USA > Georgia > Biographic etchings of ministers and laymen of the Georgia conferences > Part 9
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Again, the South Carolina Conference was divided (setting off Georgia) in January, 1831-not at the close of the year. George F. Pierce joined at the first session of the Georgia Conference, Janu- ary, 1831. These alterations are very small and amount to nothing but to be more accurate.
Capers Bass, as he was always called, was a South Carolinian, though born in Augusta, Ga.
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IIe was educated at divers places, but chiefly at Cokesbury, S. C., and Emory College, Georgia. Being six years older than Dr. Bass, I was at Cokesbury several years in advance of him. I first saw him on the stage at Emory College. A powerful young man in bodily strength, with a most commanding voice. It was a Sophomore exercise and he declaimed Webster's great speech on the Union. His physical and vocal powers made this very appropriate. But it was strange for a South Carolina boy, feeling as he did with his State, to speak Webster, the most national man in America. South Carolina at that very date was attempting secession which was effected ten years later.
Dr. Bass had many fine traits. Of some I will speak freely. As a preacher he was highly respectable.
He had a marked fondness for preaching on parables and narratives and herein he was an adept. His chief distinction, however, was as an educator. After serving at Greensboro and Madi- son, he came to the Wesleyan Female College as a professor of natural science. This chair he filled fifteen years under divers presidents. When Dr. E. H. Myers resigned, Dr. Bass was advanced to the presidency. He filled this office twenty years-in all he was in the Wesleyan College thirty-five years. The college was run on the leasing plan, and he and Dr. Cosby W. Smith were the lessees.
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Smith had less ambition than any man of learn- ing I ever knew. He was the senior of Bass but did not want the presidency and gladly surren- dered his claims to the junior partner. They were like David and Jonathan, in perfect accord, until six years ago when Dr. Smith suddenly died.
Dr. Bass must be viewed as a man of affairs having very great executive talents. During my long residence in Macon-twenty-five years-I have never heard of a servant or teacher, or men- chant or banker complaining of Dr. Bass for even tardiness, and he carried this vast load. His corps of professors respected and even admired him. The internal affairs of the college ran smoothly under his control. When it became necessary to have a final settlement with him (I speak as a trustee), it was found that he had advanced money for the trustees beyond his duty, and a balance of three hundred and fourteen dollars was due Dr. Bass, which we admitted and paid.
Dr. Bass was a very generous and unselfish man, and very much of an altruist-he did not live for himself, but to do good. How many poor young women he has educated free of tuition and by reduced board none will ever know. These women owe him a debt of gratitude they can scarcely pay, but they should make an endeavor. Let the hundreds trained by him now rich unite to honor his memory by erecting a lasting monu- ment in the form of a science hall, the most impera-
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tive want of the college. I am safe in saying no man in Georgia has done so much for female edu- cation.
You do not think it strange that Dr. Bass did not grow rich, in view of what has been stated- he cared little for money.
It was a dismal day in April last when the trus. tees met at his request to accept his resignation. Like a day without sunshine, it was a day of gloom. There was no alternative, for he was nearing the grave. Dr. Branch, president of the board, myself, chairman of the executive board, and Col. Isaac Hardeman were appointed to seek a new president. We went to Virginia for him and Mr. E. H. Rowe was proposed and elected. May he wear the mantle of Bass well and in honor.
The speaker could be fuller, but this is enough. President Bass was a man of rare combination. His broad, bright smile, like a sun beaming through rich windows, we shall see no more; his powerful voice, suited to the command of martial battalions, will nevermore be heard in pulpit or on the stage at conference or college. He lived well for God and mankind, died in honor and peace to live forever.
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LEWIS J. DAVIES.
Few men of his day were better equipped for effective pulpit work than Lewis J. Davies. His school advantages were excellent, and he was reared in a community where he naturally acquired a fondness for art and literature.
His reading in after life took a broad range in theology and in philosophy. What he read he thoroughly digested, and there was in his preach- ing no evidence of mental dyspepsia, but a clear and vigorous statement of divine truth.
