Theophilus B. Larimore on Fletcher Douglas Srygley.

"When Stonewall Jackson fell, Lee, immortal hero of the lost cause, said: I have lost my right arm. Some of us—I am one—lost infinitely more than that when F. D. Srygley fell; and the cause that can never be lost, lost much more when out dear brother ceased to write, to talk, to breathe, than the lost cause lost when Stonewall Jackson said, Let us pass over the river and rest in the shade of the trees, and silently passed to the eternal shore. His life was brief, but eventful and important: his life and labors were such that all the ravages and revolutions of time can never erase the impressions he made. The present generation may never properly appreciate him, but generations yet unborn shall know his worth and speak his praises. Such is the history of men who have towered above their fellows. A costly monument marks the place where Burns, the peerless bard of Scotland, died in poverty and want, neglected and despised. Americas own Washington, known the wide world over and almost worshiped now, was shamefully slandered, bitterly reviled, and relentlessly persecuted, while living as sublimely patriotic and unselfish a life as sage or statesman hath ever lived; and some poetic scribe hath said,

Seven cities strive for Homer dead, Where living Homer begged his daily bread,

History teaching that each of those seven cities claimed the honor of being the birthplace of the blind, beggar-poet. The heartrending history of the human race is replete with such lessons as these. Few are the flowers, filled with the fragrance of love, we give to the living; many, bedewed with the tears of regret, we give to the dead. Yea, the hand that crushes the living sometimes crowns the dead.

Our beloved friend and brother, Fletcher Douglas Srygley, was born in the hill country of North Alabama on December 22, 1856. In August, 1874, he was born into the church, the family of God, the household of faith, the fold of Christ."

Excerpt from discourse delivered by T. B. Larimore at the burial of his lifelong friend, benefactor, and biographer, F. D. Srygley, on August 3, 1900, and reported by Miss Emma Page, of Nashville, Tenn.