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 THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 
 
 He had understanding of the times, 
 to know what Israel ought to do." 
 -1 Chron. 12; 32. 
 
 J. S. DILL, D.D. 
 
 PRICE, POSTPAID, 
 CLOTH. 50 CIS.; PAPER. 25 CTS. 
 
 SUNDAY SCHOCL B«ARD 
 
 SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTIBN 
 
 NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE 
 
ISSUED UNDER 
 
 THE 
 
 MATTHEW T. YATES 
 PUBLISHING FUND. 
 
 GIVEN B> 
 
 THE SUNDAY SCHOOL BOARD. 
 DECEMBER, 1897. 
 
 BOOK NUMBER THREE. 
 
 COPYRIGHT 1908 
 
 SUNDAY SCHOOL BOARD SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION 
 
 NASHVILLE. TENN, 
 
TO 
 
 my H)tfe 
 
 KATE TICHENOR DILL 
 
 THE INSPIRATION OF THE BEST THERE IS 
 
 IN NY LIFE 
 SINCE JULY 6. 188: 
 
A WORD FROM THE PUBLISHERS 
 
 This book is published in the interest of Home 
 Missions, and as a direct contribution to the Home 
 Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention. 
 It illustrates in a striking way some phases of that 
 work, and at the same time furnishes a biographical 
 sketch of the life and labors of one who through so 
 many years held high rank among his brethren, and 
 served as Home Mission Secretary with distinction 
 and honor and efficiency. There is fitness in issuing 
 this book under the Matthew T. Yates Publishing 
 Fund. It brings together that great Foreign Mis- 
 sionary and this Home Mission Statesman, serving 
 to illustrate the Unity of Missions and the Oneness 
 of those who v/ork on the home field with those who 
 work on the foreign field. 
 
 Nashville, Tenn.^ March, 1908. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. Childhood and Young Manhood 9 
 
 II. His Services as Pastor and Preacher. . 18 
 
 III. President of the Technological Col- 
 lege OF Alabama 31 
 
 IV. An Incident of Immense Moment in 
 
 the History of American Baptists 35 
 
 V. Becomes Corresponding Secretary of 
 
 THE Home Mission Board 50 
 
 (1) As to Our Western rrontier... 51 
 
 (2) Our Sunday School Periodical 
 
 Literature 55 
 
 (3) Our Mountain Problems Gl 
 
 (4) Other Phases of the Work 64 
 
 VI. The Closing Years 70 
 
 VII. His Home Life 77 
 
 VIII. Products of His Pen 88 
 
 (1) Fast Day Sermon Before Ala- 
 
 bama General Assembly, 18G3 88 
 
 (2) Our Country's Resources and 
 
 Opportunities 109 
 
 (3) The Land of the Sky 133 
 
 (4) Uncle Ben's Golden Wedding.. 139 
 
 (5) Jesse Goldthwaite — A Christian 
 
 Slave 151 
 
 (6) Joseph Islands — Apostle of the 
 
 Creek Indians 159 
 
iLLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Old Kentucky Home Frontispiece 
 
 The Father and Mother 11 
 
 The Pastor and His Church 21 
 
 Portrait of De. Tichenor 50 
 
 The Victory Vase of Honor 71 
 
 Uncle Ben and Aunt Jennie 139 
 
POREWORD 
 
 This sketch of the Life of Isaac Taylor 
 TicHENOR was prepared by the request of 
 the Kentucky Baptist Historical Society, and 
 read at its annual meeting at Mayfield, Ky., 
 June 25, 1907. The appreciation expressed 
 on that occasion has encouraged the author 
 to give it this permanent form, and it is now 
 published under the patronage of that Society.. 
 To the sketch of his life we are fortunate 
 in being able to add some specimens of his 
 work well worth preserving, and which at 
 the same time will illustrate the character 
 of the man and give us phases of Home Mis- 
 sion work in the South. 
 
 Dr. Tichenor was twenty years old when 
 the Southern Baptist Convention was organ- 
 ized, and his life belongs to that generation 
 of our Baptist Fathers whose hands so skill- 
 fully formed and guided those institutions in 
 our Southern Zion which we now hold most 
 dear. The historical materials which relate 
 
8 ISAAC TAYLOR TICIIENOR 
 
 to the men and measures of that period will 
 become increasingly interesting and valuable. 
 It is hoped that this biography will not only 
 find sympathetic appreciation at the hands of 
 those who knew and loved I. T. Tichenor, 
 but will not be without value in the final 
 writing of the history of the great formative 
 period among Southern Baptists. 
 Baptist Paesonage, BoicUng Green, Ky. 
 
ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 CHILDHOOD AND EARLY MANHOOD. 
 
 mF in this democratic country genealogi- 
 cal tables count for anything, then the 
 name of Isaac Taylor Tichenor is 
 an honorable one. jMartin Tichenor, 
 who tradition tells us was of French extrac- 
 tion, was among the earliest settlers of New 
 England. The record shows that in 1644 he 
 took the oath of allegiance at New Haven, 
 Connecticut, but soon, under the leadership 
 of Robert Treat, helped to form the first set- 
 tlement at Newark, New Jersey. Now it 
 happened that Ebenezer Byram, scion of a 
 worthy Connecticut family, had settled in 
 Morris County, New Jersey, and that his son, 
 Ebenezer, took in marriage Abagail Alden, 
 fifth generation from John Alden and Pris- 
 cilla, and to them were born sons and 
 daughters. In the meantime, Joseph Tich- 
 
10 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 enor, grandson of jMartin Tichenor, had also 
 settled in Morris County, and there was born 
 unto him in 1742 a son named Daniel. Now 
 this Daniel had in him an excellent spirit, 
 and was wise above his fellows; so it came 
 to pass that he took unto him to wife Anna 
 Byram, and straightway emigrated to the 
 State of Kentucky. This event occurred in 
 1790, so that when Kentucky was admitted 
 as a State in 1792, Daniel Tichenor was 
 among its citizens. His first purchase of lands 
 in Kentucky was on the Green River, but in 
 this he was disappointed, as it was still a 
 wilderness into which he could not carry his 
 family. In 1795 he accordingly purchased 
 three hundred acres of land on Plum Run, in 
 Nelson County, and there resided until his 
 death. In that early time of settlement, 
 Daniel Tichenor made a liberal contribution 
 to the growth of Kentucky. He obeyed the 
 Scripture command to multiply and replenish 
 the earth, for to him were born eight sons and 
 six daughters. James, the youngest son of 
 this Daniel Tichenor, was married to Margaret 
 Bennett, descendant of the Virginia Bennetts. 
 It was under the roof of James Tichenor, in 
 Spencer County, where sturdy New England 
 blood mingled with the choice graces of Vir- 
 ginia womanhood, that on the eleventh day 
 
JAMES AND MARGARET TICHENOR, 
 PARENTS OF I. T. TiCHENOR. 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 11 
 
 of November, in the year 1825, Isaac Taylor 
 Tichenor was born. 
 
 When Isaac was four years old he was sent 
 to school. He tells us that his first distinct 
 recollection of life was an incident at school. 
 As a child he made his first speech in that 
 little primitive schoolroom. It was copied 
 from Peter Parley, and was as follows: 
 
 "This world is round and like a ball 
 
 Seen swinging in the air, 
 The sky extends around it all, 
 
 And stars are shining there. 
 Water and land upon the face 
 
 Of this great globe we see, 
 The land is man's safe dwelling place, 
 
 And ships sail on the sea." 
 
 This simple recitation was prophetic of a 
 mind that, in the maturity of its faculties, 
 reveled as few others in the great things of 
 God in land and sea and air. 
 
 At the age of fifteen he entered the High 
 School at Taylorsville. Here he had good 
 training under two excellent teachers, Moses 
 and David Burbank, graduates of Waterville 
 College, in the State of Maine. He secured 
 a good course in mathematics as high as 
 trigonometry, and in Latin read Sallust and 
 Virgil. Plere, too, he laid a good foundation 
 in rhetoric and logic, and could have entered 
 
12 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 the junior class in college. In the second year 
 of his high school course he had a severe ill- 
 ness. In this attack of measles, cold settled 
 in the glands of his throat and affected his 
 vocal organs for life. His physician, who 
 might have descended from one of Job's com- 
 forters, assured him that he need not be dis- 
 turbed about his throat, as he would soon die 
 of consumption. His health was at the time 
 too much impaired and his constitution weak- 
 ened for him to go to college, so at the age 
 of nineteen we find him teaching a neighbor- 
 hood school. This gained for him universal 
 praise, and the next year he became assistant 
 to Davis Burbank in the Taylorsville Academy. 
 He taught in this school three years, and the 
 last year was its principal. 
 
 Young Tichenor professed conversion at 
 the age of eleven, but was held back from 
 church membership until in his thirteenth year, 
 at which time he was baptized by Elder 
 William Vaughn into the fellowship of Bloom- 
 field Church. It has come down to us that 
 William Vaughn was much discouraged by 
 the fruitage of his ministry that year, for he 
 had only baptized Isaac Tichenor and a very 
 fleshy young woman who weighed over three 
 hundred pounds. Her name was Nancy 
 Pulliam, and her unusual size attracted to the 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 13 
 
 scene a great concourse of people. But little 
 attention was given to the baptism of the 
 small boy. 
 
 Moses Burbank was a Baptist who had his 
 heart set on the development of the religious 
 life of his pupils. He taught school in the 
 Baptist meeting-house. A protracted meeting 
 was in progress and he told the boys to finish 
 studying and they would hold a prayer-meet- 
 ing before the congregation assembled. He 
 called on Isaac Tichenor to pray, but was 
 refused. After the congregation had assem- 
 bled and they had sung the opening hymn, 
 he again called on Tichenor to pray. This 
 time he responded and offered his first public 
 prayer. 
 
 While teaching with Davis Burbank at the 
 Academy, on one Saturday morning when the 
 church was about to convene for a business 
 meeting, one of his young friends told him 
 that the pastor, Uncle Billy Stout, wanted to 
 see him. When he reported to the pastor he 
 was greatly surprised to find that Uncle Billy 
 wanted him. to preach for him that morning. 
 This he refused. The pastor seemed hurt, so 
 when others joined in urging him, he finally 
 consented. He spoke for twenty-five minutes 
 from the words, "Search the Scriptures." 
 After the sermon the pastor proposed that 
 
14 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 the young brother be Hcensed to preach. 
 Under the protest of the young man, the 
 motion was unanimously passed. The next 
 thing he knew Uncle Billy had arranged an 
 appointment for him to preach at Plum Creek 
 Church, ten miles off. He yielded to the per- 
 suasion of his sister, and on this occasion 
 preached his first prepared serm.on from the 
 text, "How long halt ye between two opin- 
 ions?" What effect the sermon had on his 
 congregation we do not know, but from this 
 time on he no longer halted as to his duty to 
 preach the gospel, for we find that during that 
 summer he is in frequent demand among the 
 churches, and responds with such fervor, as to 
 gain the title of the boy orator of Kentucky. 
 The first overture to give him a settled 
 pastorate came from the East Baptist Church 
 of Louisville, Kentucky. This he declined on 
 account of frail health and instead accepted 
 an appointment from the Indian Mission 
 Association of Louisville to represent them 
 in Mississippi. William C. Buck was then 
 president of the Association, and Sidney Dyer 
 its corresponding secretary. He took up this 
 work in the hope that the Southern climate 
 would be more friendly to his health, and 
 accordingly in the fail of 1847 he made his 
 way on horseback from Kentucky to Missis- 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 15 
 
 sippi. He went by way of Nashville and there 
 attended the annual meeting of the Indian 
 Mission Association. Here he first met J. R. 
 Graves, and was also profoundly impressed 
 with a great speech he heard from Joseph 
 Islands, the Apostle of the Indians. This 
 Joseph Islands v;as a full-blooded Creek 
 Indian, with rugged eloquence and a marvel- 
 ous experience of God's grace. The thrilling 
 romance of his life is too sacred a story to be 
 lost to our Baptist history. To the end of 
 his life Dr. Tichenor was fond of telling of 
 the time he saw and heard this remarkable 
 man. We are glad to preserve in this volume 
 his full and beautiful account of the story of 
 "Joseph Islands, the Apostle of the Indians." 
 It is a part of Home Mission history. 
 
 Pursuing his Vv^ay through West Tennessee 
 he stopped for the Sabbath at Denmark, and 
 there preached two sermons. At the close of 
 the service a woman asked who that boy was, 
 and then exclaimed: "I had rather be that 
 boy than to be Jeems K. Polk, President of 
 the United States." 
 
 November finds young Tichenor in attend- 
 ance on the Mississippi Baptist Convention at 
 Hernando. Thursday was the night for the 
 discussion of Indian Missions. It came to his 
 ears that the committee on order of business 
 
16 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 had grave hesitation as to whether to place 
 one so young on the program. But they 
 decided that courtesy to the Association he 
 represented required that he be recognized. 
 They therefore, in order to run no risk, sand- 
 wiched him in between two other speakers. 
 This put the young orator upon his mettle, 
 and like a true Kentucky thoroughbred, he 
 did his best. He so far surpassed the other 
 speakers that his address became the talk of the 
 Convention. This success gave him an open 
 door into the churches of Mississippi for the 
 presentation of the mission cause he repre- 
 sented. 
 
 The American Indian Mission Association, 
 of which young Tichenor was now the agent, 
 was organized in 1843, ^^^ ^'^^ its work among 
 the Choctaw and Creek nations. Afterwards 
 this organization, through its board at Louis- 
 ville, Kentucky, transferred all its mission 
 work to the Domestic Board of the Southern 
 Baptist Convention. This transaction occurred 
 at the meeting of the Convention in 1855 at 
 Montgomery, Alabam^a, while Dr. Tichenor 
 was pastor of that church. It then assumed 
 the name of Domestic and Indian Mission 
 Board. Few of us now realize the importance 
 of the work among the Indians in those earlier 
 days. Larger problems now fill our horizon, 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 17 
 
 and the Indian is pressed into the background. 
 The word Indian is now dropped from the 
 name of our Board, and it is simpUfied to the 
 Home Mission Board. This change came 
 in 1874. It is not without significance that 
 the first service Dr. Tichenor rendered his 
 denomination, when he was yet little more than 
 a lad, afterwards became a part of the work 
 of the great Board to which he gave the last 
 and longest segment of his life. 
 2 
 
18 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 DR. TiCHENOR IN THE PASTORAL SERVICE. 
 
 FTER six weeks of travel in Mississippi 
 he came to the city of Columbus to 
 present the cause of Indian Missions. 
 Here he was detained by the heavy 
 rains of the season, and as the church was 
 without a pastor, he was invited to supply 
 the pulpit for two Sundays. It was then 
 urged upon him that, as he could not do effect- 
 ive agency work during midwinter, he tarry 
 with the church and supply until spring. 
 Though hesitating on account of his inexperi- 
 ence and the fact that this was one of the most 
 important pulpits in the State, he finally con- 
 sented. His success was such that with the 
 coming of spring he was unanimously elected 
 as permanent pastor. Here, in the year 1848, 
 he was ordained to the full work of the 
 ministry. 
 
 The Columbus Church had for several years 
 been split by factions, and the young pastor 
 soon found that he was not sailing upon quiet 
 waters. But this breach was soon healed, for 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 19 
 
 one day the pastor preached a sermon of such 
 power that at its close those who had been so 
 bitterly estranged fell weeping upon each 
 others shoulders. Tichenor was then frail and 
 thin, and weighed only about one hundred and 
 twenty pounds, and it was at this juncture, 
 when all were rejoicing, that iMiss Maria 
 Morse, a maiden lady who had been praying 
 for the peace of Zion, threw her arms around 
 the astonished pastor and exclaimed: ''God 
 hath chosen the weak things of this world to 
 confound the mighty." 
 
 In company with Deacon jMullins of Colum- 
 bus, Tichenor, in 1849, attended the session of 
 the Southern Baptist Convention at Charles- 
 ton, South Carolina. It was the third session 
 of the body, and it was to him a memorable 
 trip and a great experience. From Rome to 
 Atlanta, Georgia, he had his first experience 
 in railroad travel. He spent a few days in 
 Augusta, preaching there on Sunday. At the 
 Convention he came into a congenial fellow- 
 ship of kindred spirits, and formed ties with 
 true yoke-fellows in the service of God. Here 
 for the first time he met three other young 
 men, W. T. Brantley, Jr., Basil Manly, Jr., 
 and James P. Boyce. Here too he caught 
 inspiration from such men as J. L. Dagg, 
 Basil Manly, Sr., and J. B. Jeter. At this 
 
20 ISAAC TAVLOR TICHENOR 
 
 Convention Tichenor was appointed to preach 
 on Sunday afternoon. There was a large con- 
 gregation, including many delegates. He 
 preached from the text, "If that which was 
 done away was glorious, how much more that 
 which remaineth is glorious." The sermon 
 established his reputation in the Convention. 
 He was then in his twenty-fourth year. 
 
 In attendance upon the Mississippi State 
 Convention in the fall of 1849, Tichenor was 
 made chairman of the Committee on Temper- 
 ance. It was at the time when the organiza- 
 tion known as the "Sons of Temperance" was 
 at its height. In his report he took the ground 
 that the Church ought to be the strongest and 
 best temperance society in the world. This 
 precipitated in the Convention a great discus- 
 sion, and in view of the aggressive temperance 
 reforms of the present day is well worth 
 recording. The position taken by the report 
 w^as in advance of the thought of the day on 
 that subject. 
 
 In the spring of 1850 Tichenor resigned the 
 pastorate at Columbus. He made a trip to the 
 coast of Texas, and held protracted meetings 
 at Houston and Galveston. He then returned 
 to his Kentucky home for the summer, and 
 was persuaded to accept a call extended him 
 to the pastorate at Henderson, Kentucky. 
 
THE PASTOR AND HIS CHURCH, MONTGOMERY, ALA. 
 1852-1868. 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 21 
 
 While at Henderson he committed the usual 
 youthful indiscretion of trying to keep a diary. 
 His enthusiasm for recording his daily 
 thoughts and doings all went to pieces in the 
 brief space of sixty days. This record, pre- 
 served in his family, serves only to give us 
 a flashlight into the inner spiritual life of the 
 growing young pastor. It reveals a longing 
 of soul for the doing of the highest and best 
 things for his Master, which the after years 
 will not disappoint. The half dozen sermons 
 also written out in full in the same blank book 
 with his diary, give ample promise of the 
 mature service which enriched the people to 
 whom he ministered. The Henderson pastor- 
 ate only lasted a little over a year, for the 
 return of his throat trouble again warned him 
 that he must seek a more Southern climate. 
 
 In December of 1851 Dr. Tichenor was 
 called to the pastorate of the First Baptist 
 Church of Montgomery, Alabama, and entered 
 upon this work the first of January, 1852. It 
 was then the only Baptist church in that city, 
 and could not claim more than one hundred 
 and forty-five members. But there was ster- 
 ling quality in this membership, which was 
 composed of some of the strongest and most 
 influential families in the capital city of Ala- 
 bama. In the leadership of this vigorous body 
 
22 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 he spent sixteen years of consecrated service. 
 It was not an uninterrupted service, for it 
 included the disastrous times of civil war. 
 Two of these years he spent in active service 
 as an army chaplain with the Seventeenth Ala- 
 bama Regiment, and during that time Dr. 
 Basil Manly, Sr., served the church at Mont- 
 gomery. This period, closing with the year 
 1868, represents Dr. Tichenor's great service 
 as a pastor. The church grew under his 
 administration. It was during the first part 
 of his pastorate that the commodious meeting- 
 house that has served a large and growing 
 congregation for over fifty years was built. 
 A new and miodern temple of worship will 
 soon be dedicated to take its place. Many 
 revival seasons blessed his ministry, and while 
 sending out two colonies to form new churches, 
 the mother church became one of the strongest 
 organizations within the bounds of the South- 
 ern Baptist Convention. There still live, lin- 
 gering on this side of the river, a few aged 
 saints to testify to Dr. Tichenor's effective 
 pastoral service. A letter from one of these, 
 Mrs. John Stratford, still a resident of the old 
 Capital City, is replete with affectionate 
 remembrance of the great preacher, the tender 
 pastor, and the devoted friend. 
 
 As pastor Dr. Tichenor was always loyal 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 23 
 
 to the organized v/ork of his denomination. 
 Through the Foreign Mission Board, the 
 Alabama Association, of which the ]\Iontgom- 
 ery Church was an important part, had sent 
 as a special missionary to Africa, Rev. J. H. 
 Priest and wife. Priest had trouble v/ith the 
 Board, and returning home, tried to get the 
 Association to support him independently of 
 the Board. This was refused. Dr. Tichenor 
 taking the leading part in advocating loyalty 
 to the Board. 
 
 In i860, just before the outbreak of the 
 civil war, and when in his thirty-fifth year, 
 Dr. Tichenor was a conspicuous figure among 
 the Baptists of the South. The Southern Bap- 
 tist Seminary was then completing its first 
 session, and Tichenor was invited to deliver 
 its first baccalaureate sermon. This service he 
 rendered by preaching from the text, "Who 
 is sufficient for these things." Dr. J. Wm. 
 Jones, then a student of the Seminary, still 
 recalls the occasion with great pleasure. 
 
 Dr. Tichenor was a great student of Bible 
 prophesy. From Joel to John of Patmos he 
 loved to climb the mountain peaks with God's 
 prophets, and look forward with them to the 
 coming of God's Kingdom on earth. Much 
 of his preaching was drawn from the pro- 
 phetic books, and his studies in this line 
 
24 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 culminated in a remarkable series of sermons 
 from the Book of Revelation. These were 
 preached in his pulpit soon after the war, 
 attracting wide notice and creating a profound 
 impression. 
 
 Unctions, is the word which to my mind 
 most nearly describes his preaching. Through 
 the intellect he appealed to the heart and 
 stirred the emotions. There was often a melt- 
 ing tenderness that made men weep, yet he 
 seldom told a pathetic story. He could mar- 
 shal his facts, drive his argument, or paint a 
 picture as few men could do. Rhetorically, 
 his power of description was his greatest gift. 
 Especially could he make a Scripture narrative 
 live in the mind. Who that ever heard him 
 could forget his delineation of the unjust judge 
 and the widow that cried, '''Avenge me of mine 
 adversary"? He was a great student of na- 
 ture, and with a master power drew his illus- 
 trations from her marvelous book. From the 
 book of nature he gathered the garlands with 
 which to adorn the truth he brought forth 
 from the greater book of God's revelation. 
 During the period of his pastoral life, Dr. 
 J. B. Hawthorne had frequent opportunities 
 to hear him. preach. We will let him describe 
 Tichenor's pulpit power when he was at his 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 25 
 
 best. We quote from his Tichenor Memorial 
 address at Savannah in 1903. 
 
