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May 3 : Abner Crump Hopkins, Chaplain [1835-1911]

3 May, 2012 in May 2012 by davidtmyers | No comments

This Day in Presbyterian History: 

A Chaplain of the Stonewall Brigade

It was said that no danger deferred him; no sacrifices were too great for him to make.

The year was 1862. For those living in that section of Virginia now bordered as present day West Virginia, the great civil war was an imminent and daily reality of danger and disruption. It was a time of separation from family, soldiers on long distance marches, and life-threatening casualties from battle. And Stonewall Jackson always had his fair share of them.  Into this scene, Abner Crump Hopkins entered.

Born in 1835 in Powhatan County, Virginia, young Abner was educated at Hampden-Sydney College, graduating in 1855 with a Bachelor of Arts degree. Whatever was used of the Holy Spirit to call him into a relationship with Jesus Christ, we do not know. But we do know that he was born again after his collegiate years.  With a call to be a minister, Abner entered Union Theological Seminary in Richmond, Virginia during the years of 1857-1860. Licensed and ordained by East Hanover and Winchester Presbyteries, he took the congregation of the Presbyterian Church of Martinsburg, Virginia. It was evidently a happy ministry until Federal troops invaded the town.  Leaving behind family and friends, Abner Hopkins was commissioned as a Confederate chaplain by the Second Virginia Infantry Regiment on May 3, 1862.

Right at the very beginning, Chaplain Hopkins made it his determination to share the suffering, marches, and perils of the men in the regiment.  Indeed he was so successful in this determination to be faithful always in his post of duty that the officers and  men of his regiment, and other units, sought him out for spiritual comfort. Opportunities to proclaim the gospel of grace came frequently from nightly prayer meetings at headquarters as well as on the Sabbath, which brought many souls into the kingdom.

On two occasions during the war, the hardships of this life and ministry produced emotional and physical breakdowns which set him apart from his military “congregation.”  But after times of rest and recovery, he always returned to the military  to further minister God’s Word. He was a part of the great “revival” which took place in the Southern army, especially during the latter part of the War.

After the close of the war, he returned to the civilian world as a pastor. His longest pastorate was in the Charleston area of West Virginia, where he was faithful in one congregation for forty-five years.  He was known all over the South, in that he served one year as the moderator of the 1903 General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States. He died in 1911.

Further study :
The grave site of the Rev. Abner Crump Hopkins.
His diary is preserved at the Virginia Historical Society Library. The diary contains entries describing participation of the Second Virginia Infantry Regiment in the battles of the Seven Days’, Cedar Mountain, Second Bull Run, Fredericksburg, Bristoe Station, and 1862 Shenandoah Valley Campaigns.

Also on this day :
May 3, 1895 marks the birthday of Cornelius Van Til, born this day in 1895 in the Netherlands. For more on Dr. Van Til, including a photographic retrospective, click here.

Words to Live By:   How important it is to pray now for future difficult situations in your family or work or congregation, so that you will be faithful to the Word of the Lord and His will when the time of those difficult situations arrive.

Through the Scriptures: Psalms 67 – 69

Through the Standards: Sanctification: its subjects, ground, agent, and effect

WCF 13:1
“They, who are once effectually called, and regenerated, having a new heart, and a new spirit created n them, are further sanctified, really and personally, through the virtue of Christ’s death and resurrection, by His Word and Spirit dwelling in them, the dominion of the whole body of sin is destroyed, and the several lusts thereof are more and more weakened and mortified; and they more and more quickened and strengthened in all saving graces, to the practice of true holiness, without which no man will see the Lord.”

WLC 75 — “What is sanctification?
A.  Sanctification is a work of God’s grace, whereby they whom God has, before the foundation of the world, chosen to be holy, are in time, through the powerful operation of his Spirit applying the death and resurrection of Christ unto them, renewed in their whole man after the image of God; having the seeds of repentance unto life, and all other saving graces, put into their hearts, and those graces so stirred up, increased, and strengthened, as that they more and more die unto sin, and rise  unto newness of life.”

