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November 2: David Wills – Gettysburg, 1863

2 November, 2015 in November 2015 by davidtmyers | No comments

A Few Appropriate Remarks

The thirty-two year old attorney for the state of Pennsylvania had been asked by Andrew Curtin, the governor of Pennsylvania, to purchase some ground, collect the dead from the battle of Gettysburg, and dedicate the whole at a special day in 1863. The first two assignments had been accomplished by David Wills. Seventeen acres were purchased for the National Cemetery. The fallen heroes of that great pivotal battle of Gettysburg had been collected for burial. And an early date in November had been set aside to dedicate the whole cemetery.

The main speaker was to be orator Edward Everett. He had a reputation in holding an audience’s attention. Battlefields always were his favorite choice for orations, having augmented the fame of Lexington and Concord and Bunker Hill. So he was chosen for this early date, except he begged off for an early November date, saying he had to write his speech and memorize it. So Everett chose November 19th at the earliest date he could be there. And it was agreed by Wills that this would the date for the dedication.

As a special courtesy, the young lawyer also wrote a letter to Abraham Lincoln, the President of the United States of America, asking him to make “a few appropriate remarks” after Edward Everett. To all students of history, you realize that no one remembers anything from the two hour address of over 13,000 words from Everett, but everyone remembers, and some have even memorized the two hundred and seventy words of President Lincoln, called the Gettysburg Address. It starts “Four score and seven years ago. . . .”

But our emphasis today is not on Edward Everett or even Abraham Lincoln, but on the young attorney who was responsible for planning and executing the Dedication Day on November 2, 1863. His name was David Wills. And he was a Presbyterian ruling elder!

Born in 1831, in Adams County, Pennsylvania, David stayed on his father’s farm until age 13 when he entered what is now Gettysburg College, graduating with high honors. He was admitted to the bar in 1854 and opened a law office in Gettysburg. Two years later, he married Catherine Jane Smyser, fathering seven children by her.

His home was prominent on the main diamond of Gettysburg, and it was at this home that Abraham Lincoln stayed the night before his memorable address on the 19th of November. In fact, he wrote the final draft of that famous speech at Will’s home. The house is now a museum in Gettysburg.

David Wills was a member and ruling elder of the Presbyterian Church of Gettysburg. Later in his life, he would represent the church and denomination at regional and national Reformed conferences. He went to be with the Lord in 1894.

Words to Live By:
In 1 Timothy 5:17, the apostle Paul wrote, “The elders who rule well are to be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who work hard at preaching and teaching.” (NASB) This is the text that Presbyterians use to distinguish between teaching elders (or ministers) and ruling elders. The church makes much of the the teaching elder, and well should we, for there is nothing better than faithful and godly ministers of the Word. But the ruling elder is to be respected and honored and prayed for as well, as he watches over the spiritual welfare of the flock of God (Hebrews 13:17).

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October 29: Joseph Griggs

29 October, 2015 in October 2015 by davidtmyers | No comments

A Trinity Hymn Written by a Ten Year Old

We really don’t know when Joseph Griggs was born. One source suggests 1720, but others deny any knowledge of his birthday. We do know that his parents were very poor. We know that he was trained for mechanical pursuits.  We know that he became the assistant pastor of an English Presbyterian Church in 1743. There is no mention however of ministerial training or what Presbytery licensed and ordained him. So there is much which is unknown about him,

Four years after joining the ministerial team in London, the senior minister of that church died. With no explanation, Joseph Griggs resigned his position as assistant minister. The next fact we have about him was his marriage to a wealthy widow, with whom he devoted himself to literary pursuits. He would write some forty-three hymns for the church. His hymns were first published in 1756, and republished in 1765, 1806, and 1861!

The one hymn  which is found in the Trinity Hymnal (no. 511) is entitled “Jesus, and shall it ever be.”  What is interesting about this hymn is that Joseph Griggs wrote it at ten years of age! It was altered by Benjamin Francis in 1787. Its words  come from Luke 9:26 where Jesus states, “If anyone is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him.”  The verses in the hymn from this young lad speak with conviction to many an adult.

Note verse 1, “Jesus, and shall it ever be, a mortal man ashamed of thee?  Ashamed of thee whom angels praise, whose glories shine through endless days!

Or verse 4: “Ashamed of Jesus, that dear Friend on whom my  hopes of heav’n depend! No, when I blush, be this my shame, that I no more revere his name.

And verse 6, “Till then — nor is my boasting vain — till then I boast a Savior slain; and O may  this my glory be, that Christ is not ashamed of me.”