 "Those who never heard Dr. Tichenor be- 
 fore his voice v/as impaired by bronchial trou- 
 bles, can scarcely conceive of its original 
 flexibility, compass, clearness, strength, and 
 sweetness. It was remarkable for its range 
 and variety of tones. When he was rallying 
 his congregation to the support of some good 
 cause, or proclainiing some notable victory for 
 truth and righteousness, it was like the blast 
 of a brazen trumpet ; but when lamenting mis- 
 fortune or commiserating suffering, it was as 
 tender and as plaintive as the notes of a 
 funeral chant. No less a man than W. L. 
 Yancey declared that he was one of the most 
 instructive, impressive, and irresistible of liv- 
 ing preachers. His sermons were topical. His 
 analysis was brief and simple. He gave little 
 attention to modern text-books on homiletics, 
 but was a careful student of rhetoric. He 
 understood the 'art of discourse/ In con- 
 structing his sermons and addresses, he 
 adhered to the Grecian method. In each one 
 there was a series of climaxes. From the 
 opening to the close there was steady growth 
 in the character of his thought, in the fervor 
 of his passion, and in the beauty and bril- 
 liancy of his diction. He rivited attention 
 upon every phase of his discussion, and when 
 he had concluded it seemed impossible to re- 
 sist his argument. The most conspicuous ele- 
 ments of his oratory were imagination, passion, 
 
26 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 and action. His fancy was Miltonic. His 
 creations were often stupendous, grand, be- 
 wildering, and overpowering. At times his 
 oratory swept everything before it like an 
 Alpine avalanche.'^ 
 
 It is greatly to be regretted that Dr. Tich- 
 enor has left to his family and his brethren 
 but scant written materials of either sermons 
 or addresses. He was essentially an extem- 
 pore speaker, and yet this does not mean that 
 he was careless in his preparation. His chil- 
 dren tell us that his study was often littered, 
 and then the waste basket filled, with the 
 scraps of paper on which he pencilled. These 
 were often the polishing of some striking 
 thought for the Sunday's sermon, or the care- 
 ful storing away in his mind of some great 
 truth, fitly clothed and ready to come leaping 
 forth at his bidding. In 1863, when there was 
 a crisis in the affairs of the civil war, and a 
 special day of fasting and prayer had been 
 proclaimed by President Davis, Dr. Tichenor, 
 by special invitation of the Legislature of Ala- 
 bama, preached a sermon before that body. 
 It was a memorable sermon, and by order of 
 the Legislature was printed. We thus have 
 it preserved, and have printed it in this volume 
 both on account of its historic value and as 
 affording a good specimen of his sermonic 
 work. 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 27 
 
 In his services as chaplain of the Seventeenth 
 Alabama Regiment, composed in part of men 
 from the membership of his own church, Dr. 
 Tichenor was not only mindful of their spirit- 
 ual interests, but was ready to take up the 
 sword with them. His reputation as a sharp- 
 shooter was well known in his regiment, and 
 more than once was put to the test. He 
 belonged to the honorable class of fighting 
 chaplains. At the battle of Shiloh, when his 
 regiment was wavering and panic-stricken 
 under a severe enfilading fire, he v»^as found 
 in the front rallying the men. The following 
 letter, written immediately after the battle of 
 Shiloh, is his own account of the incident. 
 The letter is to Attorney-General Thomas H. 
 Watts, of Montgomery, a member of his 
 church and a lifelong friend : 
 
 Camp Watts, Near Cobinth, April 15, 1862. 
 
 My Dear Friend — Enclosed I send you a copy of 
 a petition to the Secretary of War, asking that the 
 two flags, taken in the great battle of Shiloh by our 
 regiment may be transferred to Governor Shorter, 
 to be placed in the Capitol at Montgomery. I feel 
 that I need not ask you to do all you can to have 
 this petition granted. 
 
 During this engagement we were under a cross 
 fire on the left wing from three directions. Under 
 it the boys wavered. I had been wounded and wae 
 sitting down, but seeing them waver, I sprang to my 
 
28 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 feet — took off my hat — ^waved it over my head- 
 walked np and down the line, and, they say, 
 "preached them a sermon." I reminded them that 
 it was Sunday, that at that hour (11 :30 o'clock) all 
 their home folks were praying for them — that Tom 
 Watts had told us that he would listen with an 
 eager ear to hear from the 17th ; and shouting your 
 name far over the roar of battle, I called upon them 
 to stand there, and die, if need be, for their country. 
 The effect was evident. Every man stood to his 
 post — every eye flashed and every heart beat high 
 with desperate resolve to conquer or die. They 
 piled that ground vv^iih the slain. 
 
 Colonel, I am satisfied—more than satisfied — 
 with my labors as chaplain of the 17th. I feel In 
 my heart the consciousness that in no other posi- 
 tion could I have served the cause of my God and 
 my country so well. I am more than recompensed 
 for all my toils and privations. 
 
 Yours sincerely, 
 
 I. T. TiCHENOR. 
 
 Tichenor was wounded in this engagement, 
 but little consolation did he get from his gen- 
 eral, vv^ho reminded him that if he had been 
 at the rear attending to his proper duties he 
 could not have been hurt. 
 
 Soon after the war it happened that a com- 
 pany of Southern brethren went from the 
 Southern Baptist Convention to bear fraternal 
 greetings to the Northern Anniversaries, then 
 meeting in the city of Chicago. The subject 
 of the education of the Negroes was before 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 29 
 
 the body, and the Southern brethren invited 
 to speak. Several had spoken, and Dr. J. L. 
 Burrows had made a strong speech defining 
 the Southern attitude toward the question. 
 Things were already waxing warm when 
 Tichenor was introduced. He undertook to 
 show that taken from their savage state and 
 brought into contact with Southern civiliza- 
 tion and the true religion, to the Negro, 
 slavery had its compensations. In the midst 
 of his argument he was greeted with a series 
 of hisses. Gathering up all his power, his 
 blue eyes flashing defiance, he tersely repeated 
 his sentiment, and exclaimed : "And neither 
 your hisses nor your bayonets can alter the 
 facts or make me retract a word I have 
 spoken." He then proceeded with his argu- 
 ment, showing how the white Baptists of the 
 South had given the gospel to the slaves. 
 Suddenly the clear, shrill voice of a woman 
 called out in answer from the gallery. Tich- 
 enor, welcoming an opportunity to gracefully 
 retire from his dilemma, bowed in the direc- 
 tion from which came the voice and said: 
 "My Southern gallantry teaches me when a 
 woman speaks to promptly yield the floor." 
 With this he bowed himself off the platform. 
 The next day as he came into the convention 
 hall many of the Northern brethren pressed 
 
80 ISAAC TAYLOR TiCHENOft 
 
 about him to shake his hand, and he found 
 himself quite a hero amongst them. 
 
 After his resignation as pastor of the First 
 Church of Montgomery in 1868, Dr. Tichenor 
 spent several years on his plantation in Shelby 
 County, Alabama. While here he was en- 
 gaged in more or less of protracted meeting 
 work. One of these meetings was conducted 
 in 1870 at Marion, Alabama, and as a young 
 student at college I recall with enthusiasm his 
 wonderful presentations of gospel truth to the 
 unsaved. He became pastor of the First Bap- 
 tist Church of Memphis, Tennessee, in 1871. 
 Here he remained but a year, for in 1872 he 
 responded to a call to a different sphere of 
 service, and it was never his privilege to again 
 enter the pastorate. 
 
THE HOME xMISSION STATESMAN 31 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 DR. TICHENOR AS PRESIDENT OF THE TECHNO- 
 LOGICAL COLLEGE OF ALABAMA. 
 
 OON after the civil war, by the sale of 
 certain government lands, Agricultural 
 and Mechanical Colleges were estab- 
 lished in the various Southern States. 
 For the State of Alabama this school was 
 located at Auburn, in the year 1872. Dr. 
 Tichenor became its first president, and gave 
 ten years of his life to the foundation work 
 which has established one of the best techno- 
 logical schools in the South. This work was 
 thoroughly congenial to his tastes, and in it 
 he scored a signal success. Concerned as he 
 always was for the developmient of the mate- 
 rial resources of his own section, he was not 
 slow to seize the opportunity afforded by this 
 position. He became a close student of all the 
 agricultural, the mineral, and the manufactur- 
 ing conditions of the South. The trustees of 
 the institution over which he presided have 
 given ample testimony to the debt they owe 
 to their first president, in laying the broad and 
 
82 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 secure foundation on which they have since 
 built. He projected broad and Uberal plans 
 for the growth of a great college. Especially 
 did he contribute an important part in bring- 
 ing the people of Alabama to realize some- 
 thing of their mineral as well as their agri- 
 cultural resources. When at the high tide 
 of his work at Auburn he was recognized as 
 in the forefront of those who had expert 
 knowledge of the hidden material resources of 
 his State, and his educational addresses were 
 a part of the seed-sowing that has yielded to 
 the present generation so rich a harvest. The 
 first time I ever heard Dr. Tichenor in one 
 of his great addresses was during this period 
 of his life. It lives in my miemory. I was 
 then nineteen years of age, and for the first 
 time a delegate to the Baptist State Convention 
 of Alabama. The meeting was at Gadsden. 
 Tichenor spoke to the report on State Mis- 
 sions. His plea for a broad and liberal policy 
 in State Mission work was based upon the 
 prophecy that Alabama would soon become a 
 great manufacturing State. Great cities would 
 spring up and the multitudes must have the 
 gospel of Jesus Christ. Birmingham was then 
 but a straggling village, but he prophesied that 
 there were men there present who would live 
 to see the day when that section of Alabama 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 33 
 
 would be a most important factor in fixing 
 the price of iron in the markets of the world. 
 There were men who heard him on that occa- 
 sion who called him visionary. Yet he and 
 they have lived to see the realization of his 
 dream, and the hands of the Baptists of Ala- 
 bama are still busy with the task he on that 
 day set before them. 
 
 It was during his life in Auburn that Dr. 
 Tichenor grew into the fullness of his knowl- 
 edge of the marvelous material resources of 
 the South. Fev/ men knew his native section 
 so well, or loved it more. Let me here place 
 on record the language of one intimately ac- 
 quainted with the range of his knowledge and 
 the channels of his thought. 
 
 *'With the South's history, traditions, man- 
 ners, customs, peculiar traits, and distinctive 
 genius, he was familiar. Its flora and fauna, 
 its soil and climatic conditions, its geography, 
 its geology, its forests, its mines, its water 
 power, its splendid possibilities, many of which 
 were unknown to the quest of commercial 
 enterprise, and hidden even from scientific 
 eyes, were grasped and appreciated by his keen 
 penetration. He foresaw most of the indus- 
 trial achievements of modern Southern en- 
 deavor, saluted them from afar, prayed for 
 their coming, and proclaimed them the accesso- 
 ries of Christ's Kingdom. The South ever 
 
34 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 loomed before his vision as the section of des- 
 tiny in our great republic, and as directly re- 
 lated to Anglo-Saxon well-being the world 
 over." (Report of Home Mission Board to 
 the Southern Baptist Convention in 1903.) 
 
 It was while at Auburn, also, that Dr. Tich- 
 enor came into the full richness of his charm- 
 ing literary style. His baccalaureate addresses 
 to his graduating classes were models of choice 
 English, and yet full of the most stimulating 
 thought to the young men whose lives he was 
 seeking to impress for time and eternity. He 
 was to his pupils as a father, not only in wise 
 counsel, but often in making provision from 
 his own purse that they might remain in col- 
 lege. 
 
 While in the pastorate Dr. Tichenor received 
 from Howard College the degree of Doctor of 
 Divinity. It was soon after his retirement 
 from Auburn that the College there, in token of 
 their appreciation of his service and character, 
 as well as his acquaintance with all good learn- 
 ing, bestowed upon him the honorary title of 
 Doctor of Laws. This he wore with honor to 
 the institution to which he had given a choice 
 decade of his life. 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 35 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 AN INCIDENT OF IMMENSE MOMENT IN THE HIS- 
 TORY OF AMERICAN BAPTISTS. 
 
 mN the chronicles of Baptist history, the 
 year 1879 needs to be written in large 
 letters. In Atlanta, Georgia, at the 
 Southern Convention that year, there 
 transpired ai: incident of immense moment in 
 the history of American Baptists. The con- 
 dition of affairs leading up to this year of crisis, 
 and the part taken by Dr. Tichenor in the 
 episode of that Convention, needs to be here 
 recorded, for it has important bearing on the 
 subsequent life work of our ''Home Mission 
 Statesman." 
 
 We must pause here long enough to recall 
 some of the most salient facts connected with 
 the making of the Southern Baptist Conven- 
 tion, and we cannot do this better than by lib- 
 eral quotation from the Historical Address by 
 Dr. W. H. Whitsitt, on the Fiftieth Anniver- 
 sary of the Southern Baptist Convention, 
 delivered at its session in Washington, D. C, 
 in 1895. 
 
36 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 The Baptists of the South having withdrawn 
 their co-operation from the Baptists of the 
 North, immediately met, and at Augusta, Ga., 
 May 8th, 1845, organized the Southern Bap- 
 tist Convention. 
 
 To quote from Dr. Whitsitt : 
 
 "When the fathers of our Convention met 
 together to consult about its constitution, they 
 decided to go back beyond the convulsions of 
 the year 1826, and as far as possible to adopt 
 the principles and methods which had pre- 
 vailed from the beginning in the General Mis- 
 sionary Convention. One change, however, 
 was dictated by prudence and by an accurate 
 knowledge of the facts. Instead of establish- 
 ing a Southern Baptist Convention with a 
 single Board which should have charge of 
 several different departments of denomina- 
 tional exertion, it was decided to establish two 
 co-ordinate Boards, each of which should be 
 dependent upon the body that had originated 
 them. These co-ordinate Boards, one for 
 foreign and the other for domestic missions, 
 were but the forerunners of other interests." 
 
 To illustrate the character of the Convention 
 and to show its place and power as a Baptist 
 center of co-operation. Dr. Whitsitt enumer- 
 ates the several bodies which, in addition to 
 the Home and Foreign Boards, had come 
 through the years under its fostering care, 
 viz.: The Bible Board, 1851, which went out 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 37 
 
 with the war ; the Theological Seminary, 1859, 
 which has come to a mighty place among us; 
 the former Sunday School Board, 1863, which 
 was discontinued, 1873; the Woman's Alis- 
 sionary Union, 1888, now a vast power for 
 good; the present Sunday School Board, 1891, 
 now the pride of our people ; and the South- 
 ern Baptist Educational Conference, 1893. 
 
 To quote from Dr Whitsitt : 
 
 "The relations of these different bodies to 
 the central organization may not always be 
 uniform ; yet they are each one in its own way 
 dependent on the Convention. Historical 
 development and the training that has been 
 received by our people for fifty years require 
 that every religious enterprise carried on 
 among white Baptists within the limits of the 
 Southern Baptist Convention shall be in one 
 or another form auxiliary to the Convention. 
 Whatever may be out of touch, and especially 
 out of harmony, with this body, is liable to 
 meet Avith more or less decided opposition, and 
 to occasion more or less of conflict." 
 
 After fifteen years of successful co-operation, 
 with growth and enlargement of its plans and 
 enterprises, the Convention came into years of 
 poverty and peril. It was during the last 
 years of this period of darkness, that Dr. Tich- 
 enor was in the enjoyment of his congenial task 
 as President of the College at Auburn, Ala- 
 
38 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 bama. But he always loved his Baptist people, 
 and did not now fail to keep in close touch with 
 the things that concerned them. He was 
 always present in their deliberative bodies, 
 lending aid and council in the solution of the 
 problems growing out of the changed social 
 and economic conditions that followed the 
 civil war. That war had left cruel desolation 
 in its track. The still more cruel decade of 
 armed reconstruction had repressed the most 
 heroic efforts to rehabilitate the Southland. 
 These conditions vitally affected the Baptist 
 churches of the South, and the enterprises 
 they fostered were in sad straits. There were 
 hearts in Zion that cried out, "How long! O 
 God, how long !" 
 
 To quote Dr. Whitsitt : 
 
 "To this aggregation of evils was added the 
 remarkable financial panic that overtook the 
 country in the autumn of 1873, whose results 
 were keenly felt almost by every inhabitant of 
 our section for six or seven years. The expe- 
 rience of those long days of torture and humil- 
 iation are still remembered and will haunt 
 many people as an evil dream as long as they 
 live in the world. If the affairs of the Con- 
 vention were in a sorry plight, this was nothing 
 more than might justly be said of every oth«r 
 business enterprise." 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 39 
 
 The evil eft'ects of those years of struggle 
 and peril were severest with the Home ]\Iission 
 Board, leaving it shorn of its strength, crippled 
 in its usefulness, and with its very existence 
 uncertain. To its care had been committed 
 "the effects and functions" of the defunct 
 Sunday School Board. At the same time 
 there was talk of merging the Home Board 
 itself into the Foreign Mission Board, because 
 of the stress of the times. 
 
 To quote Dr. Whitsitt : 
 
 "These dangerous intimations were defeated, 
 but the Board was not thereby restored to its 
 former vigor. Centrifugal forces were every- 
 where at work. Several of the States had 
 organized mission boards to care for their own 
 territory, and honorable State Conventions 
 deliberately passed resolutions by which the 
 Domestic Mission Board should be excluded 
 from their boundaries. These proposed to 
 take charge of the entire work of home mis- 
 sions, allowing the Convention to make no 
 collections and to extend no assistance in any 
 place where their authority was respected. 
 Still other States had entered upon terms of co- 
 operation with rival organizations situated in 
 other sections of the country. That was 
 notably true of the district west of the Missis- 
 sippi river, which, by one process or another, 
 had all been lost to the Domestic Mission 
 Board. It had no agent, and was rendering 
 
40 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 no assistance in any portion of that wide terri- 
 tory. This process of disintegration was not 
 confined to the trans-Mississippi department. 
 In some of the States on the eastern side of the 
 river brethren had turned away from the 
 Domestic Board and were working in connec- 
 tion with rival Societies. The outlook was as 
 gloomy as it well ^ could be. In addition to 
 the above, the Seminary was all the while in 
 grave peril. . . . They m.ust have been 
 comparatively few who had courage enough 
 in those evil days to conceive any firm faith in 
 the future of the institution.'' 
 
 Such was the situation in our Southern Zion 
 as our people in those hours of peril approached 
 the crisis in their affairs. And everywhere 
 the Baptists of the South were confronted with 
 the question as to whether their separate organ- 
 izations and enterprises would be maintained. 
 This condition had reached its crisis in the 
 year 1879. 
 
 To quote Dr. Whitsitt : 
 
 ''Under all these circumstances it was noth- 
 ing more than one might expect, that questions 
 concerning the life or death of the Convention 
 should in due time be raised. That issue was 
 brought forward and discussed at Atlanta, 
 Georgia, during the session of the Convention 
 in 1879. Here was indeed a ''battle of the 
 giants." No such momentous controversy has 
 been brougfht before us in the entire course of 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 41 
 
 Our history. On the afternoon of the first clay 
 an impressive preamble and a couple of reso- 
 lutions were proposed." 
 
 The resolutions were as follows : 
 
 Whereas, The time has come when all who be- 
 lieve in Jesus should work mightily for the deliver- 
 ance of the nation from the bondage of sin; when 
 the voice of Divine Providence calls us to greater 
 sacrifices and nobler efforts to secure the triumph- 
 ant coming of his kingdom ; and, 
 
 Whereas, The cordial cooperation of the Baptists 
 of the United States would tend greatly to promote 
 their efficiency in this grand work ; and, 
 
 Whereas, The love of Jesus and the wants of 
 dying men demand that, allowing "the dead past 
 to bury its dead," we, leaving the things which are 
 behind, should press forward to deliver the kindreds 
 of the earth from ignorance and vice, and bring 
 them into the liberty wherewith Christ is able to 
 set them free ; therefore, 
 
 Resolved, That five brethren be appointed by 
 this Convention to bear to our Baptist brethren of 
 the Northern States, at their approaching anni- 
 versaries, expressions of our fraternal regard and 
 assurances of our readiness to cooperate cordially 
 with them in promoting the cause of Christ in our 
 own and all foreign lands. 
 
 Resolved, That we respectfully suggest to them 
 the propriety of holding, at some convenient time 
 and place, a meeting of representative men from 
 all sections of our common country, to devise and 
 propose such plans of cooperation between this 
 Convention and other Baptist bodies of the United 
 States as may best contribute to the more efficient 
 
42 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 working of the Baptist brotherhood, to the good of 
 all men, and to the glory of our Redeemer. 
 
 To quote Dr. Whitsitt : 
 
 "This document was expressed in diplomatic 
 terms, and yet it was generally understood that 
 it related mainly to the question of ''preserving 
 our separate organizations." As in the case 
 of all issues of first-class importance, the busi- 
 ness was referred to a committee composed of 
 one from each State. When it came up for 
 discussion on the morning of Saturday, May 
 lo, 1879, after an address by the Chairman, it 
 was moved by John A. Bro:idus, of Kentucky, 
 to strike out the two resolutions, and on that 
 proposition a debate was held which lasted 
 throughout the day. Shortly before adjourn- 
 ment in the afternoon, the motion of Dr. 
 Broadus was carried, and an amended resolu- 
 tion was substituted in the following terms : 
 
 "The committee to whom were referred the reso- 
 lutions on cooperation with our Northern brethren, 
 have had the same under consideration, and instruct 
 me to report the following resolution : 
 
 ^'Resolved, That five brethren be appointed by 
 this Convention to bear to our Baptist brethren of 
 the Northern States, at their approaching anniver- 
 saries, expressions of our fraternal regard, and 
 assurances that while firmly holding to the wisdom 
 and policy of preserving our separate organizations, 
 we are ready, as in the past, to cooperate cordially 
 with them in promoting the cause of Christ in our 
 own and foreign lands." 
 
 "In this manner an issue was quietly closed 
 which had threatened us with the most serious 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 43 
 
 consequences, and there has never been a 
 moment since tlie year 1879 when it was even 
 remotely possible for such a question to be 
 again discussed before the Convention/' 
 
 Thus the Southern Baptist Convention set- 
 tled the question of its own existence, and 
 established itself as a potent factor to influence 
 the future of American Baptists. The Baptists 
 of the South, with a heroism unsurpassed by 
 any people in the annals of history, declared 
 with unanimous voice for "the wisdom and 
 policy of preserving our separate organiza- 
 tions." This was done in the interest of their 
 own great enterprises, especially their Foreign 
 Mission Board, their Home Mission Board, 
 and their Theological Seminary, as being 
 mighty agencies for meeting their own high 
 obligation and for the furtherance of the king- 
 dom of Christ at Home and throughout the 
 world. 
 
 The preamble and resolutions to which Dr. 
 Whitsitt referred and which I have introduced 
 in full, were presented to the Convention by 
 Dr. Tichenor. His address in support of the 
 resolutions is remembered as one of the great- 
 est speeches of his life, thrillingly eloquent; 
 while the reply on the part of Dr. Broadus 
 was a masterpiece even for that great Baptist 
 Commoner. It was never in the mind of Dr. 
 
44 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 Tichenor to advocate in these resolutions 
 "organic union" with the North; and no one 
 ever questioned his integrity or his loyalty to 
 either the Convention itself or to any of the 
 great enterprises which it had in hand. 
 
 In the encroachment of other Baptist bodies 
 upon the territory of the Southern Baptist 
 Convention, he saw a disintegrating force and 
 realized that the issue had to be met. There 
 was need for a clearer understanding between 
 Northern and Southern Baptists as to the 
 rights of their respective missionary organiza- 
 tions in certain definite sections of our country, 
 and there should be co-operation instead of 
 antagonism. The first thing to do, was to try 
 to settle the matters at issue in a fraternal way, 
 and he therefore introduced these ''diplomatic 
 resolutions" for a fraternal conference. There 
 was little hope that there could be made a sat- 
 isfactory agreement with Northern Baptists 
 on the question of boundaries or any other 
 matters that were at issue; but if after an 
 honest trial it failed, then Southern Baptists 
 would have all the stronger plea for an aggres- 
 sive policy in securing their rights in their own 
 territory. 
 
 Remembering the chivalric spirit of the man 
 and his devotion to the South and all Southern 
 interests, especially of the Baptists of the 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 45 
 
 South, we do not wonder that, in common 
 with his brethren, feeUng the fearful stress of 
 the times and disturbed even unto soreness of 
 heart with the constant agitation about co- 
 operation with the Baptists of the North, Dr. 
 Tichenor determined upon this course to bring 
 the matter to a final issue. And acting in all 
 frankness, with heroic spirit and resolute pur- 
 pose, he resolved to make the issue and then 
 abide the consequences and stand loyally with 
 his brethren in whatever decision they should 
 give in this great denominational tribunal. 
 
 This at least is what he did, and no one 
 among us wrought more valiantly to work out 
 the mission and destiny of the Convention. 
 And this settlement of the issue, in the provi- 
 dence of God, opened the way for the difficult 
 position to which he v/as called by his brethren 
 three years later. That position he filled as 
 Home Mission Statesm.an for twenty years, 
 and as a great leader among us wrought the 
 greatest service of his life in bringing the 
 Southern Baptist Convention into full posses- 
 sion of its own. 
 
