USA > Virginia > Virginia Baptist ministers. 4th series, 1885-1902 > Part 21
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"A striking characteristic of the entire family was their quick appreciation of the ludicrous and an apparently in- exhaustible fund of humor. It was a rare treat to sit and listen to the conversations that would be carried on around the table during these games. Another notice- able thing was the perfect good humor with which these games were conducted. There was never the slightest misunderstanding, even among the younger children, for nothing was further from their thought than to be un- generous or unfair. The game being finished, a waiter of winesaps would be brought in, and in a few minutes more Professor Harris would retire to his study for three or four hours of hard work."
The story of the usefulness and activity of Professor Harris is not finished when the record of his work as teacher and professor has been given. As a church mem-
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ber and as a leader in the denomination he was most helpful and influential. His opinion and example at Grace Street Church was full of weight. He was in his pew at the Sunday services and also on Wednesday night. He often led the prayer-meeting, having, Dr. Hatcher declares, unusual gifts for those devotional services. He led not alone in words and, besides his other deeds, was so generous and large a giver that his pastor at times was ready to think him reckless in his giving. For years he was a leader, first among Virginia Baptists, and later among Southern Baptists also. In the General Associa- tion he was a most active member of the committee on cooperation, a committee that by its wise, patient work has done so much to enlarge the beneficence of Virginia Baptists. Of course, he was often on other important committees and boards for State denominational work. In the Southern Baptist Convention he was for years the chairman of the committee on order of business, a com- mittee that largely made the success of the great annual gathering. Professor Harris was a member of three important committees appointed by the Convention for special work. The first of these committees was to re- vise the constitution of the body. The second was to arrange for a centennial celebration of missions. The third was for cooperation with the Northern Baptists in work among the negroes. Rev. Dr. T. T. Eaton, also a member of these committees, speaking of their work, says: "In each of these cases the hearty acceptance by the denomination of the results reached was in no small measure due to their knowing that Dr. Harris had aided in shaping those results and that he heartily approved them." Professor Harris was a member of the Foreign Mission Board for nineteen years and its president for nine. He was said to be better acquainted with the work and the workers of our missions than any other
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man not a secretary of the Board. Professor Harris did not consider himself a good public speaker; he used to tell the College boys that, while he could not speak, he could tell them how to speak. While probably he was not a public speaker in the strictest sense of the expres- sion, he was, nevertheless, most interesting and instruc- tive when upon the platform or in the pulpit. After a year as pastor after his ordination, he was never again pastor, but he preached now and then and took his place upon ordination and similar occasions. He was most happy in the use of illustrations, though he sometimes chose to work out an illustration and then let some one else use it. Once, when speaking to some ministers, he used a beautiful illustration and then said: "Some of you fellows take this and use it if you can; I sometimes feel that all I am fit for is to make illustrations for others to use." Dr. Carter Helm Jones, who tells the foregoing incident, also writes: "In the Southern Baptist Con- vention a great question was once coming up for solution, a much-mooted question that threatened to cause confu- sion and trouble. Professor Harris rose just at the right time and the burden of his speech was one illustration. That illustration settled the question.
After he got through many of the brethren came to him and said : 'Well, I declare, it was lucky that you thought of that illustration.' Afterwards, in speaking of it, he said : 'They did not know that I was working on that illustra- tion for three months.'" Professor Harris did great good through his writings. He was at one time or an- other the editor of the Journal of Education of Virginia, of the Foreign Mission Journal, of the Religious Herald, and of the lessons in the Baptist Teacher, and the Ad- vanced Quarterly.
Professor Harris never posed as possessing universal knowledge; indeed, there were domains of learning into
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which he declared he had never entered, but his fund of information was large and varied, and he did many things well. Professor Gaines says: "He had a fairly good assortment of tools, and in mending a lock or a lawn-mower, or in constructing articles of convenience about the house, he displayed the same skill and in- genuity which characterized him in his higher activities. A carpenter, who, by the way, had little patience with 'book learning,' once paid a compliment to his mechani- cal skill and wide acquaintance with practical affairs by saying of him: 'Professor Harris has more sense than any smart man I ever saw.'" Dr. Carter Helm Jones tells the following anecdotes which illustrate the same point : "It was on a missionary tour through the North- ern Neck of Virginia. At one place the good women were getting ready to serve on the grounds one of the tempting dinners they knew so well how to prepare and they were troubled about the putting up of a stove. Finally, before I knew it, H. H. Harris had taken off his coat, looked over the situation, and put up the stove; and when some one asked who the man was, the reply was: 'I think it was the stove man, Mr. -, of
Richmond.'
