Bacon, Joel Smith: Memorial Discourse

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Memorial Discourse Delivered At The E Street Baptist Church, Washington, D.C., June 27, 1870

By Rev. G. W. Samson, D.D.

“For David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell on sleep, and was gathered to his fathers.”—Acts 13: 36

An incident is often more impressive than a principle. To look on a fact occurring, to see a man perform an act, is more instructive than to hear a theory as to what might occur, or to listen to a precept as to what men ought to do. This is the value of history; and especially of the Old and New Testament narratives, which form the body of inspired teaching. To be told simply that a man thus acted in given circumstances, takes for granted that the reader is made to ask after the motives that control the lives of other men; that he recognizes for himself, without being told, the principles which ought to govern human conduct; and that he is not only able but predisposed to apply a rule of duty hinted in the life of another to his own course of action. How like a book from God, our Maker, does this volume seem; how like a Father speaking to his children; how like a trusting Redeemer, possessing the faith he expects in his disciples, do the teachings of these inspired narratives appear when they tell what good men of old did, and leave the statement for our better nature to infer the lesson taught!

Here we are told what a life David, the favorite and favored founder of the Hebrew monarchy did; what was the end and effort of his life; and then Ave are informed what was its final and permanent result.

It is Paul, the great apostle of Christ’s Gospel to the nations who makes the statement; and, as his own life was governed by a kindred idea, we are impressed with the conviction that a general rule of human duty is here presented. Moreover, in alluding thus to David, Paul is immediately presenting the life and death of the Lord Jesus Christ as the perfect example of what man’s life below should be, and what his life hereafter may become. Here, then, in this statement as to David’s aim and effort in his life, and in the result after his death is presented a theme for universal consideration and adoption:

Service of one’s own generation as the ideal of a true Christian’s life. The statement as to David, presenting, as it does, a model for universal imitation, suggests two points for consideration; first, the nature; and second, the result of such a life. We may seek, then, to draw out,

First, the nature of self-devotion to one’s own generation.

The mention of Paul’s as to David's self-devotion presents three distinct features worthy of remark.

David “served” his own generation. Too many seek to rule rather than serve; forgetful that God has so made men that they will not suffer any one to rule long or peacefully over them who is not their servant. This idea in our enlightened age, especially under our republican institutions, we recognize. Careful study, however, shows that this conviction has in all ages and climes prevailed; that a ruler is a man of the people, entrusted with their power and their wealth only that as their agent his skill and energy may render their resources more available for their individual good. The chief of an African tribe, the Prime Minister of an Asiatic Empire, the sovereigns of Europe, as well as their ministers, equally understand that this is the recognized tenure by which alone they hold their positions of power. And what the practical wisdom and the law of duty controlling men in their secular affairs has taught, belongs to the very essence of the perfect wisdom and supremely excellent precept which gives character to the Gospel of Christ. He himself said to his disciples: “I am among you as he that serveth;” and his great apostle declared, as a universal truth, “No man liveth to himself,” for “He died for all that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him who died for them and rose again.” David, the exalted monarch of Israel, as a boy tending his father's flocks by day and night, as a youth ever on the strain amid the hardships of the camp, as a king racking his mind in the great plan of organizing a government and building up its chief city, and as a man of God passing nights and days of sleepless watching for the moral and religious welfare of his chosen people, was all life-long a “servant” as a ruler.

David, again, “served his own generation.” Some waste life in dreams of what they would be and do if born in another age and generation; but the idea of devoting themselves in the age and among the men where God saw fit to place them; this has not occurred to them. Here is the mischievous tendency of a large class of fictitious narratives with which libraries for the young are too commonly stored. Tales like those of Hannah More and Maria Edgeworth direct the minds of the young to the real circumstances in which they will hereafter be called to act. But the romances of knight errants and of disappointed lovers exhaust as well as waste the mind’s energies, and make the heart callous to real suffering, because inured to sympathize only with imaginary woes, often the penalty of real vice pictured as virtue. The wise youth will study his “own generation,” its theatre for action, its wants and the efforts for its welfare that are within the range of possibility.

David, once again, “served his own generation by the will of God” Some meet the issues of life, wearing the yoke imposed by their lot; but they toil as under a yoke. There is no cheerful enthusiasm, no actual preference for the pathway they have to tread. They meet the will of God with dogged indifference, with burdened spirits, or with sullen
murmuring; not with the alacrity of a child who longs for nothing so much as some hard task whose cheerful performance will prove his gratitude and love to his parents. This was David’s spirit. When he could not wield Saul’s armor, how buoyant his step as he ran to meet Goliah with his shepherd’s sling! When he could make no saving moral impression on the hardened bandits who gathered about him as Saul was hunting him down through the mountains, what a model for all time this young monarch, already anointed, turning mission Sabbath school teacher as he stood at his tent door or at a cave’s mouth on the hallowed seventh day, and exclaimed “Come ye children, hearken unto me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord!” So in every period of life David filled his place; until at last a man of gray hairs he was still illustrating the sentiment, “The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree; they shall bring forth fruit in old age.” No student of Paul’s history can fail to mark the illustration and confirmation of this idea in his life; all of whose difficulties—opposition from the elements of nature and from the passions of bad men—interruptions of his work caused by storms at sea and shipwreck on desolate islands, or by the machinations of bad men shutting him away from preaching by confinement in prison, and from writing by forced separation from his books and parchments, all of which apparent defeats he made triumphs, because his life-work was controlled by the spirit thus expressed—“None of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy!” “With joy,” observe; for the third element in the mission of the true Christian is this: to have the feeling that the service of one’s own generation is appointed “by the will of God,” and should therefore be a cheerful service. This idea is constantly shining out in all Paul's life and writings as the chief attainment of an advanced disciple.

