Brother Massey wrote: “I was a very high tempered rowdy boy, full of fun and pranks. Drank some, went to parties, dances, fussed and scrapped. January 9, 1888, I went to a revival at Rocky Mound Church. Did not go for the good of the meeting but to swap pistols, play cards and be with the young folks.
Elder Joe S. Meador was pastor and holding the meeting I went in that night and went up a little closer than common. Bro. Meador preached and I got interested and stayed in, though I didn’t do that often, I found my self weeping and trembling and when they called mourners, I did not go but was under deep conviction.
Old Uncle Fate Howard, whose nose and eyes were red from drinking whiskey, and I had drank with him, engaged with him in many evils, but six month before this he had been saved. He lived in about 100 yards of me and I knew he had lived a noble life during that six months.
He crossed his hands on his back when he saw me weeping that night and started toward me. Every step he made seemed to break me down more. Tears were streaming from his eyes. He laid his hand on my head and said, ‘Cap, don’t you want religion?’ I at once started for the altar. He helped me there. I was a real mourner and wept all the time. I hauled logs the next day. The crew was awfully bad to swear but not one oath was sworn in my presence. The ring leader was under conviction and I wept all day, was a mourner that night, wept all the next day, no swearing, that night was a mourner again. About nine o’clock, I was sitting there, not praying as I had been, but just thinking how justly God could send me to hell, and while in this meditation, all at once I sprang to my feet. I was up before I knew it and started a song, ‘I have a father over yonder.’ I shook hands with the brethren and sisters and rejoiced, believing in God with all my heart. And what I got that night, January 11, 1888 is all the hope I have of Heaven and it will carry me there.”
Bro. Massey did not unite with the church for a while. After reading the Bible and church history, he was sure that the Baptist Church was the true church. He found at Rocky Mound a church of that kind that had a succession back to the church that Jesus built. He united with the church and was baptized by Elder Joe S. Meador on the fourth Sunday in November 1896.
He felt his calling to preach and was liberated by Rocky Mound Church to preach in 1897 and ordained to the full work of the ministry on June 10, 1899 by the same church.
Past 90 years of age, he was carried home to Heaven October 18, 1957. In his obituary, (which he wrote himself) he says: “I have been pastor of 33 different churches, with as high as seven at one time. My longest pastorate was 23 years, and the shortest was six months. Then two years, four years, 11 years, 12 years and 17 years. I am unworthy of the least of all God’s mercies, and am the smallest of all saints. I want no glory. Give it all to the Lord, for He is worthy. My children have all been just as good to me as they could be and I am now in my 91st year. I have preached for 59 years. I never had had a vacation in my life. I have never had a salary for preaching. I guess others who are better than I am have salaries. I just trusted the Lord and His teaching for a living. I think I have baptized 2,000 people. Thousands have been saved in meetings I have held. I love and respect all God’s preachers and I love them everyone; and every child of God, I love everyone of them and hold no envy against anyone. I always confess my faults to the Lord and forgive everyone who, I think, has wronged me before I sleep at night. I carry nothing over for another day. I esteem others better than myself and the reason I do this is because the Lord said to “Esteem others better than ourselves.” The Lord also said “In everything give thanks,” and I have practiced that all along.”
From “Baptist Progressor” Vol. 2, Number 7, January 1963 and
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~tnsmith/ccarticles/Oct31-AB-1957.htm
