USA > Virginia > Virginia Baptist ministers. 5th series, 1902-1914, with supplement > Part 22
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Patrick Thomas Warren was a man remarkable for his courtesy, for his systematic habits, for his painstaking care as to little things. He was always scrupulously neat
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in his dress and person, and his horse and buggy showed that almost equal thought had been bestowed upon them. A poorly groomed horse, or a buggy not clean and well cared for, would have vexed him no little. In the keep- ing of his books and papers and his house and lot, a similar interest was manifested; it was his pride to show his friends his fine tomatoes, held up by proper frames, and the other good things in his garden. Not only in things that concerned himself, but as well in what touched the lives of others, was he interested to see that the little points were watched. Life is made up of little things, but life is no little thing. Concerning his real piety and conscientious devotion to duty there is no need that words be spoken, for on that matter the whole of his useful life throws clear light.
THOMAS HUME, JR. 1836-1912
In 1806 Rev. Thomas Hume, of Edinburgh, Scotland, came to Virginia to represent the Scotch heirs of Rev. Robert Dickson, his uncle. A little later his brother, Rev. William Hume, followed him to Virginia. The Hon. Hugh Blair Grigsby bore testimony to the scholarly ability of the two brothers, declaring that William Hume was the "finest Grecian he had known." By reason of the "law's delay," Thomas was detained some time in Virginia, and finally married and settled in Smithfield, Isle of Wight County. Here his only child, Thomas, was born, March 16, 1812. This second Thomas, known among Virginia Baptists as Dr. Thomas Hume, Senior, married, in 1835, Miss Mary Anne Gregory, a member of an old and honored family, and a teacher in the Trinity Episcopal Sunday School of Portsmouth. Of the eight children of this union the oldest was named Thomas. This third Thomas Hume is known as Dr. Thomas Hume, Junior. He was born, at his father's home in Portsmouth, Va., October 21, 1836. For a full story of the life of Dr. Thomas Hume, Senior, the reader is referred to the "Lives of Virginia Baptist Ministers," Third Series, where the son pays a beautiful and deserved tribute to his honored father. Suffice it here to say that Dr. Thomas Hume, Senior, besides being for many years the distinguished pastor of the Court Street Bap- tist Church of Portsmouth, was one of the leading citizens of that city, where he was able, not only to care for the interests of his own flock, but also to be president of an insurance company, County Superintendent of Education, president of a Provident Society, and con-
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sulting director of the Seaboard Railroad. Nor was his influence limited by the Elizabeth River, for he was at one time pastor in Norfolk. And his leadership reached out to the work of the denomination in the State. In this home, with its pious and literary atmos- phere and traditions, the subject of this sketch was born. After studying at the Virginia Collegiate Institute, of Portsmouth, he entered Richmond College at the age of fifteen, and graduated there, with the degree of Bachelor of Arts, in 1855, the other members of the class being Peter W. Ferrell, Halifax, Va., and Wm. S. Ryland, Richmond, Va. From Richmond College he went to the University of Virginia, where he remained three years and took a number of the "school" diplomas. Through the pen of Rev. Dr. John L. Johnson we see Mr. Hume as he was in the fall of 1856, when he entered the Uni- versity, and when he and Dr. Johnson met for the first time. Dr. Johnson says: "In person he was of small stature, of less than average height, and very delicately made. Slightly curling auburn hair fell upon his shoulders; a massive brow, broad and deep, under which gray-blue eyes shone with unusual brightness, gave to his full face a wedge-like contour; and over all was a lurk- ing humorous cast, which, even in pensive moods, made his expression interesting and magnetic. Poor health was his misfortune; chronic indigestion was his mortal foe. Days at a time he lay in bed, racked with pain, and smilingly receiving the loving ministry of his fellow- students. An ardent Christian, in spite of this physical weakness, he was to be found habitually at his church, Sunday school and preaching services, and in the Sun- day afternoon prayer-meeting of the students." He belonged to that interesting group of students in which number were H. H. Harris, J. William Jones, J. C. Hiden, L. J. Haley, James B. Taylor, Jr., and John L.
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Johnson, and with some of them he formed a happy bond between Richmond College and the University of Vir- ginia. The first college Young Men's Christian Associa- tion in the world was organized at the University of Virginia, and Mr. Hume was its first secretary and its second president. He was also one of the magazine editors.