Joseph Gregg died on this day in Presbyterian history, October 29, 1768.

Words to Live By:
Who has not  had the experience of seeing covenant children be an effective testimony to their own parents in our churches? As a retired pastor, I have seen that in a number of my charges. Certainly young Joseph Griggs had a testimony which speaks to adults then and today. Readers, our covenant children are precious  in His sight and are to be ministered to by church officers and lay people. Pray for the covenant children in  your church, for their salvation and spiritual growth.

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October 26: Abraham Clark

26 October, 2015 in October 2015 by davidtmyers | No comments

A Christian Patriot Who Suffered During the American Revolution

We are more apt to recognize the New Jersey delegates like the Rev. John Witherspoon, or maybe Richard Stockton, as signers of the Declaration of Independence. But joining them was one Abraham Clark.

Born February 15, 1726 in Elizabethtown, New Jersey, his family was solid Presbyterians in their denominational affiliation. Baptized as an infant by the Rev. Jonathan Dickinson, first professor of the College of New Jersey, he grew up in the thrilling but dangerous days of increasing agitation of separation from England. With his inclination to study civil law and mathematics, he became known to his neighbors. Popular as “the poor man’s counselor,” he refused to accept any pay for his helpfulness to his neighbors. He further served them as High Sheriff of Essex County.

But it was as a member of the Continental Congress on June 21, 1776, that he became interested in the issues of liberty and justice. Penning his name to the Declaration of Independence, representing New Jersey, he states that he and his fellow signers knew that “nothing short of Almighty God can save us.”

He knew full well the cost of liberty. To a friend serving as an officer in the Jersey contingent of troops, “this seems now to be a trying season, but that indulgent Father who has hitherto preserved us will I trust appear for our help and prevent our being crushed. If otherwise, his will be done.” There is no doubt with convictions like this that he saw himself and his country safely within the sovereign providence of God.

His two sons were captured by the British and put into the prison hold of a notorious prison ship called “Jersey.” Fellow prisoners fed one of the sons by squeezing food through a key hole. Abraham Clark did not wish to make his personal suffering public, so he told no one about his family stress. When they found out about it from other sources, the American authorities contacted the British and told them that as they were treating prisoner of war Clark, so they were going to retaliate against a British officers in captivity. Only then did the brutal treatment of Clark’s sons ease up.

Abraham Clark was recognized as the member of Congress who moved that a chaplain be appointed for the Congress of the United States. And ever since then, a chaplain has been elected for that spiritual position.

But there were religious responsibilities which Abraham Clark also kept. From October 26, 1786 to 1790, Abraham Clark was a trustee for the Elizabethtown Presbyterian Church of which Pastor Caldwell was the minister. Abraham Clark died in his sixty-ninth year on September 15, 1794.

Words to live by: It was said that Abraham Clark was a Christian, a family man, a patriot, a public servant, and a gentleman. That about covers the sphere of influence which all Christians are to serve both God, the church, and our country. Once, he was offered freedom for his sons from their British captivity if . . . if he turned colors and became a Tory, or become loyal to England. He responded “no.” He was convinced, as he said to a friend in a letter in 1776, “Our fate is in the hands of an Almighty God to whom I can with pleasure confide my own. He can save us or destroy us. His counsels are fixed and cannot be disappointed and all his designs will be accomplished.” Amen, and Praise God

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October 20: Gen. Stephen Dodson Ramseur [1837-1864]

20 October, 2015 in October 2015 by davidtmyers | No comments

Saturated with Scripture

Just last year, on October 20, 2014, a Civil War monument to Confederate General Stephen Dodson Ramseur was rededicated near Belle Grove National Historic Park in Virginia on the Cedar Creek Battlefield. It was the anniversary of his death on that battlefield in 1864. He was a solid believer in Christ as Lord and Savior. He was also a solid Christian Presbyterian.

Ramseur was born on May 31, 1837 in Lincolnton, North Carolina, the second son of nine children born to Jacob and Mary Ramseur. Jacob was a merchant. His wife was a staunch Presbyterian and taught the children, including Stephen, that same conviction in his young years.

Stephen, or as he later on was called Dodson, or Dod, went to schools in this area and eventually on to Davidson College, a Presbyterian School. It was there that he fell under the influence of the Professor of Mathematics, Danial Hervey Hill. The latter encouraged Dod to attend the United States Military College at West Point, so after a period of only two years at Davidson, he did. He was to remain there for five years, eventually graduating fourteenth out of a class of forty-one students.

