The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1910-10-22


think that he saw things which were
beyond their ken. Bishop Warren
Gambler who was not only class
mate, but also a Kappa Alpha club
mate of Harris was impressed by this
feature of his character. Harris had
devoted himself to the ministry, and
he frequently said that he felt, in con-
templating the world, as the Lord
Christ felt when he wept over Jerusa-
lem.
There are periods when he was on
the mountain top, believing that he
would draw the world nearer to God, |
but these periods were followed by
days of black despair when he cried
out that all his efforts were vain. So
long as his vision held he was one of
the happiest of men, but when there
was a break in the vision, he was of
"all men most miserable"
He graduated with the honors of his
class, and became secretary to Atticus
G.. Haygood, then President of Emery
College, afterwards agent of the Slater
Fund for the negroes of the South ana
Bishop of the Southern Methodist
Church. During this period, Harris
was also tutor at Emery College, ana
even the undergraduates remarked
the unevenness of his spiritual state.
Sometimes for weeks his face would
"shine as the sum-" and then for other
weeks he would be in deepest gloom.
To his intimates he would explain that
he had vision of world where JUS
tice and love reigned, and as long as
he believed his vision would be realiz-
ed he was happy, but as soon as he be-
gan to doubt he fell into the slough
of despond."
He was advanced from a tutorship
to a professorship and during this pc
rior met his wife, Miss Cora White
OF Elberton, Ga. She understood him
and soon after marriage urged him to
leave the college and take work in the
field-that is, become Circuit rider"
He yielded.
For several years DR.. Harris and his
wife were here and there, living on
small salary, with the affairs of the
house often in a narrow way, but in
the main happy, because the husband
felt that he was bringing those to
whom he preached into nearer rela-
ton to God.
This period of DR.. Harris life is de-
scribed by Mrs. Harris in her story of
the Circuit Riders Wife, and those
who have read the story will remem-
Der how frequently his vision failed,
and that periods of spiritual murk fol-
lowed.
During this period of circuit riding
DR.. Harris began to learn some things
about the Church that he never sus-
pected existed. He learned that many
preachers played politics" and that
choice appointments came to them as
a result.
At the annual conference he saw
men of no particular ability assigned
to places that paid well, while men of
more piety and greater ability were
kept on the country circuits where the
salaries were so meager that it was
always a question of making ends
meet. When it was borne in on him
that some preachers played politics
just as the political district leaders do,
his soul was in tumult, and it was fear
ed he would make shipwreck of his
faith, but his infinite charity prevailed
and he regained his spiritual, and men
tai equipoise by recalling Christs
words, "the last shall be first, and the
first shall be last in the kingdom of
heaven
After several years of circuit riding,
during which he and Mrs. Harris liv-
ed hard-but no harder than their
country parishioners-and he learned
the part played by politics in the
church, he was elected to the chair of
Greek at Emery College.
He was a great scholar, although a
spiritual vision ruled him, and he quit
the hard circuits of country Georgia,
with their small pay, for the $1,000
year paid a Professor of Greek at
Emery College. There, in the shades
of oxford, he and Mrs. Harris labored
for several years, and their two chill
dren were born. The first a boy, died
in infancy, but the second, a girl, Faith
Harris, survives.
He was a great professor, and he
made his classes fond of Greek, but
even in the classroom the vision of a
world to be won for Christ and so lit
tie being done, would come over him
and he would drop into fits of deepest
gloom.
During this period too, the new the
ology" began TO be very loud mouthed,
and it worried him. Scholar though