USA > Kentucky > The history of Kentucky, from its earliest discovery and settlement, to the present date, V. 2 > Part 14
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Of the men of great power in Kentucky, who were prominent preach- ers during this period of the Christian Church, there were John Smith, the Creaths, the Rogers, B. F. Hall, Walter Scott, William Morton, Aylett Raines, John Allen Gano, Curtis J. Smith, Philip S. Fall, and others who might be mentioned.
1 John Smith was born on the 15th of October, 1784, in Sullivan county, East Tennessee, in the log cabin of the day and country. His schooling was of the sort the frontier settle- ments then afforded. In 1795 his father sold out and moved his family to a new farm in the valley of Cum- berland river, at the foot of Poplar mountain, in Stockton's valley. His parents were Baptists and firm be- lievers in the Philadelphia confession of faith, and in 1804 he was baptized into this faith. In ISOS he was or- dained to preach, and entered zeal- ously into the ministry. In 1815, ELDER JOHN SMITH. while on a tour from home, and his
z Life of John Smith by John Augustus Williams.
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wife at a neighbor's beside the bed of a dying woman, his house and its contents were burned, and his two oldest children perished in the flames. This visitation of sorrow was followed soon by the death of his wife, and the sad bereavements for a time bowed him to the earth. With chastened heart, he recovered his spirits again, and was ever after noted for his uncomplaining cheerfulness and humor. In 1823-24 he became deeply interested in the views of Christianity presented by Mr. Campbell, and soon embraced and began to preach them. From this time until his death, in Mexico, Missouri, on the 28th of February, 1868, Elder John Smith devoted the whole services of a godly and zealous life actively in the mission he had chosen. Without pretense to scholarship, he was thoroughly familiar with every verse of the Bible and with the doctrines and arguments of the religious issues of his day. His mind was wondrously retentive and vigorous, and his words in public and private speech were luminous with logic, pathos, wit and humor, such as quickened the attention and swayed the will of the audience to a degree that few men had the power to do. With a rich, deep, and sonorous voice, and an impressive earnestness, he blended all in a gift of natural and vigorous oratory that never failed to interest and move. Though past his eighty-fourth year, his death was pro- foundly lamented throughout Kentucky, for his ministerial activities, even at this remarkable age, made him yet a factor of power in the pulpit and in the world outside. In the early days of his pioneer preaching, from an incident characteristic of the day, he received the sobriquet of " Raccoon John Smith," which he bore until his death. He was fortunate in his biog- rapher. The elegant and accomplished pen of John Augustus Williams has enriched Kentucky literature with the story of his life and times in a work unsurpassed of its kind.
Under the auspices of the Christian Church there are numerous repre- sentative universities, colleges, and academies, offering facilities for educa- tion in every department of classical and scientific literature within the State. Chief among these we may rank Kentucky University, located at Lexington. This institution was the successor of Bacon College, which was established at Georgetown in 1836, and removed to Harrodsburg in 1839, and which continued, with varied fortunes, to be the leading college of the denomina- tion in Kentucky, until 1858. In this year the Legislature granted a charter merging this college into Kentucky University. The first session of the uni- versity opened at Harrodsburg in September, 1859, with nearly two hundred students, under the presidency of Robert Milligan. With unvarying pros- perity, its management continued here until 1865, when it was removed and established at Lexington, Kentucky. Mr. John B. Bowman, who had under- taken the work of endowment and improvement, had raised about two hundred thousand dollars for these purposes. The buildings at Harrods- burg having burned, and the question of a more eligible location having been raised, the removal to Lexington was consummated under the most
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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
auspicious beginnings, upon the plans elaborated by Mr. Bowman. He solicited over one hundred thousand dollars additional in Fayette county, and purchased Ashland, the home of Henry Clay, a most attractive site for a great university. A combination had been formed by which the buildings, the grounds and the proceeds of the endowment fund of Tran- sylvania University were to supplement the resources of Kentucky Uni- versity. The history of Transylvania University is interwoven with the history of the Commonwealth. Over one hundred years ago its founda- tions were laid, and its growth nurtured by grants, public and private, in the fond hope of making this the leading institution of learning west of the Alleghanies. We quote from a brief sketch in the catalogue of Kentucky University for 1895 :
"Transylvania Seminary was chartered by the Legislature of Virginia in May, 1783. The first meeting of its trustees was held November 10, 1783, near Danville, Ky. Its first session began February 1, 1785. After a few years the Seminary was moved to Lexington, Ky. Its first session in this place began June 1, 1789.
