The following was written by Rufus Burleson regarding his father in law, James Jenkins:
As James R. Jenkins was my father-in-law—suppressing all the devotion I feel for his memory—I will give the plain historic facts of his life and glorious death.
He was the son of Capt. James Jenkins, a brave officer in the Revolutionary war, and was born in Green County, Georgia, in 1810.
He was converted and baptized at the age of nineteen by Elder J. M. Lumpkin, the noble peer of Young Rhodes and Jesse Mercer. He became an active member for life of the Baptist Church.
He was educated in Mercer University, at Penfield, Ga., during the presidency of Rev. Billington Sanders, who was a Cato in firmness and a Paul in zeal. " The student was not only an admirer, but an example of the firmness and honest integrity of his beloved President. In the halls of grand old Mercer he formed the lifelong friendship of Rev. Wm. M. Tryon. Rev. Noah Hill, and scores of noble spirits.
He studied law under Gen. Hugh Haraldson in 1836, and came to Texas and settled at Washington in 1837.
His exalted integrity, moral character and devotion to his profession placed him at once among the leading members of the Washington bar, then the most talented bar in Western Texas. He rose rapidly in the confidence of the people, and was elected a member of the third Texas Congress of the Republic.
Political life had no charms for him, but as a conscientious Christian he saw clearly that the Texas land laws, especially the eleven-league Mexican grants, would lead to endless law suits, enriching lawyers and impoverishing the people. He clearly pointed out the dangers and the remedy. But, alas, his warnings were disregarded, either from blindness or cupidity. His wise counsels would have saved the Texas people millions of dollars and endless vexatious lawsuits. His home at Washington, and afterwards at Independence, was ever a home for Morrell and Baylor and Tryon and Huckins, and all the Old Guard, and especially for me in 1852-3.
As a church member he was ever faithful, but for years one terrible doubt was an eating cancer on his vitals. A skeptical friend, in an argument, drew a grand picture of the boundlessness of the universe—of 75,000,000 suns, with all their attendant planets, perchance peopled with bright intelligence, in comparison with which the earth, with all its inhabitants, is but a grain of sand on the sea shore of God's immensity. 'Now, said the boastful skeptic, how absurd that the grand Maker and glorious Ruler of all these worlds would come down to earth sprinkle it with his tears, bathe it with his blood, and die on the cross for such wicked, contemptible creatures as men. His supreme reverence for God and his supreme modesty gave the infidel argument great power. Though, like Job, he could say, "I know by glorious experience that my Redeemer liveth," yet the infidel's words were sharp as a sword. One Sabbath, by what we call accident in our blindness, but in reality is God's special providence, he heard me preach a sermon on the text, Ephesians 3:10: "To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God." The grand scheme was to show that the whole boundless universe, not merely our little grain of sand, the earth, was profoundly interested and eternally benefited by Christ's death on the Cross, and that as Thermopylae, Bunker Hill and the Alamo were nothing in themselves, but only places where undying courage and patriotism were displayed, that had instructed and inspired heroes in all lands and ages, thus Calvary was the Christian Thermopylae and Alamo that displayed so wonderfully the love, the wisdom, and the holiness and justice of God that all angels, arch-angels, principalities, powers in all Heavenly places were instructed, benefited and forever blessed. This plain Bible view dispelled every doubt, and demonstrated that all infidel philosophy, falsely so called, is sounding brass and tinkling cymbals and as a dream when one awaketh.
When he came to die, after long and painful sickness, he called me to his bedside and said: "Can it be possible that the glorious light of divine love is shining so brightly? I am passing through the valley of death, but there is no shadow, but all is full of light and glory." He called all his family around him, bade all a tender farewell, and, taking up his two little sons, Warwick H. and Rufus, in his arms, laid his hands upon them, like the dying Jacob, and prayed that they might be true men and devoted Christians and meet him at Jesus' feet in glory. Then, folding his arms across his breast, with a smile and brightness of ineffable glory radiating his emaciated features, he closed his eyes in death, or, rather, opened his eyes on the angel bands and chariots of glory that came to carry him home.
The resplendent glory beaming on every feature seemed silently to say, "The chariots, the chariots of glory."
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