News
After several Long Island radio stations refused to sell time for a religious broadcast, the Manager of WKBS in Mineola, County Seat of Nassau County, offered Evangelist Gus Winter a weekly broadcast of fifteen minutes each Sunday at 9 a.m. at half price, to begin Sunday, January 22nd. Ernest J. Sumerlin, minister of the East Meadow, Long Island congregation, with whom Brother Gus is associated, sent in the contract January 12th. WKBS serves all of Nassau, part of Suffolk, Queens and upper Bronx with a combined population of five million. Ed Rockey will also assist Gus Winter and Ernest J. Sumerlin in these broadcasts. We expect to reach many thousands of homes with the pure gospel, both Jewish and Gentile, Catholic and Protestant and those who claim no religious affiliation. We shall invite Bible questions, offer free tracts and gospel literature, free Testaments and Bibles and a free Bible correspondence course. We plan to follow up with Bible study classes in homes where we know they are already interested in their soul's salvation. Write these brethren at 293 Newbridge Ave., East Meadow, L. I., New York for further information."
Olen Arthur, Spur, Texas, Elder Passes
Funeral services for Olen Carl Arthur were conducted at the Spur Church of Christ Monday, January 9, 1956, with C. V. Allen and this writer officiating. Brother Arthur was born March 14, 1891 in Eastland County, Texas, and passed away January 8, 1956 at 12:40 p.m. in the Spur Memorial Hospital. He had been in failing health for several years. Brother Arthur came with his parents, Mr. and Mrs. J. E. Arthur, to Dickens County on January 2, 1898. He was married to Miss Georgia Stephens on January 31, 1917. This marriage was blessed with seven children: Carl of Fort Worth, Miss Doris Arthur of Lubbock, Mrs. Nell Moore of Jacksboro, Mrs. Mozelle Caraway of Dallas, Mrs. Beth Williams of Spur, and Mrs. Jean Martin of Rockford, Illinois. One infant, Velma Rhea, preceded him in death, in 1924. Mrs. Georgia Arthur and a host of friends survive to mourn his passing.
Brother Arthur served as an elder in the Spur Church of Christ for fifteen years. He was active in various civic and community affairs. He served as secretary of the Dickens County Democratic Committee for several years. He was Dickens County and District Clerk for six years. He was postmaster at Spur from 1934 to 1948. From 1948 until his passing, he was rural mail carrier for Route Two. Brother Arthur did much to help boys' clubs, scouting, and he was a leader in training boys to be active in church work. He became a member of the church of Christ early in life and remained faithful to the end. Few men are blessed with the vision and understanding of church work as was Brother Arthur. He is greatly missed by his brethren and the community which he served faithfully. The large crowd of people from all walks of life which overflowed the church building onto the yard bespeaks the esteem, honor, and love that people of this whole area had for Brother Arthur. Congenial, kind, understanding, and patient was he. Many people carried their problems to him because they knew he would understand and help. He was always ready to serve, but never did he allow the many honors bestowed upon him to dim his love for the Church of Christ. The church came first in his life. We look forward to the great reunion where death does not sting and separation is impossible.
— Bob Copeland Jr.
Brother Lyles Did Know In 1954
H. F. Sharp After reading the sermon preached by Brother Cleon Lyles and published in the Gospel Guardian it appeared to me that Brother Lyles does not know of anything in the brotherhood today that is contrary to what he thinks to be wrong. He does not know what the Herald of Truth is, as an organization within the church, nor know of the oversight taken by the Fifth and Highland elders of Abilene, Texas. If they were doing this, according to his sermon, he would oppose such work. For your knowledge, Brother Lyles one time knew of such but, perhaps he has forgotten he one time had that knowledge.
Brother Lyles knew of the error in the church then. Does he not know it still exists? In the sermon "Pattern of Apostasy" the statement was made that such oversight exercised by Fifth and Highland was contrary to Divine law on local, national or international scale. This statement was made because Sixth and Izard was at that time doing on a local scale the thing Fifth and Highland in Abilene is doing on a national scale.
As late as May 1954 the writer was in a meeting at South Highland in Little Rock. Brother Lyles was in the audience the night the Herald of Truth was discussed. We called it by name. Maybe he did not hear or has forgotten but other brethren knew about it. Brother Sam Harper, brother of Brother E. R. Harper, was there and ' took issue with me and asked that we get together and talk about the Herald of Truth. I gladly agreed but have heard nothing from Brother Sam Harper since that night.
After services, the night I preached on the "Pattern of Apostasy," Brother Lyles went to my daddy and told him that he believed I preached the' truth on these vital questions. He told me the same thing. The next day the preachers of Little Rock with Brother Horace Wilson and me had lunch together in a restaurant in Little Rock. Before the entire group of preachers, numbering perhaps about eight or nine, he publicly told me he "appreciated my lesson last night." That was the sermon on "Pattern of Apostasy."
C. D. Crouch, P. O. Box 25, Baxterville, Mississippi, Jan. 16: "Baxterville church is a small congregation in South Mississippi, composed of about twenty members. I have been with the work here for eight months, and I can see some evidence of growth in the spiritual stature of most of the members. We have baptized only four during the time I have been here and three of that number have moved away. It will not be possible for the Baxterville church to support a preacher for full-time work but a few months longer without financial assistance from somewhere. A substantial bank balance had been built up before the brethren had me to come here, and our contributions average but little above $40.00 per week. That is pretty good when the number of members together with other circumstances are taken into consideration. I, personally, contracted for time on a radio station at Columbia for five days each week (Monday through Friday, 12:45 to 1:00 p.m.) and asked for financial help from churches elsewhere who know me. I have the promise of sufficient help on this work to maintain it through March. If there is a church anywhere looking for an opportunity to help establish the cause of Christ in a new field, let me urge said church to contact Bill Bogle, Baxterville, Mississippi, and ask for information about conditions and needs here. Or you may also contact Isaac Williamson, Baxterville, Mississippi, or A. P. Miller, Lumberton, Mississippi. These brethren will be glad to answer your inquiries."