December 2016

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December 21: A Chaplain’s Letter

21 December, 2016 in December 2016 by archivist | No comments

On Every Battlefield of Life, Christ is ever our Comfort and Strength.


Today we present a letter from the battlefield, penned on this day, December 21, in 1863. Here, the Rev. Thomas Dwight Witherspoon writes to Susan G. Miller, sister of Witherspoon’s fallen commander, Colonel Hugh R. Miller, who died at Gettysburg. Of tragedy and loss, and of God’s comfort in our weakest moments, Rev. Witherspoon writes,

Truly God’s footsteps are in the great deep. We cannot comprehend his doings, but it is the part of faith to sit meekly & lean upon the arms of the Lord though it be in the dark. We know that He doeth all things well—that he doth not willingly grieve or afflict & therefore we should not faint under his chastisements, but gather strength from his promises & fortitude from his throne of grace, glorifying him even in the furnace of affliction, and striving by every visitation of his rod to be drawn nearer to Himself.

T. D. Witherspoon to Susan G. Miller, December 21, 1863:—

Camp 42nd Miss near Orange C. H.

Dec 21st 1863

My dear friend:

The enclosed letter sent to my care has been for a long time in the hands of Captain Cooper, but through some mistake the letter containing it was not handed me until day before yesterday. I have been intending to write to you every day since I reached Camp but have been prevented by the constant confusion & bustle incident to such a life as that we hare now leading. We have only one small tent for the Regimental, Medical & chaplains headquarters, so with the crowd always collected on business of some kind, or visiting some of us there is but little time given for writing or reflection. My thoughts have been very often with you since I come away, hoping that the slight improvement in your health during my stay might prove to be the earnest of your complete restoration to health,yet fearing that it was only the excitement of my hurried visit & that after I had gone, you would again feel keenly the power of the disease. Oh how gladly I should have remained with you longer if it had been at my option to do so. How happy I should be in any way possible to minister to your comfort & relieve the weariness of long & painful sickness. I have learned to think of you as a mother for his sake, who amid all the trials & deprivations of the camp, treated me ever as if I were a son. I cannot tell you how much I miss him now. There is a vacancy in my heart, there is a vacancy in the hearts of the men—there is a vacancy in the command of the Regiment wh. [i.e., which] cannot be filled. We shall never have another officer so active & vigilant, another leader so brave & true, another Colonel so much respected & admired, and I greatly fear we shall never again have a Regiment so thoroughly drilled & disciplined as that in which our lamented Colonel once took such a just & honest pride. All the men speak of him affectionately. All lament his death & long for some way to shew their appreciation of his worth.

We have just received official notice that Col. Moseley’s resignation is accepted. We have also a report in camp that Maj. Feeney is dead but I trust this report may not be true. [1] There will be a great contention for seniority amongst Captains & we do not know how the issue between them will be decided. Cpt. Locke has gone home on furlough, his wound is still troubling him. [2]

We have just received the sad intelligence of the death of Edward Miller, son of the late Rev. Jno. H. Miller, killed in battle & his remains left in the hands of the enemy. How distressing to this afflicted household. Truly God’s footsteps are in the great deep. We cannot comprehend his doings, but it is the part of faith to sit meekly & lean upon the arms of the Lord though it be in the dark. We know that He doeth all things well—that he doth not willingly grieve or afflict & therefore we should not faint under his chastisements, but gather strength from his promises & fortitude from his throne of grace, glorifying him even in the furnace of affliction, and striving by every visitation of his rod to be drawn nearer to Himself.

Of the state of religion in the Regiment I am not able as yet to say much as the weather has been so inclement since my return as to prevent me from mingling much with the men. On yesterday & the Sabbath before the attendance on preaching was very large & from other indications, I think there is still a deep interest. Tomorrow we move to our permanent quarters for the winter which will be three miles beyond Orange C. H. [i.e., Court House]. On the wagon road to Gordonsville. It is spoken of as an excellent location with plenty of wood, water etc. When we get a little time we purpose building a chapel & hope to have regular service all the winter. Oliver is quite well, has made application for furlough & is very impatient to get home—Dr. T. & Capt. N. [3, 4] are also well. They are all asleep or I know they would send messages. My only chance to write is at night after every thing is at rest in the camp & my candle gives so dim a light that I can scarcely see where I write. As we are to be up very early in the morning &move by then the new encampment, I must close making this my excuse for not writing a longer & more satisfactory letter. Give my love to George & Eddie. I trust you may be comforted in seeing them each brought into the fold of Christ, through the sore affliction which the Lord has sent upon you & upon them. May His gracious spirit, the promised comforter dwell richly in your heart, soothing the wounds for which earth has not remedy or balm. With kind regards to the members of the household & heartfelt prayers for you & yours

Your true friend & brother,

T. D. Witherspoon

[1] According to Military History of Mississippi, Major Feeney was killed at the Battle of the Wilderness in May 1864.

