The Televangelist

He was known as J. Clayton Fennimore after he became a celebrity. Before that he was simply called Josh. Joshua was the name his mother gave him at his birth. His mother was a Bible Believer, and Joshua was the Bible Hero who overthrew the walls of Jericho.

'I do hope and pray,' Hattie Belle Fennimore said when they brought him, all red and wrinkled and frowning, to her in her hospital bed. 'I do hope and pray to God that he will grow up to be a preacher. Now you jest look at that face he is a makin'. He will shorely be a Soldier for the Lord, and he will fight the ol' Devil like Joshua in the Bible done.'

The boy's father, Will Edd Fennimore, was less inclined to piety than Hattie Belle, but he knew that the Joshua of Biblical fame had overthrown the walls of Jericho. 'If he don't knock over some walls with that frown and his yellin' they'll still be there when Gabriel blows his horn.' Will Edd had imbibed six beers at Clancy's Bar during the four hour wait for the arrival of his first and only born son, and he was already feeling a bit expansive without the need of religious enthusiasm.

'Hattie Belle has got enough religion for the whole family,'' Will Edd replied to Brother Robert Farraday, the minister of the Mount Horeb Baptist Church. Brother Farraday had seized upon the auspicious occasion of Joshua's birth to make one final attempt to convince Will Edd that his place at the head of the Fennimore family involved the responsibility to set an example by attending church services. 'Ain't no call for me to go and overdo it.' Will Edd found the fellowship of his drinking buddies at Clancy's Bar to be quite adequate for his spiritual needs.

Brother Bob, as he was called by the farmers and small town folks of East Dexter, Alabama, who comprised the little congregation of the Mount Horeb Baptist Church, was not one to expend his energies on barren ground. He left Will Edd to the libidinous comforts of Clancy's and he concentrated on encouraging Hattie Belle to bring up the baby faced, blue eyed, curly haired little boy Joshua in the nurture and the admonition of the Lord. Hattie Belle undertook this task with both joy and gratitude, for she and Will Edd had been married seven years when Joshua was born, and she said that God had heard her prayers and had rewarded her patience. So certain was she of this that when the infant Joshua grasped Brother Bob's finger with his own little hand and kicked and wrenched as though he would jerk himself up by that firm hand hold on the preacher's finger, Hattie Belle said 'I just know he will be a preacher when he grows up. I just know it as sure as if the Lord had stood right here in front of me and said it with His own lips.'

Hattie Belle's eyes stared out of her plain round face with fanatical devotion. I know it as certain as if the Lord was standin' right here in front of me and a sayin', 'Now Hattie Belle, that boy is destined to he a preacher when he grows up.'

It was Hattie Belle who taught him the Bible verses. Joshua was a precocious child, and without doubt his precocity was a harbinger of his future fame as a Boy Preacher. For when he was not yet five years old he could rattle off those Bible verses which were the building blocks of The Plan of Salvation. Hattie Belle knew the verses by heart, and she had recited them often enough, but without any telling effect on Will Edd. Joshua received them with eagerness though, and he gave them back to her with great pride of achievement.

'All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God!' he declared happily. 'The wages of sin is death!' he said gloatingly. And 'God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth on him should not perish but have everlasting life!' he finished victoriously. His triumph was complete. Hattie Belle's cup ran over.

The first time Joshua gave this performance for Brother Bob Farraday, that worthy servant of the Lord was highly pleased, but after the fifth, or the sixth performance, it became a trial to be endured with as much grace as possible. As it went on and on, the pastor began to suspect that it might fit neatly into the category of the persecution of the saints rather than The Plan of Salvation.

News of the boy's Biblical precocity reached Clancy's Bar and Will Edd was asked if Josh was really going to be a preacher. Sloshing the foam of his beer onto the bar, Will Edd replied 'Gonna be? You ast me if he's gonna be!? My God! If his Mammy was to set him up there on that bar right this minute he would close down the place and drive Clancy into bankruptcy.'

Clancy begged Will Edd not to let the boy come near his place and Will Edd said 'Don't you worry your head none, Clancy. What's more likely to happen is he will drive half the male population of East Dexter to drink with his eternal Bible spoutin' and you will git rich offen him.'