The core of the M. Homer Cummings Collection is a banker's box containing nearly 400 items. There are approximately 150 sermons, more than 50 songs and poems, nearly 50 newspaper articles about Cummings and his family, and close to 100 newspaper columns written by Cummings himself.
The first item below is an introduction to the Papers, with a Register prepared by the Special Collections department, an index of the sermons, and other aids. From there, the scans follow the same arrangement of “series" and “folders" found in the physical collection.
For additional information about the Papers, please contact please contact , Assistant Professor of English and director of the Center for Sermon Studies.
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Guide to the Cummings Papers
Marshall University Special Collections
This "Register of the M. Homer Cummings Papers" was prepared by Marshall's Special Collections Department. It contains a brief biographical note, a list of the materials in the Papers, and other information that will help orient users to the collection.
Indexes to the Papers and other finding aids will be added as they become available.
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Series I. Personal Materials. Folder 1. Articles about Reverend M. Homer Cummings, 1923-1978
Melville Homer Cummings
This folder contains approximately 40 newspaper articles about Cummings. The few that include identifying information were published in the Charleston Gazette, the Huntington Herald-Advertiser, and the Coalwood-Caretta News, with dates of publication ranging from 1935 to 1963.
The articles cover such topics as Cummings’ moves from Fayetteville to Williamstown and from Glasgow to Huntington, his 25th and 50th anniversaries in the ministry, and his work as a composer of hundreds of hymns. The newspapers also published the complete texts of several of his sermons.
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Series I. Personal Materials. Folder 2. Articles about Family of M. Homer Cummings, 1922-1968
Melville Homer Cummings
This folder contains 4 newspaper articles about members of Cummings’ family. There is a photograph of his grandson and great-grandson (Melville Homer Cummings III and IV) at the Cabell County courthouse on an unspecified election night; an article about Dr. Melville H. Cummings); an article about Lt. M. Homer Cummings, Jr’s experiences in Germany, including a visit to the Nuremberg war trials.
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Series I. Personal Materials. Folder 3. Correspondence, 1922-1968
Melville Homer Cummings
This folder contains one of Cummings’ “Our Weekly Message” newspaper columns and approximately a dozen letters written to or about him. They were composed between 1922 and 1968; topics include an invitation to become the pastor of a church in New Martinsville and several matters related to his hymnwriting work.
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Series I. Personal Materials. Folder 4. Methodist Church Conference materials, n.d.
Melville Homer Cummings
The title of this folder may be somewhat inaccurate. It contains not “church conference materials,” but an essay on hymns, a brief handwritten letter to a Mrs. G. N. Shirey, and typescripts of approximately 10 sermons. Titles and texts include “Taking Offence at Christ” (Luke 7:29), “The Gospel Invitation” (Matthew 11:28-30), and “The Immortality of the Soul” (Job 14:14).
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Series I. Personal Materials. Folder 5. Training Schoolbooks, 1909-1918
Melville Homer Cummings
This folder contains 3 documents. One is the Ninth Annual Catalogue of the Literary and Bible Training School in Nashville, Tennessee (later Trevecca College, Cummings’ alma mater). The other two, published in 1913 and 1918, are about the McCrum Slavonic Missionary Training School in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, which operated under the auspices of the Woman’s Home Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church.
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Series I. Personal Materials. Folder 6. Trevecca College materials, 1959
Melville Homer Cummings
This folder contains 4 documents from Cummings’ time at Nashville’s Trevecca College (formerly the Literary and Bible Training School and now Trevecca Nazarene University), from which he graduated in 1909. They are an “examination on theology,” what appear to be two versions of an “examination on homiletics,” a sermon on “the consequences of obedience and disobedience,” and the text of a speech he gave upon his graduation (and which he delivered again at Trevecca fifty years later).