[2] Capt. Robert A. Locke of Company D, 42nd Regiment, was wounded at Gettysburg and promoted to Major on December 18, 1863.

[3] Regimental Surgeon Robert L. Taggart.

[4] Probably Captain Andrew M. Nelson, who eventually succeeded Miller, Moseley and Feeney to command the 42nd.

December 20: First General Assembly of the Church of Scotland

20 December, 2016 in December 2016 by archivist | 2 comments

Beginnings can be Interesting

Beginnings of anything can be interesting. This author once planted a mission church in  a sizeable Midwest city. He had done all the preliminary preparation for the mission. Several families committed themselves to the endeavor. The first worship service was planned in a spacious worship center of an evangelical church, rented for the occasion. We all went with expectations of a good beginning, but only one family showed up for the beginning worship time.  It is true that God did some extraordinary things in the first six years of our ministry there. I rejoice that this established church is progressing ahead by means of being a mother church to several congregations.  But it was anything but encouraging in the early years, especially that first Lord’s Day.

In 1560, a Scottish Reformation Parliament abrogated and annulled the papal jurisdiction for Scottish churches, ending all the authority flowing from Rome.

This set the grounds for the establishment of the Church of Scotland that same year. Let W. M. Hetherington in his book “History of the Church of Scotland” pick up the account. He writes on page 53, “They (the Reformation Parliament) enacted no ecclesiastical jurisdiction whatever in its stead. This it left the reformed Church to determine upon and effect by its own intrinsic powers. And this is a fact of the utmost  cannot be too well known and kept in remembrance. It is, indeed, on e of the distinctive characteristics of the Church of Scotland, that it owes its origin, its form, its jurisdiction, and its discipline, to no earthly power. And when the ministers and elders of the church of Scotland resolved to meet in a General Assembly, to deliberate on matters, which might tend to the promotion of God’s glory and the welfare of the Church, they did so in  virtue of the authority which they believed the Lord Jesus Christ had given to the Church. The parliament which abolished the papal jurisdiction made not the slightest mention of  General Assembly. In that time of comparatively simple and honest faith, even statesmen seem instinctively to have perceived, that to interfere in matters of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, so as to appoint ecclesiastical tribunals, specify  their nature, and assign their limits, was not within their province. It had been well for the kingdom if statesmen of succeeding times, certainly not their superiors in talent and in judgment, had been wise enough to follow their example.”

The first meeting of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland was held on this day, December 20, 1560. Forty delegates were in attendance. For that number, only six were ministers. They were John Knox (Edinburgh), Christophere Gudman (St. Andrews), John Row (Perth), David Lindesay (Leith), William Harlaw (St. Cuthberts), and William Christesone (Dundee). While their names with the exception of Knox and possible Row are unknown to many of our readers, Hetherington remarks that “they were men of great abilities, of deep piety, fitted and qualified by their Creator for the work which he had given them to do.” (p. 53)

Words to Live By:
Not only had the Creator fitted and qualified them, but so had their Great Redeemer fitted and acquired them to raise up a Church faithful and true to the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. It may have been small in man’s estimation at the beginning, but the Spirit of God judged it otherwise. He would bring the increase in His time. So be faithful, dear reader, to where God has planted you. He will accomplish His will through you to the area where you have been planted to serve our Lord and Savior.

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December 19: Machen’s tribute to his father

19 December, 2016 in December 2016 by archivist | No comments

“A Quiet Stream Whose Waters Ran Deep”

It was on this day, December 19th, 1915, that Arthur W. Machen, father of Dr. J. Gresham Machen, died, at the age of 88. Arthur W. Machen was a noted Baltimore lawyer and served as a ruling elder in the Franklin Street Presbyterian Church of Baltimore. The following testimony to the life of his father is found in the work Christianity in Conflict, a work which appeared in the volume Contemporary American Theology, edited by Vergilius Ferm (New York: Round Table Press, 1932-1933.

Dr. Machen writes:—

MachenAWMy father, who died in 1915 at the age of eighty-eight, and my mother, who died in 1931 at the age of eighty-two, were both Christians; from them I learned what Christianity is and how it differs from certain modern substitutes. I also learned that Christian conviction can go hand in hand with a broad outlook upon life and with the pursuit of learning.

My father was a lawyer, whose practice had been one of the best in the State of Maryland. But the success which he attained at the bar did not serve in the slightest to make him narrow in his interests. All his life he was a tremendous reader, and reading to him was never a task.

