USA > Virginia > Sketches and portraits of the Virginia Conference, Methodist Episcopal Church > Part 2
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Hle was married June 21, 1848, to Miss Eliza Tackett, of Stafford eounty, Va., who has shared with him the toils and sacrifices of an itinerant life.
REV. WILLIAM F. BAIN.
He is the third son of Rev. George A. and Frances M. Bain, and was born in Williamsburg, Va., July 20, 1831. His father being a member of the Virginia Conference, his son spent his boyhood, up to his fifteenth year, in the home of an itinerant. Then the family was located in the city of Petersburg, Va. Young Bain was converted April 8, 1847, under the ministry of Rev. G. W. Langhorne, and joined the Church on the 11th as a probationer, and after six months' trial was received in full connection; made class-leader by Rev. N. Head in 1850; licensed to preach by the Quarterly Conference of Washington Street Station, and recommended to the Virginia Conference in October, 1851, Rev. II. B. Cowles, Presiding Elder. He was received at the Conference holding its session in Alexandria. He has traveled the following circuits : 1852, Gloneester as junior, with Rev. L. S. Reed; 1853, Murfreesboro, N. C.,
REV. W. F. BAIN.
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with Rev. J. D. Lumsden ; ordained deacon in Lynchburg by Bishop Pame; 1854, contrary to his expressed wishes, was sent in charge of Fanquier; 1855, Manassas: ordained ekler in Petersburg by Bishop James O. Andrew; 1856, Lunenburg; 1557, Staunton Circuit ; 1858, Mathews; 1859, Amelia; 1860-'61, Springfield : 1862-'63-'64-'65, Campbell; 1877-'78-'79-'80, Bedford ; four years in charge of Dorchester Circuit, Maryland; two years on Madison Circuit; Lonisa Circuit, four years; Gordonsville, four years. At the Conference of 1894 he was granted a superannuated relation. His home is in Gordons- ville, Va.
When he joined the Conference he made two vows unto the Lord: First, that he would not marry until he had traveled four years; second, he would never locate until God located him in the grave. The first he kept; the second he is keeping, and hopes to keep unto the end.
If a concensus of opinion were made in the Virginia Conference as to the men who would have stood by the prisoner of the Pretorium, one name would certainly be on the list-William Field Bain. His mind is made up. A sense of duty rules his actions. In the pulpit he declares the whole counsel of God. llis sermons are not the "pleasings of a luite," tickling the fancy and pleading for applause. They are the outgivings of a man bent on acquitting himself of a high responsibility. There will be no blood of sinners unwarned on his garments. As a pastor, he is faithful in small as well as great matters-con- scientious and diligent. He shirks no duty, however irksome; he negleets no means to bring success to the glorious cause. This elear-headed, large-hearted, firm and indefatigable minister brings a blessing wherever he labors.
REV. PAUL WHITEHEAD, D. D.
There has been recently written a volume on the old county elerks of Vir- ginia. A unique race were these ancient civil seribes. They were authority in law, in precedents and in well-bred behavior-methodical, accurate, neat. Within the range of their calling, they carried all the facts at their fingers' ends. They were men of superior character and native dignity. The bench, bar and public gave them honor. They grow old in office. Rotation was a sacrilege in their day and place.
The Virginia Conference holds with the old usage. It selects the right man, and retains the same Recorder for decades. Its "Stated Clerk" has served from his entrance into the Conference, first as assistant, and since 1860 as Chief Secretary-forty years. He has never missed a session, and only a day or so anterior to 1860; not an hour for well-nigh a third of century.
The qualities of the famous old Virginia clerks in by-gone times enrich the Conference in its Secretary. Correctness and serutiny in recording the busi- ness of the body, clarity of statement and care in penmanship endow his Minutes with an unchallenged superiority.
Dr. Whitehead does not abide by the ink-horn. He exercises often in debate. TTe is furnished well for jousting. He has been a student of Methodist eco- nomies and statutes. His memory opens like a fan, with a page of Church facts on every fold. The Discipline is as familiar as the calendar. His arguments
REV. PAUL WHITEHEAD, D. D.
