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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