 Dr. Whitsitt did not overdraw the picture 
 of darkness and peril into which our affairs 
 had come, and especially as related to the Home 
 Mission Board. And yet over against that as 
 a light on a cloud, stands the remarkable fact 
 
46 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 that throughout this same session of the Con- 
 vention (Atlanta, 1879), ^^^ Home Mission 
 Board, though it had received for that year 
 not quite seventeen thousand dollars, all told, 
 was endorsed and commended in the strongest 
 and most generous terms, and its work was 
 treated with favor and distinction. So em- 
 phatic was this, and so important as marking 
 the transition of that stormy period, that we 
 give in full herewith the report of one of the 
 several committees which were charged with 
 reviewing its work for the past and outlining 
 its need and policy for the future. 
 
 From Minutes of Convention, 1879 — Report 
 on Home Board : 
 
 WOEK OF BOAED IIT DOMESTIC DEPABTMENT. 
 
 In presenting a report your committee presume 
 that it is unnecessary to intimate lines of duty, or 
 offer instructions to the Board whose grand busi- 
 ness it is to conduct the missions needed in the 
 Home work, called for by the waste or destitute 
 portions of our Conventional territory. But in the 
 present attitude of our denominational affairs, in 
 this crisis of financial depression, and in the con- 
 fusion of agencies to promote great evangelical 
 enterprises, it may be necessary to present some 
 suggestions, as to what the Home Mission Board 
 should be occupied in in promoting or in stimulating 
 our churches to aid it in accomplishing. Let it 
 then be settled as a fixed matter in the hearts of 
 Southern Baptists : 
 
 1. That the Home Mission Board is a necessity. 
 The w^ork yet to be done is very great. The terri- 
 tory for which the Board was originally created to 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 47 
 
 provide the preaching of a pure gospel wherever 
 destitution existed, is no less extensive at this time 
 than in 1845. The extension of the railroad system, 
 the opening of new farming districts, the settle- 
 ment and enlargement of new towns and villages, 
 demand continued efforts to sustain Missions at all 
 important points for influence. Varied forms of 
 error, new exhibitions of old errors, specious phases 
 of fanciful theories of religion or worship, covert 
 atheism, open infidelity and Romanism, all active 
 with aggressive leaders, require on the part of 
 Baptists undying energy and zeal to plant the 
 standard of the truth on a vantage ground from 
 which it can never be driven. 
 
 2. That there are points in most of the States, 
 which the State Conventions or General Associa- 
 tions cannot effectually sustain without aid outside 
 of State organizations. Among these may be named 
 San Antonio and Corpus Christi, in Texas; Pine 
 Bluff and Hot Springs, Arkansas, and Tallahassee, 
 in Florida. There are doubtless other places in 
 other States which, as our whole territory develops 
 and our population increases, will also call for the 
 attention and aid of this Board. 
 
 3. To give unity to our work, and to harmonize 
 all State organizations with our plans and modes 
 of operation so as to prevent collision between 
 State and General Secretaries, it is important that 
 there should be a common organ for communication, 
 cooperation, and general aims for the attainment 
 of our great mission. The Home Mission Board of 
 this Convention will probably have work to do until 
 the millenium dawns in the world. 
 
 4. The Home Mission Board will always be our 
 most effective agent in collecting, collating, publish- 
 ing, and placing in enduring form the statistics of 
 all our Associations, District and State Societies 
 and Conventions. It can be hardly doubted that 
 our congregational form of government will ever 
 make it difficult to obtain perfectly accurate statis- 
 tics, but this Board can do more than any other 
 organization in collecting and making known our 
 true condition as to our numbers, religious zeal, 
 activity, and contributions, 
 
48 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 The Board should be assured the fervent pray- 
 ers, generous contributions, and active cooperation 
 in every feasible method of every church member 
 in every church within the bounds of the Conven- 
 tion. The Board must have the means to answer 
 with encouraging vrords and aid the calls now made 
 upon it with intense earnestness. 
 Respectfully submitted, 
 
 W. C. Crane, Texas. 
 
 J. F. B. Mays, Tennessee. 
 
 B. Manly, Kentucky. 
 
 O. H. Chalkley, Virginia. 
 
 R. H. Griffith, North Carolina, 
 
 J. A. W. Thomas, South Carolina, 
 
 L. R. L. Jennings, Georgia. 
 
 This report expressed the sentiment of the 
 Convention and had the ring of heroic metal. 
 Its words are as true now as then in emphasiz- 
 ing the need of this work in the organic Hfe of 
 the denomination. It has on it today the em- 
 phasis of enlargement and may well serve as 
 the appeal for still further enlargement. We 
 add a final word from Dr. Whitsitt's address, 
 as follows : 
 
 "The Home Mission Board, which had so 
 long been in an enfeebled condition, began to 
 receive new favor after 1879. In the year 1882 
 it was reconstructed at Greenville, South Caro- 
 lina, and, under Dr. I. T. Tichenor, started 
 upon a career of prosperity that has been the 
 joy and the marvel of our recent history. Ex- 
 perience has amply demonstrated that this 
 agency is necessary to the prosperity and effi- 
 ciency of the Convention. Therefore we may 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 49 
 
 well rejoice in every influence that contributes 
 to strengthen the hands and to improve the 
 resources of the Home Mission Board." 
 
 With this setting forth of the conditions of 
 that period, and the settled purpose of South- 
 ern Baptists to work out, under God, their 
 own distinct mission, we are the better pre- 
 pared to understand and appreciate the work 
 of our "Home Mission Statesman" in the 
 service which he rendered as an official of the 
 Southern Baptist Convention. For twenty 
 years he toiled at the task, and to the record of 
 it we will now turn. 
 4 
 
50 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 DR. TICHENOR AS SECRETARY OF THE HOME 
 
 MISSION BOARD OP THE SOUTHERN 
 
 BAPTIST CONVENTION. 
 
 *'We challenge the wisdom of the Christian 
 world to the proposition that the evangelization of 
 this country is, among human affairs, the mightiest 
 factor in the world's redemption." — /. T. Tichenor. 
 
 mMPORTANT as was the work of I. T. 
 Tichenor as president of a technologi- 
 cal school in Alabama, it has an added 
 meaning in his life when we see in it 
 also a work of preparation for a still greater 
 task to which God and his brethren would 
 call him. Ten years of academic life at Au- 
 burn, engaged as he was in the profound study 
 of our Southland, its marvelous resources, its 
 imperative needs, and its new and perplexing 
 problems, was God's preparation of the man 
 who was to lead Southern Baptists in the new 
 era of our changed social and industrial life. 
 Thus it happened in the providence of God 
 that in the year 1882, the Home Mission Board 
 
c/. c/^. /^^^^^^e^^^-f^-i^ 
 
 SECRETARY. 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 51 
 
 of the Southern Baptist Convention was re- 
 moved from Marion, Alabama, to Atlanta, 
 Georgia, and I. T. Tichenor was chosen as 
 its secretary. To this great task he devoted 
 the full maturities of his powers, and this last 
 segment of his life, spanning a period of nearly 
 twenty years, must be recognized as his highest 
 contribution to the times in which he lived. 
 It is upon this part of his life that we need 
 to place the greatest emphasis. 
 
 In entering upon this work. Dr. Tichenor 
 conceived that it was the function of his Board 
 not only to help weak churches here and there, 
 but carefully to study the conditions of our 
 homeland, and to lead the way in the solution 
 of the great problems that confront the Bap- 
 tists of the South. Without entering into the 
 details of the work, I call attention to the most 
 important lines of his aggressive leadership. 
 
 I. As to Our Western Frontier. — As the 
 new Secretary cast his eyes across the Missis- 
 sippi, he found there his first and most impor- 
 tant problem. Except for its missionaries 
 among the Indians, the Board then had only 
 six missionaries west of the great river. The 
 Home Mission Society of New York, at that 
 time recognizing no territorial limits, was 
 making inroads upon our Western flank. 
 With tempting donations to weak churches 
 
S2 Isaac tavlor ticmenor 
 
 and invitations to a permanent alliance, that 
 society was threatening the solidarity of the 
 Southern Baptist Convention. In the great 
 empire of Texas the New York Society was 
 putting forth its best effort, while our Board 
 had only two missionaries to that whole do- 
 main, and had that year received from the 
 whole of Texas the paltry sum of $207. 
 Tichenor gave prompt attention to this con- 
 dition. He traveled through the State visiting 
 churches, associations, and conventions. He 
 at once grasped the magnitude and importance 
 of the problem in its relation to Southern Bap- 
 tists. He found a vast world of destitution, 
 but a great empire of promise. He found 
 a population largely Baptist and intensely 
 Southern. This Empire of the Southwest that 
 might slip from our hands he found easy to 
 hold in its natural place in our ranks. They 
 would be glad of the opportunity. It at once 
 became a settled policy of his Board to main- 
 tain the natural solidarity of the Convention 
 by holding the great Southwest as its special 
 mission field. 
 
 As a result the Secretary was able in his 
 first report to the Southern Baptist Conven- 
 tion to record that his Board had thirty-four 
 missionaries in Texas, that Texas had con- 
 tributed $2,335 to Home Missions, and that 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 53 
 
 they had formed a most satisfactory system 
 of co-operation with the Texas Baptists. This 
 was the beginning of the system of co-opera- 
 tive w^ork with State Boards which has entered 
 largely into the policy of the Home Board 
 ever since. In Tichenor's second annual re- 
 port we find that his Board has seventy-eight 
 men at work west of the Mississippi, and 
 fifty-eight of these in Texas. The report de- 
 clares that "it is gratifying to know that the 
 rank Texas is taking among the States that 
 support our Convention is due in no small 
 degree to' the work of our Home Board." 
 The next year (1885) the emphasis placed by 
 the Board upon this field is shown by the fact 
 that of the one hundred and eighty-five mis- 
 sionaries of the Board then employed, one 
 hundred and thirty-one were west of the Mis- 
 sissippi, and eighty-one of these at work in 
 Texas. The report of that year in a special 
 paragraph on Texas as a mission field closes 
 with these words : ''The success of our work 
 there in the years that are past, as well as at 
 the present time, betoken that Texas is rapidly 
 becoming the strongest of our Baptist States. 
 In the not distant future her mighty legions 
 will perform no insignificant part in the con- 
 quest of other lands for Him whose right it is 
 to reign." 
 
54 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 In the year 1900, which closed Tichenor^s 
 administration as Secretary, the Board re- 
 ported three hundred and forty-six mission- 
 aries west of the great river. Today the Board 
 has five hundred and seventy-nine mission- 
 aries in the great Southwest, and that vast and 
 growing country intensely loyal to the South- 
 ern Baptist Convention. This year of our 
 Lord 1907, Texas has given to Home Missions 
 $37,000, which is twice as much as all the 
 Southern States combined contributed to that 
 Board the year before Tichenor entered its 
 office. This same Texas has this same year 
 given to our Foreign Mission Board the sum 
 of $58,000, which is $10,000 more than the 
 income of the Foreign Mission Board from 
 the whole South the year before he became 
 Secretary. 
 
 I think that no one will doubt that this 
 present happy condition is due in large meas- 
 ure to the wisdom in which Tichenor handled 
 the problem at the time of its crisis. If there 
 is a section of our Southland that honors the 
 name of Tichenor more than another, I think 
 it is the Southwest. They believed in him and 
 trusted his leadership to the fullest. The mas- 
 ter workmen who are there today building 
 colossal enterprises for the hastening of God's 
 Kingdom on earth will not forget his memory. 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 55 
 
 2. Oitr Sunday School Periodical Litera- 
 ture, — At the time that Dr. Tichenor entered 
 upon the Secretaryship, there was in progress 
 a new development in Sunday-school methods. 
 The introduction of the International Series 
 of Lessons called for a special graded series 
 of lesson helps. This demand was being 
 promptly met by various publishing houses. 
 The Home Board was at the time publishing 
 its Sunday-school paper, Kind IVords. This 
 was a weekly paper with which it had been 
 entrusted by the Convention when its former 
 Sunday School Board was discontinued, and 
 it was made the function of the Home Board 
 to also care for the Sunday-school interests 
 of the denomination in the South. The Kind 
 Words publication was wholly inadequate to 
 the new needs that had arisen in Sunday-school 
 work. The question before the Board was 
 whether Southern Baptists should leave the 
 supply of their literature to Northern and 
 Western firms, or hold in their own grasp this 
 source of power with the churches. In the 
 face of much opposition. Dr. Tichenor was 
 from the very beginning clear, positive, and 
 aggressive in holding that the only wise policy 
 was for the Southern Baptist Convention to 
 publish its own Sunday-school literature. 
 With his usual foresight he appreciated the 
 
56 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 power of a people's making their own litera- 
 ture. He especially saw its molding influence 
 upon the lives of each new generation of our 
 young people, and he wrought out the plan 
 of a full line of Sunday-school lesson helps, 
 such as were being published by other denomi- 
 nations, and by our Baptist brethren at the 
 North, through the American Baptist Publica- 
 tion Society at Philadelphia. 
 
 The lease under which the Home Mission 
 Board was publishing Kind Words was to ex- 
 pire in 1886. Dr. Tichenor's report to the 
 Convention in Augusta in 1885 calls attention 
 to this and asks for a committee to consider 
 the question of making a new lease that would 
 meet the advanced needs of Sunday-school 
 work. Dr. J. B. Hawthorne, then a member 
 of the Board, tells us that before the meeting 
 in Augusta, the Secretary outlined to him the 
 whole policy which he proposed to advocate. 
 Dr. Tichenor, as quoted by Dr. Hawthorne in 
 his memorial address, said: ''We must get 
 the Convention to adopt a resolution author- 
 izing the Home Board to provide for the publi- 
 cation of a periodical literature for our South- 
 ern Baptist Sunday schools. Then the Board 
 must let the contract for the publication of this 
 literature for a term of five years to some 
 reliable firm. The success of the undertaking 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 57 
 
 will convince the Convention of the impor- 
 tance of continuing the work." 
 
 Dr. Tichenor carried out his purpose, and 
 at Augusta in 1885 the Convention authorized 
 the Board to mature plans to meet the new 
 needs. The Board at once began the execution 
 of this high trust, and a year later, 1886, re- 
 ported to the Convention at Montgomery a 
 plan for publishing its periodicals. It was a 
 contract with competent and trustworthy prin- 
 ters for a term of five years, to publish the 
 series without cost or financial liability to 
 either the Home Board or the Convention, but 
 with the possibility of profit in the way of 
 royalty. The Convention approved the plan, 
 confirmed the contract, and authorized the 
 Board to proceed with the work. Thus it 
 came to pass that in January, 1887, the Kind 
 Words Series of Graded Lesson Helps were 
 first published, and Dr. Tichenor presented 
 them to the denomination, feeling sure of their 
 need and destiny among the Baptists of the 
 South. 
 
 Then there came one of the severest conflicts 
 ever known in our denominational life. The 
 American Baptist Publication Society was al- 
 ready furnishing many of our schools with 
 literature, and finding a profitable field for its 
 business. It was more than willing to under- 
 
58 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 take the publishing business for the Baptists 
 of the South, and also the care of their Sunday- 
 school interests. And many of our people, 
 including some of the very best leaders among 
 us, were in favor of committing these high 
 interests to the Society. The Society itself 
 pressed its claim with vigor upon the attention 
 of our people, and through its friends with- 
 stood this movement of the Convention to fos- 
 ter its own Sunday-school cause and publish 
 its own Sunday-school literature. The Home 
 Mission Board, with its able Secretary, held 
 that it would be a mistake to commit such a 
 trust to any organization outside of the Con- 
 vention itself, and heroically stood for the 
 policy which it had outlined and inaugurated. 
 While the contention was at its height, and 
 speedily coming to its crisis. Dr. J. M. Frost, 
 the present Secretary of the Sunday School 
 Board, but then pastor in Richmond, Virginia, 
 published in The Religion'^ Herald of that city, 
 Jan. lo, 1890, a set of resolutions which were 
 copied in the Baptist press of the South. These 
 resolutions proposed to create a "Publication 
 Board" to take charge of our Sunday-school 
 literature, and were to be presented to the 
 Southern Baptist Convention in May at Fort 
 Worth, Texas. This was an independent 
 movement, growing out of the discussion and 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 59 
 
 friendly to the Home Mission Board, but with- 
 out consultation with either that Board or its 
 Secretary, and indeed without their knowl- 
 edge. And yet the first word of approval and 
 endorsement to come from outside of Rich- 
 mond, and come promptly, to the mover of the 
 resolution, was from Dr. Tichenor, giving en- 
 dorsement and promising full support of him- 
 self and of his Board. From the first it was in 
 the mind of Dr. Tichenor, often expressed to 
 those nearest to him, that ultimately the Con- 
 vention must have a separate Board in charge 
 of its publication interests. 
 
 The resolutions brought on a heated discus- 
 sion, and in due time were presented to the 
 Convention. But at Forth Worth a tentative 
 and compromised measure prevailed which 
 provided for a Sunday School Committee to be 
 located at Louisville, Kentucky. But this was 
 inadequate and unsatisfactory, and the battle 
 raged for another year. The final victory 
 came for a settled policy which all now believe 
 to be eminently wise when the Convention in 
 session at Birmingham, in 1891, created the 
 present Sunday School Board, and located 
 it at Nashville, Tennessee. Under instruction 
 of the Convention, the Home Board turned 
 over to the new board its publication business, 
 which had already attained great success under 
 
60 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 trying difficulties, and had proven itself a valu- 
 able asset, both in money and in educational 
 value. Dr. Tichenor never failed, during his 
 entire life, to give this enterprise his support 
 in public and private, and considered it the 
 most effective way to carry out the plan which 
 he himself had inaugurated for the Baptists 
 of the South to publish and control their own 
 literature. 
 
 It has been in accord with the fitness of 
 things that Dr. J. M. Frost should in largest 
 measure guide the destinies of the new board. 
 And now that great success has crowned the 
 enterprise, and it has become an immense 
 power in our denominational life, the Sunday 
 School Board does not forget its obligation to 
 the old Home Mission Secretary. Last year 
 Dr. Frost sent the check of his Board for two 
 thousand dollars to the Tichenor Memorial 
 Church Building Fund of the Home 
 Board. In so doing they give ample recogni- 
 tion of Dr. Tichenor's relation to the founda- 
 tion of their great enterprise. They say to the 
 Home Board: 'This contribution is in con- 
 sideration of the distinguished services Dr. 
 Tichenor rendered the denomination in origi- 
 nating the series of periodicals we are now 
 publishing." 
 
 Tv/o of the most important factors in the 
 
THE HOME xVllssiON is'iA'rESMAN 61 
 
 solidarity of the Southern Baptist Convention 
 today are to be found in the great and loyal 
 constituency we now have in the great South- 
 west, and the power and influence now wielded 
 by our Sunday School Board in its great sys- 
 tem of Sunday-school literature, and Sunday- 
 school evangelism. To no one man are \v^ 
 more indebted to these things than to him who, 
 in the crises of these enterprises, stood at the 
 helm and outlined and guided the policies of 
 the Home Board. 
 
 3. Our Mountain Problem. — It was early 
 in his work that Dr. Tichenor began to place 
 a special emphasis upon the sokttion of the 
 mountain problem. His expert knowledge of 
 the material resources of our mountain section, 
 together with the character of its native popu- 
 lation, led him to prophesy to Southern Bap- 
 tists concerning these conditions and the obli- 
 gations arising out of them. His first great 
 deliverance on this subject is found in his 
 report to the Convention for 1885, and it is 
 well worth recording here. 
 
 "This mountain region extending from Vir- 
 ginia to x\labama, and embracing parts of 
 these States, as well as portions of Georgia, 
 Tennessee, North Carolina, Kentucky, and 
 West Virginia, must, in the not distant future, 
 develop an amount of material wealth of vvhich 
 
62 ISAAC TAYLOR TICMENOR 
 
 many of our people have little conception. 
 It is filled with Baptists. The large majority 
 of their people are either members of our 
 churches or are under their influence. But 
 they are for the most part poor, and have 
 enjoyed slender advantages, either for intel- 
 lectual or spiritual culture. Our interest in 
 them as brethren, and our interest looking to 
 the future of our denomination, alike require 
 that we extend to them a helping hand. Men 
 of broad views and sound practical judgment 
 sent among them now to induce a desire for 
 better things, to stimulate them to establish 
 schools, to erect better houses of worship, and 
 to elevate them to a higher plane of life, would 
 be work for them and for the Lord, which will 
 be as lasting as the eternal mountains among 
 which they dwell. From out of the fastnesses 
 of these mountains will come men who, nur- 
 tured amid their rugged grandeur, and en- 
 nobled by lifelong communion with them, will 
 make the world feel their power and wonder 
 at their strength. Cultured and developed by 
 the pure truth of the gospel, such men will 
 pour forth their streams of influence upon the 
 world, as their mountains pour their rivers to 
 the sea. They will be strong to battle for the 
 right as their own sturdy oaks are to wrestle 
 with the storm. They will rise above the 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 63 
 
 trivial temptations of the world as their eagles 
 soar above the g-athering- clouds, and from 
 great heights of truth and duty they will look 
 down upon the struggling mass of men, as 
 their mountain summits look down upon the 
 plains below." 
 
 From that day forth the great Mountain 
 Problem lay heavy upon the heart of the 
 Secretary of the Home Board. He had 
 climbed the mountain peak and caught a vision 
 from heaven, and he failed not to prophesy to 
 his people. From the platforms of conven- 
 tions and associations, by eloquent tongue and 
 gifted pen, as well as in his masterly reports, 
 he called the people to this great opportunity. 
 The annual reports of Dr. Tichenor, written 
 during the eighteen years of his service of the 
 Convention, set forth important phases of 
 Baptist history, and are choice gems of literary 
 composition. The greatest of his written de- 
 liverances on the Mountain Work is to be 
 found in his report to the Convention at Fort 
 Worth in 1890. Concerning this report. Dr. 
 John A. Broadus, in an address to that body, 
 said: "Let every member of this Convention 
 read carefully the report of our Home Secre- 
 tary. And if you will not read it for its mas- 
 terful marshaling of facts and conditions in 
 our Southland as they relate to Baptist oppor- 
 
84 ISAAC TAYLOR TiCHENOR 
 
 tunity, then read it as an example of pure 
 English undefiled." In the year 1891, just 
 following this report to which reference has 
 been made, the Board reported that they had 
 rendered direct financial aid to Hiawassee 
 Institute, in the mountains of North Georgia. 
 This was the beginning of the policy of the 
 Board by which it has fostered Christian 
 schools as a factor in the solution of the mis- 
 sion problem of the mountains. Under the 
 patronage of this Board there are now twenty- 
 two such schools in our mountain section, and 
 for the session now closing there are gathered 
 in these schools 3,875 pupils. .From these 
 mountains are going forth today men and 
 money to bless the world. Verily this day the 
 prophecy is fulfilled in your midst. 
 
 4. Other Phases of the Work. — It is not 
 needful to discuss in detail the impress Dr. 
 Tichenor made upon other departments of the 
 great work entrusted to the Home Board. To 
 the immigration problem as it touched the 
 South, to the evangelization of our crowded 
 cities, to the doing of something practical for 
 the progress of the Negro race in our midst — 
 to all of these he gave his wisdom and the best 
 powers of his consecrated energies. 
 