Ramsuer lived his Christian convictions at West Point, reading his Bible daily, attending worship services, and living a moral life. At the same time, his political views were becoming more and more Southern in their convictions. At one time, he observed that Southern students were superior to northern students in every way! (No amen permitted by our Southern subscribers!) He graduated in 1860, commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the Third U.S. Artillery, only to resign from it and join the newly-formed Confederate States of America when his state of North Carolina seceded from the United States. Before long, he was promoted to Colonel of the Third North Carolina Infantry Regiment. Eventually he was commissioned a Major General, the youngest general officer in the Confederacy. He fought in many battles from the Seven Days Battles in 1861 to the Battle of Cedar Creek in 1864. On October 28, 1863, he married his first cousin, Ellen Richmond, or “Nellie,” who like himself was of Presbyterian conviction, which union produced a daughter, though he never saw her. A year later, on this day, October 20, 1864, he would die of battle wounds at Cedar Creek.

His biblical faith remained a steadfast conviction throughout his life. No letters left his pen without those Scriptural convictions and prayers imbedded in them. Some of them follow:

“Sometimes I am so oppressed with my sinfulness, that I cannot be but sad.”

“Let us rejoice rather and be exceedingly glad that our Redeemer lives and reigns continually, making intercession for us at the throne in heaven.”

“May we be soon live together a Christian life, loving and obedient children of our merciful God.”

“May He who turns pride to shame, vain glory to emptiness, who is powerful to raise up and to destroy, may that God be our strength and shield, our mighty Protector and our deliverer.”

Words to Live By:
Dodson Ramseur’s life was saturated with Scripture. How as a Christian he could have held those political convictions and all that went with it, we may never comprehend, but that he both lived and died a Christian Presbyterian, with a firm hope in Christ, is nonetheless certain. Dear reader, does the Word of God so saturate your life that your neighbors, when they hear you converse and when they witness your behavior, there is no doubt as to Whom you belong?

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October 19: John Livingston Nevius

19 October, 2015 in October 2015 by davidtmyers | No comments

A New Method of Missionary Work

For centuries, the work of foreign missions all over the world  had been done by faithful missionaries going from nations like England or America, serving the Lord in some field white unto harvest, and then going off the scene back to their sending agency.  That method was in need of changing, and the Rev. John Livingston Nevius would be the one who would change foreign mission methods forever.

Born on March 4, 1829 in western New York, John Nevius attended Princeton Theological Seminary in the 1850’s.  Called while in seminary to the foreign mission field, he found the perfect mate in Helen Coan in 1853. Marrying her, they set sail for China.

At first they traveled, setting up missions and schools. Then they settled down in one province of that vast land.  Observing the work of other missionaries in that nation, this Presbyterian missionary began to see the need to establish “self-propagating, self-supporting, and self-governing indigenous churches from the very beginning of a missionary’s work on the field.  Interesting, even though this approach, which was eventually crystallized in a book, was first developed in China, it never really matured into reality there. But when broaching the same method in the land of Korea, it was received completed by the Korean church. And today, that land and its churches have taken the three “self’s” and followed them religiously.

John Nevius also in his plan suggested that Christian missionaries should only begin programs which the national church desired and supported.  Further, the national church should call out and support their pastors.  Intensive beliefs and doctrinal instruction should be provided each year by the missionaries.  It is clear that the focus would not be on some Western culture and church, but rather on the mission field’s culture and church.  Indeed, the missionary’s “job” was to work themselves out of that “job,” and leave it to the Christian church people to win their nation to Christ.

Countless church bodies have followed the Nevius plan.  The Mission to the World agency of the Presbyterian Church in America employs this plan, often setting deadlines for establishing a Presbytery of pastors and churches, and then sending the missionary to some other field to continue the process.

John Livingstone Nevius died while in China on October 19, 1893 and is buried in China.

It is deeply interesting to ponder the Lord’s sovereign hand in the affairs of China, from that time until now, how the Lord has purified that Church. To read another missionary’s account, from 1927, click here.

Words to live by:  When I hear of a church which has closed down when a pastor has left by moving on or by death, I reflect that this John Nevius plan wouldn’t be a bad one for our local American church scene.  For reasons known only to the pastor and people, the work to equip the saints to do the work of service, as Ephesians 4:11, 12 states,  had been missing in that closed church.  Now it was the pastor’s fault.  He wanted to think that he was irreplaceable.  Or maybe the members resisted that Scriptural methodology.  But whatever the reason was, the work came to an end when the pastor was removed from the scene.  So here is my question?  Pastors, are you equipping the saints to do the work of ministry?  And members, are you zealous to be equipped to do the work of ministry?  It is important to ask and answer these questions.

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