USA > Arkansas > History of Methodism in Arkansas > Part 34
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the first horse upon which he traveled his circuits for service in digging a cellar.
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He was licensed to preach on Bush Creek Circuit, in the State of Ohio, in 1813, and in the same autumn was received on trial in the Ohio Conference, and appointed to Deer Creek Circuit, with Alexander Cummings for his colleague.
As a traveling preacher he traveled in succession the fol- lowing circuits : Deer Creek, Guyandotte and Mad River. He was then transferred to the Tennessee Conference. In . 1818 he was stationed in Louisville, Ky., which was for the first time made a station. In 1823 he was stationed at Steu- benville, Ohio, and during this year he was elected chaplain of the lower house of Congress. It was during this year that he visited Baltimore, and by his preaching produced such a wonderful effect upon the city and surrounding coun- try. His preaching has been described as having surpassing eloquence and astounding power. He was next stationed in Pittsburg. He was elected to the presidency of Madison College in 1827. In 1832 he was elected Professor of Moral Science and Belles Lettres in Austa College, where he re- mained for about ten years. After this he was elected to the presidency of Transylvania University.
In the year 1840 the honorary degree of D. D. was con- ferred upon him by two colleges and universities. In 1845 he received the title of LL. D. from LaGrange College, Alabama.
He was a delegate to the memorable General Conference of 1844, and of the Convention of 1845, and of the General Conference of 1846. In 1850 he was elected one of the Bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church. In the dis- tribution of Episcopal labors he was appointed to the St. Louis Conference, which Conference he held at the appointed time. At this, the only Conference he ever attended as Bishop, he performed his various duties so generally to the . satisfaction of the Conference, the following commendatory resolution was passed :
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" Resolved, By the St. Louis Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, that we take great pleasure in bearing testimony to the ability, impartiality and urbanity with which Bishop Bascom has presided over the deliberations of this Conference, and to the dignified and affectionate intercourse which he has maintained with its members, endearing him to us as one of our chief ministers. While we record with peculiar satisfaction that ours is the first Conference over which he has presided since his elec- tion to the office of Bishop in the Church of God, we con- gratulate the whole Southern Church on this acquisition to the general superintendency, and confidently predict that the distinguished ability which has characterized his services in the several spheres of labor. heretofore assigned him by the Church will be eminently displayed in the new and higher one to which she has now called him."
After the adjournment of the Conference the Bishop visited the Indian Manual Labor School at Fort Leavenworth, "with which," his biographer says, "he was greatly pleased." He also visited and preached on his tour at Weston, Booneville, Lexington and St. Louis. His last discourse was preached in St. Louis in the afternoon of the last Sabbath in July, 1850. It was an effort of great power, and of two hours' continuance. His text was Heb. i., I.
He is reported as arriving at Louisville on the 2d of Au- gust, much debilitated from sickness and from traveling and toil, but appeared pleasantly excited in meeting his breth- ren at the book-room, where he remained nearly all day, de- clining his dinner for the want of an appetite. Having en- tered his passage for his home at Lexington in the stage for the next day, on invitation he lodged with his old friend, the Rev. Dr. Stevenson. He attempted to take his supper, but for want of appetite had to decline it. He retired to bed, hoping to be better by morning, and be enabled to reach his home. Dr. Stevenson and wife, deeply sympathizing
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with him, gave him all possible attention, affectionately re- monstrating against his attempt to go home, but deep solici- tude urged him to make the trial. At 3 o'clock the next morning he entered the stage coach, but ere he had passed the city limits he was so sick as to be convinced that he could not succeed in his attempt to reach home. His sick- ness so affected his stomach as to induce vomiting, which much alarmed some of the passengers, who supposed it a case of cholera, and believing it contagious, were very anx- ious that he should get out of the coach and let it proceed. The driver's attention being called to the case, he was asked what he would do. He averred that at the risk of his life he would return Bishop Bascom to his lodgings whence he had taken him. This was promptly done, so that in an hour after he left his friend he was again at the door. Being kindly received and restored to his bed, Dr. Stevenson con- sulted with him as to what physician he would have, and he authorized him to call in Drs. Bright and Pirtle, his personal friends and brethren. Late in the evening of that day, feel- ing much better, he proposed starting home on the next day, but his physicians objecting, he said no more in regard to it.
