From Slavery to Service for her Savior
by Rev. David T. Myers

History does not record the date of her birth in slavery. But we do know that it was around the year of 1798. We do know that the place of her birth was . . . Princeton, New Jersey. And she took the name of her slave owner master, an attorney named Robert Stockton. Obviously, slavery was not restricted to the South.

In a providential move, Betsey Stockton was presented as a “gift” to the new husband of Richard Stockton’s daughter, in Princeton, New Jersey. His name was the Rev. Ashbel Green, the third president of the College of New Jersey, later renamed Princeton University. Rev. Green home schooled the young woman in reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, and yes, theology. She was allowed into Rev. Green’s own personal library to read the great books of the Christian faith. She even went to classes at the college. A revival which started in the College spread out to the town, and Betsey was gloriously converted to faith in Christ. In 1817, she became a member of the First Presbyterian Church of Princeton, and baptized a week later. At that time, she was granted her freedom from the terrible yoke of slavery. Betsey was kept on as a paid domestic servant, and eventually accepted as a daughter to the Green family.

As Betsey Stockton grew in her faith, she began to express an interest to go to the mission field. Joining a couple named Charles Stewart and his wife, who had an interest to go to the Sandwich Islands, (known as Hawaii today), they set sail from Connecticut with a dozen other missionaries under the auspices of the American Board of Commissions for Foreign Missions, on November 22, 1822. The trip took five months to complete, but it was on this day, April 27, 1823, that they arrived at their destination.

Sensing her calling to teach, she persuaded the Stewart’s to allow her to teach the children of the common people on the islands. Learning the language, she opened her school, teaching history, English, Latin, and Algebra. Later, when the king wanted his son to learn English, she opened up a special school teaching English and Hawaiian side by side. It was said that 8000 Hawaiians received an education due to her initial efforts.

Two years later, when Mrs. Stewart became sick, Betsey Stockton returned to America with them. But her ministry did not end. She began schooling for Native American children in Canada. This was followed by various schools for black children around Princeton, New Jersey, including the Witherspoon Street Colored School, which was an offshoot of Witherspoon Presbyterian Church.

She went into glory in 1865, loved by all for her Christian piety. John McLean, president of the college, and Charles Hodge, conducted the funeral service. She is buried in Cooperstown, New York, beside the graves of Charles Stewart and his wife, her fellow missionaries in Hawaii.

Words to Live By:
From human slavery to human and spiritual liberty, that was the life of Betsey Stockton. She stands as an individual, who regardless of the circumstances of birth, and early life, went on through Christ to serve her Savior and Lord. Let us all examine our hearts and life, and serve Him regardless of outward circumstances with which we entered this world. To God be the glory!

He Being Dead, Yet Speaks

We have a few of the characters in this historical devotional guide who are mentioned in more than one date out of the year.  Their birth dates, their death dates, and significant dates during their lives are found here. The reason why that is, is that they, while members now of the triumphant church, were well-known members of the militant church on earth. Such a one like that was Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield.

Born in 1851 in Kentucky from good solid Presbyterian heritage, especially on his mother’s side, Warfield was known and still is known as a great defender of the faith. The books he wrote are still readily available in both hard copy as well as on the web.  Yet he had limited experience in the pulpit and pastorate, serving only a few years in that capacity.  Further, he was not interested in  church politics,  either in the presbytery, synod, or general assembly.  His place of ministry was always in the classroom in a seminary setting.

In that sense, he was, as Paul puts it in Ephesians 4:12, an individual who “equipped the saints.”  That word “equip” is used in the gospels accounts to describe the necessary work of the fishermen who later became the apostles of our Lord.  It was said that when that divine call came, they were “mending the nets.”  In other words, they were getting the nets ready for service.  This is what the word “equip” speaks about in Ephesians 4.  And that is exactly what Warfield did as a professor at Princeton Theological Seminary with his students.  They were equipped as student saints.   They were prepared for service in the kingdom of God.

No one did a better job in his time there than Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield.  He took over the Chair of Charles Hodge from the son of Charles Hodge, A. A. Hodge.  He was therefore a link to the marvelous Hodge dynasty at old Princeton.  When he died in 1921, it was said that Old Princeton had passed away. In God’s providence, a mere nine years later Westminster Theological Seminary  began,  as an effort to preserve and continue something of that tradition of Old Princeton.

And to think all this story officially began on April 26, 1879 when Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield was ordained to the ministry.   It was a recognition of the spiritual gifts which he possessed in knowledge and wisdom, in teaching, and in discernment. His ordination was a recognition by the Church of the hope and anticipation of how those gifts might be used in coming years, for the glory of God.

Words to Live By: Warfield is in heaven now, but his words live on in the church on earth.  It will do you, the reader, much good to spend time in reading his books either in book form or on the web.  Those books are not always easy to read, but they are worth the effort, for they still stand ready to equip you for service in Christ’s kingdom.

