The life and times of George Foster Pierce, D.D., LL.D., bishop of the Methodist Church, South : with his sketch of Lovick Pierce, D.D., his father

Front matter

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Atlantic Puhhghmg £ Engraving Co. N,Y

Preface

I HAVE endeavored to let Bishop Pierce tell his own story ; I have not been able to put into the compass of these pages all I would have been glad to have published. The tributes of Dr. Lipscomb, of Dr. Haygood and others, I am obliged to omit ; and the touching story of his life in California, as told by his cherished friend Dr. Fitzgerald, by an accident in mailing reached me too late for the printer.

I have not done the work hastily, but as speedily as I could.

I have left much unsaid, and yet the book is larger than is usual. I do not think my readers will complain of its length. I am much indebted to my friends Lovick Pierce, the son, and the bishop's daughters for efficient help in preparing the book, and .to Ruth and Ethel, the bishop's granddaughters, for very kind service. I am sorry my good friend Dr. Haygood takes so little space for his introduction, which I hoped would have been much longer.

I have been intensely interested in compiling and editing the book, and trust my readers will be so in reading it.

George G. Smith.

Vineville, Macon, Ga., September, 1888.

Introduction

I LONG hoped that it might be my privilege to prepare for publication a volume in honor of two men, honored and loved by me as I could honor and love but few men. It would have been so much a work of gratitude to them that nothing I could have done in writing the lives of " the Pierces, father and son," could have satisfied me, to say nothing of others. For to these two men, great and good and loving, both of them, I owe much ; they were, in many ways, above all by the inspiration to me to try to be- a man that was in them, helpful when I most needed the help of wise and good people.

From i860 to the time of their translation, I was much with Dr. Pierce and his son, our late senior bishop. I knew them both as well, perhaps, as one man can know other men. They were greatest and best the more intimately they were known ; these men lost rather than gained by distance.

I was Dr. Pierce's assistant, "junior preacher," in the first "appointment" I received, Pierce Chapel, Columbus, Ga., and Girard, Ala., i860. The half of nearly every Monday and Saturday was spent in the " old doctor's " study ; most profoundly did his monologues concerning Bible teaching, Methodist history and doctrine and religious experience affect the whole course of my own life. My second appointment was Sparta, Ga., Bishop Pierce's family being in my pastoral charge. The affectionate intimacies begun during these years never ceased, they never will. I was often at the bishop's house, the venerable father always the centre of interest ; they were often at my house. We were together x Introduction.

in travel, in preaching, in church work of many sorts, in scenes sad and scenes joyful, in differences and agreements, in public and in private. From the time I knew them till they left us, conversations and letters were as frequent as opportunity allowed. And as to-night I look back and think of them through all these years, having seen much of of them both in public and in private life, on great occasions and very small ones, I am sure they now seem to me greatest in private life.

In the truest and best sense these men are as much ours as they ever were. We do not lose our friends because they go out of the body. Indeed they are more ours out of the body than in it. If for no other reason, because we know them better.

There is a subtle philosophy here that I cannot put into words, and that I do not wish others, if they could, to put into words for me ; but I am none the less sure of the truth. Our disembodied friends are made manifest to our spiritual vision, which is the true seeing, as they could not be when we looked upon their natural bodies with our natural eyes. Then we saw them "as in a glass darkly." If we also were out of the body we would now " see them face to face."

Those who ever truly knew Bishop Pierce and his father, know them better now than they ever knew them. Had Jesus continued in the flesh his disciples could never have known " him as he is." It was "expedient for them that he should go away." And this is true of all good people ; true as to those who go hence and for those who stay here.

What a vast reach of Methodist and American history Dr. Pierce lived and witnessed ! When he began, most of Georgia was inhabited by Indians, and Methodism in America was represented by a few feeble Conferences, for the most part hugging the Atlantic coast. When he fell on sleep Methodism was rooted and grounded almost round the world ; it had spread nearly over the North American continent, the great movement in Mexico and Central America beginning during his last years among us. He had been active and use-

Introduction. xi

ful as a preacher — he would not wish me to write of him " minister," or " clergyman " — for nearly seventy-five years, when he went to heaven, to enter upon other and " greater works." He was full of confidence for the future of Methodism ; not because it was Methodism, but because he truly believed that Christianity would itself take and hold this world.

Bishop Pierce did not labor so long, but as much as his father. Fifty years and more he was in the fore-front of every battle. Where the fight was hottest, there we always found him. He served, not more faithfully than his father, that could not be, but in a greater variety of labors. Preacher, college agent, college president, bishop, he was "in labors more abundant," always doing the best he could at tile time.