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Series I. Personal Materials. Folder 7. Miscellaneous material of Rev. M. Homer Cummings
Melville Homer Cummings
This folder contains approximately 15 miscellaneous items, including an unfinished sermon on Job; several poems; and ledger pages detailing Cummings’ account with the E. E. White Coal Company of Glen White, WV.
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Series II(a). Sermons. Folder 1. Sermons of M. Homer Cummings, 1937-1960
Melville Homer Cummings
This folder contains typescripts of approximately 10 sermons, some of which appear to be unfinished. Most of the ones that are dated were preached in 1937, with others delivered in 1940, 1941, and 1952.
The texts for the sermons come from throughout the Old and New Testaments. Two of the sermons are about the new year; the rest are on such domestic topics as “the home,” “the mother,” “the wife,” “the father,” and “the ideal husband.”
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Series II(a). Sermons. Folder 2. Sermons, n.d.
Melville Homer Cummings
This folder contains typescripts and handwritten notes for approximately 10 sermons. The texts come from both the Old and New Testaments; titles include “How to Get Saved,” “The Blessing of Suffering,” “The Home,” and “After that the Judgment.”
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Series II(a). Sermons. Folder 3. Sermons, n.d.
Melville Homer Cummings
This folder contains typescripts and handwritten notes for approximately 10 sermons. Titles and texts include “It is Not Good that Man should be Alone” (Gen. 2:18), “A New Commandment I Give unto You” (John 13:34), and a “Commencement Sermon” and “A New Year’s Message” (no texts specified).
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Series II(a). Sermons. Folder 4. Sermons, n.d.
Melville Homer Cummings
This folder contains typescripts of 8 sermons. Titles and texts include “The Old-Fashioned Way” (Jeremiah 6:16), “Family Religion” (Mark 5:19), “Reasons for Missions” (Mark 16:15), and “His Riches—Our Riches” (2 Corinthians 8:9).
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Series II(a). Sermons. Folder 5. Sermons, n.d.
Melville Homer Cummings
This folder contains typescripts of approximately 10 sermons, some of which appear to be unfinished and/or have handwritten notes on them. Some, such as “the father” and “the ideal husband,” appear to be duplicated in other folders; those unique to this folder include sermons on Moses, heaven, and the Christmas season.
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Series II(a). Sermons. Folder 6. Sermons, n.d.
Melville Homer Cummings
This folder contains typescripts of approximately 10 sermons. Titles and scripture texts include “Backsliding”(Luke 22:31-32), “Building Skyward” (Hebrews 8:5), “The Signs of the Times” (2 Timothy 3:1-6), and “The Span of Life” (Psalm 90:10).
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Series II(a). Sermons. Folder 7. Sermons, n.d.
Melville Homer Cummings
This folder contains typescripts of approximately 10 sermons, some of which appear to be unfinished and/or have handwritten notes on them. All are undated, but one—“The Hand of God in History”—is labeled an “Armistice Address.” Titles and texts of the others include “All Things Work Together for Good” (Romans 8:28), “Christ’s Charge to the Women of Jerusalem” (Luke 23:28), “Finding God” (Psalm 42:3), and “A Funeral Discourse for a Child” (Isaiah 49:21).
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Series II(a). Sermons. Folder 8. Sermons, n.d.
Melville Homer Cummings
This folder contains typescripts of approximately 15 sermons, some of which appear to be unfinished and/or have handwritten notes on them. Titles and texts include “After that the Judgment” (Eccles. 11:9), “Christ Our Example” (1 Peter 2:21), “Self-Examination” (2 Cor. 13:5), and “Ministerial Ethics” (no text specified).
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Series II(a). Sermons. Folder 9. Sermons, n.d.
Melville Homer Cummings
This folder contains a song/hymn entitled “A Sacrifice of Praise” and typescripts of approximately 15 sermons, some of which appear to be unfinished and/or have handwritten notes on them. Titles and text include “An All Night Wrestling Match” (Genesis 32:29), “Bartimaeus” (Luke 18:35-38), “The Laziest Man in this Community” (Proverbs 12:27), and “The Living Past” (Ecclesiastes 3:15).