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April 10 : Thomas R. R. Cobb

10 April, 2012 in April 2012 by davidtmyers | No comments

This Day in Presbyterian History: 

 To Be a Christian Attorney was his Highest Aspiration

Thomas Reade Roots Cobb was born at Cherry Hill, Jefferson Country, Georgia on April 10, 1823.   While still a child, his parents moved the family to  Athens, Georgia and he later attended the University of Georgia, graduating at the top of his class.  From that day forward, Thomas Cobb aspired to be a Christian attorney.

His membership was in the Presbyterian Church in Athens.  As a deeply religious man, he labored during the day as an attorney, and prayed in the church in the evenings.  Whether working on behalf of the state of Georgia through the courts, or laboring in revival meetings, he was the same earnest worker.   He was successful in implementing the reading of the Bible in schools in Georgia.

In the field of law, he was considered to be “the James Madison” of the South.  Not only did he contribute to countless law documents for the state, he authored the Constitution of the Confederate States of America.  It is written in his handwriting.  He was the founder of the Georgia School of Law.

Like the majority of Southerners and even Southern Christians in that era, Cobb looked to the argument of States Rights in defense of Southern secession. Indeed, he wrote a large tome which sought to defend the practice of slavery.  When elected to the Confederate Congress in 1861, he chaffed at the slowness of the legislative branch to prosecute the defense of the South.  So he entered the Confederate army as a Colonel of the Georgia troops, which he called Cobb’s Legion.  His troops fought in the battles of the Seven Days, Second Manassas, the Antietam campaign, and Fredericksburg, Virginia.  At the latter battle, he fought as a Brigadier General.

It was in the last battle that he suffered a mortal wound.  Assigned to guard the Sunken Road, an artillery shell burst near him and wounded him mortally.  Within a few hours, he would die.  There is a monument in that battlefield on the Sunken Road which tells of his death.  Before his death, another Presbyterian military officer by the name of Thomas Jonathan Jackson, or Stonewall Jackson, would visit him and  pray with him.  Cobb is buried in Athens, Georgia.

He was survived by his wife, the former Marion Lumpkin, and four daughters in 1862.  As recently as 2004, because of his stand on slavery, a controversy arose as to whether his home should be restored to a museum.  It eventually was, and today can be visited in Athens, Georgia.

Words to Live By: While we would oppose his stand on racial slavery, still we are left with the recognition that in other matters, here was a man who feared God and worked righteousness in his public and private life.  For all of us, our Christian ideals are to be manifested outside the four walls of the church, indeed, into all of life, so that God’s name can be glorified, and God’s kingdom can be advanced.
Perhaps the most searching question in application might then be, “In my life, what sins am I blind to? How am I a creature of my culture? How and where is the Word of God not thoroughly and consistently worked out in my life?”
May God have mercy upon us all. We are, all of us, mired in sin and without hope before a righteous God, but for the grace and mercy found in Jesus Christ alone.

Through the Scriptures: 2 Samuel 22 – 24

Through the Standards:  The state of grace

WCF 9:4
“When God converts a sinner, and translates him into the state of grace, He frees him from his natural bondage under sin; and, by His grace alone, enables him freely to will and to do that which is spiritually good; yet so, that by reason of his remaining corruption, he does not perfectly, nor only, will that which is good, but does also will that which is evil.”

For further reading:
We find that two articles on the legal profession were published in the Southern Presbyterian Review :
1. “Relations of Christianity to the Legal Profession,” by an anonymous author, SPR, vol. 5, no. 2 (July 1859): 249-270.
2. “Morality of the Legal Profession,” by Robert L. Dabney, SPR, vol. 11, no. 4 (January 1859): 571-592.
and two articles published in Princeton Seminary’s Biblical Repertory and Princeton Review :
3. “A Course of Legal Study, by David Hoffman, reviewed by Samuel G. Winchester, BRPR, 9.4 (October 1837):509-524.
4. “Professional Ethics and their Application to Legal Practice,” [review of An Essay on Professional Ethics, by George Sharswood], by an anonymous author, BRPR, 43.2 (April 1871): 286-304.

