Taking men from the fishing net

“We can see no good reason why God can not take men from the fishing net, workshop or plow and make efficient ministers of them now as well as thirty, forty, fifty or eighteen hundred years ago. We can not see why a proud hireling priesthood is not as injurious to the church in these present times as in former years when Freewill Baptist preachers were not permitted to preach in school houses or meeting houses if they could possibly be prevented...We think, as far as our knowledge extends, that those ministers most intimately connected with that institution (the theological school in New York) are doing most to change the former customs and usages of the Freewill Baptists, and that the time is not far distant when a man to be a Freewill Baptist minister will be necessitated to pass through all the various institutions of learning and obtain certificates from the various authorities, as do the Congregationalists...Such a state of things we can not give our aid to bring about.” – Excerpt of a reply of the Canterbury, New Hampshire Freewill Baptist Church to a call for financial assistance to the theological seminary in Whitestown, New York (History of the Town of Canterbury, New Hampshire, 1727-1912 (Volume 1), James Otis Lyford, Concord, NH: The Rumford Press, 1912, p. 331)