" By an act of the General Assembly of Kentucky, approved Decem- ber 22, 1798, Transylvania Seminary and Kentucky Academy were united under the name of Transylvania University, January 1, 1799.
" After an existence of sixty-six years, Transylvania University was consolidated with Kentucky University by an act of the Legislature, approved February 28, 1865, and accepted by the curators of Kentucky University June 10, 1865."
In addition, the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Kentucky, with all its endowment funds, was brought into this combination, and under the management of the one board of curators of Kentucky Univer- sity. Buildings, ample grounds, and accommodations for fifteen hundred students were thus auspiciously provided. The property and the endow- ment funds thus combined, and available for the laudable aim of establishing in Kentucky a university which should realize the dream of old Transyl- vania, and rank with the first universities of America, now amounted in value to eight hundred thousand dollars. The institution opened with faculties for the College of Arts, the Agricultural College, the College of the Bible, the Commercial College, and the College of Law. The College of Medicine, the Normal College, and other departments were but awaiting the opportunity of organization. Five hundred and two students were in attendance during the session of 1866-67, and an average of nearly seven hundred during the six succeeding sessions until 1872-73-the attendance reaching seven hundred and seventy-two in 1860-70. In the midst of this prosperity, which augured a future of hopeful success for an institution of great usefulness, prestige, and potency in the cause of education, a change of policy and management was resolved upon. This resolve terminated in a dissolution of the combination, an abandonment of the project of a com-
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DISSENSIONS AMONG THE PRESBYTERIANS.
prehensive university, and a reorganization upon a basis more strictly denominational.
The brotherhood had determined on a separation from the Agricultural and Mechanical College and the abolishment of the office of regent. This policy was put into execution, and the Bible College also given a separate corporate existence and control. The attendance in the College of Arts for 1894-95 was two hundred and thirty-one students, and in the College of the Bible one hundred and forty-one. That of the other departments added would swell the numbers to several hundred more.
On the death of President Milligan, Henry H. White was elected his successor in 1878, resigning voluntarily in 1880. Charles Louis Loos was then made president, and yet remains the head of the faculty. Robert Graham, the venerable president of the Bible College, resigning in 1895, is succeeded by John W. McGarvey.
The Orphan School at Midway, established and endowed for the free education and support of females, the greater portion of whom have be- come successful as teachers in the schools of the country and in other use- ful callings, has now a capacity to accommodate one hundred and sixty pupils annually.
Another institution of great practical efficiency is the Kentucky Christian Education Society, the management of which is now at Lexington. The fund of this society is about forty thousand dollars, safely invested in secu- rities, the proceeds of which, about twenty-five hundred dollars annually, are judiciously apportioned to such students for the ministry in the College of the Bible as are worthy and yet without the means of education. This fund was solicited and obtained about equally by the joint labors of Elders John T. Johnson, Robert Rice, and Z. F. Smith, in 1855-60. A charter was obtained and a board of management appointed, of which Z. F. Smith was for some twelve years president. From that beginning until date, sev- eral hundred young men have received aid necessary to their education, the great mass of whom have gone forth to proclaim the Gospel.
1 The Synod of the Presbyterian Church, in 1815, erected three new pres- byteries-Louisville, out of part of Transylvania ; Mississippi, out of part of West Tennessee ; and Shiloh, out of parts of Muhlenberg and West Tennes- see. The quiet and conservative growth of the church throughout the State was, during the first third of the century, disturbed, in common with other denominational bodies, by the initial movements of the " Reformation," which was a conspicuous. part of the religious history of the day. An inde- pendent presbytery was also organized, February 4, 1810, which, relieving itself of the disciplinary restrictions of the synod, began its career of exten- sion and outgrowth into the body known as the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. With such vigor and zeal did the supporters of this important movement prosecute their mission that in three years they had grown into a
I Collins, Vol. I., p. 458.
