USA > Virginia > Virginia Baptist ministers. 5th series, 1902-1914, with supplement > Part 13
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In 1869 he was called to the two-year chaplaincy of the University of Virginia, and the stay there was a pleasant interlude of congenial society and profitable work for both him and his wife, who renewed old ties and made many valued friends.
In 1870 Dr. Taylor (the doctorate was conferred on him simultaneously by Richmond College and Chicago University ) took a three months' trip to Europe with his youngest brother, and of course his wide reading made every place he visited full of stimulating interest. With characteristic loyalty he sought out his English cousins and visited the little village of Barton-on-Humber, his
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father's birthplace, where he stayed at the wee inn of the Sheaf and Stack; just a few years before he had made a pilgrimage to his wife's birthplace on the Eastern Shore of Virginia.
At the end of the term as University chaplain he was called enthusiastically by his old church to return to Staunton. After somewhat considering the idea of going to Lexington as pastor and as adjunct professor in Washington and Lee University, he decided to return to his old charge, and was most cordially welcomed back. His house was refurnished by the church, his salary put on a more stable basis, and it seemed as if an easier period were beginning and a long union with the church to follow. But, as he himself was wont to quote with a smile, "the Christian man is never long at ease." Only eighteen months after his return to Staunton a telegram came from the secretary of the Foreign Mission Board which sharply changed the current of his life. The year and a half was chock-full of work and travel. Besides his regular preaching and pastoral work in Staunton he taught three classes in Mr. Hart's school and wrote the memoir of his beloved father, who had passed away on December 21, 1871. He suffered anxiety over several severe illnesses in his family, and his wife's health began to feel the strain put upon it. Early in 1873 he was released by his church to help raise the $300,000 Memorial Endowment Fund for Richmond College. It was while engaged in this work in New York in March, 1873, that he was startled by hearing from Dr. Tupper of his appointment as missionary of the Foreign Mission Board to Rome, Italy. After much consideration and prayer he decided to undertake the task. The same day he bought an Italian grammar and began to peg away at the language. His wife doubted the wisdom of a delicate, middle-aged man, burdened with four young
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children, making an entirely new start in life, but she was loyal to his decision, and was scarcely less useful and beloved in Rome than she had been in Staunton.
Dr. Taylor attended, by request of the Board, the Southern Baptist Convention in Mobile and the June meeting in Richmond. Then, on the 18th of June, 1873, with his wife and four children-the youngest an infant of eight months-and two young ladies, who were placed under his care for the journey, he embarked for Glasgow en route for Rome.
The Baptist work Dr. Taylor found in Rome was a small day- and night-school among the poorest class, a discharged evangelist, and a missionary of the Board, who was dismissed the week after Dr. Taylor arrived. There were evangelists maintained by the Board in other parts of Italy. The English Baptists, the Wesleyans, the American Methodists, and the Waldensians, supported by the Congregational and Presbyterian churches of England and America, were already at work. The American Baptists came last and were the least desired. Close communion and a man coming from a slave State were abominations to the Protestants already installed in Italy, so there was a double antagonism to meet. Money for the work came uncertainly and irregularly from America. During the first year Dr. Taylor had the news of the death of his eldest sister, and a few years later of that of his mother. He spent the winter studying Italian and going nightly to the school in Trastevere, where he began from the first to try and evangelize the boys and youths in attendance, and in taking journeys to mission stations already begun in other places. During the second year he hired a hall in a fine position opposite to the Roman Parliament and began preaching services with an able evangelist from North Italy. On Sunday afternoon there was a popular singing meeting which
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attracted good crowds. A small number of faithful and sincere members were baptized at this period and have formed the nucleus of the Roman Church ever since. After holding this hall for four years Dr. Taylor suc- ceeded in purchasing property and adapting an old hall for church purposes. This purchase, owing to the diffi- culty of getting property for evangelical uses, entailed several law suits, loss of time, and much harassment and worry. When it was completed the Board called Dr. Taylor to America to collect the money to pay for it, and he spent a year doing this, traveling over a large part of the United States. During this year he suffered the loss of one sister and much pain and anxiety over the severe trials of another. Malaria, contracted in Italy, also gave him much trouble. During the first five win- ters in Rome his family occupied successive furnished apartments and spent their summers in Tuscany and in the Waldensian Valleys, where there was one mission sta- tion. Dr. Taylor himself spent much of his time in sum- mer in Rome and Naples and in traveling for the work, visiting the evangelists and work gradually established throughout the continent and the islands of Sardinia and Sicily. After the chapel in Rome was finished Dr. Tay- lor occupied for three years an unpretending apartment in the same building, which was afterwards used by Signor Paschetto and his family. In 1884 Mrs. Taylor died very suddenly of laryngitis, and her husband and children sustained the most profound loss possible to them. From that time on the father became, if possible, more solicitous and tender to his children, seeking to atone to them for the want of their mother and to com- fort his own widowed heart.
