The Calling of Dan Matthews
By
Harold Bell Wright (Written In 1909)
ELLA: AS I RE‑READ THIS OLD BOOK I THOUGHT, HOW THIS STORY FITS IN WITH THE PAST SEVERAL TAPES. Perhaps we love the writings of our authors of some years ago because they tell us of a more simple Faith than our managed Christianity of today. They speak of the Pride of Race, and the belief in that Pride of Race, and of the Brotherhood of that Race, and the belief that we as a people are to be a blessing to the world we live in without compromising belief in Jesus Christ, our Race and our purpose in earth. And now for the, Calling Of Dan Matthews.
The main characters in this story are Dan Matthews, Judge Strong, and Old Doc and the Young Doctor, and the lady who won Dan’s heart, Hope Farwell. Young Dan Matthews fresh out of theology school comes to Corinth to be the pastor of Memorial Church. In this town lives the old doctor called Doc who has worn himself out caring for the people of this city and the surrounding countryside. Old Doc knew the people, knew their occupations, and how they lived their lives. The Preacher knew what they professed, but old Doc knew what they practiced. Society saw them dressed up, the Doctor saw them in bed, he spent hours in their homes, more than in his own. There was not a skeleton closet in the whole area to which he had not the key.
In Corinth had lived a man called ‘The Statesman’, and when he died the people had erected an iron monument in the centre of the city square. Old Doc always despised this iron monument to his old friend saying it represented what people thought he was supposed to be, but old Doc thought they really never knew his old friend.