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Leland Meets with Madison

The Leland-Madison Memorial Park, six miles east of Orange, at the intersection of US 20/Constitution Highway and SR 658/Clifton Road, is the place where James Madison met in an oak grove with Baptist-Evangelist John Leland, to discuss the issue of religious freedom of conscience. This meeting led to the Bill of Rights.

copyrighted and used by permission from David Beale, Baptist History in England and America: Personalities, Positions, and Practices

Courageous leader of
the Baptist Doctrine
Ardent advocate of the principles
of democracy
Vindicator of separation
of church and state.Near this spot in 1788, elder John Leland and James Madison, the father of the American Constitution, held a significant interview which resulted in the adoption of the Constitution by Virginia. Then Madison, a member of Congress from Orange, presented the First Amendment to the Constitution guaranteeing religious liberty, free speech, and a free press. This satisfied Leland and his Baptist followers.

Presented by Eugene Bucklin Dowden, President, Berkshire County, Massachusetts Chapter, Sons of the American Revolution.

Featured Image Credit: Speak Freely, Without Fear. www.libertymagazine.org/article/speak-freely-without-fear.

John Leland Grave

From Wikipedia:

John Leland (May 14, 1754 – January 14, 1841) was an American Baptist minister who preached in Massachusetts and Virginia, as well as an outspoken abolitionist. He was an important figure in the struggle for religious liberty in the United States.^[1]^[2]^[3] Leland also later opposed the rise of missionary societies among Baptists.^[4]

In Cheshire Cemetery, Leland’s obelisk grave-marker displays a commemorative plaque.

copyrighted and used by permission from David Beale, Baptist History in England and America: Personalities, Positions, and Practices

Featured Image Credit: Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Cheshire Mammoth Cheese

On the corner of Church and School streets stands a concrete replica of the cider press that produced the gigantic cheese that John Leland gave to President Thomas Jefferson. In Cheshire Cemetery, Leland’s obelisk grave-marker displays a commemorative plaque, See “The Big Cheshire Cheese,” in Chapter 16.

copyrighted and used by permission from David Beale, Baptist History in England and America: Personalities, Positions, and Practices

From Wikipedia:

The Cheshire Mammoth Cheese was a gift from the town of Cheshire, Massachusetts to President Thomas Jefferson in 1802. The 1,235-pound (560 kg) cheese was created by combining the milk from every cow in the town, and made in a makeshift cheese press to handle the cheese’s size. The cheese bore the Jeffersonian motto “Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.”^[1]

Featured Image Credit: Makeitalready, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

John Weatherford Grave

The grave of notable Baptist, John Weatherford, lies in a wooded area near Shockoe Baptist Church, at 16 Spring Garden Road. His tomb inscription reads

Elder John Weatherford
A devoted Baptist Minister
Born in 1740, began to preach in 1764.
He lay in Chesterfield jail in 1773 5 months for preaching.
He moved to Halifax in 1813 and died Jan. 23, 1833.

In the cemetery behind Shockoe Baptist, a memorial cenotaph inscription reads:

Elder John Weatherford
A Devoted Baptist Minister
Born in Charlotte Co. 1740
Lay in Jail in Chesterfield Co. in 1773 five months for preaching.
Moved to Halifax in 1813, to Pittsylvania 1823
Died Jan. 23, 1833
A sufferer for conscience sake
An earnest and faithful minister of the Gospel.

copyrighted and used by permission from David Beale, Baptist History in England and America: Personalities, Positions, and Practices

One half mile west is the grave of Elder John Weatherford (1740?-1833) Baptist preacher for 70 years and early advocate of religious liberty. Jailed five months in Chesterfield in 1773 for unlicensed preaching, his release was secured by Patrick Henry.

Featured Image Credit: John Weatherford’s Grave Historic Marker. www.virginia.org/listing/john-weatherfords-grave-historic-marker/4813.

Chesterfield Courthouse: Apostles of Religious Liberty

The Chesterfield County Museum, at 6813 Mimms Loop, is a replica of the 1749 courthouse where magistrates, during 1770-74, sentenced seven Baptist preachers to jail for preaching Christ without state-church approval. Where the jail once stood, there now stands the Religious Freedom Monument, a grantie memorial with a bronze tablet inscribed to the memory of those Baptist preachers. See the section, “Virginia Baptist Preachers Imprisoned in Chesterfield Jail 1770-74,” in Chapter 15.

copyrighted and used by permission from David Beale, Baptist History in England and America: Personalities, Positions, and Practices

Inscription:

On this spot were imprisoned 1770-1774
John Tanner
William Weber
Augustine Eastin
David Tinsley
Joseph Anthony
Jeremiah Walker
John Weatherford

Apostles of
Religious Liberty

“Whether it be right in the sight of God
to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge me,
for we cannot but speak the things
which we have seen and heard.” Acts IV:19-20

In gratitude for the blessings of
spiritual religion and freedom of conscience
won through their sufferings
this memorial is erected by the churches of the
Middle District Baptist Association
1925

In addition to being an elected official, Patrick Henry was a successful lawyer – by 1767 he had over 500 clients paying for his services. Some clients he did more for than even pro bono legal representation.

