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'GOOD AND FAITHFUL SERVANT." 
 
 MEMORIAL ADDRESS 
 
 ON THK 
 
 Life and Character 
 
 OF 
 
 to, 1 1 
 
 IE 
 
 y, 
 
 LATE PRESIDENT OF WAKE FOREST COLLEGE, N. C. 
 
 Delivered at the Annual Commencement, June 12, 1879. 
 
 By Rev. F. H. IVEY, of Goldsboro. 
 
 RALEIGH, N. C. : 
 
 KuWARDri, BROUGliTON & Co, , PRINTERS AXD BiNDRRS. 
 
 July, 1879. 
 
■( 
 
 'GOOD AND FAITHFUL SERVANT." 
 
 MEMORIAL ADDRESS 
 
 ON THE 
 
 Life and Character 
 
 OF 
 
 n 
 
 J 1 1 Ml nil 
 
 mi 
 
 LATE PRESIDENT OF WAKE FOREST COLLEGE, N. C, 
 
 Delivered at the Annual Commencement, June 12, 1879. 
 
 By Rev. F. H. IVEY, of Goldsboro. 
 
 RALEIGH, N. C. : 
 
 Edwards, Brottghton & Co., Printers and Binders. 
 
 July, 1879. 
 
Memorial Address, 
 
 
 The Scriptures bid us hold in romerabrance those who 
 have kept the faith and have finished their course with joy, 
 for our spiritual advantage, that we may follow them in 
 faith and conversation, and that we may still feel the cur- 
 rent of their life in ours. 
 
 A leader and teacher in our Israel worthy of such com- 
 memoration nobly finished his life course among us during 
 the past winter. 
 
 The frosts of February have softened into the mellowing 
 dews of June; the spring-flowers have covered the roughs 
 ness of his grave with their sweet beauty; the bleak land- 
 scape is wreathed with blossoms as a chaplet, and crowned 
 with green woods as a diadem ; the solemn dirge has died 
 out in the air; the tears no longer flow as in the freshness 
 of our sorrow— their hour has passed. 
 
 And now let us rise up into that sphere of faith whpre 
 memory itself grows spiritual, and there remember him who 
 once stood at the head of our hosts ; who laid the broad 
 foundations on which we build ; but who has passed within 
 the vail, and with unsealed vision views those realities of 
 . which he spake, and is " forever with the Lord." 
 
 I stand here to-day among the wise and eloquent of the 
 land, to honor the memory of this departed great man of 
 our Zion. I am but the mouth-piece of this occasion, to 
 voice your thought and feeling, my brethren, in declaring 
 that he was great, and wise, and strong — and we admired 
 him ; that he was true, and faithful, and noble — and we 
 esteemed him ; that he was meek, and pure, and conse" 
 
4 
 
 crated — and we reverenced him ; and that he was amiable, 
 and gentle, and good — and we loved him ! 
 
 God arranges periods in human history, and raises up 
 men for His occasions; and wiien tliey have served their 
 generation by His will, He calls them to a nobler employ, 
 and 
 
 " His eternal thought moves on 
 His undisturbed aft'airs." 
 
 It is good to contemplate the coming into the world and 
 the life and character of a truly great man. If you trace 
 the mightiest river to its source, you may have to ascend 
 among " the everlasting hills; " but in tracking a great soul, 
 you must rise to God. The ocean may seem to be far dis- 
 tant, yet it is the real parent of that river which rises among 
 the central mountains; and true to its native source, the 
 river finds its way through many lands, bles-sing and fer- 
 tilizing them as it flows, to its great original. So with a 
 great soul : We cannot help seeing that he comes from God, 
 and that if he "fulfill his course" among men for their up- 
 lifting, according to the divine will, he "returns to God 
 who gave him." 
 
 We derive peculiar illumination and benefit from the 
 consideration of souls "great in the sight of the Lord.'' 
 Tho^e in whom His idea and purpose manifestly and mag- 
 nificently appear, reveal us more fully and clearly to our- 
 selves, teach us most practically and effectively what is com- 
 mon to us all, and help us with wiser heart and truer 
 purpose to fulfill our own individual course and destiny_ 
 Such a soul is a broader mirror, a greater light, a fuller dis- 
 pensation, in which other souls see themselves, and by which 
 they find their way from one eternity to another ! Such a 
 soul illustrates all other souls — is a kind of universal prophet 
 and interpreter of souls. 
 