 

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March 5 : Robert Lewis Dabney [1820-1898]

5 March, 2012 in March 2012 by davidtmyers | No comments

This Day in Presbyterian History: 

A Pillar of Strength in the House of our God

By the age of fifteen years of age, the young man had studied Latin, Greek, algebra and geometry.  This enabled him to get ready for the sophomore class at Hampden-Sidney College.  While there, a spiritual revival brought him to Christ, and at age 17, he joined the Providence Presbyterian Church in Louisa County, Virginia.

Born March 5, 1820, Robert Lewis Dabney was a man of many sides.  We could write about his political side in this historical devotional, and see him as a loyal citizen of the Confederacy.  Even after the War Between the States, he would write a book defending the South’s position.

We could write about his military side.  He was a chaplain at the beginning of the war to the eighteenth Virginia which fought at Manassas in 1861. Many soldiers would come to Christ through his preaching the gospel.  And of course, he was the chief of staff for a year with General Stonewall Jackson.

We could spend time by thinking about the pastoral side of Dr. Dabney.  He was the pastor of Tinkling Spring Church after graduating from Union Theological Seminary down south. The congregation grew under his ministry both spiritually and numerically.

But the better use of this space would be found in thinking about the mentoring side of Dr. Dabney. Whether it was teaching at Hampden-Sydney, Union Theological Seminary, the University of Texas, or Austin Theological Seminary, hundreds of students, many of whom would go on to serve the Lord Jesus, received the truths of theology and church history from his lips.  He was the chief proponent of that system of Reformed Theology which the Southern church had ever known. Calvinism was ever his belief and practice by his words and  actions.

Words to Live By:  It is a blessed privilege to equip the saints for the work of service unto the edifying of the body of Christ.  That Scriptural word “equip” speaks of preparing others for service.  It also means in the sense of restoring, or mending a broken bone back into its proper place.  How we need to pray for those who are spiritual teachers in the church of Christ.  Theirs is a special ministry as they instruct others to carry on the work of service.

Through the Scriptures: Deuteronomy 17 – 19

Through the Standards: The Covenant of Grace in both Testaments

WLC 33 — “Was the covenant of grace always administered after one and the same manner?
A.  The covenant of grace was not always administer after the same manner, but the administration of it under the Old Testament were different from those under the New.”

WLC 34 — “How was the covenant of grace administered under the Old Testament?
A.  The covenant of grace was administered under the Old Testament, by promises, prophecies, sacrifices, circumcision, the passover, and other types and ordinances, which did all fore-signify Christ then to come, and were for that time sufficient to build up the elect in faith in the promised messiah, by whom they then had full remission of sin, and eternal salvation.”

WLC 35 — “How is the covenant of grace administered under the New Testament?
A.  Under the New Testament, w hen Christ the substance was exhibited, the same covenant of grace was and still is to be administered in the preaching of the word, and the administration of the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper; in which grace and salvation are held forth in more fullness, evidence, and efficacy, to all nations.”

Remembering Our Fathers and Brothers:
On this day, 5 March 1994, the Rev. Russell George Flaxman passed away. Born in 1920 to Jessie and Annie Flaxman, he was raised in the Toronto, Canada area and attended Toronto Bible College, 1945-48. Rev. Flaxman was ordained in 1949 by the Association of Gospel Churches and pastored several churches in Virginia before transferring his ministerial credentials into the PCA on 1 March 1974. He served as Stated Clerk of the James River Presbytery from 1989-1990.

Image source: Photographic plate facing page 87 in The Memorial Volume of the Westminster Assembly. Richmond, VA: Presbyterian Committee of Publication, 1897.

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January 17: Frances P. Mullally, D.D.

17 January, 2019 in January 2019 by archivist | No comments

REV. FRANCIS P. MULLALLY, D. D.

Death in New York of a Distinguished South Carolina Divine and Patriotic Citizen.

The Charleston News and Courier, of last week, contained the following write up of the life and distinguished services of the Rev. Francis P. Mullally, D. D., who died in New York on January 17, 1904. We feel sure the article will be read with interest, as Mr. Mullally was well known to a great many of readers:

Dr. Mullally was a native of the County Tipperary, Ireland, the son of what is called in that country a gentleman farmer. His early boyhood was passed in that romantic, region. Ile had inherited a love for field sports and became a splendid horseman, ever foremost in the chase. He had finished his academic studies, when the “Young Ireland” party raised the standard of revolt, under the leadership of Smith

O’Brien, John Mitchell, Thomas F. Meagher, Devin Reilly, Thomas Davis and other gifted and gallant Irishmen.  It was the famous movement of 1848, which terminated in disaster and defeat.  Dr. Mullally was one of the most ardent and active of the revolutionists; his zeal in the cause and the sterling qualities of the young patriot attracted the admiration of Smith O’Brien, who appointed him his private secretary.

