PIKE COUNTY, GA - Obit of Rev. Jones Bush

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Rev. Jones Bush
Barnesville News Gazette
1913


The recent death of Rev. Jones Bush at his home near
Meansville, mentioned in the News Gazette last week, removed
from life one of Pike County's noblest and most prominent
and useful citizens, Such character and life as his ought to
be a constant inspiration to the youth of the present
generation.  We have been furnished with the following
artical concerning his life which we present out of respect.

Jones Bush was born in Monroe County, Ga. Dec. 16  1827 and
died at his home in Pike County, Ga. July 10th 1913 He was
the eldest of eleven children born of the union of Jackson
Bush and Lavinia Brantly. Of this large family two menbers
still survive one brother, Prof. Warren Bush of Barnesville
and one sister Mrs. Mattie Owen of Barnesville.

In 1858 he married a widow Williams, who before her first
marriage was Miss Lou Allen. For fourty-five years they
lived happily together till her death in 1903. To them eight
children were born, of whom three sons, W.W.Bush, W.P. Bush
and J.B.Bush, and four daughters, Mrs. Lizzie Trice
Scarborough, Mrs Mattie Canafax, Mrs. Dora Elliott and Mrs
Jennie Bullard McKissack still survive.

By nature he was endowed with a robust constitution, which
together with temperance and prudence, enabled him to enjoy
well-nigh perfect health and to retain his remarkable vigor
and strength almost to the end of the more than four score
and five years of life. 

But his mental endowments and charateristics were more
remarkable still. not many of his early contemporaries
enjoyed the advantages of college training, nor was he one
of the favored few who did. But he was educated
nevertheless. He was a discriminating student of men a
careful observer of  affairs and events, a constant searcher
after truth and light both in the treasury of experience and
in the store house of the printed page.

Though his mind as a whole was unusally active and vigorus
his faculty of memory was nothing less than phenominal. He
was able to recall facts, circumstances, men, and events
with such ease and precision as to make him appear almost a
prodigy in this respect. To most men the panorama of life
soon becomes confused obscured in the mist of the passing
years. But not so with him. With its own mead of sunshine
and shadow, with its peculiar seasons and the harvest that
followed with its paramount issues and its memorable
occurences, and with its own familiar scenes and faces, each
year of his life was to him a permanent possession,
retaining the distinctness and the freshness of yesterday.

One therefore might suppose him to have been a sort of
recluse living in the shadowy recesses of these charished
years long gone --------------by any means the case. Mental
philosophers tell us that chief condition and basis of clear
and continued recollection is a distinct impression obtained
by intense attention. So one of the explanations of his
familiarity with the past was his keen and constant interest
in the men and the affairs of the day. He did not so much
retreat into the oblivion of the past as carry captive the
past with him in an incessant conquest of the present and
passing hour.

Enviroment also as well as nature was a potent factor in his
favor. The home influence under which he came up were
formative forces that fostered sane conceptions of life
fountians of ennobling sentiment that poured their tonic
waters into his youthful heart. The precepts of
righteousness constantly presented pointed out to him the
path of high ideals and as he resolutely set himself to walk
therein the power of constant example ever before him in the
lives of his worthy parents, imparted to him the strength
and momentum of definite and deep convictions.

There was also ---------------life and charecter the
influence of a larger enviroment than this to which we have
referred.  He grew to manhood and came to the
resposibilities of citizenship in stirring and strenuos
times. Problems of the gravest nature were engaging the
attention of the nation. On all sides raged the conflict of
opposing opinions and interest. The leaders in the
discussions of these issues in the national congress were
men of power and earnestness. Circumstances conspired to
develop and display their greatness and truly there were
giants in those days. The matchless eloquence of these
orator-statesmen was caught up by ardent champions on both
sides and re-echoed from one end of the nation to the other.
The principles on which the American nation was founded were
truly in crucible and the supreme national crisis which
culminated at Appomattox was already acute.

There were few if any other young men in the land more alive
to all that was then transpiring than was Jones Bush. The
arguments and appeals of the struggling leaders thrilled his
heart with sympathetic responsiveness to the highest degree.
The great American triumvirate, Webster, Clay and Calhoun,
became to him the supreme exponents of statesmanship and the
ideal exemplars of American manhood. So profound was the
impression that was made upon him by there genius and their
greatness that they became to him permanent standards of
excellence and ability. For fifty years he was scarcely ever
known to write an artical, deliver a discourse, or preach a
sermon without in someway alluding to the lives and labors
of these men.

While with him these were by no means his sole heroes. He
held many others in little less esteem. He himself was a
patriot, cherishing for his country and her government the
high hopes and the affection which dwelt in the hearts of
the founders of the republic. No matter from what section a
man came from nor to what prty he belonged if he rendered --
---- service and was apparently pure in his motives, Jones
Bush was ready to ackowledge his greatness and accord him
the honor due, no matter how unpopular it might be so to do.
He hung the enlarged portraits of  such upon the walls of
his home, where he also placed the likeness of eminent
preachers of various churches.

It was was said of him that he never uttered a public prayer
without invoking the divine guidance and blessing upon the
rulers of the nation and the officers of the state. He
sought neither place nor praise for himself. His interest
was that of principle and affection. He stood ready to
assist the true servants of his country to succeed in their
spheres, and seemed to forget and lose himself in his
absorbing admiration for all these that showed themselves
worthy of their trust.

But neither the salutary influence of his early home life,
nor the hardy virtues of the times in which he grew up, nor
the illustrious examples of the great Americans he loved and
honored so sincerely can fully account for the nobility and
beauty of the long life of this good man. The springs that
perennially refreshed his soul and renewed the youth of his
heart were in the Rock of Ages. His serenity and gentleness,
his sincereity and liberality, his humility and charity were
proofs and the products of his faith in christ.

In his early life he heard the gospel message of the divine
compassion and grace for fallen man through the appointed
saviour and his heart was moved to seek that righteousness
which alone is acceptable, the righteousness which is of God
through faith in Christ Jesus. He joined the Congregational
Methodist Church and while still a young man was licensed to
preach. When he removed to Pike County he placed his
membership in New Hope church at Meansville, where it
remained till his death nearly half a century later. During
this time New Hope church in company with a number of others
went over to the regular Congregational church.

For a number of years in the prime of his life he was the
pastor of this church as well as of other churches that
called him to serve them. Those who new --------------------
--------those days, while as yet he was in the fulness of
his strength, testify to the power of his preaching and to
his pastoral fidelity. The present pastor of New Hope church
Rev. Gideon Horn in conducting the funeral service, declared
that in the death of Rev.Jones Bush he felt personally and
perculiarly bereaved. He related how, when he was boy he sat
under the preaching of the faithful man whose tenement of
clay was before him, and how the first impressions of the
Holy Spirit were made upon his heart in those hours.  He
told how the same preacher came to visit his father on his
dying bed and how he afterwards ministered with constant
prayer and counsel to him and his widowed mother. He showed
how this same fidelity to duty and to the demands of his
church and her fellowship were characteristics of him to the
end. 

So confident and unafraid he ---------the end----------. The
faith which he had kept ------------kept him then in
composure and peace and pointed the way to the city of
enduring foundations beyond the darkness of the valley of
the shadow of death. He had not sought earthly fame or
treasure, but had chosen that good part which could not be
taken from him even by the ravages of the last great enemy.
As a priceless heritage to his sorrowing loved ones and
friends to his bereaved community and church to his country
which he had loved so unselfishly, he left that heritage
which is better than great riches a record of stainless
fidelity, a name of unsullied whiteness. As there are many
to speak his praises, so may there be more to follow his
example.