Parson Patterson Story

Item #324

True Builders of America

(January, 1984) Seeking to portray a minister with all the strength and self-sacrifice demanded of the vocation in the 1930’s. I chose as my model Dr. C. Houston Patterson of Bluefield, West Virginia. Having served as his assistant for two years. I wished to honor him and others like him who were living testaments to the gospel of Christ. He wears a choir robe because I wanted to show that the churches of the Depression had to be resourceful and yet maintain dignity in worship. On the left side of the pulpit are early Christian symbols. The seven stars of the Big Dipper are allusions to the seven stars in the book of The Revelations to John (1:16). It is a reference to the whole Church. The A and W are the latinized renditions of Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. This is a reference to Rev. (1:8). The depiction of Jesus as the Good Shepherd is the symbolic way that the early Church painted him in the Catacombs of Rome. The front of the pulpit has copied a French 16th century manuscript depicting the four gospel writers with their customary symbols: the winged man for Matthew, the lion for Mark, the ox for Luke and the eagle for John. The cross in front of the pulpit is a miniature of St. Martin’s Cross (pre-Reformation) on the scared isle of Iona between Scotland and Ireland. On the pulpit to the Parson’s left is the triangle, symbolizing the Trinity. The X and the combined P are the Greek letters for Chi and Rho, the first early Church abbreviation for Christ. The sea shell is the symbol for the Apostle James. The little stars above and below the shell indicate what the Parson has used as his text, and it is apparently aimed at me, a long-time member of the Religion Department at Davidson College: “Let  not many of you become teachers, my brethren, for you know we who teach will be judged with great strictness.” The sermon is about over; the Parson’s pocket watch is at 11:50 a.m.

Dr. Thomas F. Clark