From the Gospel of John, 15: 10-13

¹⁰ If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. ¹¹ I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. ¹² My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. ¹³ Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

Good morning.

The Chapel talk I am sharing with you today is an amendment of one I delivered just over two years ago to both the Upper and Middle Schools in September of 2018. Seniors and freshmen, you were sophomores and 7th graders at the time, either here at St. Christopher’s or perhaps at a prior school, and I certainly don’t expect you to recall the talk, though perhaps certain elements will sound familiar.


I offer this talk at an inflection moment in our global fight against COVID-19. Consider the following data points.

According to Johns Hopkins University, on Friday in the United States, there was a record 181,000 COVID infections reported. 181,000. Compare that figure to this spring, when our country was averaging between 20 and 30 thousand infections per day. 

In a sign that our health system has made incredible strides in the early detection and treatment of COVID, thankfully, the death rate due to this disease has not increased in the same proportional way that the case count has. As a country, this spring we were recording anywhere from 1,500 to over 2,000 COVID-related deaths per day. Despite thousands more daily COVID cases this fall, the number of daily deaths has actually been lower than the spring. However, 1,342 Americans died on Friday due to COVID, a staggering statistic now 9 months into this pandemic.

All told, over 245,000 Americans have died since this pandemic began in early 2020. Medical experts and government agencies are now predicting that number could double by the end of this winter, meaning that nearly 500,000 Americans could die by approximately the one-year anniversary of the beginning of this pandemic in our country. Nearly 500,000 Americans. 

For perspective, if we reach that figure, that would mean that more Americans died from COVID in one year than from all American deaths, both military and civilian, during all of World War II. And, yes, as we all know, COVID disproportionally kills the elderly and those with underlying medical conditions, but that fact is certainly cold comfort to the friends and family of the deceased, including many members of our own Saints community who have lost loved ones to this disease. 

In short, the pandemic we are facing is incredibly serious, and it appears, at the moment, to be getting worse and not better. There has been some encouraging news of late regarding potential vaccines, though, realistically, those vaccines will likely not reach a critical mass of our population until this summer or even fall.

Now for the good news—schools, such as ours, which have strict distancing, masking, and hygiene measures in place, appear not to be contributing to the current spike in cases. Masking, distancing, good hygiene, and focusing on outdoor activities really works in preventing the spread of COVID. 

I believe that schools such as ours, continuing to operate amidst a pandemic, serve a greater societal good—in that we provide some sense of normalcy and mental and physical health at a time when very little in our lives is normal and healthy. In addition, we can model and implement safe practices for approximately 1,200 students and adults on campus every day in a way that we simply could not if you all were scattered on your own all around the community. You all are doing an amazing job maintaining safe protocols here on campus, and we are grateful for it every day.

Now, for some more good news, or at least for some historical context. Particularly in times of trial and challenge, history can provide helpful perspective. As a country and a world, we have faced deadly pandemics before. Though not easy, we have overcome prior health crises. The last one nearing the global impact of COVID-19 was 102 years ago, the 1918 flu pandemic, then known as the Spanish flu.

Before telling you more about the 1918 flu, let me tell you about one of St. Christopher’s most distinguished and honorable alumni. 

His name is John Langbourne Williams II. His friends called him Jack. Jack is an alumnus of St. Christopher’s. Tragically, he is not a graduate of St. Christopher’s. He attended our school for five years, from 1913 to 1918, but he did not graduate from our school, as he should have, in June of 1919. As a result, Jack is an alumnus, but not a graduate. 

I have here a photo of Jack Williams, taken 102 years ago, in 1918. Looking at this photo, you may conclude that Jack was a soldier, and that it was soldiering that ultimately prevented him from graduating with his classmates in 1919. That is not the case, though we may well think of Jack as a solider, perhaps fittingly as a Christian soldier, referencing that well-loved hymn played by Mr. Vick during our prelude. 

That same hymn, “Onward Christian Soldiers,” interestingly, was the opening hymn of the 1918 Commencement program at our school, the final commencement program that Jack would know. 

In order to understand Jack’s story, including his heroism and his sacrifice, we must first understand the context of Jack’s world, both at home in Richmond and across the globe, just over one century ago.

In 1918, the most devastating global conflict then known to humankind, what was then called the Great War and is now referred to as World War I, had been raging throughout much of Europe for four years. By 1918 that conflict involved well over a dozen countries, including the United States and nearly all of Europe.  

At the exact same time as this worldwide conflict there occurred one of the most lethal pandemics ever known to humankind, likely second only to the Black Death of the 14th Century in terms of global mortality. 

It came to be known as the Spanish Flu, something of a misnomer as we now know that the virus likely did not originate in Spain.  Whatever we call it and whatever its precise origin, the Influenza outbreak of 1918 infected 1/3 of the world’s population and killed more than 50 million people, more than double the number of total deaths caused by the Great War. 

In the U.S. the 1918 flu killed approximately 675,000 Americans, according to the CDC, a figure once thought to be beyond the reach of this pandemic, but one that I fear we may eventually approach.

In this photo of Jack Williams, you may notice that his attire, which is a military uniform, is quite different from how St. Christopher’s students dress one century later. Jack would not have dressed in this manner every school day, but he and nearly every boy of proper age at what was called the Chamberlayne School in 1918, to become St. Christopher’s School just two years later, would have been part of the Chamberlayne Cadet Corps, a youth military training group consisting of both students and faculty who routinely drilled and prepared for military exercises. 

I have here a photo of the Chamberlayne Cadet Corps taken in February of 1918. This building that you see here was then a brand-new gymnasium. It is now our aged and beloved Chapel. 

In 1918, though the Allied forces were making gains against the Central Powers, the outcome of the Great War was far from certain, and these young men—and their faculty—needed to be prepared to enter the service in the very near future.  

