USA > Virginia > Virginia Baptist ministers. 4th series, 1885-1902 > Part 20
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The following story, which Mr. Doll sent to the Re- ligious Herald, not only shows him "in lighter vein," but also gives evidence of his loyalty to his State denomina-
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tional paper : A certain Baptist brother who did not take the Herald, in November, 1886, was called to the Valley of Virginia on business. Upon arriving in Staunton he was surprised to find Baptists to right and Baptists to left. He did not know what it meant. Upon inquiry, he found that the General Association was in session. So he decided to stay and enjoy the meeting, but he could find no place at the hotels. Then he applied to the com- mittee on hospitality, but they were able to care only for "accredited delegates." Finally, after securing a place, he found that his money was running low, so he decided to go on. Mr. Doll, who had often urged him to sub- scribe to the Herald, now, with great relish, reminded him that had he paid his two dollars for the paper he . would have more than gotten it back in his board at Staunton.
WILLIAM SLATE
A native of Tennessee, William Slate spent his life in Virginia. He was born November 15, 1833. Upon the death of his father, when he was quite a child, his mother returned to her native State, Virginia, and settled near Vernon Hill, Halifax County. She, being anything but rich, could do little for the education of her boy. He was forced to struggle for an education. He had been converted at an early age, and after long considera- tion decided to preach. He knew that he was not quali- fied for this work, and also that his mother would be unable to give him financial aid in securing an education. With these difficulties clearly seen, he moved forward in what he felt to be the path of duty. He attended the academy at Meadsville, Halifax County, two sessions. When the time came for him to go to Richmond College, God raised him up a friend who loaned him the money he needed. He was a student at the College for four sessions. Rev. Dr. W. J. Shipman, who was a fellow- student with Mr. Slate at Richmond College, and whose tribute to his friend in the Herald of December 31, 1896, furnishes many of the facts, and in places the language of this sketch, gives this picture of Mr. Slate in his col- lege days : "He was a quiet, dignified and rather retir- ing young man. He was a good thinker and must know all about the subject in which he was interested or with which he had to do. He would always listen atten- tively to any information given, but was not satisfied until he investigated for himself. As a student he was not quick in grasping the instruction of his professors and text-books, his mind possessing that admirable trait of
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rigid exactness in all its investigations. His acquire- ments, therefore, were the result of thorough research, and to that was due the fact that he was trustworthy in any advice given. This admirable trait ran all through his useful life. He was a deeply pious young man and withdrew from everything that did not promote true personal piety." When he left Richmond College he was in debt to the amount of $1,000, but within three years he had not only met this obligation, but had pro- vided himself with a horse and buggy.
In August, 1858, he was ordained near his home at Mount Vernon Church, Halifax County, Roanoke Asso- ciation. For thirty-eight years his pastoral career con- tinued. His life work was mainly within the bounds of the Dan River Association, but extended also into the territory of the Roanoke. In the former Association he served the following churches : Aaron's Creek, Arbor, Black Walnut, Catawba, Childrey, Clover, Cross Roads, Dan River, Ellis Creek, Fork, Grace, Mill Stone, North Fork, and Winn's Creek. In the latter Association his churches were Shockoe, County Line, and Sandy River. His pastorate at Milton, North Carolina, was brief. Mr. Slate was gifted in protracted meetings, when he would preach with great power and tenderness. In a meeting at Black Walnut, where he assisted the pastor, Rev. S. G. Mason, there was a large ingathering, and many con- verted at that time became useful and prominent in the church. During his long ministry he probably baptized 3,000 persons, while the number of funerals and mar- riages which he conducted was large. As a pastor he was willing to make any sacrifice and to undergo any amount of labor to be helpful to his people. He was constantly seeking to lead his churches to richer fields of usefulness and greater fruitage for the Master. His mind was of a wonderfully practical turn and his advice
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was sought as to business matters as well as to church work. In his town of South Boston scarcely any enter- prise of importance was started that his counsel was not asked. In the fall of 1861 he was married to Miss Lucy A. Jordan, a daughter of Deacon Elijah Jordan, of Black Walnut Church, Halifax County. With her three sons and three daughters she survived him.