Scarcely had Mr. Hume entered upon his work as Professor of Latin and English in the Chesapeake Col- lege, Hampton, Va. (an institution which had been rescued a few years before, by Mr. Hume's father, from purchase by the Catholics), when the War called him from the teacher's chair to the camp and the line of march. He had already felt the call to preach, and now he became chaplain of the Third Regiment Virginia Infantry. Later he was made post chaplain at Peters- burg, where he remained as official chaplain of the Con- federate Hospitals during the siege of the city and until the surrender at Appomattox. On June 5, 1865, at the close of the session of the Baptist General Association of Virginia, at the First Baptist Church, Richmond, Va., he was ordained to the gospel ministry. On this occasion the sermon was preached by J. B. Jeter, the ordaining prayer made by Wm. F. Broaddus, the charge delivered by J. L. Burrows, the hand of fellowship given by J. William Jones, and the Bible presented by Geo. B. Taylor. For the score of years that followed this event, Mr. Hume gave himself to teaching and to preaching, a part of this period both of these lines of service receiv- ing at the same time his thought. For a short season he supplied the pulpit of the First Church, Petersburg, and then became Principal of the Petersburg Classical Insti- tute, giving his Sabbaths to country churches in Sussex and Chesterfield Counties. On June 29, 1867, in company with Dr. William D. Thomas, Dr. J. W. M. Williams,
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Dr. G. W. Samson, Dr. J. L. M. Curry and bride, and others, he sailed from New York for a trip to Europe. His next work was in Danville, where he was Principal of the Roanoke Female College, and for two years pastor of the First Baptist Church. It was only after long con- sideration that he decided to turn from his teaching to take charge of this church, but when the question was settled "he became at once a busy pastor, looking system- atically after the membership of the church and making most careful preparations for the pulpit. He was indeed a fine preacher; language simple and chaste, thought strong and penetrating, illustrated richly from the broad fields of his reading; voice clear and incisive, face aglow with the passion of the hour, made him a speaker good to listen to and easy to learn from." In 1874 his father's death called him back to his old home, and he was invited to succeed his father in the pastorate of the Cumberland Street (later known as the First) Baptist Church, of Norfolk. This position he held till 1878, when he became Professor of Latin and English in the Norfolk College. In the same year he was married to Miss Annie Louise Whitescarver, a daughter of Rev. W. A. Whites- carver, and remarkable for her beauty of person and face. In June, 1881, Dr. Hume was the Richmond Col- lege Alumni Poet. While a broken-down engine pre- vented his being present to read his poem alumni night, he did read it on the Wednesday night of the Commence- ment. The poem, the subject of which was "Walking With God," instituted a comparison between Enoch and Dr. J. B. Jeter.
In 1885 Dr. Hume became Professor of English Language and Literature in the University of North Carolina. He filled this chair for twenty-two years, and in this capacity probably did the best work of his life. It is certain that he was most highly fitted to be a teacher,
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yet he had elements that go to the making of the success- ful pastor. If a warm, genial heart and an intense human interest in people gave him power in the class- room, surely this same marked factor in his character would have become, in the sphere of the church, the "shepherd heart." He threw into his work as a teacher a zeal and enthusiasm and love that quickened in his students a kindred fire and a spirit of painstaking work. His appreciation of the true and the beautiful in litera- ture was at once keen and accurate. He seemed to know almost as if by instinct what was really fine in prose and poetry, and those who followed his taste and leadership were sure to drink of the purest waters. Letters from many of his old students record his patient and kindly work with them, not only in their studies, but in the prob- lems of their personal and religious life. At his death, one of these students wrote of him, in a Southern paper :
"Many old students are anxious to testify that he opened up to them vistas of things undreamed of before; that he helped them on in paths that have been so pleasant and so inspiring in after-life; that he interpreted the vision of the 'light that never was on sea or land' so that it has illumined many a dark hour; that he lifted them up and introduced them to the masters, who have inspired, cheered, and comforted, oh! so many hours since ; that his outlines of the Great Plan are coming out largely as he sought to make plain to young, mobile, and impressionable minds; that he was nobly unselfish through it all, and their appreciation is unstinted."
