Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 December 1883 — The Donation Party. [ARTICLE]

The Donation Party.

There is nothing that occurs in the life of a preacher in a country place that is a greater outrage on him than the donation party, and happily such parties are very rare in these days, but twenty-five years ago they were an annual affair with every minister. Who does not remember the old-fashioned donation parties, where the whole town turned out, regardless of race, color or religion ? The donation was free to all, and the study was to see how little one could carry to the house, and how much could be carried away under a vest. The grocer would take a pound of four-shilling tea, and his family, and the tea would all be used to fill the guests, and the family of the grocer would eat everything in sight. The merchant would send a remnant of calico, too m <li for an apron and not enough for a dress, and the calico would not wash. The church members who were farmers would bring in country produce, a quarter of beef, or something solid, and take their pay in cake that the village sisters had brought. The house would be turned into a bedlam, and the poor minister would shake hands with everybody, try to smile and be thankfnl, when in his innermost heart he wished he could never see another donation party. He wife and family would try to look resigned, but they would look sick. The sisters would take possession of the kitchen and serve the refreshments, the brethren would stand around and talk about everything, and wonder if it wasn’t time to have refreshments and go nome, and the young people would find a room up stairs that had no furniture or carpet and organize a kissing bee, where the young fellow with a stand-up-collar and oil on his hair, and whose father kept- a store, could get all the kissing, and the bashful young fellows who hadn’t any gall would get left. And yet the room would be redhot without any stove, and there would be more fun than a barrel of monkeys, while the plaster on the ceiling below would be kicked off into the scalloped oysters. It would take a minister’s family a month to clear away the wreck of the donation party, and the sl4 in cash that was donated would about pay for plastering the ceiling, and a new bottom to the boiler, which would be burned off in making the coffee. The people would go away feeling that they had done a big thing for the minister, and many would wonder why his family did not dress better. The man of God would eat cake that was left for a month after, and try to preach beefsteak sermons on a stomach that was banked up with sponge cake, and the dyspeptic look on his face would be mistaken for true inwardness, and he would get credit for being good when’he was only sick. As long as the minister had a black coat and hat and a white tie the congregation did not inquire how he was fixed for undershirts and drawers, in which to walk four miles to preach on a winter’s Sunday, ft is to the credit of congregations that the donation parties of years ago have given place to a business basis for a preacher to work on, and now a salary and no donation is generally insisted on. If the salary is small the minister reflects that there is no donation party to help eat it up, and if it is large he is expected to give largely to charity. Any way, he has money for his work, and where a church is conducted as a business, and the minister does not have to wear himself out collecting his salary, his lot is not the unhappy one that it was when you and I were young. To a minister who gets $3,000 in cash for a year’s services it must be a harrowing thing to look back to the time when he got a donation party once a year. He must feel that the world moves.— Peck's lyun.