He was appointed, as the senior pastor of the body, to preach the memorial address at the semi-centennial meet- ing of the Dan River Association, held at Black Walnut Church, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, July 30, 31, and August 1, 1889. But alas, this address was never delivered. On the first day of the meeting, when the spe- cial exercises were to have taken place, in view of the absence of Rev. S. G. Mason, who, as the only minister present at the organization that was still alive, was on the programme, the order of the day was postponed. The whole meeting of the Association was deranged be- cause of rain. From July 18 through the time of the Association it rained every day. Rev. S. G. Mason, Rev. J. B. Williams and others were unable to reach the Asso- ciation at all on account of high waters. On the even- ing of the second day's session the Dan River rose so high that Mr. Slate, Mr. R. H. Beazley and others from South Boston and the vicinity were unable to get back to the Association the next day. So the memorial ad- dress was never delivered. In 1865 and in 1866 he was moderator of the Association, and three times, namely, in 1861, 1870, and 1887, he preached the introductory sermon before the body, his texts on these occasions be- ing, respectively, I Sam. 13:18, Mark 12:37, Ps. 122:7. On the evening of Thursday, November 5, 1896, Mr. Slate passed from earth to his reward in heaven.
GEORGE H. CHAPLIN
George H. Chaplin was born in Lynchburg, Virginia. In early life he moved to Leakesville, North Carolina, where he accepted Christ and united with the Baptist Church. His earliest religious impressions had been pro- duced by a service in the Danville Baptist Church con- ducted by Rev. J. L. Prichard. It was probably about 1850 that he moved to Carroll County, where he united with the church at Meadows of Dan, Patrick County. Of this church he was for years a loyal member and for over two years its pastor. On February 10, 1877, the Stone Mountain Baptist Church, Carroll County, was organized by Mr. Chaplin, with sixteen members. From this time until his death Mr. Chaplin was pastor of this
church. He did not give all his time to the work of the ministry, but was also a tanner and farmer. While not a man of extensive learning, he possessed a mind of na- tive brilliancy, and was a forcible gospel preacher. He had a remarkable familiarity with the Scriptures, and his sermons were simple, sound, logical. He had the gift of pathos in a high degree and stirred the hearts of his hearers by his rugged eloquence. While he moved in a narrow sphere, he was faithful. He died, at the home of his son-in-law, Mr. Grant Marshall, in Carroll County, Virginia, February 1, 1897, in the seventy-second year of his age. This sketch is, in the main, the obituary, from the pen of Rev. R. E. White, in the Minutes of the Gen- eral Association for 1897.
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HENRY HERBERT HARRIS
Henry Herbert Harris was born in Louisa County, Virginia, December 17, 1837. His parents were of Scotch and Welsh extraction, and in the home of his childhood there was the atmosphere of piety. He was a student almost from his cradle. At two years of age he learned to read, and in his first school days, his sister being his teacher, he was a promising scholar. In the neighborhood school he learned the rudiments of Latin and Greek, though frail health more than once inter- rupted his studies. When he was fifteen years old he was converted, and in the month of November baptized into the fellowship of the Lower Gold Mine Church. He was active in prayer-meetings and other such services from the very first. In 1854 he entered the Junior Class at Richmond College and in two years graduated. He taught a high school a year and then, with his brother, entered the University of Virginia. During his life at this institution he was very active in a work of grace that went on among the students and was one of the organizers of the Y. M. C. A. there, the first College Y. M. C. A. in the world. His first session he had the "green ticket," and at the end of his third year gradu- ated with the degree of Master of Arts, having studied, besides the required course, Hebrew and Applied Mathe- matics.