Mr. E. K. Graham, formerly Professor of English, now President of the University of North Carolina, writing of his work, on his retirement, said, in part :
"When Dr. Hume came to the University, conditions surrounding teaching in the State were not so favorable
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as they are now. They were especially unfavorable to the teaching of English Literature. .. In the face of the difficulties which confront every teacher of the æsthetic, and the peculiar difficulties that confronted him, Dr. Hume wrought at his task of teaching the master- pieces of literature with the zeal of a prophet. Litera- ture (whenever he wrote the word he capitalized it) was to him not a chance profession; it was a religious faith. The beauty he found there was not the sentimentalism of a cult; it was the gift of God, coequal with truth and goodness-the heavenly light that was the consecration of the monotonous struggle to get on. . . During most of the years in which he served the State, Dr. Hume, in his field, worked almost alone-alone, in what was by all odds the largest department in the University. He placed but one limit on the number of courses he taught, and that was the number of hours in the day. Day and night he gave himself to active instruction. In addition, he organized Shakespeare clubs out in the State, lectured in summer schools, preached in churches ; in fact, put no reserve whatever upon his time or strength. It was a matter of everyday wonder how so frail a man had the burden-bearing power of a superman. But here was the simple secret: to him it was not a burden, but a joy. It gave him the chance to teach !
"Besides the influence that Dr. Hume exerted on all his students, on the thousands of people with whom he came in contact in his extension work and through his preaching, he made other leaders of sweetness and light in whose work his influence is especially obvious. Many successful teachers-themselves makers of teachers- many successful preachers and lawyers, have added a grace to their lives that was kindled at the torch he bore. He was never a writer of books, but he was a maker of writers of books. A half-dozen books come to my mind
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in which he was in this indirect way a joint author. . As a teacher of men it was given him to subdue the petty tyranny of time and space. Is it not possible to say simply and with certitude about such a teacher, that life gives to him her greatest gift; that even while he lives immortality becomes to him a visible, a realized fact ?"
At Glen Falls, N. Y., and at Knoxville, Tenn., he gave courses at summer schools, while he delivered series of lectures on Shakespeare, Tennyson, and the Literary Study of the Bible before schools and clubs and Bible assemblies in various parts of Virginia and North Caro- lina. He published many articles and addresses, and during the last months of his life was at work on a book on the development of the English Bible. In 1907 he was made Emeritus Professor on the Carnegie Founda- tion, being the first educator in North Carolina to receive this appointment.
Although he gave up regular preaching during this last twenty-odd years of his life, he did not give up his interest in his church. He was ever a most active and earnest member of the Chapel Hill Baptist Church, the right-hand man of his pastor, active in the Sunday school and the B. Y. P. U. and Sunbeam Missionary Society, ever bearing on his heart and mind the welfare of the church and his pastor. One pastor writes thus: "It was my honor to be Dr. Hume's pastor for two years, when I had not been preaching long. The way he treated me, his young and inexperienced pastor, was character- istic of the man. He honored me as his pastor, and in scores of ways was courteous to me and considerate of my office, as well as of my comfort. He never forgot those little amenities which always help to tide over the rough places, especially when they mark the manner of a man, in distinguished place, towards one far less
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advanced in age and achievement. If he made sugges- tions as to sermon structure, or as to the work of the church, it was done with marvelous tact." His interest in religious work was not limited to the local church, nor to his own denomination. He was in touch with what was being done by North Carolina and Southern Baptists, and as Superintendent of the Y. M. C. A. work in the colleges and towns of North Carolina, as well as in other ways, he made himself felt throughout all the State.
Towards the end he was a sufferer. On July 15, 1912, he passed away at his home in Chapel Hill. The funeral and burial were in Waynesboro, Va. His wife and three children, Thomas Hume, Annie Wilmer (now Mrs. William Reynolds Vance), and Miss May Gregory, sur- vive him.
JOSEPH R. GARLICK 1825-1912
One of the delegates to the "Virginia Baptist Anniver- saries" (as the general State gathering was then called ), in Norfolk, 1852, was Joseph R. Garlick. In 1856 he was one of the life members of the General Association, and on through the years, until his death, he was closely connected with the work of the denomination in Virginia. He was born on December 30, 1825, in King William County, Virginia. After his early training in neighbor- hood schools he entered, in 1840, the Virginia Baptist Seminary (now Richmond College), where he continued till the fall of 1841, when he became a student at Colum- bian College, Washington. Here he graduated in 1843. For a season he now became a teacher, his first experi- ence as a pedagogue being at Lancaster Court House. One of his pupils, a youth four years his junior, named Thomas S. Dunaway, still abides among us, in his vener- able age, after a long and a most honored career of service among Virginia Baptists. Upon the death of his former schoolmaster, Dr. Dunaway wrote tender and loving words concerning him, describing him as "a man of fine literary taste and acquirements and broad scholar- ship," and recalling the fact that Dr. Jeter had once suggested to Dr. Garlick that he prepare a lexicon of the English language.
