I have somewhere written, "The Alpine springs, at times feeble and overlooked, are fullest and freshest when the summer sun has dried up wells and fountains and streams in the lower valley, leaving the gravelly channel and the parched earth. The heat that burnt up the one has given moisture to the other. The snow and the glacier have been melted, and the full spring sends forth its refreshing waters. The experience of the afflicted child of God is like that. When adversity has dried up all sources of earthly comfort, God's great springs of salvation flow fullest and freshest, refreshing, strengthening and gladdening the heart."

A man's true character -- the inner life, its ebbs and flows, its weaknesses and its fortitude, its sorrows and its joys, its reality -- cannot be known fully by public acts and utterances. It is when in the ease of private and domestic intercourse, in unguarded moments, in triumph, or in seeming defeat, the heart speaks in confiding acts and words to hearts in sympathy -- that the real man is seen in affliction, deep, sudden, fearful, when we feel we are upon the waste, alone with God, overwhelmed and helpless --- when earthly stays fail, and the bolt strikes and shivers all on which we relied -- it is then that the heart in all its depths, and in all its confiding faith and power is disclosed. And when in such a time, that faith is stronger, its grip firmer, and its hope brighter -- it is the sure evidence of a regenerated soul and of a vital, inseparable union with the blessed Lord.

These images, it will be seen, are not too strong to describe the desolating storm that wrapped this man's soul, nor to picture the strength by which he stood like a mountain when assailed by the tempest.

It was in the autumn of 1868, in the city of Memphis, that the yellow fever, which had not been known there for many years, struck down among its first victims the venerable mother of our brother. It seemed of so mild a type -- some doubting if it was this fever -- that no alarm was felt. The following week the most influential minister in the city -- pastor of the Cumberland Presbyterian church -- fell a victim of the scourge. I was at his bedside, and J. R. Graves, though just returned from the burial of his mother, was with me. We prayed and wept for the noble form and calm soul of the man of God who was making the last struggle. It was Saturday evening; we went down the street in sadness, and his words were, "Well, what is life, without faith in the Lord Jesus Christ -- what is life?"

Our conversation reverted to the life and faith of this able, useful Presbyterian preacher. The remark was made: "He is now present with the Lord." "Yes," said Graves, "he was a believer in Christ in life and in death, and so forever." "And yet, strange to say," was replied, "men will affirm that we as Baptists deny salvation to those unimmersed, and not united with a Baptist church." "Yes, some people are so naturally illogical as to draw their own deductions from our principles, and then charge these creations of their own to us. But I fear in most cases -- with men capable of reasoning, this charge of our confining salvation to the members of a Baptist Church is a willful falsehood." "These controversialists know better."

We walked slowly along the deserted streets, impressed with the scene we had just witnessed, and solemn thoughts brought silence to our lips.

Sorrow was deepening upon his home. His finances were troubling him. His family was large. His dear mother, his guide and adviser, whom he loved with a devotion seldom met with, had just been laid in the grave. He lived in the very midst of the infected district, and to leave the city was out of the question. We parted in the twilight with a "God bless you."

The next day -- the Lord's day -- crowds collected at the funeral services of the lamented Dr. Davis. I had been selected by the ministers of the city to preach the discourse. Many ministers were in the pulpit and among them Dr. Graves, who closed the exercises in a tender prayer which melted all hearts. The doctrinal preacher, the controversialist, the man of dauntless courage -- wept like a child, and prayed like a saint.

The service closed. I was met in the aisle by Mrs. Graves, his devoted wife, whom I tenderly called Lou. She was weeping and seemingly crushed. "Oh!" she said to me with sobs, "I shall have the fever. I feel it, and my children --" He took her arm and whispered, so lovingly, "Lou, trust in Him who has ever loved us -- trust it all to Him and look up."

