USA > Virginia > Sketches of Virginia : historical and biographical > Part 67
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" He was born in April, 1796, and had not yet filled up his fifty- third year. By the father, he was of Quaker descent; by the mother, he was connected with some of the ancient families of Vir- ginia. He was the eldest of ten children, who were left orphans while young. He and they were all adopted by an uncle, who had no children, educated by him, and became his heirs. The whole family was reared to usefulness and comfort and respectability, and is a proof that uncles may be kind to orphans. He pursued the study of the law, and entered on its practice in Petersburg and the surrounding counties. His first marriage was with Miss Rebecca Marsden, of Norfolk, July, 1821.
" In the year 1829, during a revival of religion, in the congregation of the Rev. B. H. Rice, pastor of the Presbyterian church, Petersburg, he made profession of religion, and united with the people of God. Soon after he was called by the voice of the church to the office of elder. On the 10th of June, 1833, he was licensed by the Presby-
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REV. WILLIAM M. ATKINSON, D. D.
tery of Hanover to preach the gospel. The religious destitutions of his native State called him from the Bar, and a prosperous business, to spend time, and money, and health, as a minister of Jesus Christ. Soon after his license, he enlisted in the cause of the Bible Society, and traversed Virginia, and some sections of the South, and was emi- nently successful in raising funds for the supply of our country with the Bible. His social habits and gentlemanly manners, and earnest pleading in the cause of the Bible, made him welcome wherever he went. 'Twas hard to hate him. 'Twas easy to love him; and to love him much. After accomplishing the object of his agency, he supplied, for a few years, vacancies in Chesterfield County, and in the vicinity of Petersburg. Having received an invitation to Win- chester, he commenced his labors as pastor of the Presbyterian congregation, in that place, in January, 1839. In August, 1844, his wife died, and was the first carried, by a sympathising commu- nity, to Mount Hebron, on the beautiful eastern hill.
" His second marriage was with a grand-daughter of Judge Robert White, long a resident in Winchester. In the spring of 1846, be- lieving that it would be for his greater usefulness, and for the advantage of the church in Winchester, he resigned his pastoral charge, and accepted an agency for the Board of Education of the Presbyterian Church.
" His labors to rouse attention to the education of ministers, and to call young men into the work of the gospel, were indefati- gable. His exertion was beyond his strength. He fell a martyr to his sense of duty, and honorable exertion. He was an agent men loved to have come to their houses and congregations. His influence was always good. His services could not be estimated bv money. His laborious usefulness outweighed any earthly recom- pense. One of the most resolute of men, he was one of the most gentle. Firm in his own opinions, and almost pertinacious in argu- ment ; he knew how to let other people hold their opinions. He seemed to study how far wrong an opponent in religious matters might be, and yet be saved; and his kindness would meet him there. In his resolute defence of truth, he would yield nothing. In his kindness we sometimes thought he would give up every thing. In the blending of these two qualities, he was one of the best of pas- tors and agents, and an invaluable friend. He would see your wrong doing, would palliate, would forgive, it, and you loved him the more for all. Had he lived in Germany, in the time of the reformation, we should expect to have found him, with Melanchthon, softening the vehemence of Luther, and defending the truth. Had he lived in England, we should have looked for him among those firm, amiable, old Protestant martyrs, 'of blessed memory.' Had he lived in Scotland we should have searched for him in that company over whose head floated the banner with his own dying words - " Christ, the Cross and the, Covenant.'
"With us, we knew what he was. He showed as little of the selfishness and depravity of human nature as any man that ever
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CLOSING SCENE OF DR. BAXTER'S LIFE.
lived. He was a gentleman and a Christian; and died as he lived. I shall miss him,-and who will not ?- everywhere. In the social circle, in the councils of the church, in vain shall we look for his kind, benevolent face, and listen for his friendly voice. In memory and affection he will be with us till we ourselves pass away."
CHAPTER XLIII.
GEORGE A. BAXTER, D. D. - CLOSING SCENE OF HIS LIFE.
THE closing scene of Dr. Baxter's life, is given by a member of the family :
"Lexington, September 28th, 1853.
