John Holt Rice

Background

John Holt Rice was born on November 28, 1777 in Bedford County, Virginia, the son of Benjaman Rice, an impecunious lawyer, and Catherine Holt, his wife, and a nephew of the Rev. David Rice.

Education

He was educated under various masters, spent a year and a half at Liberty Hall Academy, and a period of equal length at an academy for boys in New London.

Career

In his eighteenth year he took charge of a family school at Malvern Hills, below Richmond; the next year (1796) he became a tutor at Hampden-Sydney College; in 1799 he conducted a family school in the house of Major Morton at "Willington, " and the following year, a similar school in the home of Josiah Smith in Powhatan; in 1800 he returned to teach at Hampden-Sydney.

While at Hampden-Sydney he determined to study for the ministry, and followed, though unsystematically, a course mapped out for him by Archibald Alexander, then president of the college. He was licensed by Hanover Presbytery in 1803, and ordained on September 29, 1804.

From 1804 to 1812 he was pastor of the Presbyterian Church on Cub Creek. During this period he cultivated a small farm, with the aid of a few slaves; conducted a school for boys to supplement his inadequate salary; and for a part of the time (1806 - 08) acted as an agent for the Presbytery of Hanover in raising funds for a theological school to be established at Hampden-Sydney.

In 1812, at the invitation of a few Presbyterians, he went to Richmond, and established the first Presbyterian Church of that city, of which he was pastor until 1823. He organized the Virginia Bible Society in 1813 and aided in the formation of the American Bible Society in 1816; edited a weekly (later a bi-weekly) religious newspaper, the Christian Monitor, from July 8, 1815, to August 30, 1817, and the Virginia Evangelical and Literary Magazine, a monthly, from January 1818 to December 1828.

In this periodical he offered strong protest, on religious grounds, to the appointment of Thomas Cooper as professor in the University of Virginia. Rice also formed a company for the publication of Christian literature; organized the Young Men's Missionary Society of Richmond; and took the lead in promoting home missionary activity throughout Virginia. In 1819 he was elected Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, and in 1822, president of the College of New Jersey, which call he declined.

On January 1, 1824, he became professor of theology in the Theological Seminary at Hampden-Sydney (later Union Theological Seminary), the activities of which had been suspended since the death of Dr. Moses Hoge in 1820. The organization, equipment, and development of this institution, the first of its kind in the South, was the great work of his life. In 1830 he commenced in the Southern Religious Telegraph a series of letters addressed to James Madison, which aroused keen interest throughout the state. They were published in 1832 under the title Historical and Philosophical Considerations on Religion: Addressed to James Madison Esq. , Late President of the United States.

In 1831 he wrote "Project of an Overture to be Submitted to the Next General Assembly, " in which he declared that "the Presbyterian Church . .. is a Missionary Society. " This overture stimulated the organization of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions.

Rice died in his fifty-fourth year after a prolonged illness.

Achievements

• He published numerous sermons and the letters among which An Illustration of the Character & Conduct of the Presbyterian Church in Virginia (1816); The Pamphleteer, No. 1, Essay on Baptism (1819), No. 2, Irenicum or the Peacemaker (1820); A Review of 'The Doctrines of the Church, Vindicated from the Misrepresentations of Dr. John Rice, &' (1827); and Memoir of James Brainerd Taylor (1833), in collaboration with B. H. Rice.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Memoir of James Brainerd Taylor

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

  • Review of the "Doctrines of the Church" "Vindicated From the Misrepresentations Of" "Dr. John Rice": And the Integrity of Revealed Religion Defended ... by the Right Rev'd John S. Ravenscroft,

    (Excerpt from Review of the "Doctrines of the Church" "Vin...)

Personality

Rice was fully six feet tall, habitually slow in his physical motions, hesitating in his public speech, but a brilliant writer. A thorough Calvinist, he was nevertheless a man of irenic temper and catholic spirit.

Connections

On July 9, 1802, he married Anne Smith Morton, the daughter of Major Morton of "Willington"; there were no children.

Father:

Benjaman Rice

A lawyer

Mother:

Catherine Holt

Spouse:

Anne Smith Morton