MEMORIAL OF REV. J. M. CONNELLY.

DIED---In the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ and in hope of everlasting life, at Oakville, Live Oak County, Texas, October 27^th, 1895, at the age of 83 years, 10 months, and 6 days, Rev. James McCullough Connelly, of beloved memory, minister of the Gospel for fifty one years.

Mr. Connelly was born in Mecklenburg County, N. C., December 21^st, 1811; baptized by Rev. James McRee, D.D. His Father’s name was John; his mother’s maiden name was Mary Stanford. They were pious people of the Scotch Irish race. The name, “James McCullough” was deferred upon their son in honor of an officer of that name, who served under William of Orange at the battle of the Boyne. The subject of this speech, to use his own expression, grew up on a farm, of middling poor land, and hard work. Schools were scarce, and the teachers often incompetent. Though he fared as well as many others, yet received only a “little __nel of the old-field schooling;” just enough to enable him to read, write and cipher. The writing, said he, might as well not be mentioned, being what some unfeeling persons call pot-hooks and hangers. Though his educational opportunities were thus limited, yet he was blessed with the privileges of the Gospel. The old Bethel church enjoyed the ministrations of some able and godly ministers. During, or about his nineteenth year, he became deeply interested in the subject of religion, he converted and united with the Bethel church under the ministry of Rev. Thomas Espy. Removed with his father’s family, in 1831, to Bedford county, Tenn. Having determined to study the ministry, be gained employment on the canal, which was then being opened around the Muscle Shoals of the Tennessee River, and afterwards engaged in quarrying stone at nineteen dollars per month. With the money thus earned he supported himself at school during the Winter of 1833-34 acquiring a “middling fair” knowledge of the elementary branches. In 1835, he studied at Pilot Knob Academy under David R. Harris. In 1836, he attended Jackson College at Columbia, Tenn., under Joseph Sherman. His application to his studies was so intense and unremitting that he was prostrated with a hemorrhage from the lungs, and was compelled to leave school for a time. Just imagine our candidates for the ministry, at present day, quarrying stone to pay their way through the next session. His funds being exhausted, Mr. Connelly went to Hinds county, Miss., where he taught school awhile, and “sold goods” awhile, at Raymond, the county seat. At the end of nearly four years, he returned to Columbia College and resumed his studies. In the Fall of the same year (1842), he entered the Theological Seminary at New Albany, Ind.;  the professors at that time being John Matthews, D.D., and James Wood, D.D. By very argent study he read the entire course in a little less than a year and a half, and passed an examination thereupon. His unaided struggle for an education was extended over a period of ten years. However defective his education may, or may not, have been in certain directions, yet considering the obstacles which he overcame, entirely unassisted, it was exceedingly credible to him indeed.

Whatever others may have thought of his learning, he at least entertained a favorable opinion of it; he knew what it had cost him and valued it accordingly. In a speech to the Synod of Texas, during its session at Victoria in 1887, the affairs of Austin College being under discussion, Mr. Connelly, whose faith in that institution was weak, stated that he had once taught a free-school, for which he had been paid by the Government the sum of ten dollars a month, and that his instructions had been of more value than those of the whole united Faculty of Austin College, with all its expenses and pretensions. This might have been vanity in some one else; but in Mr. Connelly, never! It was simply the expression of conscious worth and proper self-respect. The Synod was delighted to hear of the valuable services which he had rendered his country, and regretted very much that he had been so poorly paid. One of the brethren who knew no more about quarrying stone than he did fluxions, ventured to remark that the time for employing first-class talent at ten dollars a month had passed.

