The weather of the first day of this month recalled mind the fact that fifty-two years ago last Saturday we experienced a balmy and beautiful spring day," said one of Franklin's oldest residents to The Favorite, and it is impressed upon my mind by reason of the fact that a religious gathering assembled here that day.  People from all over the county were in attendance and the services were held in the union church, which then stood on the Northwest corner of what is now the courthouse yard.  The church was used by Presbyterians, Methodists and Baptists, with space set apart for the colored people.  One of the incidents of the service was a prayer delivered by a slave, known to the people of Franklin as 'Uncle Blind John.'  He was devoutly religious a man of splendid intelligence for one of his race and sustained the universal confidence and respect of the white people.  'Uncle Blind John' belonged to Waddell Moore, father of our townsman, Mr. Randolph Moore. 

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Among the ministers of half a century ago, who preached to their flocks in the primitive old union church, I recall Rev. Dickerson, a Presbyterian; Rev. Morrison, a Methodist, whose home was in Bowling Green, and who came on horseback down the old L. & N. Pike, as the railroad had not then been built, and Rev. Austin Morrow, a Baptist. whose home was in this county.  Prior to his conversion, Rev. Morrow had been a distiller, but upon the solicitation of a friend, he attended a lecture on temperance held at the union church and when he returned to his home, he disposed of his liquor interests and entered the ministry.  He was a power for good and his eloquent sermons will be recalled by the aged men and women who listened to him. 

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Time has wrought wonderful changes in Simpson and while those of us who now live entirely in the past must accept as inevitable the changes we are nevertheless inclined to the opinion that many of the latter day theories regarding religion and the rearing of children are no improvement over the plain services of the ministers and the persuasive methods employed by the parents fifty years ago.