Henry, an Anglican vestryman and member of the Anglican elite, must have been moved by the preaching he heard from the dissenter New Light Samuel Davies of Polegreen Church in Mechanicsburg. Davies used his rights as an English subject to seek a license to preach from the Anglican authorities, but other non-conforming ministers felt their license to preach came from Matthew 28:19-20 (Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.), not from an ecclesiastical-political machine.

In 1773, John Weatherford was a 33-year-old Baptist preacher and Virginia native. Baptists were new to Virginia (barely a dozen years) but exploding. Anglicans, on the other hand, reached their sesquicentennial before the first Baptist church began. In just a few months there would be over fifty Baptist churches in Virginia. Baptism would split Weatherford and his fellow preachers from the Anglican elite.

Apostles of Religious Liberty

He declared that their pedobaptism (baptism as an infant) was insufficient and ineffective, and that they had to be rebaptized (anabaptist, baptized again), following their profession, or credobaptism (baptism by belief). Telling the cultural elites of his day that their initiation certificates to the state church were void wasn’t a way to win friends and influence people.

Yet it was resounding with the common people.

The rulers of the Episcopal Church were much vexed at the success of Mr. W. Wherever he went, his ministry was attended by crowds and many were converted through his instrumentality. It was a source of great mortification that a plain man, without any pretensions to learning, should so far obtain the confidence of the people. (James Taylor’s Virginia Baptist Ministers, p. 51-53)

John Weatherford was arrested on May 15, 1773 here in Chesterfield County for “preaching and assembling the people together without having any License for so doing.” (Lewis Little’s Imprisoned Preachers and Religious Liberty in Virginia, 335-336).

Weatherford was fined and incarcerated until his fine was paid. Not having money to pay the fine (and being in jail he could not earn the money to pay the fine) he was seemingly stuck. Sadly this wasn’t unusual. At one point there were 44 Baptist preachers held in jails across Virginia at the same time!

Weatherford’s congregation would come on Sundays to the village jail. He would lift the window of his cell and shake hands through the bars. Then he would preach and often gesture through the bars.

Yet even in prison he was not unmolested. Ruffians were on either side of the window with knives, so that when he reached his arm through the bars:

they would slash his hands… until… it was said his hand would stream with blood as he spoke, and sometimes in his gesticulations, forgetful of the wounds, he would scatter his blood on his hearers or on the ground. (John Prestridge’s Modern Baptist Heroes and Martyrs, 322).

Dr. William Hatcher was telling this account in a church in Virginia in 1872, when “a stocky old gentleman with white hair and a strong face came to his feet…. Dr. Wm. White, an eminent physician of that community.”

Mr. John Wetherford, so graphically described by the speaker tonight, settled just eight miles from this place after the Revolutionary War…. One morning I noticed that my father, dressed with unwonted care, was about to set off for a journey on horseback. When I asked him where he was going, he said with great seriousness, he was going to attend the funeral of the Rev. John Wetherford, one of the greatest preachers he had ever known. To my grateful surprise he consented that I might go with him…. My astonishment knew no bounds when I reached the home of the old preacher. Never had I seen such an array of horses, carriages, wagons, and other vehicles as fairly covered the earth…. After the funeral exercises were concluded we were told that those who desired to do so would be allowed to take a last look at the dead. It was a moment of awe to me, for I had not seen the face of the dead before. I clasped tightly my father’s hand and followed him as the line filed by the coffin. I was barely tall enough to look into the coffin. The hands of the veteran minister lay ungloved upon his breast with palms downward. I noticed the stiff and bloodless look they had and saw white and rigid seams extending across the back of each hand. The fact impressed me at the time, but I kept silence, and a thousand times I dare say I recalled those singular marks on the hands of the dead preacher…. I thank my brother for bringing me tonight …. a solution of a perplexity which for full sixty years has troubled my mind. They were the marks of the Lord Jesus – martyr marks of God’s hero.” (Prestridge, 322-324).

Weatherford had been in jail for five long months. Patrick Henry heard of the preacher’s situation and took his case at no charge. The release was ordered, but the jailer wouldn’t release the prisoner until he paid up. Weatherford was nothing if not stubborn and continued to refuse to pay. Miraculously an anonymous donor stepped forward and paid the sum. Any guesses who the anonymous donor was? Patrick Henry.

