Biographic etchings of ministers and laymen of the Georgia conferences, Part 12

Author: Scott, William J
Publication date: 1895
Publisher: Atlanta, The Foote & Davies co.
Number of Pages: 650


USA > Georgia > Biographic etchings of ministers and laymen of the Georgia conferences > Part 12


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Of course, the contest between Lumpkin and Miller could have but one issue. The former en- tered the fight, backed by a party majority of nearly four thousand-but that majority was greatly re- duced at the next October election. It is barely probable that but for the annexation plank in the democratic platform, even that reduced majority might have been wiped out, and political gravita-


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tion turned the other way in that ancient demo- cratic stronghold.


At any rate, Miller was overwhelmed with con- gratulations and crowned with laurels.


Henceforth he was a principal figure in all the State campaigns. He canvassed actively for Gor- don in his contest with Bullock, and we have rea- son to know that our former noble governor highly appreciated his able and valiant services.


In 1868, Dr. Miller, along with Flynn, Angier, and Dunning, was elected from Fulton to the con- stitutional convention of that year. In that body, ably assisted by Trammell, Waddell, and many others, he rendered invaluable service to the com- monwealth. This he did chiefly by keeping under restraint the sans-culottic elements, as well as the aggressive doctrinaires who were for the time be- ing in the ascendancy. The result was that the constitution then framed and subsequently adopted required very little correction or amendment in 1877. The same year (1868) there were two sena- torial vacancies at Washington that needed to be filled by the legislature. Miller, without the usual buttonholing and lobbying of the demagogue, was nominated by the democratic minority of the legislature for the short term. E. F. Blodgett was nominated by the opposition. At the same time ex-Governor Brown was nominated by the repub- licans for the long term. Hon. Joshua Hill be- came an independent candidate for the same posi-


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tion. Miller was elected on the second ballot by a handsome majority, receiving the democratic strength, a considerable portion of the conserva- tive republicans, and a single vote from the colored contingent.


Brown was defeated by a very small majority, and Miller and Hill were granted the executive credentials.


Meanwhile, congress adjourned, and no oppor- tunity was afforded the newly-elected senators to present their credentials until the following De- cember.


During this interval the Georgia legislature ex- pelled the colored brother, and this quite naturally raised a howl of indignation throughout the North. As a consequence, the credentials of both Miller and Hill were lodged for a long time in the com- mittee room.


A new reconstruction scheme was inaugurated. A. L. Harris, a fresh importation from Ohio, was designated to reorganize the legislative depart- ment of the government. He proceeded to rein- state the negroes, and at the same time to remove obnoxious democrats. After this the legislature elected another pair of senators-H. P. Farrow and Richard H. Whitely. In the end, however, Miller and Hill were admitted, the latter, who was a thorough republican, after a few months delay, the former an avowed democrat only seven days before the expiration of the term for which he had


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been chosen. When sworn in, Miller was the only Southern democrat in that august body. During his protracted stay in Washington, Dr. Miller had secured the personal friendship of the leading re- publican senators, and as no partisan purpose could be subserved by his longer exclusion, the ma- jority voted to seat him at the eleventh hour. He made not a single speech during his brief senato- rial term, but it was arranged by the democratic minority that, in a certain contingency, he should speak on some pending measure. Unluckily for the country at large, that contingency never arose. From that date Dr. Miller's personal connection with State or national politics came to a close, ex- cept that he occasionally addressed the people dur- ing presidential campaigns. During the Greeley campaign he spoke to a packed house in Atlanta, and the memory of that remarkable oration yet lingers. An eminent jurist has recently said that it was the grandest speech to which he ever list- ened. In the same campaign he made a wonderful speech in Raleigh, N. C., which Governor Graham pronounced the ahlest ever made in that city. In Columbus, Ga., and Knoxville, Tenn., he likewise made phenomenal speeches.


Having briefly commented on the leading events of his long and somewhat chequered life, it is in order to attempt some general estimate of his character and capacity. This estimate must needs be brief, as we do not propose to transcend our prescribed limits.


