 ON Sabbath morning an old man with bundles of religious papers can be seen bending his steps towards the State prison in Richmond, Virginia. He is of large frame, yet stooping with weight of years. His face, lit up with a "light never seen on land or sea," tells of a Divine radiance from within. Behind him follows an ever-faithful companion-his little dog. The Methodists of the city know them well. This volunteer chaplain to the Virginia penitentiary is Samuel T. Moorman. Without money and without price, he visits the prisoners and proclaims the liberty in Jesus Christ.
He is beyond, by nearly a decade, the allotted time to man. His ear is dull and he is almost cut off from the commerce of social life by his deafness. Domestic afflictions have burdened him for years. In all this he sinned not, nor charged God foolishly. With his own hand he ministers to his helpless household.
By the old Methodists in the country Samuel Moorman is remembered as a man of considerable power in the pulpit, full of zeal, and of saintly life. He has served in the various positions of a Methodist Itinerant Missionary to the colored people, on a circuit, in town, in city, in the eldership, covering a period of thirty-nine years. , He was licensed to exhort by the Rev. W. H. Starr in 1824. In 1828, at Raleigh, N. C., he was admitted on trial into the Virginia Conference. Bishop Soule ordained him Deacon in 1830. Bishop Heddings laid his hands on him as Elder in 1832.
He is a native of Campbell county, born April 15, 1803. His parents were Methodists. They so taught him the way of the Lord that he was religiously inclined from early years. At a. campmeeting at Limestone Spring, Campbell county, he was converted in
1822.
Having served his own generation, he is now ripe for heaven.
Source:
Sketches of the Virginia Conference, Methodist Episcopal Church,
South. by Rev. John J. Lafferty Richmond, Va., Christian Advocate
Office 1880.
Free
genealogy resource from genealogy finds . com
|
