USA > South Carolina > Charleston County > Charleston > Two centuries of the First Baptist Church of South Carolina, 1683-1883. With supplement > Part 11
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minister who left his estate to the college that bears his name.
The theological department of the University was afterwards surrendered, to become the nu- cleus of the Southern Baptist Theological Sem- inary. That institution is an exotic in Ken- tucky; it was indigenous in South Carolina. Its present rich and beautiful growth is but the ex- panding of a seed-purpose in the mind and heart of the pastor of the First Baptist Church in this city by the sea.
Through the conjoint acting of the University and the Seminary, the anxious, prayerful thought and the pious giving which form a precious part of the history of the spot where we now stand, are having their blessed fruits. All these fruits we cannot enumerate, for we do not know them. Those which we do know, are too numerous to tell. Even of those which appertain to our own beloved Carolina time would fail us to speak. But is it not opportune to ask what reports do our pulpits make as now occupied by men faithfully and successfully preaching the glorious gospel of the blessed God? Of those who have drunk from the sources of sacred knowledge supplied in the old Institution, or the University, or the Semi- nary, sometimes from two of them, memory sup-
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plies the names of Adams, S., Anderson and Askew; of Bass, Bell, Bostick, Boynton, Brad- ford, Broaddus, L., Broaddus, M. E., Brown, S. M., Brown, C. C., Buist, J. F., and Bussey ; of Carter, Cartledge, Cooley, Covington, Croxton and Cut- tin, E. H .; of Donaldson, Entzminger and Ezell ; of Fant and Fuller; of Galphin and Gardner; of Hicks, Hickson, Hinton, Hudson and Hindley ; of Jeter, J. T., Jeter, C. F., and Key; of Lampley, Lide, T. P., Lide, R. W., and Lindsay ; Mahon, Mahoney, McCoy, Mellichamp, Miller, B. F .; of Pace, Parrott, A. W., Peeples, Pittman, Perry and Pratt; of Rice, W. D., and Richardson ; of San- ders, Scaife, Stiles and Stout; of Thomas, A. J. S., and Tolson ; of Vann and Vass ; of Whilden, B. W., Whilden, R. F., Wingo, Williams, G. F., and Williams, John G.
We might tell you of graduates of the Uni- versity filling professors' chairs and presidencies of colleges. We might remind you that the Darl- ington boy who lived to fill the presidency of Wake Forest College, whose very name has a sandal- wood fragrance in the memory of North Carolina Baptists, of whom Dr. Pritchard said he was the best man he had ever known, the lamented Dr. Wingate, was the first graduate of the Theological Department of Furman University. We might
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remind you that one of the professors in the magnificent Johns Hopkins University is a recent A.M. of the collegiate department of our Univer- sity. We might remind you that North Caro- lina's "beloved disciple," Dr. John Mitchell, once pursued his studies within the same walls ; as also Dr. Mays, who has eloquently pleaded the cause of education in Tennessee. Through the educa- tional advantages which this Church may be said to have originated, you may be said to have given Easton to North Carolina, and E. C. Dargan to Virginia, and Dixon to Baltimore, and Forrester to Alabama, and Pugh to Mississippi, and Lamar to Tennessee, and Pruitt and Hartwell to the mil- lions of China.
I would spare your weary feet the toil of another ascent in order to take one more view of the sacred past ; but justice to the occasion demands that I draw upon your attention a moment more. It is not generally known that the wide-spread interest in denominational education which shows itself now among our brethren of the North had a Southern origin. But it is so, nevertheless. There was no Newton, no Rochester, no Hamil- ton in 1814 when the missionary convention was held in Philadelphia. That meeting was brought about by the remarkable providence of Judson
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and Rice becoming changed in their views of baptism, on their way to a field of missionary labor. When the Convention had met and com- pleted their work, either at that meeting or the subsequent one, the president was asked to address their assembled delegates on a subject which he held to be one of vital importance. From a heart surcharged with concern on the subject of educa- tion, especially that of the rising ministry, he made an address the effect of which was powerful and instantaneous. From that day a great idea was born in the Baptist public mind.