Newspaper from Newspapers.com

Text by Dr. Wayne Thompson, from Painting “John Weatherford Preaching Through the Grates of Chesterfield County Jail, June-October, 1773”:

The jail in Chesterfield County, Virginia confined seven Baptist preachers for preaching the gospel of the grace of God without state church ordination or state license. Robert Baylor Semple tells us that Chesterfield County “kept up their persecution after other counties had laid it aside.”

John Weatherford was born in Charlotte County, Virginia in 1743 and entered the Baptist ministry in 1761. Wherever he went great crowds attended his preaching. This stirred up the jealously and wrath of the established clergy, and he was apprehended and arrested by Colonel Archibald Cary, May 15, 1773 for convening numbers of people and praching to them, “not being qualified by law so to do, which is contrary to law and tends to disturb the peace and good government of this colony.”

The event portrayed in this painting is of John Weatherford preaching through the grates of the window of Chesterfield County jail. You will notice a man stationed to the side of the window slashing his hands as he continued his demonstrative preaching sprinkling his startled listeners with his blood. He carried the white scars when his hands were folded across his breast in death on January 23, 1833. One who observed them later called them “the marks of the Lord Jesus – martyr marks of God’s hero.”

Notice also the drummer pounding away on his drum, and a horseman approaching to ride through the people peaceably assembled to hear God’s word. These were common practices to disturb the peace of those accused of disturbing the peace. Ultimately a wall was consructed to prevent the preachers from noticing when their congregations assembled. They then leaped upon the wall and said, “Preach on Preacher,” until glass and other sharp objects were placed there to discourage this, at which time a stick and handerkerchief became their preaching banners.

The preaching was fruitful, conversions multiplied, baptisms followed, strong churches were established and more men were called of God to preach the gospel. Patrick Henry befriended Weatherford as well as other Baptist preachers in Virginia. He defended them in court, relieved their sufferings in prison, paid their fines and secured their freedom.

God preserve the memory of godly Baptist preachers such as John Weatherford and courageous statesmen such as Patrick Henry, who sacrificed so much to establish religious liberty throughout the land.

Featured Image Credit: Oct 06, 1960, Page 16 – the Hopewell News at Newspapers.com. www.newspapers.com/image/797269333/?match=1&terms=%22Apostles%20of%20Religious%20Liberty%22.

First Baptist Church of Swansea

Founded by John Myles from Wales, the First Baptist Church of Swansea, at 21 Baptist Street, was the first Baptist church in Massachusetts. Its present building dates to 1848, and its adjacent cemetery dates to 1731. (See Chapter 13).

copyrighted and used by permission from David Beale, Baptist History in England and America: Personalities, Positions, and Practices

Founded in 1663 by John Myles, the First Baptist Church of Swansea is actually the third oldest Baptist church in the United States. Two older Baptist churches are located in Providence, Rhode Island, and Boston, Massachusetts. Swansea, however, has the distinction of having the first Baptist church to construct a meetinghouse in North America.

Swansea was named after the Welsh town bearing the same name. John Myles, who also founded the first Baptist church in Wales during the first year of the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell, immigrated to the New World in 1663. The author of the History of the Welsh Baptists says, “He was … the leading minister of the Baptist denomination in Wales.” Myles gathered together one of his fellow migrants and six other sympathizers at the house of John Bulterworth and organized the first Baptist church in Massachusetts.

Featured Image Credit: Marcbela (Marc N. Belanger), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

First Baptist Church, Boston

First Baptist Church was founded by Thomas Gould, in 1665. In 1872, Brattle Square Unitarian Church erected a brick building, at 110 Commonwealth Avenue. By 1876, the church was extinct, and First Baptist purchased the building. (See Chapter 13).

copyrighted and used by permission from David Beale, Baptist History in England and America: Personalities, Positions, and Practices

Wikipedia:

The First Baptist Church (or “Brattle Square Church”) is an historic American Baptist Churches USA congregation, established in 1665. It is one of the oldest Baptist churches in the United States. It first met secretly in members’ homes, and the doors of the first church were nailed shut by a decree from the Puritans in March 1680. The church was forced to move to Noddle’s Island. The church was forced to be disguised as a tavern and members traveled by water to worship. Rev. Dr. Stillman led the church in the North End for over 40 years, from 1764 to 1807. The church moved to Beacon Hill in 1854, where it was the tallest steeple in the city. After a slow demise under Rev. Dr. Rollin Heber Neale, the church briefly joined with the Shawmut Ave. Church, and the Warren Avenue Tabernacle, and merged and bought the current church in 1881, for $100,000.00^{[citation needed]}. Since 1882 it has been located at the corner of Commonwealth Avenue and Clarendon Street in the Back Bay. The interior is a pending Boston Landmark.