 In 1886 the Island of Cuba presented itself 
 to Southern Baptists as an important mission 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 65 
 
 field. To the voice that came to us through 
 the State Board of Florida concerning the con- 
 ditions on the island we could not turn a deaf 
 ear. The cry for help was imperative and the 
 outlook most hopeful. The Convention that 
 year met in the old church at ^Montgomery, 
 Alabama, and in the providence of God and 
 the wisdom of the Convention the task of 
 evangelizing Cuba was committed as a trust 
 to the Home Board. The enterprise appealed 
 strongly to Dr. Tichenor, and he at once be- 
 came intensely interested in laying there the 
 foundations for a great and aggressive work. 
 His whole soul was in it. He believed that 
 Cuba would ultimately be annexed to the 
 United States, that it would be the key to the 
 situation in many conditions that might arise 
 on our Gulf Coast, and that the planting of 
 the pure Protestant faith on this Queen of the 
 x\ntilles was of vital importance to our own 
 country. In the management of the many del- 
 icate and difficult questions which arose in the 
 subsequent transition period of the island, Dr. 
 Tichenor showed rare judgment and skill. He 
 made frequent visits to Cuba and kept in touch 
 with conditions there, and whether dealing with 
 the work as it related to Spanish law and gov- 
 ernment or presenting the cause to the churches 
 at home, he was master of the situation. That 
 
 5 
 
66 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 some of the roseate and romantic hopes that 
 were cherished, especially as they centered in 
 the personality of the brilliant native Cuban, 
 Alberto J. Diaz, have been disappointed, was no 
 fault of the Home Board or its Secretary. 
 With the broad foundations of our work in 
 Cuba on which we are now building, the name 
 of Tichenor must remain in honorable asso- 
 ciation. 
 
 Before we close this record of service we 
 need to have impressed anew the obligations 
 that rest upon us in the saving of the home- 
 land. Our country is the battle-ground of 
 Christianity, and here is the great Baptist op- 
 portunity. Let us then climb the mountain 
 peak with this prophet of God, listen once more 
 to his pleading voice, and catch the broader 
 visions of the mission of our people. Here are 
 the words as he spoke them in the Convention 
 3f 1890. 
 
 *ln looking forward through coming years, 
 the Board is profoundly impressed with the 
 magnitude of its work and the responsibility 
 of its position. It cannot overlook the fact 
 that the religious destiny of the world is lodged 
 in the hands of the English-speaking people. 
 To the Anglo-Saxon race God seems to have 
 committed the enterprise of the world's conver- 
 sion. The aggressive forces of Christianity 
 are limited to this race, and of this race the 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 67 
 
 American people constitute a rapidly increas- 
 ing majority. Of the five millions of Baptists 
 in the world, more than three millions of them 
 are in this country, and a majority of these live 
 within the bounds of this Convention. This 
 Convention today is environed by facts whose 
 grandeur overpowers and bewilders the mind 
 when we attempt to array them for considera- 
 tion. 
 
 "Let us not forget our obligations to the land 
 in which we live. This is our country, in that 
 for the first time in all our history we have a 
 fair opportunity to show what Baptist prin- 
 ciples are worth to the world. Here, after 
 weary centuries of bloody persecutions, when 
 the smoke of their martyrdom had filled the 
 skies of all the nations, exiled from all lands, 
 and with sword and fagot driven from every 
 shore, they have found a home where they sit 
 down under their own vine and fig tree and 
 worship God in peace. 
 
 "Here, for the first time in the history of the 
 world, they find a civil government conformed 
 to their ideas of justice, and protecting them 
 in the exercise of the inalienable rights of con- 
 science. Here they achieved their noblest 
 victories, for they were leaders in separating 
 Church and State, and giving soul liberty to 
 this continent. From an insignificant "sect," 
 despised for its ignorance and alleged bigotry, 
 they have in a single century won their way to 
 a leading position among the religious denom- 
 inations of the land. Their ratio of increase 
 has doubled that of population, and within the 
 
68 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 bounds of this Convention, covering half the 
 area of this great country, by their numbers, 
 their intelHgence, their social pov^er, they con- 
 trol half the entire population. 
 
 ''Here for the first time in all their history, 
 they have full and fair opportunity to vindicate 
 the truth of the claims they have always made, 
 and for which their martyrs have died. Here, 
 and now for the first time, they are on trial 
 before the nations. If now they do not demon- 
 strate the superiority of their principles, their 
 greater value in the propagation of truth, in 
 the upbuilding of the best interests of men, 
 and in carrying forward the kingdom of Christ, 
 then the verdict of the world will go against 
 them and their glory will be turned into shame. 
 
 "This must not be. We must not permit the 
 cause of truth and righteousness to perish in 
 our hands. Wc must not thus bring upon us 
 and our children the blood of all the martyrs 
 from Stephen, who fell asleep calling upon the 
 name of the Lord, to Wescott, who died upon 
 the plains of Mexico. This is our Baptist 
 Canaan into which the Lord has led us. Let 
 us fill it with the purity of his truth, and on its 
 every hill and valley writing, 'Holiness to the 
 Lord,' send forth from it swarming myriads 
 who shall conquer the world for Christ. 
 
 "The times are auspicious. With the mul- 
 tiplication of our members, the intellectual and 
 social elevation of our people, the rapid in- 
 crease of our wealth, the opening of golden 
 opportunities, both at home and abroad, comes 
 a day fitted to inspire us v/ith new zeal and 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 69 
 
 awaken new energies in our work. The cen- 
 tennial of the Modern Missionary Enterprise 
 is at hand. In October, 1792, a little band of 
 brethren, gathered in the house of a Baptist 
 lady, made the first contribution to the cause of 
 modern missions. What a century has it been 
 to our Baptist people! What progress they 
 have made ! How wonderfully God has blessed 
 them ! As we look back over it our hearts 
 break forth in songs of joy. This Convention 
 has resolved to celebrate this event in some 
 appropriate way. Vv'hy may we not make this 
 an epoch in the history of our Baptist people ? 
 If we can devise some means by w^hich we shall 
 make them see their duty, their responsibility, 
 their opportunity, and rally them to the great 
 work of giving the gospel to every creature, 
 we shall then have taken another grand step 
 toward the crowning glory of the comi*ig day. 
 Let us gird ourselves for the task, and relying 
 upon our Lord for help, strive for its accom- 
 plishment." 
 
70 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE CLOSING YEARS. 
 
 T I N 1899 D^- Tichenor, then entering the 
 I I eighteenth year of his service as Secre- 
 ■«-J tary and closing the seventy-fourth 
 year of his age, in consultation with his 
 Board and his closest friends, retired from the 
 chief responsibility of the Home Mission work. 
 The Board recognizing the value of his mature 
 wisdom and experience in its affairs, as well as 
 their obligations for his past service, elected 
 him to the position of Secretary Emeritus. In 
 the person of Dr. F. H. Kerfoot was found as 
 his successor a man well adapted to the work, 
 and in full sympathy with the plans and policies 
 of the Board as administered by the retiring 
 Secretary. Dr. Kerfoot came into office late in 
 the year, so that much of the work of that year 
 fell upon the shoulders of Dr. Tichenor. Prac- 
 tically, therefore, his retirement dates from the 
 Convention at Hot Springs, in the year 1900. 
 And so we would have it recorded, for it was 
 there that he received from his brethren such 
 an ovation as had never been accorded any 
 
IN TESTIMONY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 EFFICIENT AND BLAMELESS SERVICE 
 
 THROUGH EIGHTEEN YEARS 
 
 OF 
 
 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR, D. D. 
 
 AS CORRESPONDING SECRETARY 
 OF THE 
 
 HOME MISSION BOARD 
 
 OF THE 
 
 SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION 
 
 FROM FRIENDS WHO HAVE FELT THE INSPIRATION OF HIS 
 
 GENIUS AND REJOICED IN THE TRIUMPHS 
 
 OF HIS LEADERSHIP. 
 
TIIK HOME MISSION STATESMAN 71 
 
 Other man in the history of that body. The 
 opening paragraph of the report of the Board 
 to that convention contains the following trib- 
 ute to him. 'The Board cannot express too 
 strongly the affectionate regard and esteem in 
 which Dr. Tichenor is held by the members of 
 the Board and by the denomination at large, 
 which he has so long and so faithfully and ably 
 served. The name of I. T. Tichenor will al- 
 ways stand with those of Boyce, and Broadus, 
 and Manly, and Mell, and Jeter, and Fuller, 
 and Furman, and Poindexter, and Taylor, and 
 Tupper — a galaxy of as great and good and 
 noble men as God ever gave to any denomina- 
 tion of Christian people. And among all of 
 these no man had more to do with the main- 
 tenance of the Southern Baptist Convention 
 than this noble man of God, the long time hon- 
 ored Secretary of the Home ]\Iission Board." 
 
 In the course of that Convention there oc- 
 curred a most pleasing episode in the pre- 
 sentation to Dr. Tichenor of a handsome solid 
 silver Victory Vase. It was a gift of appre- 
 ciation from friends from the various Southern 
 States, and was accompanied by a demonstra- 
 tion seldom seen upon the floor of any Con- 
 vention. Thus closed his public life amid tear- 
 ful gratulations, and the ripe years' rich coro- 
 net, which his brethren placed upon his brow, he 
 
72 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 •wore with the humiUty of a true disciple of the 
 lowly Master whom he served. This presenta- 
 tion was made by Dr. Lansing Burrows, Sec- 
 retary of the Convention, who was instrumental 
 in securing the testimonial. 
 
 Soon after his retirement from active work, 
 Dr. Tichenor's health began to fail. A fatal 
 disease had laid its strong hold upon him, and 
 through long months of weakness and suffer- 
 ing he went slowly down to the river's brink. 
 It was my privilege to minister at his bedside 
 during the last month of his illness. To the 
 very end he was to me the supreme ideal of 
 the Christian optimist. He would talk to me 
 but little of his past life, for his face was still 
 to the future. Sometimes when seated alone 
 at his bedside and he was free from pain, he 
 would talk to me of the coming glories of the 
 Southland and the great Baptist opportunity, 
 as though he was addressing a convention of 
 his people. And I remember how on one 
 occasion he turned away from the scenes of 
 earth, and with a strange light in his eyes, he 
 talked to me of that higher mount of vision to 
 which he would soon climb, and untrammelled 
 by flesh or sense or time, would behold the 
 great things of God, no longer through a glass 
 darkly. O the visions of God's dying prophet, 
 how they thrill my soul today ! 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 73 
 
 He passed slowly over the river, and once 
 and again he halted in the stream. Sometimes 
 it was to speak another word to the watchers 
 at the river brink, and sometimes it was to 
 watch the coming light of the new day that 
 was dawning to his soul. It was the morning 
 of the second day of December, 1902. His 
 family were all gathered at his bedside. I 
 was kneeling beside him and held his hand in 
 mine. Then it was that the chariot wheel 
 tarried no longer, and his great soul was 
 ushered through the uplifted gates. I fancy 
 that he heard the angelic chorus singing, "Lift 
 up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lifted 
 up, ye everlasting doors, and let this King of 
 glory come in." And then when I reached out 
 to lay my fingers upon his eyes to close them, 
 for I coveted the privilege, behold ! they were 
 closed as in peaceful sleep, as though an un- 
 seen hand had touched them, and a voice had 
 said, "He giveth his beloved sleep." 
 
 It was by special request of Dr. Tichenor 
 that Dr. Lansing Burrows stood in the order 
 of the occasion and spoke at the funeral the 
 words of comfort and appreciation. This 
 service he rendered with beautiful appropriate- 
 ness. We have laid him to rest at the foot of 
 a green slope in Atlanta's \^^est View Ceme- 
 
74 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 tery. On the granite shaft that marks the 
 place there is this inscription : 
 
 "He had understanding of the times, to know 
 what Israel ought to do." "After he had served 
 his own generation by the will of God he fell on 
 sleep." 
 
 But a better monument than that his family 
 could erect over his grave, whether granite 
 shaft or marble mausoleum, has been built to 
 his memory. Dr. Tichenor was a great friend 
 of Woman's Work, as it found expression in 
 the Woman's Missionary Union, Auxiliary to 
 the Southern Baptist Convention. He was 
 among the foremost to give it wise counsel 
 and active aid. Immediately upon his death 
 it came into the hearts of the good women of 
 this organization to build him a monument. 
 Accordingly, as a sacred trust, they have 
 placed in the hands of the Home Board a com- 
 pleted fund of twenty thousand dollars, to be 
 known as the Tichenor Memorial Church 
 Building Fund. When in the coming years 
 it shall be asked, "Where is your monument to 
 I. T. Tichenor?" Southern Baptists will not 
 point to the marking of his grave in Atlanta's 
 beautiful cemetery, where sleeps his mortal 
 part. They will rather point to a thousand 
 different spots, on the hilltops and in the val- 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 75 
 
 leys, upon crowded avenues of rapidly grow- 
 ing cities, where in the face of the foe a feeble 
 band sought to plant the banner of the cross, 
 for wherever this fund shall have helped to 
 build "a church home for a homeless church of 
 Jesus Christ," there will be his Memorial. 
 "He being dead yet speaketh." 
 
76 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 REWARD 
 
 BY ANNIE KATE BARNES. GRANDDAUGHTER OF 
 1. T. TICHENOR. 
 
 For one who has bis duty clearly shown 
 
 There is no need to scan the distant hills, 
 Or gaze upon the fields in flowers blown, 
 
 Or search for his desire along the rills. 
 These be temptations leading on to ills 
 
 Of discontent and disappointment sown 
 Within the heart. If duty there instils 
 
 Her later peace in perfect work upgrown, 
 Oh, then from gazing on the narrow way, 
 
 He may lift up, at last, his daring eyes. 
 And take refreshment from the fairer day, 
 
 Behold the summer in the circling skies, 
 Reach out to choose his favors, even lay 
 
 His hands upon the gates of Paradise. 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 77 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 MY FATHER'S PERSONAL AND HOME LIFE. 
 
 MARY TICHENOR BARNES. 
 
 mT is early morning. A little girl of 
 about ten years of age stands in the 
 center of a room, broom and duster in 
 hand. It is her father's library, and 
 she has been sent to tidy it up for him. She 
 stands inactive and leaning on the broom. 
 She is thinking hard, for her heart is sore. At 
 breakfast that morning the family had been 
 teasing her father, and the childish heart re- 
 sented the fact that all seemed to side against 
 him. Presently the girl's head is raised, and 
 with a determined look in her face, though 
 alone, she speaks aloud, "It doesn't matter 
 who is against him, I will always be true to 
 him." This was the first revelation to herself 
 of the meaning of loyalty. 
 
 A mature woman stands beside the shaft 
 erected to her father's memory, and turning 
 her face back over the years that have inter- 
 vened, salutes the girl who stands, broom and 
 duster in hand, in the library, and calls down 
 
78 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 the gallery of the years, "I have kept my vow." 
 She had kept it, not simply because it was a 
 vow, for in a long life many useless vows have 
 been made and abandoned, but kept it because 
 of the character of the man who was the occa- 
 sion of it. Such, I believe, was the feeling of 
 each member of our family toward our father. 
 We loved the parent, but we loved and trusted 
 the man even more. 
 
 In the establishment and maintenance of the 
 home and family life, no one ever believed 
 more strongly than did my father. The home 
 instinct and the family tie were deeply 
 wrought into his nature. In the realization 
 of this he was most fortunate and most un- 
 fortunate. Fortunate in that he wooed and 
 won to his side four as choice women as ever 
 blessed a man's home. Each was the member 
 of a proud family, and possessed in themselves 
 personal charms, broad culture, and highest 
 moral and spiritual worth. He was most un- 
 fortunate in that with each one of these life 
 was short. Many vicissitudes encompassed 
 him, and his pathway led him by many graves. 
 God only gave him sixteen years of married 
 life. Thus it was that none of his children 
 ever knew a mother's love. This accounted, 
 no doubt, for a certain tenderness of thought 
 for them, a characteristic apart from demon- 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 79 
 
 stration, for he was not a demonstrative man, 
 and also for the fact that he held them together 
 in a home life amidst circumstances that 
 would have disorganized other homes. 
 
 He loved to discourse to us of the sanctity 
 of the home as God-given. He would talk of 
 its institution in the Garden of Eden, tell of 
 the necessity of its continued maintenance for 
 the upholding of our country's civilization, 
 and then wind up with some expression of his 
 supreme disgust for those who eschewed the 
 holy state of matrimony. These remarks 
 were sometimes so forcible that they would 
 occasion mxUch merriment among the mem- 
 bers of the family; but only the youngest of 
 us dared to say, "Well, papa, you did your 
 best." So strong was this feeling within him 
 that, although over seventy years old at his 
 retirement from the active work of the Home 
 Board, he sold his city home, bought twenty- 
 five acres on the outskirts of Atlanta, expect- 
 ing to build him a comfortable home, surround 
 himself with flowers and a vegetable farm, 
 and have a place where his children could 
 come and gather about him. But before this 
 wish could be accomplished, the ^Master's voice 
 called him to the habitation of the blessed, to 
 the mansion prepared for all them that love 
 him. 
 
80 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 He has left four children, nov/ grown to 
 maturity and in the activities of life. Besides 
 the author of this sketch, who had the priv- 
 ilege of being his homekeeper during the last 
 twenty years of his life, there is Mrs. J. S. 
 Dill, now of Bowling Green, Kentucky, and 
 Mrs. T. C. Whitner, of Atlanta, Georgia; 
 while his only son, Walker Reynolds Tichenor, 
 is practicing law in Atlanta. These were the 
 children who gathered about his hearthstone, 
 both to be ministered unto and to minister; 
 and each rejoiced whether in giving or receiv- 
 hig. Even to old age it was a joy to him to 
 minister to us, and sometimes it was in a 
 thoroughly unique way. On his seventy-fifth 
 birthday he announced to the family that the 
 usual custom of the day would be reversed, 
 and he would give a present to each one. This 
 he did in a most handsome fashion. 
 
 The social atmosphere of his home was one 
 in which each child exercised a happy freedom, 
 yet it was that best freedom that does not for- 
 get rightful authority. When you entered 
 our home there was no uncertainty as to who 
 was the head of the house, and yet there was 
 no bluster, only quiet firmness. As children, 
 we never realized that he had any special rules, 
 yet his requirements were in that positive way 
 that we knew it was the thing to be done. 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 81 
 
 No thought of our failure to accomplish it 
 entered his mind, and so we did the thing he 
 wished. The reasonableness of his demands 
 and his quiet faith in his children perhaps ac- 
 counted for the fact that he had no flagrant 
 disobedience among them, for they were all 
 positive characters. 
 
 When the youngest child was a small boy, 
 he one day threw a stone and broke the win- 
 dow pane of the schoolhouse. He was soon 
 in the hands of the authorities. My father 
 took the child upon his lap, asked him to tell 
 the whole truth about the transaction, whether 
 it was an accident or a willful act. Having 
 his word that it was an accident, he assured 
 the child of his faith in him, and in the most 
 painstaking way proved to the authorities his 
 innocence and made amends for the destruc- 
 tion. 
 
 His faith in accomplishment, with no ac- 
 ceptance of refusal, can be illustrated by the 
 following incident. At the silver anniversary 
 of the Polytechnic College of Alabama, the 
 alumni requested that he present the College 
 with his portrait. Our brother was to make 
 the presentation and unveil the portrait. He 
 and my father were of course to be present on 
 the occasion. Two days previous to the un- 
 veiling, father was taken with a sickness which 
 6 
 
82 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 left no hope that he would be able to attend 
 the exercises. He called his eldest daughter 
 to him and said, ''You must represent me at 
 the unveiling." To this she consented. Then 
 came the astonishing words, "If my son 
 should fail to reach there in time, you must 
 make the address and present the portrait." 
 
 'Tather, I cannot. It is impossible. The 
 Governor of the State will be there, and the 
 Judges and the Trustees. I never did such 
 a thing in my life. I cannot." "Yes you 
 can, and you must." 
 
 So ended the conversation. Then began, 
 with much trepidation, the hurried arrange- 
 ments to take the train. No time for thought. 
 A scrap of paper and a pencil were put in the 
 satchel to scribble down a few thoughts to aid 
 a stammering tongue. Arrived at her destina- 
 tion, there were friends to greet, explanations 
 to make of her father's absence, then late to 
 bed. Still no time for thought. She was 
 only controlled by the feeling that one must 
 do or die. Early next morning, while con- 
 versing with friends, a little black head was 
 poked in the door, and a darky voice said, 
 "Your brudder done come." O the beauty 
 of that little black face, the joy of release from 
 the hard task, the happy feeling that the fath- 
 er's mandates were no longer binding! 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 83 
 
 When not conversing or writing, my father 
 always had a book, paper or map before him. 
 Every hour that could be spared from his 
 business he spent at home with his family and 
 among his books. His room was the sitting 
 room, because he preferred it so. Often he 
 was asked, "Do you not want the children sent 
 away? Does not our chattering disturb 
 you?" The invariable answer was, "No, I 
 like it. Let them stay." Such were his 
 unusual powers of concentration, that all of 
 his home reading, writing, and thinking, was 
 done with all around him. He loved congenial 
 companionship, and was broadly given to hos- 
 pitality. He seemed to prefer to have his 
 friends come to him rather than go out to seek 
 them. The latch-string was always on the 
 outside, and the charming companions whom 
 he brought to our home are to us delightful 
 memories, and have yielded a legacy of choice 
 friendships. 
 
 He loved humor, and could tell a good anec- 
 dote well. Those who knew him in youth de- 
 clare that he was then a most charming com- 
 panion. The memorable nights when we 
 would gather on the veranda after tea and 
 hear him talk on all subjects of interest in the 
 heavens above or the earth beneath, shall abide 
 as benedictions as long as life shall last. His 
 
84 ISAAC TAYLOR TiCHfiMOR 
 
 choice English and clear expression, his keen 
 insight and quick grasp, his broad scope and 
 long vision — these adorned the conversation of 
 his home as well as the discourses from the 
 pulpit and platform. He- was essentially a 
 religious man, and all religious interests were 
 subjects of free and happy discussion in his 
 home. World-wide missions was the great 
 theme upon which he loved most to talk. We 
 had only to ask him a question upon some cur- 
 rent phase of mission work to be rcAvarded 
 with accurate information and clear judgment. 
 Those who knew him best were not slow to 
 believe that he had gifts that might have gath- 
 ered to him great wealth, or gratified high 
 political ambitions, but the purpose of his life 
 as it found expression in his own home was 
 quite apart from these things. He conceived 
 that his mission to mankind was the ministry 
 of the Word of Life. From this he would 
 not swerve. For though his life for thirty 
 years lay outside of the pastoral work, yet all 
 his thinking and planning and doing had its 
 most distinct relation to the saving of the 
 world and the coming of the Kingdom of 
 Christ. 
 
 If asked the three strongest elements in my 
 father's character, I would say, conviction, 
 courage, and perseverance. These will make 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 85 
 
 a success of any man's life. They made a 
 success of his. 
 
 He did not think a subject worth discussing, 
 if on it he did not have strong convictions. 
 I remember once riding on the train with 
 father and Dr. Henry McDonald, The Doctor 
 and I were talking when a new subject of 
 some interest was broached. I asked the 
 Doctor what he thought, and he replied that 
 he had given the matter too little thought to 
 express a positive opinion. I then said, ''Have 
 you talked with father?" "No, but I will go 
 over and speak with him now." After some 
 time he returned to me, saying, "Oh, he has 
 convictions." And so it was. This reminds 
 me of a singular characteristic which he pos- 
 sessed. If he did not consider a subject 
 worthy, or did not wish to discuss it, he would 
 not reply to a question concerning it. Sitting 
 perfectly still, without a word, nothing could 
 be wrenched from him. One of my sisters 
 once said, "I have asked father questions which 
 he has never yet answered." This after 
 years of waiting. 
 
 When his convictions were formed and his 
 plans framed there was no turning back. The 
 inevitable was the only thing to which he 
 yielded, and when necessity forced him to 
 yield, the matter was put by forever. Unlike 
 
86 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 most Confederate veterans, he rarely discussed 
 the war. The sacrifice was too great, the 
 loss too tremendous, his heart was too sore, to 
 dwell upon it. He would say, "It is settled 
 and passed ; let us not discuss it." So it was 
 also of the loved ones whom he had laid away. 
 He could not often allow even the dearest 
 members of his family to probe into his sa- 
 cred sorrows. After the death of my step- 
 mother, I went to him, and sitting beside him, 
 took his hand. When I did so he turned to 
 me and said, "All thy waves and thy billows 
 have gone over me." This and no more. 
 But, O the pathos and sorrow in the tone ! 
 
