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- The Jeffersonian, Atlanta, Georgia, 6 October 1910
A Wonderful Evangelist: Rev. James M. Bass
(Includes picture of Rev. James M. Bass)
Since the days of Sam P. Jones, no preacher has given evidence of the sustained power which is possessed by Rev. James M. Bass, of the South Georgia M.E. Church Conference.
There are numberless intellects which, like a bomb, can explode with a loud noise and do considerable execution; but those minds which are like fountains, or stars, are exceedingly rate.
The Indian Spring of today is like the same fountain of a century ago ? it runs on, forever, in a continuous stream, inexhaustible, eternally fresh and pure.
The stars which send down their rays to a sin-cursed world tonight, are the same that shone upon the plains of Asia, Africa, and Europe when the Chaldean wondered and worshipped, when the lost white race was rearing cities in the interior of Etiopia, and when the barbarians of the North were sharpening their swords and spears to smite the decadent Roman and Greek.
The radiance of the stars is everlasting; the source of their glory undiminished and never-failing. So it is with the creative intellect; the physical strength which is its necessary adjunct may be exhausted, but the mind itself never tires. ?Nture?s sweet restorer, balmy sleep,? is all the medicine such a brain ever needs.
The late Sam. P. Jones was one of the few men endowed with that kind of star-like genius. You could no more empty the mind of such a man than you could shut off the flow of the Indian Spring; or put out the fires that feed the stars.
After the death of the great Evangelist, I wondered whether his mantle would descend upon the shoulders of a worthy successor. It has done so; for the Rev. James M. Bass has the same marvelous power over the hearts of congregations ? the same rre gift of getting better and better, as one sermon follows another.
His manner and methods are wholly different from those of Sam Jones. Like all men of genius, his processes are original.
The men of ruts and route are prone to compliment themselves by calling the original man ?crazy?.
(But we pull them across, just the same ? don?t? we, Brother Bass?)
Born in Lee county, Georgia, on October 31, 1871, James Madison Bass was 11 months old when Yours Truly went over to Macon to enter Mercer University. He will, therefore, soon be 39 years old.
His mother, the widow of a Confederate soldier, ?raised him?; and you can see the mother?s boy in him, yet.
He joined the South Georgia Conference at Waycross, December 4th, 1894; and for 12 years he was a pastor, serving Bethel Mission, Marion Circuit, Knoxville, Unadilla, Second Street church (Macon) and Centenary church (Macon).
Four years ago he became Conference Evangelist. That he has done great good wherever he has labored can be vouched for by every one who saw and felt the effect of his glorious revival at Thomson a few weeks ago.
In a series of meetings at this much torn up town he brought about reconciliations which no one believed possible; and he wiped out old feuds which have been festering here for ten years or more.
If he isn?t a good man, inspired from on high to go about doing good, then there is no such thing in all this world.
In Mr. Stapleton, who conducts the song services, Mr. Bass has a most sympathetic and capable helper ? an auxiliary who seconds his leader in precisely the right way.
It was good to see how Preacher Bass enjoyed the signing of Stapleton and his choir; it was good to see how Stapleton and his choir enjoyed the sermons of Preacher Bass. Long life and rich reward to this noble Pair of brothers.
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Bassett Family Association Database
1871 - 1931 (59 years)