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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
synod, formed in October, 1813, with three presbyteries-Cumberland, Logan, and Elk. In its expansion and magnitude as a factor in the religious elements of the Commonwealth, it merits a fuller historic notice.
1 In 1796 James McGready, a Presbyterian minister, settled in Logan county, Kentucky, and took charge of three congregations-Little Muddy, Gaspar river, and Red river, the latter situated near the State line separat- ing Tennessee and Kentucky. Mr. McGready was a Pennsylvanian by birth, and had been educated at what afterward became Jefferson College in that State. He commenced his ministry in North Carolina ; was a man of great earnestness, and denounced open sin and religious formalism with unsparing severity.
Soon after Mr. McGready settled in Kentucky, several other Presbyte- rian ministers emigrated from North Carolina and settled in Tennessee, among them William Hodge, William McGee and Samuel McAdoo, who entered earnestly into the spirit and measures of Mr. McGready in pro- moting the revival. There was opposition, and some of it came from other ministers of the Presbyterian Church. The extension of the religious interest multiplied converts, and new congregations sprang up all over the land. The Presbyterian method of supplying the great and increasing demand for ministerial labor was slow at that time. Some of the ministers who visited the country were not in sympathy with the revival, and their labors not acceptable. Rev. David Rice, one of the patriarchs of Presby- terianism in Kentucky, visited the Green river and Cumberland countries, and, witnessing the great destitution of ministerial labor, advised the revival ministers to select some pious and promising young men from their congre- gations, and encourage them to prepare for the ministry, as well as their circumstances would permit. It was not expected that they would undergo the ordinary educational training, as the demand was urgent and the means of such training were beyond their reach. The measure was adopted. Three young men were in a short time advanced to the ministry, and others were encouraged to a preparation for the work. But difficulties grew up. The opposers of the revival of course opposed the measure. The difficul. ties became so serious that the Synod of Kentucky appointed a commission of their body to meet at Gaspar river church and endeavor to adjust them. The attempt failed. The situation became even more involved and diffi- cult. Reference must be made to the history of the times for the facts of contention and the final action.
There was another question of difficulty between the parties in the Church. The young men who were licensed and ordained excepted to what seemed to them the doctrine of fatalism, which appeared to be taught in several chapters of the confession of faith, and also in the catechism. The difficulties, in their view, were insurmountable : still they were advanced to the ministry without being required to adopt the doctrinal standards of the
Collins, Vol. I. p. 433.
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THE CUMBERLAND PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.
church in this particular. These proceedings, as well as the licensure and ordination of what were called uneducated men, were very offensive to the more disciplined portion of the membership and ministry of the Presbyterian Church. The discussions were protracted through several years. The revival party considered themselves oppressed and wronged, and when there seemed no hope of redress, three of the revival ministers-who were also members of the Cumberland Presbytery, which had been constituted and then again dissolved by the Synod of Kentucky-determined to reconstitute the Cumberland Presbytery by their own authority, as ministers of the Presbyterian Church. It was a revolutionary measure, and of course the presbytery was an independent body. The presbytery was then constituted, on the 4th of February, 1810, by Samuel McAdoo, Finis Ewing, and Samuel King.
This briefly explains the origin of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church and also the name by which it is distinguished. The name of the presby- tery-which was entirely local and accidental-has adhered to the people. Within the limits of Kentucky are seven presbyteries. All these are included in one synod-the Synod of Kentucky. The membership num- bers about fifteen thousand.
The first camp-meeting mentioned in our history was in the year 1800, at the Gaspar river meeting-house, in Logan county. It was held by the promoters of the great revival of which the Cumberland Presbyterian Church was an outgrowth. The practice was continued for many years ; but as the country became settled, and the ministrations of the Gospel became more regular, and especially more abundant, the necessity which originated these large religious gatherings passed away and they ceased to be a useful alternative.
