USA > Virginia > Virginia Baptist ministers. 4th series, 1885-1902 > Part 6
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beginning. He heard the roar of war. Later in life he wrote concerning these days: "We have often gone out on the hills to listen to the booming of the cannon on some hard-fought field. Lee and his army passed right by our gate on his way to and from Pennsylvania. I remember how anxious the family were that I should see him. My father held me up on his shoulder. 'There he is -yonder he goes-he has turned the corner-is out of sight. Did you see him, son?' 'Yes, Pa; it was that man with the oilcloth cap on, wasn't it?' Just to think, so
close to the noble old hero and never to have seen him. Our own soldiers, how pretty they looked in their new suits of gray, with brass buttons, as they galloped by our house in the beginning. I wished then that I was one of them, but I don't recollect making any such wish some months later when they would come straggling in, tired, footsore, ragged, dirty and sick or desperately wounded. My mother nursed many through various kinds of sickness and dressed many wounds. Sometimes she would take buckets of iced milk out on the road to give to those who appeared to be especially hot and tired."
John Moffett, the father, died when his youngest son was some nine years old. This was on Christmas Day. Soon afterwards, one Sunday, the mother gathered the children into her room and read to them a sermon by Spurgeon on "Heaven and Hell." This made a deep impression on John, and he went to his room and wrote these resolutions :
First. Resolved to be kind and gentle to my mother, brothers, and sister, and to every one, and to be loved by all.
Second. Resolved that I will help my mother all I can and make her think she has a blessing in her son.
Third. Resolved that I will pray night and morning and at 10 o'clock and 3 o'clock. May the Lord help me to keep these resolutions. Amen.
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As to his conversion, the light gradually dawned, though he finally realized that he was a Christian at a Methodist camp-meeting. In his fourteenth year he was baptized into the fellowship of the Gourdvine Baptist Church by the venerable Barnett Grimsley. The boy's first teacher was his father, who laid great stress on spelling. Next he sat at the feet of "Cousin Pocahontas Reid," and then went to Miss Roberta Crigler, walking four miles to school. In 1873 he went to the Academy at Washington, Va., where Rev. Mr. Warden, a Presby- terian minister, and Mr. Berkely, later a lawyer, were his teachers. After a year in this school he returned home and superintended the farm until the fall of 1881. Dur- ing these years he read widely, was active in church work, taking part in the sessions of the Shiloh Association, and was aggressive in temperance effort in the Good Templar lodges of Culpeper and Rappahannock counties. He was licensed to preach by the Gourdvine Church on August 20, 1881, and a few days later set out for the Southern Bap- tist Seminary in Louisville, Ky.
He went to the Seminary knowing little Latin and no Greek. Yet he decided to take in four sessions the course a man with college training may complete in three. For- tunately, his room-mate was John H. Boldridge, an excel- lent student and trained at Richmond College. With such a tutor Moffett did splendid work and graduated in 1885 in an unusually brilliant class. During his Semi- nary life he was pastor for a season of the New Salem, Ky., church, where his energy led to the erection of a new house of worship. On June 29, 1884, at his old home church, he was ordained to the gospel ministry, these ministers comprising the presbytery: C. F. James, B. Grimsley, R. H. Stone, W. J. Decker, T. P. Brown, and T. F. Grimsley.
His first pastorate, after graduation at the Seminary, was in King William County, Virginia. Here was a typi-
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cal Virginia country field, with two churches, each having preaching twice a month. With characteristic energy, Mr. Moffett soon added to this work an afternoon ap- pointment at Mount Hermon Church, across the Matta- poni River, in Caroline County. See this young pastor, preaching Sunday mornings where honored men of God had for many years proclaimed the gospel, going in the afternoon through heat and cold on his long cross-coun- try trips, helping brother pastors in protracted meetings, baptizing in the waters of the Mattaponi, taking an active part in temperance work, quickening in a remarkable de- gree the missionary and benevolent zeal of his churches and ministering in most loving and liberal fashion to the necessities of the poor. One Christmas, in a letter to his mother, he wrote: "Besides, there are several poor and sick persons in my congregation to whom I thought all the money I could spare for Christmas presents ought to go, believing that it would do more good than being sent even to you. The consequences are I have not made a single Christmas present."