We cannot pass over entirely unnoticed, the other part of this statement of the great apostle of Jesus as to the great monarch of Israel.

Second. The result of Christian devotion to the service of one’s own generation.

The statement presents a negative and a positive, an individual and a general result. It declares that David “fell on sleep and was gathered to his fathers.”

There is a personal reward to the man who lives for his age. In worldly toil the day of labor is followed by the night of rest. The day of spiritual work, remark, is but a moment of toil followed by never ending ages of sweet repose. The rest after worldly toil is unconscious oblivion of the mind. The Christian’s sleep, remember, is an unbroken life of conscious delight. To “sleep in Jesus” is according to Paul’s frequent declaration to “be with Christ;” as Jesus said, to be on the very day of decease from earth "with him in Paradise;" as John in vision saw it is to be “blessed henceforth;” happy from the very hour that the faithful one “dies in the Lord.” Suppose, then, it be service and hard service to live as a Christian. It has, as we have seen, a present “joy unspeakable and full of glory;” and beyond the grave “pleasures,” honors, glories, that are “evermore.”

But this is the negative side only. The true man longs to be useful; aspiring not only to do good during the brief years of life, but to live in his influence during the ages that are to succeed him. This expression to be “gathered unto his fathers” has a pregnant meaning. It is written of Abraham and of Jacob, as well as of David, and it suggests the important idea already alluded to in our consideration of the nature of the Christian’s mission. Moral influences, like the continuation of plants and animals, are a succession of the species. As human bodies are propagated,—and are sickly or healthy, arrested or continued in succession, according to the parent’s fidelity,—so is it with souls born again. The Divine agency is operative in both; but not to the exclusion of the responsibility of individual men and women. What, then, has any man or woman to do but to serve their own generation! How can they serve any other? Only, observe, in this, and that the vitally important way: as the men of each generation are directly responsible for the succession and character of the next, so the Christians of any one generation are the indispensable links by which all the influences that have come down from Christ’s day pass on to generations yet to come. Let any one generation be unfaithful in their day, and all the power of the past drops and is lost for the want of connection in the chain of succession. Other men have labored and we have entered into their labors. Our fathers lived for their generation, their special duty being to those who were to succeed them; and how shall it be with us as to our successors? All true Christians, as John saw in Heaven, attain two results by “serving their own generation according to the will of God,” they “rest from their labors, and their worlds do follow them.”

These thoughts, suggested at once when the death of Dr. Bacon was first reported, had developed into an extended discourse as introductory to the memorials of his life and character, gradually gathered for this occasion. The very extent of their natural suggestions has led to their presentation in a separate discourse. As illustrations of these impressive principles, we may proceed at once to read a life so rare.

Joel Smith Bacon was born in Cayuga county, New York, on the 3d of September, A. D. 1802. In the year 1821, at the age of nineteen years, he entered Homer Academy, in his native State, and after a course of two years’ study he was admitted, in 1823, as a member of the Sophomore class at Hamilton College, Clinton, New York. He graduated in 1826. Of this period his intimate friend, Rev. G. W. Eaton, D. D., late President of Madison University, says: “His intellectual endowments were of a high order. He was distinguished for his ability and scholarship in his undergraduate course. Especially was he marked as a ready and logical debater. His facility in extemporaneous speaking was remarkable. On graduating in 1826 he was awarded the honor of the Philosophical Oration; the first honor, balanced between him and a class-mate, turning upon the estimate of their comparative classical attainments, and not of their intellectual power.” This distinction was no slight acquisition in a class which numbered among its members such men as the Hon. S. J. Bosworth, afterwards Judge of the Supreme Court of New York; the Hon. Wm. W. Fenton, afterwards Lieutenant Governor of Michigan; the Rev. Wm. M. Carmichael, D. D., and the Rev. Wm. Hague, D. D. With all these eminent classmates Dr. Bacon was ever held in high esteem; and to the latter especially he was bound by the cords of a lifelong attachment.

Immediately on graduation, so directly that he did not find time to visit his family, Mr. Bacon went into Virginia to be engaged in teaching. The school in which he was employed was in Amelia county. Here he seems to have remained but little more than a year; but it was a fresh spot ever green in his remembrance. Dr. Eaton remarks, “He frequently spoke of this residence in Virginia as a very pleasant period of his early life.”

