The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1902-08-31
THREE RARELY GIFTED
NORTH CAROLINIANS
Theodore Bryant Kingsbury Prof. w. q. Simmons
Rev. Dr. Charles Phillips, and Rev. DR..
Cornelius B. Riddick.

NAUTICAL chair. DR.. James was an Eng
lishman of pronounced peculiarities and
intellectual force. His son Charles was
no doubt his aqual in ability and learn
ing, and it appeared to me a better in
structor. DR.. Charles Phillips lived for
some quarter of century perhaps after
the war. He was a stout man physically,
had a strong face but was not handsome,
and had decided erudition, a vigorous
mind was really an excellent teacher,
was an able preacher in the pulpit, of
unbending rectitude, of kindly feeling and
noble impulses. / have no doubt that
intellectually he was one of the fore
most professors ever associated with the
excellent and ancient University Of North
Carolina from 1895, unto the present. He
and his father were identified with this
most useful. and now so successful an
institution OF learning, through many
years of its manful struggles, and when
comparatively obscure during the day of
small things. But now what splendid
showing it makes in the able and! emf
nent men it has given to this country.
The array in it's aggregation of useful
ness and distinction is formidable and
impressive, and with but one possible
rival in all southland. In the forties it
had from $40 to 100 students with six
professors and two tutors Now it has
fifty-one professors and instructors, and
nearly coo tudents. DR.. Charles Phillips
had high rank as a mathematician. and
had the rare talent for imparting knowl-
edge in an unexceptionable degree. After
serving his people with assiduity and
fidelity he fell asleep" and entered upon
that rest that remaineth to the people
of God.
Another rarely gifted North CAROLYN
ian, who still lives, is Rev. DR.. Cornelius
B. Riddick, of the Southern Methodist
Church. He is a man of such admirable
powers as to make him marked in any
State or gathering. He left his native
State for California about 1874, perhaps,
whittier he went to become president OF
fourishing female school. When he
left North Carolina / believe he left be-
hind him no peer as a preacher. He was
then a preacher of rarest charm, and
unique gifts, and yet of uncommon sim
plieity. | remember that a bright youth
at Oxford of some eighteen years, pre-
ferred him to all others, and would gladly
walk into the country to hear DR.. Rid
dick in a rural church. There were
others, among the best equipped men,
who shared in this fascination He
preached at Kittrell and Oxford occa-
sionally. 1 recall that Dr. George w.
Blacknall once asked me if / had heard
Mr. Riddick Che was not D. d. them
preach. Upon my saying l had not, he
said: HE is extremely delightful. and ]
Drpfer him tO a Othar proa
heard him later. He is really one of
the six or eight preachers 1 have heard
in the last fifty years that impressed me
above all others. He has taste we'll nigh
faultless; his figures are about as per-
feet as possible, and inbred with life
and chsselled with the equisite art of
a literary Phidias. His use of language
is artistic and most pleasing, and as l
recall it after some thirty years since l
heard him. his mind is at once poetical
and philosophical very rare combina-
tion-and moved upon a plane of thought
far above any of his brethren who were
living in the State about the time of
his departure. So far as knew his most
clearing qualities of mind, his delightful
oratory, his excellent culture failed of
appreciation in his native North Carolina.
In the last quarter of century he has
filled many pulpits in Southern Metho-
dism-in California, Colorado, Alabama
and probably in one or more other States
He has held high, commanding position
among ministers of best brains and Gull
ture. Tanto hominifidus tantae virtutis
amator.
Wilmington, N. c., Aug. %. 1902.