I suppose it never occurred to him to read merely from a sense of duty; he read because he loved to read. He would probably have been greatly amused if anyone had called him a “scholar”; yet his knowledge of Latin and Greek and English and French literature (to say nothing of Italian, which he took up for the fun of it when he was well over eighty and was thus in a period of life which in other men might be regarded as old age) would put our professional scholars to shame.

With his knowledge of literature there went a keen appreciation of beauty in other fields—an appreciation which both my brothers have inherited. One of my father’s most marked characteristics was his desire to have contact with the very best. The second-best always left him dissatisfied; and so the editions of the English classics, for example, that found place in his library were always carefully chosen. As I think of them, I am filled with renewed dismay by the provision of the Vestal Copyright Bill, nearly made a law in the last Congress, which would erect a Chinese wall of exclusion around our many things that are finest and most beautiful in the art of the printing and binding of books.

My father’s special “hobby” was the study and collection of early editions—particularly fifteenth-century editions of the Greek and Latin classics. Some fine old books were handed down to him from his father’s home in Virginia, but others he acquired in the latter part of his long life. His modest means did not suffice, of course, for wholesale acquisitions, but he did try to pick up here and there really good examples of the work of the famous early printers. He was little interested in imperfect copies; everything that he secured was certain to be the very best. I can hardly think of his love of old books as a “hobby”; it was so utterly spontaneous and devoid of self-consciousness. He loved the beautiful form of the old books, as he loved their contents; and the acquisition of every book on his shelves was a true expression of that love.

franklinStPCHe was a profoundly Christian man, who had read widely and meditated earnestly upon the really great things of our holy Faith. His Christian experience was not of the emotional or pietistical type, but was a quiet stream whose waters ran deep. He did not adopt that “Touch not, taste not, handle not” attitude toward the good things or the wonders of God’s world which too often today causes earnest Christian people to consecrate to God only an impoverished man, but in his case true learning and true piety went hand in hand. Every Sunday morning and Sunday night, and on Wednesday night, he was in his place in Church, and a similar faithfulness characterized all his service as an elder in the Presbyterian Church. At that time the Protestant churches had not yet become political lobbies, and Presbyterian elders were chosen not because they were “outstanding men [or women]* in the community,” but because they were men of God. I love to think of that old Presbyterian session in the Franklin Street Presbyterian Church of Baltimore. [pictured, above right]

It is a refreshing memory in these days of ruthless and heartless machinery in the Church. God grant that the memory may some day become actuality again and that the old Christian virtues may be revived!

[* TDPH Editor: Dr. Machen wrote this article in the early 1930’s, when the effort to permit women to serve as ruling elders was gaining ground in the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. His bracketed comment should be understood in that light.]

Words to Live By:
Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.” – Exodus 20:12.

Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother (which is the first commandment with a promise), so that it may be well with you, and that you may live long on the earth. – Ephesians 6:1-3.

Image sources:
1. Frontispiece portrait, facing title page, in volume 1 of Stories and Articles, collected by Arthur W. Machen, Jr.  Baltimore : Privately Printed, 1917.
2. Wikipedia page for the Franklin Street Presbyterian Church.

For Further Study:
See the Thomas G. Machen Collection of Incunabula and Fine Printed Books at the Johns Hopkins Sheridan Libraries.
Also at Johns Hopkins, see Machen (Minnie Gresham), Notebook 1874-1904 

Also on this day:
December 19, 1794 – Ordination of the Rev. Daniel Dana, then installed as pastor of the historic First Presbyterian church of Newburyport, Massachusetts.

December 18: Van Horn on Westminster Doctrines

18 December, 2016 in December 2016 by archivist | No comments

“To God’s Glory” : A Practical Study of a Doctrine of the Westminster Standards
by Rev. Leonard T. Van Horn

THE SUBJECT : The Means of Grace

THE BIBLE VERSES TO READ : Matt. 28:19-20; Acts 2:42, 46; I Tim. 4:16; I Cor. 1:21; Eph. 5:19-20; Eph. 6:17-18.

REFERENCE TO THE STANDARDS : Confession : XXI, XXVI-XXIX; Larger Catechism : Q. 178-195; 153-177; Shorter Catechism : Q. 88-107.

The “Means of Grace” are words seldom heard in our churches today. In the Presbyterian tradition of our forefathers, those in the pew heard much of the means of grace. Any child in the church of that day could recite what made up the means of grace, for the child knew the 88th Question and Answer to the Shorter Catechism : “. . .His ordinances, especially the word, sacraments, and prayer.”

As those subscribing to the Reformed Faith, we do not think of the means of grace as the Roman Catholic Church thinks of them, that of rites which have the power to confer grace. Rather, the Reformed Faith has always thought of them as those means appointed by God for the purpose of conveying His grace. The manner of conveying the grace comes through the power of the Holy Spirit.