The next year he seems to have been engaged to take charge of a classical school in Princeton, New Jersey, at the scat of the college so renowned. Of this period in his life Rev. Dr. Maclean, late president of that college writes: “I recollect Dr. Bacon when he taught a classical school in this town. I find from a catalogue of the Cliosophic Society, in the college of New Jersey, that he became a member of that society in 1828. According to the best of my recollection he was esteemed a good and successful teacher.” Of this era of Mr. Bacon’s progress Dr. Eaton says: “While at Princeton he enjoyed the society of its literary elite, participating in the intellectual and literary exercises of the college and seminary, and was recognized as a gifted and scholarly man. A very intelligent and highly-cultivated graduate of the seminary, who formed an acquaintance with Mr. Bacon while they were together at Princeton, told me before I had ever met him as my friend, that he was the finest extemporaneous speaker and the ablest debater of his age within his acquaintance.”

The following year, in 1829, Mr. Bacon entered the Theological Seminary at Newton, Massachusetts; becoming a member of the class which graduated in 1831. Here, however, he remained but a few months. The circumstances of the early termination of his course at Newton are thus narrated by Rev. H. J. Ripley, D. D., the long continued and greatly esteemed professor of pastoral duties at that institution. He writes: “In 1830, Rev. Dr. Chase having been invited to the presidency of Georgetown College, Kentucky, felt it his duty to make a visit to Georgetown in order to decide the question of acceptance. He proposed to Mr. Bacon to accompany him; intending, should he accept the presidency, to have Mr. Bacon associated with him as an instructor. On learning after his arrival the real purpose of the Board of Trustees, to have the college merely a literary institution, without any special provision for such Theological instruction as his heart was fixed on, he declined the appointment, and recommended Mr. Bacon for the presidency; and the appointment was accordingly made. This action on the part of Dr. Chase sufficiently shows his estimate of Mr. Bacon.”

Of his connection with Georgetown College the following particulars are gathered: The College in Georgetown, Kentucky, originated shortly after the Columbian College, Washington, D. C., and began with a legacy left by Mr. Paulding to the Columbian College. By some defect in the form of the bequest, or some technicality of law, the Kentucky courts ruled that the legacy might be held for educational puposes, but that it could not be so employed outside of the limits of Kentucky. Hence the Georgetown College became really the child and heir of the Columbian College. This indebtedness and close association was equally apparent in the first officers of the College. Rev. Dr. Staughton having resigned his position at the Columbian College was chosen first President of Georgetown College. Passing through Washington, on his way from Philadelphia to Georgetown, he died suddenly, at the residence of his son. It was shortly after his decease that Dr. Chase, one of the first professors of Columbian College, was invited to accept the position. During the visit of Dr. Chase, with Mr. Bacon in company, at Georgetown, early in 1830, the latter was chosen Professor of the Greek and Latin languages. Shortly after, when Dr. Chase had declined the Presidency, Mr. Bacon, then at the early age of twenty-nine, was chosen President, the third in order of appointment, but the first to enter on the duties of the office. Of this new period of his varied life employ, Dr. Eaton, who was associated with Mr. Bacon as professor, says, “he presided over the College for two years with the universal respect of the students, of the trustees, and of the community.”

It was at this juncture that Mr. Bacon formed by marriage that union which added so greatly to his future happiness and usefulness. During his connection the previous year with Newton Theological Institution he had made the acquaintance of Miss Harriet E. Porter, daughter of Captain Porter, of Salem, Mass., to whom, shortly after his entrance on his duties at Georgetown, on the 30th November, 1831, he was united by marriage. Mrs. Bacon was born February 17, 1813, and was at the time of her marriage in her nineteenth year. She was remarkable for her personal beauty, loveliness of features, delicacy of form and grace of carriage, which united to add a peculiar charm to her person. Her mind was quick and clear in its intuitions, and she had received a finished culture by early education. By nature, too, she had a sprightliness and amiableness of character which made her universally beloved. Her piety, too, was of an earnest type; conscientious devotion to every good cause, a deep sensitiveness and sympathy in every call for consecration of life and property, and a spirit of prayerful fidelity to her children, specially marking her religious life. She was an affectionate wife and mother, a useful member of society and of the Christian Church, and died universally lamented in her 46th year, on the 3d November, 1858, at Warrenton, Virginia.

Returning to Kentucky immediately after his marriage, which occurrence was associated also with his ordination to the Christian ministry, Mr. Bacon had been but a short time engaged in his new field of labor, when, in 1831, he was invited to a professorship in the Literary and Theological Seminary at Hamilton, New York, then growing into importance. After about two years, in the spring of 1833, he resigned the presidency of Georgetown College, and accepted the position of Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy, before urged upon him, at Hamilton, New York.

In this new field of labor Professor Bacon was engaged for a period of four years. Shortly after entering upon his duties his chair was transferred, at his request, to Dr. Eaton, who had been with him as a professor during his presidency at Georgetown, Kentucky; and a chair of Moral and Intellectual Philosophy, generally occupied by presidents of colleges, was erected for him. A variety of duties, but indirectly connected with his professorship, were now pressed upon him. An Education Society, before formed, claimed the energy of some active head; he was made chairman of its executive committee, and in 1834 he secured a revision of its constitution, which has made it to this day one of the most important and effective organizations of its kind. About the sane time he became president of an association formed to secure a support to a Burman and Karen school, organized by the efforts of Dr. and Mrs. Wade.