A farmer, once digging a ditch, after talking with him one day, said: 'Why, that old farmer yonder from over about Richmond has taught me more about farming than ever I knew in my life.'"
Professor Harris did his life work at Richmond Col- lege. His brief years at Louisville, as Professor of Bibli- cal Introduction and Polemics in the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, were but as a postscript, a beau- tiful and important postscript, yet only a postscript. The severing of his connection with Richmond College was probably the greatest trial of his life. He resigned, not knowing what he would do or where he would go. His going to the Seminary was opportune for the Seminary.
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The institution had suffered a great loss in the death of Dr. Broadus. In the South among Baptists, on the roll of great teachers, next to the name of John A. Broadus, came that of H. H. Harris. Professor Harris was like Dr. Broadus in his mental make-up and both were Uni- versity of Virginia men. Professor Harris soon had his place in the esteem and affection of the Louisville Fac- ulty and students, those who had known him only by reputation coming to appreciate him more when they knew him at closer range. One of the faculty wrote: "I was wholly unprepared for the simplicity and kindly good-fellowship that marked his intercourse with his friends and fellow-workers. Every trace of fear was soon thawed out by the warmth of his genial smile and hearty laugh, and awe mellowed into reverence. There remained in you the consciousness of the presence of a great man, great in mental ability and learning, great in common sense, great in goodness ; but you were sure that he was a man, a brother, a father, a friend." In refer- ence to Professor Harris' going to Louisville, Dr. Ker- foot said: "He was not elected to take Dr. Broadus' place, but he was elected to give reassurance after the loss of Dr. Broadus. Many friends of the Seminary breathed easier when they knew that Dr. Harris had been elected as a member of the faculty. They felt that if a great teacher had been taken, a great teacher had been gained." Not only as a professor did Professor Harris do excellent work. The Missionary Society, which holds its meeting on the first day of each month, is a great power in the Louisville Seminary. As presi- dent of this Society, Professor Harris, with his deep love for missions, with the experience coming from his years as president of the Foreign Board, with his knowl- edge of the work gained from visits to various fields, was able to give the meetings deep spiritual tone and enthusiasm.
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When Professor Harris found that his health was fail- ing he sought rest and recuperation on his native soil. But his work at Louisville was closed. His end came in Lynchburg, February 4, 1897. The funeral took place at Grace Street Church and the burial in Hollywood, Richmond's beautiful city of the dead. On the edge of the city where he spent the larger part of his life and almost within sound of the College bell, overlooking the falls of the James, he sleeps his last sleep. Could any spot be more appropriate ?
AZARIAH FRANCIS SCOTT
On the walls of the Courthouse of Gloucester County, Virginia, hangs the portrait of the Baptist minister whose name stands at the top of this page. During the Civil War he was living in Gloucester County, and being too old to serve in the army, he filled, though a preacher, the office of Justice of the Peace. Several years before his death he was at Gloucester Court-House; on this oc- casion Judge Fielding Lewis Taylor, who was holding court, invited him to sit with him on the bench. A great many new people had moved into the county since Mr. Scott had been pastor in that section, and no little curiosity was aroused as to who the gray-headed old gentleman was who had been invited to such a seat of honor. In due time the Judge introduced Mr. Scott as his old teacher who had often used on him the rod.
Between the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean, in Northampton County, Virginia, September 14, 1822, Azariah Francis Scott was born. Here his boyhood and early manhood were spent. When about twenty years old he made profession of his faith in Christ and was baptized into the fellowship of the Lower Northampton Church by Rev. George Bradford. His college prepara- tion for life was secured at Richmond College, where he spent the sessions of 1843, '44, and '45, and at Colum- bian College, where he graduated with the degree of A. M. in 1848. The vacations of these college years had been spent in earnest work as a colporteur of the State Mission Board. He taught school for two years with marked acceptance in Northampton County and then, moving to King and Queen County, opened an academy
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near Centreville. Later he had an academy in Gloucester County. A close student, he was never satisfied until he had mastered a subject, and in these early days he won rank as a teacher and scholar.
