A Quest For Souls: Comprising All The Sermons Preached And Prayers Offered In A Series Of Gospel Meetings (1917)
(This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)
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(This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)
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(UPDATE: Corrected typos The late Dr. Douglas Southall Fre...)
UPDATE: Corrected typos The late Dr. Douglas Southall Freeman, Virginia’s foremost citizen, editor, biographer and historian, in 1939 said of Dr. George W. Truett: “He is one of the most notable figures of twentieth-century Christianity—a man to whom, along with millions of Americans, I owe a debt in spirit.” There were many reasons for Dr. Freeman’s estimate, one of them being the fact that Dr. Truett ever proclaimed a very high standard of conduct for Christians and always practiced what he preached. Every sermon in this volume emphasizes some phase of Christian living, such as witnessing, resisting evil, obedience, dedication of life, stewardship, giving Christ first place. For this reason the title is given to this volume. Three sermons herein were first published in 1915 by Fleming H. Revell Co. of New York in a volume of sermons by Dr. George W. Truett which was compiled and edited by Dr. J. B. Cranfill. The title of that first volume of Dr. Truett's sermons was We Would See Jesus. It is now out of print and the Fleming H. Revell Company has graciously given permission to reprint these sermons in re-edited form. Your present compiler and editor greatly appreciates this favor, because these particular sermons seem to fit so well in After His Likeness and also because they are so worthy of reprinting. They are: “We Would See Jesus,” “The Temptation of Our Saviour,” and “The Supreme Gift to Jesus.” That first volume of Truett sermons went through seventeen printings, a high tribute to the value of the messages therein. What was said of Abel may also be said of George W. Truett: “He being dead yet speaketh.” Powhatan W. James. Dallas, Texas August 1, 1954
George Washington Truett, also known as George W. Truett, was an American clergyman.
Background
He was born on May 6, 1867 on a farm two miles west of Hayesville in Clay County, N. C. , a remote mountain region in the southwestern part of the state. He was the sixth son and seventh of eight children of Charles Levi and Mary Rebecca (Kimsey) Truett.
His forebears, of English and Scotch-Irish descent, had early migrated from the Southern seaboard into the Appalachian region of North Carolina and Georgia. Both his maternal grandfather and a great-uncle, Elijah Kimsey, were Baptist preachers well known in this area. His father's 250-acre mountain farm provided an austere living for the family.
Education
He entered school at Hayesville Academy in 1875 and graduated in 1885.
In the fall of 1893 he enrolled as a freshman at Baylor; earning his way by serving as pastor of the East Waco Baptist Church, he received his bachelor's degree in 1897.
Career
George Truett taught in a one-room school in nearby Towns County, Ga.
His first plan was to become a lawyer, and to earn money for college he opened a subscription school at Hiawassee, Ga. , in 1887, which after two years had grown to include 300 students and three teachers.
He gave up his school, however, in 1889 when the family moved to Whitewright, Texas.
That fall Truett enrolled at Grayson Junior College in Whitewright. His activity in the local church attracted attention, and in the following year the members persuaded him, with some difficulty, that it was his duty to give up the law for the ministry.
Ordained in 1890, at the age of twenty-three, he was chosen as financial secretary of the Baptist-affiliated Baylor University in Waco, Texas, and was given the awesome task of clearing its debt of $92, 000. His success, during twenty-three months of traveling and preaching throughout the state, marked him as a man of unusual ability.
In 1893, he was called to the pastorate of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, where he remained until his death.
Truett quickly gained recognition as a great preacher in the evangelical tradition, and under his vigorous leadership the Dallas church throve.
During his forty-seven years as pastor the membership increased from 715 to 7, 804. The church auditorium was enlarged to attain a seating capacity of four thousand, but it was not uncommon for a thousand more to be turned away on occasion.
Armed with his conviction that money and power were stewardships to be used for the benefit of others, Truett continued to be an able fund raiser for church causes.
One of his earliest projects was promoting the establishment of the Texas Baptist Memorial Sanitarium in Dallas, later the Baylor Hospital and Medical Center, for which he obtained large gifts and which he served as a trustee. Early in his Dallas pastorate he was urged to accept the presidency of Baylor University, but chose to continue his ministry.
In 1902 he began holding summer camp meetings for cowboys in the Davis Mountains of West Texas, a practice he continued for the next thirty-six years. Truett's remarkable ability to reach the emotions of his listeners soon spread his fame beyond Texas, and he accepted invitations to conduct revival meetings in most of the major cities of the United States.
By 1918 he had gained a national reputation, and President Woodrow Wilson designated him one of twenty men sent to Europe through the Y. M. C. A. to preach to American troops. At a Washington meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention on May 16, 1920, Truett spoke from the steps of the Capitol to 15, 000 persons.
He served as president of the Southern Baptist Convention from 1927 through 1929. A summer preaching tour of South America in 1930 drew large crowds, and in 1934 he was unanimously chosen for a five-year term as president of the Baptist World Alliance, for which he made a tour of Baptist missions in 1935-36.
He died in Dallas at the age of seventy-seven of Paget's disease and cardiorespiratory complications and was buried in Hillcrest Cemetery in that city.
Achievements
George Washington Truett is remembered as the pastor of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas, from 1897 until 1944, and the president of the Southern Baptist Convention from 1927 to 1929. He was one of the "most famous Southern Baptist" preachers and writers of his era.
The seminary at Baylor University, George W. Truett Theological Seminary was named in his honor.
Truett-McConnell College (named for both Truett and Truett's cousin, Fernando C. McConnell) was named in his honor.
George W. Truett Elementary School, part of the Dallas Independent School District.
S. Truett Cathy, founder of Chick-fil-A restaurant chain was named in his honor.
Truett Memorial First Baptist Church, Hayesville, North Carolina was named in his honor.
Truett Hospital, located at Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas was named in his honor.
Truett Auditorium, located at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary was named in his honor.
He had since childhood attended the Baptist church in Hayesville, and in 1886, during a series of evangelistic meetings, he experienced conversion.
Personality
In his prime George W. Truett was nearly six feet tall and weighed about 200 pounds, with unusually broad shoulders and erect carriage. Solemn in appearance, he was black-haired, with blue-gray eyes and a wide, sensitive mouth. His remarkable voice made him audible to large crowds without the aid of an amplifying system.
Connections
On June 28, 1894, while in college, Truett had married a fellow student, Josephine Jenkins. Their three daughters were Jessie Jenkins, Mary, and Annie Sallee.