The death of his father-in-law, Captain Porter, of Salem, Massachusetts, led Professor Bacon, in 1837, to resign his position at Hamilton, New York. For the same reason he accepted a call to a new field of labor, that of pastor of the First Baptist Church in Lynn, Massachusetts, a town only a few miles from the residence of his late father-in-law, whose executor he had been appointed, and whose estate required much of his attention. The features of his two or three years’ ministry, with the main facts attending it, have been furnished by the present pastor of the church, Rev. T. E. Vassar:

“The failing health of Rev. Lucius S. Bolles, occurring in the autumn of 1836, obliged the church to seek a new pastor. In March, 1837, Professor Bacon visited the church and supplied their pulpit for three weeks. On the 7th April the church gave him a unanimous call, which on the 14th of the same month was fully concurred in by vote of the society. Unable to leave his duties sooner it was not until the month of October that he formally accepted the call. He was installed December 29th; Rev. Barnas Sears, D.D., preaching the sermon, while Rev. John Wayland, D. D., and others, took part in the services. The church had just succeeded in erecting a new house of worship, the congregations were full and attentive, and though amid the financial troubles that at that era oppressed the country not many were added to the church during the two years of his ministry, influences were exerted which developed in after clays.” Of the general character of his ministry the following is stated: “As a man and Christian brother, all loved him here. As a preacher, the more intelligent listened to him with profit and delight. One man I am told used always to follow him when he exchanged in the vicinity. If he was to preach in Salem this friend would go there on foot rather than miss the opportunity of listening to his favorite.”

On the 13th December, 1839, Rev. Mr. Bacon resigned his pastoral charge at Lynn; giving as his reason that the health of his family demanded a change of climate. Daring two following years he was chiefly occupied in financial business attending the settlement of the estate of his father-in-law. He was frequently, however, engaged in supplying the pulpits of churches destitute of a pastor. During this period also, he was an efficient member of the Executive Board of the Baptist Triennial Convention, having in charge foreign and domestic missions, and located at Boston, Massachusetts. The following statement as to an important trust committed to him by that board is from the pen of Rev. J. N. Murdock, D. D., one of the secretaries of the American Baptist Missionary Union: “In consequence of troubles in the Shawnee Mission and from the desire of the board to communicate more fully with the Indians than could be done through the ordinary channels, Rev. Mr. Bacon was in August, 1842, requested to visit the Shawnees, the Cherokees, and the Creeks. He spent the autumn of 1842 and a part of the winter of 1842-‘43 in that service. His laborious efforts were judicious, and met with the full approval of the board. He composed the differences among the Shawnees, and was of great service to the Cherokees and Creeks. He was at this time and for many years a member of the board, and always was held in high esteem by his brethren.”

A new, and the most important era, in Mr. Bacon’s life was now at hand. On the 16th of August, 1841, Rev. S. Chapin, D. D., second president of Columbian College, tendered his resignation of his position, seeking retirement in the decline of life. An interval of nearly two years passed before the vacancy was supplied; during which time, as at one previous and two succeeding periods of the vacation of the office of president by four successive presidents, the office has been temporarily filled by the venerated Senior Professor, Dr. Ruggles.

At the meeting of the Board held April 12, 1843, a letter dated on the 4th of the same month, was read, addressed to the Board by Rev. Irah Chase, D. D., who had so long been conversant with the interests of the College, and with the qualifications of Mr. Bacon. This letter commended Rev. J. S. Bacon for election as President of the College, and in the following terms: “Mr. Bacon stands very high in my esteem. His devoted Christian character, his talents, his well balanced and well furnished mind, his experience in the instruction and government of young men, and the lively interest which he feels in the cause of liberal education, give a gratifying assurance that he would acquit himself worthily in the important station to which you refer.” In this commendation Rev. Dr. Ripley, of the same institution, expressed his “hearty concurrence.”

During the Presidency of Dr. Bacon an eventful period was passing in his own life and that of his family, while also a new era began in the history of the college. Up to the year 1842, the oppressive and almost crushing debt incurred at the opening of the college, in the outlay for lands, buildings and first gathering of a faculty, still rested like an incubus upon it, crippling all its movements. Before Dr. Bacon assumed the charge of the college this had been finally liquidated. More than this, two efficient agencies, those of Rev. A. M. Poindexter in 1847-8, and of Rev. Wm. F. Broaddus, in 1851-2, greatly added to the material resources of the college. Early, however, in his Presidency the alienation which led to the separation between Christian churches of the north and of the south, in their Mission work, had occurred. Prior to 1845, the Baptist Triennial Convention had been the guardian and to some extent the patron of the college. The agitation caused by the separation then brought about, made every interest at the Federal city to feel a special shock. The college, as well as other enterprises at this city, which must be always subject to the misunderstandings which party jealousies awaken, was retarded in its advance by these causes. The Honorary Degree of Doctor of Divinity was conferred on Mr. Bacon in 1845.

During the entire period of his connection with the college, Dr. Bacon was an attendant at the E Street Baptist Church. His wife and her mother after a short period became members, and at the time when, during a most interesting revival of religion, his two elder daughters made a profession of their faith, he himself was already a member and officiated at their baptism. The number of ministers without pastorates associated at that time in the E Street Church, gave comparatively little opportunity or necessity for his active labor. He was always ready, however, when occasion called to supply the pulpit; he was always a delegate of the church at the meetings of public bodies; and in the philanthropic and Christian enterprises, which had their centre in Washington, he was ever ready to bear his share.

