USA > Virginia > Sketches and portraits of the Virginia Conference, Methodist Episcopal Church > Part 5
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REV. J. CARSON WATSON.
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SKETCHES AND PORTRAITS OF THE VIRGINIA CONFERENCE.
Ile joined the Virginia Conference that fall and was sent to Orange Circuit, where he labored two years, during the first of which his wife died. In 1859 he was sent to Loudoun, remaining two years; in 1861, to Warrenton. After a stay of three months he fell back with Johnson's army, and, with his two daughters, continued in Amherst, preaching, teaching and working on a farm for support until the Conference of 1865. He, having been married the see- ond time, was sent to Albemarle, and remained four years; then to Madison four years ; afterwards sent to AAlbemarle four years. He served Greene, Bates- ville, Bedford, Brunswick, Prospect, Bedford Springs, Nelson, where he is serving his fourth year.
REV. SAMUEL S. LAMBETH, D. D.
Dr. Lambeth is endowed with rare and quick parts, and excels in the versa- tility of his genius. He is welcomed to the lecture-platform with applause. Ilis gift in publie prayer is exceptional. The colleges call for him to address their graduates. He is enjoyed at great diners more than the dessert. ILis sermons are often gems, and the Conference conscripts him for service as a superior seribe.
The pulpit, however, is the throne of his power. He prepares his discourses with assidnity and taste. They are delivered in voice tuneful, resonant, and clear as silver bell smitten by mallet of velvet. His manners in the pulpit befit the sacred place. The conduct of the services is grave, orderly and impressive. There is blending of dignity and grace. His sermons are, in the main, written. Ile gathers richest woof and weaves it into a cloth of gold. It is the fewest hearers that diseover the presence of manuscript in the desk, it is read with such ease and liberty. Often the theme is expanded or condensed without regard to the lines on the page and without a break in the flow of elegant diction. The pen is his slave, not his master, for it is unusual to find a person so happy in an off-hand speech.
Dr. Lambeth, in stature, ranks with the late Dean Stanley, or the author of "Ialla Rookh. He has much of the social graces of Moore as well as of his bril- lianey. Time has touched with furred feet as it passed over him, leaving no deep wrinkle on check or furrow on brow.
Dr. Lambeth has served the chief church in several of our cities. He has inade many college orations for literary societies. He is a trustee of Randolph- Macon College. He is a native of Richmond, Virginia-born February 1, 1838. Ife had godly parents and early religions instruction at home and in Sunday school. Ilis edneational advantages were unusually good, spending years in classic schools in his native city and afterward a student at Randolph-Macon. His honorary title of Doctor of Divinity was conferred upon him in June, 1888, by Washington and Lee University.
In 1855 he connected himself with Centenary church, Richmond. He re- ceived theologieal instruction at Randolph-Macon from Chaplain (now Bishop) Granbery and from Dr. William A. Smith. He began as local preacher in 1856, and joined the Virginia Conference in 1857. He has remained in the pastorate, excepting the Conference year '92-'93, when he was on the superannuated list.
REV. WILLIAM E. ALLEN.
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SKETCHES AND PORTRAITS OF THE VIRGINIA CONFERENCE.
ever since, serving cirenits and stations. He has been an Assistant Secretary of the Virginia Conference for twenty-seven years,
Ile has been twice married-in 1859, to Miss Alice H. Graham; in 1870, to Miss Virginia J. Parker, by whom he has three children.
Hle is now the pastor of Liberty-Street church, Berkley, Virginia.
REV. JAMES POWELL GARLAND, A. M., D. D.
Dr. Garland is wanting in nothing that makes up a model of physical grace and manly form. His face is Grecian, and would invite the chisel of the seulp- tor. Ile is tall and ercet, without any lordliness of look or carriage. If we are not in error, there is some of the Pocahontas blood in his veins. The tinge of olive, the straight, raven hair, the upright bearing, the continence of words, are the croppings out of Indian traits.' His manner is easy and quiet. He does not aspire to the chief place in conversation. He is never guilty of monologue in company, with or without flashes of silence. His observations, however, are pithy, and sometimes of subtle humor, perhaps with gentle satire-a lancet dip- ped in chloroform, Ile is possessed of the gifts and graces, as speaker, student and pastor, that command the first places in the Conference.
