs." (There are some people like that nowadays)
Eventually they compromised and had the organ playing at one service and the Psalms sung at another.
Even at that, it was rumoured that one particularly Puritanical worshipper used to kick the
organ when he passed it! Doesn't the Bible say something about "a generation of stiff-necked vipers?"
On his first Twelfth in Aughnalcoy he was asked to take the open-air service at the Field and handed a list of hymns to be sung. When he announced the number of the first hymn, one old man jumped up on the ditch and started to shout out loud about the introduction of "human hymns" "There never was anything of them things before," he said, "and he wouldn't stand for it."
WF ignored him and announced the hymn number again, and then with a smile on his face he read the first line: "All people that on earth do dwell," the "Old Hundredth" "I seldom have heard it sung more lustily since."
He wrote, too, that he got, into trouble of a different sort at his first marriage service. The bridegroom was somewhat elderly and must have been shy too for when the party stood before the minister, the old fellow was almost hidden in the middle of them.
As the marriage ceremony progressed, Mr. Marshall sensed that all wasn't well and at last he asked: "Which of you gentlemen is the bridegroom?" and the meek voice piped up from the back row: "It's me, mister."
"Another few minutes and I would have married the wrong couple and the situation would have been as bad as the Castlederg affair which roused worldwide publicity."
That was when a taximan called Muldoon married with a family, was almost married again, instead of another who was hard of hearing - he was the groom.
"But I have many happy memories of men like Dr. Pringle and his wife to whom I owed so much for their kindness and hospitality. Names which are still in the locality such as Givans and McCleerys and Boyds and Johnstons." (They still are to this day!)
"There was the Lambs and the Moores and Alex Rea and that grand old man of Tyrone, Anketell Moutray, riding on his pony along the quiet roads, Robert Boyd with his lovely voice singing "Tipperary" on a `Catch my Pal' platform in the McIlwaine Hall, James Lewis with his little daughter on the bar of his bike and Miss Kevin scorching along the road on her motor bike wearing overalls and goggles". These, with a host of others - happy days and happy memories.
And then we went to his home church in Sixmilecross and started to write those verses, which have become immortal, such as "Our Town".
Sometimes in the darkness I dream
Of the town that is home to me still,
Of the gardens that slope to a stream,
And the roofs on the side of a hill.
Of the town where the slow waters steal
Underneath a half circle of stone
At the foot of the hill of O'Neill
In the middle of County Tyrone.
Our town she is old, very old,
But a good share of children has she.
Some toil in the city for gold,
And some are far over the sea;
But some who love neighbourly ways
And to walk in the paths they have known
Are content to live out their days
In our town in the County Tyrone.
And about Tullyneill (the hill of O'Neill) itself he wrote:
"On that green hill in dark Tyrone
That lifts its shoulders broad
Above a house of weathered stone,
A plain old house of God;
Here is their Meeting House, the place
Where Sabbath prayer is made,
And here is Tullyneill's embrace
Their dead and mine are laid.
So maybe on another day
Lonesome I shall not feel
When I come back again to stay
Content in Tullyneill. "
and so on January 27, 1959
"underneath the silent oaks
While shades Of gloaming-tide
Stole through the trees,
he found at last the rest that life denied. "
- God Bless you all, Barney McC ool
73 - Kenny, GI4RSI @ GI4RSI
Message timed: 09:42 on 2004-Jan-30
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