In his letter of resignation presented July 14, 1854, he says: “The position which I have occupied for eleven years past has been one of great labor and responsibility. It has been attended with much care and anxiety, and often with great discouragements and difficulties. I have endeavored to discharge my duties faithfully, though often at the sacrifice of what might otherwise be beneficial to me. I have spared neither time nor health nor effort to promote the interests and welfare of those for whom I have labored, and I trust not without some beneficial results to others, if little to myself. My own future course I commit to the guidance of Providence, the college to those who are its constituted guardians and directors.”

After his resignation, Dr. Bacon remained some months with his family at the college; an entire year intervening before the accession of his successor (Rev. Dr. Binney) to office. His mind soon, however, turned to another important field of labor, and to it he gave no less than twelve years of his matured powers, from the age of fifty-three to sixty-five years. In all ages and lands where advanced intellectual culture and moral refinement has made popular government possible, it has been found that the mighty and almost controlling influence of woman, the early moulding and the life-long sway of mothers, wives, and female associates, makes the education of woman absolutely essential to the safety, not to say the elevation and advancement of society. If by the power of arbitrary authority or of unreasoning custom and unreasonable prejudice woman's mind be left dwarfed, her moral sentiments uninformed, and her religious instincts unenlightened, a few designing men can, by artifice, defeat all the noble designs of the philanthropic, the patriotic, and Christian benefactors who live and labor for the good of society. Sad it is that the world should so often have to learn this truth of Solomon, “One sinner destroyeth much good,” and this principle of Paul, “A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.” Always, now, in the world’s history, when by the corruption of society and the wreck of nations, this fearful truth is made real, it has also appeared that the cause of this corruption and fall is, as in Eden, the want of kindred and mutually imparted knowledge and virtue which were meant to be a joint possession of man and woman, of the husband and the wife, of the father and the mother, of the statesman that has occupied the throne and of the power behind the throne that through woman's fascination controls councils and governs States. If, at the outset of human history, woman deceived, and man not deceived, fell into the transgression, the main practical lesson certainly is that if man be formed specially for knowledge, woman is for virtue or conformity to knowledge; and that if it be not good that man be alone, if he needs woman as a helpmeet, then woman and man should be mutual educators and have a common education. Reformations in religion would seldom be needed were man's intellect as truly as woman’s under the control of an enlightened religious sentiment; and political revolutions would be rarer and less cruel if women knew as much of moral and political science as studious statesmen have learned.

Every careful student of general history must have become aware that in our country the importance of comprehensive and thorough female education has been specially recognized, and has been most steadily growing in popular conviction and esteem. At the juncture when Dr. Bacon left Columbian College, this department of labor for educated men was pervading all parts of the American States. The Gulf States, as the section most needy and most inviting in its demand for higher institutions devoted to female education, attracted Dr. Bacon’s attention; and two classes of circumstances conspired to the suggestion and the determination in his mind.

Dr. Bacon was at this era eminently fitted for this work; and that in two respects. In the first place, age tempers and chastens the ardor and asperity with which young men engage in the work of education. To meet and train the minds and hearts of young women, requires a chastened spirit and a comprehensive culture, even beyond that which seems most successful in the training of young men. Perhaps it would surprise any one not conversant with facts in this respect, to collect information as to the men who have in early life excelled in teaching young men, while in riper years they have become even more noted for their success in the culture and development of female minds.

In the second place, Dr. Bacon possessed that truly national spirit amid political agitations, and that truly catholic sentiment in religious controversies, which made him acceptable everywhere, and gave him a great social influence in the new sphere to which Providence, now, according to his own conviction, directed his labor. Every friend of Dr. Bacon remarked that he was not fitted to be a leader. Undoubtedly it is fortunate that there are so few leaders born into the world. Certainly if more were needed, there would be a greater supply by the appointment of Him, who in ordaining all things, gives the special characteristics of men, for the accomplishment of his own purpose. Great leaders are only pioneers; a little band made for a special work, that of opening the way for the great generals and great armies that follow. Sometimes self-esteem in such men makes them think that they alone are the Lord’s chosen, and that all the quiet men are nothing. But to such Elijahs, saying “I only am left alone,” Divine Providence sees to it that there are added seven thousand obscurer but more useful men; Elishas at the plough it may be, but not fitful, and like impulsive Elijah, oft looking back; men therefore on whom not only a double portion of the spirit of the true prophet rests, but who in the end carry home a harvest of sheaves from the very patience of their quiet toil. The reformation of Luther would have been a sad failure had not his reckless and sometimes worldly counsels been modified and made effective by scores of men around him like Melanchon and Erasmus; Napoleon's leadership would have left France a wreck, had not scores of men like Guizot been raised up quietly to rebuild on new foundations the ruin of the great leader whose favorite word expressive of his own mission, was “bouleverser,” to overthrow. In fact, the difference between men called in model times to be leaders, and those called to be builders, so far even t mental preparation is concerned, is as marked as that seen i the ardent advocate, earnest, eloquent, and powerful in appeal, and the judge who can analyze his one-sided view and give t all the important truth he urges its appropriate place.

