The Hattiesburg news. (Hattiesburg, Miss.) 1908-1917, 1910-10-08
Underpoid American Parson
Is An Accusing Figure

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 feared he would make shipwreck
of his faith, but his infinite charity
prevailed, and he regained his spir-
itual, and mental equipoise by recall
J ing Christ's 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 lived
hard-but no harder than their coun-
try parishoners-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 $500 a
| gtul Udlu al tOlCooOl VI NlSCh DIT
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 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
little being done, would come over
him and he would drop into fits of
deepest gloom.
During this period, too, the new
theology began TO be very loud
mouthed, and it worried him. Scholar
though he was-a great linguist, and
thorough scientist-his faith was as
simple as little chid's, and the ad-
vocates of the new theology" drove
him to despair. This vision was be-
ing destroyed by iconoclasts and he
Bknew not how to replace the picture
Without a word he left Emery Col
lege, and for weeks no one knew
where he was. Then it was learned
| that he was out in Texas preaching
the gospel as it had been preached
to him, when a boy to the country
people of the Lone Star State.
He was happy then, for he was see
ing his vision, and hoping for it's real
ization. But his friends thought he
was wasting his talent, and they per-
suaded him to quit the Texas plains.
and become Assistant Secretary Of
the Education Board of the Southern
Methodist Church, with headquarters
at Nashville.
For eight years he filled that posi-
ton, and he filled it WELL but he was
not happy. At Nashville he was in
the thick Of the new theology" and
he heard the continual explosions of
the dynamite as it fell against the
Rock of Ages
During this period his wife wrote
"A Circuit Riders Wife," and he was
the inspiration of the story. He him.
self was the William" of the story,
and the wife limned his character
with the touch of loving artist
Those who knew, say that DR.. Har-
ris fell into profound melancholy af-
ter the publication of "A Circuit
Riders Wife" He seemed to think
that it was a story of vision unreal
\ lied, and that his life had been
failure.
More and more profound grew his
melancholy, and his friends aent him
to Pine Log, Barlow County, Georgia,
in the hope that new surroundings
would bring him back to normal. but
the hope was vain, for the vision that
had moved him through years to lift
the fallen, TO cheer the mournful, and
to strive to bring men and women
nearer to God never came back. And
so on Sunday morning he wandered
into the cottonheld. and drank the
morphine leaving a note saying: Il
am so tired and want to go where
rest is never broken"
William, the Circuit Rider" is
dead, and by his own nana, ut those
who knew William believe thai his
vision is at last reality. He is
somewhere on "the world $ great altar
stairs that slope through darkness up
to God"
THE CIRCUIT RIDER,