Obituary:  Judge M. H. Bonner, 29 Nov 1883 - Smith Co, TX

Submitted by Vicki Betts <Vicki_Betts@mail.uttyl.edu
11 Sep 2002

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TEXAS CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE, May 31, 1884, p. 5, c. 4

Judge M. H. Bonner.

To the Advocate.

After the lapse of several months from the demise of this distinguished 
jurist and Christian gentleman, "it seemed good to me"—having been his 
pastor seven years, and his presiding elder five—to pay to his memory 
this humble tribute of respect.

It is doubted if any one, outside of his family, knew him better than 
the writer. Extravagant delineations and fulsome praise are always in 
bad taste when applied to the living or the dead, and if attempted in 
this case it would mar the symmetry of a well-rounded finished 
character. He died at the meridian of his noble manhood. The sun of 
life went down full-orbed and flung its radiance back upon the 
receding world in pleasing and admonitory hues. It was the close of 
a successful, spotless life. It was a life worthy of imitation by 
every rising young man in the country. Impressed with this belief, I 
find an inducement to draw an outline of the life of my very dear 
brother and devoted friend, whose untimely death sent a shock of 
lament over this great State.

His life was a benediction, and his death a calamity to society. The 
church he loved, with a devotion inspired by the heartfelt depths of 
his religion, mourns the loss of one who never cringed or blushed to 
own his Lord or to assert his faith in God, in any and every official 
position to which he was called when duty made its appeal to his 
Christian manhood. He gloried in the maintenance of his Christian 
profession in any and all circles where he chanced to be. It is 
doubted if any man has practiced law, and with such success as did 
Judge Bonner, and maintained a higher standard of integrity, veracity 
and moral purity. No man has worn the judicial ermine as long as he 
did and laid it aside less tarnished. Honesty, candor, integrity, and 
purity were the shining virtues which were conspicuous in, and that 
adorned his life. In the social relations of life his brightest 
virtues shone. He was married to Miss Bettie Taylor, of Marshall, 
Texas, when about twenty-one years of age. Never did any young man 
exercise a sounder discretion in the selection of a wife. She, the 
daughter of a Methodist preacher—Rev. Job Taylor—was his equal in 
many respects. They loved, they married, they lived in each other's 
affections; and life, though real, was tinged with the beautiful and 
the good. Never have I known husband and wife more congenial, or 
better adapted to each other.

There is a point in the life of most young men upon which their future 
pivots. Success or failure hinges upon it. It is like unto a fork in 
a road—one leads to success, the other to failure. This happy wedlock 
was the crisis in the life of the young attorney. It sprang into 
action the latent powers of more than an ordinary mind, backed and 
sustained by a splendid physical constitution and an ardent desire 
for the future happiness of his loving bride, to whom he had 
religiously vowed fidelity. To cherish, love and keep in sickness 
and in health to the end of life, formed a motive power than kindled 
into flame the lamp of hope and threw bright lines down the future, 
which brightened increasingly until the sun of life was eclipsed 
amidst the splendors of the future state. This formed a new era in 
the youthful manhood of my lamented friend.

Immediately after his marriage he left Marshall and located in the 
town of Rusk, Cherokee county, where for twenty-three years he 
practiced his profession with increasing success. A hard student, 
full of energy and business tact, gentle and modest as a woman, yet 
brave in the maintenance of the right, fearing God and keeping his 
commandments, how could he fail of success?

Whose life, under these conditions, has been a failure? None! Wicked 
as the world is, there is virtue enough in it to pay homage to such 
a life.

Never have I known a man who was happier in his family; and as his 
circumstances justified it, he adorned his home until he made it a 
little paradise—attractive to the children and visiting friends. He 
held that fine scenery, music and art, were refining and elevating to
 children, and hence his painstaking in this direction.

JUDGE BONNER AS A CHRISTIAN.

Converted at the age of 17, while the family still remained in 
Mississippi, and maintaining the grace of youthful virtue, the 
foundation of a symmetrical Christian life was laid in early piety.

It is a glorious truth that God honors and rewards early piety. A 
sinful life long persisted in may not bar forever the door of gospel
mercy against the repentant sinner, but God will honor and reward 
upon a higher and grander scale that life which has never been 
debauched, degraded and dwarfed by long continuous rebellion against 
God, law and conscience. As varioloid pits "the human face divine" 
and spoils its beauty, so sin mars, defaces and fixes lastingly 
upon the soul an ugly cicatrice which neither gospel pardon nor 
time, nor, it may be, eternity, can ever efface.

Reader, will you ponder this truth? Judge Bonner was not 
demonstrative in his religion. That is to say, he was modest, 
diffident and retiring, and yet he was true to his allegiance to 
God and the church.

The complexion of his well-filled library and the family altar of 
prayer were an index to his home-life. That home was a model 
Christian home, where harmony, refined manners, exquisite taste, 
all redolent with the aroma of true piety, threw around it a charm 
to the writer and often attracted him to its welcome precincts.

He carried his religion with him to the judicial bench. Some of his 
charges to grand juries sounded more like well-digested sermons than 
the ordinary deliverances from the bench. He was a praying judge, as 
the following incident will illustrate. I give it as I received it, 
and have no cause to doubt its truth.

A negro criminal was arraigned before him for murder. There was a 
mooted question of law upon which the destiny of the prisoner hung. 
It was argued at length, and the judge retained his decision until 
next morning. The district attorney and the judge slept in the same 
apartment. The former, on going to bed, left the judge at his table 
wrapped in profound thought. He waked repeatedly during the night 
and found the judge on his knees at prayer at every waking. Next 
morning on assuming the bench he announced his decision, which fixed 
the fate of the criminal to suffer the penalty of the law.

His faith in God and prayer as a means of access to God, was not a 
speculation, a mere theory, but a real, great truth, which embedded 
itself deep down in his consciousness and became a propelling force 
which gave luster and moral grandeur to his life.

I will not say that my lamented friend never did a wrong thing, but 
I do say that if he did it escaped my notice. And this is said after 
intimate relations to him for more than a quarter of a century. He 
was my beau ideal of a Christian gentleman. I am sure that his 
associates on the supreme bench of the State will harmonize in this 
seemingly extravagant encomium. But he had to die!
"Death enters and there's no defense:
His time there's none can tell."

No one in my knowledge could less afford to die. The inducements to 
live were numerous and strong. He was the head and the center of a 
large bright family, whose affections and devotions concentered in 
him. A handsome competency for comfort in old age had been acquired, 
a splendid home fitted up, and all the endearments of church and 
society drawn around him. He had retired from public life, and 
henceforth to enjoy HOME with its endearments, to finish up the 
education of his children and fit them for successful and useful 
lives, was now the coveted pleasure to which he had looked and 
longed for years of partial alienation while on the judicial bench. 
The time had come; the responsibilities of official life had been 
canceled, and home, "sweet home," was henceforth to be his earthly 
paradise.

How could he afford to die? How Providence contradicts and annuls 
the calculations of mortal man! God sees as man does not. Man 
thinks—GOD KNOWS. "The Judge of the whole earth will do right." 
Judge Bonner died in this faith. Among his last utterances was, 
all is right. He was born in Alabama, January 28, 1828, and died 
in Tyler, November 28, 1883.

Peace to his memory and condolence to his bereft family.
                                         
                                              -- R. S. FINLEY.