A Page From Yesteryear
Dear Brother Yater:
I am one of J. D. Tant's "boys". In Artesia, New Mexico, we had 16 members, and about $4.00 a week contribution Brother Tant was in a meeting at Hope, and we asked him to come over to Artesia and help us. He said, "Paul, you have a Bible. Get to work!" I did and am only sorry that my health has not permitted me to do more.
I am the one who was responsible for the debate between Tant and Musgrave, as listed on pages 443-446 of "J. D. Tant — Texas Preacher." This debate was held four miles from Artesia in the Lake Arthur district school building — Musgrave's stronghold.
Word came to me that Musgrave in a meeting in Artesia was misrepresenting the Church of Christ which met at 7th and Grand Avenue, where I was an elder. I went out to hear Musgrave and immediately after the services, I rushed home and composed a one page tract, took it to the city hall (I was City Clerk at Artesia from 1930 to 1938) and ran off one hundred copies on the mimeograph. I paid a boy to distribute these tracts (entitled "Musgrave Versus the Bible") next night at Musgrave's meeting. The tract got results. Musgrave and some of his brethren stormed into the City Hall next morning and demanded a debate. I readily agreed, but Musgrave said, "Not with you. We want a big man." They already had the proposition written out, so I told them Brother Tant was in a meeting at Hope, and we would get him.
Tant used an argument in rebuttal that is not in "Texas Preacher" but which was pretty rich, and had a telling effect at the time.
On the blackboard Musgrave had written in big letters, "Let your women keep silence in the churches, and if they would learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home."
Brother Tant asked, "Musgrave, did I hear correctly that you had preached on a recent Sunday afternoon to a mixed audience of men and women over at Hagerman, New Mexico ?"
"Yes, sir!" responded Musgrave loudly. "There were about forty women there, and nearly every one of them complimented the sermon and said I had given them a fine lesson."
Then Tant pulled the trigger on the trap: "Musgrave, your blackboard says for the women to keep silence, and if they would learn anything, let them ask your husbands. Now, according to your own statement you tried to teach those women something, and thus you caused them all to sin — unless you want to admit being the husband of all forty!"