USA > Virginia > City of Lynchburg > City of Lynchburg > Historic and heroic Lynchburg > Part 9
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As he lay in state, clad in his surplice and embowered in flowers, within this chancel where he so often performed the funeral rite for others, although he was dead, yet such was the majesty of his appearance, that it seemed that he was but asleep, and that, in truth, "death had no more dominion over him." In this pulpit, dedicated to his memory, none can ever come more deserving than he of the Master's meed of praise, "Well done, good and faithful servant."
A few months before Dr. Carson's death, owing to his enfeebled health, an assistant had been called to aid him in the work of the parish, and in Rev. James M. Owens, a young man of deep earnestness and spirituality, a most acceptable helper had been found. When Dr. Carson died, Mr. Owens was at once made rector, and carried on the work ably and successfully until he accepted another call in the early part of 1907. The church debt of $16,000 was paid while Mr. Owens was rector.
In June of 1907, Rev. William A. Barr, D. D., who had already won great distinction in other parishes, began his pastorate here, which lasted only for a little over two years. He resigned October 31, 1909, and went to a larger field of work in New Orleans, where he has most successfully preached and ministered. Dr. Barr is well remembered here as a most scholarly and eloquent preacher, who greatly endeared himself to the people of this church and community. After he left, the pulpit was vacant for several
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months except for the services conducted by visiting ministers, and others who acted in the capacity of temporary supply.
In April, 1910, Dr. Joseph B. Dunn, formerly of Suffolk, Virginia, came to St. Paul's as rector and served as such for ten years, his resignation taking effect April 1, 1920, on account of the condition of his health, which the people of this church are now happy to learn has been restored. Dr. Dunn is well known as one of the ablest ministers in the South, a man of learning and true piety, whose zeal for the Master's Kingdom caused him to overtax his physical strength, but whose spiritual energies have never for an instant flagged, and whose influence for good in this community still rests upon it as a benediction. The decade of his ministry here was marked by constant progress. In the early years of that period were begun the efforts to establish a church in Rivermont, efforts which Dr. Dunn fostered and encouraged to the utmost, although he knew, as he said, that it meant the sacrifice on the part of this congregation of much of its very life's blood, in the loss of members and of means to build up the new parish. His faith was fully justified in the successful establishment of St. John's Church, while both St. Paul's and Grace have continued to grow and prosper in even greater measure than before the new venture was started, thus proving that a growing church is one that reaches out beyond its own borders to enlarge and broaden the work of the Kingdom as a whole.
The present splendid parish house is another enterprise that was brought to successful completion under the rectorship of Dr. Dunn. It was opened for occupancy on March 4, 1912, and has since been a magnificent addition to the church's instrumentalities for efficient service. What a joy and pleasure it is to us all to see the familiar faces and hear the familiar voices of Dr. Dunn and Dr. Barr and Dr. Lacy with us in these services here today.
It was while Dr. Dunn was rector that the Great War was begun and ended. Who can forget how that, when the news came that Sunday morning in August, 1914, that Belgium had been invaded, he mounted this pulpit with anxiety manifest in his coun- tenance and demeanor, and, with almost prophetic instinct, ex- pressed his apprehension of the woe it might mean to the world? How little did any of us then dream of the tragic and awful
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results that were really to follow! It must always be a source of just pride to this church that in the great struggle that finally brought America into it, her sons and daughters rallied royally and loyally to their country's flag, and that five of her brave boys laid down their lives that freedom might live. The names of these five heroes are inscribed on a bronze tablet in the front vestibule of the church. The tablet was unveiled May 15, 1921.
Following Dr. Dunn at St. Paul's came our present rector, Rev. J. M. Robeson, who began his work here April 2, 1920, and who has already, in a little over two years, proved himself worthy of his predecessors, and established himself firmly in the love and confidence of his congregation as a man of force and character, and a minister of ability, fidelity, and consecration. His intense zeal, earnest enthusiasm, and indefatigable energy have proved themselves in the fact that the church and all its subsidiary organizations and enterprises are in active and harmonious coopera- tion and in flourishing condition. The membership and Sunday School have both increased in numbers, and there is excellent at- tendance on the services. The great event of his administration so far was the payment in full of the old church debt of $14,000, which had been hanging over us for several years, and which was entirely wiped out at the time of the first Nation-wide Campaign, in which this church and this diocese both "went over the top" with flying colors.