 I will not speak extravagantly, and say that he whose 
 memorial we now observe filled the measure of this concep- 
 tion in that l\igh and universal sense in which Moses and 
 
David and Paul filled it; but they are weighed words which 
 rank him with the very first and foremost of such souls 
 among our people in our day and generation. 
 
 God sets the signet of His own exalted purpose on a man 
 when He raises him up on earth for special divine use and 
 service. And this man bore celestial credentials; for God 
 made a place for him, and filled and fitted him to fit and 
 fill his place ! 
 
 Washington Manly Wingate was born in Darlington, 
 S. C, on the 22d day of March, 1828, of a family of honor- 
 able traditions. 
 
 I allude to but one passage in the history of his 3'outh, as 
 I heard it from his own lips — that of his conversion, in the 
 fourteenth year of his age. His experience in his transi- 
 tion from death into the kingdom of God's dear Son was 
 characteristic of the man. It was quiet, but deep, and earn- 
 est, and thorough. "When the palm of Zeilan puts forth 
 itsi blossom, the sheath breaks with a report that startles the 
 forest; but at the same moment millions of surrounding 
 blossoms are opening in oilenee." Some hearts burst open 
 at God's call with the violence of the earthquake that shook 
 apart the prison-doors at Philippi,and set the Apostles free. 
 Other hearts flow open at the Spirit's touch, as the buds un- 
 fold into beauty under the gentle kiss of the sunshine. " So 
 it was with our brother: there was a still small voice, and 
 God was in it; there was the dawning of spiritual life, and 
 then the full revelation of Jesus Christ formed in his heart 
 the hope of glory. At the Saviour's feet he bowed, and to 
 Him acknowledged his allegiance as his Lord and his God. 
 With such an introduction into the kingdom of grace, he 
 pressed on for a generation, with a holy desire to apprehend 
 that for which also he was apprehended of Christ Jesus. 
 
 He graduated from this Institution in the class of 1849; 
 pursued divinity studies for two years at Furman Theologi- 
 cal Institution, and then entered the pastorate in his native 
 State. In 1852 he undertook the agency, and in I80I was 
 
6 
 
 elected to the Presidency, of Wake Forest College. Thus 
 early connected officially with his Alma Mater, he walked 
 lovingly by her side for twenty-five years, until the 27th of 
 February last, when the union was dissolved by death. 
 
 Dr. WiNGATE came upon the stage at a peculiar juncture 
 in the history of this Institution ; at a trying period to the 
 interests of higer education under religious auspices among 
 us; and at a time when the Baptist denomination in the 
 State needed the impress of a great mind to confirm it in 
 the advancing course on which it had just entered. Now, 
 that a man should have been found to touch, and quicken, 
 and in large measure guide to assured success, all these en- 
 terprises and interests, proclaims not only the purity of his 
 character and the goodness of his heart, but also the power 
 of his will and the greatness of his intellect. 
 
 The College had struggled long enough without complete 
 ' success to suggest its feilure ; but it had stood the trial suffi- 
 ciently long to assure its triumph under the control of the 
 right man for its crisis. The dead President proved to 
 be that man. Before he came to preside over the College, 
 ^ i it felt a new impulse in his work as agent. And from the 
 time that he occupied his Chair, it v*ent steadily forward, 
 growing in influence and enlarging in its power for good. 
 From 1854 to 1861, it rose rapidly in favor with the masses 
 of the people, and its course was a triumphal march under 
 his lead, perhaps not surpassed in the whole history of our 
 ; denomination. 
 
 Dr. WiNGATE did not take up a great work at an advanced 
 //point and carry it on; he took the small beginnings and 
 worked them out to large results. He did not find an en- 
 terprise on the high road to prosperity, but he raised it to 
 that eminence. If he built on other men's foundations, he 
 has reared a structure grander, nobler, more enduring than 
 the foundations promised. 
 
 Still greater success, if possible, than before, marked his 
 administration in the rehabilitation of the College after the 
 
desolation and ruin of war. Amid ' discouragements that 
 might well have appalled men of less persistent purpose, 
 the friends and Trustees and Professors of this Institution 
 have held on their way with a faith and a constancy to a 
 great cause, and a spirit of self-abnegation which have won 
 the victory against seeming impossibilities; and central 
 among them all stood the courageous, heroic Wingate ! 
 