The father knew better than the son how to economize his strength ; Dr. Pierce " preached every chance he got," but he was more prudent in caring for his health. The bishop's splendid constitution served him so well that the need of sparing himself he did not apprehend till the time had passed. But this is true : if over-work really shortened his stay among us, the fault was more ours than his. He did not spare himself, nor did the Church spare him. He was always wanted " when he could be had." Many times during his last ten years among us he was earnestly and lovingly chided for not taking better care of himself; preachers and people begged him to rest and ended their exhortation by urging him to do some special work for them. Many said of him : " He is working himself to death." While " the old doctor," nearing his century line, was yet with us, we were wont to think of the son as a young man ; when the father was gone, we suddenly discovered that the son was himself already an old man and we had not known it.

Far be it from me to judge one of Christ's servants, who, for half a century, in the love of God and man, did his best to make the world better, and did nothing else. It were a thousand times better to burn out with over-work than to rust away in the slow combustion of inglorious ease and selfxii Introduction.

indulgence. Enough of us are " taking care of ourselves ; " few enough of us can say, " The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up," or so much as know what the words mean.

A reminiscence may be pardoned here. Bishop Pierce was by so many, and with such insistence and iteration, urged to spare himself that he was sometimes annoyed, particularly by those who were most assiduous and successful in taking care of themselves. When a lazy man exhorted him to rest, it vexed him.

It is but just to Bishop Pierce to give his latest words upon the subject of his over-working himself. Monday September 2, 1884, before the following Wednesday that he left us, he said to me that it was* true that during that last summer he had sometimes preached when he should not. But that same day he gave his deliberate judgment of the matter, as it concerned his general course of conduct. When a friend, not this writer, remarked in his presence, " He has worn himself out," he answered, with a force of words and manner, not to be forgotten by those who were at his bedside :

" I have not over-done it. I have only gone on in the regular drift of duty. I have not made occasions, some of them I have resisted ; I went as far as I could and stopped."

We cannot measure the worth of such men as Bishop Pierce and his father. When a mere money-getter winds up it is easy to measure him. A few figures give the sumtotal of his life and his product. But we have no gauges for measuring results in the spiritual sphere. The good and the evil that men do cannot be compressed into or expressed by statistical tables. And it is a dull sort of blunder to try to do it. As well try to weigh in balances the perfume of flowers or the music of songs. We only know that these two great and good men threw the whole of their rich lives into the work of Christ Jesus among men. Thousands of us here have, in many senses, entered into their labors ; for many thousands the world is different because these Pierces lived in it so long and so well, and for many thousands eternity will be different for their sakes.

Introduction. xiii

Of their peculiar gifts, their marked resemblances and their striking differences, their personal qualities as to nerves and temperament, their intellectual and moral characteristics, their methods of study, of thought, and of preaching, I make no estimate here. These things are, for those who did not know them while still in the flesh, best studied in this volume, which tells of them in the best way. For the most part they tell their own story.

If there is less concerning " the old doctor" than he deserves or than the Church expected, it must be remembered that he kept no diary, and all the men and women, with few exceptions, who knew his first fifty years, left the world before him. Of those who could tell us of the first quarter or third of his century all are gone. We know these years were crowded with great labors, great in quantity and in quality; somewhere between 1830 and 1840 he attended seven camp-meetings in as many weeks. But the story has only one record ; it is on high.

By the bishop's desire I preached at the burial of his father's body ; by the request of the bishop's family I preached when his worn and wasted frame was laid away. If I could I would have fulfilled my promise made to the bishop, Sunday night, September I, 1884, as he lay on his last bed, to " write the life of his father." Providence, not my choice, has ordered otherwise. Both men I honored and loved as long as they were on the earth ; both I honor and love all the more since they went away and I could know them more perfectly ; both I expect to love and honor forever.

I am very glad that the work of preparing this volume fell to one both men loved and honored much. He was near them in many ways and knew them in many sympathetic relations. Many gifts and providences have fitted my longtime friend and brother, the author and editor of this book, to do this work better than any other could have done it.

The Church will read this volume with growing profit ; to young preachers it should be an education and an inspira-

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Introduction.

tion. The biography of a useful man must itself be useful; that the biography of these two Pierces— I write it so, for one story tells of both men — cannot be written to the satisfaction of those who knew them best, is nobody's fault. The difficulty is in the subject and its conditions. Here are great lives full of work of an altogether noble sort ; the records are meagre ; and the popular imagination has already idealized them.

Four years and one day have passed since the son, our late senior bishop, rested from the work we had seen him toiling at so long ; it may well be that he has done more and better work, and without toil or fatigue, during these four years and a day, than in all the years and days that went before.

