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Memoir of Rev. Luther Rice: One of the First American Missionaries to the East (Classic Reprint)
(Excerpt from Memoir of Rev. Luther Rice: One of the First...)
Excerpt from Memoir of Rev. Luther Rice: One of the First American Missionaries to the East
In consenting to prepare the following memoir, the author was influenced not only by a request of the Trustees of the Columbian College, but by the solicita tion and advice of several in whose judgment he had confidence. The hope also was entertained that some good might be done to the cause of evangelical religion.
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James Barnett Taylor was an American Baptist clergyman and administrator.
Background
Taylor was born in the village of Barton-upon-Humber, Lincolnshire, England, in 1804. He was baptized in the Church of England. His father, a cabinet maker, brought his wife and infant son to the United States in 1805, and settled in New York. Following an illness, George Taylor joined a Baptist church and with his wife was baptized in 1807. Their only son in his thirteenth year was again baptized, becoming a member of the First Baptist Church, New York. The family moved to Virginia in 1817, living first in Petersburg and then in Mecklenburg County.
Education
In Mecklenburg County James worked in his father's cabinet shop, meanwhile studying with Dr. Bartholomew Egan, principal of an academy at Christiansville near by.
When his family moved to Clarksville, across the Roanoke River, he continued his studies through his own reading.
Career
Devout and studious, he began speaking in religious meetings when but sixteen years old. At the age of twenty he was licensed to preach and in 1826 was sent as a missionary to the counties of Dinwiddie, Brunswick, Nottoway, and Lunenburg. After several months he resigned this appointment but continued to live in Dinwiddie, studying, preaching, and writing for the Columbian Star, a Baptist weekly.
Ordained May 2, 1826, at Sandy Creek, he became pastor of the Second Baptist Church in Richmond, a church group of some eighteen white and about as many colored members that had persisted as an organized band for seven years.
He resigned his mission secretaryship only a short time before his death, which occurred in Richmond in his sixty-eighth year.
Success came to the young minister in his pastorate and he saw his flock grow in numbers and strength. He did editorial work for the Religious Herald and in 1836 was elected moderator of the General Association of the state, which office he held for some twenty years. He also found time to publish Biography of Elder Lott Cary (1837) and Lives of Virginia Baptist Ministers (1837; revised and enlarged, 1838; augmented and issued in 2 vols. , 1860). In 1839 he became chaplain of the University of Virginia, where he attended lectures in Latin, Greek, and Anglo-Saxon and found time to write Memoir of Luther Rice (1840) at the request of the trustees of Columbian College.
Upon returning to Richmond in 1840, he became pastor of Third Church, subsequently known as Grace Street Church. He deplored the separation of Northern and Southern Baptists, though in 1845 he attended the convention at Charleston that formed the Southern Baptist Convention. Chosen as corresponding secretary of the Foreign Mission Board of the new body, he at first declined the office, but volunteered to give two days a week to its services and in 1846 relinquished his pastorate to assume the secretaryship and devote the major part of his time to missions. For fourteen years, however, he continued to preach twice a month at Taylorsville, near Richmond.
At a meeting of the General Association at his church in 1830, with his close friend, J. B. Jeter, Taylor helped form the Virginia Baptist Education Society to promote the education of ministers. This movement resulted in the establishment of Richmond College. He sought funds for that institution in its early years and was its persistent friend and a vital force in its upbuilding.
During the Civil War his activities in behalf of missions were necessarily curtailed, and resigning his Taylorsville pastorate he became a colporteur for the Virginia Sunday School and Publication Board laboring in camps and hospitals and later became a Confederate post chaplain. After the war his business sense and able leadership were instrumental in reviving Richmond College.
Achievements
He is remembered as a devout clergyman. He aided in the establishment of a Baptist school for girls which in 1853 was chartered as Richmond Female Institute.
(Excerpt from Memoir of Rev. Luther Rice: One of the First...)
Personality
He was hopeful in spirit, modest in his estimate of himself, careful in business arrangements, friendly in his counsel to the missionaries, and zealous in traveling, preaching, and writing to enlist interest and aid for the missionary program of his denomination.
Connections
On October 30, 1828, he married, in Richmond, Mary, daughter of Rev. Elisha Scott Williams of Beverly, Massachussets They had three daughters and three sons, all of whom lived to maturity; one of the sons was George Boardman Taylor.