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are strong from his position, always plausible; his style earnest, leid, aggres- sive-too dircet for rhetoric, too eager for humor. His intense convictions and positive manner lead spectators astray as to his native amiability. He only seems brusque. There is in him nothing of the stoic-a heart without a pulse of sympathy. There are, indeed, no geysers of emotion, spasmodic eruptions ; vet hidden depths of sweet waters flow into the basin of his soul, and, distilling through a thousand little deeds of kindness, nonrish in quiet places the flowers and fruits of friendship and affection. The gentle graces are regnant at his own fireside and among his familiars.
Ile has made mnsie more than a pastime-he has gone into its history and philosophy. He enjoys the classie opera. Instruments of melody and the hmeful voices canse his home to become a haunt of Orpheus.
The landscapes of Virginia bear a charm for this Priest of the Peaks of Otter. There is hardly a view in the Blue Ridge for a hundred miles in our Conference bounds he has not made his own by visits and delighted eyes. He is fond of expeditions on foot. Not a few points of interest have been gained by staff and clinging to shrubs along the cliffs. His superb physique provokes to dashes in the wild hills. Besides his habit of botanizing by the way, not missing flower or vine, he is drawn to the mountain pools, with fly and rod, by his liking for the sport of ontwitting the shy trout. He has told in print of these excursions with engaging words, and brought the scenery vividly before the eyes of his readers.
The Conference trusts much to the soundness of his "opinions" on legal questions. The body steers ahead with confidence after he has thrown the lead and bnoved the channel. He has the qualities of a leader. He attaches his friends with hooks of steel.
In the pulpit Mr. Whitehead speaks with precision and composure what he has taken pains to look well into. The sermon is the "beaten oil of the sane- mary" poured out in a steady stream. He uses no notes or manuscripts-speak- ing extempore. The language is choice English ; the sentences are firm and strong as the steel rails that bear the cargo of great trains. He expounds the Scriptures and "canses men to understand." Each discourse could go without revision to the press-a rare perfection.
Rev. Paul Whitehead was born September 13, 1830, in Nelson county, Va., near Lovingston, the county seat. IIe and a twin brother were the youngest children of Jolm and Anna Whitehead. The stock is English and Welsh, with a strong infusion ( from the mother's side) of Irish. John Whitehead and his wife became Methodists in 1825, under the ministry of Dr. W. A. Smith, then in his first year, and their house became, from that time, a home of Methodist preachers. From childhood their younger children knew the great men of Vir- ginia Methodism-Early, Boyd ( who baptized Paul), Smith, Cowles, Skidmore, ete.
The education of the younger children was obtained chiefly at an academy in New Glasgow, Amherst county. There, at the age of thirteen, the subject of this sketch had a good preparation for college, inelnding instruction in the languages. But financial pressure suspended indefinitely John Whitehead's hopes and plans for the further education of his twin children ; what was ob- tained afterwards was the result of self-application, under the stimulus of an active and thoughtful father. From the first the twin boys were omnivorous readers.
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Their mother was a woman of rare piety and remarkable judgment. To her. they owe what no man can ever repay and few appreciate. Her training was striet and loving, skillfully adapted to the well-studied character of her children.
On September 25, 1849, Paul and his brother Silas were converted in Lynch- burg, under the ministry of Rev. George W. Langhorne. They joined the Church promptly, and began their religious life in the Methodist nursery, the class-meeting. Somehow, the older friends of Paul discovered what they be- lieved to be a designation of him for the ministry. Predictions to that effect and conversations did not affect his own mind. Ile had from the first laid himself on the altar for any service God might call him to, and was never con- seious of a struggle against such a calling, though, as yet, he felt no leaning that way. Four years he spent in a clerk's office in Lynchburg and Norfolk, with a view to being a lawyer, reading and gaining invaluable information for such a calling. Brought into contact with many men of ability at the bar and on the bench, he has always regarded this as a season of unconscious sehoohng in important respects for subsequent life. In the end he obtained a license, but never practiced law. This was after taking part in a memorable meeting in May, 1853, at Amherst Courthouse, where he felt solemnly called to the min- istry to testify to the grace of God. Declining a proffered law partnership, after a short resting season, he was licensed to preach in August, 1853; began to preach in Lynchburg in the church in which he was converted and in the presence of his parents, and, after "exercising his gifts" in the country around, was admitted on trial into the Virginia Conference, October, 1853.
