USA > South Carolina > Charleston County > Charleston > Two centuries of the First Baptist Church of South Carolina, 1683-1883. With supplement > Part 9
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fluence of this broad-minded and orthodox mother church ?
3. And what effluence has gone out of this church-colonization innovation? Not only have four white churches come out of this church, but the church has come out of herself and put her- self abreast of all our denominational and pro- gressive works. And I venture the prediction that no church will appreciate more highly than this the grand work recently inaugurated by our Home Board for giving a house of worship to every houseless family of baptized believers in the territory of the Southern Baptist Convention. And when the chronicles of time shall be inter- preted in the light of eternity, it may be discov- ered that the secret of South Carolina being the great harvest-field for missions is the missionary germ embedded deep in the heart of the Old First Church.
During this pastorate the reported statistics are as follows: $1,654.86 for benevolence; 442 received into the church; 1,461, the total mem- bership.
But the impress that Dr. Brantly made on this church can be appreciated only by a just estimate of the man himself.
An aged Englishman, who had been a member
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of the church in Bristol, England, told me in my youth that Dr. Brantly reminded him greatly of Robert Hall. Dr. Fuller said that his character- istics were grandeur of conception and reverence for divine revelation. Dr. Brantly, Jr., said, that the staple of his father's preaching was the power of his life-Christ. Dr. Manly said: "He seemed ever to come fresh from communion with his Saviour, mellowed and enriched by hours of prayerful seclusion." And he described him com- ing out of the pulpit, on one occasion, when the whole congregation rushed toward him, many falling on their knees and imploring his prayers, while the great tears coursed down his manly cheeks. And adds the Doctor: "I must regard him the most uniformly engaging, instructive and inspiring preacher that it has ever been my good fortune to hear." Dr. Cathcart says: " His ora- tory was overwhelming."
Dr. Sprague, referring in his Annals to some of his printed productions, says: "They were read and re-read, and laid up among the selectest treasures of memory. It remains for the day that shall reveal hidden things to show what multi- tudes of young persons in the United States re- ceived the tone of their intellectual and Christian character from these inspiring productions." Dr.
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Fuller summarizes thus : "Whose mind was more various, and more richly impregnated with knowl- edge? Whose judgment more ripe, and whose views more just and profound? Who ever con- secrated all his powers more energetically to 'the great battle of life?' In whose breast was piety a more deep and pervading and fruitful principle ? Whose heart was more open to melting charity? Whose spirit came forth from communion with the word more girt for the Master's will? In all his life what courage ! What fortitude ! What sub- mission to the will of God ! What a monopolizing desire to be faithful in duty ! He was, indeed, a noble specimen of a man and a Christian min- : ister !"
Who can tell the stimulant of such a man to the mind and heart of this people? Who can measure the intellectual and moral force in a church, a city, a country, in the world ?
As in a chariot of fire he was taken to Heaven, and none of us that heard it will ever forget Dr. Fuller's superlative eulogy of him as the imper- sonation of "intrepid faith." Many an heart cried out that night with the eloquent orator, "My father, my father, the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof !"
III. The next pastor was Dr. Nathaniel .Macon
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Crawford, whose pastorate from 1845 to 1847 may be called "The Revival Pastorate " of this period.
In great candor I must say that this Church did not know Dr. Crawford. Others associated with him elsewhere did not know him. An inti- mate friend of his for fifteen years says: "He overspread his position with a broad margin. He was not inclined to unnecessary display. And hence while he was recognized in a general way as a man of power, the people had no idea of the extent of that power."
The extreme simplicity of his manner was mis- leading to many. But it was the simplicity of an humble, guileless, truthful, Christ-like nature, full of the unconsciousness of its own excellence. Dr. Shaver writes of him: "The chief charm of our intercourse was not his singular balance and poise of intellect, nor the thorough learning that gave him the tread of a master in every field of inquiry, nor the strong, ripe judgment which had wrestled prevailingly with all problems of ethics and theology-it was the equable temper, the dis- passionate spirit, the transparent sincerity, the stainless sense of honor, the gentle affectionate- ness breathing through his utterances from first to last. More than almost any whom we have known he withheld no word which Christian can-
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dor demanded, and spoke no word which Chris- tian charity forbade. Like that queenliest of graces, true greatness 'vaunteth not itself;' and he was clothed upon with humility, with freedom from pretension, with child-likeness as with a gar- ment."