Under the influence of this idea, Luther Rice, with an ardor and impetuousness which were characteristic of him, became enthusiastic with a belief in the practicability of the early establish- ment of some grander scheme than the central Theological Institution which had been proposed by the real author of the idea. He was for laying at once the foundations on a larger scale, and was impatient at the delay which the cooler and more comprehensive judgment of Dr. Furman saw to be necessary. Other men, under Luther Rice's magnetic influence, caught his ardor. Things were carried by them their own way; contracts were made without adequate means to meet them ; and a mill-stone of debt was fastened upon
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the neck of the young enterprise, and, as a conse- quence, Mr. Rice, instead of returning to Burmah to his grieved and disappointed co-laborers, Mr. and Mrs. Judson, became a life-long mendicant for the Columbian College, which was scarcely kept from sinking, even with the assistance of such men as Dr. Semple, and A. W. Clopton, and Eli Ball, and Adiel Sherwood, and A. W. Poindexter, who in turn exerted themselves as agents to keep the college in existence. What the original purpose, if carried out, would have accomplished, may be inferred from the character of three young men, Rollin H. Neale, Baron Stow and James D. Knowles, who became students at Washington. Knowles you all recognize as the biographer of Mrs. Ann Hasseltine Judson, as the first editor of the Christian Review, and as a beloved pro- fessor in Newton Theological Institution. Stow and Neale subsequently filled long and very use- ful pastorates in Boston. During his connection with the college as a student, and for some years afterwards, Baron Stow edited The Columbian Star. This paper was transferred to Philadelphia and was edited by the elder Dr. W. T. Brantly, in whose hands it became, in process of time, The Christian Index.
Dr. Furman and his intimate friend, Judge
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Talmage, of New York, concurred most fully in judgment as to the want of wisdom in what had been done through the inconsiderate zeal of Mr. Rice and his abettors. They thought that he ought to have returned to his mission labor. Cer- tain it is that the educational work to which he allowed himself to be diverted could have been more prudently and in the end more efficiently done in other hands. Mr. Rice, himself, would have been saved from a large amount of blame, which must have rendered many years of his life a season of disquietude and anxiety, growing out of the fact that his course was disapproved by many wise and good men, and because it seemed necessary, by excessive labors and self-denials, to repair the damage which a great cause had suf- fered by mismanagement. Luther Rice was a good man, highly gifted, full of noble impulses, courageous and self-reliant; but he was not a financier. The favor which he had found in pleading the cause of missions misled him into a false confidence that all needed funds would be afforded for completing the enterprise which he had allowed to engross his own interest. Its best friends saw otherwise. They foresaw the difficul- ties which were sure to ensue upon lavish expen- ditures resting upon very little basis beside san-
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guine expectations of future contribution. With the best intentions, Mr. Rice assumed functions that did not belong to him. Brethren at the North withdrew their sympathy and directed their thoughts and contributions toward other projects. When Dr. Staughton, president of the College, was in Charleston on a visit to the South in be- half of the College, he received a letter from his son, Dr. James Staughton, passionately urging him to throw up his office, "to abandon the wreck and take the . life-boat," the doctor, in an agony of distress, wrung his hands and exclaimed : "Oh, that I had seen things as your father saw them!"
These statements in regard to what we may call the Baptist educational history of the period are offered because they are due to truth. They are in harmony with the allusion to the subject in the Address of Dr. S. S. Cutting made before the gathering of educators assembled in Philadel- phia more than ten years ago. They are not ascribable to any desire to detract from the honor paid to the memory of Luther Rice. While Dr. Furman, whose direct labor and influence gave the start to the educational movement which makes this the most remarkable era in our denomina- tional history, looked with disapprobation and pain upon Mr. Rice's operations in this direction, we are not aware that he ever impugned his motives.
FURMAN UNIVERSITY.
REPORT OF TRUSTEES. -
ADDRESS BY J. L. M. CURRY.
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TRUSTEES' REPORT AND DR. CURRY'S ADDRESS.
