North Carolina Christian Advocate from Greensboro, North Carolina • Page 2

HA1EIGH CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE. Contributions. The New Year. BY W. H.

MOORE. The Babe is born. Out of the womb of Time lie comes with rosy cheeks, and scarce a cry, Smiling, and cooing, in beauty sublime May he never have cause to heave a sigh. But who can tell what the future holds, For the Urchin so auspiciously born Some tears there will be, as the scroll unfolds, And the days and nights go merrily on. We wish thee well.

May peace attend thy way. And when thou diest, as thou must, and will, May those whom thou hast blest, rise up to say, May we, as he, our destiny fulfill. er found under his plate at breakfast, a check for $5,000, and a deed for negroes and a farm. After breakfast the father said to the groom and bride, 'Come into the parlor, I wan't a word with He said to the young preacher, 'What are your The young fellow was embarrassed and, blushing, said, 'I have no plans, except to go up to Conference and take the work that they give What did you get last year the father said. 'One hundred and fifty he answered.

'Do you think that will said the father of the bride. said the young preacher, 'I had not thought of that, I believe it will always pay to do your duty, and I'm going to do my duty and trust God." The beautiful young wife came to his rescue, and said laughingly, "Father you don't understand; Will is going to be a bishop." The good old Methodist father joined in the laugh, and said, "God bless you my son, always do your duty." The war left the old father bankrupt. The only one of the family who had anything left was the preacher, who had invested his $5,000 in a college. His money kept on growing until he was a very rich man. Sure enough, to the surprise of many, he was elected bishop." Since this story was told me by his brother-in-law, the wife of his youth has gone to heaven, and the good bishop has again married a very rich woman.

He is today a millionaire. "Does it pay?" ''Whatsoever is right that will I give you." My doubting brother, be sure that it will always pay to do your duty. Wednesday, January 6, 1904. partee made him a conspicuous and popular figure in every circle and body. How we miss his exuberant humor and tonic companionship at this Conference! As a preacher, he was plain and evangelical.

He was not uniformly impressive, yet he was always earnest. At times he rose to grand heights of effectiveness. He loved to call sinners to repentance and was strictly a revival preacher. Thousands of his spiritual children remain to speak in loving tones of B. B.

Culbreth. He was twice married in 1862 to Miss Ada Moore, who lived only a short while, and in 1866 to Miss Dora McGee who years ago entered into rest. She left two children to him Ada Moore and J. Marvin. The latter is following in the ministerial succession as a member of the North Carolina Conference.

The deceased loved his family with a deep, tender love. At the last Conference, he was assigned to the Durham City Mission. He went bravely to his post of duty. His field was somewhat limited. I saw him frequently during the earlier part of the year.

He made no complaint, but I thought that I could see symptoms of unrest in his heart. As I looked into his eyes, I saw what I took to be longings for the old scenes longings for the freedom of the fields and the forests where the battle cry could ring clear and strong, longings for the hungry congregations in the old church around which the birds sing and the breezes sweep longings for the prayer around the country firesides where simple faith in the old eternal doctrines hallow the hearthstone longings, in fact, for that rest which the home-bound sailor craves when he sights the distant harbor. God gave the old man the desires of his heart. For a short while he was the pastor of the flock on Buck-horn Circuit. He heard the birds sing again and preached to loving hearts the precious doctrine of redeeming grace.

Then came the real rest. "The calm of Heaven was in his eye, And joy and peace were in his breast He found amid confusion rest, In which all strife and clamor die. His Psalm was keyed to one deep note: In him we saw the reverence dwell, The mind and soul according well, Of which the greatest Laureate wrote." And so in another life we see an illustration of the truth of the Psalmist: "Precious in the eyes of the Lord is the death of His saints." T. N. IVEY.

A Great Mistake. REV. J. V. WILLIAMS.

I met a brother preacher some time ago who was talking of transferring. He was above 60 years of age (I think), but yet was thinking about taking his place in a new Conference. I saw him first 28 years ago at a camp, meeting. He was young and good looking. He had recently married a daughter-of a wealthy man, onfl Wv were both at the camp meeting.

She was pretty and he of course was in love with her. He preached for the camp meeting one day, and did it well. thought there was a bright future for that brother, and I think, now that I was right, provided he had stuck to his one work, preaching the gospel. But soon I noticed that he was on the supernumerary list his throat was sore. How is it that rich wives do make preacher's throats sore TTn lio hnioi in Riisinnsc: nf 5ninf 1879, served LaGrange Circuit; 1880-1-2-3, served Cary Circuit; 1884, served Smithfield Circuit; 1885, served Laurinburg Circuit; 1886-7, served South Edgecombe Circuit; 1888, served Weldon and Halifax Station; 1889, served Kocky Mount and Battleboro; 1890-1, served Warren Circuit; 1892-3, served Tar River Circuit 1894, served Lumberton Circuit; 1895, served Sampson Circuit; 1896, served Kenly Circuit; 1897-8, served Bethel Station; 1899, served Bladen Street, Wilmington; 1900, served Cape Fear Circuit; 1901, served Deep River Circuit; 1902, served Wilson Circuit; 1903, served Durham City Mission and Buckhorn Circuit.

