LEXINGTON'S NIGHT PREACHER.

Rev. W. B. Aull

Has Heard Major Perry, the Sleeping Preacher.

In Lexington county, not far from Treesville, there lives one of the antebellum darkies. He is about 76 years of age and has the appearance of having a tinge of Indian blood. He is modest and retiring and shrinks from publicity. He has no education - not enough to write his name. He has a large family of children. Since his wife died he works a "little patch" along with part of his family.

According to his statement in his sermons he has been preaching every night, with the exception of a few months, since 1880. There is not any "fake" about this sleeping preacher. He was at the theater in Columbia on one occasion, but the "experimenters" handled him so roughly in attempting to arouse him from his comatose state that he refused to appear any more on exhibition. He becomes rigid in body at times during his discourse and has to be shaken in order to cause him to proceed.

In his waking moments he cannot repeat any of the texts he quotes and yet he always quotes them correctly, and no one seems to remember that he ever uses a text more than once. This is all the more remarkable when we remember he has preached 37 years and 365 times a year and occasionally an "extra" sermon each night. In other words he has preached in that time over 135,000 sermons. Psychologists from different parts of the country have studied him, but have no satisfactory solution.

I will repeat, as best I can recall, the sermon I heard him preach last Friday night, November 16, and give it to The Courier for publication in next week's issue. So if space is found it may appear in print.  I can say also that the doctrine he preaches is Scriptural and the language good for one who has never "learned letters."

It was an impressive discourse and was received with marked attention by the assembly that filled the school auditorium at Pomaria.

W. B. Aull.
Walhalla, Nov 20.

From “Keowee Courier”, Walhalla, South Carolina, USA
No 47, Nov 21, 1917, pg 5.

Edited by Elof Granholm April 9, 2014

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