Mr. Connelly was licensed by the Presbytery of West Tennessee, at its Fall meeting in 1843; and ordained as a missionary to Africa, by the same body at its Spring meeting in 1844, in the Frierson neighborhood. Immediately after his ordination, he attended the meeting of the General Assembly at Louisville, Ky. The Assembly engaged in a special prayer for his guidance an support. In August of this year, he sailed from New York for the field of his labors. On the voyage he suffered from a severe attack of the small pox, but by the blessing of providence on the remedies used he speedily recovered. After a voyage of thirty-seven days, the vessel touched at Monrovia, and then proceeded southeast down the coast of Upper Guinea to the town of Settra Kroo, or Wettah Krah (in Liberia), in the vicinity of which was the Mission station. An account of his missionary life, and of his marriage to Mrs. Catherine Sawyer, the widow of a former missionary, will be given hereafter. It is sufficient, for the present, to say that Mr. Connelly was married at the Mission station in Liberia, by Rev. Ivory Clark, a Baptist missionary; that his wife’s maiden name was Catherine Hammond, and that she was a native of New York State. Mr. Connelly’s missionary life covered a period of five years. Repeated attacks of the African fever brought him to the verge of the grave. Feeling that the Lord had fully discharged him form that field of labor, he returned to the United States in 1849, landing at Baltimore in December of that year. Two of his children lie buried in African soil. After his health had sufficiently improved, he taught school one session in Tennessee.

Then for nearly two years he served the churches of Bethel and Goshen in the Presbytery of Cincinnati. Knowing the Negro “from the ground up,” as he expressed it, and having no sympathy with abolition views, he found himself in too high a latitude. He therefore returned to the South, and in the Spring of 1852, landed at Indian Point, or Indianola, Texas.

His life in Texas extended over a period of more than forty-three years. The pioneers of Presbyterianism in Western Texas, who were in active service at the time of his arrival, have long since passed away, leaving him for many years the patriarch of his Presbytery, if not of the whole Synod of Texas. During fully thirty five years of his life in Texas, he was constantly engaged in the work of the ministry. “Ever since I landed here,” said he, a few years ago, “ I have been a freezing over these prairies in the Winter time and a ‘briling’ over them in the Summer time, a-preaching to the little scattered churches of Western Texas Presbytery.” His diocese was a wide one, extending from the Colorado to the San Antonio river, and embracing at different-times the churches of Columbus, Osage (now Weimar), Hallettsville, Hope, Bethel, Live Oak (now Cuero), Victoria, Helena, Goliad, Navidad, etc., besides many communities in which there was no organized church of his own denomination.  He wore out numerous horses, and sundry and diverse buggies, and traveled most probably not less than fifty thousand miles in this arduous work. It was his custom to preach at the various points along his route through the week, wherever he could get a congregation, which was easily done, for all the people were delighted to hear him. His appointments (of which he generally had four) were from twenty-five to fifty miles apart, and sometimes even seventy miles distant. In labors he was truly abundant.

He delighted especially in expository preaching, of which he was quite a master. His expositions were always instructive, and often exceedingly quaint and forcible. Possessed of strong common-sense, and genuine piety, and as artless in his manners as a little child, he was respected and loved by all classes of the community.

The Bible was about the only book that he read. He lived, and moved, and had his being among the old patriarchs, prophets, apostles and heroes of the faith portrayed in Scriptures. He constantly passed these ancient worthies and their contemporaries in review before his mind, until they appeared to him as living realities. His descriptions of them were vivid, and sometimes startling. Mr. Connelly preached entirely without notes, carrying his sermons in what he called his noodle, which he would sometimes say was one of the best ever given to man. Those who used manuscripts he called “fumblers.” The last six years of his life were spent at Oakville, Live Oak county, Texas, with his son-in-law, at whose house he died. His illness was of short duration. His end was peace. In a letter of September 20^th, 1886, addressed to the writer, Mr. Connelly said: “My thoughts and feelings are always coming to Christ, and I have an inside promise that all will be right at last. Glory to God and the Lamb.” He often longed for, and sometimes prayed for the hour of his discharge from the burdens of this “hard, hard life.”

“Our friend sleepeth.” As he often rested under their shade on his journeys;  so till the Blessed Lord come to awake him out of his sleep, let him rest in peace among the grand and beautiful live oaks.”

Procul, O procul este profani; * *

Totoque absistite luco.