Atticus G. Haygood.

Decatur, Ga., September 4, 1888.

LIFE AND TIMES

OF

GEORGE F. PIERCE.

Chapter I. Father And Mother

Bishop Pierce's Sketch of his Father — Section I. : General Remarks — Section II.: Parents — The Family — Thomas Darley — Jimmy Jenkins — Barnwell — The Awakening and Conversion — Lovick Preaches — The Removal to Georgia — The Brothers Recommended to Conference — Admitted and Appointed to Work — Pedee Circuit — George Dougherty, Dr. Pierce's Recollections of Him — Simeon's Skeletons — Apalachee Circuit — Colonel George Foster — Ann the Daughter — Stationed in Augusta — Depression — Recovery — Columbia, South Carolina — Oconee District — Marriage — Section III.: Bishop Pierce's Sketch of Lovick and Reddick Pierce.

BISHOP PIERCE attempted to write the life 'of his father. He wrote four short chapters, which I have presented, if not in the order in which they were written, yet substantially unchanged. These chapters give us a view of the father to his twenty-first year, when he entered upon his second year's work in the ministry as a preacher on the Apalachee Circuit. The manuscript has four chapters. The first, which is here given entire, is headed :

Section I. — General Remarks

The life of a preacher is commonly so tranquil and uniform as to furnish but few incidents for the pen of a biographer. The story of a single year, with its labors and services, is substantially a statement of facts which embraces a long career. The itinerant system, with all its changes of place and appointment, has so little of variety in its scenes and associations as to realize, after all, well nigh the monotony of a settled pastorate. The Church is a unit — the work is the same, and whether the minister fills a mission, or a station, a circuit, or a district, his line of action is formulated by an established order. Hence the history of one man is the history of another, and of all. Superior talent, eminent service, general popularity may invest one man's services with an eclat not common to his brethren, but there is often not enough of romance and adventure, of anecdote and incident to constitute the materials of an interesting narrative.

The majority of readers are attracted by what is brilliant in character and daring in action, rather than by the less splendid achievements of faith and piety. The hero with his garments rolled in blood ; the statesman in the halls of legislation, protecting industry by law, stimulating commerce by opening new channels of trade, or in the councils of the cabinet scheming for empire, these are applauded while they live, and their fame perpetuated in the records of the nation. The servant of Christ, however, distinguished by all that is holy and useful, must wait for his honors in the revelations of eternity, and expect the due estimate of his labors only as they are written in the tablets of heaven.

By private letters and personal appeals, by resolutions of conferences and other Methodist associations, I have been urged to write the life of my father, the Rev. Lovick Pierce. As the first-born of his house and his companion more than any other member of his family, and his fellow-laborer in the ministry for well nigh fifty years, the task, with some propriety, devolves on me. Yet I have hesitated. My physical condition, taken in connection with my official duties, frequent and long absences from home, the weariness when I returned, enjoining rest, the correspondence which had accumulated and must be attended to, and in all candor my aversion to writing, all these things have made me pause.

Now that I am vocally disabled and cannot occupy the pulpit as aforetime, the thought has occurred to me that the best thing I can do will be, in this interval of a very active life, to execute the task providentially assigned to me.

The great trouble inheres in the work to be done. Dr. Pierce was a man of mark — he filled a large place in the world and he occupied it a long time. He impressed himself with power upon public interests and had a large share in the confidence and affections of the people. He lived to a great age, but his ministry was fresh — that never grew old. He never commanded more attention than in the last years of his life. Indeed, not only did the Church and the world render to him the homage and veneration due to his extreme age and long service, but they heard him with a zest and wonder and admiration unsurpassed even in the meridian of his strength. The writer cannot meet public expectation by any record of his life. Not to stress my incapacity for the work (though I feel it sensibly), no one could realize the public ideal, strange to say, mainly for lack of material.

My father kept no diary, no journal. There are no facts, or dates, or records outside of fragmentary notices in the public prints and the Conference minutes. My own memory is the sole depository on which I can draw I persuaded him, twenty years ago, to write an autobiography. This he did at great length — not so much a narrative of himself, however, as a comment upon his times. This document was unfortunately left in Columbus when he came to live permanently with me ; and in the confusion of the war and the removal of his furniture from place to place, this, with other manuscripts, was mislaid and cannot be found. This loss is irretrievable ; all the more so, when we remember through how many strata of modern civilization a man must have passed, who lived in the world nearly ninety-five years. The comments and reflections of a mind observant and philosophic would have been invaluable in the work before me. In the absence of such a record, or any substitute corresponding to it, the writer is wholly dependent upon his personal recollections.