It is interesting to remember that upon his graduation at the University of Virginia he was offered and declined the chair of Greek at Richmond College, the work to which he was to give later the best years of his life. He did accept work at the Albemarle Female Institute, Char-
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lottesville, though, after a year, the call of war rang in his ears and he enlisted as a private in the Confederate Army. In 1862 his company disbanded and he entered the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. After one month, however, he was again in the army, now as an artillerist under Stonewall Jackson. At Port Republic, on June 8, 1862, two guns were so quickly thrown into action and so well served that the dash of the enemy across the bridge was checked and the day saved, and behind one of these guns was H. H. Harris, cool and skilful. In 1863 a regiment of engineers was formed and Harris was first lieutenant. Once General Lee said of him: "I remember him very well. He did excellent work and was one of our rising young engineers." In the spring of 1864, in the campaign from the Wilderness to Cold Harbor, he was ordered to build a bridge across a swollen river, which, by reason of floating logs and debris, was dangerous. The men he ordered to carry a rope across the stream refused. "Will you follow me?" he asked. "Yes," was the reply, "we will follow you any- where." He at once pulled off his coat, plunged into the water, was followed by his soldiers, and the bridge was built. In 1858 he had been licensed to preach, his first sermon being to a congregation of colored people. In 1864 a colonel applied to the War Department asking that H. H. Harris be made chaplain of his regiment. The request was refused, the reason assigned being that he was too useful a man where he was, and that, besides, he was doing much religious work where he was.
When the War was over he taught again for a year at the Albemarle Female Institute. He was one of a committee of three from the Richmond College alumni who appeared before the General Association urging the reopening of the College, notwithstanding the fact that all of its endowment had been swept away by the War,
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and in 1866, along with B. Puryear, became a professor at his alma mater. He was invited to teach Greek and German, and this work he took up, although his prefer- ence was for Mathematics and the exact sciences. After 1873 German was given to another, he continuing in the Greek department, where he was to remain for twenty- nine years and where he was to win for himself a name and fame.
Richmond College was destined to become the bright particular star in his horizon. Here he spent almost half of his days, and here, as teacher, editor, church member, denominational leader, he was to do his life work. While he touched many things, and, like Goldsmith, touched nothing he did not adorn, yet he was prominent as a teacher, and in any account of the activities which kept him busy, heart and hand and head, his record as Pro- fessor of Greek in Richmond College must come first.
What a born teacher he was! He not only knew Greek, but he knew how to help others to know it. In order that the forms of the language should be mastered, he insisted on a long and determined drill, yet he kept this drill from being monotonous by many devices; there was his play of humor turning into scathing sarcasm for the student who was trying to shirk work, there was his famous diagram of the Greek verb, there was his own enthusiasm and interest over the smallest detail. As the student progressed the richness and power of the Greek language more fully appeared. With the senior class, if not before, the glory of Greek literature and Greek art and the history of this classic land were sure to take possession of the student and to be for him a possession forever. For many years the Greek lecture-room was a very dark, unattractive room, but hundreds of students remember it as full of light and quickening for noble thoughts and aims. Professor Harris was a great be-
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liever in following one question with another until the origin or law or meaning of a word was forthcoming. How he would laugh at slips, and yet his face could be as noncommittal as that of the sphinx to the poor fellow floundering around in his ignorance and catching at straws. In teaching he would now walk the room, now sit back in his chair and play with a ring of keys, now stand and prop his head back with a long rod used for pointing at the blackboard. If a word presented a prob- lem he would help the earnest student by dissecting it until the root was found and then build it up until it was back where he started. He might come to a word he did not know. He would frankly admit this fact, but few words could withhold their meaning from the power of his analysis.
Doubtless one reason that his teaching throbbed so, was that he was ever renewing and enlarging his own acquaintance with his subject. He said to his students at the close of one session : "Young gentlemen, I do not know how much Greek you have learned this session, but I have learned more than in any year for a long while." After he returned from Greece and Palestine in 1878, the side-lights he threw upon all the classroom work were fascinating and inspiring; he made the boys feel almost as if they had been to Greece themselves. He varied his course of reading in Greek authors and also his plans for getting work from the student. He took up the study of the orations of Lysias with one of his classes, probably the Intermediate, when this author was not read in any American college and when no sat- isfactory edition was to be had; now it is quite gener- ally read. In the study of Greek history he would often give out questions of the examination beforehand, al- lowing the student to make all the preparation he cared to for answering them when he entered the examination-
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room; this may seem a strange method, but a sample of these questions will explode any such theory, for ex- ample, "Trace the hegemony of Greece."
