MySource:Txbluebell6/Benjamin Lockhart Clayton Cumberland Presbyterian Minister

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Year range 1825 - 1882
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Benjamin Lockhart Clayton Cumberland Presbyterian Minister.

Benjamin Lockhart Clayton

1825 - 1882

Cumberland Presbyterian Minister

REV. B. L. CLAYTON.

by REV. R. G. PEARSON.

TO WRITE or speak of our sainted dead is no unpleasant task, and especially is this so in the case now under consideration. That my loss as a friend, that the loss of his loved ones, that the loss of the church he loved so well, is his eternal gain, is no more to be doubted than the very realities of religion itself. Why? Because the realities of religion were experienced in his soul, and exemplified in his life, conduct, and conversation. Having lived in his family, having seen his consistent life, having been his pastor, having an intimate knowledge of his patient, quiet, earnest work as a minister, I know whereof I speak when I say he has gone from his work on earth to his reward in heaven.

Brother Clayton was born in Jefferson county, Ala., in March, 1825. He professed faith in Jesus in 1845. Thus in early life he dedicated himself to the service of God; and all through life he was one of the bright, glad, joyous, cheerful Christians. No doubt in his mind that he was a child of God, and the consciousness of the love of God shed abroad in his heart by the Holy Ghost gave him a continual feast, which left no room for coldness, doubt, and melancholy. Indeed, he was one of those sunshine Christians, who made religion attractive and desirable to the unconverted. Often when preaching to him have I seen his face almost shine with the beams of light and love which glowed in his happy heart. Like Stephen, "he was a man full of faith and the Holy Ghost," and no one who looked upon that face when his smile was happy with the love of God, could doubt. Those who knew him "took knowledge of him that he had been with Jesus," for he was an "epistle that could be seen and read by all men."

Brother Clayton joined Presbytery as a candidate for the ministry in 1852; and was ordained to the full work of the ministry in 1854. He was pastor of our Church at Fulton, Moorsville, Spring Hill, and some other places in North Mississippi in the bounds of Bell Presbytery. As a preacher he was sound; scriptural, and most tender in his pleadings with the prodigal sons of sorrow. While a man of good ability and real merit, yet he was so excessively modest and retiring in his disposition that he never estimated himself at his true value, and would not let himself be made conspicuous. Though modest and retiring, and but little known to the Church at large, yet eternity will reveal a grand work for God and souls in the sections where he lived, labored, and died. Many will rise up in that day and call him ":blessed."

He was married about 1850. To him was born two children, a son and a daughter, both of whom are living and members of the Church in Tupelo, Miss. His devoted Christian wife, after sharing with him the joys and sorrows of life, preceded him but a few month to the land of rest and the home of the blest; and now he has joined her in that "home of the soul" where congregations never break up, and Sabbaths never end. Happy reunion of devoted hearts, where the sighing and the sorrow, the dying and the parting are known no more.

On the 9th of September, 1882, this devout man of God breathed his last, at his home near Tupelo, Miss., in the midst of friends and loved ones, and in the triumphs of the religion of Christ. Just before he died, he said: "I will soon be at home with Jesus and my loved ones." Thank God there is a "home" for the sainted dead; and what must it be to be there? and what will it be when we all meet there?

  "O, think of the friends over there,

Who before us the journey have trod,

  Of the songs that they breathe in the air,

In their home in the palace of God."

NASHVILLE, TENN.

[Source: The Cumberland Presbyterian, February 15, 1883, page 2]

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