USA > Georgia > Biographic etchings of ministers and laymen of the Georgia conferences > Part 7
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My next special interview with him was in At- lanta, in 1862, when I was in charge of Wesley chapel. I was just ready to begin the sermon one Sunday morning when a handsome cavalry officer entered the church and was shown to a front seat. I instantly recognized him as my old con- ference friend, and went down and invited him to preach for me, which he declined, and also my in_ vitation to occupy a seat in the pulpit. He made, however, an earnest closing prayer. After the service he walked with me to the parsonage and remained to a pleasant half hour's conversation,
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but could not stay to dinner as he was compelled to leave on the next train.
I never saw him after this conversation.
Brother J. spent his closing years in Southern Georgia, principally in Savannah, where he had, in his youth, married a daughter of Dr. Saussy, a leading physician of the Forest City.
His last illness was somewhat protracted, but through it all he bore his sufferings with meek- ness and resignation. His last hours were peace- ful and at times triumphant.
He now rests beneath the moss-draped live-oaks of Laurel Hill, awaiting the resurrection of the just.
SAMUEL J. BELLAH.
Samuel J. Bellah had no genius except for godli- ness. His education was limited, but his knowl- edge of the Scriptures was exact, and he was well versed in the standards of Methodist theology. When I first made his acquaintance, many years ago, he was feeble, suffering at wide intervals with hemorrhages from the throat or lungs, and yet he continued, as he had strength, to travel poor circuits. Talk of heroes and martyrs! Here was one little known outside of a small circle of
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friends, whose zeal and faith went beyond many whose names are printed in the calendar.
During my residence in Marietta and my occa- sional visits to the Marietta camp-ground, I saw this lowly servant of God. He usually preached at the eight o'clock service on the Sabbath, and his neighbors, who knew his manner of life, always gathered at the stand to hear him. I seldom, if ever, missed his sermons. He was not literary, still less was he learned, but I was always re- freshed and edified by Uncle Bellan's simple minis- try. Like Enoch, he walked with God, and his frail body was a veritable temple of the Holy Ghost. I could see in the soft radiance of his eye somewhat of the look of the Master when He broke Peter's heart. His voice was shattered, but it was deeply sympathetic and sometimes thrilled my inmost soul. He belonged to a class of preachers that are not often met with nowadays in the older conferences. The stipend he drew from the con- ference when a superannuate kept him, with other contributions, from actual want, but the dear old man was doubtless sore pressed at times.
I wish I may have as bright a crown in glory as Uncle Bellah, but I know I don't deserve it, and it may be sin ul to wish it.
Oh, these old brethren, the Bellahs and Andrew J. Deavors, and John P. Dickinson and Andrew Neese, who carried me round his circuit when I was making my first efforts to preach, and Alfred Dor-
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man and such like, how the memory of their heroic virtues makes me ashamed of my petty ambi- tions before God had humbled me as in these later years.
There are men, however, in the mountains and in the wiregrass that are doing the same work to- day that these old fathers did. The Lord help us to honor them and sympathize with them and may their tribe increase as the exigencies of the church may require.
JOHN H. HARRIS.
John H. Harris was a preacher of much more than ordinary gifts. In 1875 he was stationed at Evan's Chapel, Atlanta, and rendered me valu- able assistance in a revival which I was conducting at the time in the Trinity congregation.
His preaching was not simply emotional, al- though that was probably the predominant feature; but it was besides Scriptural and force- ful, and as a consequence, effectual in awakening the impenitent and then leading him to Christ.
Before coming to Atlanta he had served several important circuits and stations, and was every- where greatly beloved.
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My remembrance is that he was at this time a sufferer from a chronic throat disease induced by exposure and overwork in his earlier ministry. He was of a fervent spirit, and this led him very often into a vehement delivery and an excess of vocifera- tion that has blighted many a promising minister's life or shortened his term of active service.
Brother Harris was even then rapidly nearing his end, and died early in the following year, 1876, of a disease which it is now fashionable to call heart failure, but another name for a sudden break-down of the vital machinery.
ALEXANDER SPEER.
Alexander Speer, the father of my old co-pas- tor, Dr. E. W. Speer, and of that distinguished jurist, Alexander M. Speer, was for a few years a member of the conference. I had some intimacy with him in 1852, and when I retired from the edi- torship of the LaGrange Reporter he was my suc- cessor.