The theology of the Cumberland Church is conservative. It rejects the extremes of both Calvinism and Arminianism. Its doctrinal status is dis- tinctively defined. It has a confession of faith, and some theological formulas, which it receives as helps; but Cumberland Presbyterians reject the doctrine of predestination, as taught in the theological symbols of the Presbyterian Church, under the head of "The Decrees of God." It seemed to them to make too close an approach to the fatalistic theology. At the same time they received, as scriptural and full of comfort, the doctrine of "the final perseverance" of believers in faith and holiness. Thus the birth throes of this large and important body were amid the agitations and convulsions of the remarkable revival work of the first decade of the nine- teenth century, central in West Kentucky and Tennessee.
Laying aside the intense and rigid conservatism, and the restrictive dis- ciplinary jurisdiction of the venerable parent church, and moved with inspi- ration and missionary zeal, akin to that imparted to the following of Wes- ley and Whitefield in the evangelic Methodist reform, the Cumberland Pres- byterian body built up and increased, until, some few years since, they
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HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
claimed within the jurisdiction of their one synod and seven presbyteries, a membership of over fifteen thousand, almost wholly confined to the west- ern half of the State.
The Parent Presbyterian Church comes prominently to view again. In the period from 1840 until 1855 or '56, the harmony and unity of the body within was disturbed by what was known as the " New School Schism," and which had extended throughout the United States from 1838. In 1840 this defection began in Kentucky, at which time an adjourned convention, held in Lexington, resolving itself into a synod, assumed an independent stand, and soon after joined the New School Assembly. In 1846 it embraced three presbyteries-Harmony, Providence, and Green river-with fourteen ministers and twenty-one churches, besides nine hundred and fifty-four com- municants. From 1834 to 1854, a period of twenty years, statistics show that there was but little perceptible increase of membership, or material prosperity, in the Presbyterian Church in the State, the total membership ranging from eight thousand three hundred and seventy-eight in the former to eight thousand four hundred and sixty-five in the latter year. In 1855- 57, this New School controversy, which raged with much bitterness and .alienation among ministers and churches throughout the United States, was amicably settled, upon terms mutually agreeable, and the disaffected came back to the bosom of the old church.
1 The opening of the civil war in 1861, with all the passions of political and religious partyism stirred to their lowest depths, proved a baleful element of dissension and division in the Presbyterian Church in Kentucky. The General Assembly still held jurisdiction here, for the synod of the South had not withdrawn from it. The former body had initiated the practice of adopting resolutions upon the state of the country, thus inclining the highest court of the church to become a propagandist of political sentiment. In behalf of the element within the Confederate jurisdiction, and those in sym- pathy with them, Dr. Charles Hodge protested, urging that it was practically making a political question a standard of admission into the church. The Kentucky Synod of 1861 expressed its grave disapprobation of the action of the assembly as being repugnant to the word of God, as interpreted in the confession of faith. The act of the assembly was repeated from year to year ; and in 1864, the synod gave expression to its dissent in very posi- tive language. After the close of the great civil strife in 1865, the assembly undertook to discipline the conscience of the church into submission to the political dicta which had been repeatedly uttered pending the state of war, requiring :
First-The appointment of domestic missionaries to be made only on satisfactory evidence of their cordial sympathy with the assembly in her testimony on doctrine, loyalty, and freedom.
Second-All ministers from the Southern States applying for member- ship in any of the presbyteries, to be examined as to their participation in
I Collins, Vol. I .. D. 468.
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SEPARATION AMONG THE PRESBYTERIANS.
the rebellion, and their views on the subject of slavery; and before admis- sion, to confess their sin and forsake their error, if their action and views did not accord with the assembly's testimony.
Third-Ordering church sessions to examine all applicants for church membership from the Southern States, concerning their conduct and princi- ples on the points above specified, and to refuse them admission on the same ground.
Fourth-Requiring presbyteries to erase from their rolls, after the expira- tion of a certain time, any minister or ministers who may have fled or been sent by civil or military authority beyond the jurisdiction of the United States during the civil war, unless such give satisfactory evidence of repentance.