 I am not unmindful of the toils and sacrifices of the noble 
 men, living and dead, whose devotion and labors made the 
 beloved Wingate 's grand success a possibility. No man 
 ever had a band of truer, more loving, s3'-mpathizing co- 
 adjutors than did he. And no institution has, or has had, 
 a more competent, faithful and worthy corps of instructors 
 than Wake Forest College. Much of the honor of what has 
 been done belongs to them. But there is not a man among 
 them all who is not too much like Wingate to grudge the 
 due meed of praise to their fallen chief. Blessed are ye, 
 brethren, who have lighted up with the sunshine of your 
 sympathy the dark hours of your leader's depression ! 
 Blessed are ye, whose hands have woven the threads of your 
 own love into the woof of his struggling life! Blessed are 
 ye, who have borne with him the heat and burden of the 
 day! The outpouring of the people's grateful tribute to 
 him is the assurance of their warm affection for you ! 
 
 Time and again has it been said that Dr. Wingate did his 
 work, and did it well, and did not die before his time, but 
 was gathered to his reward like as a shock of corn cometh 
 in its season. 
 
 Any just summary of this work would cover the history 
 and mark the progress of the Baptists of North Carolina for 
 the last twenty-five years. But here, here is his lasting mon- 
 ument: "He leaves the College, the object of his earnest 
 prayers and life-long labors, at the flood-tide of success." 
 Amid the general gloom, we rejoice in the fruits of his labors 
 already realized, and in the promise of the coming harvest. 
 " TuLLY acknowledged the transports which he felt when 
 
8 
 
 he saw the laurel groves where Plato held his disputations, 
 
 and the porticoes at Athens where Socrates had taught." 
 
 And, through the achievements of him whose name is forever 
 
 linked with the prosperity of this Institution, and whose 
 
 memory will long linger among these cherished scenes of 
 
 his triumph, we, too, may repeat the joyous salutation : 
 
 " Thrice happy ye, whose walls alread}^ rise." 
 
 I And Dr. Wingate's successful work here was widely felt 
 
 ^ I in general educational movements in the State. He exerted 
 
 an untold influence through the representative young men 
 
 whose characters he largely moulded, as the preachers, 
 
 teachers, lawyers and statesmen of the land. That influ- 
 
 ' ence was wholly conservative — it was altogether for good. 
 
 In general meetings, also, and in other ways, he was in 
 frequent and extended contact with the masses of the peo- 
 ple. And he has so impressed himself upon the denomina- 
 tion as to give it a mighty forward impulse, which is felt in 
 all its activities, and which, if true to its high mission, it 
 need not lose. 
 
 But he belonged not to his own people merely. He was 
 a man of catholic spirit, and belonged to mankind ; and the 
 world is better and wiser for his having lived in it. 
 
 What, then, were the qualities of head and heart that dis- 
 tinguished our brother — that raised him above the plane of 
 plodding life, gave him a controlling influence among men, 
 and enabled him to serve his generation so wisely and so 
 well ? 
 
 I feel the difficulty of presenting a just portraiture of this 
 many-sided man. The complicated relations of the position 
 he filled, his varied labors in all these relations, and his 
 usefulness and success in them all, is but the expression of 
 the versatile powers of his mind, and the stamp of the true 
 greatness of his intellect." As the facets of the diamond 
 throw back different flashes to the .sun, each with a singular 
 glory, so there was in him some aspect of character from 
 which light radiated over every matter within his extended 
 
9 
 
 field of labor. His was a mind of astonishing fullness and 
 beauty. There was an abundance, almost a profusion, of 
 acquired intellectual wealth in some departments, with which 
 he was not always credited. lie had a mental vigor, a 
 warmth of feeling and a devotion of purpose which the mild 
 and patient man did not usually bespeak. 
 
 He wa5 strong in the beautiful symmetry of his lovely 
 character. There was no one-sidedness about him. He was 
 too earnest and sincere for an3^thing eccentric or sensational. 
 There was no gigantic development in one direction at 
 the expense of growth in another. He was firm, but not 
 harsh ; compassionate, but not weak ; zealous, but not fanat- 
 ical; prudent, but not compromising of the truth. He 
 blended the gentleness and purity of a woman and the j 
 strength and dignity of manhood. He was a completely 
 balanced, full-orbed, rounded, symmetrical man. 
 