Following a plan, formed with his wife, in order that their children might not be quite alienated from their native country, Dr. Taylor, in 1885, obtained a furlough
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from the Italian Mission and accepted, for the second time, the chaplaincy of the University of Virginia, where he was no less appreciated than he had been fifteen years before, and keenly enjoyed the society of Noah K. Davis and other congenial professors. At the end of the two years Dr. Taylor returned, with his two daughters, to Rome, and as the apartment on the mission property was rented he took a small, sunny, unfurnished apartment at the foot of the Capitol, which he occupied until his death twenty years later. Soon after his return to Italy he wrote, for the American Baptist Publication Society, a book on "Italy and the Italians." The large and harass- ing correspondence entailed by the administration of the work, and journeys over Italy, occupied the time, which was much broken by bad health.
At the stately 800th anniversary of the Bologna Uni- versity Dr. Taylor represented the University of Vir- ginia, and enjoyed meeting Philip Schaff, who was also there as a representative. All the prejudice against him, which had attended Dr. Taylor's coming to Italy, was more than overcome by his real Christlikeness and brotherly spirit, which he was able to manifest without any sacrifice of doctrine or peculiar principle. Twice again Dr. Taylor went to America for short visits to his sons, one a pastor in Virginia and the other a surgeon in the United States Navy.
Dr. Taylor suggested to the Board the advisability of establishing a Baptist Theological School in Rome, and it was done, Dexter G. Whittinghill, Th. D., being appointed and sent out to dedicate himself particularly to this work. Dr. Taylor took the liveliest interest in this new feature, which he felt was much needed. He taught in the school until his death, and wrote for it a modest but clear and concise manual in Italian on "Systematic Theology." The chapter on baptism was considered
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particularly good, and was republished separately by the ministers of the Southern branch of the Italian evangel- ists as the best possible statement of the question. In the early years of his life in Italy Dr. Taylor edited, with an Italian minister, an Italian monthly called The Sower, and later he united with the English Baptists to produce a weekly organ called The Witness, which is still pub- lished. He wrote frequently for both papers, as well as in English for The Watchman, The Examiner, The Religious Herald, The Foreign Mission Journal, and other publications. While striving to make each article a work of art, he tried no less to make them a true picture, and did much to arouse interest in the Italian work for which he had the affection consequent on
personal sacrifice and devotion. While his sensitive organization made him keenly susceptible to heat and cold and to every jar, he was no less alive to natural and spiritual beauty. He loved nature, and took the most exquisite delight in English literature and the keenest interest in the history and politics of the whole world. As his physical strength abated and his bodily powers decreased, his piety, loving-kindness and generosity widened. He grew each day more anxious to give to others, not only their just due, but a measure pressed down and overflowing. He was hospitable in a double sense, hospitable as it is enjoined on the bishop to be with bed and board, and in that rarer hospitality of the mind to new ideas and new people. His personal letters had a peculiar charm, and were written in small, clear characters which compressed matter and saved space. As a preacher he felt the importance of his message in his own personal experience, and exemplified the "beauty of holiness" in a constant striving after the divine life. Deafness contracted during his second chaplaincy at the University, from getting overheated in preaching and
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going out into the snow, was a severe trial, and cut him off in a way especially trying to a man so social. But it was wonderful how, as he grew older, his saintly and loving influence overcame even such "bars of the prison house." During the last two years he was one of the commission for the Revision of the Italian New Testa- ment, and, though really ill and fast failing in bodily strength, he worked over it constantly and took the deep- est interest in it. Though possessing few of the graces of oratory, he prepared carefully and was an able and compelling speaker, eloquent in the sense of the defi- nition : "Thought packed until it ignites," and with a force of conviction which must always tell on the hearer.