The easy and quiet way that he accomplished his ministry made the impression sometimes that he was not a man of labor. But he worked rap- idly, seeing difficulties quickly and overcoming them readily ; and he said nothing as to how he did his work. Dr. Church, for thirty years the president of the University of Georgia, from which Mr. Crawford was graduated at eighteen at the head of a class in which were men who in their future positions had few if any superiors, said that "he had never known a student who possessed such remarkable powers for the acquisition of knowledge." His preaching was animated talk- ing; but it was talking animated by not only the love of Christ, but by the thinking of a man who filled the chair of Moral Science in one University, and of Theology in two others, over which he presided as president, and of whom a brother president said: "He was a man of surpassing talents and wonderful attainments. He was, in the true sense of the word, a genius. ... Take
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him, all in all, Dr. Crawford was perhaps the most learned man the State of Georgia has ever pro- duced."
Such was the man, who for two years brought, in a simple, unostentatious way, the powers of his grand mind and grander spirit to bear on the in- terests of this church. And God honored his day, by such an outpouring of the Holy Spirit, under the preaching of Dr. Fuller, as the church and the city had never witnessed. In a few weeks 327 joined the two Baptist Churches, and quite 500 souls were brought to Christ. For two years a daily sunrise meeting was held by the converts, which only ceased because all of the leaders entered the ministry. The two years seemed to us as a day, and a day that eternity will not blot from memory! Among the fruits of this revival was such a spiritual unification of the two churches that the Charleston Association put in immortal type its congratulations on the joy- ous event. This pastorate was crowned with glory !
But though Dr. Crawford was one of the meekest of men, he was the firmest and the most self-contained man I ever knew. For many years I was associated with him in Georgia in several relations which gave rise to occasions
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that tried him to the utmost. And I watched with intense interest the man under whose pas- torate I joined the church, who was my counsel- lor in dark days of spiritual struggle, and who had preceded me in the charge of the church which I served as pastor for twenty years. I used to say that Dr. Crawford would not stir from a position conscientiously taken though the heavens were to tumble down about him. Dr. Tucker said: "He was always so controlled by his moral sense, that his poise was like a plan- et's." His fortiter in re was discovered in Charleston.
The lessons of this pastorate were: First, that the great thing in a church is not Paul or Cephas, but Christ; and, secondly, that the only hope of a united and prosperous and powerful Baptist de- nomination is a regenerated membership in the independent churches, living under a sense of the abiding Spirit of God.
During this pastorate the church reported members received 288-being a net gain of 234 members.
It should be added that Dr. Crawford was reared a Presbyterian, and he became a Baptist in studying, in reference to his infant child, the question of baptism, while he was a professor in
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Oglethorpe College. He was led into the more perfect way of the Lord by the New Testament, as Apollos, the man eloquent and mighty in the scriptures, was led by the doctrine of Aquila and Priscilla. He wrote an admirable little book on " The Baptism of Jesus," and his "Christian Para- doxes " is a work characteristic of one, of whom a sagacious friend says : "His whole character was a wonderful blending of the strongest anti- theses of grace."
In his life I could have said to him, as A. Bronson Alcott said to Emerson : " Misfortune to have lived not knowing thee!"
And, at his death, this church might have been asked: "Knowest thou not that there is a prince and a great man that has fallen this day in Is- rael?"
I esteem it an honor to have walked on the same globe with such a man as Nathaniel Macon Craw- ford.
IV. James Ryland Kendrick, D.D., was pastor from 1847 to 1854, and his was the " Prosperous Pastorate " of this period.
But I should state that between the pastorates of Dr. Crawford and Dr. Kendrick the church was supplied by the Rev. Timothy G. Freeman, of New York. As little about him seems to be
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remembered, let me give an item or two of per- sonal reminiscence.