Ile is the son of Sammel Meredith and Mildred Jordan Garland, and was born in Amherst county, Virginia, November 9, 1835. His parents being mem- bers of the Protestant Episcopal Church, he was reared under its influence and received from it his early religions impressions. He made a publie profession of religion during a revival conducted by Methodist ministers and held in an Episcopal church in his native county. This was the first revival of religion under the ministry of the Methodist Church he had ever witnessed, and he at once joined that Church. He very soon became exercised on the subject of a call to the ministry, but continued to prosecute his studies, at that time attending Iligginbotham Academy, in Amherst county, and afterwards completing his education at Emory and Henry College, at which institution he graduated in 1857. Returning from college, he immediately commenced the study of law, intending to make that the profession of his life. He continued, however, to be greatly exercised on the subject of entering the ministry, and finally abandoned the law, was licensed to preach, and received on trial into the Virginia Ammal Conference at its session in Portsmouth, Virginia, November, 1858.
During this year he married Miss Lney V. Braxton, of Fredericksburg, Vir- ginia. From the Conference in Portsmonth, 1858, he was sent in charge of AAppomattox Cirenit. Ilis ministry on this cirenit was attended by extensive revivals, resulting in abont one hundred and fifty conversions. His second voar was in charge of Cumberland Circuit, which was also blessed with a gra- cious revival work. In 1860 he was sent to Fincastle, at that time embraced in the Virginia Conference. Here he was returned the second year, and in the following August formally resigned his charge and entered the Confederate army as chaplain of the Fifty-second regiment of Virginia infantry, then under the command of General Loring, in the Valley of the Kanawha. He remained with this regiment until the following winter, when he was transferred to the Forty-uinth regiment, Virginia infantry, Army of Northern Virginia, and was
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REV. WILLIAM G. STARR, D. D.
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SKETCHES AND PORTRAITS OF THE VIRGINIA CONFERENCE.
present at the battles of Chancellorsville, Winchester, Gettysburg, the Wilder- ness, Spotsylvania Courthouse, Cold Harbor and other engagements. In the fall of 1864, on account of ill health, he resigned the chaplaincy and was ap- pointed in charge of Amherst Circuit, where he remained four years. In No- vember, 1868, he was appointed to Ninth-Street church, Manchester, and then to Trinity, Richmond, remaining at each of these stations two years, each being blessed with gracious revivals. From Richmond he was sent to Portsmouth, in charge of what was then known as Dinwiddie-Street Station. Here he remained four years, during which time he projected and completed Monumental church, as a memorial of Robert Williams, the pioneer of Methodism in the South. From Portsmouth he was sent to Petersburg, in charge of Market-Street Station, and remained four years. Here his ministry was attended with revivals and valuable additions to the Church. From Petersburg, in 1880, he was made Presiding Elder of Randolph-Macon District. Under his administration the district enjoyed very marked prosperity. While on this district his wife died. and, on account of domestic considerations, he asked to be removed at the expi- ration of two years. In 1882 he was sent in charge of the Lynchburg District, where he remained four years. In 1885 the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity was conferred on him by Emory and Henry College. In May, 1884, he married Miss Narcissa E. Dillard, of Lynchburg, Va. In 1886 he was appointed to the Richmond District; in 1890, to the Lynchburg Distriet; in 1894, Norfolk District ; in 1898, to the West Richmond District, and in 1899, to Richmond District, where he is serving his second year. He has been a member of the General Conference at its sessions at St. Louis, Memphis, and Baltimore.
After this sketch was in type, Mrs Garland died suddenly in the parsonage at Hampton ( where she was visiting the Rev. J. Sidney Peters with her hus- band ) of congestion of the lungs after an illness of an hour. It is within guarded speech to say that she had a distinet superiority in her sphere as the wife of a minister. The sweetest virtues of the hearthstone and home altar «Instered around her beautiful career. She is lamented by a wide circle.
REV. MAJOR SAMUEL COLONNA, SR.
Without a break this sturdy soldier of the great Captain has stood to "Atten- tion" on the Ides of every November from 1858 to 1900, and received the com- mand of a field-marshal of the Southern Methodists where to assault the lines of Satan. And Colonna at once moved against the works of the evil one. Such, in short compass, is the noble record. We may be sure there is system, enter- prise, success.
There is self-poise, clear vision, and nerve in Colonna. He has settled con- victions. Ile is not of the willow. Ilis mind is made up; there is no haze in the air. He serntinizes every question. He finds the kernel. He glorifies his theme. He is a safe leader and wise counselor. He expounds with force and meidity. The threads of his work never ravel out. He has a striking face and fine presence. Hle is a keen observer of men and things. There is in him the material for a rich volume on itinerant life. His memory catches in
REV. WESLEY C. VADEN.