" My father's health was apparently good, during the winter pre- ceding his last illness, though he was rather more feeble than usual. It was his custom to leave his study at dark, and spend the remain- der of the evening in the society of his family, conversing on various subjects with those around him. He was uniformly cheerful, and often recurred to the scenes of his childhood and youth. To these social hours, we owe nearly all we know of his early life. His labors were continued almost to the day of his death, which was 24th April, 1841. For six weeks before this time, he was confined to the house with a cold, but seemed to be recovering, and never once omitted hearing his classes recite, until the close of the session, the tenth of April.
"During his indisposition, he greatly enjoyed the company of his friends, numbers of whom visited him daily. His thoughts and conversation were generally given to the church; and the subject of unfulfilled prophecy claimed a large share of his atten- tion. Upon this, he conversed with his friends, Dr. Maxwell and Mr. Ballentine, until his usual bed-time, the night before his death, discussing, with deep interest, the prospects of the church and the world, as revealed in the Scriptures.
" At nine o'clock, he retired to rest, as well as he had been for some weeks, and slept well through the night. He arose at his ordinary hour, which was always an early one. In a few minutes, my mother was startled by his falling, and, calling for assistance, had him laid on the bed. He only spoke once or twice, and that to request some change of air. He suffered intensely for fifteen minutes, but the pain ceased, he looked round with great tenderness on his family, when suddenly he raised his eyes, his expression changed to one of rapture, and he fell asleep in Jesus, without a groan.
" The disease which terminated his life was apoplexy of the lungs. Though his recovery was looked upon as almost certain, by those around him, and he did not himself apprehend immediate danger,
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CLOSING SCENE OF DR. BAXTER'S LIFE.
he had, in several conversations, endeavored to prepare his family for his removal, which he believed was not far distant, and to which he looked forward with the views natural to one who had for at least thirty years enjoyed the full assurance of hope.
"Very sincerely, your friend, L. P. B."
The public were not prepared for the news of his death, by any" of those previous notices of sickness, or the rumors that forbode calamity. The public papers gave the first announcement of his sick- ness, in making known his death. Dr. Rice lay lingering a long time, looking daily for his departure. Dr. Baxter, giving no alarming symptoms to his family, passed away in a few moments. The one. pronounced the word "triumphant," as he departed; the other smiled, and fell asleep in rapture.
The Rev. Dr. Hendren, who had been a pupil of his, and an asso- ciate in Presbytery, says, in a letter : " As a preacher, he held a high rank in the estimation of all competent judges. His preach- ing was remarkable for the clearness and distinctness with which he always presented the subject before the minds of his hearers. His feelings were tender, and he was often much affected, in the delivery of his sermons. , Several revivals, of considerable extent and dura- tion, took place amongst the people of his charge, during the time of his ministry. A religious awakening had taken place in Bedford County, under the ministry of Messrs. Turner and Mitchell. Dr. Baxter, and I think one or two other ministers of the Valley, went over to that county, and took with them a number of young'persons, several of whom, though very careless before, returned home deeply impressed with a sense of their lost estate, and their need of salva- tion. I went over at that time, at Dr. Baxter's request. After his return, an awakening soon appeared in his own, and in some of the neighboring congregations, which continued to spread, until nearly all the congregations in Rockbridge and Augusta were more or less in a state of excitement and revival, and many were added to the communion of the church, a respectable portion of which showed by the fruits which afterwards appeared, that they had become new creatures in Christ Jesus. There were some instances of defection and backsliding, over which ministers and Christians were called to mourn; but such instances were as few as perhaps might be expected, in so extensive an awakening. About ten years before his death, Dr. Baxter was appointed Professor of Theology in the Union Theological Seminary, Prince Edward. This was an office con- genial to his mind, for which he was admirably qualified. The clear- ness and distinctness of his own views, on any subject to which he applied his mind, or studied with care, enabled him to present it with great force and distinctness to the minds of others. He was a wise and judicious member of his Presbytery and other church courts. In general, his speeches were neither very long, nor very. frequent ; but, what he said was always to the point, and generally threw light upon the subject. He possessed strong and ardent feel-
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ADDRESS OF REV. J. H. BOCOCK.
ings by nature, but they were evidently much under the control of divine grace, so that few could bear injurious or disrespectful treat- ment with more patience and meekness of temper. He had the - power of exercising forbearance towards opponents in debate, when their freedoms with what he had advanced, were perhaps wholly un- warranted by the truth of the case. His opinions of others were charitable and indulgent. I never knew him to be a rigid critic of the pulpit performances of his brethren. He seemed to possess much of that charity which suffereth long, and is kind."