Ebenezer Church, Gloucester County, called him to be her pastor, and he was ordained to the gospel ministry about 1851. With an interval of two years, he was pas- tor of Ebenezer until 1867. When Mr. Scott first went to Gloucester, the Baptists were very weak in the middle and lower sections of the county, and Ebenezer was helped for a season by the State Mission Board. In 1852 Mr. Scott reported at the "Virginia Baptist Anni- versaries" in Norfolk, that after one year more the church hoped to be able to liquidate the debt on their new meeting-house, when they would need the aid of the Board no more. This church, in 1849, reported a mem- bership of 1,013, of whom 922 were colored people. In 1852, Mr. Scott reported that he had during the year bap- tized 52 persons, distributed 31 Bibles and Testaments, 97 religious books, and 2,500 pages of tracts. In 1869 he became pastor of Ephesus Church, in Essex County, a church formed by a colony that had gone out from the Glebe Landing Church, in Middlesex County. Among those that formed this colony were: George Phillips, Robert Payne Waring, Larkin Hundley, Orville Jeffries, and Dr. A. G. D. Roy. In connection with his work at Ephesus, Mr. Scott was Principal of the Stev- ensville Academy, in King and Queen County. His pas- torate at Ephesus lasted nineteen years and then came his work as pastor of Colosse, in King William, and of Glebe Landing. Here he ministered some eight years. From 1851 to the time of his death he was an active and prominent member of the Rappahannock Associa- tion, and he was a frequent attendant on the sessions of the General Association, being, in 1896, one of its vice-presidents.
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This servant of God, who was a scholar of trained in- tellect and an earnest gospel preacher, passed from this life at 2 A. M., Thursday, October 7, 1897. There had been a compact between Rev. W. E. Wiatt and Mr. Scott that the one who lived the longer should preach the other's funeral. So Mr. Wiatt rode up to Ephesus Church on October 8, and in the presence of a great crowd preached the sermon, J. W. Ryland, A. Fleet, J. B. Cook, F. B. Beale, and John T. Hundley assisting in the service. Mr. Scott was married twice, his first wife being Miss Margaret Elizabeth Holt, of Northamp- ton County. Of this union there were nine children. His second wife was Miss Julia Waring, of Essex County, who bore him four children.
W. T. JOLLY
This "man of God" gave some six years, the last of his life, to a Virginia pastorate, and his ashes rest be- neath Virginia's sod. He was born in Campbell County, Kentucky, February 10, 1844. He made profession of his faith in Christ at an early age and united with the Flag Spring Baptist Church, where he was licensed to preach, and where, still later, on June 26, 1870, he was ordained. He received his education in the schools of his native county and at Georgetown College, where he graduated with honor. His first work as a pastor was for his old "mother church" and his next charge was at Rising Sun, Indiana, where he labored some years, de- veloping into a strong preacher and an effective pastor. From this field he moved to Shelbyville, Indiana, to take up a most arduous work. In the midst of many trials and difficulties he inaugurated the movement which re- sulted in the present commodious and beautiful house of worship. He left Shelbyville to accept a call to Ashland, Kentucky. Here he found a small and discouraged band of members, but he accomplished a blessed work, put a new spirit into the church, and erected an excellent and much-needed meeting-house. His last home was in Rich- mond, Virginia, where he became pastor of the Randolph Street Baptist Church, September 1, 1892. The church had not been organized long, was small in numbers and heavily embarrassed with debt. In six years the church was on a solid foundation and had a membership of four hundred. His death came very suddenly. He was
"sturdy in form, with ruddy complexion," and, being free from any organic trouble, seemed to have a bright prospect for long life. On June 14, 1897, his son, just
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entering his twentieth year, was taken away by death. This sorrow cast a shadow over the father's face which seemed to go with him to his grave. On March 4, 1898, he took part in the semi-centennial service of the Shelby- ville Church, where he had been pastor. The following Sunday he attended his Sunday school, but, being taken ill, did not remain for the church service. He was stricken with paralysis and died Monday, March 14, 1898. The funeral was conducted by the Baptist Minis- ters' Conference of Richmond, the services being at- tended by a vast throng that filled the church and the adjacent streets; the body was buried in River View Cemetery. Some of the material for this sketch is taken from the obituary that appeared in the Minutes of the General Association for 1898.
