Vanderbilt University - Commodore Yearbook (Nashville, TN)

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12 THE COMETS- l)is short tarrying there as a tutor; his joining the itinerant phalanx of Southern Meth- odism within the first year of its organization; his youthful but efficient service in Virginia, in Alabama, in Mississippi, in Louisiana; his editorial work on the New Orleans Advocate, a paper which he founded; his membership and prominent position in the general conference? his call to the helm of the Nashville Advocate, and the steady hand that rested there in obedience to that call; his election to the episcopacy; his satis- factory discharge of his duties as president of great ecclesiastical bodies, and as codifier and expounder of the constitution of his church; the founding of Vanderbilt University, and his administration of the affairs of that instit ution, around which were clustered the fondest hopes of his heart. All these have been recounted and reviewed by able pens and eloquent tongues, and so the death of the great man has made for him a circle of larger and closer acquaintance. In reading these sketches of his career and estimates of his character, a stranger would perhaps suppose them marred by a certain extravagance of eulogy, which is but too common in the first expressions of sorrow. How far the cool, impartial criticism of the future may modify the opinions lately expressed, we cannot know. It may be that when the huge void created by his death shall be filled in by the compensations of time, when his work shall have been taken up by the adjusting hands of another generation, when our appalling sense of loss shall have been surprised by the resources and the supplies of Providence, When tears are brushed away from Sorrow's eyes. And she has clearer vision, when his life shall have been tried by the hard standards of a century's advance, if may be that his measure will seem less than now. Vet the probabilities are that it will seem greater; for, in whatever excesses of statement these first lamentations may have indulged, the twentieth century will hardly read them in the light of undiscriminating, commonplace obituaries; for, if Bishop McTyeire’s work has been characterized by one feature above all others, that feature has been that his work was wonderfully crystal- lized into permanent results. If he built a church edifice, he put it where it was needed, and where it would stand. He opposed the distribution of the publishing interests of his church, and the great book depot; at Nashville was centralized and solidified. He founded the New Orleans Christian Advocate, and it became one of the most powerful ecclesiastical journals of the South. He favored lay representation in the great legisla- tive conference, and it became the organic law of the church. He projected the estab- lishment of a theological seminary, and though a warm controversy ensued, in which the opposition was led by the gifted and eloquent Bishop Pierce, still Wesley Hall was built,

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THE COMET 14s- 11 Bishop McTyeire THE death of Bisho] McTyeire brought the world face to lace with his life. Death was to him at once the end and the height of life—its extinction and its culmina- tion. Death was swallowed up in victory. It was the hour of his greatest earthly triumph; and it served to reveal him to men as they had not known him before. From some hearts the veil of prejudice was torn away; from some eyes the scales of blindness dropped; hidden acts of charity were disclosed; forgotten deeds of kind- ness were recalled : misconstrued motives were reconstrued from the standpoint of later action. At the grave, colored lights from here, there and yonder met and merged into absolute white: and it is not an idle metaphor to say that this man looked larger in his eolFin. The review of such a life is often the first real view of it. As its acts are counted up and the sum total appears, as its ever cumulative forces are seen to develop into rounded manhood and useful service, new light is flashed upon the relations ami the results of life, and the observer at each step mounts upward to a wider, a more comprehensive horizon. As the facts of Bishop McTyeire’s life have been thus re-examined, men have talked about him and written about him. Memorial addresses have been delivered, memorial resolutions passed. Anecdotes have come from South Carolina and records from Louis- iana, tributes from (Jeorgia and eulogies from the Pacific slope, sketches from Missouri and editorials from New York, personal reminiscences from many places and words of sorrow from everywhere. So, I say his death has brought us face to face with his life. Within the last few months the events of his life have become more familiar to us than ever before. His early childhood in the old country homestead in South Carolina; glimpses of home-life as portrayed in the pure and sturdy characters of his father and mother; the wholesome influences by which he was surrounded, and the way in which these acted and reacted upon his strong personality; his school life at Cokesbury, where at thirteen years of age he joined the church he was afterward to serve so well; his later pupilage under Dr. Thomas in (Jeorgia ; his college life at old Randolph-.Macon, and

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-sN THE COMETS 13 and now gives shelter to one of the chief departments of Vanderbilt University. His rulings and constructions of church law and parliamentary proceedings took shape in his Manual of the Discipline, and will live as precedents and rules for the guidance of those who shall come after him. His analysis of the Discipline he drew up in the shape of questions and answers, and left to the church his Catechism of Church Government. His views of Methodist history were embodied in what will hereafter be the standard Southern volume on that subject. His opinions on the various measures of the church administration were wise and large, and he did much to develop and systematize foreign missions, church extension, woman’s work, Sunday schools, and the literary and educa- tional interests of bis denomination. Aside from these more tangible products of his labor, he was a wise counselor. His advice was sought by all classes of men, and on all manner of subjects; and it is safe to say that his opinions given in answer to such calls will live on in an enduring stream of influence running through thousands of human lives. He was pre-eminently, and by common agreement, a far-sighted man. It was natural to his judgment to forecast, not at hap-hazard, but upon wise grounds. The writer once heard him deliver a masterly address upon “Pure English” (and it is needless to say to those who knew him, that the address was an exemplification of the theme), in which he took occasion to excoriate the wrong uses of the word GUESS; and the number of words suggested by him as suitable to take its place, such as reckon, judge, think, conclude, showed the solid sagacity and logical methods on which lie did most of his guessing. He had a genius for planning, for founding, for organizing, for investing, which was simply invaluable in the spero of action to which he was called. Of course, he made mistakes. His wonderful prescience still fell far short of that omniscience which alone can see the end from the beginning. He was not infallible—did not claim to be. 11 is pathetic confession of his own short-comings, as he conceived them, in a watch-night talk to the boys of Wesley Hall, some years ago, will never be forgotten by those who heard him then. He was a remarkably accurate judge of men on short acquaintance; yet he himself used to relate a humorous instance of how once in a dis- trict conference he totally misgauged the calibre of a preacher with whose high forehead he had become infatuated on first sight. Hut in his selection of special men for specific purposes, he was probably without a superior. This faculty caused him to rely on his own judgment to a degree greater than is common among men. Some thought that lie relied too much upon it; some thought that he relied upon it as against all other things. Perhaps it was rather as summing up all other things; for, until final action had been taken, he turned a deaf ear to no source of information or counsel, however humble.