Featured Image Credit: Original uploaded by Swampyank (Transfered by archinform), CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Henry Dunster Grave

The grave of Henry Dunster, first president of Harvard College, is in the Old Burying Ground (adjacent to First Church, Unitarian) on Church Street. Harvard forced Dunster out of the presidency for his defense of believer’s baptism by immersion. Harvard never had a greater president. (See Chapter 13.).

copyrighted and used by permission from David Beale, Baptist History in England and America: Personalities, Positions, and Practices

In 1636 the General Court of Massachusetts voted to start a college. In 1638 classes began, and in 1639 the school was named Harvard.

Henry Dunster, a Cambridge University graduate, was the first president, starting in 1640. In 1643, Harvard was mentioned in New England’s First Fruits.

After God had carried us safely to New England, and we had builded our houses, provided necessaries for our livelihood, reared convenient places for God’s worship, and settled the city government; one of the next things we longed for and looked after was to advance learning and perpetuate it to posterity; dreading to leave an illiterate ministry to the churches, when our present ministers shall lie in the dust.

This quote is engraved in concrete on the Johnston Gate entrance to Harvard University.

The 1646 Rules and Precepts of Harvard included:

Let every Student be plainly instructed, and earnestly pressed to consider well, the maine end of his life and studies is, to know God and Jesus Christ which is eternal life (John 17:3) and therefore to lay Christ in the bottome, as the only foundation of all sound knowledge and Learning. And seeing the Lord only giveth wisedome, Let every one seriously set himself by prayer in secret to seeke it of him (Prov. 2:3).

The 1650 College Seal added a College Motto: In Christi Gloriam, (Glory in Christ).

The college charter was drafted in 1650 and is discussed in the Peabody Museum:

Whereas through the good hand of God many well devoted persons have been and daily are moved and stirred up to give and bestow sundry gifts legacies lands and revenues for the advancement of all good literature arts and sciences in Harvard College in Cambridge in the County of Middlesex and to the maintenance of the President and Fellows and for all accommodations of buildings and all other necessary provisions that may conduce to the education of the English and Indian youth of this country in knowledge and godliness.

Interestingly, the Peabody Museum also discusses the legacy of John Eliot:

John Eliot, Puritan missionary and member of the Harvard Corporation, was a strong poponent of these praying towns and the Indian College. Under Elliot, the first Bible in the British North American colonies was printed in 1663, in an Algonquin dialect.

In 1654, President Henry Dunster rejected pedobaptism (baptism of infants) in favor of credobaptism (baptism following confession of faith). This view put him at odds with the majority Puritan (Reformed) position, and with the minority Baptist position. Dunster is buried across the street from Harvard in the Old Burial Ground.

Featured Image Credit: Nov 22, 1907, Page 10 – the Boston Globe at Newspapers.com. www.newspapers.com/image/430642732/?match=1&terms=%22harvard%27s%20first%20head%22.

Missionary Rock

On the back campus of Phillips Academy, one can walk down “Judson Road” and visit the secluded area by the “Rabbit Pond,” where Adoniram Judson, Luther Rice, and other believers kneeled each morning by a huge boulder, prayer for missions, and dedicated their lives to God. On that boulder (affectionately called “Missionary Rock“), citizens of Andover, in 1910, affixed a memorial plaque, honoring the faithful prayer band of Andover students. See the section, “Missionary Rock at Andover Theological Seminary,” in Chapter 17.

copyrighted and used by permission from David Beale, Baptist History in England and America: Personalities, Positions, and Practices

Andover Center for History & Culture has a photo of the rock.

From the Andover Townsman:

It was Carpenter who originated the idea of the Missionary Boulder at Rabbit’s Pond on the campus of Andover’s Phillips Academy to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the American Board of Foreign Missions. He even found the boulder, weighing several tons, in its natural resting place in Carmel Woods. Assured by geologists that the rock would last for hundreds of years, a tablet was attached with the following inscription:

“In the missionary woods, once extending to this spot, the first missionary students of Andover Seminary walked and talked one hundred years ago, and on this secluded knoll met to pray. In memory of these men: Adoniram Judson, Samuel Nott, Samuel J. Mills, Samuel Newell, Gordon Hall, James Richards, Luther Rice, whose consecrated purpose to carry the Gospel to the heathen world led to the formation of the first American Society for Foreign Missions.

“In recognition of the two hundred and forty-eight missionaries trained in Andover Seminary, and in gratitude to the Almighty God, this stone is set up in the centennial year of the American Board … 1910.”

Featured Image Credit: Missionary Boulder Rock at Rabbit Pond. – Print, Photographic | Andover Center for History and Culture. andoverhistoryandculture.pastperfectonline.com/photo/BD7D8FC4-62FD-11D9-AE5D-024842286480.