 He was singularly unambitious, and modest, even to a 
 fault, if modesty be a fault in these days when prominence 
 is mistaken for eminence and gilding for gold. " There 
 were," saj'-s one who knew him well, " deep volcanic fires 
 burning in his soul, which he knew wtti how to repress." 
 A superficial observer might have said that they did not 
 burn at all, so closely were they kept covered in. " I have 
 always been struck," says Dr. Wayland, " with the remark 
 of one of the Italian masters, who, when a work of an earlier 
 artist was spoken of with servile adoration, turned away and 
 said, ' I too am a painter.' " How often this master might 
 have felt the same sentiment, and how often his brethren, 
 perhaps, have felt it for him, as mediocrity has been mag- 
 nified into greatness, and greatness passed unnoticed. Yet 
 no one was ever freer from such a thought and such a 
 spirit. He was alive to all that was commendable in others, i 
 and seemed to be oblivious of all that w^as great and noble (\ 
 in himself. He w^as self-denying, upright, and transparently 
 honest, wdth a christian character without a stain and above 
 a suspicion. He formed a charitable judgment of all dis- 
 
10 
 
 puted points in men and systems, and was just before he 
 was generous ; and then completed the circle by being gen- 
 erous as well as just. 
 
 Open-hearted and simple as a child, he was like his di- 
 vine Lord in the humility of his mind. But in his humil- 
 ity doubtless he remembered not only that the dead can 
 speak, but that sometimes a voice increases in voTume, and 
 richness, and sweetness, by death. While living, perhaps 
 he regarded the intense homage and affection of his breth- 
 ren, and the real quickening influence which he exerted, as 
 more than compensating for the absence of that showy but 
 meretricious fame which is the reward of self-seekino- men. 
 
 And so he was content, as Carlyle says, to plant upon the 
 infinite possibilities of the immortal minds under his guid- 
 ance; and his reward shall be sure — the ages will return 
 the harvest. 
 
 You will be glad for me to relieve the tedium of this ad- 
 dress by short extracts from the glowing tributes of others. 
 
 Dr. Wm. Royall writes: "For ten years I had the privi- 
 lege of associating intimately with him. How often have I 
 left his presence feeling that if I had his quiet, self-possessed 
 spirit, I would give all I had. How often has my impetu- 
 osity been rebuked by that calm, unmoved exterior and 
 tone. How I felt that that calmness was but the evidence 
 of a self-mastery which no other man of my acquaintance 
 possessed. I felt that he was so safe, so true a guide, because 
 he never expressed an oj)inion or gave advice that I did 
 not find after the storm had subsided was just such as I 
 would myself have given had there been no tempest in my 
 soul. He must certainly have been under the dominion of 
 some lofty principle which the most of us cannot discern 
 from our lowly position. I cannot now speak of his genius, 
 his transcendent and almost unrivalled power of analysis. 
 I am lost in that power of powers Avhich I have never seen 
 in any other man to the same extent : the power of reach- 
 ing conclusions through mists and fogs of pros and cons, 
 
11 
 
 and of acting on them when reached with full assurance of 
 their correctness. I always felt that to leave a matter of 
 doubt in his liands involved the necessity of making up my 
 mind to do exactly right in the premises." 
 
 Dr. J. D. HuFHAM says : "We have lost the greatest man 
 we had among us. For twenty-five years he was the central 
 figure, the greatest power of the North Carolina Baptists. 
 He had a vigorous, comprehensive and subtle intellect. In 
 law, or statesmanship, or any of the professions which re- 
 quire the knowledge and management of men, he would 
 have risen to eminence. He was a great moral philosopher, 
 a great preacher, the best I have ever heard, and a wise and 
 successful pastor. He ruled the boys through their respect 
 for him and their faith in him. He was a brave man, a 
 true man ; still he was gentle and tender as a woman." 
 
 Dr. Thos. E. Skinner writes: "His presence always 
 charmed me ; his genius fired me ; his guileless spirit both 
 rebuked and instructed me; his gentleness tamed me; his 
 aff'ection unmanned me ; and his memory is precious. The 
 Bible was this man's book. He was mighty in the Scrip- 
 tures. He was familiar with its facts, he understood its doc- 
 trines, he was literally inspired with its spirit. His affec- 
 tions were well-nigh universal in their outgoings. AVhom 
 did the man not love ? — if not complacently, then most com- 
 passionately. He was the best man I ever knew. I never 
 tried to love him ; he drew me as with the cords of iron — 
 he compelled me to love him. His christian life, free from 
 stain, ever gave forth the fragrance of the love of God." 
 