After being confined about a week, he asked Dr. Steven- son to be seated by him, affirming that he was no better- that the remedies had not touched the disease-that the symptoms were as before. He remarked to Dr. S .: "The truth is, I have been strangely brought to believe that I must die ! My temporal matters are not as I could wish, though I will try to be resigned to the will of Providence." At the suggestion of Dr. Stevenson two other eminent physicians, Drs. Bell and Rogers, were called in. All of his physicians manifested a very deep interest in his case. His numerous friends watched with eagerness and deep solicitude over him. In regard to them, Dr. Stevenson informs us in his notice of his afflictions and death, he exclaimed: "My friends, O, my friends ! if they could but cure me by kind-
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ness, I should soon be well; but they cannot do it." Dr. S. informs us of several instances of his expressing his im- pressions that he would die. On one of these occasions he replied to him, "Do you really think so?" He answered, " Yes, I have thought so all the while, when able to think for myself." And says the doctor, " He spoke with much con- fidence in relation to his future happiness, and professed the most satisfactory assurance of his acceptance with God." On another occasion he remarked to Dr. S : "On the near approach to death, as in all my past life, I can discover no. rock of hope on which to rest my weary spirit but Jesus. Christ as revealed in the gospel; and should I ever be so. happy as to obtain some humble seat in heaven, it will never cease to be true of me that I am but a sinner saved by grace." A solemn pause ensued, after which he said : "True, true ! how true it is that all our help and hope is of God, through the infinite merits of Jesus Christ." Dr. Steven- son announced to the Bishop that he was writing to Bishop Andrew, and asked him if he had any communications that he wished made to the Bishop. "He looked at me with much earnestness and said, 'Yes; say to Bishop Andrew that I am utterly prostrate, with but little, if any, hope of recovery ; that I am wholly incapable of thinking or acting correctly on any subject; but tell him from me that my whole trust and confidence is in Almighty goodness, as re- vealed in the cross of Christ.'"
When all hope of his recovery was relinquished, it was proposed that Dr. Bright, who was his oldest physician and a local minister, should announce to the Bishop that his end was nigh, and learn from him an expression of his prospects. The doctor asked him directly "if his confidence in God, his Savior, was still strong and unshaken?" to which he promptly replied with great earnestness and self-possession, " Yes, yes, yes !"
With this strong affirmation of his final hope in a single
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word, thrice repeated, in an earnest and emphatic manner, did this eminent man and earnest minister close his com- munications with the world.
Dr. Stevenson says : " He was evidently in the full pos- session of all his mental faculties. Never did his noble brow and full-orbed eye evince a higher degree of intellectual strength. There was a sublimity and loftiness of bearing in the whole contour of his face; an indescribable brightness gleamed out in every expression of his face ; the scene was overwhelming. Perceiving (says Dr. S.) that the momentous crisis had come, as if moved by some invisible power we all at once bowed around his dying bed, and while we were thus engaged in solemn, silent prayer to Almighty God, without a struggle or a groan, he passed away."
The funeral services took place at the Fourth Street Methodist Church in the City of Louisville. The remains of the deceased were conveyed to the Eastern Cemetery, a Methodist burying-ground, attended by a very extensive procession of friends and acquaintances, in public and pri . vate carriages.
Before the body was committed to the tomb, the burial service of the Church was read by Dr. Stevenson, followed by the singing of Bishop Heber's funeral hymn by the choir.
Thus passed away one of the most remarkable men of the age. Through life he was alone in his career. His concep- tions and phraseology ; his emphatic, earnest and impressive utterance ; his eager and intelligent look ; his impressive and appropriate gestures, were all his own, not to be imitated by others. His imagination was inconceivable rich. His se - mons displayed this unrivaled power in the sublimest con- ceptions, clothed in the most forcible and gorgeous language, and this part of the performance seemed of all others the most easy and natural to him. As his mind soared off, it seemed to use its wings with unlabored ease and grace until it reached a culminating point that seemed to leave all
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else below. At such times his voice would take a richer and deeper tone and fully chime with the visions that were bewildering and entrancing you. When he saw proper, he could conduct an argument with immense power and con- vincing force.
BISHOP CAPERS.