West Barnstable Parish Church

Organized in London, in 1616, and now situated in a seaside village, in the northwest part of Barnstable, [John] Lathrop’s church is West Barnstable Parish Church, at 2049 Meetinghouse Way. It is the only existing remnant of the J-L-J Church – from whom the earliest Particular Baptists in England departed, during 1633-38, to gather their own churches. Erected in 1717 and remodeled in 1852, West Barnstable Parish Church underwent restoration, in 1953-58, including its high pulpit and sounding board. On the church tower is a half-ton bell cast by Paul Revere and Son in 1806.

copyrighted and used by permission from David Beale, Baptist History in England and America: Personalities, Positions, and Practices

Featured Image Credit: Cervin Robinson, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

John Lathrop House

John Lathrop, the second pastor of London’s J-L-J Church, immigrated to Barnstable, where his house, built in 1644, still stands as part of the Sturgis Library, at 3090 Main Street. Here, one can stand in the room that once served as Lathrop’s meetinghouse. On display is Lathrop’s copy of the Scriptures – a 1605 Bishops’ Bible. See the section, “John Lathrop (1584-1653),” in chapter five.

copyrighted and used by permission from David Beale, Baptist History in England and America: Personalities, Positions, and Practices

Featured Image Credit: Photos of Rev John Lothrop – Find a Grave… www.findagrave.com/memorial/7518784/john-lothrop/photo#view-photo=58038176.

Scopes Trial / Rhea County Courthouse

Site of one of the most famous trials in the 20th Century, featuring Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan.

My first visit to the Scopes Trial Museum proved unsuccessful. It was the Christmas season and the County Executive ordered the building closed early for the day. So I took some pictures outside – the statues of William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow – and left, planning to return again to the site.

The second voyage was successful – the bottom floor of the courthouse is a museum of the trial, and then I was able to enter the actual courtroom where Darrow and Bryan faced off.

In 1925, John Butler, a Tennessee legislator who was a leader in the World’s Christian Fundamentals Association, introduced a bill to ban the teaching of evolution, to the thanks of William Jennings Bryan, three-time Democrat nominee for President of the United States.

The American Civil Liberties Union sought for a test case to overturn the law, and local mine manager George Rappleyea wanted the attention to come to the quiet down of Dayton.

Local high school science teacher John T. Scopes, wasn’t sure he actually taught evolution, but he found enough students to testify that he did to get an indictment from a Grand Jury.

The local prosecutors were Herbert and Sue Hicks. Sue was not a woman, but a man. Sue’s mother, Susanna Hicks, died giving birth to him, and so his father, another attorney named Charles Hicks, named him after his deceased mother. It is alleged that he was the inspiration for the Johnny Cash song “A Boy Named Sue” written by Shel Silverstein.

W.B. Riley, founder of the World’s Christian Fundamentals Association, reached out to William Jennings Bryan to engage him in the defense of the faith in general and Creation in particular to help prosecute Scopes.

The defense team included Arthur Hays, attorney for the ACLU, and the famous agnostic Clarence Darrow, with help from the liberal Unitarian Charles Francis Potter.

The trial became known as the Monkey Trial, and was jam packed.

I picked up a guidebook that pointed out the homes of the community members and jurors that set the drama of the event. The nearby John Morgan’s Furniture store converted its second floor to a press gallery for Harper’s Weekly.

Eventually, the trial grew so big (and the room so hot) that it moved outdoors for the highlight – William Jennings Bryan would be cross-examined by Clarence Darrow!

Bryan’s big break into the political scene came as a result of a keynote speech, The Cross of Gold, at the 1896 Democratic National Convention. (Illinois State Senator Barack Obama used a similar speech at the 2004 DNC to catapult himself into the White House four years later.)

Karl Rove’s work on the 1896 election, The Triumph of William McKinley goes into detail on providential events that allowed the speech to happen: “If any of the seven breaks had played out another way, it is unlikely Bryan would have stepped on the stage to move a party with a thirty-minute speech that no one who heard it would ever forget.”

Yet this time, every “break” would go the other way. Bryan’s deal with Darrow was that Darrow would question him on the Bible, then Bryan would question Darrow on Evolution. But Darrow, having attacked Bryan for a full day on the stand, broke the agreement, and proceeded to change their plea to guilty. Because of this, Bryan was unable to question Darrow, and Bryan was unable to give his planned Summation. For a battle between “science” and “religion,” Bryan’s Summation would have drawn blood.

Evolution is not truth; it is merely a hypothesis – it is millions of guesses strung together. It had not been proven in the days of Darwin – he expressed astonishment that with two or three million species it had been impossible to trace any species to any other species – it had not been proven in the days of Huxley, and it has not been proven up to today.