In June of 1918, during the School’s Commencement exercises of his junior year, Jack was awarded the Bryan Prize for Leadership, honoring his high character and scholarship. In fact, Jack was the very first recipient of this award, which, for over a century now, has been considered the highest form of recognition in our Upper School. Our last three Bryan Prize winners have been Garnett Nelson, Henry Barden, and Will Forrest. 

As a reminder of Jack’s rare heroism and sacrifice, in my office I keep his Bryan Prize from 1918, his Chamberlayne Cadet Corps cap, and his sword, which you can see in this photo.

In addition to being a fine scholar, a student-athlete, and a leader in the Cadet Corps, Jack was active in his Boy Scout troop, often volunteering for various service causes along with his fellow scouts. 

By the fall of 1918, even as the Great War was coming to a close, the Influenza pandemic was raging around the world. In Richmond alone, nearly 1,000 people died from the flu, with thousands more infected. 

On Saturday, October 5, 1918, the Chamberlayne School joined all day schools in the city of Richmond in closing due to the pandemic; the Chamberlayne School remained open for its boarding students, but they were quarantined and not allowed to leave the campus. The day school would remain closed for nearly six weeks, until the armistice that ended World War One went into effect on November 11, 1918. That is the date that laid the foundation for the holiday later to be known as Veteran’s Day, just celebrated last week. 

From St. Christopher’s alumnus Jack McElroy, Class of 1959, who is Jack Williams’ nephew, we have this letter that young Jack Williams penned to a girlfriend who was then a student at Oldfields boarding school in Baltimore. 

The letter was written in early October 1918, likely just after the Chamberlayne School had been closed because of the flu. It’s a touching letter, four pages written in cursive, by a 15-year-old boy. Here is an excerpt—

“Mother and Father have just finished blowing me up for working all day yesterday in a big school which the city has turned into an influenza hospital. Hereafter I don’t crave stretcher bearing. You see some awfully sad cases, one I noticed especially. There was a poor little orphan boy, three years old, not a friend in the world, brought to the hospital by a man who left the poor little boy alone with strange doctors and nurses. His name was ‘Jack,’ that was all, and he had light hair and blue eyes. Probably his name attracted me, but I think anybody would have been touched, regardless of names, had they seen this poor little boy, stricken with a bad case of pneumonia, gazing with tearful eyes upon a crowd of bemasked doctors and nurses. Spanish ‘flu’ is no respecter of persons and people of all races, nationalities, and walks of life. My ambulance hauled nine people from one family.”

You see, starting that fall of 1918, at age 15, Jack had been—against his parents’ wishes—volunteering with his Boy Scout troop, transporting sick flu patients from their homes to John Marshall High School, which had been converted into an emergency hospital for the city. That was the “big school” that Jack referenced in his letter.

Tragically, not too long after Jack wrote this letter, and very likely after additional acts of volunteerism transporting sick patients, Jack himself contracted the virus, on or around October 11, 1918. Just five days later, at 3 p.m. on October 16, 1918, John Langbourne Williams II died at his parents’ home on West Franklin Street. 

The Chamberlayne School opened in full several weeks later, on November 11, but there was a pall of sadness cloaking the School. 

Dr. Chamberlayne, our school’s founding headmaster, in a column that he wrote for the October 25, 1918 Pine Needle, captured the essence of Jack and the effect of his death with eloquence. 

Dr. Chamberlayne wrote, “In the death of Jack Williams the School has suffered an incalculable loss… On the outbreak of the present epidemic he volunteered, and was accepted, for work among the stricken. His service, though short, was effective—‘he saved others,’ but like the Master in whose steps he followed with unquestioning faith, himself he did not save. A short illness—only five days—and then through peaceful sleep he entered into the presence of his Maker.”

In the final paragraph of that tribute, Dr. Chamblerayne concluded, “Separated from us for a little while he may be, but gone from us he can never be. Living now in the presence of his Lord and King, he is also living and will live in our memories; and though dead he yet speaks, and will continue throughout our lives to speak, inspiring tones to us all.” 

“And though dead he yet speaks…” 

The next time you enter the front entrance of Chamberlayne Hall and you walk up the steps to the main corridor, look up, above the doorway, and you will see a plaque in memory of Dr. Chamberlayne. At the bottom, you will notice the line, “He, being dead, yet speaketh.”

What do we make of all this? Of war, flu, death, and the early years of our school? And how do we view this important history in light of our own hardship and sacrifice in 2020? 

I will confess that I am not fully able to answer that for you. I hope you will each endeavor to answer it for yourself. However, I will tell you that I have been thinking of young Jack Williams often these past 9 months, of his heroism and sacrifice. 

Yes, 2020 has been difficult for us in many, many ways. For some of us, COVID has impacted us quite directly, infecting and even killing loved ones. For others, it has been little more than an irritation, an impediment to what you and we all seek—a normal high school experience. 

Whatever your perspective, I pray that you might think again of young Jack Williams, what he did as a student at our school some 102 years ago. I do not wish for any of you to take needless risks, to expose yourself, each other, or your families. But I do want you each to do your part to combat this pandemic, during this trial of our lifetime, and to serve and to lead. You can do this by wearing a mask, maintaining your distance, staying outdoors, and limiting large gatherings. 

I know this is not easy or fun, but it is our calling right now, and our community, country, and world has faced and overcome hardship many times before.

Two years ago, as I was conducting research on Jack Williams, I visited his gravesite. He is buried at Hollywood Cemetery, next to his parents. If you look closely at the front of Jack’s Celtic cross marking his grave, at the very bottom, you will find a passage from the Gospel of John, read by Henry this morning:

“Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.”

Amen.