The Rev. J. H. Bocock was called upon to address the Society of Alumni of Union Theological Seminary, Prince Edward, Virginia, at the annual commencement, June 13th, 1848. In the progress of that address before the assembled alumni and the friends of the in- stitution, in the hall of the seminary, adorned with the portraits of the first and second Professors of Theology, Rice and Baxter, the speaker, a pupil of Baxter in his theological course, having spoken of Dr. Rice from traditional knowledge, proceeds to say respecting the institution of which he had been a pupil, and the two presidents, in his peculiar terse and graphic sentences :
"Again, it seems impossible not to believe that the hope of pro- viding sound religious instruction for our domestic heathen, the colored race, had something to do with the founding of this institu- tion. The men of old Hanover Presbytery had on that subject a benevolence a thousand times deeper and purer and wiser than that of the Tappans and Garrisons of this day. Rice saw very early that both the Northern people of this Union, and the ministers of religion here at home, must let the subject entirely alone in its civil bearings, or else a very great damage would occur in public opinion to the South, and a very great injury be inflicted on the negro race. Maxwell's Rice, p. 312. In a letter dated as early as April, 1827, he states with some clearness, the scriptural attitude of the church on the subject, now generally held by the Southern Christians. It is notorious that in terms which afterwards, when they were ful- filled, were remembered as 'something like prophetic strains,' he deprecated the effects upon their minds of ignorant instruction from their own 'crisp-haired prophets.' . There was the Seminary at Andover, in which he felt a deep interest, with Dr. Woods at its head, in whom he had confidence, and to whom he had a strong per- sonal attachment. There was also our own Presbyterian Seminary . at Princeton, towards which it was one of the afflictions of his first years here that he should be charged with, or suspected of a feeling of rivalry ; and at the head of it a most distinguished and venerated native of this State. But still he and his co-workers watched the current of events on that subject closely enough to see that the ripe field of labor among Southern servants was rapidly closing to any missionaries from Northern States, and must be otherwise provided for, or else left lying in waste and ruin.
" These are the chief topics connected with the times of the first president, which seem appropriate here. Those who knew him as
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ADDRESS OF THE REV. J. H. BOCOCK.
their teacher doubtless remember how often short pithy sayings fell from his lips, well worthy of a place among the maxims of Roche- foucault, or the golden verses of Pythagoras ; how deeply he had felt at heart what he regarded the true interests of his native land - how he cherished and grappled to his bosom, as with hooks of steel, those who were Zion's friends and his - and how he struggled and prayed with a spirit too vivid to be held long in the frail house of an earthly tabernacle, that the kingdom of Christ might advance in the world. To you, his pupils and his friends - and all his pupils were his friends -- who are yet among us, some of you with heads whitening with the frosts of gathering years, and who are our con- necting links with him - to you we give the cordial salutation of the younger to the elder brethren ; we shall yet hope to meet you often here as brethren alumni. We trust that your white plumes shall always be honored and reverenced by us. . We shall be apt to follow wherever we see them wave through the heat and burden of your day on earth. If we abide in the warfare longer than yourselves, we will weep with no feigned tears to be parted from you - and it shall satisfy our ambition to hope to rejoin you in higher assemblies in the day of rest, in clear view of the faces of all the just made per- fect, and of the 'throne and equipage of God's Almightiness.'