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Aside from his native endowments which are confessedly of a high order, Dr. Miller is noted for his multifarious learning. His information on almost every subject is not only very large as to the amount of it, but it is thoroughly accurate. He has read more extensively than almost any Georgian of his generation, and he retains every- thing that he reads. He is unquestionably more familiar with ancient and modern history than any man, young or old, that we have chanced to meet in the course of a long lifetime. This is not said for a present purpose. On the contrary, years ago, in a contribution to a leading daily paper, we stated that he might be properly styled the "admirable Crichton" of his time.


The late Mr. Grady held a similar opinion in re- gard to the vastness and variety of his attain. ments. In every emergency he sought his advice, and every great speech of his life was submitted to his criticism. There was something touching in the close and confidential relationship of these two great men. They had some gifts alike and Mr. Grady did not more reverence his venerable friend than did Dr. Miller admire Grady's brilliancy and thorough originality. He has been known to say that Mr. Grady was developing more rapidly at the time of his death than during any former period of his life.


It is proper to add that Dr. Miller deserves a high rank as a conversationalist. His perfect self-


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poise, even in the presence of such men as Macaulay, Thackeray, Calhoun, Clay, and lesser lights, and his absolute and ready command of his intellecual resources fitted him to shine in any circle.


The beauty of his private life is next in impor- tance to his strong religious convictions. He has little sympathy with a progressive theology, but warmly affects a simple, old-fashioned gospel, such as he heard in other days from the lips of Glenn, Payne, Parks, and the Pierces. Some years ago he retired from his official position as a lay preacher in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. This step was taken against the protest of very many friends, but he was moved thereto by his strong sense of duty. He has never wavered in his at- tachment to the church itself, and is still a con- sistent and liberal member of the Trinity congre- gation of this city.


As may be learned from a previous statement in this sketch, he is now eighty-one years of age, but still occupies responsible positions as medical lec- turer, practicing physician, and trustee of thirty years standing of the University of Georgia. It may not be said of him, as is said by inspiration of Moses at a riper age, that his eyes are not dimmed nor his natural force abated, but thou- sands throughout Georgia and the whole South will in regard to him join in the pious wish of the Latin poet :


"Serus in celum redeas."


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DR. T. O. POWELL.


This distinguished superintendent of the Georgia Lunatic Asylum at Milledgeville, Ga., has held that highly honorable and responsible position for a series of years.


Under his able supervision it has steadily grown in popularity. At this date the inmates of both races, aggregate nearly two thousand in number.


For this class of unfortunates Dr. Powell has the warmest Christian sympathy and spares no effort to contribute to their well-being, physically and spiritually.


This latter feature of his administration is deserv- ing of special commendation, and in it he has the earnest co-operation of Rev. J. M. White, the chaplain of the institution.


Dr. Powell is a native of Brunswick county, Virginia, of gentle birth and thorough religious training.


His educational opportunities were good from the outset of his academic career. After leaving college he began the study of medicine and in due time graduated with a very high class-standing.


From that period he has grown in public favor, both in Virginia and Georgia.


Now, when but slightly past the meridian of his professional life, he has the prospect of many years of activity, crowned with yet greater honors.


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In his specialty his reputation is national, nor indeed is it confined to this country. In Europe he is well and favorably known through the me- dium of his annual reports. These have often re- ceived the hearty endorsement of the ablest med- ical journalists in both hemispheres.


Dr. T. S. Powell, of Atlanta, his elder half- brother, is himself likewise a Virginian of the "bluest blood," and a physician and churchman of deserved celebrity.


He is very generally known as the founder of the Southern Medical College, which, under his efficient presidency, has become a leading medical institution in the Southern States. He has given a large share of his professional attention to gyne- cology in its modern acceptation. His lectures on this and its related branches have attracted no little attention in various towns and cities of the South.


His two lectures on "Medical Ethics" and "The True Gentleman" have been widely circulated.


The literary material for an elaborate volume on professional topics will probably at some fu- ture day be issued from the press.


It is rarely the case that two brothers have won like prominence in the same or similar lines of professional work.


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WALTER T. COLQUITT.