 His high courage and strong perseverance 
 left to his children the great lesson: Always 
 keep your face to the future. It was true 
 always of him, even in those last sad days 
 when the battle of health and of life was so 
 long and so bravely fought. Through those 
 days and months of battle, only once did he 
 sound a note of discouragement. One night 
 when he was suffering, one of his nephews 
 came in and asked, "How are you. Uncle 
 Tichenor?" He replied, "I am dying; I am 
 half dead already." His nephew answered, 
 "Never give up the ship." He looked up, and 
 with a flash of the eye, replied, "How can I 
 help it when the spar is broken and the masts 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 87 
 
 are all gone?" Only this note of discourage- 
 ment during the many weeks. 
 
 He always talked of the future and was full 
 of hope. He talked of this world and all its 
 marvelous progress, and its final subjection to 
 the will of the reigning Christ ; and he talked 
 of the "better country, that is, an heavenly." 
 And when the great Conqueror did come, he 
 found him with high courage, sweet dignity, 
 and undimmed faith. He leaned trustingly 
 on Him who had vanquished death. I have 
 sometimes wondered, when the grim Con- 
 queror bore him through his dark realm to 
 the shores of light, if he did not in recognition 
 of this courage and faith, bow low before him 
 and say, "I am but thy servant." 
 
 "Ob, may I join the choir invisible 
 Of those immortal dead who live again 
 In deeds made better by their presence ; live 
 In pulses stirred to generosity, 
 In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn 
 For miserable aims that end in self ; 
 In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like 
 
 stars, 
 And with their mild persistence verge man's 
 
 search 
 To vaster issues." 
 
ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 SOME PRODUCTS OF HIS PEN, 
 
 FAST-DAY SERMON. 
 
 (Delivered before the General Assembly of the 
 State of Alabama, Friday, August 21, 1863, and 
 published by the following resolution of that 
 body: 
 
 ''Resolved That a select committee of three be 
 appointed on the part of each House, to request the 
 Rev. I. T. Tichenor to furnish a copy of the sermon 
 delivered by him in the Hall of the House of Rep- 
 resentatives, on Friday, 21st inst, for publication.") 
 
 Psalm 46 : 9 : "He maketh wars to cease unto the 
 end of the earth ; He breaketh the bow and cutteth 
 the spear in sunder ; He burneth the chariot in the 
 fire." 
 
 fmlHEN shall we have peace?" Two 
 I If I weary years of war have wrung this 
 ^ ■ " ■J question from the agonized heart of 
 our bleeding country. ''Oh ! that we 
 could have peace!" exclaims the statesman, 
 as he ponders the problems that demand solu- 
 tion at his hands. "Peace !" sighs the sol- 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 89 
 
 dier, as he wraps his blanket around him and 
 Hes down to sleep upon the open field. 
 "Peace!" moans the widow, as she reads the 
 fatal news of her heroic husband fallen on 
 some bloody field, and bitterly thinks of the 
 darkened future in store for herself and her 
 orphaned children. The prayer of the land is 
 for peace. You may hear it in the sanctuary, 
 at the fireside, around the family altar, in the 
 silent chamber, on the tented field. When 
 will it come? 
 
 I propose to respond to this inquiry today, 
 and to tell you when peace will come. In 
 attempting this task it would be manifest folly 
 to pretend to penetrate the future, or to claim 
 superior wisdom in state affairs. I have no 
 cabinet secrets to disclose, no prophetic vision 
 to announce, no revelation to make. I have 
 only to tell you and insist upon the truth of 
 the declaration that God alone can give us 
 peace, for "He maketh wars to cease unto the 
 end of the earth. He breaketh the bow and 
 cutteth the spear in sunder; He burneth the 
 chariot in the fire." 
 
 The continuance of this war does not depend 
 upon the result of battles, upon the skill of 
 our generals, the valor of our soldiers, the 
 wisdom of our statesmen, the resources of our 
 country, or the mad determination of our 
 
90 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 foes ; but upon the will of our God. He who 
 hath said, "The wrath of man shall praise him, 
 and the remainder of wrath he will restrain," 
 will give us peace when we are prepared to re- 
 ceive it. If any one here today hesitates to 
 adopt this opinion, I ask his patient attention 
 to the argument by which I shall seek to estab- 
 lish its truth. 
 
 I. God Governs the Nations. — No truth is 
 more plainly taught in his word. ''The Lord 
 reigneth; let the earth rejoice, let the multi- 
 tude of isles be glad thereof," is the language 
 of inspiration. The Saviour teaches us a most 
 beautiful and impressive lesson on this sub- 
 ject. When urging the disciples to place an 
 unfaltering trust in the protection and provi- 
 dence of God, he says, ''Consider the lilies of 
 the field how they grow ; they toil not, neither 
 do they spin, yet I say unto you that Solomon 
 in all his glory was not arrayed like one of 
 these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass 
 of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is 
 cast into the oven, shall he not much more 
 clothe you, O ye of little faith?" "Are not 
 two sparrows sold for a farthing, and one of 
 them shall not fall on the ground without 
 your Father." "The very hairs of your head 
 are all rmmbered." If God clothe the grass 
 of the field with more than royal beauty, watch 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 91 
 
 the sparrows fall, listen to the young ravens' 
 cry, number the hairs of our head, who can 
 resist the conclusion that such a pervading 
 presence and power governs the world ? 
 
 The fulfilled prophecies of his word teach 
 us the same lesson. Many of the predictions 
 of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel have 
 become history of the past. The minuteness 
 with which they have been fulfilled forces 
 upon us the conviction that he who inspired 
 the prophecy rules this world. Jerusalem 
 sitting in her lonely and desolate widowhood ; 
 Tyre, upon whose bald rocks the fisherman 
 spreads his net ; Babylon and Nineveh, moth- 
 ers of empires, lying entombed in the ruins of 
 their former greatness; Edom, in whose 
 strongholds reign perpetual desolation, are 
 witnesses that rise up from the dim and shad- 
 owy past to teach us that God reigns over the 
 nations of the earth. God has declared in his 
 word that he will give his Son the dominion 
 of the world. "He will overturn, overturn, 
 overturn, until he shall come whose right it is, 
 and he will give it to him." "Ask of me and 
 I will give thee the heathen for thine inherit- 
 ance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for 
 thy possession." If God exercised no direct- 
 ing, controlling, restraining power over the 
 world, liow could he pledge himself to give it 
 
92 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 to his Son, or what confidence could be felt 
 by that Son, or by his people, that the promise 
 would ever be redeemed? If God be not the 
 Sovereign Ruler of the universe, then the sac- 
 rifice of his Son may have been almost in vain ; 
 then the day of deliverance for which the earth 
 "groans and travails in pain until now," may 
 never come ; then the rich promises of his word 
 and the bright anticipations they have in- 
 spired, with refernce to the coming glories of 
 the Millennial Day, are not certainties of future 
 years, but the chilling shadows of doubt 
 spread over all. Who that believes the 
 Bible is true can adopt such a conclusion? 
 
 An opinion, the offspring of the carnal 
 heart rather than of the intellect, has been 
 adopted by some, v/hich would deprive the 
 world of its Ruler, and place all things under 
 the control of nature. They seek to trace all 
 things back to what they term ''natural 
 causes," and attribute every event to natural 
 laws. But these men only ''darken counsel by 
 words without knowledge." Laws of nature ! 
 What are they ? Or how can they act to pro- 
 duce any result ? Law is not and cannot be an 
 actor. It is but a rule of action. Behind 
 these laws, which are but principles of his 
 government, there sits enthroned in inscrut- 
 able majesty the Pov^er that moves and con- 
 
THE HOME I^ISSION STATESMAN 93 
 
 trols the world, and that power is God. The 
 literal import of our Saviour's words is true: 
 ''God clothes the grass of the field." God ex- 
 pands every leaf, opens every flower, breathes 
 in every wind, sends the genial shower, fertil- 
 izes the earth, and scatters plenty over a smil- 
 ing land — 
 
 "Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze, 
 Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees, 
 Lives through all life, extends through all extent, 
 Spreads undivided, operates unspent." 
 
 That religion, if such it may be called, 
 which deifies nature, is worse than heathenism. 
 The nations of antiquity worshiped gods 
 whom their imaginations invested with life 
 and power of action. They were believed to 
 interest themselves in the affairs of men, and 
 preside over the destinies of nations. They 
 were worshiped under the idea that they had 
 the power to assist the suppliant. But the 
 man who trusts to nature has a dull, bUnd, 
 dead god, which can ''neither see, nor hear, 
 nor deliver." 
 
 If God governs the world, then his hand is 
 in this war in which we are engaged. It mat- 
 ters not that the wickedness of man brought 
 it upon us, that it was caused by the mad 
 attempts of fanaticism to deprive us of our 
 
94 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 rights, overthrow our institutions, and im- 
 pose upon us a yoke which, as freemen, we 
 had resolved never to bear. This fact is by 
 no means inconsistent with the truth asserted. 
 Speaking of the crucifixion of the Son of God, 
 Peter says, "Him being deHvered by the de- 
 terminate counsel and foreknowledge of God, 
 ye have taken, and by wicked hands have cru- 
 cified and slain." God avows himself the 
 author of calamities that befall nations. 
 "Shall there be evil in a city" (evil in the 
 sense of afifliction) "and the Lord hath not 
 done it?" "Come, behold the works of the 
 Lord, what desolation he hath made in the 
 earth." The eye of the Omniscient and the 
 arm of the Almighty are over the earth. He 
 makes these swelling waves of sinful pride 
 and passion the tide on which rides the great 
 ark of his mercy and his truth to that Ararat 
 around which shall spread a new world, 
 wherein dwelleth righteousness. While the 
 storm-cloud sweeps over our land, let us re- 
 member that God rides upon the wings of the 
 tempest, and subjects it to his will. God in 
 his own way will save our Southland. 
 
 n. The Purposes for Which God Afflicts 
 a Nation. — The Scriptures disclose two pur- 
 poses for which God visits suffering upon 
 the nations of the earth. First, punishment 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 9? 
 
 for sin. Second, development of national 
 character and resources, so as to qualify a 
 people for some high and holy mission which 
 he designs to commit to their trust. 
 
 On the first of these I need not enlarge. 
 The Bible and the history of the world are 
 too full of the evidences of its truth to have 
 permitted you to overlook it. The other, 
 though not as apparent a truth, is as much 
 a lesson of the past. When God wanted a 
 man for the ruler of Egypt, that the patriarch 
 and his family might find there a refuge from 
 famine, he led Joseph to the seat of power 
 not with the pomp of princes, or the triumphs 
 of a conqueror, but in the chains of a slave, 
 and through the depths of a dungeon. When 
 God wanted a king for Israel, "a man after 
 his own heart," he brought David to the 
 throne through those long years of exile, 
 when he was hunted by Saul "as a partridge 
 upon the mountains." In those dark and 
 dreary days, David learned lessons of the 
 wickedness of oppression, of the necessity of 
 justice in a ruler, of sym.pathy with the 
 suffering, which all the splendors of royalty, 
 nor the triumphs of his arms, ever eradicated 
 from his heart. When God gave the world 
 a Saviour, though it was his own Son, yet 
 "learned he obedience through the things 
 
96 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 which he suffered," and the All- Wise "made 
 the Captain of our salvation perfect through 
 suffering." God's mercy gave his Son a ran- 
 som for guilty men, but God's wisdom brings 
 them to his promised glory through great 
 tribulation. One of the strangest announce- 
 ments made in the Bible is made in God's 
 promise to Abraham, "Know of a surety that 
 thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is 
 not theirs, and shall serve them, and they 
 shall afflict them four hundred years, and 
 also that nation whom they shall serve I will 
 judge; and afterwards they shall come out 
 with great substance." This was said of 
 those whom God had promised to make a 
 blessing to all the nations of the earth. By 
 slavery the Israelites were elevated from the 
 position of wandering herdsmen to be a nation 
 possessed of all the arts and sciences known 
 to the most civilized people of that day, and 
 were fitted to receive the oracles of God, and 
 be the light-bearers of the world. 
 
 One or both of these purposes God has in 
 view in permitting the calamities of war to 
 scourge this people. Peace will not come 
 until his design shall have been fully accom- 
 plished. Taking this view of the subject, I 
 ask, are we prepared for peace? Have we yet 
 repented of our sins and reformed our lives, 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 97 
 
 SO that God as the judge of the nations can 
 turn away from us the rod of his anger ? 
 
 I. One of the most crying of our national 
 sins is the covetousness of our people. In the 
 view of many, covetousness is associated only 
 with extortion, niggardly avarice, or miserly 
 practices. But the Saviour teaches us a differ- 
 ent doctrine. "Take heed," he said, "and 
 beware of covetousness." To enforce this 
 teaching he spake a parable to his audience : 
 "The ground of a certain rich man brought 
 forth plentifully, and he thought within him- 
 self, saying. What shall I do because I have 
 no room where to bestow niy fruits? and he 
 said, This will I do : I will pull down my 
 barns and build greater, and there will I 
 bestow all my fruits and my goods, and I 
 will say to my soul, Soul thou hast much 
 goods laid up for many years, take thine 
 ease, eat, drink, and be merry; but God said 
 unto him, Thou fool, this night shall thy soul 
 be required of thee." Observe, if you will, 
 that this man's riches were not the result of 
 fraud or dishonesty. They were not obtained 
 by some questionable speculation ; nothing 
 dishonest or dishonorable is laid to his charge. 
 The blessing of God upon his labor, the ample 
 yield of the honest soil, brought him his 
 abundance. His covetousness manifests itself 
 7 
 
98 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 not in the manner in which he obtained his 
 wealth, but in the use he proposed to make 
 of it. He had obtained his competency and 
 now proposed to retire from business and 
 enjoy the cool shadows of the evening of life. 
 Are not the vast majority of our people as 
 open to the charge of covetousness as he? 
 Nay, is not the man who indulges the pur- 
 pose of ceasing to delve and toil for money 
 regarded as an example of moderation among 
 his fellowmen? Yet this is the man selected 
 by the Saviour as an illustration of covetous- 
 ness, and pronounced a fool by the Judge of 
 the earth. He had no purpose in the use of 
 his money beyond his own selfish gratifica- 
 tion. It was covetousness because it was 
 selfishness. 
 
 What change has the war produced on our 
 people in this respect? Have we grown less 
 covetous, less grasping, less selfish? Who 
 does not know that in many of our people it 
 has developed a thirst for gain, a spirit of 
 speculation and extortion which is a reproach 
 to our land. Men have sought to monopolize 
 articles of prime necessity, and by withhold- 
 ing them from market to enhance their price, 
 and fatten themselves upon the sufferings of 
 their country. They have attempted to coin 
 into money the groans and tears of the wives 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 99 
 
 and children of your soldiers, and of the wid- 
 ows and orphans of those who have died in 
 freedom's holy cause. If God is chastizing 
 us for our covetousness, surely we are not 
 yet prepared for the blessings of peace. 
 
 2. Another of our national sins has been 
 our proud and boastful self-reliance. At the 
 commencement of this struggle we had a vain 
 confidence in our national strength ; we placed 
 a high estimate on the valor of our people, 
 and held in contempt the martial qualities of 
 our foes. We expected no defeat, and thought 
 that nothing but victory could await us on 
 any battlefield. We confidently believed that 
 our agricultural products in which the world 
 is so much interested would bring us recog- 
 nition by the nations of the earth, defeat the 
 purpose of our enemies to blockade our coasts, 
 and insure our independence. Cotton was 
 our hope. Cotton was not only our king, but 
 it was enthroned the god of our confidence, 
 and worshiped as our national deliverer. Our 
 trust has been disappointed, our idol has fallen 
 like Dagon before the ark of the Lord. After 
 two years of this terrible war, in which this 
 appeal to arms has been vindicated by many 
 victories, we have yet to receive the first hand 
 of welcome to a place among the nations of 
 the earth. Our ports have been blockaded 
 
100 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 in a manner contrary to the law of nations. 
 Our enemies have been permitted to wage a 
 brutal warfare against unarmed citizens and 
 helpless women and children. Burning and 
 plunder, and outrages of every character, 
 even to the murder of helpless innocence, have 
 marked the track of their vandal hordes. The 
 people of the civilized world denounce these 
 atrocities, but the governments of the v/orld 
 have uttered no word of remonstrance. We 
 have been shut up to the necessity of relying 
 upon our own resources. A fresh appeal to 
 arms and to the God of Hosts is our only 
 hope. 
 
 It needs only the proper spirit on the part 
 of our people in order to make this a blessing 
 rather than an evil. The time is past when 
 God will permit the nations of the earth to 
 ignore him. For centuries the governments 
 of Christendom have been more godless than 
 the heathen empires of antiquity. They con- 
 sulted the will of their imaginary gods in the 
 affairs of state. Egypt, Babylon, Greece, and 
 Rome sent forth their thronging legions in 
 obedience to the will of their gods, or re- 
 frained from their enterprise of conquest and 
 blood when that will seemed averse. But na- 
 tions professing to be Christians have made 
 war for the most unholy purposes, and with- 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 101 
 
 out the slightest reference to the will of God. 
 Europe has again and again been deluged 
 with blood by kings professing Christianity, 
 when ''God was not in all their thoughts." 
 England made war upon China because she 
 would not consent to be drugged and brutal- 
 ized with her opium. The United States 
 formed a constitution, after a war in which 
 God's hand had been almost as manifest in 
 their deliverance as though he had led them 
 with a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire 
 by night ; made no mention of the name of 
 God, had no recognition of his existence. The 
 times of this ignorance God may have winked 
 at, but the day has come when he will vindi- 
 cate his long ignored right as Sovereign of 
 the world. It is an evidence of his merciful 
 designs to us, that he is breaking down the 
 bulwarks of self-confidence, and saying to us 
 in thunder tones: 'Tut not your trust in 
 princes." Are we ready to turn our hearts to 
 him? I fear we are not. When Vicksburg 
 surrendered, and the campaign into Pennsyl- 
 vania disappointed our hopes, what was the 
 effect upon our people? There was universal 
 gloom, and with some the feeling that all 
 was lost. But was there more prayer, greater 
 reliance on the Most High? As dangers 
 thickened around us, was there a nearer ap- 
 
102 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 proach to Him who can save by many or by 
 few, and who can make the very successes of 
 our foes the means of our triumphs? Alas! 
 we look for these things in vain. 
 
 3. Other sins of our people demand con- 
 sideration, and call for repentance, but time 
 only permits to mention, not to dwell upon 
 them. We have failed to discharge our duties 
 to our slaves. I entertain no doubt that slav- 
 ery is right, but there are abuses of it which 
 ought to be corrected. Marriage is a divine 
 institution, and yet marriage exists among 
 our slaves dependent upon the will of the 
 master. "What God has joined together let 
 no man put asunder," yet this tie is subject 
 to the passion, caprice, or avarice of their 
 owners. The law gives the husband and the 
 father no protection in this relation. The re- 
 morseless creditor may avail himself of the 
 power of the law to separate husband and 
 wife, parent and child. This is an evil of no 
 minor magnitude, and one which demands an 
 immediate remedy. Too little attention has 
 been paid to their moral and religious culture. 
 By their labor our fields have been made 
 white with abundant harvests. The wealth 
 they have produced has been spent with lavish 
 hands, while scarcely a pittance has been 
 given to furnish them with the bread of life. 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 103 
 
 We have sinned by abusing our liberties. 
 In the extent and bitterness of party spirit, 
 in the choice of men to be our rulers having 
 but slight regard for proper qualification, in 
 the manner in which our popular elections 
 have been conducted, pandering to the lowest 
 passions and appetites of depraved humanity, 
 to succeed in electing the candidates of our 
 party, in Sabbath breaking, setting our busi- 
 ness and our pleasures above the law of God ; 
 in all these ways we have sinned against the 
 Most High. Until he can see penitence in 
 our hearts and reformation in our lives, we 
 cannot hope for the removal of the scourge, 
 or for the dawning of the day of peace. 
 
 4. But it may be that God has for the 
 South a world mission, and that by these 
 sufferings he is preparing them for the trust. 
 This I firmly believe to be the great purpose 
 he has in view. We are now passing through 
 the refining processes of a people whom God 
 would use to glorify his name on the earth. 
 By suffering he will purify and develop and 
 elevate. In the midst of this great storm 
 that is beating about us, I have no vision that 
 can pierce these black clouds and tell you what 
 God means by it all. But I confidently be- 
 lieve that in leading us through this fiery trial 
 God is preparing a chosen people for a great 
 
104 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 mission. He wants a people purified, a people 
 with a proper understanding and regard for 
 all human rights ; he wants a people, above 
 all things, who will set the glory of God and 
 the good of the race above all self-centering 
 ambitions. Are we ready for so high and 
 holy a trust? Are we prepared for so great 
 a distinction? God speed the day when we 
 can answer his call, obey his command, and 
 glorify his name unto the ends of the earth. 
 
 III. The Call for Humiliation and Prayer 
 Before the God of Nations. — If these things 
 be true we ought this day to bow ourselves in 
 deep humiliation before our Maker, and for 
 ourselves and our people ask of him who is 
 exalted a Prince and a Saviour the forgiveness 
 for all our sins. This we need to do in heart- 
 searching penitence. While the cloud of his 
 wrath impends over us we ought never cease 
 to pray. While our enemies are invading our 
 territory, enslaving our people, destroying our 
 property, and threatening our subjugation, we 
 ought never to forget that our only hope for 
 deliverance lies in the interposition of his 
 hand, "to whom belongeth all the shields of 
 the earth." Let prayer continually ascend 
 from all our sanctuaries, and from the temple 
 of every heart, "until he shall make our wars 
 to cease, breaking the bow, cutting the spear 
 
THE HOMR MISSION STATESMAN 105 
 
 in sunder, and burning- the chariot in the 
 fire." 
 
 Some men will tell you that prayer will 
 avail little against the hosts of our enemies, 
 and sneering at its power, assert that "Provi- 
 dence always favors the heavy battalions." It 
 is an infidel opinion, branded with falsehood 
 both by the word of God and the history of 
 the past. God says, "The horse is prepared 
 against the day of battle, but victory is of the 
 Lord." God says, "The race is not to the 
 swift nor the battle to the strong." Who is 
 so impious as to rise up and contradict his 
 Maker? History confirms the word of the 
 Most High. Was the battle to the strong 
 when Cyrus overthrew the proud city and 
 empire of Babylon, and established his throne 
 upon its ruins? Was the battle to the strong 
 when Xerxes invaded Greece and met with 
 overwhelming defeat? Did PrGvidence favor 
 the heavy battalions when Bonaparte invaded 
 Russia, and breaking its power, was himself 
 broken by the hand of God? Did Providence 
 favor the heavy battalions when, in the revo- 
 lution of our fathers, the ships of the strongest 
 power of the world shaded our coast, and 
 when from the St. Lawrence to the Savannah 
 the continent trembled under the tread of hig 
 legions? Has Providence favored the heavy 
 
106 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 battalions during this struggle for independ- 
 ence? Let Bethel and Manassas, Shiloh and 
 Chancellorsville answer. I rejoice to know 
 that many who control our civil and military 
 affairs believe in prayer. From our assem- 
 blage here today at the request of the Chief 
 Magistrate of our Confederacy, it is evident 
 that he trusts in that God who "heareth 
 prayer." The gallant and noble general who 
 leads our army in Virginia is a man of prayer. 
 He whose name was a tower of strength, the 
 watchword of victory, and who fought but to 
 conquer, and over whose fall the hearts of 
 this people still bleed in sorrow, was pre- 
 eminently a man of prayer. Nor are many 
 of our soldiers less imbued with the spirit 
 which relies upon God for victory. Pardon 
 me for relating an incident which illustrates 
 this point. During one of the bloodiest bat- 
 tles of the war, in the change of position 
 incident to great conflicts, a regiment from 
 our own State was thrown forward upon the 
 masses of the enemy into a position which it 
 was victory to hold, defeat to lose. Soon the 
 converging fire of five times their number 
 poured its leaden storm upon them. Those 
 untried soldiers, never before upon a field of 
 battle, staggered for a moment, as the strong 
 ship staggers when smitten by the first breath 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 107 
 
 of the tempest. Then there arose up one who 
 reminded them that it was Sunday; that at 
 that very hour their fathers and mothers and 
 wives and brothers and sisters were gathered 
 in the sanctuaries of our land praying to God 
 for them. They caught the inspiration of the 
 thought, every eye brightened, every bosom 
 heaved with emotion, and closing up their 
 thinned and bleeding ranks, they stood like 
 a wall of adamant against the surging masses 
 of the foe, until the tide of war rolled back 
 before them, and victory was won ! It was 
 the thought that prayer was then ascending 
 for them that nerved their arms, and made 
 them heroes in that fearful hour. 
 