The following memoir of Bishop Capers was prepared for the minutes by Bishop Pierce, at the request of his col- leagues in the episcopacy :
This brief memoir of William Capers, one of the Bish- ops of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, is prepared in conformity to a long-established custom of the Church in relation to her deceased ministers. It is well to embalm in the recollections of his surviving brethren the virtues of a departed servant of God, especially when he has been great: as well as good. We decline to enter into details as to the birth, education, conversion, induction to the ministry, and successive appointments of Bishop Capers, inasmuch as an extended biography will soon appear. We present only those points which, while they characterized and distin- guished him during a long, eventful and laborious life, can- not well be too often or too strongly urged upon his fellow- laborers in the gospel.
To appreciate the integrity, humility, and self-denial of Bishop Capers, it must be remembered that when he com- menced his career Methodism was not as now a recognized power in the land, but feeble and despised, working out her glorious mission amid the scorn of the world and the wither- ing contempt of other Christian sects. To be a Methodist was to " count all things lost for Christ," and to be numbered " with the offscouring of the earth." To be a Methodist traveling preacher was to renounce every fond ambition, forego fortune and ease, and often the respect and sympa- thy of one's own household. To do this when a man's ori- gin was humble, and his family obscure, and his earthly pros-
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pects bounded by ignorance and poverty, demanded high moral courage and a most Christian subordination of will and plan of hope to duty and to God. The task grew heavier and harder still for the heir of wealth, proud of ancestral titles, himself decked with the honors of the academy and the col- lege, conscious, too, of rare powers of thought and speech, which, developed on another theater, might win money and fame, place and power. Such were the circumstances, gifts and prospects of our beloved brother. But, true to the heav- enly instincts of a sound conversion, he left all to follow Christ. Settling the great question of duty on its true basis, he was running his furrow straight for the kingdom when death ar- rested him. He never looked back. His life beautifully ex- emplified the integrity of his heart and the entireness of his consecration.
As a member of an Annual Conference, he never sought accommodation, but surrendered himself and family to the workings of the itinerant system, with all its uncertainties, inconveniences and privations. He traveled circuits and districts; filled stations; was transferred from one Confer- ence to another ; served the missions in South Carolina, which he inaugurated, and the Missionary Society when the duties of his office called him to wander over half the Union; was superintendent of Indian Missions, and was finally a Bishop of the Church, bearing meekly and without complaint the burdens of an office which has no parallel even in our self- denying system.
The great elements of Bishop Capers' religious charac- ter were great simplicity, unpretending humility, a zeal that knew no ebb and a self-denial that hesitated at no sacrifice of time or earthly interest, all energized and sustained by a faith in Providence and divine promise always equal to the emergencies of his laborious calling and his checkered his- tory. He never secularized himself; a man of one work, he sought to fulfil the ministry which he had received of the
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Lord Jesus and to finish his course with joy. In this respect to say nothing of other striking excellencies, he was a model for his brethren.
As a preacher, he had few equals in the long line of Methodist history. Original without novelty and peculiar without eccentricity, he was certainly no imitator, and is not likely to have a successor. Grave, reverent, devout in man- ner at the family altar and in the sanctuary, he was always scrupulously observant of the proprieties of time and place and performed the various functions of the ministry with an easy grace at once attractive and impressive. He lives in the memory of thousands who often hung with delight upon his ministrations, and in the hearts of thousands more who re- pented and believed under his persuasive eloquence, or were cheered and strengthened by his consolatory discourses.
Having returned home from one of his Episcopal tours, he was suddenly attacked with disease, and was soon speechless in death. A piety, demonstrated as to its origin and aim by a life of labor and devotion, before silence sealed the lip of this Christian soldier and conqueror, articulated a testimony prec- ious, satisfactory, triumphant. The religion which he honored in youth, manhood, and age, made his death-chamber illus- trious and his grave a treasury of hope and heaven.
Bishop Capers was born January 26, 1790, in the Parish of St. Thomas, South Carolina, some twenty miles from Charleston. He was admitted on trial in the South Carolina Conference, December, 1808, before he had been six months on trial as a member of the Church. He was ordained Bishop in Petersburg, Va., May, 1846. He died at his resi- dence at Anderson Court House, S. C., January 29, 1855.
