The North-Carolina standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1834-1850, 1850-10-09

DEATH OF BISHOP BAsCoM.

DEATH OF BISHOP BASCOM.
The intelligence of this mournfal event, commune
Gated by telegraph from Louisville, reached Us Just
after our last weeks edition had gone to press. The
Bishop died on the morning Of the 9th instant, after
a ProtEacted illness, taken as he was returning to
Kentucky after holding the St. Louis Conference.-The
first and only Conference session at which he lived
to preside after his elevation to the episcopal Office.
Stricken down by death in the ripe maturity of those
great intellectual and oratorical powers which had
made his name familiar to the whole nation, and up
on the threshold Of new field of ecclesiastical re-
sponsibites, wider than he had ever filled before,
with the promise of many years. valuable service to
the Church which had honored him with its hig CHEST
confidence and affection, the visitation is of the
utmost solemnitv. In view of the fresh grave where
now lies the mighty master of eloquence whose
lips hundreds of thousands have hung entranced,
whose name could call together vaster Thong OF
listeners than any other man on the continent--the
grave where every trophy Of genius, and every Inca
of Massillon's impressive exordium over the plumed
and scutchioned bier of the young French prince
there is nothing Great but God.''
Born in Western New York, Dr.. Bascom was ad-
mitted into the travelling connection in 1884, if We
mistake not in his sixteenth year. He has been
thrty.six years before the public eye. In 1928 he
was elected President of Madison College, the sec.
ond Methodist College established in this country.
In 1880 he was appointed agent for the Colonization
Society. In 1889 he accepted Chair in Augusta
College, where he remained until elected President
of Pennsylvania University in 1912. With this lat
ter institution he was connected until 1S49. Thus
for nearly twenty years he has been identified with
the cause of education in the Methodist E. Church.
Our personal acquaintance with DR.. Bascom began
at the General Conference of lS4O. During this
Conference he presented mastery report in favor
of the right and eligibility to orders of local preachers
holding slaves within the Virginia portion Of the
Baltimore Conference. This paper was specimen
Of clear and close augmentation. At the same Con-
ference he preached in the Light Street Church to as
dense throng as could crowd into the spacious
building-the adjoining street being filled with peo-
pie who could not find entrance into the church. His
text was" Behold the Lamb of God who taketh
away the sin of the world" The sermon embraced
all the cardinal elements Of the Christian system, set
forth in light so vivid, under illustrations so over
poweringly magnificent, and with vehemence so
rushing and pauseess, hold the audience SPELL
bound At particular passages, several of which we
distinctly remember, the effect was awful. The SEN
tences came like the sharp zg-zag lightning, the
tones of the preachers voice were like articulate
thunder. The hearer covered under the weight Of
thought piled thought and was driven almost be-
side himself by the raPid whir Of dazzling imagery
The sermon, artistically considered had the strange
fault of being too great. II covered too vast field
of thought, it was marred by excess of grandeur.
You were bewidered by quick succession of vivid
pictures thrown off by the turn of some grand
kaleidoscope The mpassioned fervor OF the preach
er seemed too selfconsuming. We felt, as some
has happily remarked respecting Chalmers. that
powers and resources such as these, devoted to the
service of the Gospel indeed not needed by that
Gospel, but much needed by Gospel-rejecting man.
The consecation Of such majestic intellect and i'm
aginaton to the work of propagatng the princp pies
Of Christianity could hut make profound and wide
impression upon society. Thousands Of cultivated
minds coming within the reach of such an influence,
k~,, 81 Afasd
by so lofty spirit. and have been prepared to lend
an unprejudiced ear to similar ministrations. DR..
Bascom's sermons while Chaplain for Congress, in
the early prime of his colossal strength, are spoken
Of to this day for their power and effect upon the high
places of the country. He was once describing the
peril of sinner hanging on the verge Of eternal Ie,
buttons, and awful the picture that President
Jackson, who one of the congregation, started
up with the involuntary exclamation-''My God. he
il lost!'
The composition of these magnificent sermons, it
is reasonable to suppose, and indeed it IS we'll
known fact, cost the preacher world Of pains. He
subscribed heartily to Dr.. Johnson's opinion that no
one did any thing WELL to which he did not give the
whole bent Of his mind" They were by no means
impromptu affairs, thrown off under the inspiration
produced by facing three thousand people. CAREFUL
iy arranged, INFINITELY mapped off in their several de-
Partmenls, and even filled up, by foregoing mental
elaboration, they mastery pulpit oratlons, to
have heard of which formed an era in the life OF
those who sat from year to year under the ordinary
ministrations of the pulpit. Many time has he
nervous excitement while preparing for the next
effort. And during the last year or two, when
by advice of his physician. in the shattered state OF
his constitution, he confined himself mainly to his
manuscript his preparations were scarcely less iabo-
rious The youthful preacher who scorns preParato-
ry abors such as these; and contents himself with
the Inference of crudies and common places wrapped
in fmsy defamation, need not wonder that what is
remarkably easy preaching to him, soon becomes mat
ter Of such difficult hearing to his congregation as to
leave the fewest number of listeners. There Is no
danger of his being run after.
In the disruption of the Methodist Church growing
out of the slavery agation Dr. Bascom took no par,
in the debates, but watched the drift Of things until
the crisis came. AS all hope of honorable
compromise was exhausted. and it was evident that
the Southern Conferences TO be degraded In the
person of Bishop Andrew, and practically denied
equality in the Confederacy of Annual Conferences
composing the Church, DR.. Bascom Unidentified him.
self fully and forever with the Southern cause On
him was devolved the responsibility of drawing up
the Protest of the minority, and in few days he pro-
duced that paper, of which Dr. Dixon-representa.
tive of the British Wesleyans to the Northern Meth
odist Church at its last General Conference-an Eng
lishman whose sympa,hies would be all on the North.
ern side, has not hesated to say in his recent work
on Methodism in America, that 1t ID one OF the mos
powerful and eloquent statedocumens ever put into
the hands of the reader" In the Convention which
organized the Methodist Episcopal Church, South he
drew up the report of the Committee on Organization
"a paper scarcely inferior to the Protest. During
the intervening year he published his mastery work
pized as strongly as Dr.. Dixon has done the Protest
In the controversy waged by the Northern against the
Southern portion Of tie Church, with bitterness
beyond even political stries, he stood frank and
perpndicular, a champion fearless and fully armed
The Church leaned on him as her right arm; and ne
raver Ealtered The HIGHEST broof Of her cop6deRct