He enjoyed the confidence of the leaders and was complimented for his courage and constancy, which was a breathing inspiration, a glowing heart-fire.

After the capture, conviction and transportation of the leaders he managed to escape and came to America.  After remaining for a brief period in New York he went to Georgia and taught the classics in the C. P. Beman Academy, near Sparta.  He then came to this State and settled in Columbia, where he entered the Presbyterian Seminary, from which he was graduated with high honors.  On entering the ministry ho was appointed co-pastor to the renowned Rev. J. H. Thornwell, D. D., and soon became prominent in religious circles, and was noted for eloquence, impressiveness, fervor and zeal.

In 1859 he was married to Miss Elizabeth K. Adger, daughter of the Rev. J. B. Adger, D. D.  At the breaking out of the war he promptly volunteered his services and entered the field as a member of a company attached to the 2d regiment South

Carolina volunteers, commanded by the knightly Col. J. B. Kershaw, and went to Virginia with that command, doing his duty faithfully. Although a minister of the Gospel he was frequently found on the firing line, not only giving spiritual consolation to the dying, but also encouraging the men fighting in the front of the battle.  On one occasion, at least, he used a rifle effectively, and his coolness and courage elicited the admiration of Lieut. Col. William Wallace, and that fearless officer spoke of him as the embodiment of bravery.  When Orr’s 1st regiment of rifles went to Virginia, under the command of the gallant and chivalrous Col. J. Foster Marshall, Dr. Mullally was appointed regimental chaplain and immediately won the affection of the men by his devotion to duty, his winning amiability of manner and lofty eloquence, which attracted the attention and thrilled hundreds in other regiments of Gregg’s (afterwards McGowan’s) brigade.  Gen. McGowan complimented him highly for the deep interest he took in the welfare of the men.

Dr. Mullally was known to Gen. “Stonewall” Jackson, who spoke of him in complimentary terms.  On that memorable morning, at the Wilderness, when the lion hearted Gen. Micah Jenkins was killed and Gen. Longstreet was seriously wounded, Dr. Mullally was in the midst of the fight, his handsome and expressive face all aglow as he cheered his courageous comrades or knelt by the dying heroes.

After the fateful 9th of April at Appomattox Dr. Mullally returned to South Carolina, and for some time taught school in Pendleton.  He afterwards went to Boliver, Tenn., thence to Covington, Ky., where he remained several years as pastor of one of the churches. The failure of the Southern cause, like the unsuccessful rising in his loved motherland, left him depressed in spirit.  He went to Sparta, Ga., and subsequently to Lexington, Va., where he took a course in law at the Washington and Lee University. The degree of doctor of divinity was conferred on him by the Mecklenburg college.  For some time he was the able and accomplished President of Adger College, Walhalla.  He lived in Dakota for two years; after this he went to New York, where he remained until the lamatable day of his death.  Although absent from

South Carolina, the affection for the cherished home of his adoption remained unchanged.  He continued to believe in the righteousness of the noble cause he so ardently espoused and so faithfully defended.