The "class," of which he was part, has been a remarkable one, furnishing such nien as "Charlie" Hall, of blessed memory; William E. Judkins, A. G. Brown, G. II. Ray, T. L. Williams, etc. After one year on a circuit as "junior," he was stationed in Charlottesville, where he came in contact with the Univer- sity Faculty, and especially came to know that godly and noble man, Gessner Ilarrison, and his son-in-law, Professor Smith, and their excellent families. Ilere also he formed two of the strongest, and to him most profitable, clerical friendships of his life with John A. Broadus and J. Henry Smith.
The next year was spent in Lexington-memorable for renewing a brief ac- quaintance, and greatly deepening it, with "Stonewall" Jackson, with whom he took long walks and had interesting conversations as they rambled over the hills and along the river cliffs. This was a year of mingled sorrow and joy ; in it he buried in six months (December, April and June) mother, father and twin brother. At its close-December S, 1857-he was married to Miss Vir- gilia M. Timberlake, daughter of J. H. Timberlake, Esq., of AAlbemarle county. Of this marriage there have been born a son and two daughters. One daughter, a lovely girl, just blooming into womanhood, was smitten of a lung disease, and sank slowly into death amid overflowing sorrow, herself serene in faith and lis- tening for the welcome call with a radiant smile. The son (named for the twin brother, Silas, ) endowed with aptness for large business affairs, fell also vic- tim to the same fatal malady, tuberculosis of the lungs, in prime of life.
Mr. Whitehead continued in the regular work till December, 1866; Bishop Pierce had selected him for the Farmville (then called "Randolph-Macon") Dis- . triet. But he was destined not to be "read out." On the last night of the Con- ference, after the Bishop had gone to North Carolina-leaving his completed list in the hands of Bishop Doggett to be read-tidings suddenly came that Rev. J. D. Coulling had fallen at his post as President of Wesleyan Female
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College, at Murfreesboro, N. C. A meeting of the trustees present at Confer- ence was called at once, and Mr. Whitehead was elected as the successor of Mr. Coulling. The office came without solicitation or canvassing on his part. He re- mained at Murfreesborotill June, 1873. The College was then sold tosatisfy claims for debts contracted in the original building, against which thetrustees had strug- gled in vain for seven or eight years. It passed into the hands of a stock-hold- ing company, composed chiefly of its old friends at Murfreesboro and in that district, and after a further career of four years was destroyed by fire in August, 1877. In September, 1873, Mr. Whitehead, with the Faculty and off- cers who had been with him in his last years at Murfreesboro, opened the Farm- ville College for Young Ladies at Farmville, Prince Edward county, Va. Un- fettered by a pastoral tie, Mr. Whitehead was able to preach the Gospel to many of the feebler churches and be a supply for emergencies; while in visiting Dis- triet Conferences, in school vacations, he has filled pulpits from Norfolk to Liberty and from Patrick county to Rappahannock. He was appointed Pre- siding Elder of the Petersburg District in 1881, and has continued in that de- partment of the itinerancy ever since, serving the Petersburg District one year ; Richmond, two terms; West Richmond, one quadrennial; Lynchburg, a full term, and has now spent two years on it.
He has been chosen a delegate to the General Conferences of 1866, 1870, 1878, 1886, 1890, 1894, 1898. He is a Trustee of Randolph-Macon College, and in 1876 was commissioned by the Governor a Visitor to the University of Virginia. The degree of Doctor of Divinity was conferred by Randolph- Macon College in 1875. Ile is author of "Recreations of a Presiding Elder" and numerous articles in periodicals.
Dr. Whitehead is a best specimen of robust health. He leads an active and out-door life. His body seems a perfect machine. He can compass mile after mile on foot and at a swift pace. Life, with his admirable anatomy, seems a buoyant joy.
REV. JOSEPHI E. POTTS, A. B.
The subject of this sketch is of English and German descent; in height, about five feet seven inches; in weight, ranging between one hundred and sixty and one hundred and eighty pounds. His head is large, and slightly bald ; his hair, once of a pale, yellowish hue, is now white ; his whiskers, a few years ago a light auburn, are now like the snow; his complexion, fair, with a red glow upon his cheeks ; his forehead, high and massive ; his eyes, a light blue, yet bright and piercing; his face, full and regular; his shoulders, broad and round; his chest, large and well developed. In a crowd he is quiet, and no one would know that he was present, unless seeing him; in the social circle, he is communicative, pleasant and agreeable, yet always dignified. When not engaged in conver- sation, his countenance presents the appearance of a man absorbed in thought, and determined to execute his purpose; but when conversing, his countenance is smiling and his manner is animated. His disposition is kind, generous and very tender towards his friends; and, though he is quick to perceive any re- flection east upon him by an opposer, he has great power of self-control. He
REV. JOSEPH E. POTTS.