After studying theology under Rev. Dr. Andrew Broaddus, the elder, he was ordained, in December, 1847. His first charge was at Hampton, Va., and here he remained four years. After teaching for two years in the Chowan Female Institute, Murfreesboro, N. C., he
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moved, in 1855, to Bruington, King and Queen County, where he established the Rappahannock Female Institute, over which he presided for fourteen years. For a decade of this period at Bruington he was pastor of St. Stephen's Church, in the same county. In 1870 he was called to succeed Rev. A. E. Dickinson as pastor of the Leigh Street Baptist Church, Richmond. This relation- ship continued some nine years, and that the work pros- pered is seen from the fact that in 1869 the church reported 544 members, and, in 1879, no less than 896. Upon leaving Richmond and Leigh Street he returned to a country pastorate and to the section where he had already spent many years. Once more he became pastor of St. Stephen's Church, and later, also, of Mt. Zion and Lower King and Queen. After some nine or ten years here, he passed to the Dover Association, taking charge of that historic church now known as Winn's, but first, and until 1833, called Chickahominy, and then Bethlehem until 1870, when the present name was chosen. In the historical sermon that Dr. Garlick preached, in November, 1901, the year "Winn's" was one hundred and twenty years old, he explained why the name of the church was changed from Chickahominy to Bethlehem, and then to "Winn's." In 1833, at the time of the Campbellite excitement, the Chickahominy Church was excluded from the Association because many of its members held unbaptistic views. The rest of the church went on, simply adopting the new name. By 1870 there were so many churches called "Bethlehem" that the name of the man who had given the site for the meeting-house was chosen, since it was more distinctive.
As has already been seen, Dr. Garlick was a scholar and a student. Three years after his graduation at Columbian he received, "in course," his M. A. degree, and while he was pastor in Richmond, Richmond College
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conferred on him the degree of Doctor of Divinity. For some years he was a trustee of Richmond College, where he "brought the ripe experience of his teaching life to bear on the adjustment of many educational problems." For several years he was professor in the Richmond Female Institute and the Woman's College of Rich- mond. For five years he was President of the State Mission Board of the General Association. His married life was long and happy, his wife having been, before her marriage, Miss Sue Morrison. The children of this marriage were Edward, Lizzie, Ellen (Mrs. Todd), Richard Cecil, and Mary Atwood. Full of years and full of honors, Dr. Garlick passed away August 13, 1912.
WILLIAM ELDRIDGE HATCHER 1834-1912
Those who knew Dr. Hatcher in his manhood and ministry days were very apt to learn that Bedford County was his birthplace, for he was proud of his native county, a county that has produced many preachers. The Peaks of Otter, at whose foot his early days were spent, he called "my mountain," and the tall summit seemed to speak to the boy of God and heaven. His only memory of his mother was her funeral, for the day he was four years old she was laid to rest under the old cherry tree back of the garden. He felt, through life, how much he had missed in not knowing a mother's love, and his sympathy and interest in boys was testimony to the lack in his own life. His father was fifty years his senior, but the boy loved him with strong devotion, and, after the mother's death, for years they were bed-fellows. The father was greatly distressed because this son seemed to him to be so lazy. It was true that the young fellow hated to "work in the dirt." The father predicted that this aversion meant that he would starve, but the boy believed that in some other way he would make his living. So serious was the father's distress over the boy's dis- inclination to do farm work that he told his cousin, the future Dr. Jeter, how matters stood, and that the boy, instead of working, was forever reading. The boy, who overheard the conversation, was keenly mortified to see what his father thought of him, but Dr. Jeter's view of the situation was less grave, and his advice that the boy be sent to school was eventually followed. The family circle consisted of the children, Henry, Harvey, William,