 Gentlemen, members of the Legislature of 
 the State of Alabama, it well becomes you to 
 cultivate this spirit of prayer, and to bow this 
 day before the Lord of Hosts v/ith reverence 
 and godly fear. Your position gives you in- 
 fluence over the minds of the people. They 
 will Hsten to your words and follow your 
 example ; let that example lead them in paths 
 of piety and uprightness. You are convened 
 by the Executive at a crisis in the affairs of 
 our State and of our country. Much of the 
 future history of Alabama, of the security and 
 happiness of our people, depends upon your 
 acts. It is no disparagement to your intelli- 
 
108 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 gence to urge you in this perilous hour to 
 seek wisdom of Him who "giveth hberally to 
 all men and upbraideth not;" to seek by 
 fervent prayer for divine guidance in the dis- 
 charge of your responsible duties. The influ- 
 ence of your actions will live through all 
 coming generations. You will meet it at the 
 bar of God! Ask his aid that you may not 
 blush to confront it before the "]ndge of quick 
 and dead." 
 
 With this spirit of reliance upon your God 
 cherished in your hearts, and having dis- 
 charged your duty to your country, you can 
 return home with the approval of your con- 
 sciences, and calmly await that hour when the 
 sun of peace shall rise upon a land of freedom, 
 *1ike another morn risen on mid-noon !" May 
 you live long and enjoy the blessings of that 
 day. 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 109 
 
 n. 
 OUR COUNTRY; ITS RESOURCES AND 
 OPPORTUNITY. 
 
 (A paper prepared in 1900, the year closing his 
 work as Secretary of the Home Mission Board.) 
 
 AN old man whose mind dwells much 
 upon the future of his people will be 
 * pardoned if sometimes he sees visions 
 and dreams dreams. In this brief 
 document I make no pretensions to the gift 
 of prophecy, and no attempt at the interpreta- 
 tion of the Scripture prophecies. What I 
 have to say is the result of long and patient 
 thought on the world's present conditions, and 
 the potent and far-reaching influences that are 
 shaping its destiny. So the fabric of my 
 dreaming is something more than idle fancy. 
 As the servant of the Prophet on Carmel's 
 Height reported to his master that he saw a 
 cloud the size of a human hand rising from 
 the sea, and as it grew and those long cloud 
 fingers, the precursors of the coming storm, 
 stretching from the far-off horizon to the 
 zenith, assured him of the coming rain, so it 
 has seemed to me that far-reaching influences 
 now stretching across our political skies be- 
 
110 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 token coming events that may darken our 
 heavens into midnight gloom, or bring the 
 showers that water the furrows of our fields 
 and make them fruitful with a harvest of 
 blessing. The study of these things has im- 
 bued me with the profound conviction that 
 the crisis of the ages is upon us. Within the 
 first half of the twentieth century, probably 
 within the first three decades, the world will 
 be either Christian or anti-Christian. Either 
 Christ shall be enthroned over the nations, or 
 stimulated by its selfishness, its lust of power 
 and its greed of gold, the recreant nations will 
 bow at Moloch's altar and satiate the greedy 
 maw of death with their offered feast of 
 blood. In this brief portraiture of the present 
 and the probabiHties of the future, permit me 
 to say that this country of ours is to be the 
 most gigantic figure that by its overmastering 
 power will shape the destinies of the nations. 
 Far greater than Babylon, or Assyria, or 
 Egypt, or Greece, or Rome, or all of these 
 combined, will be the power of her control 
 to the very ends of the earth. 
 
 Let us take a dispassionate view of her past 
 and her present, of her rapid rise and the 
 elements of her gigantic strength, and then 
 looking down her pathway with sober judg- 
 ment, answer to ourselves the question, what 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 111 
 
 she will be materially, intellectually, and reli- 
 giously; and how vast will be her dominion 
 over the nations when this opening century 
 shall have run half its course. On its physical 
 side the elements of a nation's power are, 
 (i) the number of her people, (2) her mate- 
 rial resources, (3) her developed wealth, (4) 
 her inventive skill, and (5) her geographical 
 position. 
 
 OUR POPULATION. 
 
 No nation of modern, or perhaps of ancient 
 times, has ever increased in population with 
 such rapidity as our own. We go back to the 
 middle of the nineteenth century and find that 
 twenty-eight millions of people inhabited this 
 land. In the next ten years, when the civil 
 war began, they numbered thirty-one millions. 
 In 1870, thirty-eight millions; in 1880, fifty- 
 one millions ; in 1890, sixty-four millions ; in 
 1900, seventy-seven millions. During the 
 nineteenth century she added more than 
 seventy millions of people to her population. 
 If the same ratio of increase shall continue 
 until the middle of the twentieth century, she 
 will have in 1950 a hundred and ninety-five 
 millions. But reduce this ratio and let us 
 suppose that at the close of the first half of 
 the century she have only one hundred and 
 
112 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 fifty millions of people — how incalculable will 
 be their power! 
 
 Their physical power as a nation is not 
 limited now simply to their numbers. The 
 variety and the vastness of their machinery 
 multiplies almost beyond computation their 
 capacity for work. With these appliances 
 this people are now capable of doing more 
 than all the world besides, laboring with their 
 hands. It may be safely estimated that the 
 average man in this country, in consequence 
 of the increased facilities afforded him during 
 the period of his manhood, can do twice the 
 work the same man could have done thirty 
 years ago. If this ratio of increasing power 
 shall continue the same for the next half cen- 
 tury, then the average man of that generation 
 will be able to do four times as much as the 
 average man of this generation, so that the 
 anticipated population of a hundred and fifty 
 millions will become equal in productive 
 power to over five hundred millions of the 
 present generation. What sweep of thought 
 or fancy can compass the stupendous power 
 such a people will possess ? As we think of it, 
 and strive to hold our sober judgment within 
 the passionless limits of mathematical exacti- 
 tude, in spite of our rigid restriction, we find 
 our conclusion wearing the air of romance. 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 113 
 OUR MATERIAL RESOURCES. 
 
 The most important material resources that 
 render a nation independent of all other lands 
 and people, are the ability to supply food and 
 raiment for themselves, the possession of ade- 
 quate stores of minerals and metals, and un- 
 failing sources of water power. To these 
 must also be added the capital and genius 
 necessar}' for the development of such re- 
 sources. Let it be noted that this country 
 of ours is the only great nation on the face of 
 the earth that combines all these elements of 
 power. England, from whose shores have 
 flowed the great streams of commerce, is lack- 
 ing both in supplies of food and clothing for 
 her people. Her mines of coal and iron are 
 rapidly becoming exhausted. She has been 
 searching the world for supplies of ore to 
 feed her furnaces. She has seen iron and 
 steel transported across the Atlantic, laid upon 
 the wharves of her great cities, and sold for 
 a price with which her ironmasters could not 
 compete. She has lived to see the time when 
 the old proverb of "carrying coal to New- 
 castle" has ceased to have its truth or signifi- 
 cance, and the coals of distant lands are 
 bought to supply her own demands. Close 
 the gates of her commerce, and a single year 
 will not have passed before her famished peo- 
 
114 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 pie will cry for bread. With all her accumu- 
 lated wealth and her commerce sweeping old 
 ocean's realms to every shore, she at last finds 
 herself surpassed in productive power, and 
 falling behind in her race for the trade of the 
 world. Germany, her great rival, her equal 
 in skill, her superior in population and terri- 
 tory, is yet lacking in the plentifulness of her 
 raw materials and in the food necessary to 
 supply her people. France, with a skill per- 
 haps superior to either, and better supplied 
 with food, has scantier supplies of coal, or of 
 minerals and metallic ores. Only in America 
 do we find that breadth of area, that variety 
 of soil, climate, and production; those far- 
 reaching square miles of coal, that bountiful 
 supply of minerals and ores of the baser and 
 the more precious metals, the wealth of field 
 and forest, the incalculable power of its 
 streams descending from its mountains to the 
 sea, which, when all is combined, make it the 
 only land on whose continental breadth may 
 be built enterprises grand as the mountains 
 and rivers that divide her plains. 
 
 OUR DEVELOPING WEALTH. 
 
 No country has ever increased in wealth 
 so rapidly as our own has done in the latter 
 part of the nineteenth century. In 1 880 it 
 
THE MOMK MISSION STATESMAN 115 
 
 aggregated fifty-four billions, slightly sur- 
 passing that of England, up to that time justly 
 reported as being the richest nation on the 
 globe. Our present wealth (in 1900) is not 
 less than eighty-four billions of dollars. Our 
 increase for the past twenty years has been 
 at the average rate of a billion and a half each 
 year. Nor need we fear that this ratio of 
 increase will be diminished during the years 
 of the incoming centur}-. Even now the bal- 
 ance of trade is pouring into the lap of the 
 nation six hundred millions of dollars every 
 year. With the rapidly increasing demand 
 of the world for the commodities we can most 
 cheaply supply, there must come the regular 
 increase in their production. Four-fifths of 
 the iron exported last year to foreign lands 
 was shipped from Birmingham, Alabama. 
 There the marvelous juxtaposition of coal 
 and iron ore and limestone, and all the facili- 
 ties for the production of iron and steel, en- 
 abled the ironmasters of Alabama to produce 
 them more cheaply than is done in any other 
 part of the globe. The same natural facilities 
 enjoyed by this spot of worldwide fame are 
 shared by that long stretch of mountains that 
 stand on either side of the great limestone 
 valley that extends from the Potomac to the 
 Alabama. With beds of iron ore of varying 
 
116 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 kinds, but all of finest quality, filling the 
 mountains for eight hundred miles on the 
 southeast side of the valley, and with coal in 
 inexhaustible quantities spreading for an equal 
 distance on the other side, and under-running 
 her mountain ridges until they die away into 
 the bluegrass plains of Kentucky and Tennes- 
 see, this unrivaled region presents conditions 
 for the manufacture of iron unequaled on the 
 globe. There Vv^ill come a time in the not dis- 
 tant future when these vast resources will be 
 utilized for the benefit of our race. It has 
 been said that the per capita use of iron makes 
 the degree of a people's civilization. The 
 great empire of China has an area larger than 
 that of the United States, and a population 
 five times as great. She is practically without 
 railroads, and without any other adequate 
 facilities for transportation except her rivers. 
 If this country, with her three millions of 
 square miles and seventy-five millions of peo- 
 ple, find two hundred thousand miles of rail- 
 road inadequate to her need, how many miles 
 will be required for China's vast extended 
 territory and her four hundred millions of 
 people ? If they are ever built, and built they 
 must be, because the world of commerce de- 
 mands it, from our country must go those 
 vast supplies needed for their construction. 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 117 
 
 Vast as are all the resources of this Appala- 
 chian Range, when we confront the problem 
 of China's future demands, we are led to won- 
 der and to doubt whether these seemingly 
 exhaustless resources of our country will be 
 sufficient to supply the needs of that great 
 empire beyond the Pacific. 
 
 Nor are the resources of our soil less ade- 
 quate to meet the widest demands for food 
 and clothing than are our mountains to girdle 
 it with bands of steel. It will not be ques- 
 tioned by any one familiar with the facts, that 
 our agricultural productions of every kind 
 can by more skillful culture be doubled in 
 quantity without the addition of a single acre. 
 Our great cotton crop of ten millions of bales 
 is produced on twenty-five millions of acres. 
 It is a well known fact that with careful culti- 
 vation three bales of cotton can be produced 
 on one acre. Our fields of grain average 
 scarcely more than twenty bushels to the acre, 
 while fifty bushels of corn or wheat, by an 
 increase of the farmer's skill, can be produced 
 with greater profit on the same acre. The 
 soil is God's richest gift to our race. Its his- 
 tory is a marvel of the divine workmanship. 
 In it he has stored the food for a thousand 
 generations. The finite mind cannot fathom 
 the infinitude of the blessings which he has 
 
118 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 stored within it, for no human skill has on 
 a single acre ever reached the confines of its 
 productive power. When DeSoto and his 
 followers in their vain search for gold and 
 precious stones and the fancied fountain of 
 eternal youth, wandered through the far 
 stretching leagues of our Southern pines, and 
 died at last upon the banks of the great Mis- 
 sissippi, had he found all his heart desired — 
 mountains glittering with their wealth of 
 gold, valleys covered with gems fit to grace 
 the coronets of queens — he would then have 
 found nothing so rich in the profusion of its 
 gifts, or so regal in its beneficence, as the 
 soil he trod with unheeding feet. 
 
 The Scriptures tell of Pharaoh's dream of 
 the years of plenty succeeded by the years of 
 famine, and of Joseph's masterful statesman- 
 ship in his provision to feed the famishing 
 nation, and render more stable and enduring 
 the imperial throne. Were this history to be 
 repeated in these last ages, with the world for 
 its theater, America could produce and dis- 
 tribute in the seven years of plenty the corn 
 and wine and oil that would satiate the hunger 
 of the nation. Fifty years ago we produced 
 two and a half millions of bales of cotton. That 
 was sufficient to meet the wants of the world. 
 Now we produce ten millions of bales of cot- 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 119 
 
 ton, and the spectre of a cotton famine stares 
 us in the face. The day is not far distant 
 when fifteen, twenty, twenty-five milHons of 
 bales will be demanded by the wants of human 
 life, and this land of ours will not only grow 
 it, but will convert it into all the forms needed 
 to meet the necessities and tastes of all the 
 world. Hitherto England and New England 
 have been the great manufactories of our 
 cotton. It has been demonstrated beyond all 
 question that the best and cheapest place of 
 manufacture is by the side of the field where 
 it is grown. The marvelous facilities for this 
 manufacture have scarcely dawned upon the 
 intelligence of our people. With supplies of 
 coal covering thousands of miles of our terri- 
 tory there need be no lack of power to drive 
 all the machinery necessary to manufacture 
 our entire crop. But if an acre of coal did 
 not exist in our country, there is power 
 enough in our rivers running idly to the sea 
 to do the manufacturing for the world. Look 
 along these Appalachian Ranges and see on 
 the mountain sides and the elevated plateaus, 
 thousands of feet above the plains below, 
 the birthplace of so many of our great rivers. 
 Count them over and grasp their great num- 
 ber and the power of their descending waters. 
 The Potomac and the James and the Appo- 
 
120 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 mattox and the Roanoke and the Cape Fear 
 and the Catawba and the Santee and the 
 Savannah and the Oconee and the Ocmulgee 
 and the Chattahoochee and the Tallapoosa 
 and the Coosa and the Black Warrior and the 
 Tennessee and the Cumberland and the Ken- 
 tucky and the Big Sandy and the Mononga- 
 hela and the Shenandoah; see how tumbling 
 from their mountain heights they fall more 
 than a thousand feet down to the level of the 
 sea. Bid their collected waters call the light- 
 ning from above and confine them where you 
 will, the slaves of human will, to drive the 
 vast machinery that works out its multiform 
 designs. But who can foresee or describe all 
 the varied forms of helpfulness, or all those 
 subtle and mysterious agencies that must at 
 last come forth from the darkness in which 
 they have so long abided into the ken of 
 human sagacity and submit themselves tamely 
 to mian's control. This highest destiny of man, 
 this sublime height, he is attaining as though 
 borne on the wings of the wind. Who shall 
 say Vv^here is the limit of his power? Who 
 shall oppose his onward progress to the con- 
 quest of the last and mightiest of all of earth's 
 mysterious agencies, when his Maker has bid 
 him subdue and control them all ? Who shall 
 say how vast shall be the fruits of his con- 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 121 
 
 quest, or to how many distant lands he shall 
 bear the spoils of his victory? Who can tell 
 how by invention's skillful art he shall remove 
 the mountain barriers, divide the continents 
 at his will, and span the wide ocean with the 
 sublime structures of his art? Who can tell 
 what sweeping tides of wealth shall roll back 
 from foreign lands and pile their glittering 
 stores in our great marts of trade? We stand 
 amazed in the presence of thoughts like these, 
 and wonder ceases only when imagination 
 passes the gateway of the possible out into the 
 wide realms beyond. 
 
 OUR INVENTIVE SKILL. 
 
 In large measure our developing wealth is 
 the fruit of our inventive skill. One of the 
 most distinguished scientists in this country 
 was closing a lecture in which he had thrown 
 upon the canvas the great converging facts of 
 science. He declared that these facts which 
 presaged discoveries and inventions were un- 
 unequaled in all the world. He assured his 
 audience that the world was standing upon 
 the verge of a civilization as much grander in 
 its benefits to humanity, when compared with 
 that which the most enlightened people now 
 enjoy, as it surpasses the age when the chief 
 element of transportation was the slow mov- 
 
122 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 ing OX or the patient camel, and he experi- 
 enced the hope that the cultured men and 
 women who had listened with such deep 
 interest to his address would live to see its 
 accomplishment. The life period of a single 
 generation has wrought inventions and dis- 
 coveries, and by these advanced the arts and 
 multiplied the comforts of life, which it would 
 take volumes to describe. Every discovery 
 and every invention, though it be but a step 
 in human progress, is in itself an event of 
 immeasurable power and grandeur. The ad- 
 vance may seem to be small. It may be so 
 to the individual, but it is sublime when the 
 world steps forward and aligns itself on the 
 position of the inventor. 
 
 OUR GEOGRAPHICAL POSITION. 
 
 The location of this country on the face of 
 the globe is one of its chief advantages. That 
 location insures its comparative safety from 
 attack. No nation would have the hardihood 
 to attempt an armed invasion of our territory. 
 We are thus freed from the incubus of a great 
 standing army. The millions of armed men 
 that in Europe are required to defend national 
 borders, who are removed from productive 
 industry and become a tax upon the labors of 
 others, are rendered useless by our geographi- 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 123 
 
 cal position. A study of the configuration of 
 the continents will show that there are two 
 great natural trade centers of the world. The 
 one is at the eastern end of the Mediterranean 
 sea, and the other on the northern coast of 
 the Gulf of Mexico. In the Eastern Hemis- 
 phere, until comparatively recent times, the 
 great empires lay in close proximity to this 
 commercial center. From the days of the 
 almost forgotten empire of the Hittites, the 
 Babylonians, the Persians, the Egyptians, the 
 Greeks, and Romans have all laid the foun- 
 dations of their great political dominions in 
 close connection with this natural trade center 
 of the world. It was England's enterprise 
 and power that disarranged the balance nature 
 had adjusted, and made London the Eastern 
 center of trade. So, political power and influ- 
 ence, the existence of slavery in the South, 
 the inflowing tides of foreign immigration 
 settling in the North and West, the great war 
 between the States that hurled the industries 
 and social organizations of the South into the 
 depths of poverty and humiliation, with other 
 resulting influences, removed the trade center 
 of the West from the mouth of the Missis- 
 sippi to the mouth of the Hudson. The time 
 will come when these disarranging influences 
 will give way before the pressure of natural 
 
124 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 conditions and commerce will swing to its 
 normal place, as the needle, when freed from 
 disturbing causes, swings back and points to 
 the pole. There needs but one thing to make 
 this Western trade center the great center for 
 the commerce of the world, and everything 
 betokens its coming. When the Isthmian 
 Canal is constructed, and the mouth of the 
 Mississippi is turned into the Pacific Ocean, 
 the commerce of this country will dominate 
 all the shores of this great sea. That will 
 make our country, vv^hich will be the great 
 center of the world's production, five thousand 
 miles nearer to Eastern Asia, the center of 
 the world's population, than any other great 
 commercial nation. This will give us the con- 
 trol of the commerce of every people and na- 
 tion whose shores rest upon the sands of 
 earth's greatest sea, and the control of that 
 commerce is the empire of the world. Such 
 is the coming destiny of this land of ours. 
 Wliat shall be its effect upon our national 
 prosperity no human mind can grasp. There 
 is but one event in the history of the world 
 which furnishes any sort of comparison with 
 it. Magnifying that as v/e may, and realizing 
 that for centuries it shaped the destinies of all 
 the nations, we must still confess that as great 
 as has been its influence on the progress of 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 126 
 
 our race, it is after all comparing small things 
 with great ones when we place it side by side 
 with the opening of the Pacific into the Gulf 
 of ^Mexico. The caravan trade of the East 
 coming from the banks of the Ganges and 
 the Indus, across the valley of the Euphrates, 
 found its mart on the eastern shores of the 
 Mediterranean. Insignificant as its long train 
 of camels seem when compared with the great 
 leviathans of the deep that now thread the 
 ocean's path, seeking ports on every shore, 
 those beasts of burden bore 
 
 "The wealth of Ormus and of Ind 
 From where the gorgeous East with richest hand 
 Showers on her kings barbaric pearls and gold." 
 
 That trade built all those proud cities that 
 glassed themselves in the blue waters of the 
 Mediterranean. That trade reared Palmyra 
 in the wilderness, and Alexandria by the Nile, 
 and Sidon on her rocky slopes, and Ephesus 
 with her temple to Diana, and Antioch which 
 lives in Holy Writ, and Tyre on her island 
 home. That trade built Phcenicia's ships and 
 spread the daring sails that, beyond the straits 
 of Gades, sought the snowy clififs of Albion. 
 The fragments of their pov/er and glory are 
 yet the admiration of the world. One auspi- 
 cious day Vasco de Gama turned the Cape of 
 
126 ISAAC I^AYLOR TICHENOIi 
 
 Good Hope, and first of all men in modern 
 times saw the new route to the far-off Indies. 
 That adventurous deed changed the face of 
 the globe. That trade which had enriched 
 every nation controlling it, forsook its ancient 
 paths and by a new route sought the Western 
 world. Venice and Genoa, the last Mediter- 
 ranean cities to control it, were smitten as 
 though an earthquake had shaken their deep 
 foundations, and the retiring sea had left 
 them stranded on the shore. Attila was called 
 the scourge of God. Had he with his ruth- 
 less hordes sacked their palaces, and with the 
 torch brought their proud heads to the dust, 
 there might still have been hope for them. 
 But when their trade had vanished they sat 
 solitary in the midst of their marts of com- 
 merce. It was then that there arose among 
 the nations a contest for commercial supre- 
 macy. Soon two great rivals were left alone 
 to contest for the riches of the world. 
 Amsterdam and London with fierce gaze 
 looked at each other across the narrow water 
 which divided them. To the one or the other 
 the great prize must fall. When Admiral 
 Blake, with the broom nailed to his masthead, 
 swept the Dutch navy from the sea, England 
 had won, and London became the great com- 
 mercial capital of the world. From this con- 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 127 
 
 test Sprang her invincible commercial navy, 
 her great manufactories, her heroic armies, 
 her wide dominion, her flag planted on every 
 continent, her military fortresses girdling the 
 earth, and her morning drum-beat heard 
 around the world. That contest gave her 
 India, Australia, half of North America, and 
 unnumbered islands of the sea. The grandest 
 empire of the world, exceeding all the proud 
 nations of antiquity, followed this victory over 
 Holland, and made her merchants the princes 
 of the world. If the camel drivers of the 
 East held in their tawny hands the seed whose 
 fruit was the empire of the world, what re- 
 sults will follow in our land, where a hundred 
 and fifty millions of educated and enterpris- 
 ing people shall burden their fleets that spread 
 a thousand sails, and transport the products of 
 their industry to the five hundred millions 
 in the land of the East that await their 
 coming. 
 