With that well-balanced mind and impartial spirit which so fitted him for his new field and his new work, Dr. Bacon went into the Gulf States. He spent one year as the head of an institution in Southern Georgia, and a second in Northeastern Louisiana, on the Red River; thence he removed to Warrenton, Virginia, where an important institution had grown into existence. Not long after his settlement at Warrenton, that serverest affliction of his life, the death of his lovely companion, prepared him for yet another change.

Dr. Bacon’s two eldest daughters, whom he had baptised some years before, had now reached a maturity and had imbibed a spirit which prepared them to be able coadjutors in his chosen work. The eldest, Miss Ida, had during his stay at Columbian College, been united in marriage to Richard P. Latham, A. M., who was Professor of Mathematics at the College from 1852 to 1854. The important female institution at Tuscaloosa, Ala., now invited both Dr. Bacon and his son-in-law to take joint charge of its affairs. It was a position worthy the ripe ability of a man like Dr. Bacon. Scarcely, however, had he become fixed in this position when the sectional strife which culminated in the late war, broke, like a tornado, over the impulsive spirit of that young and energetic State; and the school of Dr. Bacon was agitated and scattered amid the excitement. Professor Latham shortly after died; and Dr. Bacon, with his family, returned to Virginia, and fixed their home again at Warrenton. That family, now, consisted of four daughters, Ida, Josie, Gertrude and Alice, the elder now a widow with two small children. Two sons had previously deceased at an early age.

The four years of the war were passed in intense excitement, Warren ton being on the line of conflict, sometimes occupied by one and again by the other contending armies. Yet, though for months the headquarters of generals of both armies, Dr. Bacon’s fine school building was the home of peace, so greatly and universally was he esteemed for integrity and piety, and so much were his family beloved by all that met them. The financial loss to which he was naturally subjected, the weight of years beginning to press heavily on him, the marriage of his two elder daughters, on whom he most relied as teachers, the elder to Rev. Henry W. Dodge, D. D., of Upperville, and the second to L. R. Spilman, Esq., of Richmond, Virginia, were causes for retirement so imperative that this last home of his united family was in the year 1866, finally abandoned.

Constitutionally active in temperament, above all impelled by a conviction of duty he could not resist, Dr. Bacon soon entered upon a sphere of Christian labor which, in the sight of angels, and indeed of thoughtful men, was the sublimest of his life. He had given thirty of his fresh and bouyant years to classical and college training of young men; he had added eleven years of devotion to female education, in which his ripe maturity of powers had been spent, and now the falling fruitage of his old age was consecrated to the religious training of the colored people of Virginia and North Carolina, suddenly emancipated, and a large portion of them, like ignorant and untutored children, sadly in need of instructors to guide and of fathers to counsel them. There are few men that could have stepped into such a sphere and have found it congenial and been efficient in it. Dr. Bacon was one of those rare exceptions; and many a young pastor learned a new lesson, and his children conceived a new admiration of their father, as a herald from a higher world laden with earthly honors but these all hidden by that crown of glory which rests on the hoary head found in the way of righteousness, when he undertook this new and self-denying task.

Dr. Bacon accepted an appointment of the American and Foreign Bible Society, located at New York, to distribute Bibles and Testaments to the colored people. He had, however, an ideal of such a mission, a lofty conception of its responsibility, such as few conceive. The language of his daughter, Mrs. Spilman, pictures him in this mission as no pen but one inspired by breathing an atmosphere purer than that of earth could have portrayed so sublime a life. She says of her sainted father: “His principal object was to visit the different colored churches, to examine their pastors, to ascertain their intelligence and piety, giving them advice in regard to the care of their charges and the means of increasing the strength and spirituality of their members, while he also supplied them with Bibles and Testaments. Though a trying position to fill, I can say with pride and pleasure that everywhere he was received with respect and treated with kindness. Crowds of people came to listen to him, and were, I have reason to know, benefitted by his instructions. Many affecting incidents has he narrated in his letters of the sacrifices made by some poor brother or sister to entertain him when thrown upon their hospitality, thanking him even amid their services for him and telling him how much his words did them good, and how they were more than repaid for any trouble he gave them.” Any daughter that knows what true moral grandeur is might well be proud of such a father. If the incidents in those private letters could be made public, nothing in the memoirs of such men as Judson could be more full of fascination and sublimity.

To the same effect, Rev. John Pollard, a graduate of Columbian College some years after Dr. Bacon’s presidency, and an esteemed pastor in lower Virginia, uses this language: “I can testify with what interest, patience, and zeal he prosecuted this work while in our midst. His entrance upon it, was of itself calculated to raise him high in the estimation of every true Christian. It clearly showed that his object in life was not popularity, was not station, was not fame, but the eternal welfare of souls. It proved that he held this object so dear, that, if he might but secure it, he was willing to accept the humblest sphere of labor. Dr. Bacon had evidently caught that beautiful spirit enjoined by the apostle—“Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate.” When a man who had been professor and president in several colleges, besides holding other prominent positions among his brethren, entered with alacrity upon the work of a colporteur for the negroes, it proved that he had learned to imitate that lowliness which appeared in the life of Jesus of Nazareth.”

