I may never pass this way again (again)
PROTECTED CONTENT
If you’re a current subscriber, log in below. If you would like to subscribe, please click the subscribe tab above.
Username and Password Help
Please enter your email and we will send you a password reset link.
Reflections
Michael J. Brooks
I thought lately I needed to share the story of George L. Petrie who was a large part of my life as a college student.
Petrie served the Confederate army as missionary and chaplain and was honored as the oldest surviving Confederate chaplain in 1924 at age 84.
His son, George Petrie (N.M.I.), was a professor and dean at Auburn University and had the distinction of bringing tennis and football to the school. Petrie Hall now sits adjacent to Jordan-Hare Stadium where the football tradition continues.
I enrolled in the master’s program at Auburn because a Baptist missionary in Pittsburgh told me to.
Well, not exactly.
I met him at a missions conference, and he said they needed pastors, and their pastors were bi-vocational – they had other jobs. I learned I could teach at a community college with a master’s degree, and that was my thought at the time. Though I never went to the great state of Pennsylvania, I have taught at several colleges because of this degree in communication.
Dr. David Ritchey was my major professor at Auburn, and he explained that I’d need to write a thesis and defend it. I had an idea or two, but he suggested another alternative. He said Dean Petrie left the university a collection of papers from his grandfather and his father, both Presbyterian ministers, and no one had done anything with them. I found them in pasteboard boxes in the library and learned about George Laurens, as he was called. He told the story of what he did in the war under the Generals Joseph Johnston and John Bell Hood. Three sermons are in the collection dated during his chaplaincy, handwritten in pencil on small pieces of paper.
I stopped by the special collections section in Draughon Library recently and found all the materials now neatly filed, and still, to my knowledge, no publications about George Laurens, (though Bill Rice published “Auburn Man” in 2007 about the life of the chaplain’s son).
I contacted “Alabama Heritage” magazine and have their approval to submit an article this spring for an edition in 2028. May we all live so long!
In this process I pondered I’d written several favorite teachers over the years, but I’d never talked with Dr. Ritchey after graduating. I did a search only to discover he died last year after a stellar career teaching at five universities.
Once again, I thought of opportunities to do good, often spurned.
J.R.R. Tolkian said, “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
Today we have 24 hours.
We should spend time to honor God and to value others He’s put in our path.
“Reflections” is a weekly faith column written by Michael J. Brooks, pastor of the Siluria Baptist Church, Alabaster, Ala. The church’s website is siluriabaptist.com.
