In 1854, the city of Charleston, South Carolina was ravaged with an epidemic of yellow fever. Later, at the behest of the State Legislature, the Rev. James H. Thornwell, then president of South Carolina College, brought a sermon at the State capitol on December 9, 1850. The title of his discourse, “Judgments: A Call to Repentance.” On this momentous occasion, the assembled audience saw themselves as “a sovereign people prostrating themselves before a sovereign God.”—”South Carolina, by her trusted agents and chosen representatives, in her organic capacity, as a distinct political community; in the power of her honored Chief Magistrate, in the two Houses of the Legislature, and the venerable Judges of the land, presenting herself, in humility and mourning, before the footstool of Him who standeth in the congregation of the mighty, and judgeth among the gods.”

As one reviewer noted, “The leading thoughts of the Sermon are as follows: The visitations of Providence expressive of the Divine displeasure are called “judgments,” because they are universally regarded as the penal inflictions of a Judge or Ruler. This implies the conviction of our nature that there is a personal God; and if God be a Person, then all his dispensations have some purpose or design, and this design is to be ascertained by an observation of the tendency of the dispensations. The tendency of public, wide-spread afflictions is to create a sense of guilt in the bosoms of men,—to make them tremble at the anger, and dread the justice of their Judge; and so, to restrain transgression, and preserve the innocent in their integrity. There is an inseparable connexion between suffering and sin; and so strong is the conviction of the human mind upon this point, that there is always danger of misinterpreting Providence, by making the degree of suffering the exponent of the measure of guilt. All, however, that we have a right to conclude from even extraordinary suffering, is the existence of sin, and the consequent necessity of repentance. And this repentance is the duty of the spectators, as well as of the sufferers. “Except ye”—the spectators of the woes—”repent, ye shall all likewise perish.”

Then, following Thornwell’s delivery of this discourse, representatives from the two houses of the legislature wrote to Thornwell on December 12, 1850, requesting a copy of his discourse for publication. Click here to read the full discourse.

The words that follow form the heart of Thornwell’s discourse. They are insightful, almost prophetic words, and here I think Thornwell puts his finger on the crux of our nation’s sin, then and now. What he seems not to see, however, is that this same sin is at the root of the system of slavery and racism that so troubled the nation then and which besets us to this day. Finally, the logical conclusion of this sin is the deification of the individual, and we see that hydra-headed monster coming into all its “glory” in our time. Racism is but one expression of the sin of self-deification. Me first. My ‘rights’ over all else. What I want, rather than bowing the knee to the will of the sovereign Lord of the universe.

Judgments : A Call to Repentance
(1854)

“The sins which have been mentioned, and which confessedly prevail to a melancholy extent through the length and breadth of the land, though they call for humiliation and repentance here, are, perhaps, not so appropriate to this occasion, as those which spring from the tendencies and workings of our forms and principles of government. Bear with me in briefly stating what seems to me to be a species of idolatry which cannot fail to bring down upon us, sooner or later, the righteous judgments of God. I allude to what may be called the deification of the people. They are frequently represented as the source of all political power and rights; the very fountain head of sovereignty. It is their will which makes law; it is their will which unmakes it. A supremacy is ascribed to that will which he who reads the Bible and recognizes a God that has dominion over the children of men, must feel to be shocking. They are really treated as a species of Deity upon the earth. Now this whole representation is not only inconsistent with religion, it is equally inconsistent with the philosophy upon which our popular institutions are founded. The government of this country does not proceed upon the maxim that the will of the people is the will of God, and its arrangements have not been made with a reference to the end, that their will may be simply ascertained. This legislature is not a congregation of deputies, or ministerial agents, and you have, and know that you have, higher functions to perform than merely to inquire what do the people think. I do not underrate their opinions; they must always enter as an element in sober and wise deliberation; but what I maintain is, that the true and legitimate end of government is not to accomplish their will, but to do and enforce what reason, conscience, and truth pronounce to be right. To the eternal law of right reason, which is the law of God, all are equally subject, and forms of government are only devices and expedients to reach the dictates of that law and apply it to the countless exigencies of social and individual life. The State is a Divine ordinance, a social institute, founded on the principle of justice, and it has great moral purposes to subserve, in relation to which the constitution of its government may be pronounced good or bad. The will of the people should be done only when the people will what is right, and then primarily not because they will it, but because it is right. Great deference should be paid to their opinions, because general consent is a presumption of reason and truth.