But Dr. Bacon had in this work of two or three declining years “finished his course.” His end was nigh; and it closed with a scene of joy to him on earth and of the portion of his family already in Heaven, whose narration by his daughter is one of the most touching incidents of a hero’s life; always most glorious, when like the setting sun, its radiance seems to open heaven itself to mortal vision. Writing from Richmond, she says: “The last visit he made in his official capacity was to the Portsmouth Association during the early part of October. After resting a day on his return at my house, he left for Fluvanna, to baptize our sister Gertie, who had professed conversion, and wished him to officiate in this ordinance. He left Richmond about the middle of October; and on reaching ‘Edgewood’ the institution in Fluvanna where Gertie was teaching, he found Alice also, to his intense delight, ready to profess her love for Christ by being buried with him by baptism. There was not time for her to come before the church at a regular meeting. She was received, however, after relation of her experience, on the banks of the Rivanna river; after which the two girls went down into the water hand in hand, and my dear father baptized them. Gertie said that his remarks on the occasion were so affecting that there was scarcely a dry eye in all the crowd assembled on the banks to witness the scene. He said he felt as if his work was done, and that he could say with Simeon, ‘Lord let now thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation.’ He gave both sisters much good advice, and Gertie said that his words seemed inspired with more than ordinary interest; and they produced on others who listened a deep impression; for he spoke as if he might never speak to them more. Tears flowed freely from the school girls who crowded around him to bid him good-bye when he left; though he seemed in his usual health.

“The baptism took place on Sunday, October 31st. He reached home on Wednesday morning, November 3d, having travelled all night on the packet-boat. He went out during that day to the agricultural fair, returned at evening, dined with us and seemed in his ordinary spirits, but retired early, complaining of fatigue. In the morning he could not leave his room, pleurisy had set in; to which, in two days, pneumonia was added. He sunk from the first; no remedies benefiting him. He suffered much, but as late as Saturday neither we nor he had any idea of danger. On that day he spoke of some religious books he wished sent to my sister; but said, wait till Tuesday, I shall be well enough then to get them myself. He talked but little from the difficulty of breathing. On Monday night hope of recovery was given up; on Tuesday we sent for my sisters, they came on Wednesday, one week after he had left them, but he died on the very day he thought of sending the religious books to them; and on arriving they were only greeted by the crape on the door and by his senseless form. Rev. Drs. Burrows and Jeter called on him about three hours before he died, and he answered their questions with calmness, expressing his readiness to die and unwavering faith in his Redeemer. Not five minutes before his death, which was without a struggle, he spoke to me and pressed my hand as I was wiping the damp from his forehead; when he turned quickly on his side and ceased to breathe.”

His decease was on Tuesday, November 9th, and on Thursday, the 11th, his funeral was attended by ministers of all denominations, at the Grace Street Church, Richmond; Rev. Dr. Burrows preached on the occasion, and Rev. Dr. Jeter spoke of his character and labors. Many pens have been called forth in sketching his life and character; his varied residence and his extended reputation, naturally leading to a general interest in his decease; while his peculiarly varied mission in life, and his lot during the war has as naturally suggested varied comments. It is wonderful, however, how death clears our mental vision by subduing mutual jealousies; and the judgment formed of character by men at most distance and diverse points of views, blend into a harmony which could only be possible because the real truth was seen and avowed by all beholders.

In its intellectual characteristics Dr. Bacon's mind was versatile without being superficial; popular rather than profound in its view of principles; practical and yet fond of speculation and diffident in doubtful enterprise; fond of the study of men and things rather than of books; inquiring and discussive; controversial not for controversy’s sake; ready for the defence of established truth, yet tolerant of views manifestly erroneous from charity towards human infirmity. Hence, though capable of profound and close reasoning, Dr. Bacon's addresses and sermons were always popular, seldom or never elaborated for the press; his labors being in this respect as the great Master’s, like the insensible impression of the dew sent every night, rather than of the storm-cloud occasionally flashing and deluging. This again made him minutely practical, rather than comprehensive in his plans of study and of operation in great enterprise; while the varied demands of his many official positions compelled speculative consideration of many modes of action which the power of no one man could mature; while also emergencies and weighty responsibilities came too fast to find his preparations, intellectual and economical, fully digested and thoroughly effective. His habit of preparation was naturally and necessarily the practical arrangement of principles taught by observation, and of views illustrated by facts gathered in his personal intercourse with men; his sermons being textual rather than topical, illustrative rather than logical, hortatory rather than doctrinal. In keeping with his general cast of mind, Dr. Bacon was a careful and close observer; though not with books in his hand, his eye and ear were ever busy drinking in, and digesting every passing scene in nature and society, and every casual sentiment or fact dropped in private conversation or in public addresses. From his earliest to his latest days he was given to asking questions; not in the spirit of one who challenges the utterances of others, but to assure himself how much in received opinions and in careless statements was really reliable, and also to prompt the important duty of investigation among the men entrusted with vital interests, who too often decide without deliberation, and jeopard the progress of great causes by adopting plans with only partial information. At the same time, while asking the ground of every opinion and the reasons for every proposed measure, Dr. Bacon adhered firmly to the great principles of truth established by reason and experience; and while quoting, almost as if he had accepted them, new views of certain declarations of the Old and New Testament suggested by the progress of natural science and of the study of the languages of the inspired Scripture, he held firmly to the authority of the Bible as God’s word, and proclaimed with the action of one taught by the Spirit, the doctrines of redemption by Christ and the saving duties enjoined in his teachings. Of his intellectual character and its general fruit, Rev. Dr. Jeter says: “As a preacher, his sermons were sound, instructive, and earnest, always commanding attention and awakening thought.” He never could have gained, much less have filled the positions he in such rapid succession occupied without a wonderful power of adaptation ; and it is a fact specially note-worthy, which has been alluded to by those who knew his entire history, that none of the many positions he occupied was sought by him; the position, rather, seeking the man.