This singularly gifted man was known to me in my carly boyhood.


At that date he was famous throughout Geor- gia as a local preacher of the Methodist church. At the same time he was a statesman who ranked high as a democratic leader in both branches of congress, and who at an earlier period had been distinguished as a circuit judge, and possibly the only one who opened the sessions of his court by thanksgiving and prayer.


In these several capacities he won great renown, especially on the rostrum during the Polk and Dallas campaign in 1844.


I heard him on two or more of these occasions when he swayed his audiences by a style of ora- tory not thoroughly classical, but forceful as the deliverances of such old-time orators as "honest Nat Macon" and Tom Corwin, of Ohio, with both of whom he differed politically, but whom he re- sembled closely in his mental characteristics.


There were times, both on the platform and in the pulpit, nor less when addressing a jury, when he spoke with the fervor of the Roman Gracchi. I have seen him more than once get on his knees before a leading juror and talk to him for five minutes with an impassioned earnestness that


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carried conviction with it and probably won the verdict for his client.


Many who knew him longest and best thought that his greatest speech was delivered in 1848 at Temperance Hall, Columbus. I heard the perora- tion only, but will never forget how it was greeted by thunders of applause. When I entered on my ministry at Columbus, in 1855, I found him utterly prostrated by age and disease. During my fre- quent visits to his sick chamber he often spoke of his political and ministerial career. He as- sured me that at no time, even when the political campaign was the hottest, did he ever waver in his allegiance to his divine Master, nor consciously compromise his character as a minister of the gospel.


Only a few months thereafter he died in Macon, but his remains were brought to Columbus for interment. An immense congregation attended the funeral obsequies.


His old friend, Dr. Lovick Pierce, preached the sermon with a power and a pathos seldom heard on such an occasion.


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BENJAMIN HARVEY HILL.


GEORGIA'S GREATEST SENATOR.


It is difficult to portray in a sketch the remark- able life of Benjamin Harvey Hill, so as to reveal clearly the greatness of the man. It can be said that he was a jurist of unsurpassed ability, but in order to give a just conception of his great powers as a lawyer, it would be necessary to pro- duce the easily-found evidences of his forensic achievements. A sketch may announce his states- manship in terms of eulogy, which would only whet the desire for the many proofs that can be given of his great grasp of public questions. He was eloquent almost beyond comparison with other men, and yet that declaration does not sat- isfy the wish for ample description of the won- derful witchery of his tongue. Conscious that not the shadow of justice would be done him in the use of platitudes so often employed in the flattery of men, and also in accordance with the scope of the sketches included in this work, this brief mem- orandum will deal mainly with his life as a layman of the Church of Christ.


Christianity is not flattered by the allegiance of great minds, and it does not need that rulers shall believe in Christ in order to insure its success


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among men. The simple wayfarer, the humble poor, the undistinguished peasant, are equally the honored witnesses of the Truth as it is in Christ Jesus, and such as these have hitherto set at naught the wisdom of the world. Nevertheless, the faith of men like Chief Justice Jackson, Thos. R. R. Cobb, Joseph E. Brown, A. H. Stephens, L. Q. C. Lamar, Alfred H. Colquitt, Benjamin H. Hill, and multitudes more princely spirits such as these, put to shame the infidelity which denies the reason- ableness of the soul's great trust in Jesus Christ as the Saviour of the sinner.


In commencing this tracing of a great layman's life, one's interest is excited by the fact that his father, John Hill, was one of theearly fruits of pio- neer Methodism in North Carolina. Converted and imbued with the fresh spirit of the religion which Asbury taught, the young North Carolinian, and his equally pious wife, Sarah Parham, made their first home on the farm at Hillsboro, Jasper county, Georgia. There, John Hill became a steward and class-leader of his church, a trustee of the school, president of the temperance society, and in gen- eral a leader of the people in every righteous move- ment. There, too, in the home of this honest, intel- ligent farmer and his wife, their seventh child was born, September 4, 1823, whom they named Ben- jamin Harvey Hill. Ten years afterward, the Hill family moved to Long Cane, in Troup county, Georgia, to a farm in the woods, where the house-


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hold, working together, made a bountiful sub- sistence out of the soil. Ben did his part with the hoe, and held his place at the plow, until the sum- mer school of the neighborhood opened, when he as diligently mastered the rudiments of education. His rapid progress inspired his fond mother with the desire to have him receive a college training, and in order to overcome the obstacle of limited means, devoted the income of her special patch to his use, and made his clothes at home. A good aunt gave a small additional sum, and it was agreed that their son should have the advantages which he craved.