The peculiarity of a representative system is that it governs through deliberative assemblies. Their excellence is in the circumstance that they are deliberative, which affords a reasonable security that truth and justice may prevail. So far from being mere exponents of public sentiment, their highest merit is that they are a check upon popular power— a barrier reared against the tide of passion, to beat back its waves, until reason can be fairly heard. There is no misapprehension more dangerous than that which confounds representative government with the essential principle of a pure democracy. It is not a contrivance to adapt the exercise of supreme power on the part of the people to extensive territory or abundant population, to meet the physical impediments which in large States, must obviously exist to the collection of their citizens in one vast assembly. It is not because the people cannot meet, but because they ought not to meet, that the representative council in modern times is preferred to the ancient convocations in the forum or market place. It is to be prized, because it affords facilities and removes hinderances in the discovery of truth; but the supreme power is truth, and not man; God, not the creature.

Now whatever representations diminish the authority of the Divine law as the supreme rule, and make the State the creature and organ of popular will, as if an absolute sovereignty were vested in that, are equally repugnant to religion and the true conception of our government. An absolute democracy is the worst of all governments, because it is judicially cursed as treason against God, and is given over to the blindness of impulse and passion. I am afraid that in this matter we have trodden upon the verge of error—we have forgotten that the State is ordained of God, and that our relations to each other are those of mutual consultation and advice, while all are absolutely subject to Him.

In proportion as we lose the true conception of the State, we fall short of realizing in ourselves that perfection of developement and happiness which it was instituted to achieve. Hence, it is not unusual that as extremes meet, those who in theory clothe the people with the prerogatives of God, practically degrade them below the level of intellectual existence. When we cease to regard the State as a great instrument of moral education, it is not surprising that the education itself should be disregarded, and these Gods be left to demonstrate that after all, they are but men.

Let it be once conceded that government is but an organ of the popular will, the business of the statesman is very simple—it is only to find out what the people wish; and as all courts are attractive by the patronage they bestow, we may expect to see a system in operation, whose only tendency is to secure personal popularity. The ambition of Legislators and Senators will be directed to the gaining of popular favour, and whatever arts promise to be most successful, will be held to be legitimate, as they are the customs and usages of the Court, whose seal of approbation is desired. The consequences must be disastrous to all the parties concerned. There will and must be corruption and bribery. There will and must be unbecoming condescensions. The aspirants for distinction, however they may abhor these practices, and reproach themselves in stooping to them, feel compelled to resort to them as the conditions of success, and it will always happen that where the people are deified in theory, they will be degraded and corrupted in practice. Men will be promoted, not according to their wisdom and worth; not according to their ability to answer the ends of the State in eliciting the voice of reason and of truth, and securing the reign of universal justice—they will be promoted according to their pliancy in pandering to popular tastes. The demagogue will supplant the statesman—the representative be replaced with a tool.”

Click here to read the full discourse.

Henry Barrington Pratt, Presbyterian missionary and teacher, son of Rev. Nathaniel A. and Catherine Barrington (King) Pratt, was born near Darien, Georgia, on May 26, 1832. He attended Oglethorpe University, graduated from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1855, and was ordained by the Cherokee Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church in the United States on September 27, 1855. On November 7, 1860, he married Joanna Frances Gildersleeve, with whom he had three children. He served for ten years as a missionary in Bogotá, Colombia, and had other brief assignments in Mexico, Cuba, and the United States. He translated religious materials into Spanish for the American Tract Society and the American Bible Society, including the Versión Moderna, published in 1893, a Bible still widely used by Hispanic Protestants.

In 1896 Pratt settled in Laredo, Texas, as an “evangelist to Mexicans” for the Presbyterian Executive Committee of Home Missions. With other missionaries, he conducted numerous revivals throughout South Texas that produced several hundred converts to the Presbyterian Church. Pratt’s major contribution to Presbyterianism in Texas, however, derived from his Bible Training School for Christian Workers, which he conducted in Laredo between 1896 and 1899. The school, designed to train converts to become effective evangelists, combined intensive Bible study and preaching lessons with such practical and physical chores as housecleaning and gardening. Pratt based his educational theory on economic as well as theological and pedagogical grounds. He thought that to give “native workers” a general education in addition to simple biblical training was self-defeating. Because they were to work primarily with impoverished and uneducated people, Pratt believed that Bible Training School graduates should not have a broad general education lest they become disaffected with their congregations or be lured into secular vocations by the temptation of high salaries and good working conditions. Pratt considered the students sufficiently trained after a two-year course to serve small Spanish-speaking congregations in Texas. Although his program produced a number of successful evangelists, such as Reynaldo Ávila, Abraham Fernández, and Elías Treviño, it also established the pattern for the typical Presbyterian Hispanic pastor of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries-underpaid, poorly trained, and dependent on denominational financial support. A smallpox epidemic forced the Bible Training School to close in 1899, and Pratt left Laredo to become pastor of a Hispanic congregation in Brooklyn, New York. He resigned that position in 1902 and retired to Hackensack, New Jersey, where he continued to write biblical commentaries and to translate theological works until his death, on December 11, 1912.