To the end he took the keenest interest in life and the future, but sleeplessness and constant suffering wore the delicate frame to gossamer, so that those who loved him best felt that it would be cruel to wish for him to stay longer. He died on the 28th of September, 1907, and his body was laid beside his wife's in the lovely cemetery for strangers under the crumbling city walls of Rome. His children, who survived him, are Geo. Braxton, Mary Argyle, James Spotswood, and Susie Braxton (Mrs. D. G. Whittinghill).
Mary Argyle Taylor.
WILLIAM N. BUCKLES 1834-1908
Carter County, which touches North Carolina, and is one of the extreme eastern counties of Tennessee, was the birthplace of William N. Buckles. Here he was born September 24, 1834. Just one month, to a day, after he had reached his majority he was baptized into the fellowship of the Old Holston Baptist Church, Tennessee. Two years later his mother church licensed him to preach, and in 1862 he was ordained to the full work of the gospel ministry. At the very beginning of the Civil War he enlisted, belonging to First Company K, Third Regiment of Tennessee Volunteers, being under Colonel John C. Vaughan. To the end of the War, either as chaplain or as colporteur or as private soldier, Mr. Buckles served, filling the place to which duty seemed to point. When the War was over, realizing that he needed better preparation for the work of the ministry, he entered, although he was now over thirty years of age, the Academy at Bluntville, Tenn., and remained there as a student for three sessions. In 1868 he was married to Miss Seraphine Pyle, of Sullivan County, Tennessee. This proved a blessed union, marked by happiness and love. Four children were born, three of whom, with their mother, survived the husband and father.
For some time Mr. Buckles wrought as pastor and colporteur in East Tennessee, serving a number of churches and organizing the Holston Valley Church, which body he led in the building of a house of worship. In 1876 he came to Virginia, where the rest of his life
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was spent. He located in Russell County and became pastor of the Lebanon, Bethel, and Honaker Churches. On to the end of his life his service was in the New Lebanon Association, his residence being part of the time at or near Bristol. Before the close of his work came, the other churches to which he had ministered were Lewis Creek, Oak Grove, Castlewood, Pleasant Hill, Green Valley, Liberty Hill, and Cedar Grove. "For a number of years he was the moderator of the New Lebanon Association, and wisely led his brethren in the work." In the gloaming of Sunday, February 2, 1908, he fell on sleep. The following Tuesday afternoon, in the presence of a multitude of friends, the funeral services were conducted by Rev. T. A. Hall. The body was laid to rest in the Bethel Cemetery (Russell County ), a great company of people being present. Concerning this servant of God, Rev. C. E. Stuart, in his obituary, says: "In this day of glorious harvest we can never thank God too much for these pioneer missionaries of the cross."
MORTON BRYAN WHARTON 1839-1908
Although the larger part of the ministry of Morton Bryan Wharton was given to other sections of the country, it must not be forgotten that he was born and educated in Virginia, and that here he held, for some eight years, an important pastorate. No one could look upon the picture of Dr. Wharton, in the Minutes of the Southern Baptist Convention for 1909, without being impressed by the signs of intellectual power in his face ; the brow was high and broad, the mouth well formed and clear cut, and the flash of the eyes brilliant and strong. At this same meeting of the Convention, which was held in Louisville, Ky., an address on his life and work was delivered by Rev. Dr. J. A. French. The official relationship that he bore to the Convention was that, in 1873, at Mobile, Ala., he was one of the secre- taries. This son of Virginia, who was most gifted and versatile, was born in Culpeper County, April 5, 1839, being the son of Malcom Hart Wharton and Susan Roberts Colvin. At the age of eighteen he was con- verted, at Alexandria, Va., and united with the Baptist Church of that city. In October, 1858, he entered Rich- mond College, where he remained through the session of 1860-61. His first pastorate was at Bristol, Tenn., where he labored for two years. During the other years of the War he was evangelist in the army, under Rev. A. E. Dickinson, and, later, agent in Georgia to collect funds for the Virginia Army Colportage Board. At this period of his life he was also, for a time, the agent of the Domestic and Indian Mission Board, of the Southern Baptist Convention.