He never allowed a student to trifle with him. He was apt to know whether you were studying or no. Once a student who was always resorting to devices to hide his laziness and ignorance, when he found he was about to be called upon, slipped down under the benches, hoping Professor Harris would think he had not an- swered as present. He did call on this student, and when no response came, called on some one else and went on as if nothing unusual had occurred. When the class was dismissed, Professor Harris seated himself in his chair, took up a book and began to read. The boy was "game" for some time, but finally surrendered and came out.
While the Greek was the main business, still the stu- dent under Professor Harris in his Greek work learned much of many kindred and not a few far-away matters. A student who is now a professor says that he learned more English under Professor Harris in studying Greek than from any other single source, and received many of his best ideas of Latin grammar and etymology. Pro- fessor Harris took illustrations from far and near to illuminate the Greek, making the Greek in its turn help in other fields. Who could study Greek under such a teacher and not use more effectively his own mother English ?
It was the general opinion among the students and faculty also that Professor Harris could teach, and on short notice, too, any class in college. As a matter of fact, in the course of the years he did supply more than one vacant place in the teaching force. When Dr. Curry resigned to take up the Peabody Fund work, Professor Harris taught Philosophy for some months. As a
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teacher he was always trying to lead his students to do their own thinking. Philosophy, of course, gave un- usual opportunity for him to work in this direction. Sometimes his opening question would seem to bear no relation to the matter in hand, but gradually the subject under consideration would stand forth in clearest light. One day he called the roll, and then, turning his eyes up- ward, he fixed his gaze upon a hook in the center of the ceiling. It was quite a time before he said a word or turned away his eyes. Presently he called on one stu- dent, asking: "What is that hook for?" When the an- swer came: "I do not know," his question went the round of the class, no one being able to tell why the hook was there. No one had ever seen it used in any way. It was possibly not until the next day that he told us that the hook had been placed in the ceiling when the College buildings, during the Civil War, were used for a hospital. And the lesson which the hook taught those students is plain.
The student who did not enjoy the hour under Pro- fessor Harris was the exception. A student, who had started out with the hope of winning the Francis Gwin medal, asked Professor Harris, when the last examina- tion was over, whether the medal was coming his way. "What do you think about it, Mr. B .? " was Professor Harris' reply. "Well, I do not know about getting the medal, but I know I have had lots of fun."
Professor Harris' sphere as a teacher was not limited to his College classes. He was an unceasing student of the Bible and taught it with wonderful power and charm. He had a class in Bible History and another for the study of the Greek New Testament. Concerning these classes, Dr. W. O. Carver says: "I remember the carefully pre- pared outline of daily readings arranged in historical setting, all neatly printed and bound, which he so gladly
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furnished to all who would agree to use them and to meet him one evening in the week to talk over the course read. The number of students who availed themselves of this great opportunity was generally small. The course was free and optional, and the teacher was too modest and sensitive to advertise it. Indeed, I do not think he ever knew himself the value of his work.
Dr. Harris came to the meetings of this class with brief suggestive notes. He lectured sitting, sometimes in his chair, sometimes on the end of a desk right up in the midst of his boys. Then he would go to the board to illustrate something and casually take his seat on the table, draw one leg up and across under the other, which swung loose without reaching the floor, and in this atti- tude I have heard him deliver some of the sublimest lec- tures to which I have ever listened. When he could find a sufficient number-and three would encour- age him-who would agree to meet him once a week for study of the New Testament in Greek, he was happy. All this work, of course, was undertaken of his own ac- cord and without compensation save the added joy which the Master gave to a willing servant."