Dr. Mullally was strikingly handsome, tall and finely proportioned.  He was magnetic in manner, cultured and of a gentle and generous nature. His piety was of the purest order.  He was high-mined and conscientious, firm in his opinions, but temperate and tolerant towards others.  He loved his fellow man, assisted him when in distress, made due allowance for his frailties and aided him, too, in a manner fully commensurate with his means.  His devotion to his native land was a passion and a romance. In the South he had many admiring friends, who loved him when living, to whom he had endeared himself by his warm-heartedness, manly and sterling qualities, and who deeply deplore his death. Among the many tributes paid to Dr. Mullally during the war, there was none more eloquent than that which came from one of his heroic army comrades, the late Judge James S. Cothran, of Abbeville, to whose assistance Dr. Mullally went during the battle in which that gallant officer was seriously wounded.  Judge Cothran frequently said Dr. Mullally was, like Bayard of old, “without fear and without reproach.”  Dr. Mullally was a finished scholar, thoroughly versed in the classics; his oratory was of the Ciceronian order. There are survivors of McGowan’s brigade in Charleston and elsewhere throughout the State who recall his rich and resonant voice, his fertility of thought and felicity of expression.  During the winter of 1864 he delivered a discourse on the righteousness of the Confederate cause which was a masterpiece of lofty and inspired eloquence, learned and logical. Dr. Mullally wrote a series of able and brilliant articles on the book of Romans, and was a frequent contributor to papers and magazines.  He was domestic in his habits and loved the happiness and tranquillity of the home circle. Dr. Mullally leaves eight children : J. B. Adger Mullally, Thornwell, Mandeville, Lane, William, Miss Elizabeth K., Miss Susie D. A. and Miss Mary Clare Mullally.

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April 23: Virginia Tidball

23 April, 2018 in April 2018 by archivist | No comments

A SMALL FUNERAL

On April 23, I attended a funeral of a member of my local congregation. She had been a founding member, attending a Bible study before a pastor even showed up to start a church. Virginia Tidball was a lifelong resident of Fayetteville, Arkansas.

She was among the very last of an old tradition: a staunch Southern Presbyterian of the old school. By that, I mean the Old School. That was what her wing was called. It was the Scottish Calvinist wing of the American church. Its last institutional traces disappeared in the 1940’s in the South. In the North, the last of the Old School ministers had been forced out in 1936. On June 15, for the last time, an article on the Presbyterian theological conflict appeared on the front page of the New York Times. The headline announced: “Barring of 3 Philadelphia Pastors Brings Walkout by Presbyterians.” The same page announced: “G. K. Chesterton, Noted Author, Dies.”

When I say she was the last, I mean it. She was like a thread across time to an ancient past. Her father had been a Southern Presbyterian minister. He in turn had studied theology under Robert L. Dabney. For most people, the name “Dabney” does not ring a bell. The textbook writers have done their work well. Robert L. Dabney was the South’s most respected Protestant theologian and the co-founder of the Southern Presbyterian Church in 1861. (The founding meeting took place in the home of Rev. Joseph Ruggles Wilson, who oversaw the Southern Presbyterian Church, 1865-98, as Stated Clerk, and whose son Woodrow went first into the field of higher education, then politics.) During the war, Dabney served as both chaplain and aide de camp for Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson. He later wrote a biography of Jackson. He was so completely unreconstructed that in 1867, he allowed to be published his book, written during the war, A Defence of Virginia [And Through Her, of the South]. It included a vigorous defense of slavery, which by 1867 was politically incorrect in the South. He ended his career on the original faculty of the University of Texas, teaching free market economics (still called political economy), blind when he retired in 1894, and also teaching at a Presbyterian seminary in Austin. He died in 1898.

Virginia Tidball was born in 1904, the same year that the last major party candidate for President openly supported the gold standard, the long-forgotten Alton B. Parker, whose defeat by Teddy Roosevelt ended the Old Democracy, seemingly forever. But there were remnants, and Virginia Tidball was one of them.

They still tell the story of the time that John Duncan, the mathematics teacher from Scotland, ended the music portion of the worship service by having the congregation sing “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” After the service, Miss Tidball told him: “I forgive you, for you are not a native of this country.” Whether or not she was speaking of the United States, no one had the courage to ask.

The world she left behind is a very different world from the one she was born into. In the South, Dabney’s name is forgotten. The textbook story of the late unpleasantness, 1861-65, is the victors’ story. The South adopted tax-funded education with a vengeance, thereby turning the region’s children over to the New York textbook publishers long before World War I. A New York-published and edited U.S. history textbook provides a view of Southern history that is as faithful to the facts as Joseph Ruggles’ son was faithful to the Westminster Confession of Faith (1647), which he swore before God that he believed when he became a ruling elder in the Northern Presbyterian Church.

Biographical Sketch, by Gary North [online at http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north100.html; used by permission]

The Papers of Virginia Tidball have been preserved at the PCA Historical Center.

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