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is emphatically a student, spending all his spare moments in close application to his books. While he is familiar with the best critical, classical and the- ological works of the day. nevertheless he is so modest that no one, only par- tially acquainted with him, would know it; but let one oppose him in doctrine, and the opponent would be amazed at his critical, classical and theological knowledge. In the pulpit his voice is round, smooth and pleasant ; his gestures regular, appropriate and well-timed: his sermons practical, scriptural and thoroughly studied ; his manner engaging, persuasive and earnest, carrying with it the conviction to every hearer that he believes what he says. His friends are numerous, and persons are drawn to him wheresoever he goes.
REV. GEORGE HENRY RAY, D. D.
The pulpit work of Mr. Ray is instructive and engaging. His discourses have marks of judicious study, familiarity with literature and the best writers on the Scriptures. His sermons are polished shafts; they dart as sped by the arm of "the godlike Pandarus, Lycaon's son."
As a preacher, he is elear, earnest, zealous and faithful. He loves to preach. Ilis heart is in his work. He preaches to save souls. He is tireless in labors and endowed with rare gifts in the conduet of affairs, and with many engaging qualities. The Church has always prospered under his ministry.
Mr. Ray has blue eyes, black hair and fair complexion ; is five feet ten inches in height, well proportioned, and weighs one hundred and eighty pounds. He was born in the District of Columbia, near Washington, on October 21, 1832, and is the son of Enos and Elizabeth Ray. His ancestors settled in what is now Anne Arundel county, Maryland, in the first Protestant settlement under Lord Baltimore, and were members of the Church of England. His early edu- cation was had at Columbian College, near Washington City. His friends designed for him the legal profession, and, at the time of his conversion, he was studying law under Judge Bradley, of Washington City.
In November, 1849, under a sermon preached by Rev. J. A. Dunean, D. D., from the text, "Who is willing to conseerate his service this day unto the Lord ?" he was awakened and converted, and shortly afterwards he joined the Metho- dist Episcopal Church, South, at Emory chapel, where his father was a leading member and steward for a number of years.
In 1858 he followed the movings of the Spirit of God and gave himself to the ministry of the Gospel, and began to preach under the Presiding Elder in June of that year, and was received on trial into the Virginia Conference at Lynchburg the ensuing November, when he was sent as helper to Springfield and South Branch Circuit. He was subsequently appointed to Fauquier Cir- enit : to ('lay Street, Richmond ; to Fredericksburg, to Winchester and to Har- risonburg-in all of which places his labors were greatly blessed. In the fall of 1860 he was appointed Chaplain to Randolph-Macon College. At the en- sning Conference, November, 1861, he was appointed pastor of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, in Washington City ; but, for political reasons, he de- clined to go, and became Chaplain in the Confederate service. He was subse-
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REV. GEORGE HI, RAY, D. D.
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quently sent to Louisa Circuit, and from there to Union Station, Richmond. During the latter part of the war he was engaged as agent for the Richmond Christian Advocate, then the Conference property, and raised a large amount of money to relieve the Advocate of its debts and to send religious literature to the Confederate soldiers. At the close of the war, having no pastoral charge, he settled on a plantation in Nottoway county, owned by his wife, where he supplied destitute portions of our work in that county, in Prince Edward and in Lunenburg. Here he remained eleven years, and the mission field he then developed is now largely self-supporting, and is supplied by two or three of our most active men. In 1875 he was again sent to Richmond, and stationed at Main Street, now Park Place. He spent two years on the Prospect Circuit. In 1878 he was appointed Presiding Elder of the Eastern Shore District, which he served for four years. From this appointment he was sent to the Petersburg District, where he again served his full time of four years. In 1886 he was sent to Randolph-Macon District. At the close of his term on the Randolph- Macon District Mr. Ray was sent to Union Station, Richmond, a church he had served in 1863-'64.
Perhaps this was the most effective and useful pastoral term of his life. A revival began early in January, 1892. following his appointment, and continued through the whole four years of his ministry, and for two years, following in the pastorate of Rev. George C. Vanderslice, D. D., till the death of the latter. There were 1,000 professions of religion during this four years' term of his pastorate, and as many as 500 joined his Church. The second Sabbath in March, 1892, was perhaps the most remarkable day in his ministry. There were 150 professions on that day. This revival resulted in the erection of the present church edifice of Gothic architecture and brownstone trimming, cost- ing more than $30,000, and is one of the most beautiful structures in Richmond.
