The early church minutes were written in beautiful handwriting and “real ink”! Mistakes are rarely noted on the yellowing pages. As a general trend, it should be noted that the church wasn’t usually the meeting place. Also the business of the Session centered on receiving members, baptisms, administering Holy Communion, and the most interesting entries related to disciplining the members! There is no mention of benevolence on the part of the church! Just as today, the minutes were always examined and approved.
The Session often met in a “judicial capacity and to act as judges of a Court of Jesus Christ.” They seemed to see it as their duty to go so far as to summon a member who “spit in the face of and assaulted another member in the barroom of a hotel in Cincinnati in January of 1850”. He also used improper language at the same time and place. The gentleman offered no apologies and told the Session to take whatever course they saw as proper. “I have always and always will cherish a high regard for the church in which I have a birthright, and under whose influence I was raised and will raise my family.” They expelled him from the church, and, of course, closed with prayer! In other instances they chastised members for actions within the community for activities having nothing to do with the church proper! They often cited quotes from the Bible about behavior and what to do if your brother trespasses against you. Sometimes charges against people were read from the pulpit in an effort to get them to repent.
It’s amazing that people seemed to be flocking to the church with that kind of judgment going on, but perhaps that was the norm for church activities at that time. Mr. and Mrs. Wayne Clark, Mus. Edgar (Lela) Thomas, Mrs. Karl (Alice) Tingle, Francis Van Hart, Bessie Hyde. Robert Lines, Mr., and Mrs. Carlos Matney, and Ona Mae Highfield (Handley).