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Series II(b). Radio Sermons. Folder 1. Radio Sermons, 1929-1941
Melville Homer Cummings
This folder contains typescripts of approximately 10 sermons Cummings delivered on the radio between 1933 and 1941. One indicates that it was given on Cincinnati-based WLW; the station is not identified on the others. Topics come mostly from the New Testament and include the early church, the Apostle Paul, and the second coming of Christ.
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Series II(b). Radio Sermons. Folder 2. Radio Sermons 1948-1960
Melville Homer Cummings
This folder contains typescripts of approximately 20 sermons Cummings delivered between 1948 and 1960. Most were broadcast on WMON, a radio station in Montgomery, WV; one, a “Pre-Christmas Sermon,” was done for the “chapel” of WSAZ, a TV station with studios in Huntington and Charleston. Other topics include self-examination, “falling and rising,” “trusting in God,” and “the importance of the home and the family.”
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Series II(b). Radio Sermons. Folder 3. Radio Sermons, n.d.
Melville Homer Cummings
This folder contains of approximately 20 sermons delivered on the radio at unspecified times (some bear the month and date, but not the year). Some are typed, others handwritten; some are complete, others unfinished. Topics include “domestic subjects,” church membership, and “turning defeat into victory.”
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Series III. Folder 1. Articles, 1931-1965
Melville Homer Cummings
This folder contains approximately 20 columns and other newspaper pieces written by Cummings, most of which are entitled either “Our Weekly Message” or “Our Weekly Visit.” The names of the papers rarely appear on the clippings; according to the Register, “Our Weekly Visit” appeared in the Grantsville News, with “other featured columns” published in the Huntington Herald-Dispatch. Other examples of these recurring columns can be found in folders 2 and 3 of this series as well.
Topics of columns in this folder range from death and eternity to George Washington’s birthday to the various meanings of the word “pound.” Other items include a letter to the editor of the Grantsville News written under the name “Parson Jones,” and a sermon entitled “No Permanent Peace While Sin Rules,” which appeared in the Charleston Gazette on November 16, 1931.
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Series III. Folder 2. Articles, n.d.
Melville Homer Cummings
The majority of the items in this folder are approximately 15 “Our Weekly Message” and roughly the same number of “Our Weekly Visit” columns. The dates and names of the papers do not appear on the clippings; according to the Register, “Our Weekly Visit” appeared in the Grantsville News, with “other featured columns” published in the Huntington Herald-Dispatch.
Some items appear to be duplicates of articles in Series III, Folder 3. Topics range from pastoral visitation to the value of optimism and a clear conscience to an anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Other items in this folder include an assortment of “Corner Couplets,” an article on Cummings’ hymn entitled “Has Your Heart Been Warmed?,” and a letter to the editor of the Grantsville News written under the name “Parson Jones.”
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Series III. Folder 3. Articles, n.d.
Melville Homer Cummings
This folder contains materials ranging from a poem written in honor of retired ministers to several sayings by a character named Josh Hayseed. Most of items are approximately 25 newspaper columns written by Cummings, under the titles “Clergyman Chatter,” “Our Weekly Message,” and “Our Weekly Visit.” The dates and names of the papers do not appear on the clippings; according to the Register, “Our Weekly Visit” appeared in the Grantsville News, with “other featured columns” published in the Huntington Herald-Dispatch.
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Series III. Folder 4. Poems, n.d.
Melville Homer Cummings
This folder contains typescripts and manuscripts of approximately 15 poems. Topics include the dangers of cynicism, the fleeting nature of wealth, and Cummings’ reflections on his long pastoral career.
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Series III. Folder 5. Poems, n.d.
Melville Homer Cummings
This folder contains typescripts and manuscripts of approximately 10 poems. Some of them show Cummings’ political side, criticizing what he saw as the shortcomings of the GOP and warning that “If you vote for Ike you’ll cut your throat.”