In 1893 the Washington and Lee University conferred on him the degree of Doctor of Divinity-an honor he has worn with some grace.
This was Mr. Ray's fifth pastorate in the city of Richmond, where he has always been held in high esteem. He was sent from this charge to Berkley, Va., and the next year to Centenary, Lynchburg. It was during the latter pas- torate he was appointed Chaplain of the Grand Lodge of Masons of Virginia, to succeed the venerable Dr. George W. Dame, of the Episcopal Church. He was sent from Lynchburg to Central, Portsmouth, in November, 1896. Of his work in this pastorate Rev. B. H. Owens, the Church historian, says: "Dr. Ray was a fluent speaker and of more than ordinary literary culture. His sermons were interesting and instructive and delivered with an earnestness and pathos that impressed. He was a systematic and indefatigable worker in all the departments of the Church. * * * He was abundant in labors, not only in his Church, but in the community generally. He preached the Gospel on week days wherever there was an open door, and by his genial and courteous bearing made many friends." In 1899 he was sent to Cabell Street, Danville, Va. At the close of this year, because of increasing avoirdupois and the wear and tear from walking on pavements, he asked to be sent to the country work, and Bishop Wilson acceded to this request, and appointed him to his present charge at Franktown, Va., where he continues to serve with highest appreciation a cul- tivated people, who paid up his salary a month in advance of the session of the Virginia Conference.
Dr. Ray is now closing his forty-eighth year in the ministry, and has had uninterrupted good health through this long period, and is still a robust and
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active man. Thousands of persons have been converted through his instrinen- tality. Dr. Ray published a strong and trenchant sermon on the one hundredth anniversary of the death of John Wesley, and is preparing reminiscences of five decades in the Methodist ministry.
He is one of our most popular laborers and successful Presiding Elders. He has frequently served on the Examination and other Conference Committees, and was for years prominent in the Sunday-school work.
In 1862 he was married to Miss Jennie W. Scott, daughter of E. C. Scott and niece of Judge E. R. Chambers, of Virginia. They have reared four in- teresting children.
REV. WILLIAM E. JUDKINS, D. D.
The high and broad brow of Mr. Judkins certifies him to every intelligent eye as a person endowed with unusual frontal brain force. Ilis head shows, by its excess in the cavity for the cerebrum, the large predominance of the thinking clement. There is ample space for the superior machinery of the mind. The benevolent face tells us that the strong powers back of it have not been used for selfishness and harm. The gray matter in the bony caisson has not been allowed to develop into an instrument of evil, like the saw-prong of the swordfish. It is rather a loom, weaving the fleeces of divine doctrines with the fine shuttle of the Gobelin tapestries into thoughts that adorn life while they keep warm the heart of humanity.
He has borne always the "white flower of a spotless life." The behavior be- coming his calling and befitting the elevated sphere of a Christian gentleman seems to come to him by instinct. A coarse word or an inferior aet has never discolored even with microscopic stain his polished and radiant career as a cour- teous and elegant person, on the street, in the drawing-room or in the pulpit. And vet no one is more genial or so far from the stiffness and elaborate manner- ism of a Turveydrop. Ilis presence carries sunshine. Ile stands as far from the sonr and frozen age of puritanism as from the modern rowdyism in righteous- ness.
To the endowments of a well-balanced mind, a voice of compass and smooth- ness, high aims and the bearing of a gentleman, Mr. Judkins has added the equipments of a memory stored carefully with the literature of his calling. ITis sermons are the "well-beaten oil of the sanctuary." They cost him thought. They flow in rythmie sentences. The case and grace of delivery even tempt to excess. Where others labor, he glides as the steel sandal over the glassy ice, with hardly the urging of a musele. The qualities that unite in him have brought devoted friends, pleased hearers and increase of spirituality and members.
His ministry has been blessed with revivals of a greater or less extent on every charge he has served-notably, in Charlottesville and Farmville; Cente- nary and Court-Street churches, Lynchburg; at Monumental, Portsmouth, and Trinity and Centenary, Richmond, large accessions were made to the member- ship under his ministry.
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