 THE MISSION OF THE ANGLO-SAXON. 
 
 Our people trace back their origin to the 
 old Aryan race. Their chief ambition was a 
 desire for land. From their ancestral homes, 
 in the morning twilight of the world, they 
 passed in great tidal waves beyond the boimd- 
 aries of their nationality and made conquest 
 
128 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 of the nations. They poured through the 
 passes of the Himalayas down into the tropic 
 plains of India, and there founded a civili- 
 zation and established an empire, whose 
 crumbling ruins, after the surges of the ages 
 have rolled over it, are memorials of its great- 
 ness and its power. They went out into the 
 plains of Persia and there sought to reproduce 
 the splendors which tradition had left them 
 of the lost Eden. In their westward march 
 they trod under foot the decaying fragments 
 of the great Hittite empire, and sought luxu- 
 rious ease on the sunny slopes of the great 
 Mediterranean. A more hardy branch of the 
 stock entered Europe, traversed the plains of 
 Russia, founded their rude but sturdy empires 
 on the banks of the Rhine, and from thence 
 they at last swept over the narrow sea and 
 made the British Island the prey of their 
 savage strength. Wherever they went they 
 carried in their hearts the spirit of conquest, 
 and in their hands sv/ords dripping vvdth the 
 blood of their fellowmen. They adorned the 
 rude halls of their palaces with trophies of 
 their savage triumph, and drank deep draughts 
 of intoxication from the skulls of their slaugh- 
 tered enemies. We are the descendants of 
 this race, inheriting their spirit of enterprise, 
 their love of freedom and home, their daring 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 129 
 
 in war, and their insatiable thirst for power 
 and for gold. Divest the Anglo-Saxon of 
 today of the uplifting influences of Christi- 
 anity and the veneering of civilization, and 
 he stands before you the most selfish and 
 grasping of men. Even today, while our 
 churches are sending missionaries and money 
 to well-nigh every nation on the globe, the 
 ships that carry these consecrated men and 
 wom.en far hence to the Gentiles, bear the 
 vilest of commercial commodities — opium and 
 rum — to besot and to destroy these unevan- 
 gelized masses. 
 
 If we do not intend that our country, when 
 she goes forth in her strength, bearing to the 
 nations the products of our most highly 
 favored land, shall prove to be a Cortez or a 
 Pizarro, plundering and burning and murder- 
 ing that she may satiate her accursed thirst 
 for gold, we must use stronger endeavors to 
 evangelize our people. By the controlling 
 forces of Christianity we must cleanse our 
 commerce, and hold in strong restraint their 
 absorbing desire for gain. 
 
 On the wide Western plains a generation 
 ago, the Indian would put down his ear to the 
 earth and listen for the tramp of the count- 
 less herd of buffalo, too far away for even 
 his keen-eyed vision to perceive. So let us 
 9 
 
130 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 put down our ears to our mother earth and 
 hsten to the tramp of the coming millions, 
 who so soon are to sweep into the field of our 
 vision and take their part in the world's 
 affairs. Thirty years and seventy-five mil- 
 lions more will come to add their strength, 
 their intelligence, their skill to the great army 
 now engaged in subduing the earth and har- 
 nessing the multiform and almost omnipotent 
 power of the mysterious agencies of air and 
 land and sea to do our bidding. 
 
 To what use will these inventions, discov- 
 eries, and developments of power be applied 
 by the coming generation ? This must depend 
 upon their moral and religious development. 
 What spirit shall dominate the people who 
 hold in their grasp the control of the world? 
 The paramount desire of these people will 
 permeate all their productions, whether these 
 productions address themselves to the mate- 
 rial, the mental, or the moral and spiritual 
 interests of humanity. That dominant idea 
 will control the planting of every field, the 
 use of every agricultural product, and the 
 movement of every manufacturing implement. 
 It will embody itself in every domestic habit 
 and activity. It will run through every law 
 enacted by legislative power. It will perme- 
 ate every treaty with foreign nations, and 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 131 
 
 according to its benevolence or its selfishness, 
 it will be a blessing or a curse to the world. 
 Our great ships will transport to every shore 
 the morals as well as the merchandise of our 
 land. If the vehicles of our commerce shall 
 bear the purity and peace of the gospel, then 
 may we hope to see our nation a savor of 
 life unto life. But if it shall bear the things 
 that corrupt and curse our civilization, then 
 it shall prove a savor of death unto death to 
 all the nations. 
 
 There is no surer or swifter means of ac- 
 complishing our Lord's command, to give the 
 gospel to every creature, than to enlighten and 
 Christianize and sanctify the hearts of our 
 own people, so that they shall write upon 
 everything consumed at home and everything 
 sent abroad, ''Holiness to the Lord." 
 
 When the millions of our countrymen shall 
 give Christianity its rightful place, not only in 
 our sanctuaries, but in our homes and our 
 workshops and our manufactories and our 
 marts of trade; when the peace and smile of 
 God shall so fill our lives that it shall rest 
 upon all our fields, shall be recognized in our 
 streets, shall cleanse the slums of our cities, 
 shall enlighten the ignorance of every child 
 of poverty, shall meet the wants of the afflicted 
 and be the friend and helper of the needy; 
 
132 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 when our literature shall be freed from all 
 contaminating. influences, and our society lose 
 its follies and its soul-dwarfing vices in the 
 higher purpose to follow the Saviour's exam- 
 ple ; when our hearts shall be purified and 
 elevated by divine grace so as to distribute 
 its large benefactions to all the children of 
 want, then indeed will our country prove a 
 blessing to the nations of the earth, then will 
 gospel light stream to every shore and the 
 dark shadows rise and float away. This is 
 God's mission for the Anglo-Saxon race. 
 When it is done the Kingdom of God will be 
 on earth, and he will reign whose right it is 
 to "put all things under his feet." 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 133 
 
 m. 
 THE LAND OF THE SKY.* 
 
 SOME years ago for the first time I 
 crossed the Land of the Sky from 
 I Morristown, Tennessee, to Salisbury, 
 North CaroHna. The greater part of 
 the railway had been recently constructed, and 
 the trains ran cautiously and slowly over the 
 newly opened line. 
 
 Leaving Morristown about 9 a. m., we 
 reached Paint Rock, on the North Carolina 
 Hne, about 12 m.^ and began our delightful 
 trip up the French Broad River. It was an 
 October day with the air full of warm sun- 
 shine, and with scarcely a cloud to cast a 
 shadow upon mountain or river. The delay 
 for dinner at the Warm Springs shortened 
 the remaining hours of the never-to-be-for- 
 gotten day. With deliberate speed the train 
 followed every curvature of the French Broad 
 as it turned from side to side seeking, through 
 
 ♦This choice bit from Dr. Tichenor's pen is well 
 worth preserving, both as illustrative of his pow- 
 ers of imagination and description, and because it 
 was his first view of a section of our country in 
 whose material and spiritual development he In 
 after years took great interest. 
 
134 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 that channel it has chiseled in the everlasting 
 rocks, its pathway to the sea. 
 
 This noted river finds its birthplace among 
 the cliffs of the Blue Ridge not far from 
 Caesar's Head in South Carolina. Calling to- 
 gether its tributaries from every side, it unites 
 them into a broad flood that northeastward 
 flows down the easy slope of the beautiful 
 valley, and meets at Asheville the sparkling 
 Swannanoa that comes leaping like a fawn 
 down the western slopes of the living wall 
 which separates the depressed mountain plat- 
 eaus from the Piedmont valleys of the east. 
 Thus reinforced, the two turn their faces to 
 the west and prepare to break through the 
 mountain ranges, chain after chain, until at 
 last their imprisoned waters flow out into the 
 great valley that from Pennsylvania to Ala- 
 bama divides the Blue Ridge from the Alle- 
 gheny. This conflict of the ages is not yet 
 ended. The mighty river has indeed cut its 
 way through the mountain barriers and 
 gained the wide valley down which it flows to 
 the great Father of Waters, but everywhere 
 the mountain ranges, rising close on either 
 side like broken battle lines still holding their 
 position, seek to throw across the opening a 
 new formation to imprison these flowing 
 waters forever. 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 135 
 
 Nothing could exceed the varied beauty of 
 the changing scenery as the train slowly fol- 
 lowed every winding of the river, clinging 
 closely to the water side. Here the stream 
 with arrowy swiftness poured through the 
 deep and narrow channel it had worn by the 
 labor of ages into the inclosing rocks. Here, 
 as though wearied with its efforts, it dallied 
 in slow running eddies under banks of ferns 
 and wild roses, while the over-arching trees 
 with their long, willowy branches stooped 
 over and kissed the sleeping waters. And 
 here brawling over a rocky bed it broke into a 
 wide sheet of foam, and hurried by as though 
 it had heard and was answering the call for 
 help from its far distant mother — the moan- 
 ing sea. 
 
 As you lifted your eyes upward, here the 
 shadows on the mountains deepened the green 
 of the forest verdure, and there the floods of 
 sunshine mellowed it into tints of gold. Here 
 the bald and blackened cliff rose unimpeded 
 to the clouds, and there clothed to their very 
 summits with leafy covering of close woven 
 forests, they seemed like sentinels guarding 
 the inner shrine of this sanctuary of the moun- 
 tain world. At last the parting beams of the 
 dying day, like Moses, climbed to the moun- 
 tain tops to bid the world farewell, and the 
 
136 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 silent shadows were lifted from the vales to 
 cover the sleeping world. 
 
 We reached Asheville just "as the sentinel 
 stars set their watch in the sky." The train 
 would resume its journey to Salisbury with 
 the morning light, so I sought the Swannanoa 
 hotel and retired to rest at the usual hour. I 
 could not sleep. The recollections of the day 
 lingered in my soul. Had I been permitted 
 to walk through Eden before sin had stained 
 its glories, and seen what, since its unopening 
 gates have been forever barred, no human eye 
 can see, I should scarce have been more en- 
 raptured by its remembrance than I was that 
 night. 
 
 Before the dawn I had descended from my 
 chamber to the office where, fortunately for 
 me, the proprietor was on watch. "You are 
 awake early," said he. "It is more than an 
 hour before your train. Have you ever been 
 in Asheville before? Would you like to see 
 the sun rise from the top of the hotel? You 
 have plenty of time." In a few minutes an 
 opening in the roof let us out into the cool 
 air of the morning. At first all was dark ex- 
 cept a streak of gray dawn upon the eastern 
 horizon. Then as our eyes grew more accus- 
 tomed to the dark, and the light slowly in- 
 creased, there came out the dim and ghostly 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN ISl 
 
 outlines of the giant mountains emerging 
 from the floods of darkness. 
 
 Far away to the east the narrow Hne of 
 glowing crimson is broadening on the up- 
 ward arching sky. There the stars are pal- 
 ing in the growing light. The arrowy beams 
 of the coming day are transforming the 
 mists of morning into the light of heaven. 
 Just in front of us old Pisgah's bald and 
 craggy summit, smitten by the coming sun, 
 looks as though the morning star had fallen 
 upon her and invested her with its molten 
 glories. 
 
 Far away westward peak after peak is 
 meeting the rising day. Balsam and Cling- 
 man and Serbal and Junaluska are all aglow 
 as though the watchiires of heavenly guards 
 had been kindled on their summits. A hun- 
 dred more are joining in the line of glory. 
 Standing on these heights so near to heaven, 
 angels' hands seem to be disengaging the cur- 
 tains of the night, and down their rugged 
 sides and deep ravines the loosened draperies 
 of darkness fall. 
 
 Swiftly eastward across the broken plain 
 the hosts of morning are driving the shadows 
 of the night, and field and forest and mountain 
 crag and the wide reach of flowing river are 
 seized by the conquering light until Swanna- 
 
138 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 noa's forest-tangled fountains yield to the do- 
 minion of the day, and in token of her loyalty 
 she sends back from her every winding the 
 morning's glowing beam. These old forests, 
 covering the hills to their very summits, clad 
 in their autumnal robes of crimson, green and 
 gold, look like high priests of the world minis- 
 tering at nature's altars, and lifting their rich 
 fruit offerings to their God. 
 
 Overwhelmed with the splendors of that 
 new day, breathed in beauty upon this fallen 
 earth, I lifted up my tear-filled eyes and said : 
 "O my Father, how can heaven be more beau- 
 tiful than this?" 
 
 Land of the Sky, thou art to me what the 
 patriarch saw when sleeping on his stony pil- 
 low — a stairway on whose ascent of gold, heart 
 and hope and faith and life rise heavenward so 
 high, that at times my soul catches the angels' 
 minstrelsy and the sheen of that dazzling 
 throne, whose radiance kindles into life every 
 sun and star whose cycling march measures 
 alike the saint's immortality and the eternity 
 of God. 
 
THE IIOxME MISSION STATESMAN 139 
 
 IV. 
 
 UNCLE BEN'S GOLDEN WEDDING. 
 
 A TRUE STORY/-^ 
 
 MASTER, you ain't gwine to whip that 
 little boy, and his ma gone away to 
 I Selma, is you?" 
 
 It was long years before the war, in 
 the slavery times, when Uncle Ben asked this 
 question. "The little boy" was the son of one 
 of Alabama's largest and most noted planters, 
 and Uncle Ben was the head man of his large 
 force, or "the driver," as such a man was al- 
 ways called. His wife, Aunt Jennie, was the 
 head servant of her mistress' household, and 
 all the children of the planter called her "mam- 
 my." On the day before Uncle Ben asked the 
 question with which v;e begin this sketch, "the 
 little boy" had been carelessly playing among 
 the hav stacks with friction matches, exhibit- 
 
 *This story belongs to the family life of Walker 
 Reynolds, of Talladega County, Alabama. Dr. 
 Tichenor's last wife was a daughter of this house- 
 hold, and at the time of its writing he was a son-in- 
 law in the home. It not only illustrates Dr. Tich- 
 enor's style of writing, but sets forth the best side 
 of Southern slavery. 
 
140 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 ing to an astonished crowd of little darkies, 
 how, with the keen edge of his new knife, he 
 could kindle them into a flame. Throwing 
 the ignited wood thoughtlessly to one side, that 
 he might strike another, the hay was fired. In 
 a moment the fiercely increasing flame shot up 
 to the top of the huge pyramid, and before that 
 infantile crowd had time to think, the flames 
 were leaping from stack to stack, until seven- 
 teen were wrapped in their winding sheet of 
 fire. The high fence, which had been built 
 around them for their protection, was for one 
 brief moment black with the panic-stricken 
 darkies, and the next showed a line of black 
 passing with the velocity of the wind across 
 the level sward. The little boy gazed for a 
 moment in blank amazement upon the red 
 ruin his carelessness had wrought, and then, 
 gathering his energies, began to exert himself 
 to save the fence which encircled the flaming 
 forage. A few rails only were transported to 
 a safe distance, when the fire leaped madly 
 over the whole environment and drove him 
 away. No words can describe the awe he felt 
 as he contemplated the burning mass, rolling 
 heavenward its clouds of intermingled black 
 and crimson, or the terror that filled his heart 
 as he thought of what his father would say 
 and do. In a short time, the whole planta- 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN l4l 
 
 tion was gathered about the place, and the 
 subdued voices of a hundred darkies mingled 
 with the hiss and crackle of the devouring 
 flames. Among them was Uncle Ben, who 
 soon learned that his little favorite was the 
 author of the terrible disaster. Taking him 
 gently by the hand, he led him back to the 
 house, and w^ith aching heart, awaited the re- 
 turn of the planter, who, with the older mem- 
 bers of the family, had gone to preaching, a 
 few miles away. In due time they all returned, 
 and Uncle Ben made faithful report to the 
 master of the loss he had sustained. The little 
 culprit was ordered into his mother's room, 
 and, seated in his low arm-chair, was com- 
 manded to take his Bible and spend the remain- 
 der of the day in reading that instructive vol- 
 ume. How much benefit he received from 
 that afternoon's perusal of those sacred pages 
 history does not record, but the evidences are 
 that it must have been great, as those who 
 knew him best say that he has rarely been 
 known to open it since. 
 
 Next morning, when at an early hour Uncle 
 Ben reported at his master's door, he received, 
 in addition to his usual orders to see that all 
 the stock was properly attended to, an order 
 that he should on his return bring him a good 
 supply of birch, for the benefit of the boy who 
 
142 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 had so suddenly deprived the plantation of its 
 stores of food for the winter. No wonder 
 Uncle Ben was slow in the execution of this 
 special order. For a long time he lingered 
 among the trees which were to furnish the in- 
 struments of correction, and with reluctant 
 step returned to his master's chamber. All 
 this time he had been ransacking his brain and 
 heart for some plea that would avail to shield 
 the child from the impending punishment, and 
 when he transferred the long and limber rods 
 to the master's hands, he made, in sad and 
 pleading tones, the remark we have already 
 quoted. 
 
 The little boy's mother had been absent for 
 some days, on a visit to relatives in a city 
 more than a hundred miles away, and Ben 
 knew how anxiously the planter awaited his 
 wife's return. His own affection for Aunt 
 Jennie taught him that this was the most avail- 
 able avenue to the heart of the strong-willed 
 man before whom he stood. But when he 
 saw that the stern look did not relax, he feared 
 his plea had been without effect. 
 
 "Master," said he, in a low, firm tone, that 
 evinced beyond question that he meant what 
 he said : *'If you must whip somebody for dat 
 fire, whip me, and let de little chile go." And 
 he began to remove his coat to receive th^ 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 143 
 
 Stripes. The planter was overcome. His 
 eyes filled with tears, and, handing the switches 
 back to Uncle Ben, he gave him his promise 
 that nobody should be whipped "for dat fire." 
 
 Since that morning, long years have passed. 
 The war came and went. The slaves on the 
 old plantation became free, and in a short time 
 were scattered far and wide over the country ; 
 but Uncle Ben and Aunt Jennie remained. 
 
 The planter, ripe in years, left his earthly 
 possessions, crossed over the river, and is rest- 
 ing under the shadow^ of the trees that grow 
 by the river of life in the paradise of God. 
 From the window of the old mansion you look 
 down where, on a gentle elevation, underneath 
 the old oaks, undisturbed by the woodman's 
 axe, a white marble shaft marks the spot where 
 his mortal part awaits the resurrection of the 
 just. 
 
 The lit;^e boy has grown to be a man. From 
 a distant state a cultured and charming wife 
 has been Lrought to his side. His fellow-cit- 
 izens have recognized his sterling worth and 
 called him to serve them in places of responsi- 
 bility, and now the letters that reach the old 
 mansion for him have ''Honorable" endorsed 
 upon them. 
 
 Uncle Ben and Aunt Jennie live close by 
 upon a part of the old plantation, and every 
 
144 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 few days are seen at the old homestead. 
 Around the humble, but comfortable, home 
 are to be seen horses and cows and pigs and 
 goats. Their garden is well supplied with all 
 the vegetables grown in that sunny clime, and 
 within, kept by Aunt Jennie's neat hand, all is 
 as clean and cheery as if white folks lived 
 there. 
 
 Age has crept upon this couple, and infirm- 
 ities have lingered, but they go about their 
 daily tasks with hearts in which the light of life 
 has been softened and mellowed by their ad- 
 vancing years. Honored and respected by all 
 the neighbors, both white and black, welcome 
 visitors to the old family, whom they served 
 from the heart for so many years, this old 
 couple "along the cool sequestered vale of life 
 keep the noiseless tenor of their way." 
 
 Christmas days have come, and with them 
 the annual family reunion at Mount Ida, as 
 the old homestead is called. The stately old 
 plantation home, with its ample dimensions, is 
 crowded to its utmost capacity. The sons are 
 there, and the married daughters bring their 
 husbands; and merchants, manufacturers, 
 lawyers, preachers, and state officials — men 
 whose names are not unknown to fortune and 
 to fame — are part of the goodly company. 
 
 Troops of grandchildren come with eager 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 145 
 
 feet from their city homes to enjoy grand- 
 mother's royal entertainment during Christ- 
 mas hoHdays. Her Hberal purse and large 
 loving heart have prepared no stinted welcome 
 for them. The spacious fireplaces are filled 
 with oak and hickory, and the rich pine kin- 
 dles the accumulated mass to its brightest 
 glow. The lamps shine down upon the long 
 extended table, burdened with everything 
 luscious from land and sea. The frozen North 
 has brought its tribute to swell the feast, and 
 the fruits of Florida grace it with their golden 
 hue. By day the guns and horses are called 
 into requisition, and the rabbits and partridges 
 and the antlered monarchs of the forest become 
 victims of the death-dealing huntsman. 
 
 "Tomorrow is Uncle Ben and Aunt Jennie's 
 golden wedding," said the gray-haired matron, 
 "and we must celebrate it properly." 
 
 To that household her wish is always law, 
 and to this proposal there was an instant and 
 cordial assent. 
 
 To those gifted and honored men, and to 
 those cultured and queenly women, Uncle Ben 
 and Aunt Jennie had been the kindest of 
 friends. 
 
 They had in their childhood called them 
 "Daddy" and "Mammy," and the memory of 
 the good deeds done by that old couple came 
 10 
 
146 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 stealing back over the heart, like some strain 
 of sweetest music that at twilight steals over 
 the waters of a sleeping lake. The blameless 
 life they had ever led, their fidelity to each 
 other and to their God, the peace and piety 
 and love that had reigned through half a cen- 
 tury in their humble home, were known to all 
 that household, and as memory stirred the deep 
 fountain of their hearts, emotions of gratitude 
 and joy brought tears to every eye. 
 
 "The little boy" was reminded for the ten- 
 thousandth time of the scene when Uncle Ben 
 drew off his coat and said : "Master, whip 
 me." One recalled how Uncle Ben had gath- 
 ered partridge eggs in his capacious pockets, 
 and, when the day's work was done, brought 
 them from the field to her. Others told sto- 
 ries showing equal thoughtfulness of love to- 
 ward them. In that hour, unrestrained by 
 the conventionalities of life, they told artless 
 stories of the couple. Memory made them 
 children again, and, as in days of old, they 
 were seated by the fire, and listened with all 
 the interest of those early days to the songs and 
 tales that so charmed them. 
 
 The fidelity, not only to the white family, 
 but to each other, became the theme of con- 
 versation, and one told us, as an illustration of 
 it, how Aunt Jennie, who for many years had 
 
THE HOiME MISSION STATESMAN 147 
 
 been a devout ^Methodist, after her freedom, 
 became dissatisfied with her baptism; but 
 Uncle Ben persisted in saying that his was 
 good enough for him. But on the day when 
 she was to be immersed, as Uncle Ben watched 
 her packing up her clothes preparatory to this 
 rite, he said to her quietly : "Jennie, I 'spect 
 you'd better put mine in, too." Unwilling to 
 be separated from her even in this, he went 
 with her in her conviction of duty, though he 
 had none of his own. "Lovely and pleasant 
 in their lives," even in this symbol of "death 
 they were not divided." 
 
 The next morning, as soon as breakfast was 
 cleared away, the long dining table was cov- 
 ered with bridal presents for the couple, who 
 for fifty years had walked together in the path 
 of life; and in those presents every member 
 of the family was represented. That of the 
 former mistress was the largest of them all. 
 Every grandchild brought an offering to them 
 on this joyous occasion. 
 
 It had been arranged that the preacher son- 
 in-law should make an address to them, and, 
 after they and their colored friends had filled 
 the room on one side of the well-laden table, 
 he told them how their devotion to each other 
 and their attachment to the family had en- 
 
148 ISAAC TAYLOk TiCHENOR 
 
 deared them to every one. Then, after wish- 
 ing them many happy days, he said : 
 
 "Uncle Ben, you know that on wedding oc- 
 casions the preacher always expects a fee." 
 
 Uncle Ben's countenance fell. He had not 
 expected that such a demand would be made 
 upon him. 
 
 "But," said the minister, "on this occasion 
 the custom will be reversed, and the preacher 
 will pay the fee." 
 
 Then drawing the shining coins from his 
 pocket, he placed them in the hands of the 
 aged couple. 
 