T HE history of Furman University being in- timately associated with the "Old First Church," and the discussion of the Report of its Trustees being an interesting feature of the ses- sion of the Convention with which the Bi-Cente- nary of the Church was held, the following notice, taken from the News and Courier, seems to find appropriate insertion here :
An immense congregation filled the Citadel Square Church last night [November 23d] to hear the Report of the Board of Trustees of Fur- man University. The exercises were opened with " prayer by the Rev. S. M. Richardson.
The Report of the Trustees was submitted by the Rev. John Stout, as follows :
The Board of Trustees of Furman University, in presenting to this body a report concerning the work, condition and prospects of the Institution, as directed by the last Convention, submit the
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following information received from reports of the President and the Treasurer :
The exercises of the present session were begun the 19th of September, and are now in successful operation. It is gratifying to note the progress made under the arrangements instituted a little more than two years ago, when the very existence of the Institution seemed to be seriously threat- ened. During the first session, closing in June, 1882, fifty students were present for instruction, ·some of whom were in studies preparatory to those required for entrance into college classes, but were taught by college professors, assisted by one of the students. The following session eighty- eight students were enrolled, and the Academic Department was organized, with Mr. Walter W. Brown, one of the Alumni, as Principal. With this department in efficient operation, as it now is, provision is made for giving just such instruction "as the student actually requires, without yielding to the tendency, consequent upon imperfect prep- aration of applicants for admission into college classes, to lower the standard of scholarship de- manded for entrance therein. During this session, also, there were added to the Museum and Cab- inets of the University more than four hundred specimens of fossils and minerals; several valu-
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able archaeological curiosities from Asia and Amer- ica; more than one hundred mounted and pre- served zoological specimens ; a fine microscope, a valuable chemical balance, a surveyor's transit instrument, and other extensive and substantial acquisitions to the laboratories of Physics and Chemistry. The special thanks of the University are due to Mr. C. A. Scanlan, of Charleston, for a valuable collection of Post-Pleiocene fossils of the State, and for corals and recent shells ; to Rev. T. P. Bell, of Anderson, for a set of minerals; to Miss Lula Whilden, for ancient Chinese coins ; and to Miss Carrie Howell, of Greenville County, for a fine specimen of mica crystal. It is hoped that other friends of the Institution will aid in con- tributions of a similar kind. It may be added that the officer in charge of this department is at pres- ent endeavoring to make arrangements for per- sonal investigation of the mineral and other eco- nomical resources of the State, which may enure to the advantages of the public as well as of the Institution.
The number of students now present at the University justifies the expectation that, with the usual additions at the beginning of the spring term, the catalogue will show a material increase over the last session. It is a circumstance to which
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special attention is called, that of the seventy-five students now in the Institution, twenty-three are looking to engaging in the work of the Gospel ministry. In view of the call, all over our State, for more ministers, and especially for men of trained and cultured minds as well as of piety, this proportion of ministerial students is pecu- liarly gratifying, and ought to stimulate our peo- ple to make abundant provision for their most ef- fective collegiate preparation for their work.
The President has been engaged, each year, for about one-third of the session, in visiting the Associations, particularly for the purpose of awakening interest in the Institution as well as se- curing contributions for current support. While both these objects have been secured to a very gratifying extent, it is for the Board to determine whether in view of all the interests concerned, this work should be continued longer.
Since the opening of the session, September, 1881, when the Board directed the abandonment of free tuition, there has been gradual improve- ment in the financial condition of the University, which would have been still more marked but that the practical failure of the bond-endowment left the Board several thousands of dollars in debt to the Professors for salaries pledged on the
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faith of the endowment. This indebtedness has been paid within about $800, and the current ex- penses to July last have been met by income le- gitimately available for current expenses.
In view of the fact that most of the Professors are working upon very low salaries, some of which will need to be increased very soon, and in view of the importance of relieving the Presi- dent from so constant visiting of Associations, as heretofore, it is manifest that the Baptists of this State should look to an early increase of the present endowment.
There are now of invested funds, for endow- ment, only about $22,000. This should be in- creased to at least $50,000 within the next five years,-not that this amount would be adequate to the needs of such an institution as the Baptists of South Carolina should have, as their represen- tative in the work of higher education, but that it would provide for the necessary expenses of our present plan of operations.