Accordingly, in 1841, Ben came to Athens, dressed in gray jeans; tall and slender, with a pale and thoughtful face, and rather shy and awkward. But he was graduated with the first honor, and made a valedictory speech, of which an eminent man said: "That speech stamped the young orator as a man of wonderful power." The best record of his college life, however, is thus stated by Dr. G. J. Orr, who was one of his class- mates: "He was a pure and exalted boy, through all my college acquaintance with him. There was not the slightest shadow of immorality in his character." In fact, he had gone to college a con- verted Christian, and member of the church. His boyhood had passed amidst the influences of the Christian home, his principles were established through the precepts of his father, and his heart


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was steadied by the love of his mother, so that the seductions of college life failed to corrupt him.


Commencing the practice of law, he chose most happily as his companion for life, Miss Caroline E. Holt, whom he often lovingly alluded to as "the mainspring of my life." The home of the young couple was fixed at LaGrange, and into that new household there entered the salutary influences of the old homestead at Long Cane. The same Bible teaching, the family altar, the welcomed pastor, the love of the church, the domestic honor paid to Christ and his cause in the presence of their children, showed that the reverence for the faith and practice of their ancestors had not departed from the hearts of the young people. Both be- longed to the church, and both, in name and deeds, worked together in the benevolent offices of their religion. Mr. Hill was soon made superintendent of the Sunday-school, and we may well conceive how well qualified he was for that position. His activity in the work of his church, and in all local movements for the benefit of the splendid commu- nity at LaGrange, manifested his religious as well as his patriotic spirit.


Very quickly his brilliant ability as a lawyer, his eloquence as a public speaker, and his moral worth, became the admiration of Troup county, and, contrary to his own inclinations, he was pushed into political prominence from his early manhood. But this sketch will not permit us to


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follow him in that shining path which defeats could not obscure, and where victories merely opened the way to wider usefulness. His political life covered the most exciting and deeply important period in the history of ourcountry. Commencing at the bloom of his young manhood, in 1850, this era went on through a decade which led up to the Confederate war, and afterward included the sub- sequent years of Reconstruction-a rareera, which demanded rare men, and among them there was no greater than himself. He was a worshipper of an ideal Union, a true lover of his country for his country's sake-a typical patriot! After Georgia seceded from the Union, he was elected as one of its senators in the Confederate Congress, where he maintained with eminent ability the cause of the South, and was the trusted counselor of President Davis. His genius, always luminous, grew in brilliancy amidst the struggles of the new nation, and became still more intense during those years of trial, which followed the defeat of the Confed- eracy. Hisgreatest thoughts are in "The Notes on the Situation," written during this perilous period. His greatest speeches were made in Georgia, and in the United States Congress, after the war was over. He was at the zenith of his cumulative abilities, when a mysterious malady touched his tongue, and arrested his useful life.


In all this remarkable career as a public man, Mr. Hill held fast to the faith of his youth. Hisgrow-


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ing household so enjoyed his loving attention that his children blessed him rather for his fatherhood than for his fame, and his ever tender wife thought of him more as her husband than as the leader of his people. His liberality to the church was so marked as to induce a certain reliance on his aid in every enterprise. The orphans' home, the su- perannuates' fund, the subscriptions for church buildings, the support of the preacher, and, indeed, every other cause of Christ, had no readier and less ostentatious giver. He made money with ease, he lost it without care, he gave it with hearty liber- ality.