A Man Fit for the Times

Jonathan Dickinson shares a lot of credit in the shaping of the early Presbyterian Church in the American colonies.  Born on April 22, 1688 in Hatfield, Massachusetts, he graduated from Yale in 1706.  Two years later, he was installed as the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Elizabethtown, New Jersey, where he remained for the next forty years.

In 1722, with respect to the issue of creedal subscription, a schism began to develop in the infant Presbyterian church.  The question was simple.  Should a church officer — elder or deacon — be required to subscribe to everything in the Westminster Standards, or would it be sufficient for that officer to simply subscribe to the more basic truths of historic Christianity, as expressed, for instance, in the Nicene Creed?  Dickinson took the latter position and became the chief proponent of it in the infant church.  The fact that the same issue was raging in the mother countries among the immigrants from England, Scotland, and Ireland only heightened the controversy in the colonies.  Eventually, the approaching storm of schism was stopped by the Adopting Act of 1729.  Written by Jonathan Dickinson, it solidly placed the church as believing in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as the only infallible rule of faith and life, while receiving an adoption the Confessional standards of the Westminster Assembly as subordinate standards of the church.  Each court of the latter, whether Session, Presbytery, Synod, and General Assembly would decide what exceptions to the latter would be allowed, and which exceptions would not be tolerated to the Westminster Standards.

In addition to his pastoral leadership in the church courts, the fourth college to be established in the colonies was the College of New Jersey in October of 1742.  It began in the manse of the first president, namely, Jonathan Dickinson.  The handful of students in what later on become Princeton Theological Seminary and Princeton University studied books which were a part of Dickinson’s pastoral library, and ate their meals with his family.  He would pass on to glory four months after the beginning of this school.

His last words were symbolic of his place in the history of the Presbyterian church.  He said, “Many years passed between God and my soul, in which I have solemnly dedicated myself to Him, and I trust what I have committed unto Him, He is able to keep until that day.”

Words to Live By:
Is this your testimony?  Paul writes in his last letter to the first century church, “. . . for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.” (KJV – 2 Timothy 1:12)

Ordained on this day in 1833.

Though reared in a Christian Presbyterian home in Albion, Maine, where the family emphasis was that of a religious obligation to help rid the world of sin in preparation for the Second Coming of Christ, young Elijah  Lovejoy did not receive the Savior during those years. Instead, he grew up on the family farm of the Rev. Daniel and Elizabeth Lovejoy, assisting in the tent-making ministry.  In 1823, he attended Waterville College, where he was a serious student who made strides in journalism, so much that he became a tutor for many in his class.  Graduating at the top of his class in 1826, he moved west to St. Louis, Missouri to raise up a high school and teach many children of the wealthy and important families of that city.  Still however, he did not know the Master.

His relationship with God was to change in 1832 when the Rev. David Nelson held a series of revival meetings at the First Presbyterian Church of that city.  From the sound preaching of the Word of God, God’s Spirit regenerated his soul.  That same year, he began to study at Princeton Theological Seminary back in New Jersey.  The following letter from the Illinois State Historical Library, in Springfield, Illinois, tells of his spiritual state to his parents:

“So I am here preparing to become a minister of the everlasting gospel!  When I review my past life, I am astonished and confounded, and hardly know which most to wonder at, my own stupidity and blundering and guilt or the long suffering and compassion  of God. That He should have blessed me with such opportunities of becoming acquainted with his holy word — should have given me parents who in the arms of their faith dedicated me to them according to his gracious covenant, and who early constantly and faithfully and with many tears warned and entreated me to embrace the salvation through Jesus Christ, and not-withstanding all this, when he saw me hardening my heart, resisting the prayers of my parents and friends, grieving his Holy Spirit, counting the blood of the covenant into which I had been baptized an unholy thing, that He should have still borne with me, should have suffered me to here, and last given me season to hope that I have by his grace been enabled to return to my Father’s house, all this seems a miracle of goodness such as God alone could perform and far too wonderful for me to comprehend.  I can only bow down my head and adore.”

Graduating early from Princeton, it was on this day, April 18, 1833, that Elijah Lovejoy was licensed to preach the gospel by the Second Presbytery of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  Leaving this city, he traveled back to St. Louis, where he began his ministry in Presbyterian churches of that western city.  Using journalism gifts, he became a powerhouse for the abolition of slavery, which eventually was to take his life by violent means in 1837.  (We will cover that part of his history on November 7 devotional)

Words to Live By:  When the good news of eternal life transforms a life by grace alone through faith alone, in Christ alone, then a new creation has come into existence.  It manifests itself not only by godly words but also in godly actions.  Have you reader. have that religious experience in your spiritual life?