 And Dr. Thos. H. Pritchard thus speaks of him : "His 
 mental characteristics admirably qualified him for impart- 
 ing instruction in moral and intellectual science, and he 
 greatly excelled as a disciplinarian. During his long Pres- 
 idency, the moral character of the students of Wake Forest 
 College has been of a higher tone than that of any similar 
 institution known to me in America. The crowning glory 
 of the man was his piety. He was the sweetest saint I have 
 
12 
 
 ever known. Like his divine master, he was meek and 
 lowly in heart. I have seen him many times worried and 
 troubled and in perplexity, but I never saw him manifest a 
 fretful and impatient spirit, or heard him utter a petulant 
 or angry word. Never have I seen combined in any hu- 
 man being so much child-like simplicity of heart with such 
 lofty powers of intellect." 
 
 Dr. WiNGATE was largely identified with general denom- 
 inational interests. His whole life was a plea for higher re- 
 ligious and ministerial education. Every good work found 
 in him a ready advocate and helper. He loved the cause of 
 missions because he believed it was the cause of Christ; and 
 never did I know him to let an opportunity pass, in Asso- 
 ciation or Convention, without speaking an earnest word in 
 behalf of lost souls around us, and earth's j)erishing millions 
 be3^ond. 
 
 The struggling young man found in him a sym- 
 j^athizing friend, and the poor young preacher, a benefactor 
 whose aid was doubh^ grateful, in its well-timed opportunity, 
 and the delicacy with which it was tendered. 
 
 Such was the sincerity of his affections, that he made 
 every one who knew him intimately, feel that he was, espe- 
 cially and peculiarly, his personal friend. Nor was any 
 such one mistaken : for he never betrayed the confidence of 
 a single human being. He was approachable and affable 
 at all times; and no one ever heard him utter a word con- 
 cerning an absent person, that he might not have spoken in 
 that person's presence, and for his pleasure. The mother 
 who bore him never saw him angry but once, and that only 
 proved that he belonged to a fallen, sinful race. 
 
 In social life, he was a most entertaining companion, with 
 a flow of genial humor that was the index of the kind emo- 
 tions of his heart. Interesting whenever or however encoun- 
 tered, if he was not a great talker, like Coleridge, still one 
 could listen with real pleasure and profit, while his lesser 
 golden Pactolus rolled on. You met him with joy, and left 
 him with regret. 
 
II 
 
 I need not entor the sanctuary of his domestic life, 
 and tell you that between husband and wife, father 
 and children, there was the per})ctual reign of gen- 
 tleness and peace, kindness, tenderness and love. With 
 such a husband and father it could not have been other- 
 wise. There are hearts that know these things. May God 
 comfort them in tlieir irreparable loss, and may their paths 
 be brightened with the blessings coming upon them in an- 
 swer to his lingering prayer ! 
 
 But, brethren, while there are inviting fields still un- 
 touched before me, I feel that it is time I had turned to speak 
 of our brother as a Preacher. And here I seem to be 
 standing in a different presence, and contemplating the 
 greatness, and gifts and graces, of another man. Who has 
 formed a just conception of W. M. Wingate as a preacher? 
 
 AVith a rich A'ocabulary, a fine ear for the cadence of sen- 
 tences, great facility of utterance, a sjanpathetic nature that 
 answered quickly to the kindling of his thoughts and feel- 
 ings, and a heart that was full of his great message, and 
 eager to speak it, he was amply endowed for his glorious 
 mission. 
 
 Through his whole course he exercised his ministry : as 
 pastor of the College church, and of the churches in Oxford, 
 Franklinton, Selma, and other places ; and at Conventions, 
 Associations, in agency work, and revival meetings, and in 
 occasional and special appointments. At the late session of 
 the Southern Baptist Convention in Atlanta, the President 
 of that body simply announced that the brother appointed 
 to preach the Convention Sermon " had gone to glory," and 
 that another would take his place. There are but few of 
 our pulpits from which he has not proclaimed the word 
 of life. And so, from his abundant labors in the ministry, 
 he was probably better known among the people as a 
 preacher than as a College President. 
 