WILLIAM FISHER
William Fisher was born January 8, 1818, at Lewis- burg, Union County, Pennsylvania. His father, Thomas Fisher, was of Irish descent. Thomas Fisher, with Wil- liam Murray as his partner, carried on for years, at Buf- falo Cross Roads, the business of a currier, and he was a birthright member of the Scotch Presbyterian Church, having his pew in the old Warrior Run Church. His wife, Rebecca, the daughter of John Donaldson, of Scotch extraction, was born in White Deer Valley, Union County, Pennsylvania, and was a young woman of much beauty and gifted mind. The subject of this sketch was the second of four children. Upon the death of his mother, the home was broken up and the children were sent to various kinspeople. William was turned over to "Aunt Polly" Murdock, his father's sister, who gave him all the home training he ever had. He was taught the "Shorter Catechism" and portions of the Bible. Yet, boy as he was, during this teaching, he asked many questions which showed that he was doing his own thinking. His uncle greatly delighted the children by telling them, when the whole family was gathered around the big blazing fire at night, of encounters with the Indians. An old fort not far away made these stories all the more real to the imagination of the young people. William, accom- panied by his sister, went through mud and dust and snow to a school two miles away, sometimes, on the way, using his fists to punish remarks from his companions that offended the little girl by his side, even if the rough and tumble of a fight did bring tears to her eyes. Soon he passed, at the district school, to the place of teacher, and managed to give quite general satisfaction to his pa-
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trons, even if many of them were his kinspeople. About this time he attended the Milton Academy, taught by James Kirkpatrick, having as his fellow-student James Pollock, who was afterwards Governor of Pennsylvania. While at this school he attended the sunrise prayer-meet- ings of a Baptist protracted meeting and received his first deep religious impressions. When sixteen years of age he was apprenticed to Colonel Henry Frick in the office of The Miltonian, a paper published at Milton, Northum- berland County, Pennsylvania. The young fellow longed to see something of the world, so, after two years, he made his way first to Harrisburg and then to Washing- ton, securing at this latter city a place on a daily paper. He worked as compositor by day and as news editor by night. This last employment brought him into touch with many prominent men. He was converted, it seems, at a meeting of the United Brethren near Lebanon, Pa. He insisted on being immersed. Upon a visit to his old home he told of his new-found faith, preaching with great ear- nestness in schoolhouses and elsewhere. His departure from the Presbyterian faith was much commented on and he was regarded by some as a lunatic. As there was no United Brethren church in the neighborhood, he became a member of the Methodist Protestant Church and was first licensed and then ordained to preach. But still he was not satisfied. Finally, he became a Baptist, writing to the Methodists to say that he had found a home with the Baptists and giving his reasons for his change. Now, notwithstanding the lure of the West, which was in those days so strong, he felt and followed an impulse to go to the South. The rest of his life was spent in Virginia.
Upon coming to Virginia, Mr. Fisher first made his home on the Eastern Shore. In this region he labored for a long series of years, doing some of his best work.
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The churches which he served were: Zion, Bethel, Mod- esttown, Red Bank, Lower Northampton, Pungoteague, Chingoteague. In this section he organized churches, held protracted meetings, and did much pastoral visiting. Bethel and Zion were first out-stations of the Modest- town Church, and then independent churches. The former was organized in 1852 with twenty-six members, and Zion the same year with nine, three white men, three white women, and three colored men, he being the "father" of both churches. At the dedication of the Onancock Church, Mrs. Waples, an invalid, was borne in her bed to the church. The Minutes of the General Association for 1854 has the name of William Fisher as one of the missionaries of the State Board, his field being Accomac County and his salary $100.