We come now to the close of this brief sketch of the history of this church. Of course, within the necessary limits of an occasion like this, it has been possible only to touch upon the principal events, and even these have been inadequately treated. There has been no opportunity to comment, as I would gladly have done, upon some of the laity, both men and women, who have labored valiantly along with their leaders, the pastors, in upbuilding and extending the work of the Church. For many of these it may truly be said, "They rest from their labors and their works do follow them." Many others are with us here today, rejoicing in what has already been done and standing with willing hearts and ready hands to "carry on."
Let me add a word about our church music. From the beginning it has been of high quality. Says Mrs. Cabell in one of her
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"Sketches," speaking of our first rector, Mr. Smith, "He caused great improvement to be made in church music, and the chants were, under his instruction, beautifully sung." This tradition has been lived up to. In the old church, "down under the hill," there was usually a quartette of selected voices and a larger choir as a background. The choir occupied a gallery in the rear of the con- gregation, where the organ was laboriously pumped by the hands of the sexton. Many here today will agree with me that they have rarely heard sweeter or more inspiring music than came from that organ with Prof. Will Adams at the keys, and with Miss Stella Ferris, Miss Lucy Taylor, Mr. D. T. Walker, and Dr. Otway Owen as the quartette. When we came into this church we were fortunate in securing the services, as choir master, of Prof. Hartley Turner, an Englishman, thoroughly trained in music and in church- ly practice. He laid the groundwork of the present chorus choir, in a manner that has enabled his successors to maintain it at the high standard it exhibits today, when it ranks second to no choir in the State.
The great historian, Gibbon, bitterly said that history is "little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind." Such a conception is but partly true, for although the story of the past is full of failures and of sins, it is also illumined here and there with the sacrifices and noble endeavors of heroic lives that give us the right to believe that the destiny of mankind is betterment. If this be true of the world, it is true also of the church, and it is true of this church of whose past I have tried to give some outline here today. It was said by one of old, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, that "history is philosophy teaching by examples," and Carlyle expressed much the same thought when he called it "the essence of innumerable biographies." From the brief glimpses we have been able to catch of the lives of the leaders who founded and nurtured this church, we ought, it seems to me, take heart of hope, and gird up our loins for the future, with high resolve that as we reap where they sowed, our successors shall likewise harvest rich increase from our planting and our toil, striving, under God, to measure up to our opportunities and responsibilities in the spirit of the "Psalm of Life"-
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"New occasions teach new duties, Time makes ancient good uncouth, They must upward still, and onward, Who would keep abreast of truth."
"God to the human soul And all the spheres that roll, Wrapped by His spirit in their robes of light, Hath said, 'The primal plan Of all the world and man Is Forward! Progress is your law, your right!'"
XVI.
MEMORIAL EXERCISES
ADDRESS AT UNVEILING OF TABLET TO "OUR SOLDIER DEAD" AT ST. PAUL'S CHURCH, LYNCHBURG, MAY 15, 1921
Reverend Rector, Veterans, War Workers, Friends, and Fellon Members of Saint Paul's Congregation:
From time immemorial it has been a custom of the Christian Church to honor the heroic dead by means of tablets and other monuments erected upon and within the walls of the edifices dedicated to worship. Who has not been struck with reverential awe while wandering through the thousands of such memorials in the dim aisles of Westminster Abbey? Or who has not felt his heart burn within him while gazing upon such trophies of valor as the armor and gauntlets of the Black Prince in Canterbury Cathedral, or upon the simple lists of honored names inscribed upon the walls of other churches, both small and great, in both England and America ?