He was especially gifted in expository preach- ing, which he esteemed the best method of pulpit teaching. I shall always remember a sermon which he preached in Wesley Chapel in '1861, dur- ing a memorable revival, the gracious results of which still abide in the membership of the First Church. His theme was the fall of Jericho, and the sermon fairly electrified the crowded audience. It was often said that the manner of Davies, in the delivery of a discourse was quite like the man- ner of Jesse Boring. But while there was a sort of intellectual affinity between these able men, neither was a copyist.
As for Davies, he had a most striking individu- ality. I have even heard him charged with heresy because some of his theological views were not in 11
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harmony with the prevailing denominational sentiment. As a stationed preacher he was not very much in demand by the larger churches. His forte was district work, and his best preaching was probably done under the shadow of Yonah, or Currahee or within earshot of Tallulah, as it lifts its thunderous psalm of praise to Him "who girded the mountains with strength."
One of the last and best sermons which I ever heard fall from his lips was at Little River Camp- ground, in Cobb county, where he had a host of admirers, to whom for many years he made an annual visitation. It was an elaborate discussion of the atonement in which he ventured to dissent from the current belief of the majority of his ministerial brethren. His doctrinal divergence was not, however, so wide as to constitute a stumbling block to any sincere believer.
With all his gifts, Brother Davies was modest almost to a fault. This doubtless, may have circumscribed his influence and hindered his ec- clesiastical preferment. But he enjoyed the esteem and confidence of his brethren in a high degree, and his death was reckoned a calamity to the church he so faithfully served. He was happily wedded to a daughter of Rev. John C. Simmons, himself a man of deserved prominence in the con- ference. To her he was indebted greatly during his seasons of bad health consequent on nervous prostration. This excellent Christian woman still
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survives to serve the church in some of its most important enterprises.
The familiar lines of Halleck on the death of his poet friend, Joseph Rodman Drake, might be justly applied to Lewis J. Davies :
" None knew him but to love him, None named him but to praise."
JAMES B. PAYNE.
James B. Payne was like John W. Knight, "a brand plucked from the burning." They were both combative in their instincts and apart from converting grace were better suited to the prize ring than to the pulpit. After their conversion and entrance into the ministry, they were mili- tant saints, after the fashion of Peter Cartwright and Gideon Ousley.
They were valiant in defending the truth and made no compromise with sin, whether in high or low places.
I first heard "Uncle Jimmy" preach at Rome in 1854, just after the death of his son in Savannah. His sermon was on the sweet uses of providential affliction. In the conclusion he referred to his late
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bereavement in a way that brought alternate shouts and sobs from the audience.
This brings us to the remark that despite the occasional prosiness of his style, there were times when his mastery of a congregation was perfect.
When stationed at LaGrange many yeras ago he conducted one of the most wonderful revivals known in the history of Western Georgia. From that period the LaGrange church became one of the wealthiest and most influential in the Geor- gia Conference. The Ridleys, the Bulls, the Heards, the Turners, the Hills, the Morgans, the Bealls, the Greenwoods, and a dozen other fami- lies besides were not less distinguished for culture and piety than the leading Methodists of Athens and Columbus.
In the years following, Brother Payne occupied prominent positions on districts and stations, and more than once was chosen as a delegate to the General Conference.
For several vears towards the close of his use- ful life he was a resident of Atlanta, greatly honored and beloved by all the denominations.
Perhaps his last effective service was in connec- tion with Payne's Chapel, to the organization and upbuilding of which he contributed largely.
At the time of his death he was a citizen of Upson county. We need not add that his death was triumphant.
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BISHOP JOSHUA SOULE.
"Once upon a time," as the old story-tellers were wont to phrase it, I spent an evening with Bishop Joshua Soule, one of the foremost men of Ameri- can Methodism. A native of "the district of Maine" which Massachusetts for many years treated with true stepmother policy, he was of a lofty stature and of an imperial bearing that were suggestive of leadership. He was stopping a few hours at the old Washington Hall of Atlanta, which occupied during the war the present site of the Markham House. His destination was Mont- gomery, Ala., whither he was going on an episco- pal visitation to the Alabama Conference. The bishop was fortunate in having that rarely gifted man, Dr. T. O. Summers, as a traveling compan- ion. The bishop was bent with age and not less bowed down with grief at the distracted condition of affairs in church and state.
