OUR LEGACY FROM THE PAST - NCCUMC

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bring as many as he could to serve the Lord. Born in the hills of
Stokes County, he had the strong convictions of a mountain man,
never forgetting his own conversion when only twenty years of
age. He gave many years of service to the Lord, preaching right
up until the time of his death in 1895. His grandson, Reverend
Claude Chaffin, carrying on his grandfather's legacy, is currently
a member of the North Carolina Conference and is pastor of the
Methodist Church in Hurdle Mills, North Carolina.
Sermon preached in the Methodist Church in Williamston, NC,
June 13, 1861, being the fast day appointed by Jefferson Davis,
President of the Confederate States of America, W. S. Chaffin
Williamston, June 13, 1861.
PSALM XX, 5
"In the name of our God we will set up our banners."
In his research, investigation, and penetration into the rich
arcane of science; and the wise application of the sublime
mysteries, there unfolded to his vision, to the physical materials
lying in their inactive form around him, man has accomplished
works, and produced results, which have startled himself with
profound astonishment. With his fingers, mailed in alchemistic
power whatever he touches, assumes, either by separation or
combination whatever form he seems to will, until all nature
stands awaiting his bidding, and then flies to obey his mandate.
He commands and the lightnings leap from the heavens and
fly over the paths marked out for them by which to sub serve his
commercial interest, or to minister to his pleasure or interest his
pass-time sports. He controls every element in nature-sweeps of
forest, smooths the rough places of earth, fills up valleys, cuts his
way through mountains, spans rivers and almost bids defiance to
the ocean's storms and maddened billows, But the noblest,
grandest most magnificent act lying within the range of his mental
powers, is that for exercising faith in God. Those are subjects
of sense, this is entirely mental. When "God makes darkness, his
secret place, His pavilion about him dark waters and thick clouds
of the skies" it is a task exceeding difficult to perform; but when