Whiskey Money, Glassy Mountain, and a Preacher

My Uncle Fred recently told me about a preacher who “went back” on what he said from a pulpit.

When he quit working on his parents’ farm, located in the Mountain View Community of Greenville County, S.C., and began working “in the mill,” Fred rode to work with Jim Few. But Fred married Frances Hawkins and began riding to work with Frances, Mary Mason (Frances’ sister), Paul McKinney, and Kirby Lindsey (Frances’ brother-in-law). They all worked for the now-closed Southern Bleachery (SB), a cloth-processing mill, in Taylors, S.C. That group rode in a car driven by Haskell Harrison. Fred and Frances rode in a carpool for about 21 years, Fred says.

“Haskell picked us all up,” Fred says. “We paid him on each Friday for our rides to work and back.”

(Before Fred hired on at SB, Paul Belue worked there and drove a bus to collect riders to go to work at SB – sort of a “bus pool” from up around the Mountain View area.)

Haskell Harrison attended Glassy Mountain Church of God and is deceased. His son, Zeno Harrison, “leads singing at the Church of God in Greer [S.C.],” Fred says.

Fred doesn’t remember the name of the church Harrison attended when Harrison witnessed a particularly troubling conversation at that church. Fred had been working at SB for four or five years and was 24-25 years old when he heard about the preacher in the story that Haskell told to his carpool.

Glassy Mountain was the home of homemade whiskey back in the 1930s and ’40s, someone said. The Glassy Mountain area and “west of it,” included areas with names such as Callahan, Merridell, North Fork, Terry Creek, and Terrydell.   

Harrison said that selling homemade whiskey was prevalent where he lived. He told his carpool about a preacher who spoke at the church he attended and announced before the offering was received, “If you have money that you made from selling whiskey, don’t put that in the offering plate, because I don’t want it. If you’ve been making whiskey or dealing in it, don’t put money from it in the plate.”

After the service, a man told the minister, “Preacher, I had a hundred dollars in my pocket that I was going to give you, but I made it from selling whiskey.”

Harrison said he heard the preacher say, “That’s all right, brother. Just give it to me. It’ll spend OK.”

The members of the carpool group heard that story that portrayed a sad image of a preacher.

Hypocrites, especially “religious” ones, hurt people, but I believe most ministers who really preach the Gospel are not hypocrites.

People often get damaged by – or become disillusioned with – individual hypocrites or a local church. Someone said, “If being hurt by a church causes you to lose faith in God, then your faith was in people, not in God.”

“It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man” (Psalm 118:8).

But we have to trust other Christians to get much done in this world. We are supposed to act as “the Body of Christ” in a corporate sense and minister to each other and to the world.

Someone said, “If you have been let down by a Christian, pastor or church member, perhaps it is time to find another church, but your faith should not rest in man. When considering the eternal destination of your soul, don’t let the actions of sinful man determine your commitment or distract you from the Gospel message. Jesus Christ was not a hypocrite, in Him there is no deception, no dishonesty; in Him there is only truth.”

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).

“I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life” (John 5:24).