Professor Harris taught for years a Bible class of stu- dents at the Grace Street Baptist Sunday School. The room in which this class met was singularly unfitted for such service and highly uncomfortable. It was under a stairway leading to the pastor's study. Rarely did the class ever meet that it was not interrupted by persons passing through on their way to see the pastor. And there were other interruptions. The room was so small, and the class so large, that usually each chair had at least two occupants. There was no particular place for the teacher to stand, and so he stood first here and then there. How did he ever manage to teach at all with such unfavorable external conditions? Yet what great teach-
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ing it was! Students look back and see how splendid the teaching in this class was, though at the time they did not realize this. Yet all must have felt the charm and power of the hour, though they did not stop then and analyze it. Did they not crowd the room, Sunday after Sunday? Did they not sit on the steps and even on the floor? Did not all classes of students come to this room, and not simply the ministerial students and those who were professors of religion ?
He touched the student life at many points. Profes- sor Puryear said of him that he mixed with the students more than any other one of the professors. He was usually seen on the baseball field in the afternoon. He was a frequent visitor at the meetings of the Mu Sigma Rho and Philologian Literary Societies. The students consulted him about all sorts of things. He was very popular among them. Those who were present can never forget his first appearance among the students after a serious and protracted illness. It was in the Mu Sigma Rho Hall. During his illness his hair had turned en- tirely white. He received a great ovation. It seemed as though the applause would not cease. He was greeted by round after round, and it was sincere, tender, glad.
Professor Harris made the students feel at home in his home. Commencement night the Greek class had right of way in the spacious parlors, and all through the session, all through the years, students and others en- joyed the hospitality of this home. In a pen picture of Professor Harris in his home, drawn by one well fitted for the task, attention is called to the fact that Mrs. Har- ris was wonderfully qualified by constitution, training and culture to be her husband's complement. While, by reason of frail health, he was often in danger of depres- sion and even despondency, his wife, robust and strong, with a face full of sunshine and a sweet disposition,
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brought cheerfulness and brightness into the home. The same writer also says: "It was. interesting to observe how entirely free from either constraint or affectation were the family in the presence of visitors and how the home life moved on without interruption." Just as there .was rarely any change made in the usual repast, the visi- tor being invited to share with the family the substantial every-day meal, so without any artificiality of manner they allowed him to enjoy and participate in the usual social and intellectual life of the family and thus to see the home as it was. In many homes, unfortunately, this would detract from the visitor's pleasure. But here the invariable rule was that no matter what were the vicissi- tudes through which the family might be passing, there was never anything unpleasant mentioned at the table. The conversation was not only bright and cheerful, but was always elevating and refining. This was largely due to Professor Harris himself. He never monopolized the conversation ; in fact, he usually appeared to be taking a minor part, but without any apparent purpose of giving direction to their thought, he would join in the conver- sation with his children and always say something to stimulate their thinking and give them larger, clearer views. His keen sense of humor, his genuine sympathy with others, his wide range of knowledge, his marvelous tact as a teacher, his transcendent power of illustration-all these he brought into play even in a con- versation with his youngest child, when he was manag- ing to make her do more than half the talking. In social conversation, as in the classroom, he was not a great talker, but drew others out by judicious questions and stimulating suggestions. For one who did such
an enormous amount of work, Professor Harris found a good deal of time to spend with his family and took the keenest pleasure in their companionship. He was
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with them not only at meal time, but usually for a little while after dinner, and almost invariably for an hour or more after tea. During these hours of relaxation he would throw aside all work and worry and thoroughly enjoy himself. He had an exuberance and delicacy of humor which made him a charming companion, and the others were always glad when he could lay aside his work and spend a while with them. He and his children un- derstood each other perfectly and were the best of friends. He was very fond of playing games in the evenings, and there was a private understanding between Mrs. Harris and the children that they must lay aside everything else and play with him whenever he would consent to leave his books and take this recreation. He would enter into the game with great enthusiasm and with the same analytic power of mind which he brought to bear on everything he did, and so the children, even the grown ones, took especial credit to themselves if they chanced to win a game from him.
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