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SKETCHES AND PORTRAITS OF THE VIRGINIA CONFERENCE. 59
clear imagery, like the lens of the camera, whatever passes before it. His powers of reproducing the scenes and sayings of past years is remarkable. Few can surpass him in delineation of the odd characters he has met. The idiom and tones can be repeated in the narration. To a platform speaker this gift is invaluable. Mr. Colonna could have achieved rare popularity on the hustings.
The name of Colonna is that of a princely house of Italy, with a renowned record in the by-gone centuries and of great prominence now. Mr. Colonna does not concern himself about that fact, and would dismiss any thought of it with good-humored indifference if, as now, brought to his attention.
Major Samuel Colonna, third son and youngest child of Rev. William P. and Sarah D. Colonna, was born June 17, 1833, in Northampton county, Va., and was educated at Margaret Academy, in the adjoining county of Accomac. Mov- ing to Norfolk a short time after leaving school, he became a regular attendant upon divine worship at the Cumberland Street Methodist church, where he pro- fessed religion under the ministry of Dr. Nelson Head. Mr. Colonna cannot remember the period when he did not feel that to preach the Gospel would and must be his life-work. He was licensed an exhorter by Rev. Frank Stanley, in November, 1857, and in a few days thereafter was licensed to preach by the Quarterly Conference of the Granby Street Methodist church, Norfolk. He moved his membership to that charge for that purpose-the fourth Quarterly Conference of his own church, Cumberland Street, having been held. He traveled the first year under the Presiding Elder on the Hertford Circuit. IIe joined the Conference in November, 1858, and was sent as the junior preacher to the Princess Aune Circuit, embracing at that time seventeen appointments ; 1859, Eastville Circuit. At the Conference of 1860-'61 he was appointed to the Dorchester charge, Maryland-being the first minister from the Virginia Conference to that field. One entire church from the Philadelphia Conference, without the loss of a member, united with the circuit. The war prevented his attending the Conference of 1861. He was appointed to the same charge of Dorchester, Maryland. When the time of the next Conference drew near- November, 1862-he considered the best route to attend. The Federal army had cut off all regular communications. With a letter from Governor Hicks, of Maryland, he applied to Mr. Seward for a permit to pass ; but he was politely told that in two weeks travel would be as easy to Richmond as to Baltimore. Mr. Colonna did not trust much to Mr. Seward's prediction, and arranged a route for himself not laid down on any schedule. Mr. Colonna, in an open boat, sailed on a dark night down and across the broad Chesapeake Bay, seventy- five miles, landing in Lancaster county, on the main Virginia shore, early next morning. How he made his way to Richmond through thronging difficulties is a thrilling story. He was put in charge of Surry Circuit. He served the fol- lowing appointments: 1863-'64, Prince George; 1864-'66, Smithfield; 1866- '68, Northampton, N. C .; 1868-'70, Gates, N. C .; 1870-'72, Hertford, N. C .; 1872-'76, Dorchester, Md. : 1876-'77, Pasquotank, N. C. : 1877-'81, Middlesex ; 1881-'85, North Southampton ; 1885-'86, Westmoreland ; 1886-'90, Hanover; 1890-'94, South Norfolk; 1894-'98, Boykin's. At the Conference of 1898 he was assigned to Ben's, serving that charge from 1898 to the Conference of 1900, at which session he was returned for the church year 1900-'01.
Hle married Miss Briggs, of Sussex county, in 1867-a lady of rare piety. intelligence, and beanty. She died in 1883, leaving five children. In 1888
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REV. WILLIAM E. EDWARDS, D. D.
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he married Miss Alice Bowe, an accomplished lady, endowed with superior ad- vantages of personal charms of mind and person.
Mr. Coloma is honored by a son in the sacred cohort -- a refined, scholarly gentleman, whose loyalty to high aims and a distinet consecration illustrates the choicest type of Methodism.
REV. WILLIAM E. ALLEN.
In lower Southside Virginia and in the adjoining district in North Carolina the name of Allen is as an ointment ponred forth. His success in winning souls and building up the Church has had its reward in the wide esteem in which he is held. He has the elements that furnish forth the best style of the itinerant- discretion, energy, and consecration. He exeels both in expounding and in conducting the business of the Church. His face challenges confidence. The people love him. The story of Mr. Allen is of a boy whose mother's influence from the cradle touched and turned him towards religion. In the first edition of these Sketches he has paid her a beautiful tribute.