 His style of discourse was of that kind which draws strik- 
 ing sketches : you would not say that it flowed like a river, 
 
14 
 
 but was like the dew, clearly flashing back and reflecting 
 the light, often prismatic in its splendor, every rich dia- 
 mond-drop independent and complete in itself, twinkling 
 on the grass or on the leaf ; yet all forming a beautiful 
 unity, in one grand, refreshing shower. He remembered 
 that it is written : " My doctrine shall drop as the dew ;" 
 and from his lips it had the power of the dev/. Most of us 
 aim to resemble the broad flowing river; it is so attractive 
 to the eye, and will bear so many things upon its bosom. 
 But it takes a remarkably fresh and healthful mind to enjoy 
 the dewy morning and evening time; and to Dr. Wingate's 
 unusually pure and open nature this style of preaching was 
 most congenial. 
 
 If not a " master of assemblies," he certainly was a master 
 of hearts. His words were quick and powerful, life-giving, 
 and soul-pervading in a very eminent degree. He w^as a 
 seer essentially ; he threw out jets of truth which were ger* 
 minal, and which became central flames and lights. " He 
 pictured it all out so plainly," said the hearer. But did 
 ever preacher picture it all out plainly, who had not first 
 pictured it all wi laboriously ? He drew pictures in his own 
 mind with the facility of a true artist; and in the light pro* 
 duced by the glow of his own thought, he transferred them 
 to the canvass of other minds with the hand of a master. 
 The very frame-work of these mental pictures was often a 
 piece executed with as much skill as the gem of which it 
 was the setting ; and this rare power of representation in- 
 vested his style with a wondrous fascination. 
 
 Of this power Dr. A. McDowell writes thus : " His high* 
 est talent consisted in the rapid sketching of outline pic- 
 tures, dwelling on one just long enough to make the outline 
 distinct, and then passing on to another. Each of these 
 pictures illustrated an important truth, and left it indelibly 
 impressed upon the mind." 
 
 And so his sermons were rich in poetical lily-work, and 
 carvings, and images — now like an acanthus on a pillar, 
 
15 
 
 now like a stained glass in a recess. Thus he was pre-emi* 
 nent as a suggestive preacher, and his ministry was as 
 profitable in the quickened thought of the hearer as in the 
 instruction actually imparted. Because of this happy en- 
 dowment he was, as another has said, " a preacher whose 
 ministry was ever as acceptable to the untutored hearer as 
 to the highly educated." 
 
 He was especially gifted in realizing into vivid pictures 
 the incidents in the life of our Lord. He was so constantly 
 with Jesus in His midnight praying and noonday work, at 
 Simon's board, on Peter's boat, under Mary's : oof, amid the 
 lowly scenes of Bethlehem and the busy scenes of Jerusalem, 
 among the poor, by the couch of the sick, at the tomb of 
 Lazarus, in Gethsemane, before Pilate's bar, and at the place 
 of skulls — so constantly with Jesus in all His travail here 
 below — that he drank deeply of His Spirit, had His mind, 
 caught the impress of His character, and diffused the aroma 
 of His presence. He walked abroad in the avenues of the 
 Scriptures as in familiar paths. He examined and enjoyed 
 the " old, old story " in a way that brought him nearer to 
 God ; and then he wisely used the evangelical narrative to 
 domesticate the gospel in the souls of his hearers- — making 
 the dignified truth affable, but leaving it still dignified. 
 
 He was attractively fresh, profound, and strikingly origi- 
 nal in his presentation of sacred truth. And his exposi- 
 tions seemed as near the mind of the divine Spirit as they 
 were new and joyful to the hearer. He drew exhaustless 
 treasures of spiritual wealth from the inexhaustible mine of 
 Holy Writ. Permit me to cite an instance : The last time 
 I ever heard him preach in this Chapel, was on a Sabbath 
 evening, "in a short talk," he said, supplemental to the 
 morning discourse, which had been delivered by another, 
 on the love of Christ. The preacher of the morning had 
 presented the fruits of long and earnest thought, and care- 
 ful preparation. But, oh, it was an inspiration, a grace, a 
 joy, to hear the loved disciple take up the lofty theme of 
 
16 
 
 Jesus' love, and tell what it was, and what it was not: not 
 the sultry fervor of a tropical passion ; not the measured 
 equivalents of common love; not the elective affinities of 
 moral and esthetic love; not the ecstatic rapture of love 
 rejoicing in the eciioes which it has itself awakened, and 
 singing to the heart that sings back to it ; — but the simple 
 love of Christ to sinful souls — suffering, re-creating, glorif^'- 
 ing, saving love ! 
 