Monday came. I visited his almost deserted home. Little Nora, now Mrs. Hailey, was down with the fever, and Mrs. Graves was evidently affected with it, and he was sick. Death seemed hovering over them all. Two little baby girls, the older then three years old, were down stairs with the servants. "My children!" said Mrs. Graves weeping. "Let me take Lois to brother Beatties," I asked and insisted. She yielded, and calling a carriage, I wrapped her in my shawl and bore her to a loving sister's room. The following day I was promptly at the stricken home of my brother, and spent most of the day with the afflicted ones. And now, the youngest child, but one year old, must be cared for. "Brother Graves, can't I take little Ella to sister Turley's, where motherly attention will be given her?" He agreed and pleaded with Mrs. Graves to consent. The fever was making rapid inroads upon her system. I saw she could not recover. She could not bear the thought of giving up her babe. But the tender pleadings of her husband prevailed. "Can I give Ella one kiss," she asked, "before I part with her in this life forever?" "Oh, yes," I replied, "it will not affect her." And so I brought the weeping little child to her bedside. She kissed it again and again -- and prayed such a prayer as mothers leaving loved ones behind only can. The day was cold and a drizzling rain was falling. I wrapped the dear little thing in a shawl and bore her in a carriage to a waiting, loving friend and sister for whom the little one was afterward named.

The noblest of women was the mother of the present United States Senator for Tennessee, -- T. B. Turley.

"God bless you, my dear one," said Dr. Graves as we departed -- "my child -- "and breaking down he threw his arms around me and her and said, "Lord, I give her into thy kind care."

Another day passed with gloom that wrapped that mourning city. The pastors were mostly gone, -- my own family were North. I had during this interval seen deaths of trusting souls, and of those "who died and gave no sign." Weary and sad I entered the desolated home of my now departed brother. The physician was there, Graves was by the bedside of his dying wife. "Come in my brother," he said, as I entered the room, -- "the only white face I have seen for a week." "She is going -- Oh, my soul." And she was. The hand of death was upon her. Hours passed away -- so slowly, so mournfully and yet with such resigned peace. "Is your trust still in the blessed Lord, Lou?" he asked her. She answered, "Yes," with a heavenly smile. Soon after she asked for her children. I told her where they were and that they were well. She lifted her eyes in silent prayer for them and then gave me her blessing -- in broken accents whose influence I feel to this day.

And then a scene was witnessed -- aye, by the angels -- at that desolate mansion, which cannot be described. The dying saint said, with her hand in his, "Mr. Graves, I have loved you -- you have never known how much I have loved you." "Oh, don't talk, my dear one," He replied.

"Yes," she said, "I have loved you dearly, but I can give you and my children up, without a murmur -- it is the Lord's will."

The effort exhausted her. She was entering the stream. Her hand was in mine. "Lou," he said, "If the Lord is still with you, and all is well, press his hand." She pressed it with a smile and her spirit was in heaven.

Graves rose after a few minutes' silence and entered his little office on the same floor and wrote to Dr. Snyder: "Father, you have another daughter in heaven. J. R. Graves." "Have this telegraphed to her father," he said and then we sat together in silent prayer.

Through all this, there was not one word of complaint or of doubt, but of firm faith in the will and working of the blessed Lord, and complete submission to His holy will. I conducted the funeral services and followed her to the grave, and then returned with him to the house of mourning where Nora was still in a serious condition and whom we supposed would be next. God spared her.

Oh, tell us not that the man of might who can battle with error and endure odium, and provoke opposition in the defense of his principles, lacks tenderness, piety and consecrated devotion. J. R. Graves, "the man of war from his youth," the aggressive, uncompromising, belligerent, ever foremost in the battle, and unmoved by every wary consideration, when truth was the issue -- was as tender as a woman, while as firm as a rock in his living faith in the Lord Jesus as his personal Redeemer and Lord.
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[From Ford's Christian Repository and Home Circle, May, 1900, pages 287-290. Transcribed and formatted by Jim Duvall.]

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