One Morning at Sunday School (Cont.)
Screen 2 of 2"You'll surely go to eternal damnation if you do, " she said bluntly.
"You mean we'll go to hell?" I asked without permission.
"I certainly do mean that, Chester Travelstead," she retorted, "but don't you ever use that four-letter word again in this class. We'll have to wash out your mouth with soap if you do. Do you understand?"
I remember I was stunned and remained quiet for a few minutes while she continued to berate me and downgrade the Catholics even more.
But finally I could stand it no longer. I just had to say something, and I did, interrupting her, I believe, in the middle of a sentence.
"Miss, " I said in a loud voice, "I 'm tired of hearing you criticize the Catholics. I didn't come to this Sunday School class to be told what's wrong with the Catholics. One of my best friends is Tommy Stevens and he is a Catholic. We play on the same basketball team at the Y.M.C.A. He is a good boy, and I like him. I don't want you to talk about him like that. He thinks he is going to Heaven, and I believe he will!"
My outburst was followed by an instant of dead silence, during which I wondered if I had actually said all that. Apparently I had, because Miss XXX suddenly became red with rage.
"Chester Travelstead, how dare you talk to me like that?" she yelled. I felt sure the boys and girls in other classes nearby could hear her shouting. "You are a very impudent boy and I will not allow you to remain in this class. I demand that you leave immediately!"
Of course, I left, and with my mother's permission I never went back to that class again. "Baptists " were on my boyish "blacklist" for some time because of that encounter with Miss XXX, but fortunately I learned a few years later that very few Baptists are as prejudiced and unfair as she was.
I have also learned through wide church experience over the six decades since that Sunday morning in 1921 that prejudiced, ignorant and bigoted "Christians" are not confined to the Baptist Church. All the other protestant churches and the Catholic Church itself also seem to have their share of such people.
[TRAVELSTEAD'S VIGNETTES HOME PAGE]
[DAVID'S HOME PAGE ]
- 30 -