Brother Speer was a remarkable man. He was, in his early life, a conspicuous figure in South Carolina politics. At one time he was Secretary of State in that Commonwealth and was one of
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the ablest and readiest political debaters known to its history. In the pulpit he was a man of mark.
He was more argumentative and only a shade less classical than his son, Dr. Eustace Speer.
He was a great favorite as a preacher with the LaGrange congregation, and several times I listened to him with delight and profit.
There can be little doubt that but for the over- shadowing influence of Mr. Calhoun he would have risen to great political eminence in his native State. Both Petigrue and Legare were kept out of the political fields by this same influence, and they were both men of vast ability. At that date Federalism, or to call it by a milder term, Whig- ism, was reckoned a political felony for which there was no absolution. We dare say that Brother Speer was in the end all the happier by his withdrawal from politics. Certain it is that his last days of ministerial consecration was the period of his greatest usefulness. He deliberately made the choice of Moses, and long ago he reached the same exceeding great reward.
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GEORGE W. LANE.
George Smith, in his valuable history of Georgia Methodism, notes the fact that George W. Lane came to the conference in 1835. He was the son of a prominent preacher of the Philadelphia Con- ference who for years was connected with the Book Concern.
Young Lane was liberally educated and naturally a gifted preacher. Being in delicate health, he was assigned to St. Augustine, Florida, where he made full proof of his ministry. Afterwards the church needed his services in the educational field, and he was elected professor of languages in Emory College where he contributed much to the upbuilding of that young institution.
I am not sure that I ever met Bro. Lane, but the traditional accounts we have of his work in the pulpit and in the college entitle him to a high rank.
He died in 1857, before he had reached middle life, and his death was universally regarded as a calamity to the church. He was the father of Prof. Charles Lane, of the Georgia Technological school, who inherited a goodly share of his father's best gifts.
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JOSEPH J. SINGLETON.
Joseph J. Singleton was a graduate of the State University and was an honor to his alma mater.
It was always a perplexity to me that a man of his rare gifts and graces seldom attained to prominent conference positions.
This may have been partly due to his quiet, un- obtrusive disposition, which at times bordered on shyness and even awkwardness. Perhaps it may have resulted in no small degree from his thorough unselfishness. He certainly was free from that prurient ambition, which in the church as elsewhere, wins its way to preferment, whilst modest merit languishes in comparative obscurity. It was in keeping with his character that he not only uttered no word of complaint but accepted his Provi- dential lot with a cheerfulness befitting a child of God and an heir of glory.
Dear good fellow, as he was, I was never more impressed by the sweetness of his spirit than when at the last conference we were domiciled together at the house of an excellent Baptist brother.
As to his preaching, it is needless to say, to those who were familiar with it that it was both re- freshing and edifying. In the main it was, as Bishop Mc'Tyeire was wont to say, "meat and greens." Yet it was no rehash of threadbare pul-
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pit sayings, but always clear-cut and forcible. His style was such classical English as adorns the pages of the Spectator, but there was no display of rhetorical flourishes, such as pass in some quar- ters for fine preaching.
That was a striking tribute of Sir James Mac- intosh to "Butler's Analogy" that it contained "the best philosophy of Christianity" that was ever published. While I do not accept this extrava- gant estimate, yet I have sometimes thought that Brother Singleton's matter and manner of speech was not unlike that of the bishop of Durham.
His scanty salaries, ofttimes painfully inade- quate for the support and education of a large family, constrained him at some periods of his life to resort to secular employment. He was in de- mand as a practical geologist and as an expert in the location of gold deposits and other valuable ores. While this was to be regretted, he was con- scientious in all he did, and was never neglectful of any ministerial work which he had in hand.
His success in the work of conversion was not phenomenal, yet down to his last day he was everywhere beloved and admired by the people of his various pastoral charges. His children who sur- vive him are usefully employed and not unworthy of their pious father.
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WALTER R. BRANHAM
Was born in Eatonton, Ga., November 18, 1813, and left this world from his home at Oxford, Ga., on Sunday afternoon, September 2, 1894. Another member of our Father's family, part on earth and part in heaven, has crossed the flood.