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After the War he became pastor of Eufaula, a church · he was destined to serve a second time at the end of his life. Here in his two pastorates he erected two hand- some meeting-houses, and here has been set up, since his death, in front of the building in which he preached, a monument of him. His other pastorates were Walnut Street, Louisville, Ky .; First Church (Green Street), Augusta, Ga .; First Church, Montgomery, Ala .; Free- mason Street, Norfolk, Va. In this period, however, there were several seasons when other work than that of the pastor and the preacher engaged his powers. He gave himself for some years to an agency for the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, his field being Georgia. Gifted as a speaker, with eloquence, humor, and pathos, he must have been well-nigh irresistible in his appeals for this school of the prophets. Although of compact build, and apparently vigorous physically, more than once he turned aside from the heavy pressure of the pastorate because of broken health. Once, having purchased the Christian Index, he filled the editor's chair. Another break in his pastoral career was when he spent several years in Germany as United States Consul at Sonneberg.
On August 6, 1881, he reached Sonneberg and began his work as consul. He described the duties of a consul, at an interior town, as consisting "chiefly in the certifica- tion of invoices, notarial acts, issuing passports, extend- ing protection to American citizens, looking after prop- erty of American citizens who die abroad, and writing monthly reports, to the Secretary of State at Washing- ton, on agricultural and commercial and other interests, designed for publication by the State Department." The shipments from Sonneberg, at that time, ran up to the sum of nearly two millions of dollars, and consisted mainly of dolls, toys, musical instruments, china, glass-
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ware, hosiery, paints, and drugs. There were in the town and the surrounding villages over two hundred factories. While the consul's office was at Sonneberg, his residence was at Coburg. This city., with its castle, palaces, parks, mausoleum, and schools and private homes, Dr. Whar- ton described as the "most beautiful place I have ever seen." While here, he had services every Sunday in his own residence and instructed the children in the Sunday school. His purpose in accepting this position as consul was not to abandon the ministry but to secure a season of rest, to educate his children, and to see Europe under favorable circumstances.
In his brief pastorate of less than a year at Augusta he succeeded Dr. James Dixon. During these ten months some seventy were received into the church, the meeting- house was renovated and enlarged, and two new churches were constituted. At the rededication of the improved church-house Dr. J. A. Broadus was the preacher, his subject being "The Woman of Samaria, or Worship." While pastor at Augusta he baptized Rev. J. Q. Adams. When he went to Augusta the understanding was that, as his health was not good, he was not to preach but once a day. As a matter of fact, however, he preached twice every Sunday while there. His health did not improve in Augusta, so he resigned to go to Germany. An idea of the great energy of the man is secured when it is seen that, though far from at his best, he did so much.
Dr. Wharton was an author, and had the poet's vision and power of expression. When the Southern Baptist Convention met in Norfolk, Va., and was holding its sessions at the Freemason Street Church, where Dr. Wharton was pastor, he made the address of welcome. This address was an original poem, and its delivery, what with Dr. Wharton's musical voice and magnetic presence, charmed the audience. One of his books, "Pictures from
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a Pastorium," is a volume of poems. His other volumes are: "Men of the Old Testament," "Women of the Old Testament," "Women of the New Testament," and "European Notes." In this. connection it should be remembered that Dr. Wharton coined the word "pas- torium" as a name to be used, especially by Baptists, to describe the church's home for her pastor. The word has been given place in the "Standard Dictionary." He was singularly gifted as a writer and as a speaker, and was scholarly in his aptitudes. He received the degree of Doctor of Divinity from Washington and Lee Uni- versity, and that of Doctor of Laws from the University of Alabama.
