Brother Hardeman Comes Crashing Down
Something evidently happened to the limb Brother Hardeman has been sitting on, between him and the tree, for he comes crashing down right where I have been pacing. It won't take long to finish him off.
He anticipates his demise in these words:
"No reason has been assigned why a church cannot contribute to one of our schools. I anticipate nothing new, and this article closes my part of the discussion."
What something "new" should he be looking for in view of the fact that he said in 1938—and hasn't changed his position:
"I certainly do not indorse Brother Brewer's statements and would oppose any congregation putting Freed-Hardeman in their budgets. Such has ever been our sentiments?"
As to the "my part of the discussion," a few pointed remarks are in order. Nobody is able to recall even a respectable effort he has made to justify a church putting "a human institution" like a college in its budget or supporting it out of its treasury. In the puniest sort of way, he has sought to put us to affirming a negative and evaded his responsibility as an affirmant. He has followed the dodging, squirming tactics that digressives have followed for fifty years and more. He has whined for "a list of the things forbidden" and when the "law and principle" were supplied him what did he do? He took what every informed person knows to be a digressive dodge. He has been whipped all over the road and has practically paid no attention to the 'things we have said which are right smack on the issue. At first he just made a few lame gestures and said: "Now let us smile." He isn't smiling now. Just any digressive, whipped to a frazzle, can say: "No reason has been assigned why a church cannot" use instrumental music and work through a human board. "I anticipate nothing new." The brethren would understand what ailed him, and don't kid yourself Brother Hardeman. They know what ails you.
Whipped on the issue, he thinks he can partly escape on "personalities." Since you want it that way you are going to get it that way. And by the way, the Gospel Advocate and the Firm Foundation have forfeited every right to even lift one eye-brow at us for "personalities" in view of what they published from Brother Hardeman. His last desperate effort is an attempt to escape by painting Foy as a depraved ingrate. Some plain and simply facts will take care of that. And when they are stated it will be in order for some college to confer the degree of Ash-hopper on Brother Hardeman.
Here are the facts and I'll excuse you if you hold your nose while you read them. Foy's financial difficulties due, according to Brother Hardeman, to "sinful extravagance and utter lack of business judgment," were threshed out years ago to the entire satisfaction of Brother Hardeman. "The sentence was removed dollar for dollar." Since "then" he has held the "Norris-Wallace debate," the "Neal-Wallace debate," the "Wallace-Tingley debate" and whipped premillennialism in the church so effectively that it would be hard to find the track of one not too cold for a hound to smell. In all this since "then", mind you, he enjoyed the confidence, friendship and full support of the "now" editor of the Gospel Advocate, Brother Hardeman and a host of the strongest, most loyal men in the church.
As late as 1943, six years after Foy's "sinful extravagance and utter lack of business judgment" got him into trouble, Brother Hardeman had a "fine picture" of Foy "engraved upon his heart." Read a letter he wrote Foy in 1943:
"I am far from believing that your efforts have been in vain. I have frequently said that you will not be fully appreciated until, perhaps, you have ceased from your labors. I think you have done more than all the rest of us to save the churches from premillennialism. I have preached against the 'ism' but much of the material I secured from what you had said. I think the reason the fight has been, left to you (while others of us have escaped personal opposition) is because we recognize your superior ability and your medium to put things across."
The "personal opposition" Brother Hardeman' refers to was the very same sort of opposition Brother Hardeman is resorting to "now". The attack on Foy's character was "then" made by a hodge-podge of bitter-enders who resisted and resented his efforts "to save the churches from Premillennialism." They "then" spit out the same sort of "rage" against Foy anonymously, that Brother Hardeman does "now" and signs his name to it and gets it published in the Gospel Advocate and the Firm Foundation. I suggest that he have them publish that letter he wrote Brother McQuiddy denying that he knew how we got those Davidson letters, when he knew that he sent them himself. Brother Hardeman is the last man in the world to sneer at somebody's "honesty," "honor and virtue"!
It is not true that Foy asked Brother Hardeman to help him with his affairs when he was in sore need of such help. He entered the affair voluntarily with "plans" involving the Gospel Advocate and asked Foy to cooperate with him, Brother Akin and Brother McQuiddy. Foy has nothing to hide and never has had. He has been frank and open in all matters, making confession and amends where they were necessary and possible.
It is not true that Brother Hardeman schooled Foy's son free of charge. The attendance record of that son was only about four months and that was on a dollar for dollar basis. Month after Month Foy ran full page ads for Brother Hardeman in the Gospel Guardian and the Bible Banner. He admitted that the school owed Foy and wanted to settle the debt by tuition. Foy has letters from Brother Hardeman offering to further settle the school's debt to him by giving tuition to his other children.
"Great indeed is his sense of fairness'! His honor and virtue' are amazing! His 'honesty' has astounded the whole brotherhood!"
Brother Hardeman says he is through. I think as much. As bad as he looked on "the issue" he would have looked a lot better than he does "now" if he had quit when he threatened to before. He ought to look and feel pretty cheap from now on riding a' $25,000 (twenty-five thousand dollar) white horse which some brethren are wondering how a preacher and school teacher can afford without "sinful extravagance and utter lack of business judgment"! "Too bad"! 'Farewell, Brother Hardeman.
I do not expect to see this either in the Gospel Advocate or the Firm Foundation. I am not even sending them a copy. It might embarrass them to aid and abet "personalities."