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VOLUME TOUR
NUMBER 7HIRT7-EIGHT
GEORGIA LCjES ALEX W. SEALER
The ‘Brilliant and Belobed Preacher and Writer Goes to Murfreesboro, Tennessee —No Man Can Take His Place.
LEX Bealer gone from Georgia! There
is positive pathos in the words. And
Thomasville, the rose-crowned Eden of
South Georgia is stricken, sorrowful,
piteously, moaning over the loss of this
beloved son of her adoption.
When the rumor that Mr. Bealer
was considering a call to Murfrees
boro, Tennessee, began to be circu-
B
lated in the town, a pang of sincere regret smote
the heart of every worthy citizen, each feeling that
the departure of Mr. Bealer from Thomasville would
mean a distinct loss to the rank and file of the pro
gressive, public-spirited community builders. Always
fearless in denouncing the evils, and mighty in word
and deed in the promotion of civic righteousness, Mr.
Bealer has labored untiringly for the improvement
of the moral as well as the spiritual condition of his
revered foster city. His newspaper career and con
tact with commercial life before entering the minis
try fitted him in a peculiar way as a leader as well
as a teacher of the people. Under his direction the
First Baptist Church has become not only powerful
in numbers, but a wide-awake, aggressive force for
the spiritual and moral uplift of the town and com
munity.
And he has been so long a part of Georgia’s
progressive religious and literary life, that public
gatherings in the State will positively seem "lone
some” without him.
From Reporter’s Desk to Pulpit.
Several years ago, when it was announced that
Alex Bealer, the popular, hustling, brilliant Atlanta
Journal reporter, had resigned his position on the
paper and entered the ministry, there was a general
thrill of interest on the part of the public, with un
stinted predictions of success. And success has
come.
First, in his own city at the old Fifth Baptist
Church, where Virgil C. Norcross had poured out
so many years of his love and life. And then
came Cartersville, where he lived right across the
street from the famous Sam Jones. Mrs. Jones,
seeing the devotion of the new-made preacher to
his work and watching the steady glow of his study
lamp, predicted great growth in his pulpit, power
and general mastery in his ministry. It came at
Cartersville and has continued in beautiful expan
sion in his third and last Georgia pastorate at
Thomasville, where for six years, he has led that
noble church in a glorious, upward march.
And here, dipping his facile pen into the mellow
ozone about him, he has done some of the best
newspaper work of his life. His clippings from the
“Ancient Press,” written especially for The Golden
Age, were as widely popular as they were quaint and
brilliant. But with all of his wholesome literary
work, Alex Bealer has loved his church work first,
last and all the time.
His sermons are spiritual classics —positive prose
poems of beauty and truth.
%'TLANTA, GA., NOVEMBER 11, 1909.
“We will never duplicate Alex Bealer in fifty
years,” said the venerable John Dekle, the beloved
superintendent of his Sunday school. And all the
consecrated members of his church view his going
away to Tennessee through a mist of tears.
As a minister, Mr. Bealer’s most effective and abid
ing work has been among the young people of his
Church and congregation. His passion has been not
merely to see them saved, but to see them saved to
serve. He has labored with untiring zeal to instruct
them in sound Bible doctrine to the end that they
might near and recognize the Divine call to service,
and having heard to gird themselves in the Chris
tian’s armor and go forth with an informed head,
willing hands and a consecrated heart, to obey the
King’s command. At the beginning of his pastorate,
in Thomasville, about six years ago, Mr. Bealer found
in the Church perhaps less than a half dozen men who
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would lead in public prayer, and possibly not more
than three who could be depended upon to conduct
the prayer-meeting service. Now his heart rejoices
over a score or more of young men some of them
scarcely more than boys, who can and do lead in
prayer, conduct the prayer-meeting, preside over the
various departments of young people’s work, and
more than once when the pastor was absent he has
called upon them to plan and conduct the Sunday
morning service, which they did with as much rev
erence, solemnity and impressiveness as the veteran
deacons or laymen could command.
Every available post of duty in the Church work
is filled by a young man or young lady. From usher
to choir, and from Sunday school librarian to clerk
of the Church, the youths are in charge. But more
gratifying than all else is the marked interest mani
fested by the young people of both sexes in the mid
week prayer-meeting. Visitors dropping into that
service have gone away to marvel over the discovery
of one Church that had survived the day of “women
and children and old men’s prayer-meeting,” and to
mingle their rejoicing with the joy of the skies over
the devotion of a faithful band of young people who
love the Lord and His cause enough to turn their
backs on gaiety and mirth and steal away for a quiet
hour of prayer and praise when Wednesday evening
comes around.
Man Plus Woman a Two-fold Power.
If we failed to mention the faithful co-operation,
the untiring energy and the unfailing love and loy
alty of Mrs. Bealer as a side-partner in and rightful
claimant to a full half interest in all the success
achieved by her gifted husband, we would do vio
lence to equity and justice, and deny our own heart
the joy of crowning the head of this gifted, wonder
ful, consecrated little woman. We do crown her
now with leaves of undying laurel bound together
with chords of tenderest love. Truly, her place can
not be filled. Time would fail us should we attempt
to recount the virtues of this remarkable sunny
hearted hand-maiden of God, and her presence and
personality in Thomasville have become so potent
and powerful that, in all seriousness, we are awed
with a feeling of desolation and gloom at the thought
of her departure. It is an education —a positive
glimpse into the mystery of magic, to live in close
touch with Mrs. Bealer. Imagine, if you can, one
wee bit of a woman attending from seven to eight
regular religious meetings each week, teaching a
Baraca class composed of more than thirty young
men every Sunday morning, acting as president of
the Young Ladies’ Society, caring for all the visiting
ministers who came to the Church; keeping her
home attractive and in addition to all these Church
and home demands, finding time to visit a wide cir
cle of friends, hold an active membership in the
United Daughters of the Confederacy, and preside
over the Ladies’ Study Class, a club organized large
ly through her influence for mental culture and the
congenial pursuit of wholesome, inspiring literary
and musical study. If your mind can grasp all these
accomplishments, and mold them into human form,
you have only a faint glimpse into the real life and
personality of the woman whom Thomasville de
lights to call “MY FRIEND.”
It is with the reluctance born of a genuine appre
ciation of their worth that we bid good-bye to this
son and daughter of Georgia birth. We commend
them to the loving care of Tennessee and have the
assurance of the Baptists of that State that they
will receive them with open arms, as is indicated
in the following article clipped from The Baptist and
Reflector of November 4:
“We announced recently that Rev. A. W. Bealer,
pastor of the First Baptist Church, Thomasville, Ga.,
(Continued on page J.)
LWO DOLLARS S 9 YEAR.
LIVE CENTS A COPY.