It is less than four years ago that Professor Bateson came all the way from London to Canada to tell the American scientists that every effort to trace one species to another had failed – every one. He said he still had faith in evolution but had doubts about the origin of species. But of what value is evolution if it cannot explain the origin of species? While many scientists accept evolution as if it were a fact, they all admit, when questioned, that no explanation has been found as to how one species developed into another.

This trial was the first to be broadcast on radio courtesy of Chicago’s WGN. Had Bryan been able to cross-examine the “defender of agnosticism” and proclaim his Summation on the nationwide broadcast, would the Trial be seen as a defense of Christianity instead of an attack?

Bryan would pass into eternity in Dayton, Tennessee, just five days after securing a conviction of John T. Scopes. He called for the founding of a college “to teach truth from a Biblical perspective” during the trial, and following his death, Bryan College would be established in Dayton.

Featured Image Credit: Calvin Beale, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Adoniram Judson Cenotaph

Before you leave Plymouth, head on up to Burial Hill. It’s a steep climb, but there are steps.

Inside a white fence is not a grave, but a cenotaph, “a monument to someone buried elsewhere.” Adoniram Judson was the son of a Congregational minister in Plymouth, but he fell in with the wrong friends. While at Brown University, he was befriended by Jacob Eames, who led Judson away from his faith. Judson later stopped at an inn to spend the night, only to be awakened by the dying screams of a terrified man. As he departed the next morning, he found out those were the screams of the infidel Jacob Eames.

Terrified by the result of his friend’s choices, Judson returned to the faith, enrolled in Andover Seminary, and joined the Brethren who were preparing for missionary service.

Judson married Ann Hasseltine, left for India, on the voyage discovered that he was a Baptist, was re-baptized by William Carey, sent his friend Luther Rice back to the States to raise support from the Baptist churches, and continued on to Burma.

Suffering imprisonment, illness, the loss of two wives, the death of several children, Judson suffered as few ever have. Yet he was able to translate the Bible into Burmese, start over 100 churches, and see over 8,000 of the Burmese become Christians. Today the Myanmar Baptist Convention has approximately 1 million members.

Upon reading of his son’s Christian Baptism, in 1817, Adoniram Judson Sr., of the Church of the Pilgrimage, on the north side of Town Square, became a Baptist and resigned the Congregational pastorate. After serving for most of his life in Burma, Judson Jr, died at sea. There is a cenotaph to his honor on Burial Hill.

copyrighted and used by permission from David Beale, Baptist History in England and America: Personalities, Positions, and Practices

From Wikipedia:

Judson was born on August 9, 1788, in Malden, Middlesex County, Massachusetts. He was born to Adoniram Judson, Sr., a Congregational minister, and Abigail (née Brown). Judson entered the College of Rhode Island & Providence Plantations (now Brown University) when he was sixteen, and graduated as valedictorian of his class at the age of nineteen. While studying at college, he met a young man named Jacob Eames, a devout deist and skeptic. Judson and Eames developed a strong friendship, leading to Judson’s abandonment of his childhood faith and parents’ religious instruction. During this time, Judson embraced the writings of the French philosophes. After graduating from college, Judson opened a school and wrote an English grammar and mathematics textbook for girls.

Judson’s deist views were shaken when his friend Eames fell violently ill and died. Both had been sleeping in separate rooms at an inn, and Judson heard the death throes of the person next door, only to learn from the clerk the next morning that his anonymous neighbor had been Mr. Eames, who had indeed died. The shock of learning the dying neighbor’s identity – and that Eames had led Judson away from the Christian faith into skepticism, but was now dead – returned Judson back to the faith of his youth, although he was already attending the Andover Theological Seminary. In 1808, Judson “made a solemn dedication of himself to God”.[1] During his final year at the school, Judson decided upon a missionary career.

In 1810, Judson joined a group of mission-minded students who called themselves “the Brethren”. The students inspired the establishment of America’s first organized missionary society.[2][better source needed] Eager to serve abroad, Judson became convinced that “Asia with its idolatrous myriads, was the most important field in the world for missionary effort”. He, and three other students from the seminary, appeared before the Congregationalists’ General Association to appeal for support. In 1810, impressed by the four men’s politeness and sincerity, the elders voted to form the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions.

When Judson began his mission in Burma, he set a goal of translating the Bible and founding a church of 100 members before his death. By the time of his death, he had accomplished those goals and more: leaving the translated Bible as well as a half-completed Burmese-English dictionary (discussed below), 100 churches, and over 8,000 believers. In large part due to his influence, Myanmar has the third largest number of Baptists worldwide, behind the United States and India. The majority of adherents are Karen and Kachin.