I. I was not licensed until the time of Dr. Kendrick; but speaking in the lecture-room for Mr. Freeman and sitting down no little abashed, the good man said to me: "Remember that all the people are not theologians."
The last sad offices for one dearer to me than life were performed here by this man of God, who impressed himself upon my heart gratefully and indelibly, as one possessed of the spirit of the Great Comforter.
Dr. Hawthorne, of Richmond, who was pastor of the Tabernacle Church of New York City, to which Mr. Freeman belonged until his death, several years ago, says : " He was a thoroughly good man." Dr. Kendrick writes: "I knew him well. He was a worthy man and a good, solid preacher."
2. If I am asked why I call Dr. Kendrick's pas- torate the prosperous one of this period, I reply, because it contained all the elements of high church prosperity : (1) Perfect harmony prevailed from the beginning to the end of the pastorate. (2) A number of gracious revivals were enjoyed. (3) In the membership were some of the ablest and wisest men of the State. (4) Noble women 12
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adorned the church by their intelligent activity and saintly character. (5) The Sunday-school was vigorous, and the negroes were instructed intelligently, systematically and with rare conse- cration. (6) The building was renovated, and the old laws and by-laws of the church were revised and improved. (7) The Southern Baptist Theo- logical Seminary not existing, the licentiates at- tended the best institutions of learning at the North. (8) Two churches were born of the mother, without a pang of discord. (9) The lib- erality of some was called "phenomenal " by the pastor, and even mildly censured as excessive by others. (10) The church was full of spirit, the music was the admiration of the city, and works abounded not only for itself, but for the general good-the temperance cause, for instance, receiv- ing powerful and eloquent support. (11) The pastor was the most polished and popular man of the Charleston pulpit, yet not more elegant than evangelical; not seeking the praise of men more than the.praise of God. He seemed to make the best possible use of his own powers for the Master's use, and with a rare power of ruling without seeming to rule, he so commanded the forces around him that the church was like an army in the thick of field action. (12) I am
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aware that many of these elements-persons and activities-marked other pastorates, but there was a singular combination of them all in this pastorate.
3. One thoroughly versed in this time says : " I think that this was a period of unbroken pros- perity for the church. It was strong when Dr. Kendrick assumed the pastoral office, and strong- er when he laid it down. The congregations were large, the finances flourishing and the spir- itual tone high and earnest. Charleston was at its best, and the First Church was all that a pas- tor could wish. Dr. Kendrick was surrounded and sustained by some of the noblest men and women that God ever called into his service."
4. In his farewell serman, when the Citadel Square Church was organized, Dr. Kendrick said to his people : " Call to mind the fact that to-day, after having sustained the loss which you deplore, you are stronger than you ever were at any period of your history-stronger in numbers, probably in judicious counsellors and pecuniary means. . .. After having given off three churches, you are in fact to-day a more powerful body than you were before you had colonized at all."
5. During this pastorate (exclusive of large do- nations for church building and improvement)
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$3,646,28 was given for benevolence. The net gain of members was 202, and the whole mem- bership 1912.
6. On the noble men and women that held up his hands, as they did those of other pastors, Dr. Kendrick has pronounced a grand eulogium. But a grander memorial was the imperishable works wrought by their wisdom and liberality for God, works whose broadness and graciousness find in the sister Baptist church of this city, composed as it is of elements from all the colonies of this church, and worshipping in a spacious edifice of exquisite symmetry and beauty, a fitting symbol. Around that church cluster hallowed memories of church organizations passed away, and of noble men of God who presided over them, as well as the heroic band of founders of the church, and prominent among the names and deeds embalmed in loving memory must be those of the first pas- tor of that church, and the only surviving pastor of the ante-bellum history of this church, James Ryland Kendrick. With mild praise a biographer says of him : "He is a noble-minded, generous man, of cordial manners, commanding person and devout spirit, and a good preacher." I only add : May the days of his years be many on the earth, and when called to share the glory of Furman
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and Manly, and Brantly and Crawford, and now of the lofty Winkler, let his appropriate epitaph be the most honorable that can be written of man : " A. good minister of Jesus Christ."