The following resolutions adopted by the trus- tees embody the results of their deliberations as to the course to be pursued to secure the proper financial support of the University :
Resolved, I. That the President of the Univer- sity be instructed to continue during the coming
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year to solicit contributions from the churches for current support.
2. That the President be instructed to secure, wherever practicable, contributions to the endow- ment fund of the University.
3. That the President be authorized to engage twenty brethren to assist him voluntarily in se- curing during the year 1884 an addition of $10,- 000 to the permanent endowment.
T. P. SMITH, President.
G. G. WELLS, Secretary.
Dr. Charles Manly, president of the institu- tion, was then introduced, commenting upon the report and closing with an earnest appeal to the Baptists of the State to give the university a more liberal support.
The address of the Hon. J. L. M. Curry, of Virginia, said the News and Courier of Novem- ber 24th, was the feature of the evening. It was a powerful plea for education-broad, liberal, Christian education, the education of mind, and heart, and character-its effects upon society, the church and the world, and the individual respon- sibility resting upon every man and woman to improve the talents and opportunities bestowed upon them and the obligations especially devolv-
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ing upon Christians to see to it that their chil- dren shall enjoy all the advantages of education. There is no instance, he said, in the history of governments of anything approaching universal education unless it has been at the cost and un- der the control of the governments. The test and the power of a denomination's success and a denomination's prosperity is the intelligence and culture of the membership of the denomina- tion. We are under obligation to utilize our large membership in pushing forward the king- dom of Christ. There are five times as many Baptists in South Carolina as there are arrayed under any other denominational banner with the exception of the Methodist. These people are all members of the Baptist Church by their own voluntary and deliberate choice. Every man and woman who is a Christian is under obligation to improve his or her intellect, and to do what he or she can to improve the condition and to increase the happiness of those with whom they come in contact or with whom they are associated. The world is controlled by thought. Christ is called the Word of God. That means that he is the impersonation of the thought of God. It is thought and idea that control the world. The writings of Bunyan and Spurgeon, two Baptists,
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are more widely distributed and more largely read than any other two men that have ever lived. This is what gives to a denomination power and influence. The power of thought and the influence of mind have given South Carolina her glory, which neither war nor revolution, nor political convulsions can ever dim or destroy. The man who feels that he is called to the minis- try must study the Bible, but the laity should also have their minds fully trained. If Christianity means ignorance and darkness and superstitious fear, then Christianity is not divine. It imposes upon all who pretend to follow its teachings the fullest culture of all their faculties. Every one should be educated-preacher and layman, man, woman and child, mechanic and merchant-all should have their talents so improved that they can be of the greatest usefulness to the world and humanity.
Dr. Curry spoke for nearly two hours. He concluded with a powerful appeal to the Baptists of South Carolina to support Furman Univer- sity by the endowment of scholarships, of profes- sors' chairs, of fellowships and by a general en- dowment, so that it might enter upon a larger field of usefulness and bestow the blessings of Christian education upon many generations yet
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to come. The speech was a magnificent effort- it could not have been otherwise coming from so distinguished an advocate of education as the eloquent and gifted orator.
The convention was then adjourned, with prayer by the Rev. John Stout, until half-past ten o'clock this morning.
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HISTORY
OF THE
SUNDAY-SCHOOLS OF THE CHURCH.
BY OLIVER F. GREGORY. .
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HISTORY OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL.
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T HERE is much to be gained by pausing sometimes in our eager, rushing life and calmly looking back upon the way our Lord has led us. "He hath been mindful of us," is the assurance that our faithful, unchangeable God " will bless us." Again and again do we find the admonition in earlier Old Testament history : " Thou shalt remember." Historic memories are a people's life, a marvelous bond of strength and unity which never fails.
All history, rightly considered, is sacred his- tory; and as we review the two hundred event- ful years of the life of this dear old mother, we are constrained to cry : If God is anywhere, he is here ; if his providence has been over any people, it has been over this church.
