Background

George Bethune was born on March 18, 1805, in New York City, New York, United States, the son of Divie (afterward Richard) Bethune, of Huguenot extraction, and his wife, Joanna Graham, both being natives of Scotland.

Education

George was reared in a home of wealth and piety, was instructed by private tutors and at the academy at Salem, New York, and entered Columbia in 1819. After three years there he went to Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where he graduated in 1823. He then studied theology at Princeton.

Career

Berthune was ordained by the Second Presbytery of New York, November 10, 1827, and immediately entered the Dutch Reformed Church, where he remained throughout his life. His pastorates were: Rhinebeck, New York, 1827-1830; Utica, 1830-1834; the First and Third churches in Philadelphia, 1834-1849; Brooklyn Heights, 1850-1859; and the Twenty-first Street Church, New York City, 1859-1862. He made several extended trips to Europe, and died of apoplexy at Florence, Italy, where he had gone for the recovery of his health.

At various times in his life the way was opened to Bethune to become chaplain and professor of moral science at West Point, chancellor of New York University, and provost of the University of Pennsylvania. But he preferred to remain in the pastorate.

While in Brooklyn Bethune was for a time lecturer on pulpit oratory in the Theological Seminary at New Brunswick. His pulpit work was distinguished for its oratorical power and its devotional qualities. He published a volume of his own poems, entitled Lays of Love and Faith (1848), and edited The British Female Poets, with Biographical and Critical Notices (1848). In 1846 he issued the first American edition of Walton's Complete Angler, in which the volume of the work itself was nearly equaled by that of the editor's introduction and appendix containing ballads, music, and papers on American fishing, with the most complete catalogue of books on angling ever printed. Owing to the public feeling against the propriety of such a book by a clergyman, it was published anonymously.

Achievements

• George Bethune was an outstanding musician and poet who wrote several well-known hymns and many publications on religious themes. Some of his published works: The Fruits of the Spirit (1839); Sermons (1847); Lays of Love and Faith (1847); The British Female Poets (1848); Orations and Discourses (1850), and Expository Lectures on the Heidelberg Catechism (1864).

Works

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  • Lays of love and faith, with other fugitive poems

    (This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)

  • The Fruit of the Spirit (Classic Reprint)

    (Excerpt from The Fruit of the Spirit In the care of the ...)

  • Expository Lectures on the Heidelberg Catechism

    (This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curat...)

  • The History of a Penitent: A Guide for the Inquiring : in a Commentary on the CXXXth Psalm

    (This is a reproduction of a classic text optimised for ki...)

  • Orations and Occasional Discourses

    (This is a reproduction of a classic text optimised for ki...)

  • The Claims of Our Country on Its Literary Men: An Oration Before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Harvard University, July 19, 1849

    (This is a reproduction of a classic text optimised for ki...)

Politics

In politics Bethune was a staunch Democrat, was opposed alike to slavery and Abolitionism. He was the author of a letter to President Buchanan urging him to suppress the pro-slavery propaganda of the South, and when the Confederacy was formed he stood firmly for the Union.

Membership

George Bethune was a member of the Colonization Society.

Interests

• Bethune was an untiring fisherman, he collected about 700 works on angling and kindred subjects.

Connections

On November 4, 1825, Bethune married Mary Williams, to whom he was deeply devoted. Mrs. Bethune was an invalid for most of her life, and there were no children.

Father:

Divie Bethune

Mother:

Joanna (Graham) Bethune

Spouse:

Mary (Williams) Bethune