The following booklet by the Rev John B Johnson is presented here with the kind permission of Don Donald, one of the Directors of Mt Moriah Church. There is no date on the booklet. A transcription follows the image of each page.
the laws of nature, it should have died, but this is a church that refused to die.
Where is this unusual church? In the book "Our Town", written by Thornton Wilder, a letter came to the post office with this address: "Grover's Corner, Sutton County, New Hampshire, the United States of America, the Western Hemisphere, the Earth, the Solar System, the Universe, the Mind of God." Mt. Moriah is about thirty miles from the nearest railroad or bus connection at Greenville, Alabama. It is five miles from the sleepy-eyed village of Pine Apple -- a place with about five hundred inhabitants. To send a letter there, it would be addressed thusly: "Mt. Moriah, Wilcox-Butler Counties, the United States, the Western Hemisphere, the Earth, the Solar System, the Heart of God."
In the last World War, a huge tank, speeding across smooth terrain, came suddenly to a halt. It had plenty of gas; there were no mechanical difficulties, and no barrier had blocked its passage. Why had it stopped? The officer in charge said, "We have come to the edge of our map." When you find Mt. Moriah, you are close to the edge of the map. Yet, visit there the second Sunday in June, and you will see from three to five hundred people bent upon worship, and a meal of rare delicacies. They come from all over the South. The little light that is almost extinguished during the year flashes into a blazing meteor that day. It is the "Heart of God." It is singular, but when the sermon is delivered, the minister stands in Wilcox County, and the congregation sits in Butler. It is divided by a county line.
Mt. Moriah was established in 1828. It was rebuilt in 1849 and 1954, but always in the same location. Its members are of the pioneer strain who came to Alabama from Virginia by way of South Carolina. There was a time when this church had four hundred members, but this included the slaves who joined with their white masters. The records, now being preserved by a historical association, reveal that during the War Between the States, a soldier was so captivated by the spirit of Mt. Moriah that he wrote the church to
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Page updated 9 Apr 2007.