A protest was put forth to this, called a "declaration and testimony against the erroneous and heretical doctrines and practices which have ob- tained and been propagated in the Presbyterian Church in the United States in the last five years." This was signed by quite a number. In the synod at Louisville in 1865, an attempt was made to prevent the admission to seats of such signers, which was defeated by a vote of one hundred and seven to twenty-two. A resolution disapproving the act of the assembly was carried by a vote of seventy-six to twenty-two. In the assembly of 1866, at St. Louis, the delegate commissioners from Kentucky who had signed the "declaration and testimony " were excluded from their seats by the action of the body and summoned to appear before it at its next session. When the Kentucky Synod met at Henderson the same year, it ignored this order of the assembly, and openly, upon its records, refused to recognize the validity of its acts with reference to the protesting "declaration and testi- mony " signers. It then proceeded to appoint a committee on missions to raise money for their mission uses, to request its ministers to act as evangel- ists, and to express the desire and intent to co-operate with all churches and synods North and South who might disapprove of the proscriptive action of the assembly. At the meeting of the assembly in 1867, the commissioners of the synod and presbyteries so dissenting were again refused seats, and were declared to be "in no sense true and lawful synod and presbyteries in connection with, and under the care and authority of, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of the United States."
The termination of these dissensions and alienations was the separation of the declaration and testimony element in Kentucky and a union with the Southern Assembly, which met at Mobile in May, 1869. In 1871, there were reported seventy-eight ministers, one hundred and twenty-six churches, and seventy-six hundred members for the Southern Church in Kentucky. Naturally, the distinguishing title of .. Northern " and " Southern " attached to two bodies so separated upon purely sectional and political issues. Those who resisted the declaration and testimony protest and renunciation re- mained firm in their loyalty to the assembly. After the division of the synod at Henderson, in 1866, this party proceeded to the work of the reorgan- ization and perfection of its plans, in accord with the jurisdiction of the old
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CENTRAL UNIVERSITY BUILCINOS. RICHMOND. KY.
1
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SEPARATION AMONG THE PRESBYTERIANS.
assembly. An effort was made toward re-union, but in October, 1867, the loyal synod, meeting at Covington, expressed its "decided opposition to said union upon the basis proposed by the joint committee of the general assemblies of the two bodies, which is particularly objectionable." In 1871, the respective strength of this division of the church in Kentucky was reported at fifty ministers and fifty-seven hun- dred and twenty-one members. In this historic controversy, the loyal element was led by Dr. R. J. Breckinridge, Dr. E. P. Humphrey, and others, and the protesting party mainly by Drs. R. L. Breck, Stuart Robinson, S. R. Wilson, Gelon H. Rout, Thomas A. Bracken, and associates.
The contending sections of the great Presbyterian body had, after the heat of long controversy, alienated and con- gealed into two separate and distinct organizations, differing, it appears, not substantially in the doctrines and faith and forms of the old orthodox body, REV. T. A. BRACKEN, D. D. but irreconcilably upon an intrusive political animus and authority, a disturbing element in the denominational Troy of peace, utterly foreign to the nature and mission of the immaculate religion professed by all Christ's followers. The strife drifted into the courts, and of the angry and stubborn contentions that characterized the issues none attracted more attention within and without the church than the litigation over the question of com- mon or exclusive rights in the proprietorship and use of Centre College. The claims of the old assembly evidently taking precedence, the young and vigorous infant organization, just sprung from her vexed loins, at once, and with powerful energy, assumed all the functions of independent denomi- national existence, and prepared to meet its extensive wants. Chief among these wants was felt the need of a leading institution of learning.
Central University .- The rise of this young and vigorous institution to its present commanding position, within little more than a single decade of corporate existence, may be traced to the confluence of two movements, each of which was made in the interests of higher education in Kentucky. The first of these movements was an ecclesiastical one, and was the result of a conference of committees from the two synods of Kentucky, held in Lexington in November, 1870.
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