Pictured at right: The February 1852 issue of The Ladies’ Album and Family Manual. Henry Barrington Pratt was but one member of an accomplished and distinguished family. His father, the Rev. Nathanael Alpheus Pratt, came from good circumstances, and had as well married into some measure of wealth. His father-in-law was the founder of the town of Roswell, Georgia and brought Rev. N.A. Pratt there to pastor the Roswell Presbyterian Church; he served there from 1840 until his death in 1879. It was apparently when Henry was approaching adulthood that his mother, Catherine Barrington Pratt, began to serve as the lead editor of The Ladies’ Album and Family Manual. Following is an article excerpted from the February 1852 issue of this magazine:—

FAMILY GOVERNMENT —ITS IMPORTANCE.
BY REV. C. CUSHING.

The importance of family government is seen in its relations to domestic happiness, to common schools, to civil government, and to the Divine government.

It is essential to the peace and happiness of a home, that children be kept under proper restraint. One child, ungoverned, often disturbs the tranquility of an entire household. We are told that among the Hindoos, in the houses of some of the rich, having several apartments, one room is called the room of anger, or of the angry ; and when any members of the family are angry, they shut themselves up in this room. Perhaps it would be well for us to imitate the Hindoos in this respect; at all events, one angry or unruly member of the family ought not to be allowed to destroy the peace and comfort of all. We are wont to sing —

“ Home, sweet home,
There’s no place like home.”

And this sentiment is fully true of every home worthy of the name. But the sweet may be made bitter, yea, so bitter, by the want of parental government, that, in a melancholy sense, there shall be no place like home. What can be more offensive than a household in disorder ?• Each member, instead of laboring to promote the comfort of all, seeking, at the expense of others, his own gratification, and none happy !

The family relation is sometimes spoken of as a relic which has survived the ruin of the Fall. To prove this representation true, there must be, now, in the family, that same observance of law, and that same love which prevailed in Eden. If the husband would find his wife happy when he goes home,— if the wife would have her husband love his home,— if they would have their children grow up as olive plants around their table, to beautify their home and render it blessed,— they will sustain family government in the fear of the Lord.

Government in the family is essential to proper discipline in the school. Great attention has been bestowed of late to the education of the young. While, through the influence of a board of education, normal schools, &c., there has been, in some respect, decided improvement in our common schools ; in one respect there is reason to fear that these schools have degenerated. They are not so well governed as formerly. This may be attributed, in part, to the to influence of a few prominent individuals, who have radically wrong to views of human nature and of moral government; but. to a great extent, it arises from the fact that children are not governed at home.

If a teacher is a good disciplinarian, much of his time, which ought to be spent in teaching, is consumed in direct efforts to sustain his authority; much of which effort would not be necessary, did the parents teach their children to obey at home ; and were their influence, at all times, in favor of good government in school. Thus, the community lose much of the advantage which they would gain, could the teacher devote himself, unreservedly, to teaching. If the teacher is not a good disciplinarian, the children, not being in the habit of obeying at home, will be sure not to obey at school; hence, but little advantage is gained to any one from the school. Parents ought to feel that a large part of the responsibility of this rests with themselves, and, for the sake of the rising generation, see that their children are taught at home to obey in school.

Family government derives importance from its relation to the State. When we inquire why it is so easy in this country to raise a mob, and why there is in our community so much violation of law, a satisfactory answer may be found by entering the family circle. The first lessons of disobedience and disloyalty are learned there. If a child does not learn to yield to the authority of his parents, when he becomes a man he will not be ready to regard the power of the civil authorities.

The cause of popular liberty is injured and retarded in the Old World by the want of loyalty in the New. Our faults are greatly exaggerated, but would we take away the occasion of the misrepresentations of royalists, and would we prove ourselves the true friends of good government, we must begin at home, and each one rule his own house well.