We come now to add another of these memorial tablets, in- scribed with the names and dedicated to the memory of those young men of Saint Paul's congregation who, in the greatest war that was ever waged in all the tide of time, counted it a privilege to lay down their lives for the cause of honor and right. How dignified and beautiful the few words composing the simple inscription: "In loving memory of those members of Saint Paul's Church who gave their last full measure of devotion in the Great War 1914-1918." And how solemn and tender the memories revived when we read the roll of their names:
First Lieutenant Howard Thornton Barger. First Lieutenant Robert Lewis Butler. First Lieutenant Allan Lile Campbell. First Lieutenant George Preston Glenn. Sergeant Henry Carrington Stevens.
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It is a fact worthy of notice that each of these young soldiers represented a different branch of the service-Infantry, Machine Gun, Artillery, Aviation and Ambulance Corps. It is a further noteworthy fact that all of them were officers, and all but one commissioned officers. In proportion to its number I feel safe in stating that Saint Paul's had more officers among those of its members who entered the service than any other congregation in Lynchburg, and I believe it to be true that regardless of numbers it had as many, if not more, golden stars on its service flag. Lynchburg is famous for the proportion of officers she furnished, and I doubt if any other city of its size in the entire country furnished as many. It is but just that we should take a patriotic pride as a congregation and as a community in such a record as this.
Our pride is greater, however, in the thought that of those who died, there was not one who was not a brave, true, noble-hearted and loyal man and soldier.
FIRST LIEUTENANT HOWARD THORNTON BARGER
All of us remember Howard Barger, a splendid youth, trained in Saint Paul's Sunday School and confirmed at this chancel rail by Bishop Tucker. How gallant and debonair he was, how brave and gay, the beau ideal of a young soldier as he marched away with his comrades of the Musketeers to serve on the Mexican border and to go later on when America entered the Great War to Fort Myer, where he was commissioned as First Lieutenant in August, 1917. In the following May he went to France and took part in those glorious campaigns of the American Army during the summer and fall of the eventful year of 1918. On November 6, just five days before the Armistice was signed, he was killed in action while in command of his company. It was not his privilege to join in the jubilations of Armistice Day, when all the allied world went wild with joy, and shouted and danced and wept to think that bloodshed at last had ceased, but his was the greater privilege and the higher joy to die a soldier's death in the midst of his brothers at arms while the advancing banners of his country were gleaming in the sunlight of assured victory and triumph.
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FIRST LIEUTENANT ROBERT LEWIS BUTLER
The story of Robert Butler is one of unusual interest. He, too, attended our Sunday School and was confirmed by Bishop Tucker on March 7, 1909. He was commissioned a second lieutenant at Fort Myer, November 23, 1917, and was transferred to a machine gun battalion in the regular army. In April, 1918, he went to France, where he took part in the great victory at Chateau Thierry and in other famous fights. His battery was cited for conspicuous service. The only reference to Chateau Thierry in his letters home was in a single sentence: "I was with the guns three days." He also wrote that he had been promoted some time previously to the rank of First Lieutenant. In a letter from Dr. Dunn, formerly the beloved rector of this church, to whom I wrote for information, he tells me that Major Frederick Palmer, author of "America in France," says that after the long series of fights at Chateau Thierry he went over the battlefield with the officer in charge of the field operations of the Marines, and had that officer explain the battle in detail. The officer told him that the Marines were supported by two machine-gun batteries of regulars, and that there came a time when the Marine line was giving way at one point, and that unless he could strengthen the line at this point it might mean utter disaster; and that in desperation he sent to Captain Butler, in charge of the battery of regulars, to send him one gun, if possible, and that Butler sent back word that he had just had "two guns shot out of his hands, but he had got hold of a third and was coming to him." He came, and the day was saved. Dr. Dunn showed the account to Lieutenant Butler's sister, and she wrote to Major Palmer saying that her brother was in charge of a battery at Chateau Thierry, but was only a first lieutenant. Palmer wrote that he had not a doubt but that Robert Butler was the man who came, and that he had written Captain Butler as he was in charge of the battery. Further investigation seems to authenticate the incident beyond doubt. Later on, during that fierce rush through the Argonne Forest, young Butler fell mortally wounded by a piece of shrapnel which struck him in the neck. He lingered for a few days in a field hospital near the little French village of Fleury, about thirty kilometers out from Verdun, and there, on the
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thirteenth day of October, he passed smilingly away, to "where beyond these voices there is peace." Just two years ago, almost to the day, I was visiting Verdun and the surrounding battlefields and in company with another Y. M. C. A. secretary, I went to Fleury to see if we could locate his grave. After a considerable search through the various military cemeteries with which that vast battlefield is dotted, we found it on an eminence overlooking the village, with a beautiful hill behind it and a magnificent stretch of country to the front; a scene not unlike some of those around his native City of Lynchburg. We copied the inscription, which identified the grave beyond question, planted an American flag, and took several photographs which I afterwards delivered to his mother.