 "Now, join hands together in token of your 
 determination still to keep your vows of love 
 to each other." 
 
 It was done. 
 
 "Now, salute your bride, and this ceremony 
 will end." 
 
 With the greatest gravity and the dignity of 
 a prince, the kiss was imprinted upon the lips 
 of the dusky bride. 
 
 Then followed congratulations, in which 
 each member of the family shook hands with 
 the honored couple, and stated brief reminis- 
 cences of their childhood. The colored friends, 
 too, gave them their congratulations with noisy 
 demonstrations, and retired. 
 
 Uncle Ben spoke a few words — his emotion 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 149 
 
 would not allow him to speak many — of grate- 
 ful acknowledgment. Aunt Jennie, more pro- 
 fuse, talked with streaming eyes of all the 
 kindness she and Ben had received, and how 
 until death they would be faithful in their 
 affection to those who had shown such love 
 to them, and left the room. 
 
 Uncle Ben lingered behind. Looking into 
 the face of his former mistress, he said : 
 
 **Dar is one thing I always wanted." 
 
 "What is it, Ben ?" she asked. 
 
 Glancing at the portrait that hung over the 
 mantel, he said, in a voice low and husky, and 
 with emotion: 
 
 "Master's pictur'." 
 
 "You shall have it," she replied, and he 
 bowed low and retired. 
 
 A sad sequel to this pleasing history is told 
 in an extract made from a letter received from 
 the mistress of the old homestead. 
 
 Mount Ida, March 27, 1885. 
 My Dear S. : This letter will convey to you and 
 R. sad news. Our dear old servant, Jennie, is no 
 more. The death angel took her from us on Wednes- 
 day afternoon at four o'clock. She had a spell of 
 
150 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 sickness in February, but seemed to have recovered 
 from it, although the pain in her side still remained. 
 Last week she exposed herself in attending a school 
 exhibition at the African church, took fresh cold, 
 and died that day week. O. M. was away in Clay 
 County, and Maude was in New Orleans with her 
 Carolina friends. We regretted their absence very 
 much, for Jennie was like a member of our family. 
 When I came home as a bride in November, 1841, 
 she was the first of all the servants to meet and 
 welcome me. Since that hour, till her death, she 
 was with me on every occasion of joy or sorrow, 
 through all my wedded and widowed life. So you 
 will not think it strange that I should grieve. She 
 has added in her way, not only to the comfort and 
 pleasure of my children and myself, but all my 
 grandchildren loved to go to "Mammy's house," 
 which shows how kindly she treated them. It is 
 sad and pitiful to see Ben in his deep and silent 
 grief. 
 
 The spring violets will bloom over Aunt 
 Jennie's grave, for loving hands will tend the 
 spot where she sleeps in peace until the Lord 
 shall come. That humble life of hers was rich 
 in the life of faith and love, and to her he will 
 say, "Well done!" 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 151 
 
 JESSE GOLDTHWAITE: A CHRISTIAN 
 SLAVE. 
 
 mN the year 1852, I became pastor of the 
 Baptist Church in Montgomery, Ala- 
 bama. This church consisted partly 
 of colored members, for whom a sep- 
 arate service was held every Sunday afternoon. 
 It became my duty to conduct these services ; 
 and I was thus brought into contact with a 
 large body of colored people who were pro- 
 fessed followers of Christ. Among them were 
 many whom I soon learned to respect for their 
 earnest piety and their warm attachment to 
 the Saviour's cause. It was to me a great 
 pleasure to tell these simple-minded people of 
 the Saviour's love for guilty man, and to point 
 them to that blest abode where *'the weary are 
 at rest." 
 
 Among the members of the church was one 
 to whom my attention was quickly attracted. 
 He was a tall, raw-boned man, half white, and 
 apparently about fifty years of age. He was 
 the subject of some infirmity, which had greatly 
 impaired his physical powers. His eyesight 
 had been partially destroyed, and he walked 
 
152 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 with some difficulty. His entrance into the 
 sanctuary was always recognized by his pecul- 
 iar step, and the noise made by the long and 
 heavy walking-stick striking at measured in- 
 tervals upon the floor. His face indicated a 
 strong and turbulent nature, which had been 
 subdued by suffering; and, when under the 
 influence of religious emotions, the light of 
 love shone through his countenance, as the 
 setting sun shines through the rifted clouds 
 after a day of storm. On inquiry, I learned 
 that he had not long before joined the church ; 
 that he had been a very bad man — his uncon- 
 trolled passions often leading him into difficul- 
 ties with those of his own color, and subject- 
 ing him to the severest discipline at the hands 
 of a not over-lenient master. He had been 
 addicted to intemperance ; and this vice, which 
 was an unusual one among slaves, had, doubt- 
 less, been the chief source of his troubles. 
 When under the influence of strong drink, he 
 was regarded as a very dangerous man; and 
 on more than one occasion he had attempted 
 the lives of his fellows. He had been received 
 into the church with some degree of hesitation ; 
 and at the time I became pastor, the question 
 of his steadfastness to his profession had not 
 been fully settled. But his regular attendance 
 upon all the services of the church, and the 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 153 
 
 earnest endeavor he was making to lead a 
 Christian Hfe, were rapidly winning the warm- 
 est sympathy and confidence of the whole con- 
 gregation. That confidence he never for- 
 feited. For fifteen years I knew him as a de- 
 voted Christian, whose daily walk, unblem- 
 ished by a stain, led him calmly and peacefully 
 to the banks of the dark river, over which he 
 crossed into the paradise of God. I have sel- 
 dom known one whose life was a stronger tes- 
 timony to the power of the gospel to subdue 
 and remold the heart of man. 
 
 On Lord's Day afternoon, his seat in the 
 corner by the side of the pulpit was never 
 vacant. The interest which he always mani- 
 fested in the worship, and the delight with 
 which he drank in the truths of the gospel, was 
 to me a source of inspiration. Oppressed, as 
 I often was by the work of the past week and 
 by the morning services, intensified in their 
 effect by feeble health and a debilitating cli- 
 mate, I learned to watch for Jesse's coming, 
 and to look to him for help in the discharge of 
 duties which were overtaxing my physical 
 powers. There was something in those deep- 
 toned responses he frequently made during 
 the prayer; in those dimmed and half-sight- 
 less eyes many times suffused with tears ; in 
 the expectant gaze he turned on me as I 
 *io 
 
154 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 tried to preach ; in the evident longing for the 
 bread of life, that overcame debility and fa- 
 tigue, and nerved me for the labors of the 
 hour. He never knew how much he helped 
 me, nor how his heart-hunger evoked un- 
 wonted efforts to supply his craving soul with 
 heavenly food. 
 
 At the close of the sermon, I sometimes 
 called on him to pray; and then I received 
 more than an equivalent for all my sermon had 
 contained for him. His prayers were peculiar. 
 He discarded the solemn form which is usually 
 employed in prayer, and talked seemingly 
 almost face to face with his God. True, he 
 was illiterate ; for he was a slave. His utter- 
 ances would not bear the grammarian's criti- 
 cism. ; but there was an eloquence, born of that 
 strong nature which had been subdued into 
 childlike dependence upon its God, that in its 
 very simiplicity approximated the sublime. The 
 thank-offering of a loving heart, the needs of 
 his own soul, and burning desire that others 
 might know his Saviour's love, found utterance 
 in words and sentences which, though broken 
 and disarranged, needed no translation to make 
 them intelligible to God or man. 
 
 When the last years of the war came on, 
 there was on the part of some of my colored 
 congregation a manifest expectation of free- 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 155 
 
 dom. They could not disguise their anxiety 
 for its coming. Though submissive and obe- 
 dient to the will of their masters to the very 
 last day of their bondage, they could not re- 
 press the uplifting thought that they were soon 
 to be free. But with Jesse there was no such 
 manifestation. It may have arisen from the 
 consciousness that his easy task scarcely remu- 
 nerated his owner for his food and raiment ; 
 but far more probably it emanated from his 
 entire submission to the v/ill of God. To him, 
 life was but a journey home ; and it seemed 
 to matter little whether he performed that 
 short journey as a freeman or a slave. His 
 heart was fixed upon his heavenly inheritance, 
 and he concerned himself little about his rela- 
 tions to others in the years of his earthly pil- 
 grimage. 
 
 When the day of deliverance came, many 
 were, for a time, too much absorbed in their 
 new-found freedom, to think of their connec- 
 tion with the church or their duty to their God. 
 They left their homes in multitudes, and 
 flocked by thousands to see the great armies 
 that had set them free. They gave loose reins 
 to every inclination, and thousands perished 
 in the time of their great jubilee. But Jesse 
 was the same. Freedom wrought no change 
 in him. Whether free or a slave, Christ w^as 
 
156 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 Master, worship his delight, and the will of 
 God his law. 
 
 One day, after these disturbing times had 
 begun to settle themselves into the regular 
 course of events, Jesse came to my study. 
 Gladly I invited the old man in, gave him a 
 chair, and entered into familiar conversation 
 with him. We had not been long thus en- 
 gaged, when he modestly told me that he had 
 come to ask a favor of me. Being assured of 
 my willingness to do anything in my power 
 for him, he bowed his head upon his hands 
 and remained silent for a time. He was strug- 
 gling with some overwhelming emotion. At 
 last, lifting his face and looking at me with the 
 deepest interest, he said: 
 
 *'I want you to write some letters for me." 
 When told I would with pleasure, he respond- 
 ed : "Master," that he always called me, "I 
 will have to tell you my story to explain to 
 you what I want. I was not always a slave. 
 I was a free man before I was brought to Ala- 
 bama." 
 
 He then proceeded to give me the history of 
 his life. He had been reared on the eastern 
 shore of Maryland. His father owned a small 
 farm not far from one of its pleasant villages. 
 The family consisted of his father and mother, 
 his three brothers, and one sister. One day. 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 157 
 
 when he was about eighteen years of age, he 
 Iiad been sent on some mission to the shore of 
 ihe Chesapeake Bay. While there he was 
 kidnapped, carried into Virginia, and sold as 
 a slave to a Southern trader, who had brought 
 him to Alabama. There he had been trans- 
 ferred to the man whose name he bore, and 
 which he carried to his grave. His simple 
 recital of these facts overwhelmed me. 
 
 "Why," I asked, "did you not tell the story 
 of your wrong?" 
 
 "I did tell the trader who brought me to 
 Alabama, and Mr. Goldthwaite, who bought 
 me; but they said they had paid their money 
 for me, and that the fault was not theirs. And, 
 master, what could I do ? I was ignorant, and 
 had nobody to help me. For a long time I 
 fought against my slavery. I was mad with 
 everybody and everything. God only knows 
 how wicked I was. My mistress was kind 
 to me, and my Master wouldVe been, too, if 
 I had been a good servant; but I wasn't. I 
 didn't care for anything, or anybody. I cussed 
 and I got drunk, and I stole and I told lies, 
 and I did everything that was wicked and bad. 
 One night, w^hen I was drunk, I nearly froze 
 to death ; and that's what give me the rheu- 
 matiz and made me so nearly blind. But, 
 master, I'se got over all that. Since I found 
 
158 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 religion, Tse done forgive everybody, and I*se 
 glad I was brought to Alabama. It's well- 
 nigh on to fifty years since I seed my father 
 and mother and brothers, and my sister, who 
 was a little gal when they stole me avv^ay from 
 home; and I 'spect they's all done dead and 
 gone. Leastwise, I don't 'spec to see urn no 
 more in 'dis world, 'cept it mought be my sis- 
 ter, who may be living yet. But I'se thankful 
 to the Lord that here in Alabama I'se found 
 Jesus. He's better than all ; and maybe if 
 dey hadn't stole me away, I'd never found him. 
 I'm not sorry 'bout it now ; for I'd rather be 
 a slave and have Jesus, than to be free without 
 him." 
 
 The old man's story touched my heart, and I 
 determined to do all I could to get information 
 as to his family. I wrote to friends in Balti- 
 m.ore, and to the postmaster of the village near 
 which his father had lived. I had little hope 
 that anybody, in those disturbed and trying 
 times, would take interest enough in the tale 
 of the old negro to acquaint himself with the 
 facts, and help him to secure, through tardy 
 justice, the rights and privileges so long de- 
 nied him. The old man waited patiently for 
 some reply; and one day there came to him 
 a message. 'Twas not from the shore of t^/? 
 Chesapeake, nor the voice of earthly kindred 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 159 
 
 calling him back to his long-lost home. It was 
 a call to the shining shore of the better land, 
 from his Elder Brother; and joyfully he laid 
 down the shackles of his earthly bondage, and 
 went upward to be free. 
 
 VI. 
 
 JOSEPH ISLANDS. 
 
 APOSTLE OP THE INDIANS. 
 
 \/\ NE day, in the then frontier town of 
 I II LaFayette, Alabama, just before the 
 *— J removal of the Creeks to their West- 
 ern home, a tall, raw-boned man, 
 whose face bespoke both great kindliness and 
 determination, was seen to lay his hand upon 
 the shoulder of a young Indian and heard to 
 say, "Joe! Don't you mind these bad boys; 
 come with me." That man was Rev. Frank 
 Calloway, whose nam.e is yet fragrant among 
 the churches of east Alabama. The young 
 Indian was Joseph Islands, who became the 
 Apostle of the Creek Nation. A party of rude 
 boys were sorely annoying him, when Callo- 
 
160 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 way, who knew him well, saw the fire of re- 
 venge flash from his dark eye. His hand was 
 upon his scalping knife, and in a moment 
 more, blood would flow. At the kindly yet 
 determined words of the preacher, Islands 
 paused and, yielding to the strong will of his 
 judicious friend, walked away with him. The 
 heart of the good man was deeply moved to- 
 wards the young savage who had obeyed him. 
 It was probably the last interview they would 
 ever have. Islands with his tribe was to go 
 west in a few days, and this was the only re- 
 maining opportunity he would ever enjoy, to 
 reach his soul with the truths of the gospel. 
 As in the presence of eternity, the good man 
 plied him with the truths of the Scripture and 
 urged him to seek the Saviour. Islands was 
 impressed by the kindness and earnestness of 
 the man of God. Before the interview termi- 
 nated, Calloway had given him a Bible and 
 received the promise on his part, to carry it 
 with him to his new home in the far West. 
 This promise he kept according to the letter, 
 but not in the spirit in which it was made. 
 Before he started on his long journey, v/hich 
 ended far beyond the great I\Iississippi, he 
 placed that Bible at the bottom of the box in 
 which Ws valuables were packed, and there it 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 161 
 
 lay for many long days, neglected and for- 
 gotten. 
 
 Islands, grown to full manhood, was a 
 leader in the wild revelry of his young asso- 
 ciates ; he had learned to play the violin, and 
 consequently his services were indispensable 
 at all their gatherings. One night, when 
 whiskey had been freely used by the party, a 
 quarrel ensued, and Islands' dearest friend was 
 killed. The next day, an old negro named 
 "Billy'' was ordered to dig a grave for the 
 murdered man. Islands, sad and lonely, went 
 out to see the spot where his friend was to be 
 laid. Old Billy was a Christian, and while 
 Islands sat by and saw him excavate the nar- 
 row house, his heart was moved for the young 
 Indian. He talked with him about death, 
 about the great beyond, about Jesus and the 
 resurrection. Islands was deeply impressed — 
 the arrows of conviction stuck in his soul. 
 Many times afterward, he sought "Uncle 
 Billy's" cabin, and learned more and more 
 about the way of life. At length he found 
 peace in believing ; it was a time of great joy. 
 He and Uncle Billy met and sung and prayed 
 and rejoiced together. Then Islands remem- 
 bered his long-forgotten Bible. It was 
 brought forth from the depths of the box ; and, 
 while he would read, Uncle Billy would ex- 
 
162 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 plain, as best he could, the wonders of ''that 
 old, old story." For days and days they com- 
 muned together in secret. 
 
 At length the thought came to them, ''this 
 is a day of good tidings and we hold our 
 peace." A most stringent law forbade the 
 introduction of Christianity among the In- 
 dians. The penalty for its violation was 
 heavy. To every one found engaged in wor- 
 ship according to the forms of the white man's 
 religion, thirty-nine lashes were to be admin- 
 istered by the police. But Islands and Uncle 
 Billy did not regard this edict. They talked 
 privately to their friends about the great salva- 
 tion, invited them to meet with them at the 
 secret spot chosen for religious worship, and 
 soon gathered a little group that braved the 
 dangers of the law. One after another of these 
 was born into the Kingdom of God, and as 
 each professed faith in Christ, his name was 
 placed upon the list of disciples, until thirty 
 names appeared upon the roll. Meantime the 
 authorities had taken the alarm. The hated 
 religion of the white man was secretly making 
 progress. The mounted police, "the light 
 horse," as they were called, were ordered to 
 be more vigilant and to execute with impartial 
 justice the law against heresy. As vigilant 
 and cunning^ as their foes, the Christian In- 
 
THE HOME ^nSSION STATESAIAN 163 
 
 dians found secluded places for their worship 
 and continued their meetings. Spies were set 
 to watch them; and many were the stories 
 told of the shrewdness and cunning manifested 
 by the Christian party, to escape detection by 
 their numerous and active enemies. 
 
 One night, a spy followed some of them 
 near to their place of worship. He had lost 
 the trail, and while seeking for some new indi- 
 cation to guide him, he heard the voice of sing- 
 ing. Stealthily creeping through the bushes, 
 he came to an open spot, beyond which he saw 
 a light, and heard the notes of song. Prone 
 upon the ground he crawled snake-like 
 through the tall grass, towards the place. As 
 he neared it the melody ceased, and then the 
 voice of prayer caught his ear. Islands was 
 praying for his people, for his persecutors, for 
 the police who were hunting them, for the spies 
 that were dogging their track. He listened ; 
 his heart stood still as he heard his own name 
 called and the Great Spirit invoked to thwart 
 his evil purposes and to change his heart. 
 There, as he lay concealed in the tall grass, the 
 thought of his great guilt shook him like the 
 tremors of an earthquake. The prayer ended 
 and the melody of Zion's song arose once more. 
 The first stanza told of Jesus' bleeding love for 
 guilty man; and the voices of the singers 
 
164 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 caught the emotions of these hearts and wafted 
 them heavenward upon the midnight air. 
 Pausing for breath, overawed by a presence 
 he could not understand, he Hstened to the 
 song. He had never heard such melody. He 
 had listened to the south wind when it sighed 
 through the leafless forest, waking its thou- 
 sand wind harps to strains of plaintive melody. 
 He had heard the river as it rushed headlong 
 down the steeps, singing its song, "to the sea, 
 to the sea." He had heard feathered song- 
 sters of his forest home singing in the sunlight, 
 singing in the shadow, singing when the 
 moonbeams covered the wide land with their 
 sheen of glory; but he had never heard song 
 like that. It spoke to him of light and love 
 from the Great Spirit. It spoke to him of 
 his own dark guilt, in seeking to betray and 
 punish these people. He wondered that a 
 thunderbolt did not strike him dead. He 
 trembled lest the solid earth should open and 
 swallow him down into the very abyss of the 
 lost. At length he tried to rise, but his limbs 
 refused to carry him. He tried to crawl away 
 from that awful spot, but he could not. The 
 only movement he could make was to roll over 
 and over, and thus he gained the bushes from 
 which he had first heard the voice of singing. 
 There he lay in an agony never felt before, 
 
THE HOME MiSStON STATESMAN 165 
 
 crying, fearing, trembling, praying, how long 
 he never knew. 
 
 At the next meeting of the disciples, he 
 stood in their midst, and, with penitential sobs, 
 told the strange story of his effort to bring 
 them to punishment and how the Spirit of the 
 Lord had arrested him and held him a trem- 
 bling captive. Before the meeting closed, he 
 found peace in believing, and saw, with joy 
 unspeakable, his name enrolled among the 
 chosen of the Lord. 
 
 But these Christians w^ere not always so for- 
 tunate. One night, the light horse surrounded 
 their place of worship. Closing every avenue 
 of escape, the captain ordered them to be taken 
 out one by one, and receive the punishment 
 prescribed by the law. With serene faces and 
 patient submission, first the men and then the 
 women, underwent the cruel torture of the 
 lash. When Obadiah Holmes received similar 
 treatment from the New England Puritans as 
 a remedy for his Baptist faith, he said, as the 
 sheriff loosened his hands from the stake to 
 which he had been bound, "You have struck 
 me with roses." So these savages, made new 
 men in Christ, took joyfully the stripes that 
 were laid upon them with unsparing hand. 
 The executioners could not withstand the in- 
 fluence of those faces, radiant with holy joy; 
 
166 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 and one after another let fall the cruel thong 
 and surrendered it into the hands of another, 
 The captain at first shamed the cowardly weak- 
 ness of his men and bade them lay on the lash ; 
 but when the women came and stood unflinch- 
 ing the fearful ordeal, a feeling not of pity, 
 but of awe, overwhelmed him. The Roman 
 centurion, as he saw the darkened heaven and 
 heard the death cry of the crucified One, ex- 
 claimed : ''Surely this was the Son of God." 
 So, as he looked upon these women bearing 
 their torture not only bravely, but with smiling 
 faces and words of thanksgiving to Him who 
 had redeemed them, this plumed and painted 
 savage felt the conviction pierce his heart like 
 an arrow, 'These are God's people." There 
 remained scarcely strength of arm or purpose 
 in all that fierce band of braves, to feebly finish 
 the execution of the law. 
 
 Next day the captain of the light horse re- 
 signed his position, and several of his men fol- 
 lowed his example. "We cannot whip these 
 people for praying and loving Jesus," said 
 they ; "we would rather be whipped ourselves 
 than to whip these women. We cannot do it." 
 
 The angry chiefs sought others more savage 
 and determined to supply their place and en- 
 force the law with rigid exactness. But it 
 was in vain. The first time they captured the 
 
THE HOME MISSION STATESMAN 167 
 
 Christians, they found it impossible to inflict 
 the full punishment upon them. Their deter- 
 mination was broken and their hands were 
 paralyzed by the meek submission of those who 
 rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suf- 
 fer for their Lord. They came back to the 
 chiefs of the nation and said, "There are no 
 other people like these Christians. We can- 
 not whip them any more. The Great Spirit 
 claims them. They are his children ; we must 
 let them alone." 
 
 ]\Iore and more feeble became the efforts to 
 suppress the religion of the white man and the 
 bolder became the disciples, until they scarcely 
 attempted to conceal their times and places of 
 worship. The best families of the nation had 
 members who were Christians. At length, it 
 was announced that Chilly Mcintosh, one of 
 the most wealthy, powerful, and popular chiefs 
 of the tribe, had become a Christian. • Under 
 the widespread excitement, the National Coun- 
 cil met and repealed the odious law. Chris- 
 tianity had won. 
 
 Before the meeting of the council, Joseph 
 Islands had moved into a new house which he 
 had just completed. xA.s soon as he heard that 
 the law was repealed, he mioved back into his 
 old home and gave the new one for a place 
 
168 ISAAC TAYLOR TICHENOR 
 
 of worship. This was the first house of wor- 
 ship in the Creek Nation. 
 
 Thus a great and effectual door was opened 
 to the gospel. Joseph Islands, who was a 
 man of property, exhausted his estate and gave 
 his life to the evangelization of his people. 
 Not in vain have been his labors. There is 
 today a Baptist church for every thousand of 
 population in the Creek Nation, and more than 
 a dozen native preachers break the bread of 
 life to these churches. 
 
 Somewhere, we know not where, on the 
 wide prairies, thirty years ago, sorrowful 
 hearts laid to rest all of Joseph Islands that 
 could die. A nation gathered at his grave. 
 No stone marks the spot where he sleeps. His 
 monument is in his works : and long as those 
 prairies shall spread their green bosoms to the 
 sun, so long will the loving and laborious life 
 of Joseph Islands influence his people towards 
 Christ and God and heaven. 
 
 Servant of God, well done, 
 Rest from thy loved employ ; 
 
 The battle's fought, the victory won 
 Enter thy Master's joy. 
 
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