 It has been suggested that brother AVingate never at- 
 tained the full measure of his power as a preacher, on 
 account of physical infirmities. But how could he have 
 been greater as a herald of the cross ? And had he been a 
 strong, sound man bodily, would he ever have attained such 
 eminence as a gentle, sweet, sympathizing bearer of the glad 
 tidings ? Tell me, ye reeds shaken by the tempest, who know, 
 was ever the gospel preached in all its fullness and power, 
 except by men in prison, men with a thorn in the flesh — 
 men under bonds of some sort or other ? Paul, guarded by 
 a Roman sentinel, penned some of his noble epistles, and 
 enjoyed some of his sweetest experiences. His body in 
 cliains, his s[)irit was as free, as sanguine, as soaring as ever. 
 He turned his dungeon into a fort, from which he hurled 
 his most effective weapons. He made his cell his study, 
 where he sung at midnight, and where he wrote the immor- 
 tal doctrines through the day. Through those grated win- 
 dows he shouted out the good news until their iron bars 
 vibrated with the inspired message, like JEolian harps 
 touched by the breath of heaven. His weakness was made 
 strong until the old Roman bastile became instinct with the 
 life of God, and seemed lifted from its firm foundations by 
 the divine hand, and swung through the earth like a golden 
 censer, until the world was blessed with the sweet incense 
 of eternal truth ! 
 
 And so our brother was an ambassador in bonds. He 
 was a feeble, suffering man — a nervous, quivering, aspen- 
 leaf of a man. As he pressed on in his high calling, the 
 
17 
 
 casements of the clay tabernacle often shook ; the frail sur- 
 roundings rattled in the wind; the mere accidents of the 
 tenement were unsteady. But the inner man was renewed 
 day by day ; the emptying spring was constantly filled from 
 
 " Siloali's brook tlut flow'd 
 Fast by the oracle of God." 
 
 And when he was weak, then was he strong. The house 
 of his christian manhood was built on the Rock Christ 
 Jesus, and supported by the firm, eternal girders of Right- 
 eousness and Truth ; and it did not fall, it did not tremble, 
 while he delivered his message with a surpassing pathos 
 and power that kindled the energies of holy love in many a 
 deathless mind ! 
 
 To him the work was so delightful, so rich in its consola- 
 tions, that he asked no higher vocation, no other joy here 
 below, than to cry : 
 
 "Behold, behold the Lamb ! " 
 
 In this he was truly wnse ; and he will live in our memo- 
 ries as a preacher when other recollections of him have 
 faded away. As a Preacher I would, if I could, embalm 
 him for immortality ! How often have we seen him, in the 
 glow and rapture of lofty discourse — the towering physical 
 man a symbol of the gigantic intellectual man, and the 
 posture of his body suggestive of his spiritual attitude — 
 reaching after, grasping, bringing down, the great things of 
 God, of the soul, and of heaven, and embodying them in 
 burning words, crisp and sparkling, that went bounding, 
 leaping, ricochetting, into the minds of those who heard, 
 and into the hearts of those who loved, the truth ! How he 
 threw upward from this low earth a new light over all the 
 high things of immensity and eternity — making Christ 
 more precious, and God more glorious, and heaven more 
 alluring to the soul ! Oh, how he could take the old truths, 
 which, embalined in our scholastic theology, are charmless 
 
18 
 
 skeletons, and speak them into christian life, and present 
 them to us as seraphs from the skies, to wipe away our tears, 
 to bear our burdens, to sing sweet songs at ovv death-bed, to 
 pour light through our graves, and to lift us on their 
 friendly wings to our celestial home! 
 
 I know not that we have left us in permanent form any 
 of those stirring sermons that so touched and thrilled our 
 hearts. Perhaps we need not lament the fact. They were 
 not designed to be read, but to be heard. You cannot know, 
 from the cold casting, what a flashing glory was thrown 
 over all the blackness of the furnace when the molten 
 metal was drawn out, and flowed in a golden, scintillating 
 stream into the ready mould ! You cannot judge, from the 
 solid lava, even though the fissures in it may reveal the 
 burning deeps, what was its grandeur when it came fused 
 and glowing from the fiery throat of the volcano. And so 
 no printed memorials of those liquid, silvery streams of 
 sanctified thought could convey to the reader a true con- 
 ception of how grand the preacher was, as his great soul, 
 instinct with holy feeling, lightened and thundered the 
 truth on his hearers. His theme absorbed him. He seemed 
 to have divine illumination. He identified the Scripture as 
 of the present moment. He drew the mighty future to 
 the threshold of to-day; and made eternal realities present 
 and manifest among men ! He stood on the mountain- 
 peaks of revelation, as though he would hail the far-off 
 watchers on the confines of his Father's empire ; and he 
 enjoyed views of heights and depths and expanse beyond, 
 to which men of ordinary stature never attained. There 
 were no clouds hiding from him the vast concerns of the 
 unseen world. He did his work for that eternity towards 
 which he travelled with its surpassing glory full in view. 
 He was a watchman on the walls of Zion ; he was a sentinel 
 at the advanced post of duty ; he was a leader in the very 
 fore-front of the battle; and he stood in the realized pres- 
 ence of the Infinite Majesty, and delivered his message in 
 