MEMOIR OF BISHOP ANDREW.
James Osgood Andrew was born in Wilkes County, Georgia, May 3, 1794. His father was the Rev. John An- drew, formerly an itinerant and afterward a local preacher in the Methodist Episcopal Church, and teacher of a country
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school. His mother's maiden name was Cosby. She was a woman of strong intellect, fine taste and deep piety. Her son derived many of his sterling elements of character from this excellent woman. He was fond of reading when a child, and read nearly all the books in his father's library. His father taught him irregularly for three or four years, and he went to two other teachers, under whom he studied for a short period. He was admitted to the communion of the Church when he was 13 years of age, by the Rev. Gabriel Christian. He filled the office of assistant class-leader at Asbury Chapel, Broad River Circuit, in Elbert County, Georgia. He 'was licensed to preach when he was 18 years of age. His first attempts to preach were among the ne- groes, and his labors were not without success. In his first attempt to preach before his neighbors and friends he was much embarrassed, His uncle, Dr. Moses Andrew, gave him the text: "We have forsaken all, and followed thee; what shall we have therefore?" He was much mortified with what he considered a failure-and so were some of his friends. One of the most influential members, James Marks, said to him, " Well, Jeems, I voted the other day for you to be a preacher, but if I had heard that sermon first I never would have done it." He was so discouraged that he con- cluded never to try preach again ; but he soon overcame that temptation. Dr. Moses Andrew, his father's cousin, was the preacher in charge, and Dr. Loveick Pierce was Presid- ing Elder, in the Quarterly Conference by which he was li- censed. Dr. Pierce carried his recommendation to the South Carolina Conference, which met in Charleston, S. C., December 12, 1812, where he was received into the itiner- ant connection. He was appointed to the Saltketcher Cir- cuit, as assistant preacher. William M. Kennedy was his Presiding Elder. The next year he was sent as preacher in charge to Bladen Circuit. At the next Conference he was ordained Deacon by Bishop McKendree, and sent to Warren
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Circuit. The next year he was stationed in Charleston. At the next Conference he was ordained Elder, and sent to Wil- mington, N. C., where he remained two years, and was very successful in his ministry. Shortly before his death he re- ceived a check for $1000 from a gentleman in New Jersey, the son of one who was converted under his ministry when stationed in Wilmington. He was stationed in 1820, 1821, in Augusta, in 1822-3, in Savannah, where he passed through the yellow fever. In 1824, he was Presiding Elder on the Edisto District ; 1825-26, on the Charleston District. In 1827-28, he was stationed in Charleston; 1829, Athens, Greensboro, Ga .; 1830, Athens and Madison, Ga. The next year the Georgia Conference was set off, and he was stationed in Augusta. In 1832, he was elected and ordained Bishop, and continued in the faithful discharge of his high and re- sponsible duties till the General Conference which met in New York in 1844. He entered upon his work as a Bishop with great reluctance, fear and trembling. He frequently said that he was greatly encouraged by a remark of Bishop McKendree after his election, when he said to that apostolic man, " The Conference has laid on me a work for which I am not prepared, and for which I have no experience what- ever. Please give me some advice." The venerable Bishop replied : "James, I have not much to say; but I will say, never shrink from responsibility ; for remember that by this you assume the most fearful of all responsibilities." He never forgot this opportune and judicious advice. Bishop Andrew was thrice married. He was united to his second wife, an excellent Christian lady of Georgia, a little while before the session of the General Conference of 1844. Mrs. Andrew was the owner of slaves, and though the Bishop had no pecuniary interest in them, and could not have lib- erated them had he wished to do, yet the Northern majority in the General Conference virtually deposed him from his office as Bishop, against the earnest protestations of the
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Southern delegates, the Southern Church, and many in the North. He would gladly have resigned his office to pre- serve the union and peace of the Church; but as such a. step would have been fatal to Methodism in the South, and would have sanctioned a false, fanatical, and unconstitu- tional principle, he maintained his position with dignity hu- mility and patience; though the trial through which he passed was exceedingly severe. A Plan of Separation was. agreed upon between the Northern and Southern sections of the Church ; a convention was held at Louisville, Ky., at- which Bishop Soule and Andrew presided, when the Metho- dist Episcopal Church, South, was organized; and at the first General Conference, held in Petersburg, Va., May, 1846, they were recognized