This Sunday-school has been helping to make the history of the First Baptist Church, and it is for the boys and girls of this generation, if rightly instructed, to make it even more glorious in the future, when the sacred trust shall come into their
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hands, than it is now. The God of our fathers is our God. * * * *
'Tis an easy task to place one's finger on the old records of this church and say that in July, 1816, this Sunday-school had its origin ; but there is an unwritten history-for the idea was embod- ied in the articles of faith-of the body of bap- tized believers who set sail from Kittery, Me., to begin their labors as a church at Summerton in 1683, and afterward at Oyster-point, now the Old First Baptist Church of Charleston, S. C. * *
It is generally said that Robert Raikes founded the first Sunday-school in 1781, nearly a century after this church was planted; but the truth is, that two hundred years before Raikes, and one hundred years before this church began, St. Charles Borromeo, archbishop of Milan, had Sun- day-schools in his diocese. They were also found in Scotland in 1560. While in the United States, Sunday-schools were founded in Plymouth, Mass., in 1680; in Savannah, Ga., in 1737; in Bethle- hem, Conn., 1740, and in Ephrata, Pa., in 1740; all before Raikes' schools began. *
In the task assigned to me I have been largely dependent upon tradition, and am indebted to Mrs. Tristram Tupper, Sr., Mrs. Sarah Howe and my own mother for valuable reminiscences ;
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also to Brother T. S. Nipson for his Fifty-fourth Anniversary Report, and to the very full Record of the School from 1831 to 1835, inclusive. I shall not attempt to give any statistics of the school, as the records have been very imperfectly kept, but rather a rapid glance over the history of the school, with some interesting reminiscences that have come to my knowledge. There can be but little unity in my address; but I trust it will have at least the virtue of brevity. *
During the pastorate of Dr. Richard Furman there was no Sunday-school; but the training of the children was not neglected. Every quarter the children were assembled around the "Font,"* about eighty to one hundred in number, the girls standing here on the south side, and the boys on the north side; the revered and beloved pastor stood on the covered font, robed in the black scholar's gown, and with Keach's Baptist Cate- chism in his hand. There is present to-day onet who, as a child, recited then, and whose children and children's children have been found among the workers of this church, and are numbered among them to this day.
Every Baptist in those days knew not only
* This is what the Baptistery was always called.
t Mrs. T. Tupper, Sr.
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whom, but what he believed, and was ready to give a scriptural reason for his faith. Questions were asked and answered on the Doctrines of Justification, Adoption and Sanctification, and on Baptism and the Lord's Supper, and their mutual relation. Every child was expected to speak aud- ibly, so that the response might be heard not only by the pastor, but by the vast congregation of parents and adults who filled these pews on these "catechising occasions." If the scholar did not speak clearly, he was told at once: "Speak a little louder, my child !"
One of the then little ones of six or seven re- members Dr. Basil Manly, Sr., putting his hand on her head, and praying that " Jesus, who loved little children, would take her in his arms, and bless her;" and she distinctly remembers how bitterly disappointed she was that Jesus did not do it, then and there.
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Prior to 1816 the Presbyterian, Methodist and Baptist Churches had a Union Sunday-school which met in the Circular Church; but as the school grew, each denomination began its own school.
This school is now sixty-seven years old, having been organized July, 1816, in the school-room of
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Mr. Wood Furman, on Church Street. The first superintendent was Mr. R. Misseldine (the father of the present pastor of the Circular Church). Afterwards the school met in the Baptist (now Mariners') Church ; thence it was removed to the present house of worship, and continued to meet in the church until 1841, when the lecture-room was built, and since that date has had its home there. Bro. R. F. Reynolds, the brother of Rev. J. L. Reynolds, D.D., was superintendent then. There was an infant class in 1831, taught by Mrs. Roger Heriot, which was kept up with some in- terruptions until 1855. During Dr. Winkler's pastorate, about 1858, the infant class was reor- ganized, and found a permanent home in the south vestry-room of the church. It has had but two teachers-Miss Kate Tupper and her niece, Miss Eliza Hyde, the present efficient teacher.
In 1832 James C. Furman, a pupil of this school, and Isaac Nichols, a teacher, were ordained to the work of the Gospel ministry. In the evening of the same day Thomas Symonds, a former teacher and superintendent, was set apart as a missionary to Burmah. The records show that then, fifty-one years ago, this school was supporting a Burmese child, which appears to have been the old way of contributing to Foreign Missions.
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