A Tribute To Bishop Witclive Charles Hamilton
It is always funny to watch the saints as they would come into the church yard and look to see if the front door was open. The next thing they would do was look to see if Bishop Hamilton was in his office. If he was, this would present a problem, because not many people wanted to pass the narrow passage at the back of the church where Bishop sat in his office and looked out. There was a great amount of reverence and Godly fear for the man of God. Does this mean that he was perfect, “no” but he commanded respect and fear by the way he carried and conducted himself.
This great man of God whom we affectionately called “Bishop” was born in the year 1914. He was the husband of the late Albertine Campbell, whom he married in 1940. They produced seven children, Claudette, Joseph, Hannah, Michael, Pamela and two others who died while they were children. The story was told of how one of the children died on the First Day of the week, commonly called Sunday. While the mourners had gathered at the house to mourn the loss of the child, Bishop put on his clothes and went to church for Second Day Evening Service. Was this insensitive? It would take a certain level of understanding to comprehend this action. Like David, he understood that the child was gone and would not come back. He had to go where the child was, so it behooved him to serve his Lord even in time of grief.
Very often when the daughters went to clean the church and Bishop was in his office he would remain on the premises in order to take them to the closest point to get transportation to their homes. He was very protective of the daughters. One night as the brothers were locking up the building some of the daughters stood on the verandah with the Bishop. A man could be heard coming down the street shouting expletives at the top of his voice, in order to distract the saints, the Bishop decided to give us a lesson in astronomy. “See that star over there,” he said “that is Pluto.” “See that one over there that is Venus.” This was hilarious to all the saints, we knew he was trying to protect our ears and by extension our minds.
Another time church had ended and Bishop was ready to go home, the now Evangelist-at-Large Hamilton (Michael) was delaying for whatever reason. When Bishop enquired about the delay, Evangelist-at-Large quoted David’s statement about dwelling in the house of the Lord all the days of his life. Bishop countered “Yeah all the days, but not all the nights.” He had a wonderful sense of humor, but still most of the saints feared getting close to him.
He had a wonderful way of delineating the gospel of Jesus Christ. One of his many sermons was United we stand but they who divide themselves, shall fall. In demonistrating this sermon, he took one strand of thread and snapped it. It broke in two. Then he took several strands and put them together and tried to snap them. This he was unable to do. The moral of the story that if we stand together, and stand in love, we will be a force to be reckoned with; no one would be able to prevail against us. Deuteronomy 32:30
How should one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, except their Rock had sold them, and the Lord had shut them up?