On July 3, 1887, he began his work as the first pastor of the North Danville Baptist Church, an organization that had grown out of a Sunday school established the previous January through the labors and prayers of a number of faithful women. As the little flock had no meeting-house, the recognition service for the pastor was held in the Methodist church. While it was plain that a house of worship was the pressing need of the new church, the pastor called first for a collection for missions and then three days later made his appeal for the house of worship. In six months Moffett and his people were meeting in a chapel of their own; at the end of the first year the membership had grown from 30 to 163, and already the chapel was too small and steps had been taken for a larger building. When Mrs. Berryman put her
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name down for the first $500 towards the new church, Moffett "felt like shouting, 'Glory.'" On December 1, 1889, the new edifice, costing $15,000, was dedicated, the last cent, before the day was over, being paid. On this occasion the chief speakers were Rev. J. R. Harrison and Rev. Dr. A. E. Dickinson. The North Danville Baptist Church soon came to be one of the best organized bands of workers in the State. This was largely due to the energy and systematic work of the pastor. He carried a map of the city in his mind. Each section called for defi- nite work. He believed in visiting. He knew the cry of the poor ; some one met him at eleven o'clock one night with a bundle of provisions on his back going to some home where hunger dwelt. He was popular among other denominations. The Woman's Missionary Society of the Methodist Church elected him a life member of their society because once in an emergency he had, upon short notice, come to their aid and preached their anniversary sermon. Once, when the Methodist preacher had re- turned to his old pulpit, Moffett took his own congrega- tion one Sunday morning and went to do honor to his brother pastor. No wonder that later the ladies of this same Methodist church one Wednesday night invaded Moffett's prayer meeting and through their spokesman, Mr. J. J. Flippin, presented him with a handsome silver service. Moffett insisted on systematic giving to missions and was especially enthusiastic as to foreign missions. In his preaching he seemed to keep ever before his mind the fact that he was a great sinner and that Jesus was a great Saviour. He had an humble opinion of himself. At the close of his first Sunday in Danville he wrote: "I went home feeling that everything done by me reached below mediocrity"; while his meeting-house was being erected, one day he and the carpenter having disagreed about some matter, his record concerning the incident
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was : "I got mad and said some things I ought not. I am ashamed of myself. I do not think a Christian ought to show temper." On May 7, 1889, in the second year of his North Danville pastorate, Mr. Moffett was united in marriage to Miss Pearl Bruce, the youngest daughter of Thomas Bruce, Esq., of Halifax County.
With all the work he had in his own church, Moffett was a leader in two movements that were statewide. He was the first one in the ranks of Virginia Baptists to advocate organized effort in behalf of the orphan. By his invitation and at his expense, John H. Mills, of North Carolina, the great friend of the orphan, visited and ad- dressed on August 15, 1888, the Roanoke Association at Oak Grove Church, Pittsylvania County. This address was followed by a resolution calling for the appointment of a committee to confer with other Associations in re- gard to the establishment of an orphanage. The General Association met that fall in Bristol. J. R. Moffett and a few others gathered in the basement of the church to deliberate as to the matter of an orphanage. One of - their number, Rev. Dr. George Cooper, was asked to pre- sent the matter to the Association. This he did and, after discussion, participated in by Dr. Cooper, J. R. Moffett and others, a committee was appointed to receive bids for the location of the orphanage. The following year the Orphanage Board was established. While Moffett was not appointed on the committee named at Bristol, nor on the Board when it was organized, still his interest in the great work never flagged. In the general temperance movement in the State and in the Good Templars, Mof- fett was very active. As a boy he had prepared a tem- perance pledge and called on his companions to sign it. He had been influential in getting his mother church and the Shiloh Association to pass strong temperance resolu- tions. With a Seminary friend he held a tabernacle meet-
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ing in Norfolk which greatly aroused temperance people. He paid a visit to Southwest Virginia and so exposed the "blind tiger" men in Salem as to lead to over one hundred arrests for violation of the local-option law. In the gen- eral gatherings of the Good Templars he was called on to speak and his paper, Anti-Liquor, was endorsed. Nor was his temperance work only public; he would follow the tempted young man into the saloon and persuade him not to drink and take his own money and furnish the drunkard's family with food. At the General Associa- tion of 1890 he offered an amendment to the constitution providing for the appointment annually of a committee of five to "inquire concerning the needs of and stimulate interest in the cause of temperance throughout the Asso- ciation." This resolution was referred to a committee of five, Moffett being one of the five. A report signed by four of the committee was adverse to the standing committee on temperance and this report was adopted. Moffett, however, stood to his guns and presented a mi- nority report. It is interesting to observe that for the past two years the General Association has appointed a committee of five to report on temperance.