There are sad hearts on this side the river,
And tears have been shed at the going of our brother; But while we mourn the departure of the loved and lost, The redeemed are greeting the saint that has crossed.
Brother Branham was a son of Dr. Branham, of Eatonton, one of the most distinguished physi- cians Georgia has ever produced, and who was also one of the wisest and purest of her public men. He represented Putnam county in the house of rep_ resentatives of the general assembly of Georgia for a number of years, and was then elected to the state senate.
Brother Branham graduated at the University of Georgia in 1835. Among his classmates was that brilliant orator and brave soldier, Gen. Francis S. Bartow, whose life was an early sacrifice to the "lost cause," and that eminent physician, Dr. Craw- ford W. Long, "the discoverer of anaesthesia." An important event in the life of our deceased brother occurred the year of his graduation. Of that we will let the venerable Dr. A. H. Mitchell, of
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Alabama, a witness to the scene, be the chronicler.
ยท Writing of Brother Branham in the Christian Ad- vocate, of January 24, 1891, he said: "The mention of this name brings up memories, O how precious, how ancient, yea, almost forgotten. Walter Branham! Why, Mr. Editor, I received him into the church in 1835. He was then a student in college at Athens, Ga. I was not sta- tioned at Athens, but was traveling the Gaines- ville circuit. Richard Mosley was stationed at Athens, and he proposed to change appointments with me for a time. While at Athens I opened the door of the church, and to the astonishment of many-for there was no special revival going on- Walter Branham came up and gave his hand for membership in the church. Many, very many precious souls I have had the pleasure of receiving into the church, and have long since forgotten, but I have never forgotten young Branham, and with what dignity and manly bearing he took this first step in a religious life, and how quietly and gracefully he has moved along through all the changes and responsibilities of theitinerancy." Brother Branham was licensed to preach in Octo- ber, 1836, by Rev. William J. Parks, presiding elder of Macon district, and in December of the same year, at Columbus, he was admitted on a trial into the Georgia Conference, and sent to the Watkinsville circuit with John W. Glenn, then in the second year of his ministry. The Watkins-
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ville circuit was in the Athens district, and Wil- liam J. Parks was the presiding elder of that dis- trict for 1837. Bishop James O. Andrew presided over the conference which admitted Brother Bran- ham and the men who joined with him. Among his classmates was that courtly gentleman, that finished scholar, that princely preacher, and that spotless Christian, Dr. Alfred T. Mann. There was another, the pathetie tones of whose musical voice linger in memory yet. Who among us could ever sing as John P. Duncan sang?
Where eyes are never dim, He sings the crowning hymn, While angels listen to the strain, And wonder at the sweet refrain.
Then there was that profound theologian, Rev. Josiah Lewis, Jr., who was as well-equipped for the chair of a quarterly conference as he was for the pulpit of a camp-meeting. These were some of the men who with Walter R. Branham entered the old Georgia Conference on December 18th, and who with him have left to us the undying record of their labors. The future historian of Georgia Methodism will place these Christian heroes side by side with the earliest defenders of our faith, and the pioneer preachers of Wesleyan Arminian- ism.