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Damaris, and Margaret, and of the colored folks, Uncle Sam, Aunt Charity and Charlotte, William and Harvey being the children of the second marriage. Country life in Bedford in those days certainly had its limitations. Later, Dr. Hatcher thus described his early environment and life: "We were twelve miles from the county-seat, had mail once a week, and church once a month when the weather was good. A blacksmith's shop, a tanyard, and a store, with a mill further on, constituted all of our public interests. As I had no horse to shoe, no letters to write or receive, not a copper to buy anything with, and did not belong to the church, my communication with the outer world amounted to naught. This statement was modified by one exception. I did attain to the honor of being a mill boy, and every Saturday morning 'Old Fillie' was bridled, a bag of corn was balanced on her back, and the giant arms of my brother hoisted me astride the mare and bag, and, with only the necessary garb, in warm weather, to save me from public disgrace, I jogged my way over to Chilton's Mill. There I always had an interesting time. The proprietor of the mill had a most unsavory name in that community, but he was rich; he had quite a handsome assortment of books, always welcomed me into his office, was a glib and capti- vating talker, and was one of two or three men on the earth at that time who seemed to be conscious of my existence when I came along." The boy seems to have had but one everyday suit, and that made "of the wool taken from the backs of our sheep, carded, spun, and woven in our house, dyed with ill-odored, homemade dyes, cut out, and warranted not to fit, and was ugly and unattractive, and usually very slow to wear out." The Sunday school of the neighborhood, which ran from the early days of spring until the end of the summer, was most unattractive; the teachers and scholars stammered
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through long chapters of the Bible, the prayers were long, and there was no singing, and never "a breezy and cheery address."
At Mt. Hermon Church, when the pastor, Father William Harris, and F. M. Barker, a man of great elo- quence, were conducting a meeting, the youth was con- verted. With his hand in the kindly grasp of Dr. Falls, he first went forward when "the invitation" was given, and later came out into the full light of joyful surrender to Christ, under the gentle guidance of Monroe Hatcher. That night, when the two brothers reached home, the elder son went in to where Mr. Hatcher was in bed and said : "Father, great news to-night-great news; your baby boy came into the Kingdom of God." It may have been that the youth's call to preach came that day when Father Harris laid his hand on his head, as he passed the reading boy, and said he hoped he would be a minister of the gospel some day. Later, the young man's greatest obstacle to entering the ministry was his irresistible eagerness to do so. But there seemed to be no money for an education. At nineteen he began to teach, and the session, it was arranged, was to last twelve months and the salary to be $300 and board. It was in a private family, and before the year was out a whipping that the young pedagogue administered to his employer's son broke up the school and turned the teacher's feet towards college, a place that had been his heart's desire for no little time. With him went his older brother, Harvey. This was in 1854. It so happened that the young man's first Sunday in Richmond was the first Sunday of Dr. J. L. Burrows' pastorate at the First Baptist Church. With wonder, this student sat in the gallery and heard the new preacher. Such crowds he had never seen before, and the preacher was a revelation to him. He did not know "that God made men like that." The two
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brothers who came together to Richmond College from the mountains of Bedford were almost wholly unlike. Harvey had a gift for mathematics and was slow of speech, while William abominated this exact science and was a most fluent speaker. In June, 1858, the two Hatcher brothers graduated from the college, the other members of the class being Wm. S. Penick, Samuel H. Pulliam, John W. Ryland, and Joseph A. Turner. Be- fore his college course was finished, young Hatcher had had no little experience in preaching, and had accepted a call to his first church and pastorate. His first sermon was preached in Bedford, the only word concerning it that reached the preacher's ears being the remark of a countryman that he had gotten "a fair night's sleep while that fellow was talking." During one of his vacations he conducted his first protracted meeting, the call for this service having come from Father Harris at Mt. Hermon Church, in Bedford. In the college, one session, a deep work of grace blessed the whole student body, many of the men being brought, by the power of the gospel, to Christ and his service. In this work William E. Hatcher was one of the leaders. From the college the wave of spiritual power moved out to the city, and the young men of Grace Street Church invited Mr. Hatcher and James B. Taylor, Jr., to conduct special services in the basement of their church. This work was rich in blessed fruit. During these college days Mr. Hatcher preached at least once for Dr. Ryland at the First African Church, and many times, without money and without price, for the feeble Baptist Church in Manchester, just across the river from Richmond. As he tramped his way from the college to Manchester, and back to the college, he little dreamed that here he was to begin his career as a pastor, but it was even so.
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