Whilein full sympathy with his adopted section, the South, he was apprehensive that the secession movement would result disastrously.
In 1844 he had deliberately withdrawn from the northern wing of the church, because he regarded the Finley resolution which virtually decapitated Bishop Andrew, as a blow aimed at the episco- pacy. Rather than acquiesce in such palpable
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wrongdoing, he turned his back on the memories and associations of his childhood and riper years, and, like Abraham, went forth into an alien land. He never wavered in his allegiance to the southern church, and, while he was physically unfitted for heavy work, he never shirked duty or responsi- bility. We have always regretted that it was never our good fortune to listen to a sermon from that master of assemblies who promulgated that great sermon on "The Perfect Law of Liberty." Near the witching hour of night, Dr. Summers and myself assisted this venerable man to his train. There I took leave of him to meet him next, I de- voutly hope, where "there is no night."
BISHOP HOLLAND N. MOTYEIRE.
My earliest acquaintance with Bishop Holland N. McTyeire was at an episcopal reunion held in Atlanta in connection with the annual meeting of the parent board of missions in 1862. By cour- tesy, I was invited, with other Atlanta pastors, to a seat in the body, with the privilege of discus- sion, but without the right of voting. Bishops Andrew, Pierce and Paine, were present, and so were Drs. McTyeire, A. L. P. Green, L. D. Huston
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and Wadsworth. Several prominent lay brethren were present whose names I have forgotten.
The General Conference set for May of that year was indefinitely postponed and only such matters as were urgent and did not admit of de- lay were disposed of in an informal way.
At that time McTyeire impressed me as a man of superlative ability. It was not until 1866 that he was episcopally ordained, but by every token, except "the technical laying on of hands," he was then as much of an episcopas as though he had been consecrated by His Grace of York or Canter- bury.
My next meeting with the late bishop was in the spring of 1866, at which time he was the pas- tor of the Methodist Church in Montgmery, Ala- bama. I was invited to a tea at the parsonage, when I first saw that thoroughly original, if not eccentric divine, Dr. Joseph B. Cottrell. It is not often that one is brought in contact with such a pleasant host and fellow-guest. The memory of that scene is still fresh, and has lost but little of its fragrance. It was enlivened by choice bits of humor, and spicy discussions of the ecclesiastical situation which just then was not the most promising. No one of the party, however thought that a reaction would ensue, and that the south- ern church would emerge from her fiery trial puri- fied and animated with loftier aims.
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Very many people were wont to esteem Bishop McTyeire as wanting in sociability. This was a misapprehension. While he usually had an air of hauteur, it was more the result of his physical make-up than of any real lack of the amenities of good fellowship. His whole nature was full of sunshine, and there was about him a keen relish for wit and pleasantry. His Scotch inheritance of common sense was proverbial. But behind this there was a play of fancy, and even a sweep of imagination, which at intervals would thrill his audiences. .
I remember well a district conference sermon on "The Minor Ministries of the Sanctuary," which might well rank with the best efforts of the British or continental pulpit.
A's a writer, he was not voluminous, but his his- tory of Methodism, lacking somewhat in elabora- tion, is the best of its class. He has written some sketches which remind us of Longstreet-this is especially true of his "Uncle Cy." A more satis- factory and truthful delineation of the old plan- tation patriarch that Mrs. Stowe's "Uncle Tom."
While he was not a ritualist in any offensive sense, he had great respect for the prescribed order of services in the ministration of the Lord's sup- per. On one occasion he reminded the pastor, who officiated at the holy communion, that he had omitted some parts of the service; adding in an admonitory way, "Take care, lest you fall into
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habit of abbreviating the services." So in his death chamber at Nashville, he said to the minis- trant from whom he was to receive his last sacra- ment, "Be sure and read the whole service."
This regard for what some esteem . trifles was characteristic of this great man. He disliked a perfunctory method in the sanctuary. "Decently and in order" was his motto, and he was true to it, whether he was reading a hymn or pulverizing a heresy under the trip-hammer of his invincible logic. Having referred to his sketch of "Ucle Cy," we subjoin a few paragraphs, which we are sure will be read with no little zest.