During my father's sojourn in my family, it was one of our nightly pastimes to induce him to talk of the past. He was never garrulous, did not live in the years gone by, like other old men. He lived in the present and scanned the future almost with a prophet's eye. Current events, the prospects ahead, these were the staple of his thoughts and the topics of his conversation. He was well-nigh always serious and meditative, yet for his own relief and for the entertainment of his grandchildren, he would indulge in reminiscences of his boyhood and his early ministry. He enjoyed these interviews very much, and my children and children's children will never forget how "old grandfather" at once amused and instructed them in these fireside talks. He and I alternated in our morning and evening devotions, and these episodes fell in on this wise : As we rose from our knees and resumed our seats, with sparkling eyes and face aglow, he would say: " George, the psalm you read to-night carried me back to my beginning. In 1806 I heard George Dougherty preach one of his mighty sermons" on such a verse, quoting it and telling of the wonderful results. Then he would dilate upon the preacher, in his judgment the greatest man in all Southern Methodism. Starting thus he would describe scenes, narrate incidents, illustrating men, society, and the times. Out of these scraps I must write the following history. As the story comes down to the days of my own majority, I shall be less dependent on mere memory,

Once more my filial relations will embarrass my pen. Suffice it to say, whatever my heart might prompt and however partial affection might tinge my conceptions, it is not my purpose to write a eulogy. Nevertheless, I shall write with freedom, assured that the strongest thing I may say will find its 'endorsement in the concurrent verdict of his generation. I shall outline my father's character literally, truly, without exaggeration and without concealment. Thank God, in a thorough analysis of character and an intimate knowledge of private and public life there is nothing to hide, nothing to be ashamed of. There were infirmities, some weak points here and there, but these leaned to virtue's side and were attributes of which others were the beneficiaries, while he was the victim. I never knew a purer man. I claim for him no " perfection." He did not profess it as an attainment in his Christian experience, even while he taught it as a doctrine of the Bible and of Methodism. Indeed, while often highly demonstrative in his religious emotions, he was reticent and reserved as to any strong declarations about himself. His convictions were strong, his principles deeprooted and controlling, his habits regulated by a tender, discriminating conscience. There were no chasms nor spasms in his religious life. All was steady, consistent, equable, save as physical causes might effect moods of mere sensibility. Conduct always responded to the claims of duty, as the dial to the sun. He was not religious simply in the gross aggregate of life, but apprehended Christian principle in its most subtle refinements and most delicate application. His eye was single, and to please God in all things so steadily aimed at, that he was independent of all emotional conditions. Sometimes he mounted up on wings as an eagle, but when the flight was ended and experience had subsided to its ordinary level, his religious character was so adjusted and sustained, that, if he ran, he was not weary, and if he walked, he did not faint. The motive power in him worked efficiently under every degree of pressure, and the heavenward movement knew no pause and was equal to every burden and every emergency. Next to his personal salvation, the purity of the Church was his chief concern. Every other subject was of transient interest. Family affairs, political events, financial convulsions, could neither turn nor check the current of his thoughts. The policy of the Church, its discipline and administration, ministerial fidelity, revivals, expansion of circuits taking in new ground, Sunday-schools, Christian education, these were the themes which absorbed him. Of them he never wearied. To meet with a man like-minded, from whom he could learn something, or whom he could impress, was the joy and rejoicing of his heart.

These points will all come out in fuller development as the narrative of his life unfolds. If the telling of what he was and what he did maybe made useful to the great interests for which he labored so long, I shall feel that I have furnished an appropriate sequel to a noble, consecrated life.

Section II. — Parents

Philip Pierce, my grandfather, whom I remember well, was a plain man, of fine physique, an open, magnetic face, in repose with a thoughtful, rather serious expression, but when he smiled, radiant and beautiful. He commanded the reverence of his entire family by the dignity of his manner, and the instinctive impression of latent power, a power to be feared, if he were offended or unduly aroused. He was a quiet, peaceable man in all the relations of life, amiable, affectionate, full of sympathy, and always ready to work, but somehow deficient in those qualities which insure success in business pursuits. He was thriftless ; he never prospered in the world, never accumulated property, he never owned slaves, whether from poverty or conscience I never knew. He had very little education, but had a vigorous, incisive intellect, one inclined to be phlegmatic, needing occasion and stimulus for its activity. " The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor yet bread to the wise, neither riches to men of understanding, nor favor to men of skill, but time and chance happeneth to them all." God governs the world and dispenses the bounties of providence according to his wise and sovereign will. The causes of failure among men are often apparent, easy to understand. Want of judgment, lack of promptness, irregular action, deficient labor, attempting too much, all, or any of these, entail defeat. Yet often quick, ready, strong men, wise men, men of understanding are thwarted, disappointed, embarrassed all their days by the intervention of incidents and occurrences unexpected and unmanageable. The touch of some men will turn the clod into gold, while another fails to find it in a mine. Making money is a gift. Some are highly endowed with it, and rapidly accumulate fortunes, while others can hardly wring a living by incessant toil out of the most favorable conditions. Poverty (not pauperism) seems to have been an heirloom in our generations. Short incomes, meagre support, a simple, decent living has been the best we could do.

