Recently Jo Ann and I went to visit a friend who was in a medical rehab facility in Luling, Texas. Since we were going to see her on a Sunday afternoon, we decided to worship at the First Presbyterian Church in Luling where the Rev. Monica Smith serves as pastor and a good friend, Bill Rutherford, a fellow-member of the Presbyterian Pan American School board, is a member.
As we worshiped there, I reflected on that church’s persistent faithfulness over the years and its continued faithfulness today. Organized in 1877 with a building that was constructed in 1882, this congregation reached its peak membership of 92 in 1962. And yet, it has a strong sense of being Presbyterian, of taking an interest and participation in mission, of involvement in the life of the presbytery. They worship regularly, the Word is proclaimed, prayers are offered, concern for each other and the community is expressed. All of that was evident the Sunday we were among the ten saints sitting in the congregation.
One of the pastors of this church was Conway Wharton, Jr. who also served the First Presbyterian Church in San Marcos and the church in Lockhart. By the time he came to serve those churches he had already served churches in Natchitoches, Louisiana; Fort Worth; Edinburg, Houston; Corpus Christi. He later served as interim pastor in Kingsville as well as a stint as pastor in Wimberley.
Conway’s brother, James, his father, Conway Wharton, Sr., his uncle, Lawrence Wharton, and his grandfather, Turner Ashby Wharton, were all Presbyterian ministers. A graduate of both Austin College and Austin Seminary, Conway, Sr. (1890-1953) served as a missionary to what was then called the Belgian Congo from 1915 to 1928. After succeeding his younger brother, Lawrence, as pastor of University Presbyterian Church in Austin (1937-1943), he returned to the Congo as a missionary from 1944-1949. His final pastorate was in Ballinger, Texas.
Conway, Sr.’s brother, Lawrence (1892-1937) was also a graduate of Austin College and Austin Seminary. His first pastorate was in Laredo, Texas from 1914 to 1921 (with a year off with YMCA in France during World War I. In 1922 he went to University Presbyterian Church in Austin where he remained until his death in January of 1937. Although he died relatively young, he directed the youth encampment in Kerrville, Texas for many summers.
James (“Jim”) Allen Wharton (1927-2012), son of Conway, Sr. and brother to Conway, Jr., graduated from the University of Texas at Austin and Austin Seminary. He earned a doctorate in Old Testament from the University of Basel, Switzerland and did additional graduate work in Heidelberg, Göttingen, and the American School of Oriental Research in Jerusalem. From 1956 until 1975 he taught Old Testament at Austin Seminary. From 1975 until 1985 he served as pastor of Memorial Drive Presbyterian Church in Houston. Finally, he was professor of Homiletics at Perkins School of Theology in Dallas from 1985 until he retired in 1996.
From the Belgian Congo to Luling, Texas, from large city churches to small town churches, from the halls of academia in Europe to youth encampment work in central Texas, the Wharton family has borne witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ in different languages, cultures, and peoples. Truly we stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before us.
In 1870 the Anglican hymn writer John Ellerton penned one of the finest hymns, in my opinion, the church has in its collection, “The Day Thou Gavest, Lord, Is Ended”. While it is rightly identified often as an “evening hymn”, it strikes me as one that speaks to the ongoing proclamation of the gospel by the church from one generation to another. Indeed, one could look at it as an expression of the ongoing proclamation of the gospel as one life ends and another begins. At any rate, several stanzas capture the sense of the church moving from “one generation to another”:
“We thank Thee that Thy Church unsleeping,
While earth rolls onward into light,
Through all the world her watch is keeping,
And rests not now by day or night.
“As o’er each continent and island
The dawn leads on another day,
The voice of prayer is never silent,
Nor dies the strain of praise away.
“The sun that bids us rest is waking
Our brethren ‘neath the western sky,
And hour by hour fresh lips are making
Thy wondrous doings heard on high.”