Let us take a glimpse at the Georgia Conference of 1836. Among the prominent members of that body were Lovick Pierce, William Arnold, Wil- 9
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liam J. Parks, Isaac Boring, Jesse Boring, John W. Tally, George F. Pierce, Caleb W. Key, Sam- uel Anthony, James E. Evans, Whitefoord Smith, John W. Yarbrough, Alexander Speer and John W, Glenn. On the superannuated list appear the names of such men as Lewis Myers, Allen Turner Samuel K. Hodges and Ignatius A. Few. All of these men have left the earth, and not a single member of the conference of 1836 is now with us December, 1836! An immense amount of Meth- odist history has been made since then. That year the old Southern Christian Advocate was born. and in 1837, Samuel J. Bryan and Thomas C. Benning were collecting funds to erect buildings for Emory College. The ministerial life of our sainted brother stretches across all of the years of the existence of our conference college. And though he was an alumnus of the State University, yet our own college had in him a true friend. His vener- able form will be missed by the boys that return to Oxford. The following appointments were served bv Brother Branham: 1837, Watkinsville, with John W. Glenn; 1838, Augusta, with Isaac Boring; 1839, Clinton and Monticello, with N H. Harris; 1840-41, Milledgeville; 1842, Athens and Lexington, with Daniel Curry; 1843, Law- renceville ; 1844, Madison ; 1845, Eatonton, with John P. Duncan; 1846, Eatonton ; 1847-48, Vine- ville; 1849, Macon; 1850-51, Savannah; 1852, professor in Wesleyan Female College; 1853-54,
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supernumerary ; 1855-56, Covington and Oxford; 1857-58-59, Atlanta district; 1860-61-62-63, Griffin district ; 1864-65, Atlanta district ; 1866-67- 68, Athens district ; 1869-70, Griffin district; 1871, Washington; 1872-73-74, Oxford and Social Cir- cle; 1875; Covington and Mount Pleasant; 1876, Covington; 1877-78 Social Circle; 1879, Jackson ; 1880-81, Oxford; 1882, Atlanta city mission. Here his active itinerant ministry of forty-six years, save one year as professor in Wesleyan Female College, and two yea s of rest necessitated by feeble health, ended. At the conference of 1882 he was placed on the superannuated list, where he has since remained. After more than forty years in the ranks of effective preaching, he gracefully retired, carrying with him the love and respect of all of his brethren. For the past twelve years he has gone in and out among us, illustrating the power of sanctifying grace. Having fought a good fight, having kept the faith, he came at last to the "grave in a full age, like as a shock of corn com- eth in his season."
"Servant of God, well done ! Rest from thy loved employ, The battle fought, the vict'ry won, Enter thy Master's joy."
M. S. WILLIAMS, H. H. PARKS, W. D. SHEA, Committee.
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MILES W. ARNOLD.
Rev. Miles W. Arnold was born in Putnam county Ga., October 10, 1829, and died about the same day and month of the year at his residence in Walton county, Ga., in 1894. He suffered great pain and discomfort during his last illness. As I am advised, he was next to the youngest son of the venerable William Arnold, whose reputation for piety and pulpit efficiency was commensurate with the limits of the old South Carolina Confer- ence. Both the late William Arnold, his emi- nent father, and himself had a considerableshare of the poetic gift and were both sweet singers in Is- rael. Brother Miles W. Arnold was in his prime a revivalist of marked ability. Few preachers of his day, whether on station or circuit, exceeded him in the number of conversions under his ministry. In temper he was one of the most affable men whose acquaintance I ever made. His genial dis- position and warm-heartedness made him a favor- ite among all classes in town or country. Especially were the children devoted to this man of God, who had imbibed no little of the spirit of Christ when he said, "Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not." Among children of larger growth, young men and maidens, he
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wielded an influence that endeared him to them all through the years of his checkered life.
Brother Arnold was twice married ; once to Miss Martha Baskin, a most excellent Christian woman of Carroll county, Georgia, by which marriage he was blessed with a group of interesting children, only two of whom survive-Lawrence, the busi- ness manager of a prominent institution of learn- ing in the city of Atlanta; and Sallie, the wife of a substantial citizen of Warren county, Ga.
Brother Arnold in dying left no blur on his name, and his last moments were sweetened by the tender ministry of his second wife, a Mrs. Nowell, who heroically shared with him the hard- ships of his later itinerant life. If I may be par- doned for a personal remark I will add that I never had a more constant friend, whether in sickness or health. Thank God that
"While there is no fellowship on earth That has not here its end,"
yet beyond the stars the blessed associations of this life will be renewed and perpetuated for ever- more.
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W. B. MOSS.
Rev. W. B. Moss was a native of North Caro- lina and entered the ministry in 1841.
He had the advantage of a good academic edu- cation and was a student of the standard English and American literature. His pulpit gifts were excellent, and but for feeble health, he would have reached a high position in the ministry. Even as it was he occupied several good positions in Hamilton, Carrollton and subsequently at Augusta where he died, leaving an excellent wife and two sons, the elder of whom died during the late civil war, the younger still surviving-the bookkeeper of The Foote & Davies Co., the well-known At- lanta publishers.
M. D. C. JOHNSON.
Rev. M. D. C. Johnson died at Griffin, Ga., in July, 1849, in the 42nd year of his age. He served a number of churches in the Georgia Con- ference, amongst them Washington, Madison, Covington and ultimately failed from broken
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health at St. Augustine, Fla. Several years of his life were spent at Culloden, the headquarters of both local and itinerant Methodist preachers, a half century ago. While here he was an intimate friend of Bro. Cook, the excellent father of Dr. . W. F. Cook, who is still a leader in the Georgia Conferences.