FIRST LIEUTENANT ALLAN LILE CAMPBELL
Allan Lile Campbell received his commission as second lieu- tenant from the Officers' Reserve Corps at Fort Myer in August, 1917. He was assigned to the One Hundred and Fifteenth Artillery and promoted to First Lieutenant before going to France, where he went in May, 1918. His regiment was at first attached to the famous Thirtieth, or "Old Hickory" Division, but was later detached and brigaded with Pershing's Army to be sent hither and thither all over the battle front wherever the big guns were needed most. Young Campbell proved himself a very efficient and popular man. A comrade wrote after his death: "He was one of our finest and bravest young officers. I was deeply attached to him and it seems hard that after making the whole war, he had to pass out this way." The reference is to his death in a hospital of pneumonia, which occurred on the eighth of January, 1919, just as his outfit was about to leave for home.
I shall never forget the first soldier's funeral I attended in France. It was that of a young soldier who, like Allan Campbell, died behind the lines in a hospital of pneumonia, that dread scourge which claimed so many "over there" as well as "over here." I can still see in memory that mournful cortege as we marched behind his corpse through the streets of that foreign city. I can still hear the throb of that muffled drum and see the sympathetic faces of
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the French people, who, with that reverence they always show for the dead, stood, the civilians with uncovered heads and the soldiers at attention with military salute, as the procession slowly passed. I remember well the solemn voice of the French Protestant pastor who stood over the flag-draped wooden coffin which constituted the soldier's bier, and tenderly referred to him as "notre frere," our brother, and said that he has as truly given his life for the cause as if he had fallen by a bullet from the enemy. It was doubtless amid some such scene as this that Allan Campbell went to his grave beneath the soft skies of that far-off land, and as the bugles sounded taps over the mound that covered his remains, they were but paying fitting military tribute to one who had died for country and for right as truly as if he had been killed in the fore- front of battle.
FIRST LIEUTENANT GEORGE PRESTON GLENN
Preston Glenn, another of the Musketeers who saw service on the Mexican border, entered the military service again on May 30, 1917, and went to Fort Myer for training. He volunteered for the air service and was sent to Ridley Park, Toronto, Canada, where he spent five months, after which he returned to the United States and was commissioned a first lieutenant in the Twenty-third Aero Squadron, Sixty-third Unit, at Fort Worth, Texas, on Jan- uary 13, 1918. On January 18, he sailed for England, and was stationed at Charing Cross, London, until the following June, when he obtained his certificate of graduation as an aviator. He began active war service at once, but his career was of short duration. On July 20, he took his final flight. He was then piloting an aeroplane in formation with others on offensive patrol over the enemy lines at Ostend, when his plane was attacked by a German "Fokker." From an altitude of 20,000 feet he dropped in a nose dive out of range of the attacking machine, and righted his plane towards the allied lines when he reached the altitude of 15,000 feet, but then he disappeared behind the clouds and was not seen again. He was reported missing that night, but not until Armistice Day did his relatives here receive official notification of his death, which occurred "somewhere in France," or Flanders, during the
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latter part of July before he could be sent back to a German detention camp as a prisoner. His remains were first buried near Bruges, in Belgium, and were later removed to another American military cemetery in Flanders, where in all probability they will remain, among the blowing poppies and the "crosses row on row" that mark the place where now he lies with comrades who call with him to us to keep faith with those who died.