"But to others of us who came later here, there arises the vision of another face and form -a brow in whose massy proportions nature had carved nobility -a countenance in' which with the native beamings of a giant intellect, Divine Grace had blended a sacred tenderness, which adored and trembled, and loved and wept, like some holy and sweet spirited infant. We remember him in the pulpit - how the blood flushed his face, and the tears suffused his eyes, when his own or another's tongue depicted the awful retribu- tions which await unbelieving sinners. As some one passing Dr. Payson's church after his decease, pointed over to it and said, 'There Payson prayed,' so. as we pass the neighboring church, the words paraphrase themselves to our thoughts, and we feel, 'There Baxter wept.' .We remember when sometimes he came to the prayer-room, late by a minute, and found us singing :
' To hear the sorrows thou hast felt, Dear Lord adamant would melt,'
or some such hymn of contrition, how the sentiment, especially if it savored deeply of the cross of Christ, would at once thrill into his heart, and send forth its witnesses, the crimson and the tears, even before he reached his seat. We remember, too, on occasions when his spirit was fairly awakened, how we watched the light which , came from his many-sided mind, in the enthusiasm of its epic power of grandeur; and saw him as some Hercules, walking in the realms of reason and logic, hurl down pinnacle and battlement, and wall and foundation of some fortress of untruth, by successive blows, without any visible throes of exertion ; or sweep away the founda- tion of some castle of folly at a single trenchant stroke; and then
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ADDRESS OF THE REV. J. H. BOCOCK.
proceed with the meekness of a child, to build in its place, a clear shining structure of truth, from which only the image of the Divine Saviour might be reflected ; or we followed him as guide, into some region of thought which had seemed a dim and doubtful labyrinth before, and saw by the light which he carried, how it assumed the order and clearness of a Grecian city built for a day-light dwelling- place. And in those times of fiery trial, when brethren were unhap- pily alienated from brethren, and party contests rose around the very altar connected with the very glories of the temple, we watched him with a confidence rendered half prophetic by a recollection of the past, as he went through ordeal after ordeal ; and we had already foretasted the result when he came out as gold of the seventh refin- ing. Every one who ever enjoyed his instructions, probably remem- bers what visions he would sometimes present of the awful solemni- ties of eternity, and the glory of the exalted Saviour, and then take pains to hide himself behind the humblest question or remark of his humblest pupil. And we must all reflect with regret how the creations and achievements of his mighty mind - I take leave to say on this occasion, as mighty a mind as I can well conceive of, in the possession of a mere mortal -- are in the main utterly lost to the Church, from his rooted aversion on all occasions to any show of self.
" On the times of the second president, only a single remark will be offered. It is, that under him the seminary was called on, as a denominational school, to make its election between fountains of wild bewildering waters on the one hand, and the ancient crystal wells of truth on the other ; between a spirit of fancied improvement, which was indeed one of startling innovation on the one hand and the ancient and tried order of the Lord's house on the other. And it is believed that almost every subsequent week and month· has been demonstrating that he, and the worthy guardians of the institution who stood shoulder to shoulder with him, made their election wisely and well. There may have been things to regret in those days, because the storm was wild and loud and long ; and perfection is not an attribute of mortals even in times of quiet. But now that it is overpast, it is too plain to be doubted that there have come to us from it righteousness, and peace, and order, an example not deserving to be soon forgotten, of the heroic love of truth ; an in- stance in which the spirit of God lifted up his flaming and zealous standard according to the ancient promise of his word ; and a new proof added to the many which were already found in the history of spiritual affairs in this world, that his hand will not desert those to whom anything is better than deranged order and corrupted truth.
"In the memory of others of you, brethren, there are on this occa- sion, living forms and faces around which your reverence and affec- tions gather-faces of those who yet live, to rekindle the memories of former days with their present kind greetings ; and who need no spokesman but what they themselves were and are. May it not be until long future meetings of Alumni, that they shall be missed from
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ADDRESS OF REV. J. H. BOCOCK.