The closing of his notable life in "the sad mys- tery" of the unimagined malady of cancer, has only these consolations, that it brought out clearly to public view how dearly he was loved by the people, and furnished a true witness of the power of Divine grace and truth. Formany months, and amidst the most heroic efforts to stay its progress, the dreadful destroyer of his earthly life went steadily on inits fatal work. During these months of suspense, he calmly confronted the possibility of death. Speaking to his wife and children, he said: "It is astonishing how the horrors of death diminish as it approaches. How riches, honors, position, the world's applause, dwindle into insig_ nificance. I lean upon the everlasting arms, and my trust is in Christ." Unable at length to speak distinctly, he wrote upon the leaves of a pad when


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he would converse with his family or friends. For one friend, he wrote these words: "My future is uncertain as to time, but not asto fact. I am per- fectly resigned; God will take care of me." For another, he wrote: "I believe that God is a living God, and that Christ came into the world to save sinners, and He will save me." And again, upon another slip, he traced these words of faith in the power of the resurrection: "If a grain of corn will die, and then rise again in so much beauty, why may not I die and then rise again in infinite beauty and life? How is the last a greater mys- tery than the first ? "


"The world has possession of his last words. It was a few hours preceding his death, when he was rapidly sinking and had not written or spoken a word for many hours. Opening his eyes and arousing himself for a moment, the light of life came full into his eyes once more, and, with a slight effort, he spoke out in clear, triumphant ac- cent, the deathless legend of a soul conquering through Christ and in full view of heaven-' Almost Home !'"


"Men are greatest when they give the greater glory of all their achievements to God, and so live that when they fail on earth, they find a home not made with hands, eternal in the heavens."


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JOHN WESLEY STANTON


Was born in Monroe county, Tenn., December 23, 1823. His parents moved to Murray, now Whitfield county, Ga., when he was ten years old. He was converted and joined the Methodist Episcopal church when he was about 18 years of age, under the pastorate of Rev. Wm. Hickey, then a member of the Holston Conference. Since that time he has been an active and prominent member of the church, serving in the various offices held by lavmen. His house has always been a home for Methodist preachers.


His ancestors, on both sides, at least for three or four generations, were Methodists. In their homes Methodist preachers not only found a rest- ing place, but often preaching places. Among these preachers was Bishop Asbury, who often preached in the homes of both of Mr. Stanton's grandfathers. His father also entertained the bishop in his home, and the bishop used him very freely. One time he sent for him to pilot him to one of his appointments, and when he came the bishop playfully remarked: "John, I have made your will without consulting you."


Mr. Stanton's mother was a Douthit before her marriage. You can see from his journal that Bishop Asbury often stopped in his home. Also


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preached there. Once when he reached their home in South Carolina (they first entertained him while they lived in North Carolina ) after a trying journey across the mountains of Tennessee and North Caro- lina, he recorded in his journal that he then "bade a farewell for awhile to filth, fleas, rattlesnakes, hills, mountains and rivers." When she was a girl of five years she used to bathe the bishop's feet when he came in from his long, wearisome journeys. She thus in the true way "washed the saints' feet." Her brothers, James and Samuel Douthit, were for years members of the South Carolina Con- ference. On circuit and district James served in Vir- ginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, with faithfulness and great success. In a limited way Samuel was an author. "The Zion's Travel- er: Hymns and Spiritual Songs by Doctor S. Douthit, 1835," is a book of 148 pages, contain- ing 84 hymns and several essays.


The subject of this sketch married Miss Lucinda White Hale, of Bradley county, Tenn., March, 1843. They lived in what is now Whitfield county, Georgia, until 1863, when they moved to Gordon county, Ga., where they now live. They raised nine children, six boys and three girls, all of whom are now living, and gathered at the old home in a family reunion only last year. They are all members of the Methodist church except the oldest son, and he is a prominent layman


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in the Baptist church. Two of his sons are mem- bers of the North Georgia Conference.


Mr. Stanton was in the Confederate army dur- ing the civil war. Whether in camp or on battle- field, he was regarded as a brave soldier and Christian gentleman. Though always taking a lively interest in politics, he was never a politician. Nor was he ever an office-seeker, but served his county in the legislature in 1866-67.




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