Pocahontas County History Preservation, Digitization, Community

Concluding Comments

Let it be far from me to write anything captiously or peevishly about any policy deemed wisest and best by my brethren as earnest and conscientious as I can justly claim to be and possibly far more in practice than I have been, yet I must say that to me it has been something rather bitter that efforts made by an obscure member of our assembly to have a grievous evil palliated should be ignored as they have been. The censorship of the press, recommended by the Moderator of the Little Rock Assembly in 1873 was so effective that not even a hint appeared in the papers of that cities concerning the preamble and resolutions that had been presented. So far as I am advised there was not a syllable published in the religious papers, North or South, concerning the affair. With magnanimous courtesy, which I shall always appreciate, the Christian Observer, at Louisville, Ky,., one of whose Editors was present when the paper in question was presented, published a communication written soon after the adjournment of the Assembly, form which this extract is given:

"I know of one, at least, who ventured the opinion as far back as 1860 in a Presbyterial sermon that our Presbyterianism would flourish better in Southern sunshine than in Northern shade, and though he received a rebuke for his pains, he is still of the same opinion, if not more so. Let us have peace but not organic union, for our little Southern church is all that we can call our own, and is the only place where we can feel at home and is about all that is left to us by the storm that has not yet ceased to rage about our ears. Some of us would like to see five good men of the North and five good men of the South set apart by their Assemblies respectively for the specific work of considering all questions that may arise with reference to our ecclesiastical relations, and unimpeded by special instruction. In the meantime we would like to see everybody else provoking one another to love and good works and so fulfil the law of Christ. We would like to see the papers filled with editorials and communications as to the best means to save souls and uphold the cause of Christ amid the sublime and terrible emergencies now upon us. When the committees are ready to report we would like to see i full what is calmly and judiciously written on both sides, and then after some time spent in study and prayer, decide as to the issue. If this be treason to the interests of the Southern or Northern Churches, let the most be made of it."

While this extract does not give the information that a move had been made in the direction indicated, yet it would enable the readers of the Observer to learn something or the Spirit may have prompted such an effort. I had to undergo interview after interview, interrogated and cross interrogated, almost literally by day and by night by parties who wished to probe the true inwardness of the movement. From the way I was interviewed and cross-examined by persons whose names not mentioned here though familiar as household words to all well read up in the published proceedings, I was painfully impressed with the idea that it was contemplated to have me excluded from my place upon the floor of the Assembly. That this was not attempted I shall always feel that I am indebted to the Rev. Dr. William Brown, so long the renowned and able stated clerk of the Assembly, and who is mentioned in a noted Centennial Poem as the "Judicious Hooker of the Southern Church," and to the Rev. Dr. Richard McIlwaine, the co-ordinate Secretary of the Assembly's Home Missions and who is now making himself an enduring and honorable reputation as a conspicuous member of the Virginia Constitutional Convention in session in Richmond. Dr. Brown seems to have taken pains to have the hot spur extremist know there was nothing but what they all saw and heard--the blunderings of an earnest and honest, but mistaken ministerial brother whom Lexington Presbytery ought to have kept at home. The paper was the work of one who tried to be instant in season and out of season, and sometimes, as in this case, he was very much out of season. Such was Rev. Dr. Brown's verdict, facetiously rendered upon telling by way of illustration an anecdote in point culled from Hardshell Baptist pulpit lore.

Dr. Brown's position was earnestly and ably supported by Dr. McIlwaine, who never does anything by half way. He claimed to know me as well as it was possible for one person to know another, and asserted that my interview with the reporter, to which he had been invited, "was simply beautiful."

Rev. Dr. Joseph Wilson, so distinguished for his long and efficient services Permanent Clerk, facetiously remarked that the Brother of Resolutions reminded him of the Irish orator who remarked of himself that somehow he could never open his mouth without putting his foot in it. Let it all pass, the good brother is self guillotined and will appear in the Assembly Nevermore, as quoth the Raven.

Several satirical pleasantries were perpetrated by other ministerial brethren, but as they have since departed to be with Him who said that He came not to destroy the law and the prophets but to fulfil and preached the Sermon on the Mount, and spoke as a man never spoke when He enunciated the Golden Rule, their pleasantries reverently omitted here and their memories I would embalm with memorial tears and good words.

In a few days the mists cleared away and I was made aware of the fact when the Moderator very pleasantly approached and requested me to take charge of the usual devotional services at the opening of the Assembly one morning just before the final adjournment. Meeting "Bill Arp" Smith a moment afterwards, I asked his permission to call on him to lead in prayer during the exercises. I claimed him as one of my sympathizers as he had voted in the negative, as I have been informed. He declined with respectful regrets, as a previous engagement for some committee work would prevent his attendance so early in the day. I then turned to my colleague and traveling companion, Ruling Elder J. W. Calhoun, and he readily consented. The minister who led in prayer at my request was the Rev. Dr. Patton who had endeared himself to me when matters were at their hottest by introducing himself to me and expressing his admiration for the sentiments of the paper and the moral courage required and present such resolutions of the Assembly. His was a prayer such as the pure hearted and gifted Dr. Patton could pray, and it was like a balm to one listener at least.

In a few days afterwards the Assembly of 1873 adjourned and, as I have never been returned since to any Assembly, it seems to me to have been a final adjournment for me with emphatic significance. On the morning ager the adjournment, while most of the members were at the Little Rock station waiting to entrain for their homes, Rev. Dr. Brown turned to me and kindly inquired how I felt after my escapade: "Well, Doctor, I feel like an aged 'mill boy' near Deerfield, Virginia, says he felt on one occasion. One morning as we was riding to the mill, seated on his grist, a forked tree fell upon his horse, striking it fore and aft, and killed his horse in his tracks, while the rider was not touched or hurt in the least, merely frightened. In speaking of the affair he would say with apparent emotion that it was 'the Lord's mercy and a thousand pities that he wasn't killed himself.'"

Upon returning home the time came for me to report as a commissioner. I made no allusion to what I had attempted. The matter seemed to have been so completely ignored that it was virtually nihil and was neither here nor there from my point of view. I reported my diligence in attending all the sessions and voting on all the subjects under consideration, and the report was approved. I also intimated my gratitude to Presbytery for the honor bestowed but I had been so fully satisfied with my Assembly experience that I felt no special desire for the honor to be thrust upon me again.

Somehow or other it came about that there were brethren not fully satisfied at the easy manner at which I was let off by the Presbytery. How it could be is only a matter of conjecture. At all events the same brother who nominated me seemed to have felt it his duty to feel the pulse of the Presbytery with a view to formulating a resolution of disapproval, but it was never formulated. Robert C. Walker, Dr. John L. Kirkpatrick, and, I understand, Dr. James Murray had nice apologetic words to say in my behalf, and it came to be understood that such a resolution would not carry.