Life and Times of James B. Taylor

p. 1It is stated by booksellers that in the present age biographics are overlooked and neglected. Well-written lives of great, good, and distinguished men encumber the shelves of publishers, while works of fiction, and indeed most other kinds of books, find a ready sale. If this statement is true — as doubtless it is — the fact is unfortunate for the age. History, it is said, is philosophy teaching by example. If this saying is true of history, it is specially true of biography. This presents, in a clear light, the results of the various principal motives and influences which give impulse to human life and guide its course. We are taught the value of this species of composition by the Bible. It is composed largely of the biographics, not formal and full, but fragmentary and graphic, both of good and of bad men. The four evangelists have furnished us biographics of the most wonderful Being whose dwelling has been on earth, and in a style of inimitable simplicity, faithfulness, and beauty. It would not be possible for didactic writing, however wise and authoritative, to impart such a charm and power to holiness as it has in the simple biography of Jesus of Nazareth. If the world has lost its taste for biography, this fact is a sad proof that its taste is vitiated, and the friends of a healthful literature should labor to correct the evil.

The life of the humblest and most obscure man, if it were plainly and faithfully written, would furnish many valuable p. 2lessons for mankind. To a large extent, the thoughts, affections, passions, conflicts, hopes, sorrows, and enjoyments of one man are common to humanity. But the biography of every man need not and cannot be written. If the lives of all men were composed, then indeed " the world itself could not contain the books that should be written." It is not even proper that the biography of every good and useful man should be recorded. Many persons of great excellence and talents pass their lives in quietness and obscurity, and do not leave behind them materials for composing their biographics. The biographer, then, must select from the multitude of dwellers on earth those whose sayings and doings are worthy of record.

p. 2The life of the late James B. Taylor, D.D., is worthy of preservation. He set a lovely example before the world. He furnished a remarkable instance of what, under the lack of early educational advantages, may be accomplished by a good intellect, governed by religious principle, and diligently, through life, directing its energics to the dissemination of divine truth and the promotion of the kingdom of Christ. Few men of the present day have been more useful by their direct influence than was James B. Taylor. Every work to which he put his hand prospered. The churches under his pastoral charge were built up and established. In every agency in which he was employed he was successful. For more than forty-five years he was immediately connected with every general scheme and effort to promote the interests of the Baptist churches in Virginia. His brains, his hands, his time, his resources, and his influence were all laid on the altar of Christ. He had a large-hearted zeal in his Master's cause — a zeal confined by no sectional limits and restrained by no denominational bounds. He labored for the glory of Christ, but not exclusively in the South. He was from education and deep conviction a Baptist, p. 3but he was a lover of good men, and rejoiced in the spread and triumph of divine truth by any and every agency. His life is inseparable from the history of the Southern Baptist Convention, and the one cannot be written without, to a large extent, recording the other.

Taylor left ample materials for the preparation of his life. The difficulty is not in finding, but in selecting them. His diary, his letters, the archives of the Foreign Mission Board, the columns of the Religious Herald, of the Some and Foreign Journal, and of other periodicals, together with the reminiscences of his friends, afford valuable stores of information concerning his labors, conflicts, and usefulness in every period of his Christian life. The scenes through which he passed were not thrilling, but interesting ; his labors were not brilliant, but useful ; and the record of his life is not amusing, but instructive and profitable.

p. 3The father of Dr. Taylor was a sensible, discreet, pious, and estimable man, who died in a ripe old age. The son furnished a beautiful and correct sketch of the life and character of the father, which was published and read with deep interest. This tribute of filial respect elicited from Dr. E. Kingsford, who had been for a short time the pastor of both the father and the son, a very hearty commendation, in which he expressed the wish that Dr. Taylor, when he should die, might have a son who could do such justice to his memory as he had done to the name of his father. That wish has been fulfilled. Kev. George B. Taylor is eminently fitted by his learning, his good taste, his reputation as an author, his intimate knowledge of his father, and his filial reverence, to write his biography. Due allowance, of course, will have to be made for the intimate relation which the writer sustains to the venerable subject of his memoir, and it must be remembered that delicacy may rep. 4strain him from saying, or affection may prompt him to record, "what another might feel free to express or to conceal.

I have read a large part of the biography with great interest and pleasure. I do not suppose that it can afford the general reader such delight as it has yielded me. Much of it relates to events and scenes which, after the lapse of many years, were brought vividly to my mind. In reading it I seemed to be living over my life. Forgotten names and occurrences, with their pleasing associations, were revived in my memory, and fountains of emotion long since sealed were freshly opened in my heart. But while others cannot read the work with the interest and feeling with which it inspired me, all will find it a fresh, truthful, and well-written life of a noble, upright, earnest man, whose steps showed the path to heaven, and from whose usefulness no deductions had to be made for indiscretions, and whose character was marred by no eccentricities or shortcomings ; and none can read it with due consideration without profit. It can but impress the thoughtful mind with the truth, beauty, and excellence of Christianity.