"Uncle Cy owed much to his wife-an honest, truthful and virtuous woman. She was the best nurse I ever saw, and ministered with unspeakable fidelity and tenderness to my parents, and brother and sisters on their deathbeds. 'Aunt Bess' was the first woman I ever heard pray in public. She was a leaven and a light. Some influence and honest pennies she gained by practicing that deli- cate profession which the Egyptians, in Moses' time, turned over to their women. Only once did she fail me. When the Federal armies were getting into Alabama we proposed to put our silver spoons and such things in her keeping. 'Well, master, in course I'll do it if you says so, but I can't be 'sponsible. Dem Yankees is a coming, and I hearn tell how dey carries wid 'em somethin' like a pinter worm, and when it's sot down dey tells it
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to pint wha any money or silver things is hid, and it pints jest as straight as a gun.
"Uncle Cy's family pride was a trait character- istic of the old regime. I have seen him take his wife down by reminding her that he had been in the family longer than she. Once I had arranged with a neighbor, Squire Fowler, to get a swarm of bees. Uncle Cy was hollowing out a gum, and with some hesitation said. 'Master, don't you know some people can't get into bees? Our family is too industrious for bees. Old master tried to git into bees, and I 'member well how old master before him tried, and dey never could. It's only lazy, poor white folks has any luck raising honey. And he made numerous citations in sup- port of his position. But his flattery was not to balk my experiment. I got into bees At first, they went in and come out of the little hole at the bottom of the gum briskly. After awhile, few and fewer; then only a straggler or two. We knocked off the top and found a triangular-shaped piece of comb, but no honey. So ended my first and last attempt at getting into bees.
"Farewell, faithful, loving, dear old Uncle Cy. I'm sure he loved me and prayed for me. Indeed, they tell me that he has been in the habit of pray- ing for me, by name, in public meetings. My family have joined me every year in making up a box for Uncle Cy and Aunt Bess, filled with half- worn clothes and various things new and old, such
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as they liked or needed. Christmas is coming, but no box goes that way any more. Our children, and the generations following, can never know the sentiment that sprung up between the two races under the system of domestic slavery. It had its evil and it had its good. Both are gone forever."
WM. D. ANDERSON.
At the request of friends and relatives of the late Dr. Anderson, I come, with sad heart and hesita- ting pen, to offer my feeble tribute to his name and memory. A few days since, as I stood amidst a weeping throng, met to perform the last sad rites to his dead body, as I saw that body lowered into its final resting place, memory was busy with these lines, written upon the death and burial of a wise and good man of the long ago.
"Ne'er to those dwellings where the mighty rest, Since their foundations, came a nobler guest."
This couplet-as applicable to the present case- will be stripped of seeming exaggeration when it is remembered that true nobility does not spring up
Tashy poller
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out of circumstances of birth or material sur- roundings, but from excellencies of character- virtues of heart and life. By virtue of the fact that our lamented friend and brother exemplified in life and labors the elements of a true Godlike manhood, let him stand forth as the peer of the noblest and the best. Through the ages past many of high repute in civil, social and profes- sional life-kings, warriors, statesmen, poets and philosophers-have lived, died and been laid to rest in grand mausoleums, amid the tears and sobs of a nation, while-
"their deeds as they deserve - Receive proud recompense."
But true wisdom-wisdom which God honors- looks beyond time and estimates final results. In the last day many of the so-called great of earth, whose names, perhaps, have been sounded far and wide by the "loud-mouthed trump of fame," will dwarf into nothingness while others, far less known and honored, will stand forth robed and crowned with royal splendors. God loves and honors those who love and honor him. For such only are of princely stock-of the royal blood of the Son of Mary. Yet how many, in their moral blindness, fail to see and appreciate the fact. Many so-called titles to nobility are without God's "image and superscription," Beneath many of these claims to fame and fortune may be found, written with invisible hand "Weighed in the bal-
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ances and found wanting." And why so written? Because that which constitutes the essence and in- carnation of all true greatness is wanting. Very many formulate opinions and are governed by the maxims of time and sense. But God does not so scan the outer hulk and surface. He is looking outside of the charmed circles of social distinctions and exalted worldly station, and is inquiring after the great-hearted-those who love God and love their fellow-men-those who, if need be, are willing to die for the truth and for conscience sake. While men are formulating opinions and passing judg- ments. according to externals, God searches the within looking for triumphs over self in the battle- field of the heart-the realm of the motives and affections. "He that ruleth his spirit"-through divine agency obtains the mastery over himself-"is better"-therefore in God's estimate, greater "than he that taketh a city." Victory over self, through Christ, is true liberty-exaltation into citizenship in the kingdom of the Lord Almighty. While on the other hand, a man of self-seeking-a lover of fame and pleasure more than of God-may ascend to the dizzy heights of >worldly greatness; but does not, cannot reach the summit of true wis- dom and real fame.