as Bishops in the Southern Church,. and William Capers and Robert Paine were added to them by election and consecration at that session. Bishop An- drew continued to exercise the functions of his office, with great ability and success till the session of the General Con- ference at New Orleans, in 1866, when, at his request, he was granted a superannuated relation. He continued, how- ever, to visit the Churches, preaching and counseling, warn- ing and encouraging the brethren, until the weary wheels of life at last stood still. The last Annual Conference which he attended was the Alabama, at its session in Montgomery, December, 1870. He had a peculiar affection for that Con- ference, as he had resided within its bounds at Summerfield after his marriage with his third wife in. 1854. He took- an affectionate leave of the Conference, predicting truly that he would never attend another session. He vi ;- ited the brethren in New Orleans in February, 1871. His last sermon was preached in the Felicity Street Church the- Sunday night before his death, after addressing the Sunday- school. He preached with much of his former power, but it was too much for his little remaining strength, and on Tuesday morning at 4 o'clock he received the warning
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stroke. It assumed the form of hemiplegia, affecting the left side. He received all possible attentions from Dr. Moss, at whose house he was staying, but human science, and love, and care, could not stay the bolt of death. He was taken to Mobile, where at the house of his daughter and son-in- law, the Rev. John W. Rush, his latest hours were soothed with the kindest care. He lay, quiet and serene, a iew days on the margin of the river, showing his numerous sympa- thizing friends with what ease a Christian can die. He had the "gay remembrance of a life well spent "-" the peace of God which passeth all understanding "-and a good hope through grace of soon entering into the joy of his Lord -- and of ob- taining an abundant entrance, too! He spoke words of cheer to his sorrowing wife, and children, and friend -- talked much about the Church, which he loved as his own soul, and of his colleagues in the episcopacy, to whom he was devotedly attached. He sent them as his dying message, through Bishop McTyeire, these words : " Tell them I would like to meet them in May, but cannot ; for I am fully persuaded my time to go is near at hand -- that in them all I have the fullest confidence, and die rejoicing that God has put the Church in their care and superintend- ency; and that they must always live in peace and har- mony !" In this frame he continued till he passed through the gates into the city. Among his last words were these to his children and grandchildren, and the preachers present : "God bless you all !" "Victory ! victory !" He died March 2, 1871 -- the month and day on which the immortal Wesley, eighty years before, ascended to the skies. Ap- propriate obsequies were performed at the Franklin Street Church by Bishop Keener, Dr. Andrews, and the Rev. J. A. Spence. His remains were then taken to Oxford, Ga., where he had so long resided, and laid with kindred dead. He left word that Bishop Pierce should preach his funeral sermon ; and when asked what hymn should be sung, he
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said he had especial fondness for that beginning, "God of my life, whose gracious power "-which is very much in the vein of the Bishop's experience. In the meridian of life Bishop Andrew was a noble-looking man. He was somewhat under six feet in height -- well proportioned, sallow of countenance -- the prevailing type of his region ; his features were chis- eled with marked outlines, expressive (especially the eyes). if not particularly handsome. His voice was one of great compass and power, and it was heard pleasantly in song as well as in speech-for he was a dear lover of the songs of Zion. He was not fastidious in his dress and manner, nor was there anything formal or frigid in his intercourse with so- ciety. He was warm and devoted in his friendships, liberal in his benefactions, sympathizing in his spirit, playful with. children-whom he dearly loved, and to whom he gave the kindest counsels and encouragements ; and he was emi- nently condescending to men of low estate, especially the colored people, by whom he was greatly revered. He prized highly the means of grace, public, social, family, and private .. He was fond of reading, and read to purpose. He wrote a great deal-principally communications to Church papers,. addresses, journals, letters to friends, and the like. The last communication which he wrote for the press was for the Christian Index, the organ of the Colored Methodist Episco- pal Church in America-the ruling passion being strong in death; for the Bishop was ever a lover of the colored people, pleaded powerfully for their interests, and labored long and faithfully for their good. He published a valuable work on Family Government, and a volume of Miscellanies, both of which have had a wide circulation, and are entitled to a. wider. ·
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