Re-Interment of Bishops M'Kendree and Soule
Submitted by Charlotte Wilson Williams
softpatches@worldnet.att.net
The following article was in the CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE, Saturday, September 30, 1876.
The remains of Bishop McKendree were interred in the family burial-ground,
at Fountain Head, in Sumner Co., Tenn. During the war the Bishop's tomb
was desecrated by soldiers, and is in a state of complete desolation, and
as it is in an obscure place, not of easy access, the desire has long been
entertained that his sacred remains should be removed to a more suitable
place, and that a decent momument should be erected over them.
Bishop Soule was intimately associated with Bishop McKendree, and, like
him, served the Church well in his high office, and saved its government
from threatened infringement of vital principles; and as his remains were
interred in the old Nahsville City Cemetery, where they are liable to be
distrubed at no distant day, it has been though advisable to lay them
alongside of the remains of his venerable colleague in the Episcopacy. The
relatives and friends of the deceased Bishops have given their consent to
the removal of their remains; and Tuesday, Oct. 3, has been selected as the
time for their translation. A suitable spot on the Vanderbilt grounds,
near Wesley Hall, has been chosen for their final resting place. Bishop
McTyeire has been requested to take cahrge of the reinterment of the
remains, and other Bishops and visiting brethren are expected to be present
on the occasion. Members of the Tennessee and Louisville Conferences can
attend the solemnity, and leave on the evening trains for Columbia or
Louisville, where their respective Conferences will begin on the next day,
Wednesday, Oct., 4.
The following article appeared 2 weeks following the above article in the
CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE: Saturday, October 14, 1876
THE RE-INTERMENT OF BISHOPS M'KENDREE AND SOULE:
Address of Bishop M'Tyeire
This lovely plot in the center of the University grounds is not meant for
a grave-yard-----only monument.
We honor ourselves in honoring those whom God has honored. The memory of
the just is blessed.
The remains of Bishop McKendree have reposed these forty years in a family
burial-ground in Sumner county, of this State and the grave has long been
in such obsenity, and neglect, and desolation, it was felt that something
ought to be done.
Bishop Soule was buried in the old City Cemetery of Nashville, nearly ten
years ago, in a place liable at no distant day to be disturbed. It is
proposed, by the contributions of the Church, here to erect a monument to
them, simple, chaste, massive----to tell where their dust lies, and the
living shall lay it to his heart. Good and great men are God's best gift
to the world, and their company is good neighborhood, whether dead or
alive. We would consecrate this spot of earth to their dust and by it.
Naturally, the immediate family and relatives were reluctant to sever them
from kindred graves; but they yielded to urgent request, feeling, as we
did, that such men as these have a wider kinship. Like their Divine
Master, the family which they are of is not confined to flesh and blood;
and the claims of that larger and loving family have been allowed. As in
life they belonged not to themselves----so in death they belong not to any
individual. To the Church they belong and to the world---and should sleep
at last where those for whom they lived can best cherish their memory and
perpetuate their influence.
William McKendree was born in King William county, VA., 1757.
He was a soldier in the Revolution, an officer at Yorktown, and witnessed
the surrender of Cornwallis. He entered the ministry in 1788, in his
native State, and soon showed himself a master workman.
In 1800 Bishop Asbury brought him to the West, to take charge of the
growing work in the Mississippi Valley. He had before been Presiding Elder
of a District reaching from the Chesapeake Bay to the western waters of the
Alleghanies. He was now Presiding Elder of a District from the Western
Alleghanies to the remotest settlements of Missouri, and from Ohio
Territory to Natchez. A horseback ride of 1,500 miles was required to
compass it--once a quarter. This District covered the ground of the
Western Conference, which has since been subdivided into twenty
Conferences. The members of the Methodist Church in the Valley of the
Mississippi numbered 1,700, when he took the oversight of them. In 1808,
when he was transferred to a wider field, they had increased to 17,000, and
the one District had been subdived into five.
May 18, 1808, he was consecrated to the Episcopal office by Bishop Asbury,
assisted by other elders. He was the first native American Bishop of our
Church---Coke, Asbury, and Whatcoat, having been English-born. From
Baltimore he took his first episcopal tour westward, going to settlements
on the Missouri river, a hundred miles beyond the footsteps of
predecessors.
He presided over his first Annual Conference at Liberty Hill, in
Williamson co., Tenn., Oct. 1, 1808, and over his last at Lebanon, Tenn.,
November 1834.