Judson compiled the first ever Burmese-English dictionary, missionary E. A. Steven completed the English-Burmese half. Every dictionary and grammar written in Burma in the last two centuries has been based on ones originally created by Judson. Judson “became a symbol of the preeminence of Bible translation for” Protestant missionaries.[5] In the 1950s, Burma’s Buddhist prime minister U Nu told the Burma Christian Council “Oh no, a new translation is not necessary. Judson’s captures the language and idiom of Burmese perfectly and is very clear and understandable.”[6] Though the Bible has been translated numerous times into Burmese, Judson’s translation remains the most popular version in Myanmar.[citation needed]

Each July, Baptist churches in Myanmar celebrate “Judson Day,” commemorating his arrival as a missionary. Inside the campus of Yangon University is Judson Church, named in his honor, and in 1920 Judson College, named in his honor, merged into Rangoon College, which has since been renamed Yangon University.[6] The American University named in his honor, Judson University was founded in Elgin, Illinois, in 1963, as the liberal arts Judson College was separated from the Northern Baptist Theological Seminary, which moved from Chicago to Lombard, Illinois. This American Judson College became Judson University in 2007 and now also has a campus in Rockford, Illinois.

Judson’s change to the validity of believer’s baptism, and subsequent need of support, led to the founding of the first national Baptist organization in the United States and subsequently to all American Baptist associations, including the Southern Baptists that were the first to break off from the national organization. Publication of his wife Ann’s letters about their mission inspired many Americans to become or support Christian missionaries. At least 36 Baptist churches in the United States are named after Judson, as well as the town of Judsonia, Arkansas. Judson College in Alabama is named after his wife Ann and a dormitory at Maranatha Baptist University carries his name to inspire young ministers.[6] Christian Union owns and operates a ministry center named after him at his undergraduate alma mater, Brown University. His seminary alma mater, Andover Theological Seminary, (now Andover Newton Theological School), named their prestigious annual award as The Judson Award.

Featured Image Credit: Adoniram Judson (1788-1850) – Find a Grave… 9 Aug. 1788, www.findagrave.com/memorial/11609/adoniram-judson#view-photo=295510926.

Bethabara Baptist Church

In the church cemetery at Bethabara Baptist Church, at 635 Bethabara Church Road, there stands a memorial monument, with detailed script honoring its founder, the celebrated church planter and evangelist, John Waller, who suffered persecution for preaching the gospel without state approval.

copyrighted and used by permission from David Beale, Baptist History in England and America: Personalities, Positions, and Practices

Bethabara Baptist Church was founded in 1794 by Elders John Waller, Richard Shackleford and David Lilly. I. M. Allen, writing in the Triennial Baptist Register of 1836, related the events leading to the formation of this church:

“Previously to its constitution, there were a number of Baptists who had removed from other states and settled in this neighborhood. Others had been baptized by John Waller, before any church had been constituted. It was his practice to go from house to house, exhorting the people and preaching the doctrine of repentance and baptism. Those who believed and gave satisfactory evidence of a change, were immersed by him, wherever there was water convenient. Thus were the materials of the Bethabara church prepared…”

The identity of the forty-four charter members is unknown, but the pages of church records do reveal the names of early labourers. Babb, Ball, Boazman, Gaines, George, Griffin, Hatter, Hitt, Marsh, O’Neal, Overby, Owens, Pinson, Puckett, Sadler, Sims, Smith, Weathers and Williams are listed among the saints.

The words with which Craig defended himself were used by God to arrest the heart of Waller. So effectual was this work of conviction for seven or eight months that “He ate no pleasant bread and drank no pleasant water”. He determined in his soul never to rest from seeking until it pleased God to show mercy. Waller testified of his conversion, “Under these impressions, I was at a certain place, sitting under preaching and, leaving the meeting, I hasted into a neighbouring wood, and dropped on my knees before God, to beg for mercy. In an instant, I felt my heart melt and a sweet application of the Redeemer’s love to my poor soul”.

John Waller was baptized by James Read in Orange County, Virginia in 1767 and soon afterwards, like the apostle of old, Waller began to preach the faith which once he destroyed. He was ordained to the ministry by Lewis Craig and Samuel Harris, June 20, 1770 and for nearly twenty-four years was the pastor of the Lower Spotsylvania Baptist Church in the Old Dominion.

In his History Of The Baptists In Virginia, R. B. Semple described the preaching of Waller: “He conferred not with flesh and blood, but began to preach, that men ought every where to repent. … Wherever he went, he was attended by a divine power, turning many to righteousness. His name sounded far and wide. … The baptists and their adherents looked upon him as set for the defence of their cause, and with much confidence rallied around him, as their leader”.