One of the problems we have in many of our churches today is that we default in our emphasis on the means of grace. We have sought to replace the means of grace with subjective experience, in whatever way such experience is used in our churches. We forget we must use the means God has appointed and other means are not Biblical. We dare not seek to substitute excitement, popularity, success, or whatever, for the means God has ordained to convey His grace to His children.

The difficulty always presents itself when the believer does not make proper use of the means of grace. Whether by disuse, or whether by a lack of use, the resulting effect will be a life that is not pleasing to the Lord.

Peter makes this very plain when he states, “That ye may be mindful (care for) of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us the apostles of the Lord and Savior : Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts.” (II Peter 3:2, 21).

In these days of lack of doctrinal integrity, there needs to be a return to the proper use of the means of grace in those churches subscribing to the Reformed Faith. There needs to be a proper understanding of their importance. There needs to be a proper use made of them. There needs to be a proper recognition from where they come, even the Sovereign God Himself.

How can we best make use of the means of grace? We would suggest three methods that might be helpful to us. We pray that God might use these three methods, all to His glory!

First, we must be persuaded that it is important that we know them and make use of them. This is probably our first and great mistake. We might have intellectual knowledge of them. We might be able to state from memory that the means of grace are The Word, Sacraments, and Prayer. But we must realize they come from God, that their efficacy depends solely on God, not on man. This is one of the greatest dangers facing us today, a false view of the means of grace that motivates people to believe God’s grace will come through human, subjective sources.

Second, we must prepare ourselves in order that God’s means of grace will find good soil in which to work in our hearts. We cannot expect God to work in unprepared hearts, hearts that are harboring sin. We must prepare ourselves for their use by saying with Paul, “Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously and godly, in this present world.” (Titus 2:12). How many sermons are preached to those who come unprepared? How many times do Saturday night festivities work against the preaching of God’s Word on Sunday morning? This is just one example of how we deny the means of grace in our lives.

Third, we must make use of the means of grace. This means we must use them! We must be constantly studying God’s Word, making certain that each day finds us giving time to it. We should never miss an opportunity to partake of the Lord’s Supper and we should always keep our covenant vows made at baptism. We should pray without ceasing, knowing full well that a life void of prayer will be a fruitless life.

The Word! The Sacraments! Prayer! These are the means of grace and we have a holy responsibility to make use of them, all to the glory of God.

December 17: Joseph Henry, LL.D.

17 December, 2016 in December 2016 by archivist | 1 comment

“The henry” —

Consider how he was described by his contemporaries and historians in general. He was a reserved quiet man, with great gentleness, courtesy of manner, reserved, and an  unselfish genius. We could add that he was a Christian. And we could add a Presbyterian.

Joseph Henry was the foremost scientist of the nineteenth century. Born on December 17, 1799 in Albany, New York, he came from a poor family background. He was able through generous friends to attend an academy, but essentially most of his education was self-taught. But what a personal education. Through reading of text books in the scientific field, he was able to make contributions in the fields of electricity, electromagnetism, meteorology, acoustics, as well as in several branches in physics. Soon, he knew more than his instructors did, and he wound up teaching their classes in the academy in New York.

Princeton University asked him to come there and teach, though he had no educational degrees to speak of, which would add to the lustre of the academic status of the school.  But his scientific mind and his accomplishments were a considerable substitute for that intellectual learning.

Consider that Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, states that he never would have made any progress on that invention were it not for Joseph Henry. A short section of the telegraph had been invented by Joseph Henry, really on a dare when some scientist said it was impossible. Samuel Morse received the credit for it, when he was able to commercialize the product, but Henry had done it first. Then the electric motor was invented by him, while others received the historical credit of it. He also invented what was called the standard electronic unit of indirective resistance, and his name was attached to it.  It is called “the henry.”

Joseph Henry went to meet his Lord on May 13, 1878, with  his funeral three days later at the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church, of Washington, D.C., where he had been a member.  On this solemn occasion, the President of the nation, Rutherford Hayes, was in attendance, as were the Vice President, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, members of the cabinet, with leading officials of every branch of the government, with representatives in science, literature, diplomacy, professional, and business life in America.

His pastor said at that time, “while human learning and science are pressing forward to do honor to him who was known and loved as a leader, I come, in the name of the Christian church, and in the name of my Savior, to place upon this casket a simple wreath, forming the words ‘JOSEPH HENRY, THE CHRISTIAN.’”

Words to live by: People can be recognized by the world, and that has its place. But better than that is to be recognized by the Savior of mankind, as a spiritual child, a brother in Christ, and an adoptee into God’s forever family. The former may be remembered by the world for a time. The latter is remembered for time and eternity. For which one will you, dear reader, be remembered?

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