A few days before his death, which took place at Atlanta, Ga., July 20, 1908, he assured his brother, Dr. H. M. Wharton, that his life work was finished and that he was ready and willing to go. His wife, to whom he was married August 2, 1864, and who before her marriage was Miss Mary Belle Irwin (daughter of Rev. Dr. C. M. Irwin), survives him, and also a daughter, Mrs. John M. Moon.
FRANK BROWN BEALE 1852-1908
The fourth son of General R. L. T. and Lucy M. Beale, Frank Brown Beale, was born near The Hague, in Westmoreland County, Virginia, on April 11, 1852, and named for a maternal uncle-a beloved physician- Frank Brown. Remarkable for his diminutive size, as a babe, he was no less remarkable for his development into an active, vigorous, energetic boy. He early dis- played great enthusiasm and aptitude for physical sports and athletic exercises, and gave promise in boyhood of the vigor and endurance which marked him in his future labors.
His education, begun under an elder brother, whose school he attended two sessions, was continued near his home, and later at an academy conducted by Judge Cole- man in Caroline County. Before attending this school, in the summer of 1869, he openly confessed Christ at Machodoc Church, and was baptized by his · brother. While still a student, in the eighteenth year of his age, without conferring with flesh or blood, he announced, in a brief note sent to the Religious Herald, his resolve to devote his life to the ministry of the gospel.
He spent two sessions at Richmond College, and, at the call of his mother church, was ordained on November 16, 1873. Elders Wm. H. Kirk, Wayland F. Dunaway, Geo. H. Northam, and Geo. W. Beale took part in the ordaining service. Dr. Thomas S. Dunaway, his revered friend, sent the charge prepared for the occasion, since he was unable to be present.
His ministry began at once with Menokin, Nomini, and Machodoc Churches, and the divine favor rested
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signally on his labors. Soon after beginning his work on this field he was induced to hold night services in the town of Tappahannock, where the old Episcopal Church edifice of Colonial days was in use for Baptist preaching. Despite the increased mental and physical labor required, the necessity of crossing the river in a small boat-often under adverse conditions of weather-and other diffi- culties, this work enlisted his warmest interest, and he gave to it the ardent enthusiasm of his nature, with the result that, in 1876, a church was organized, the old courthouse purchased, renovated, and dedicated, and the spiritual body and place of worship were styled Centen- nial. With but a brief interval this church, in which he felt a peculiar joy, shared his ministration and grew under his care until failing health terminated his work, in May, 1908. He was permitted to see their number increase to 117, a parsonage provided, and the church become strong in the intelligence, piety, and liberality of their membership. While connected with his first pas- toral charge he attended lectures for one session at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, the churches having generously released him to do so, and at the same time retaining him as pastor and paying his salary.
Before leaving his home in Westmoreland he married, in December, 1882, Miss Susie Garnett (daughter of Dr. John M. Garnett, of Newtown), a union which proved one of unalloyed happiness to him and gave him a companion whose charm of person, Christian woman- hood, and sweet graces of character greatly strengthened his hand and blessed his ministry. As the fruits of this union his home was brightened with a daughter and a son, both of whom survive.
In 1889 he resigned the care of the churches in the Northern Neck, which he had served for fourteen years, and located in Tappahannock as pastor of Ephesus
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Church in conjunction with Centennial. The care of Ephesus was held for three years, when he accepted that of Howerton's, and in 1892 that of Upper King and Queen, the latter being the well-trained body which had enjoyed the pastoral nurture and leadership of the two Andrew Broadduses for many years. In this field-Cen- tennial, Howerton's, and Upper King and Queen- numbering approximately five hundred members, he was in the position in which he was destined to toil for sixteen years and to accomplish his best work. These churches steadily grew in strength, in efficiency, and in liberality to the cause of Christ, under his guidance, and the relationship between them and their pastor continued to the last, fraternal, cordial, and tender. The striking ele- ments of his success were his intense and unwearied earnestness, the breadth and warmth of his sympathies, and the unfailing cordiality of his manners. These made him ready to respond to every call of pastoral duty, and to visit the sick, comfort the sorrowing, and to render the last sad rites of burial within, and often beyond, the bounds of his own field.
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