It, is thus seen that as an itinerant preacher, he traversed the whole State, from the Blue Ridge to the Atlantic Ocean. He had, perhaps, a wider acquaintance than any other preacher in North Carolina of like age. While the mental endowments of Bernice Culbreth were not striking, yet they were not less than strong. He was an educated man. He graduated at Trinity (then Normal) College in 1858, and was thereafter deeply interested in the cause of Christian education.

No one was able to be long in the company of Bernice Culbreth without becoming conscious of the fact that his chief endowment was of a spiritual kind. He loved to talk of God and His Son, Jesus Christ. His presence exhaled a spiritual aroma. His soul carried the glow caught from a shining face on the mountain top. It is not strange that he had unusual aspirations for the very highest life attainable in the economy of grace.

He made no professions which lacked a foundation in the white virtues of a consecrated life. His spiritual temperament was that of the mystic with martial longings. He would have made a beau-ideal of a soldier in the hosts of the Crusaders. There, were several circumstances which rendered spiritual his whole trend and cast. He had a spiritual ancestry.

He was the son of Love Culbreth and Martha Owen. The former was a faithful preacher the gospel. The latter was one of Solomon's wise women. He had three uncles who were preachers of usefulness and influence, Blackman, Gray, and Daniel Culbreth. He was converted at an early age, and the evening glow of his religious experience carried the beauty of the dawn.

The mellowness of the harvest retained the freshness of the planting. The faith born in childhood carried childhood's simplicity and trust into the very shadows of life's twilight. HeWas converted in a meeting held in old Union Church, a log meeting house, when religious experience was perhaps more greatly magnified than at the present time. The new birth was an emphatic reality in his life. All these circumstances helped to make Bernice; Culbreth an intensely spiritual man an intensely happy man.

He rioted in the very joy of existence. He was a royal companion. His bursts of quaint humor, his original sayings, and his sunny, stingless re- sort for many years, but has not been prosperous. Now he is back in the regular work, but he is no longer in his prime, and the places that he could have easily taken twenty years ago he can't get now. He's a stranger to the work.

By falling out he has lost of course, and he can't understand now why it is he is assigned to such poor work. He lias recently been appointed to a $350 Circuit, and is debating whether or not to take it. I advised him to go to his work at once and trust God and trust the church. I've noticed this thing of preachers going into business for years. how it don't work.

"Tie thou faithful unto death." If a man is called to preach he ought to preach and trust God for the rest. Down in Alabama some time ago met a drummer who told me a good He cnid that his father was Memoir of Rev Bernice B. Culbreth (The memoir of Rev. B. B.

Culbreth has not hitherto been published in the Advocate, and is now published by request. Ed.) Bernice B. Culbreth, a servant of Jesus Christ, separated unto the Gospel of God, and a faithful soldier in Methodism's itinerant hosts, died at his home in Cary, N. May 12, 1903. He was born near Owensville, Sampson County, November 6, 1835.

He failed to measure the allotted span of life, yet in his life there was a rich fulness, which cannot be expressed in terms of days and months and years. The following is the record of his labors. It tells only of a humble Methodist preacher whose highest ambition it was to work wisely and faithfully for the salvation of human souls. It recounts the labors which, in fulness, rarely belong to lives of even three-score years and ten: Entered Conference in 1859; I860, served New Bern Circuit; 1861-2, served Columbia Circuit 1863, served Stokes Circuit: 1804, served Content-nea Circuit; 1865, served Wilson Circuit; 1866-7, served Duplin Circuit; 1868, served Magnolia Circuit; I860, served Cape Fear Circuit; 1870-1, served Jonesboro Circuit; 1872, served Williamston Circuit; 1873-4, acted as agent of Trinity College; 1875, served Wadesboro Circuit; 1876-7, served Washington Station; 1878, served Lenoir Circuit; i rich farmer who owned several him Christianity. BY BISHOP O.

V. FITZGERALD. 1. Christ could not reveal the way of salvation, except he were a prophet. 2.

He could not work out that salvation, except he were a priest. 3. He could not confer that salvation upon us, except he were a King. That is, He could not be prophet, priest and King, except He were the Christ. mi i 'f3 nl nml tvi'inv -forme had seven daughters and one son.

It was the custom of his father to give each daughter, when she married, a farm and several negroes. One of the daughters married a young Methodist, preacher. The morning after the marriage the young preach xms is vnnsiianixy. i mi xNasnvme, xenn..