These thoughts in the present connection, may appear to some to be out of place. But when we take into account the high native gifts and ac- quired abilities of our deceased friend, together
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with the possibilities before him of brilliant achievements in professional and civic life, we can have only a dim conception of the battle hefought with himself before he obtained the consent of his mind and heart to forsake all and follow Christ. It takes a hero-a man possessed of elements which enter into the composition of which mar- tyrs are made-to turn aside from the pathway to fame and distinction, and become an itinerant Methodist preacher. At his Master's bidding, he literally "sold all"-so far as human opinion goes. I desire to stress this point, for it indexes his great, true character. One long and favorably known to the deceased-himself long prominent in public life and official station-said to me a few days since: "I have never known a man who turned away from prospects so flattering as those almost within the grasp of William D. Anderson. A seat in congress and the governor's chair were easy possibilities just ahead of him. If you write of him, stress this fact."
What a contrast between the subject of this memoir and the "certain ruler" who came to Christ, saying, "Good Master, what shall I do, that Imay inherit eternal life." Thelast, learning the conditions, refused to comply, going away "sorrowful" while the first, after a severe strug- gle with himself, and a fierce conflict with Satan, obeyed the call of God, and, like Abraham of old, "went forth, not knowing whither he went." He
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recognized the call of God as the highest call to men, and he obeyed. He understood well what this act of obedience implied and involved. A life of sacrifice on the one hand and of laborious, often unremunerative toil on the other. But, with eye of faith, he saw at the end of the race-track upon which he was entering a crown of final re- joicing. Toward this he pressed with unfaltering step, and would have pressed although to receive that crown might subject him to the stroke of Nero's bloody axe. Decision was a strong point in his character. I stress it because it was the pivot on which revolved the mental and moral machinery of his well-rounded, well-poised man- hood. With him, to decide was to do. While he often consulted with friends and had a ready ear for the opinions of others, yet he took no step forward or backward until "fully persuaded in his own mind." And hence, as this writer be- lieves, from close, intimate relations, that, at the call of God-let friends, kindred, the world say what they might-he would have turned away from earth's most attractive allurements and gone forth "preaching and shewing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God." 1
The subject of this writing was born at Mari- etta, Ga., June 24, 1839. He was the son of George D. and Jane Holmes Anderson. His father was a judge of the superior court at the time of his sud- den and unexpected death. His mother was a
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woman of high Christian type. So he inherited good blood and fine brain power from both his parents. He possessed from the start a quick and inquisitive mind. His educational facilities were good. He graduated, with distinction, at the Georgia University in 1859. Applying himself at once to the study and practice of law, he soon won honorable rank at the bar of his native town. But soon the alarm of war was heard along the Southern coast. Fearing that the battle might be over before he should have opportunity to try his "'prentice hand," he, together with four others, hurried away to Charleston, where he entered, as a private, the Palmetto Guards, of the Second South Carolina regiment. Soon after his command was transferred to Virginia, where he acted a gallant part in many battles now fa- mous in history-Bull Run, first and second Bat- tles of Manassas, Yorktown, Millersburg, Seven Days Around Richmond, Cold Harbor, Mechanics- ville, Gaines' Mill, Savage Station, Fair Oaks, Frazier's Farm, Malvern Hill, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Boonesboro, Harper's Ferry, Sharpsburg and Gettysburg. At the battle of Cold Harbor he received a wound in his right hand which he carried with him to the grave. At the close of his first year, he was transferred to Phillips' Legion, and elected as first lieutenant of his company, which he often commanded as cap- tain.
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