Between these points of beginning and ending there were twenty-six years
of continental travel. He presided over Conference from Maine to
Mississippi. He established Missions among the Indians of the North-west
and of the South, and often visited them. He moved annually among the
Churches, from the Atlantic coast to the Western frontier.
His last sermon was preached Nov. 23, 1834, in McKendree Church,
Nashville, which closed with his usual finishing words, "I add no more."
He died at the house of his brother in Sumner co., Tenn., March 5, 1835.
His dying words sounded through all the land, and comforted the mourning
Church: "All is well for time or for eternity."
Joshua Soule was born in Bristol, Me., in 1781. He entered the ministry
in 1795, and his name has been written upon every page of Methodist
history. In 1824 he was conscrated to the Episcopal office by Bishop
McKendree. He solicitude was for a sucessor, like-minded with himself and
who would naturally care for his people. Before he went hence he desired
to install him and to see the policy and doctrines of American Methodism
secured under a Constitution, not subject to the caprice of conventions.
In his Journal for May, 1808, the patriarchal man notes these two events
with the joy of a nunc dimittis. The constituting of a delegated General
Conference, meeting once in four years, to make rules and regulations for
the Church, under wise restrictions and limitations, and the electing dear
Brother McKendree assistant Bishop. The burden, "he adds, "is now borne by
two pair of shoulders instead of one; the care is cast upon two hearts and
heads."
That was a happy coincidence--a double gift; for with the Constitution
came the man who thoroughly understood it, clearly, expounded it--and, when
it was in danger, saved it.
As Elijah had his Elisha, so McKendree's mantle fell upon Joshua Soule.
The latter took up the work where the former left off, and carried it on in
the same spirit. McKendree had associates in office---he stood not alone
as Asbury had done, in old age and feebleness. But though holy and useful
men, they were not equal to the perils that beset the CHurch in 1820-24. A
man of clear vision and firm hand, as well as of good heart--a
standard-bearer like himself--was wanted; and Joshua Soule was raised up.
How he stood in the breech then and afterward, our history gratefully
records.
Few of this company ever saw the elder of these two. Most have seen the
other--and none that saw can forget. A man of highest mold, he
was-physically, mentally, and morally. In the missionary and publishing
enterprises of the Church he had a shaping hand. How often he crossed the
mountain ranges, going from East to West, among the Conferences--how often
the numerous rivers that run to the sea, as he went between North and
South--his diary does not tell, for he kept none. He wrote no history, but
made it. Of singular elevation of character, he was superior to itinerant
discomforts. Near the close of his active career he said to a Conference
of itinerant preachers about to receive their appointments: "These many
years I have fulfilled my ministry under various conditions. I have been
in the palaces of the rich and in the hovels of the poor; I have slept on
beds of down, and in the wigwams of the savage--and not unfrequently on the
ground, with nothing but the canopy of heaven above me; and I declare to
you, sentimentally, I would not turn over my hand for the difference."
But it is not only as outside, but as inside, workmen in the temple of God
that they are to be held in rememberence and imitated. They preached the
word, and God was pleased to confirm it by signs following: They showed to
men the way of salvation. Holiness to the Lord was their theme, and they
were examples of it. One was never married; the other, though possessed of
all the sensibility of a husband and a father, left wife and children, and
house and lands for Christ's sake and the gospel. Though poor, they made
many rich. These men labored, and we have entered into their labors.
They, to a large degree, organized the Christian forces and led them, by
which this West and South-west have been subjected to religious
civilization. Nor were these regions the limits of their labors and
triumphs. They traversed the wilderness on their errands of salvation,
when as yet there were no turnpike roads. They threw the boundaries of
Missions and circuits around the ever advancing settlers. "In journeyings
within speaking distance of those who now, or hereafter, shall, walk these
grounds. Their monument among us shall be a reminder , of their virtues.
Plutarch's Lives of the noblest of the Romans cannot be studied to such
benefit. Our young men contemplating their characters and career, their
life work and their last end, cannot have better models before them. In
such models there is an elevating and educating power. McKendree was of an
old Virginia family. The ancestor of Soule came over in the Mayflower.
Here sleep, side by side, the Cavalier and the Puritan--one in Christ. It
were hard to tell, which was the nobler, the purer, the more useful man and
minister. We magnify the grace of God in both. We reverently give them
place in the center of these grounds dedicated to religion and
learning----fit abode for those who have so well deserved. Here let our
young men often come and meditate on the highest virtue and true glory and
honor and greatness. Here let our children come and plant flowers and
wreathe garlands. Here let them who have labored rest together.
Their remains will now be lowered into what will, in all probability, be
their last resting place until the resurrection of the just.
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