V. Dr. Brantly having died and been buried in Augusta, Ga., where his son presided over the church founded by the father, the eyes of this church were fixed on that State, and that fact probably started the train of providential circum- stances by which, in return for that sacred dust, Georgia contributed three consecutive pastors, Drs. Crawford and Kendrick and the now la- mented Dr. Edwin Theodore Winkler, who served the church from 1854 to 1868, and whose pas- torate I shall call the "Culminating Pastorate" of this period.
Dr. Winkler had been a resident of Charleston for two years as the secretary of the Southern Baptist Publication Society and editor of the Southern Baptist, and being known as a man of lofty character, scholarly instincts, wide literary and scholastic attainments and splendid pulpit powers, he seemed just the man demanded by this pulpit, in view of its illustrious antecedents. There was a manliness also in the man which adapted him even better than was known to the coming wants of the Church which was to share
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so thoroughly the war-destiny of the City, the State and the South. And this suggests that as a defender of our denominational tenets and an opponent of ecclesiastical error, Dr. Winkler, with pen and tongue, has had no superior in this Church or in the South. When Dr. Manly came to Charleston a distinguished Judge said that some people thought that they would run over him rough-shod; but when Dr. Winkler took charge of the Baptist press and pulpit some peo- ple feared that he would run over them, in the same way. Pardon this, but it illustrates the change that had taken place here in the position and power of the Baptist cause. Our cause had always been ably represented, but now it was represented by a preacher and a polemic, born in an heroic mold, and equal to any opponent, with any weapon, in any arena, meet for the good fight of faith. Dr. Cathcart significantly says : "Dr. Winkler is always ready, which makes him one of the best and safest speakers in the whole country. His grandfather was a distinguished officer under General Marion in the Revolution- ary war." The blood of the grandsire coursed through the veins of the grandson, whose martial and magnificent spirit was thoroughly consecrated to the Great Captain of our Salvation. And no
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citizen of Charleston was more highly and more generally honored as a man of varied learning, of stainless honor, of princely bearing, of quenchless love of truth and right and God's glory than Dr. Winkler ; and by his rare combination of powers, and the grace of God, he lifted up the Church high before the eyes of the people. The men of letters and science, whom he thrilled in the Lit- erary Club, could not fail to come and listen to his more thrilling utterances of the Sanctuary. The Church was on high ground of social favor, and fully sustained its past record for spiritual power. In six years 212 persons were admitted to the church, $2,557 was reported for benevo- lence, and in 1860 the membership was 1,926. That compared favorably with the thirty-four years pre- ceding, during which $12,351 was given to be- nevolence, 2,394 were admitted to the church, and 3,173 had been connected with the membership.
Plutarch said that in the olden time man was called por because he sought and disseminated knowledge. Surely this was a man of light, and the light that he drew from earth and from heaven he shed upon God's people to make them more truly " the light of the world." The first half of Dr. Winkler's pastorate was the Augustine era of the church's history.
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But the glory set at noonday. Charleston be- came a target for the fury of war. The heart of the Church enlisted in the cause as the heart of one man. The young men took the field ; the old men guarded the city ; the women cheered their brothers, sons and husbands, and prayed to the God of Battles. The pastor joined the camps to do a patriot's part and to keep unfurled the ban- ner whose cause is never lost. The storm of fury beat upon the very house of God. A shell ex- ploding in this room shattered the organ, tore down the mural tablet of Dr. Furman, and shiv- ering the grave-stone, buried itself in the resting- place of " the man of God." Was the arm of the Almighty against this people ? Did this explosion mean that the voice of praise was to cease here, and that the memories of the place were to be blotted out? So scattered and impoverished was the membership at the close of the war that the proposition was made to disband the church and to tear down, for the value of the material, this Temple of God, esteemed by the city as its purest specimen of Grecian architecture, and cherished by the church for the hallowed associations of two hundred years. The proposition went like a sword to the heart of many. I know the agony of one -one representing the many-one who had held
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the hand and received the blessings of the dying Furman, and commemorated his translation by a worthy funeral ode-one whose father lies beneath this desk, and five generations of whose flesh and blood have worshipped within these walls, all res- onant with the echoes of departed wisdom and eloquence, and redolent with the memories of the ineffable joys and sorrows of the saints-of one to whom the demolition of this house would be as the destruction of the Altar and Temple of Jeru- salem to the captive Jew, weeping and hanging his harp upon the gray, osier-lined bank of the Eu- phrates, while he vowed: "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem ! if I remember thee not above my chief joy!"