When I first knew my grandfather he was old and disabled, incapable of manual labor, and the family was sustained by the needle of the daughters and the pen of the youngest son. The two older sons and two of the daughters were married and had families of their own, and lived far away. All the circumstances of the house were humble, but the members were honest and industrious, and were recognized respectfully by the best society. The youngest brother, Everett Hamilton Pierce, was a Secretary in the Executive Department of the State of Georgia, under Troup, Forsyth, and Gilmer.

Lydia Pierce, the mother, was a rare woman, of small stature and delicate organization, and in her youth of great beauty. My father greatly resembled her in head and face. She had a bright black eye, brilliant at fourscore, an open brow of unusual height and configuration for a woman, and a mind quick, sharp, humorous, ready in repartee, and capable of pungent expression. Her education was scanty, and her reading limited largely to the Bible. She thought profoundly and expressed herself with great propriety. From her I think my father derived both his moral and mental qualities. The husband died in a good old age, but she survived him many years. Perhaps my father's longevity, his wonderful power of endurance, came also from the maternal side. The whole family were intellectual, quick to learn, comprehending facts and principles readily. Dr. Pierce says of them :

" My father and mother were sprightly and affable, cheerful and happy- They were of that class of poor people whose views and feelings in points of propriety always belonged to the higher order of aspirations and views. From them we inhaled only pure and lofty aspirations in as far as incentives to any human virtue were involved.

" They were models of industry. That work was honorable, as it was necessary and useful, was an axiom in our house, and the precious leaven of it has, in a good degree, leavened the whole lump. There has never been one of our blood that was constitutionally lazy. I am glad I was born of working parents." The Bishop continues :

" The Rev. Lovick Pierce was born on March 24, 1785, in Halifax County, N. C. He was the son of Philip and Lydia Pierce, and was, I believe, the fifth child in a family of nine — three sons and six daughters. Of his ancestry very little is known ; the tradition is that two brothers, perhaps three, came to this country from England. Two settled in the North and one came South. Of him (the grandfather) nothing is known. Philip, the son, married Miss Lydia Culpepper in Portsmouth, Va. The young couple settled on Roanoke River, in Halifax County, N. C. The family was humble, poor, and lived by personal daily labor. The absence of all records, memoranda, and traditions indicate the obscurity of all who had borne the name and the hopeless resignation of their descendants to their seemingly destined lot. While my father was yet a boy, the family removed to Barnwell District, S. C, and located on Tinker's Creek, about twenty miles below Augusta, Ga. The country was new, sparsely settled, and society ignorant, rude, and vicious. The streams were full of fish and the woods abounded with game, especially deer. I have heard my father say that he had often seen forty and fifty wagons pass his home, all laden with deerskins, en route to Charleston. Venison, horns, and hides were the staple articles for trade and barter. Hunting was the chief occupation of men and boys. Agriculture was largely limited to bread-corn. The cotton patch, though a necessity in family use, was a small affair. The cotton, when picked, was relieved of the seed by the fingers of the women and children as they sat around the fireside by night. The lint was then carded, spun, wove, and dyed, all at home. Out of the material thus provided the family were clad. This was common among the people, indeed an universal custom ; cotton was not raised for market at all. What a revolution the cotton-gin has made ! General living was rough but easy. The streams and the forest supplied the meat, and the virgin soil responded generously to the plough and the hoe. Wants were few and simple, and both the labors and pastimes of the people allowed ample leisure for social life. Reddick Pierce was two years older than his brother Lovick, but they grew up together, companions in sport and toil, very unlike in person and mental characteristics, and yet wedded to each other in indissoluble fellowship. Of course they fell in with the manners, customs, and habits of the settlement in which they dwelt. Both became experts in the use of the gun. In this Lovick excelled, especially in the use of the rifle, which was his favorite instrument, even down to old age. When I was a boy his exploits in this line were marvellous to me, nor did this cunning forsake his hand until his eye waxed dim.