He was born September 30, 1835. Though converted, Mr. Allen did not join the Church till three years after the happy event. His name was put on the register in Suffolk in 1851. He struggled against his call to the ministry and, like JJonah, fled from duty, but came back penitent and purposed to obey God. In 1858 he was licensed, in Gates Circuit, to preach. He traveled under the Elder the first year. Next year he went, as junior, to Mecklenburg Cir- cuit, and his confusion and dismay at his first attempt in the pulpit are affecting at this distance of time. It was a repetition of the break-down of the late Dr. Duncan, when a boy-preacher, attempting a sermon in the same section.
In 1859 Mr. Allen was received on trial in the Virginia Conference. In 1860 he went in charge of Coalfield; in 1861, to Northampton, N. C. Here serious illness smote him and his wife ( formerly Miss Gregory, whom he mar- ried in 1861), and she suddenly died. Ile was faint and feeble, but wrought on Bertie in 1862. The country in Surry and Isle of Wight at that time was ruined by war. Mr. Allen worked amid the confusion of the times and the poverty of the land as best he could, and bravely, too, laboring with his own hands through the week and speaking to the people on Sabbaths. God blessed the service, despite the agitations and sorrow of those evil days. In 1865 he gave himself to the ministry in Gates, where the waste of war was seen every- where. And this genuine apostle of Jesns, the Lord, has continued to serve his own generation, by the will of God, on station and cirenit, with the Holy Ghost testifying to his good deeds by converting hundreds under his ministry.
Ile married Miss Holleman, of Isle of Wight, in 1863, and after her death he married, in 1875, Miss Briggs.
Mr. AAllen dwells in the love and hearts of his brethren and fellow-workers, and thousands on thousands in our Methodism pronounce his name with affee- tion. He has been an apostle to Southside Virginia and Eastern North Caro- lina. Ilis virtues and works are embalmed in the gratitude of the people.
He has closed forty-two years in "serving his own generation by the will of
REV. FRANCIS M. EDWARDS.
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God." At the Conference of 1900, Bishop Duncan committed to this practical, seasoned, sterling man of God the Windsor parish.
In a mellow and beautiful letter to the author, this noble veteran utters genuine Christian sentiments: "In glancing back over these eventful decades. in which gladness and sadness have been so divinely blended, I can say, with a degree of joy that words will not convey :
"'Here I'll raise mine Ebenezer, Hither, by Thy help, I'm come, And I hope. by Thy good pleasure, Safely to arrive at home!'
My future career may be brief or extended, my years ahead few or many. I crave that throughout the sunset slope I may ever have it in my heart to sing :
"'Gladly will I toil and suffer, Only let me walk with Thee.'"
Such a consecrated life brings honor to the sacred band and blessings to the Church of the living God.
REV. JAMES CARSON WATSON.
Among the preachers of forty years' standing, and of a class which has fur- nished a Bishop and many useful men, is James Carson Watson. Tall, thin, of good features, with a benevolent but cautions expression, dressed with precision and thorough nearness, deliberate in movement, dignified yet affable, he will attract notice in any company.
Ilis ministry has been useful and . fruitful. Nothing goes to pieces in his hands. Doing everything precisely at the right time, holding every interest well in hand and presenting every cause sufficiently and carefully, system and ex- actness have characterized his administration, which, therefore, has no loose ends, from the church register to the parsonage study. In the pulpit he lights a vessel of beaten oil -- preaches sound doctrine, clearly and briefly, in chaste and pointed style, with earnest and pleasant manner, but not with high fervor.
lle has faithfully served sixteen charges, from Mecklenburg and the country around Burkeville to North Carolina and the Eastern Shores of Virginia and Maryland. Failure of health from a third attack of "grip" led him to fear the work might suffer under his hand. He asked release from active service. For forty years he followed "the cloudy pillar," and now awaits by the river for the dividing waters to the Canaan on the thither shore. His home is in Danville, Va., where three of his sons live.
He came to us from what is now Baltimore Conference territory-born in Winchester, Virginia, February 27, 1829 ; was married when received, in 1859; has a second wife since 1877. His three living older children are grown and married. Ilis first son fell a victim during the yellow-fever epidemie of 1888 at Jacksonville, Florida. Has two living sons by the second marriage.
REV. TRAVIS J. TAYLOR.