John Waller did contend for the faith as a preacher and as a sufferer for conscience sake. The following record of his imprisonments has been preserved:
Caroline County, Virginia—jailed ten days for preaching
Essex County, Virginia—jailed fourteen days for preaching
Middlesex County, Virginia—jailed forty-six days for preaching
Spotsylvania County, Virginia—jailed forty-three days for preaching

Morgan Edwards, in his Materials Towards A History Of The Baptists In Virginia, chronicled another severe persecution endured by Waller: “In the spring of 1771, as he was holding divine worship in Caroline County, the minister of the parish and his clerk, with the sheriff, came to the place. The minister rode up to the stage and, as Mr. Waller began to pray, ran the end of his whip into Waller’s mouth and silenced him. The clerk pulled Waller down and dragged him to the sheriff who stood at a distance. The sheriff received him and whipped him in so violent a manner (without the ceremony of a trial) that poor Waller was presently in a gore of blood and will carry the scars to his grave. Waller, sore and bloody as he was, remounted the stage and preached a most extraordinary sermon, thereby showing that beaten oil is best for the sanctuary”.

Waller, in a letter from the Middlesex County Jail in 1771, wrote: “Yesterday we had a large number of people to hear us preach, and, among others, many of the great ones of the land, who behaved well, while one of us discoursed on the new birth”. It is evident that what men thought for evil, God meant for good. Manifold were his trials, yet multiplied were his triumphs. His work as a pastor and itinerant was crowned with success and seasons of revival were common. For thirty-five years he laboured to increase the kingdom of God, during which time he baptized over two thousand converts. He organized more than twenty churches and ordained over thirty men to the ministry. His willingness to suffer as the Lord’s adjutant helped secure the religious liberty enjoyed today by every citizen of the united states. To God be the glory!

John Waller moved to South Carolina in 1793 and faithfully served the lord as pastor of this church until removed by death, July 4, 1802. He is buried in the family cemetery near Greenwood, South Carolina.

“But call to remembrance the former days, in which, after ye were illuminated, ye endured a great fight of afflictions,” Hebrews 10:32

Featured Image Credit: Ancient Baptist Press. www.ancientbaptist.com/memorials-waller.html.

John Clarke Monument

John Clarke’s tombstone stands in the John Clarke Family Cemetery, on the west side of Dr. Marcus Wheatland Boulevard. The key to the cemetery’s padlock is available at the United Baptist Church office. Adjoining the cemetery, a small park has two Memorials to John Clarke: A plaque on a small rock, and a monument, erected by the Baptist History Preservation Society.

copyrighted and used by permission from David Beale, Baptist History in England and America: Personalities, Positions, and Practices

Physician – Baptist Minister – Statesman – Co Founder of Newport
John Clarke was born October 3, 1609, in Westhorpe, Suffolk County, England, the sixth child of Thomas and Rose Kerrich Clarke. He attended the University of Leyden, in Holland, where he studied law, medicine, and theology.

In November of 1637, at the age of twenty-eight, Clarke arrived in the New World. He soon found himself in the midst of religious controversy. The absence of “freedom of conscience” prompted Clarke and others to seek a place where they could live peaceably together. With Dr. Clarke as a leader among them, they eventually settled on Aquidneck Island in the spring of 1638. There was founded the first government in the world to allow its citizens complete civil and religious liberty! This liberty was guaranteed by the Portsmouth Compact, a document authored by Clarke. Also in 1638, Clarke founded a Baptist church which he pastored until his death. Clarke, with several other families, moved to the south end of the island and founded the town of Newport in 1639.

Dr. Clarke devoted his life to the cause of liberty. In 1651, he was arrested in Massachusetts for his Baptist faith. He was jailed, tried without defense, and fined for preaching the gospel. Later in 1651, he returned to England where he spent twelve years labouring to obtain a new charter for the Rhode Island colony. He petitioned the king for the right to: “Hold forth a lively experiment, that a most flourishing civil state may stand and best be maintained, and that among our English subjects, with a full liberty in religious concernments, and that true piety, rightly grounded upon gospel principles, will give the best and greatest security to sovereignty, and will lay in the hearts of men the strongest obligations to true loyalty.”

In 1663, as a result of Clarke’s labours, King Charles II granted Rhode Island their royal charter. This “lively experiment,” was tried and proven in Rhode Island, and the principles of liberty which were first set forth here have become the basis of government for every state in the Union. Clarke is known as “The father of American Baptists,” and has been called “the foremost diplomat of his time”. His memory is deserving of lasting honour. He died April 20, 1676.

Featured Image Credit: Rev John Clarke (1609-1676) – Find a Grave… 3 Oct. 1609, www.findagrave.com/memorial/53975601/john-clarke#view-photo=29898102.

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