In 1891 Moffett worked out a plan to bring together in Richmond during the session of the Legislature all the temperance workers of the State of all shades of opinion. The plan was successfully carried out. Some 250 tem- perance workers came together, John E. Massey, the Superintendent of Public Instruction, presiding over the body. A bill embodying the principles of the Anti-Sa- loon League of to-day was drawn, presented to the Leg- islature and promptly by reference to a committee buried forever. His paper, the Anti-Liquor, at the end of a year, the subscription list having gone to 5,000, was changed from a monthly to a weekly publication. Gradu- ally Moffett was drawn into the field of politics. When
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he became convinced that neither of the two great na- tional political parties were willing to help the temper- ance cause, his sympathy went to the Prohibition party, or the Third party, as it was then called. Before long it was evident that Moffett had arrayed against him the political organizations and the newspapers of his city. In a local-option election, when he took his stand in front of a speaker from a distance whom the crowd had treated in a discourteous way, a half-drunk man placed a pistol at his breast and pulled the trigger. Fortunately, the pis- tol hung fire, otherwise Moffett must have been instantly killed. Hatred to him among the politicians grew. He was misrepresented and threatened. One of the party organs said : "Woe be to you, Mr. Moffett, if Mckinney should be defeated by votes taken from the white ranks and thrown away on Taylor." He was accused of want- ing negro rule and a petition was circulated among the liquor men to buy a lot and build a house for a negro next to Moffett's house, by way of retaliation for his work in the local-option fight.
Election day came on. The Democrats were in the habit of handing out tickets to Democrats from a certain window. From no one else could Democratic tickets be secured. This amounted to intimidation. Mr. Moffett decided to print a fac-simile of the Democratic ticket to be distributed freely among Democrats, so as to break the ticket holder's power. A ticket was printed, an exact copy of the ticket as given by the Chatham Tribune. Through a mistake on the morning of the election, some of these tickets were given out by the printer of the Anti- Liquor, contrary to Mr. Moffett's direction, before they had been compared with the regular ticket. An unim- portant variation in the ticket printed in the Anti-Liquor office at once gave rise to a report on the part of Moffett's enemies that he was circulating bogus tickets. Mr. J. T.
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Clark mounted the steps and warned the people of bogus tickets that were being circulated by J. R. Moffett. J. R. Hill quickly appealed to the crowd to know if they thought Moffett would do such a thing and received a chorus of "Noes." About this time Moffett appeared on the scene, on his way to his office, it being still an early morning hour. Clark rushed on him and, waving some of the tickets in his hand, accused him of fraud and of scattering bogus tickets to deceive the people. Moffett dealt his accuser a stunning blow and then, mounting the steps, explained what he had done.
