his struggles
to acquire an education and to establish himself in his chosen field.
The more interesting part of the work is found in chapter V devoted to
a discussion of his call to the Central Baptist Church of Augusta,
Georgia. Here we read of a busy life devoted to the settlement of
church troubles, the raising of funds for a new edifice, and the
expansion of the work under more favorable conditions. Some of the
most interesting efforts mentioned here are the management of the
_Augusta Sentinel_ and the establishment of the Walker Baptist
Institute. His work was immediately productive of great good and his
influence became a force throughout the State.
The author shows how Dr. Walker, emerging as a more useful man, served
as a chaplain of the United States volunteers during the
Spanish-American War. He is then presented as an important figure
cooperating with the National Baptist Convention and the International
Sunday School Convention. As an evangelist, he showed unusual power
with an influence so great that he was asked to accept the pastorate
of the Mt. Olivet Baptist Church in New York City, where he served
five years in spite of the persistent efforts of his former church in
Augusta to have him return to that field. In New York, as in Augusta,
according to this account, he was interested in all matters pertaining
to the social uplift of Negroes and, therefore, started the movement
to establish for young men of his own race a branch of the Young Men's
Christian Association, a plan which was finally adopted and supported
by the city management.
Called back to Augusta so urgently, at the expiration of five years'
service in New York, he resumed his work in that city, preaching with
more power than ever. The press gave him favorable comment and persons
of distinction like John D. Rockefeller, William Howard Taft, Lyman B.
Goff, and General Rush C. Hawkins came to hear him expound the gospel,
so great was his power of analysis and his ability to impress the
thought of his discourses upon the minds of his hearers. The book,
therefore, as whole, is a eulogistic treatment; but, on the other
hand, it is an interesting account of the career of a man both useful
and popular, a worker who connected with so many social forces in our
life and engaged in so many different enterprises for the advancement
of humanity that every one having an intelligent interest in the Negro
may profitably read this volume.
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