It is no little satisfaction to be able to say that in the combat in which he lost his life, the German plane that attacked him was brought down in flames. This was done by Lieutenant William Armstrong, who later on was himself killed in service.
SERGEANT HENRY CARRINGTON STEVENS
Of Carrington Stevens, that gallant boy, not yet twenty years old when he died in battle, a better idea may perhaps be gained than in any other way, if we let his comrades speak. Some time after his death his captain, afterwards Major W. H. Lawrence, telegraphed to Dr. Dunn:
"Sergeant Stevens was under my command more than a year dur- ing training. He was interested, faithful and a constant scource of inspiration to his comrades. In action he proved himself a true soldier, brave as the best, cool and efficient under fire, and beloved by his officers and all the men in his company who feel his loss deeply."
Lieutenant Adams, under whom he did his entire service, said of him: "Carrington was absolutely fearless, absolutely trust- worthy. Knowing that I could always depend on him, I always chose him to be with me in great danger."
Sergeant Dorgeval, of his company, in a letter which was not intended to be seen by his family, spoke of him as "one of the very finest, cleanest, bravest chaps in the outfit, and, for that matter, that I have ever known."
Another of his "buddies" wrote: "At Montmirail, when at communion in the quickly fashioned church under the poplars and beeches, and at Sommedieu, when at service so truly simple and devotional, little did I realize that they were the last times that Carrington was to be my companion. His lusty voice singing,
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'Abide with me, fast falls the eventide," as the September twilight hastened down, is a vivid memory. Then later, during our con- versation till well past midnight, I saw the future of high idealism that he had planned for himself. The result of his ideals, gained, as he so often said, from his boyhood home training, brought forth his motto: 'I hate no one, nor do I require any one to love me, but to be fair and square is my endeavor'."
The death of this noble youth occurred during the Argonne drive on the thirtieth day of September, 1918. It was shortly after his command had arrived at the little shell-torn town of Cuisy, a few miles northwest of Verdun, where four years of bombard- ment had left scarcely one stone piled upon another. Soon after their arrival that morning some more German shells came over Sergeant Stevens was struck by a piece of shrapnel which went through his chest. His first words when struck were: "They've got me," and in less than ten minutes as his life blood ebbed away, he said: "Good night, fellows," and fell asleep. The next day he was buried there on the southern slope of a hill near Cuisy, sealed in a heavy army blanket, a coffin being unobtainable for any one. As his body was lowered by the loving hands of his comrades, and the voice of the chaplain repeated the simple army service, the enemy guns were pounding the opposite ridge scarce two hundred yards away, the American batteries were thundering in reply, air- planes were in fierce combat above, and a German observation balloon could be seen scanning the entire front-a fitting funeral for one whose life had just been laid down upon the altar of liberty. A large American flag was planted on the grave, and soon after a huge rustic cross of birch, fashioned by the boys the next day, with his name printed on a white tablet, was placed at its head. And then, writes a devoted comrade, "the battle passed on to the northward, and we returned to the rear, bewildered by our loss."
And who can wonder at their bewilderment? The crushing out by war of millions of bright young lives, the awful devastation and wreckage left in the trail of the armies, the countless billions of wasted treasure, the sorrow and suffering of innocent women and
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children, how can we account for these things, how can a just and beneficent God permit such things to be? And yet, we may not doubt that there is some good purpose in it all, that though we may not be able to see it now, there is "one far off divine event towards which the whole creation moves," and that as sure as day follows night, the time will eventually arrive when good will win its final triumph over evil, and right be eternally throned above wrong. The price of progress has always been paid in blood and suffering, and sometimes we feel that the process is unutterably slow. Sometimes it seems that a step backward has been taken, but this is only apparently true. For although the river may wind and turn, and at times appear to flow back in the direction from which it came, we know that it must eventually reach the sea. And so we must reverently believe that even this great world cataclysm through which we have just passed, nay, are still passing, means a step forward and not backward; that when the world has quieted down, when "the tumult and the shouting dies" and "the captains and the kings depart," men will see with clearer vision, and even through the agonies of this crucifixion will experience a resur- rection of the noblest and best in human nature.
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