Bro. Johnson was likewise a cordial friend of Bishop Pierce when the latter was in his prime. The bishop esteemed him an able preacher, and he only lacked health to have made him a minister of great distinction.
The venerable relict of Bro. Johnson still sur- vives at the ripe age of eighty-four and is a model of consistent piety. Two of her sons, Mark W. and Joseph, are favorably known in the business and ecclesiastical circles of Atlanta and its vicinity.
JOHN HOWARD.
In no small measure the founders of American Methodism set great store by that quality that our English ancestors denominate "pluck." From Asbury, the pioneer bishop, to Jesse Lee, the apos- tle of New England, and Richmond Nloley, who died in the swamps of the Mississippi of a mala-
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rial fever, they were strangers to "any fear of mortal man." Hope Hull, Lewis Myers, and John Howard, were in this apostolic succession, and with other early leaders of Georgia Methodism, esteemed moral courage as the chiefest of the car- dinal virtues. During the first year of my minis- try, when stationed in Columbus, I heard mar- velous accounts of the preaching of John How- ard, and hardly less of his wonderful gift of prayer. Added to these intellectual endowments he was, in shape and voice and gesture, remarka- bly well-adapted to sway the vast congregations that flocked to his ministry.
Nor was his celebrity of a local character, but ex- tended throughout the conference. His success in bringing penitents to the altar was surpassed by few, if any, of his contemporaries. His stirring appeals would often lift an audience to its feet, and were made more impressive by a voice of vast compass that seemed to sweep the entire gamut of the minor scale.
Dr. George Smith, who has searched ever nook and corner of Georgia Methodism as with the lan- tern of Diogenes, has said so much of his distin- guished kinsman that we may be readily excused from further details in this biographic etching. We simply add that he was not the least conspicu- ous of the American Howards who are remotely descended from the flower of the English nobility, who figure largely in the chronicles of Froissart and in the historical plays of Shakespeare.
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WM. HOLMES ELLISON.
Wm. Holmes Ellison first came into notice among Georgia Methodists as president of Wesley- an Female College, Macon, Ga.
He succeeded Dr. (afterward Bishop) Geo. F. Pierce, and was at the head of that institution for ten years of its early history. It soon became evi- dent that no better selection could have been made for that important position. There were but few men in the entire connection, at that time, who combined so well as he the qualities required to popularize that new educational enterprise of the church, and push it out on a career of permanent usefulness and prosperity.
Born and reared in one of the best Methodist families of Charleston, S. C., he had what com- paratively few of his Methodist contemporaries enjoyed, the advantage of a regular collegiate education. Soon after finishing his college course, he was licensed to preach, and joined the South Carolina Conference.
The second year of his ministry he was stationed in Charleston, his native city, and subsequently at Wilmington, N. C., and Georgetown, S. C.
In the meantime he had married the daughter of Bishop Wm. Capers, of South Carolina.
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At the close of his term at Georgetown, he was called to the chair of Mathematics in LaGrange College, Ala., then presided over by Dr. Robert (afterward Bishop) Paine.
From this point he was called to assist in the organization of the Wesleyan Female College at Macon, Ga., and after serving as a member of the faculty for two or three years, was elected presi- dent to fill the place, as we have seen, made vacant by the resignation of Dr. Geo. F. Pierce.
Dr. Ellison was a charming preacher, a most lovabie man, a model college president. He may be said to have been a pioneer in the higher educa- tion of girls. The institution over which he pre- sided was the first chartered female college in the world. He devised and signed the first diploma ever given to a girl graduate. To him, more than to any educator of his time, was committed the task of formulating the right conception of edu- cated Christian womanhood and of embodying that conception in living examples.
It is not too much to say, that the Wesleyan Female College, under the presidency of Dr. Wm. H. Ellison, furnished the first instances of the very high type of Christian womanhood which to-day is the brightest ornament and richest treasure of our church atlarge. After ten years of most ardu- ous and successful service in the college, he found his health giving way and decided to turn aside awhile and rest. Accordingly, he resigned the
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