The fight was over. Moffett had done nothing during the election that he regretted save the blow he had given Clark and now the session of the General Association to be held in Danville was at hand. He met his kinspeople at the station and started with them towards the First Church (Danville), where the Association was to hold its sessions. On the way to the church he went into the office of the paper to leave a communication, as the news- paper controversy over the ticket episode was not yet over. While in this office Clark came into the front, saw Moffett and went out and on up the street towards the church. A little later Moffett came out and walked rap- idly towards the church. He had not gone far before a man met him, there was the report of a pistol, and Mof- fett was mortally wounded. This was Friday night. Early Sunday morning the spirit of John R. Moffett passed from earth to heaven. The shooting and then his untimely death cast a gloom over the city and over the General Association. During the last hours of his life, it being conceded by the physicians that death was near at hand, many friends and loved ones were allowed to see him. He spoke words of forgiveness for Clark, the man who had shot him, having previously made deposi- tion that Clark had made the assault and that he himself
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had had no pistol. The crowd that attended the funeral on Monday overflowed the church and jammed the square in front of the church. Addresses on this sad occasion were made by Rev. Dr. W. W. Landrum and Rev. Dr. W. E. Hatcher, numerous other ministers taking part in the services. Memorial services were held later at Gourd- vine Church and at Beulah Church. From all parts of the country there came expressions of sorrow and dismay at his sudden and shocking taking-off. The result of the trial, a verdict of manslaughter with a sentence of five years in the penitentiary, was a surprise and disappoint- ment to the general public, even the Court of Appeals saying: "In short, there is no element of self-defense in the case, and the verdict, so far from being without evidence to support it, is remarkable for its mildness." Resolutions setting forth his work and expressing sorrow at his death were passed not only by his church and by the Roanoke Association, but also by numerous Good Templar lodges and by the Prohibition Gubernatorial Convention, which met September, 1893, in Richmond. Temperance papers all over the land and others, too, spoke in no uncertain language as to his death and con- cerning the verdict rendered against Clark. So wide had been the interest awakened by Moffett's death that the temperance people of Ohio employed Olin J. Ross, a rising young lawyer, and sent him to Danville to assist in the prosecution of Clark.
The church which Mr. Moffett built in North Danville is now known as the Moffett Memorial Church, his name is forever linked with the cause of temperance in Vir- ginia, nor ought we to forget that he first moved among Virginia Baptists to establish the Orphanage of which they are now so proud.
PLEASANT BROWN
The record of the life of Pleasant Brown is meager. Here was a life that stretched over almost the whole of the wonderful nineteenth century. He saw the light a decade before Adoniram Judson went to India, yet be- fore his death Virginia Baptists alone were giving $17,000 to foreign missions. When on February 25, 1891, at his home in Franklin County, he departed this life, he had reached the good age of eighty-nine years and two months. For fifty years or more he had been an ordained minister of the Baptist denomination. He "performed much labor without compensation or but very little." He served the following churches : Mount Neriah, Providence, Mount Pleasant, Halesford, Red Hill, and perhaps others. He seems to have been pastor of Red Hill, Franklin County, Strawberry Association, at two different times, and the second of these pastorates lasted some fourteen years. It is said that Mr. Brown was not as fluent as many are, but that his life and de- portment made a living epistle known and read of all men. Red Hill was not a large church, during all the years Mr. Brown was its pastor not numbering one hun- dred members. There was preaching here once a month -and it seems that for some time this was Mr. Brown's only church. See him, as in buggy, or more probably mounted on his faithful horse, carrying his saddle-bags, month by month, he made his way to Red Hill, doubt- less laboring over many a red hill before he reached his appointment. His sermons may not have been eloquent, but doubtless many hearts were cheered by his kind words and faithful spirit. Some two years before his end his
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physical strength gave way and now he needed much care. His wife, his only son and only daughter had passed away some years before. His niece, Mrs. S. Richardson, aided by her family, at his old homestead, gave him constant and kind attention through all his affliction until the end came. It was of God's mercy that such good and patient hands should thus have min- istered to this old man, to this man of God, in his declin- ing days. Let their memory be preserved and honored along with that of him they helped. For years in the minutes of the General Association, Elder Brown's post- office was set down as Taylor's Store, Franklin County ; at an earlier date it had been Halesford.
SAMUEL HARRIS
This sketch is, with one or two slight additions and some verbal changes, in abbreviated form, the articles which appeared in the Herald, April 11 and 18, 1891, from the pen of Mr. John Hart.