The importance of family government appears transcendently in its relation to the government of God. Children are committed to parents, not only to be trained for the home and the school, not only to be made good citizens, but also, and above all, to be made the loyal subjects of the King of kings. Yes, the child is to be trained for God and for heaven. But if he never learns to submit to the authority of his parents, what reason is there to hope that he will bow submissively to the authority of God 1 If, when he perceives the relation of the parent to himself, he does not regard that relation, when recognizing the Divine existence, he perceives the relation which God sustains to himself, why will he any more regard this higher relation 1 If, when his parents know more than he does, and are disposed to make a right use of their knowledge in training him, he will not heed their guiding hand,’ what will he care for the statutes of Him who is infinite in wisdom and love ? If his parents are able and disposed to govern him better than he can govern himself, and yet he is allowed to trample on their authority, the perfection of God’s government will not prevent his rebellion against it. Here is a relation of paramount importance, for it is endless. The rebellion of the child against God will, if persisted in during this life, fix his eternal destiny. This view should take the deepest hold upon the Christian parent. That children may be trained for heaven is the great end for which they are committed to the parent. Herein is involved a vast responsibility. It is not enough to minister to the physical wants of the child; indeed, this is but a small part. We are to consider his wants as an immortal being, and make the family government subservient to the Divine. It is a solemn fact, that it will be subservient to, or subversive of, the Divine government. The influence of the parent upon the child will be to make him submissive to God, or to strengthen him in his rebellion. And parents must render an account to God for this influence by which they indirectly sustain, or subvert his authority. Parents should feel that the relation of their children to themselves will have an important influence upon their relation to God.

The training of an immortal mind is a momentous work ! “When Bacon, the sculptor, was retouching the statue of Chatham, in Westminster Abbey, a divine, who was a stranger, tapped him on the shoulder, and said, “ Take care what you are doing. You work for eternity.” To parents it may well be said, In family government, take care what you do. In the highest sense, you work for eternity. When the sculptured stone shall have crumbled into dust, the souls of your children will show the work of your hands.

[excerpted from The Ladies’ Album and Family Manual, 18.2 (February 1852): 58-60.]

Covenanters in the Crown of London
By Rev. David T. Myers

The story of the Covenanters defeated at Bothwell Bridge and sent aboard the Crown of London as slaves is a sobering story. There are pictures on the web of the monument on the coast of Orkney near the sea as well as the Covenanter Fountain in Kirkland.

Following the disastrous Battle at Bothwell Bridge on June 22, 1679, in which Covenanters were defeated in the battle, close to 1200 Covenanter prisoners were taken to Edinburgh and imprisoned in a make shift, open air prison next to Greyfriars Kirk (church). Some were tortured and killed immediately. Others died of natural conditions due to the harsh conditions of the site. Others were pardoned and set free under the August 14th Act of Indemnity that same year. But our attention today focuses in on the approximately 257 alleged ringleaders, including Covenanter ministers, who were sentenced to be shipped to the West Indies or Virginia as white slaves. Setting sail from Leith, Scotland, on the prison ship, Crown of London, on November 27, 1679, they sailed only a short while before bad weather forced them into a port.

Despite warnings from the locals to not attempt to sail, they had hardly cleared the land mass when the ship lost its anchor on December 10, 1679, striking rocks off of Dearness.The captain, Thomas Teddico, described as a profane, cruel wretch, ordered the crew to escape by chopping down the mast and riding it to the shore. The prisoners in the hold, who had their hatches chained to prevent them from escaping, were left to their own straits. All of them perished, with the exception of around 50 who were enabled to escape by means of a ax which one prisoner had with him. During  the next several days, bodies of the dead prisoners washed up at the beaches, and subsequently were buried in the area.

Of those who managed to escape, six prisoners were caught and shipped to the Barbados as slaves. Eight other Covenanters were shipped to the English plantations in Virginia. Some escaped to Ulster. At least two families in the port area claimed to be descended from a few Covenanters who stayed where they landed.

On August 22, 1888, a majestic granite monument [pictured at right] was erected about 300 yards from the spot where the Crown of London went down. It has the following memorial etched on its side: “Erected by public subscription to the memory of 200 Covenanters who were taken prisoner at Bothwell Bridge and sentenced to transportation for life, but who perished by shipwreck near this spot, 10th December 1679.” Another memorial is found in nearby Kirkwall and is known as the Covenanter Water Fountain, built just two years later in 1890 due to excess funds left over from the original monument.

Words to Live By:
Our spiritual forefathers suffered much for the Savior in their battles to win the Reformation. They deserve to be remembered by all Presbyterians everywhere for their sacrifices for the kingdom of Christ. In  so remembering, you the reader may be informed that black African slaves were not the only ones shipped to these shores. White slaves — Covenanter slaves — also were sent to our shores. Don’t forget their sacrifices. Remember their sacrifices as we approach the coming year.