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Hle has thus, in that well-ordered Christian home, felt in his heart the deepest joys and sorrows of human life. He can, indeed, "rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep." He has always been a zealous advo- cate of total abstinence, an mcompromising foe to the liquor traffic, and may be counted on for any good word or work. Elsewhere were these words writ- ten of him:
"There is an orderliness, case and effectiveness abont Mr. Watson. His mind moves with the oily glide of lubricated machinery and the stroke of a steam piston. Nothing is left to haphazard. Matters of moment and matters of scoming smallness receive his attention. It was said of Dunning, the Eng- lish advocate, that he was not only a lawyer, but the law. Carson is system itself. Ile would have delighted the careful and prompt Wesley. His charges grow under his enltivation. He feeds the flock with choice food and guards them with watchfulness. He has worldly wisdom-wise as a serpent-and patience towards all men. There is marrow in his ministrations, winning cour- tesies in his social life and the atmosphere of Christianity around him every- where. le is eminently successful in his calling."
REV. WILLIAM G. STARR, D. D.
In personal appearance he is ereet, with firm step and independent air, as if he felt the blood of English ancestry ; and yet those who know him well tell us that his humility is as marked and as attractive as his independence of spirit. In and ont of the pulpit he shows the bearing of a man who has volunteered to serve his Lord with all his strength and at any cost.
As a preacher, he is original, forcible, fearless. His voice is pleasant, flexible, penetrating. He speaks distinctly, and yet so rapidly that no stenographer can follow him. His vocabulary is exhaustless. His style is nervous, his gestienla .. tion artless, but always expressive. At times, on the platform, he is neon- scionsly dramatic, when borne onward under the rush of a tempest of emotion.
llis convictions are deep, broad and abreast of the times. Snch is the strength of his allegiance to what he believes to be right that he frequently appears to be combative and uncompromising; but he never courts controversy, and prefers peace to war.
He is perhaps, too indifferent to public opinion ; thinks the commission of a Wesleyan itinerant the highest badge of distinction on earth, and has been heard to say, "With my credentials as a Methodist preacher in my hand, I would not give one whirl on my heel for any office or any honor that could be conferred upon me by either Church or State."
Ilis lectures have added over ten thousand dollars to the material interests of Southern Methodism. He is a hmorons conversationalist, a good pastor, a warm friend, and is never so happy as when at work in an old-fashioned revival of religion, with his brethren of like faith around him.
After filling the pulpits of our chief churches in the cities, he was, in 1899, elected President of Randolph-Macon College, Va., his present position.
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REV. JOHN E. DeSILAZO.
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SKETCHES AND PORTRAITS OF THE VIRGINIA CONFERENCE.
REV. WILLIAM E. EDWARDS, A. M., D. D.
The likeness of Rev. William Emory Edwards in the photo-engraving on a near page will arrest the eye of the reader. It is true to the life. Complexion fair, with a tinge of pallor; eyes blue; hair very light. His movements are gniek, withont being nervons and restless. Ilis frame is rather slender, his stature a little under medim height. There are evident marks of the absence of firm and robust health, and yet he performs his regular work as pastor and preacher without exhaustion. There is toughmess in the fibre. He possesses wonderful vitality. He would be recognized wherever his father is known as the son of the Rev. John E. Edwards, D. D., to whom he bears a striking resem- blance. With less breadth of chest and a more prominent nose, he is a sort of fac simile, in mold and feature, of his father. His mother was a Miss Clarke, of Prince Edward county, Virginia, in which county he was born June 10, 1842. Ilis elementary and early education was obtained in Richmond, Norfolk, Peters- burg and Lynchburg-these being the cities in which his father was stationed hiring his boyhood. He professed conversion when a little more than fourteen years of age, in 1856, during a revival in Centenary church, Richmond, Vir- ginia, under the ministry of his own father. From a meagre memorandum from his pen, we take this line. Ile says: "The impression which had followed mefrom childhood, that I must preach the Gospel, was deepened from the moment of my conversion, and fixed my determination to enter the ministry."
Ile entered Randolph-Macon College in 1858, and after pursuing his studies under the disadvantages of frequent interruptions, occasioned by protracted attacks of disease, he graduated in June, 1862. The following November he joined the Virginia Annual Conference, at its session in Petersburg. It was during the war, and he received a merely nominal appointment. Soon thereafter he applied for and received a chaplainey in the Confederate army, under a com- mission, in the summer of 1863, and was appointed as post-chaplain at Drewry's Bluff, which position he held to the elose of the war.
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