their places here. But when, in their turn, those meetings shall come, we already have the proof that their sons shall cherish their memories with no common filial regard, and their gray hairs shall go down with deep reverence and honor to the grave. And the remark which shall be made by the looker-back on their times, we have some ground already to hope it will be, and may it be, that in those days, many accomplished and faithful laborers went into the waving har- vest field, and gathered great multitudes of precious sheaves into the storehouse of eternal love. And as a remark founded on the whole of this retrospect, I presume no farther than just to suggest, as the end and aim of our efforts, that the Seminary may retain the features which have been given it-as a foundation of, 1, enlightened religion ; 2, of spiritual religion ; 3, of a religion caring for and adapting itself to the laboring class of the land-and of a liberal and peace- ful, but of a steady and soundly orthodox religion. We shall not meet here in vain, if we meet to consult what we can do that these wise designs and high leadings of God's Providence may be fulfilled. Let us inquire whether any part of the plan which we can appro- priately touch, needs our hand-whether, for example, we cannot devise to put some new treasures from time to time among the silent teachers on the shelves of its library. Some new volumes of those voiceless speakers, which the great Puritan poet and statesman said, are not 'absolutely dead things, but are the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect which bred them, the precious life- blood of a master-spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life'-or whether we can help in any other way, that God's name may be a praise in the land.
"And for ourselves, dear brethren, let us rejoice in the opportu- nities which may be presented, to brighten the links which tend to bind us to each other-that we are the sons of the same Alma Mater- that we have been put into the same ministry of reconciliation-that we are members of the same church, whose bulwarks, strong with salvation, and shining in the light and sovereignty of God, are fairer in our eyes than the glowing marble of the Grecian city of Minerva; and lastly-a link, which if it be sound, is locked fast to the throne of God, -- that we are fellow Christians-heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ and all his saints, to an inheritance incorruptible, unde- filed, and that fadeth not away."
Dr. Baxter published a pamphlet on the subject of slavery. He takes the position he and his friend Speece defended in the case of Bourne, which was twice before the Assembly. His facts and arguments are unanswerable. On that subject his pamphlet should be a tract for circulation. In his semicentenary sermon he recounts some of the beautiful facts of the revival in the Presbyterian Church, in which he and his compeers made profession of their faith and hope. There are in manuscript, three lectures on pastoral theology ; one on the decrees, and an essay on original sin. Of his lectures on metaphysics, only the questions showing the outlines of his course, remain. He has left enough of his thoughts, committed to paper, to 36
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REV. GEORGE A. BAXTER, D. D.
form an octavo of interest. Those who have heard him preach would call to mind his dignified person, and in reading the concise, short sentences, with scarce a long one, would hear the intonations of his voice, and feel a power in the sermons that other readers would be a stranger to, while they found much to admire. Without the least feeling of rivalry or jealousy of his brethren in the ministry, no man perhaps was more excited by an able sermon than Dr. Baxter. 1 Gospel truth, sound reasoning, and deep feeling, stirred up his soul from the lowest fountains. Said one of his pupils, now an eminent minister-"Dr. Baxter was the most unfair preacher to preach with I ever knew, without his intending it in the least. I have heard a great many good sermons in his pulpit from others ; but no matter how good a sermon was preached for him in the morning, if he heard it, he would preach a better one at night, and not know it. The fire would begin to burn,-become visible in his flushed cheeks, and audible in the peculiar clearing of his throat, and find its vivid expression in the evening service. He would talk of his brother's sermon, and never seem to think of his own." He was like Dr. Rice in discouraging severe criticism of brethren, and refusing to hear slander. He would listen to nothing he might not believe, and in believing find some profit to mind or heart. Fiction had no charms for him who feasted on the grandeur and novelty of truth. Unsus- picious from his own love of truth, he was indignant when others threw around him the charms of sophistry, more particularly if he thought they were not full believers in their own errors and mis- statements.
On the death of General Harrison, while some in his presence were passing their conjectures about the good or evil to follow, he observed that in his early life he had often been greatly distressed at political events that foreboded great evil to the church of Christ. But he had long ago found that those events that presaged the greatest calami- ties, had, in the providence of God, been made to subserve great interests. And then he turned to that favorite subject of meditation and conversation in the latter part of his life, those unfulfilled prophe- cies that speak of the glory of the Church in the latter days. While professor of theology, about one hundred and fifty young men, in the course of preparation for the ministry, came under his instructions.
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