The house was not demolished. But the war had gone over the church as the glacial drifts went over the earth, grinding down the prominent fea- tures and covering all too refractory for the tritu- rating process with the striæe and furrows of the fearful arrosion of power. Though scarred by the times, Dr. Winkler stood never more erect in the granite greatness of his character. Like a great general, he made new combinations for the Baptists of the city-serving them all until 1868, and the consolidated Citadel Square Church until 1871, when he retired to Alabama, whence, crowned
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with laurels won on many fields of honorable and sacred contest, and covered with plaudits and the benedictions of the Baptist brotherhood of the world, he went forth to those "laurel-girt battal- ions and safe, victorious folds " of Jerusalem the Golden, with the tread of faith and the eye of hope of that brother-hero who said: "I have fought a good fight ; I have finished my course ; I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the Right- eous Judge, shall give me at that day ; and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his ap- pearing."
Dr. Winkler was the Chevalier Bayard of this church : Sans peur et sans reproche.
VII. But I cannot take my seat without a word with regard to the new and " Recuperative Period" that has dawned on the church.
I thank God for the brave Williams who struck here in the Master's cause blows worthy of the days of Brantly, and whose planting in the " In- dustrial Society " bore good fruitage in subsequent activities of the church. God crowned his bless- ings by the gift of one of the fair daughters of this church.
I thank God for the manly-like Shuck, whose faith and consecration, displayed in the organiza-
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tion, in the midst of the needs of his own people, of three associations for the benefit of others, was honored of God by the gift of 145 souls to the church, and whose singleness of purpose might be justly voiced in the apostolic self-gratulation : "Our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our con- science that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our conversation in the world, and more abundantly to youward."
I thank God for the enterprising Thomas, who bears well the name of Andrew Jackson. More than one preacher have I seen fail in attempting to take down that old pulpit, and I thought that the man that succeeded would be, Samson-like, buried beneath the work of his own hand. But our brother lives to prove that he who pulls down may build up! And may he build up, inspired by the works and the worthies of the past-inspired by the grand rank and file of the church, among whom have been eloquent advocates, learned judges, skillful physicians, eminent business men, consecrating their talents to the Lord, and above all, humble servants of the Master, who were very saints on earth ; inspired by the virtues of the many virtuous officers of the church, the attentive sex- tons, the laborious clerks, the careful treasurers,
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the earnest Sunday-school teachers and superin- tendents, the devout and wise deacons, the honor- able men that have been presidents of the corpo- ration, and the gifted musicians that have led the congregation in the praises of God; and inspired by the superb women whose labors of love are the unwritten epics of this church, and prominent among them pastors' wives, some of them now living, who have reflected as pure light as Heaven ever shed on earth to guide the footsteps of man and to adorn the Courts of our God! And may he seek for himself the best gifts of these worth- ies, as well as of the fifty-three ministers that have been connected with the church, and among these gifts may he have the piety of a Furman, the pol- ish of a Kendrick, the poise of a Crawford and the power of Winkler! May he prove himself the Nehemiah of this period of the church's history!
And may this venerable Mother Church, mel- lowed in beauty by the experience of two cen- turies, as the glory of the forest is softened and beautified by the ripening foliage of autumn, be cheered by the assurance that thousands upon thousands of her children shall rise up in that day and call her blessed. Oh, Thou Bishop of Souls and Shepherd of Israel, wilt Thou not look down tenderly and constantly upon this aged mother of
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