Samuel Harris, the son of William Harris and Mary Pollard Harris, was born in Bedford County, Virginia. December 24, 1806. He was not the child of wealth, and his opportunities for early education were scanty. He learned to work and not to be ashamed of work, and thus he laid the foundation of the sturdy, if modest, self- reliance that marked his life and which stands in sharp contrast with the please-help-me style of many young fellows in later times. In the summer of 1831 young Harris became a member of a Bedford Baptist church named Difficult. What a name! And yet how appro- priate to any Baptist Church that is strenuously true to its mission in the world. Here was the beginning of the young man's journey up the hill Difficulty. For in no long time God wrought into his mind and heart the con- viction that he must preach the gospel. His modest common sense taught him that he needed preparation. About that time was founded the Richmond Seminary (now Richmond College), under the management of Robert Ryland. To this school young Harris turned his eyes. And towards this school in the summer of 1834 he turned his feet. For some time before the session was to open, with a scanty supply of needments in a bundle on his back and a scantier supply of money in his pocket, he took the road on foot from Bedford to Richmond. On this trip he fell in at a meeting of a
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District Association, probably the James River or the ' Albemarle. He stopped to listen with one half-dollar left. An appeal was made on behalf of an old preacher who, worn out in harness, needed help. The young man's half-dollar went. Meantime it became known that the wayfarer was a young preacher on the way to the Semi- nary. He was invited to preach and he preached. When the time came to continue his journey, thoughtful breth- ren placed in his hands a ticket to Richmond by packet boat and $5.00 in money. At the Seminary, besides his work as a student, he preached quite regularly in the neighborhood of the city and filled in his vacations with work as a colporteur. His course at the Seminary com- pleted, he was ordained in February, 1838, at the Second Baptist Church, Richmond, the presbytery being formed of J. B. Jeter, Jas. B. Taylor, Robert Ryland, Henry Keeling, and W. F. Nelson. His first pastorate seems to have been that of Winn's Church, near Richmond, but before long he was called to the Southanna, and settling in the neighborhood, he became identified with the Goshen Association. Within the limits of that Association he had charge at different times of the churches at Carmel, Williams Church, Good Hope, Lower Gold Mine, Little River, Zion, Forest Hill, and Trinity. He resigned the last of his charges in 1888. Thus for fifty years he was continuously in the pastoral office ; for a good many more than fifty years he preached the gospel. Mr. Harris came into the Association just as she was entering on the high tide of a remarkable prosperity. She was about to assume that independent position by which her own Ex- ecutive Board became the custodian and the disburser of the missionary gifts of the churches. From that time the Old Goshen had no more steadfast and sagacious sup- porter than he. Nor was his affection lessened by the alliance which he soon formed with one of her daughters.
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In 1840 he married Mary Ann Harris (born and bred in the Southanna neighborhood and for more than fifty years a member of the Southanna Church). Delicate in body, retiring in disposition, she stood faithfully at his side for more than half a century, suffering bodily pain often, but always patient-a fine example of the tender, the wise, the loyal wife. She did not spend much time in what has now become an important phase of woman's work. Her circumstances as well as her disposition se- cluded her from that. But to the most important aspects of a woman's work, to the duties of wife and of mother and of keeper of the house, she devoted herself with un- failing assiduity. And so she richly justified the words which her husband often applied to her, the words in which Solomon (Prov. 31:10-31) describes the mother, the wife and the mistress of the maidens. He was elected moderator of the Goshen when, September 4-6, 1857, it met at Burruss Church, Mount Carmel, Caroline County, and this was doubtless but one of his elections to this office.
It remains now to speak of Samuel Harris as a man and as a minister of the gospel. Sometimes we admire the preacher while we do not approve of the man. In other cases we respect the man but can not admire the preacher. With respect to Mr. Harris, this distinction was not necessary. To those who knew him best the man was the preacher and the preacher the man. If in his case the distinction is drawn, it is because he is one of a class that seems to be vanishing. He was a type of the old-fashioned country Baptist preachers-such as Frazer and Allen and Herndon and Coleman. He was a business man and, like many of the old preachers, was a successful business man. He worked his farm and sold tobacco and corn and wheat. Samuel Harris was an economical man and, therefore, a reasonably thrifty one.
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