OJECT 
 
 19 
 
 the spirit of Elijah when he declared before the impious 
 King, " thus saith the Lord God of Israel, before whom I 
 stand ! " 
 
 I cannot now enter upon a presentation of his doctrinal 
 views ; how he magnified the Scriptures, and held firmly to 
 their inspiration, and their binding authority ; how he was 
 sound in the faith, and believed in and taught the great 
 doctrines of grace. 
 
 But I must linger a moment longer to say that he was a 
 man of prayer; and a man of mighty faith ; that faith 
 which is the organ of the spiritual life ; that faith which 
 makes the night seem shorter, if it does not make the sun 
 rise sooner; that rare faith to which 
 
 "is given 
 The instinct tliat can tell 
 That God is on the field wlien He 
 Is most invisible." 
 
 That faith which supports us in the day of trial and pre- 
 pares us for the day of revelation ; 
 
 " That faith that keeps the narrow way 
 
 Till life's last hour is fled. 
 And witii a pure and heavenly ray 
 
 Lights up a dying bed." 
 
 And that faith which made the "darkened cloud withdraw" 
 from before his vision, and, in some of his own last words 
 made the sun to "shine all the way up to heaven," while 
 his face beamed brightly all that day, the last and happiest 
 of his life. 
 
 "Drop the veil now," say ye, "over that closing scene" 
 Oh, no; lift the veil, and gaze steadfastly, and see the salva- 
 tion of the Lord ! Listen to the Master, saying to his waiting 
 servant, "you have been teaching men all your life how 
 they ought to live ; now teach them how to die." The death 
 chamber is full of light, and God reveals before us some- 
 thing unutterably solemn and beautiful, when the spirit of 
 
20 
 
 a dying saint preaches such sermons as his spirit preached — ■ 
 praying the fainting flesh to obey its heavenly mandates, 
 and win the last touch of its divine completeness out of the 
 very remnants of decay. 
 
 The revelations of the spirit of this fainting, falling soldier 
 of Jesus were so beautiful, so heavenly, that the weary, 
 paling flesh seemed to catch some golden touches of the 
 glory that w^as within. It was a blessed sight to see the 
 brave contender for the faith putting on anew, over his 
 broken armor, when he could fight no more in his Master's 
 battles, the robe of humility, gentleness and endurance, 
 which he only gathered more tightly round him as he laid 
 him down to die ! 
 
 And is he dead ? Nay, my brethren ! He has passed 
 from one apartment, where gathering shades are falling, 
 into another, where invited guests are assembling, and where 
 earth's jewel-souls are welcomed to light and music and song, 
 with " everlasting joy upon their heads !" 
 
 Unto his fellowship in glory we hope to be uplifted, to 
 join him in praises in that great congregation " into w^hich 
 an enemy never enters, and from which a friend cannot de- 
 part." 
 
 Ye saints and angels of the Lord, crowd the pearly por- 
 tals to hail him w^elcome home ! Wave the green palm for 
 joy that he is more than conqueror through Him that hath 
 loved him ! Ready ministers, bow^ and loose the dusty san- 
 dals from his feet ! Oh, Lamb ! in the midst of the throne, 
 feed him evermore, and lead him forth to fountains of living- 
 waters, and wipe away all tears from his eyes ! Give him 
 thy hand, Armstrong, as he enters the glory -gate I O, 
 Wait, make room for him by thy side ! Meredith, Mc- 
 Daniel, John L. Prichard, greet the faithful toiler, with 
 his sheaves from the vineyard ! 
 
 Sainted brother, take thy seat among these glorified 
 worthies — a sceptered, crowhed, white-robed Elder of 
 Eternity !