From the seaboard Mr. Fisher removed to the western part of the State, which is now known as West Virginia. Here he was pastor of Lewisburg and Anthony's Creek, in Greenbrier County, and of Union, in Monroe County. During the War he was chaplain for two years of the Twenty-second Virginia Regiment.
The last years of his life were given to pastoral work, first in Bedford County and then in Appomattox and Campbell Counties. In Bedford he ministered to Hunt- ing Creek, Hermon, Suck Spring, Timber Ridge, and possibly to other churches. Concord Depot, on the edge of Campbell County, near the Appomattox line, was his home for a number of years and the place of his death. He was for some seven years pastor of Liberty and He- bron Churches, in Appomattox County, and later of Reedy Spring, New Chapel, Red Oak, Rocks, Midway, Hollywood, and Central. Of this last church he was the founder and first pastor.
Mr. Fisher enjoyed probably throughout his whole life wonderful physical vigor. Certainly up to a very short
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time before his death his natural force was not abated. To see him with his snow-white head and his healthy, sun-burned face, and to hear him tell in his animated way of his long trips to his appointments and of his churches was indeed inspiring. Extracts from a letter that he wrote to the Religious Herald when he was in his seventy-eighth year will show the energy and the zeal of this venerable man of God: "On Saturday before the first Sunday in August I left my home to attend my regu- lar church meeting at Central. On Sunday morning I preached to a large congregation, and in the afternoon rode six miles and preached at Promised Land
at 4 o'clock and then rode to my home, twelve miles. On Monday I went by train to Bedford City to the Straw- berry Association at Morgan's. The train being delayed, I called Brother Royall out of bed at two o'clock on Tuesday morning. At seven in the morning we all met at the appointed place to be conveyed to Mor- gan's. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday
were days long to be remembered. On Friday I reached my home to start on Saturday to my regu- lar church meeting at Hollywood, twenty miles dis- tant. On Sunday morning I preached and then rode back to my home to start on Monday night to the Acco- mac Association, 300 miles distant, and at 11 o'clock Tuesday night reached Parksley. The next morn- ing to old Chincoteague Church, at which I had preached fifty-one years ago. Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday at the old Accomac. On Saturday I re- turned to Parksley to preach for Brother Sanford at Zion, the church which I organized forty-three years ago.
On Monday I returned, crossing the Bay and taking the Norfolk and Western train at 10 o'clock at night and reaching Keysville, on the Southern road, at daybreak, and then off six miles to Friendship, where
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the Appomattox Association met. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday at the Appomattox. Thursday night at Keysville to assist in the ordination of Brother Stewart, and on Friday morning with Dr. Bagby and Brother Cridlin off to Burkeville to breakfast at the far-famed Southside Female Institute. Friday night finds me at home to start on Saturday to my old Reedy Spring Church."
He died July 16, 1898, at Concord Depot, Virginia. The funeral took place the next day, Sunday.
CHARLES H. COREY
On the 16th of September, 1868, there came to Rich- mond, to do work among the colored people, and as the representative of the Home Mission Society of the Northern Baptists, the Rev. C. H. Corey. This was in the very midst of the difficult "Reconstruction" period, but Mr. Corey won the esteem of both white and colored people. His residence in Richmond stretched out to some thirty years, and among other tokens of the high regard in which he was held by Southern people may be men- tioned the fact that he received the degree of "D. D." from Richmond College and Baylor University.
He was born in one of the back settlements in Canada and did not know what a newspaper was until he was fourteen years old. He was born December, 1834. Early in life he was converted and became a Baptist. In 1854, having managed to get the necessary prepara- tion, he entered Arcadia College, Nova Scotia, the Rev. Dr. E. A. Crawley being then its president, and, in 1858, graduated. In July, 1861, a few days after his gradua- tion at Newton Theological Institution, he became pas- tor of the First Baptist Church at Seabrook, N. H. In 1864 he resigned this charge to accept work with the United States Christian Commission, a society that looked after the wounded and dying on the field of battle and in the hospitals. At the close of the War he began work among the colored people under the direction of the Home Mission Society, being located in Charleston, S. C. He left Charleston in the spring of 1867 to take up work as the President of the Augusta (Ga. ) Insti- tute. Here he remained until he came to Richmond. He
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