In moral nature Dr. Bacon was genial and humble, conscientious and prudent. These traits of his character have been specially mentioned by those who cherish his memory. Dr. Eaton, his early associate and intimate friend, dwells on these traits. He says, “Dr. Bacon was singularly diffident and self-depreciating. * * This made him reserved and silent often when he might have demonstrated himself;” this leading some to mistake his nature as “unsocial.” “He was a true man of pure and lofty sentiments, with broad and generous sympathies, with kindly affections, and singularly free from all partisan prejudices and bitter jealousies; he scorned all tortuous and disingenuous policy, for even the best ends. He was a model of a Christian gentlemen; charitable and courteous and forbearing; yet with all his self-distrust and self-abnegation, firm and faithful to his conscientious convictions, and not wanting in their manly defence when occasion demanded.” The testimony of Rev. Mr. Pollard, is that which many a young man could give as to his sympathetic nature. “I confess that I never knew Dr. Bacon till within the last twelve months. Whenever he spoke, and on whatever subject, my confidence was inspired in the man, my interest excited in the subject discussed. It was plain that in his speaking, and in the manner of his speaking, he was actuated by the desire that I, a young man, should derive ad vantage from his long and valuable experience.”

The Rev. Dr. Jeter thus sums up his estimate of Dr. Bacon’s character: “Few ministers during the last forty years have occupied a more prominent position in the Baptist denomination. He lived in many places, and everywhere commanded attention and respect, and exerted an influence for good. He occupied various important offices, and always discharged their duties with fidelity and to the acceptance of his patrons. We have seen him in many large meetings, and he uniformly filled a high place, and when he spoke was heard with interest and deference. He was not a leader. His modesty or his shrinking temperament prevented him from projecting schemes of labor and usefulness; but he was a safe counsellor for those who planned them, and a sound and able advocate of such as he approved.

“Dr. Bacon was eminently a prudent man. During his long life and in all his diversified employments and relations, we never knew him to be involved in any difficulty. He was no party man. He took broad and liberal views, and was actuated by high and honorable motives. In all his public addresses, we never knew him to indulge in personalities or to wound the feelings of the most sensitive.”

Thus endowed intellectually and morally, Dr. Bacon’s presence and co-operation added a charm and a power to every circle and sphere wherein he moved. His family was happy, indeed, when he was at home. His classes loved him in the lecture-room; only the evil-disposed regarding him any other than a friend. In his civil relations, tested to the quick during the war, the simple fact that Dr. Eaton and others in New York and New England still regard him as “a Southern man,” “identified with the South in the late terrific conflict,” while all through the war he was regarded in the South as a Northern man, and was not expected to identify himself with the political movements of those with whom he dwelt, shows plainly that Dr. Bacon was one of those rare men who know that war always arises from the depravity of human nature, and that the special duty of a consecrated ambassador of Jesus Christ among men is to “study the things that make for peace,” maintaining in his own breast firm adherence to principle, while melting charity gushes like a well-spring from his heart, breaking forth at every avenue by which the soul seeks to go out of the body in its efforts to reach and bless all men, Jesus, our master, was “first king of righteousness, after that king of peace,” and he copies that perfect example who strives in his own character to blend these two traits, coupled in Christ’s command, “Be ye wise as serpents and harmless as doves.”

This, then, was the last and grand secret of Dr. Bacon’s excellence and usefulness. He felt himself to be a child of God and a servant of Christ; bound by the most solemn vow of consecration to do His will and finish His work. He realized, indeed, Paul’s declaration as to David. “He served his own generation by the will of God: and lie fell on sleep.”

“Being dead, he yet speaketh.” To us with life’s maturity, burdened with family and social, with private and public responsibilities, a voice comes from his grave asking whether we are thus living. To the members of the E Street Church, an echo as of heavenly harps seems to descend, declaring that the prayers of those two who so long communed with us on earth, Dr. and Mrs. Bacon, are at Christ’s right hand, waiting to welcome us there if we are found worthy. To the young, of both sexes, for whom he gave his life’s sacrifice and toil, the murmur of those words of his, uttered on the banks of the Rivanna, seem still to resound, prompting the prayer, “Lord what wilt thou have me to do?

Document Information

Images: 1
Photographic Credit: Georgetown College[1]
Author or Source: University Bulletin/RG0127
Document Location: University Archives
Date Added to Encyclopedia: January 19, 2007
Prepared by: Lyle Slovick, Assistant University Archivist

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