Chapter IX
Forward in Education and Missions
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I. Forward in Education The Baptist people by their very genius must educate. Dr. W. F. Powell has said, "With Baptists it is to educate or abdicate." The founder of Christianity was primarily a teacher, confessedly the greatest teacher the world ever saw. He wanted to impress men with two ideas in their beauty and fulness. He wanted to implant in the world his own sufficient and supreme authority. He wanted likewise that the world should discover anew the individual; should accept and act on the sufficiency, the competency, of the individual. This called for light and culture. It inspired men, it challenged men, it required men to make the most of themselves. These principles and teachings have in large measure elevated the human race to such plane of culture and progress as it has attained. It was but natural, therefore, that the Baptist fathers in this country should begin early, in their comparative poverty and obscurity, to foeter education. It is not to be wondered at that, in the fraternal competitions of the past century, they outstripped other peoples and came to have the largest investment in educational institutions of any of the evangelical denominations in the country.
1. Early Baptists Plain People Those imperishable words which Paul said to the early Christians could with equal force have been said to our early Baptist fathers.
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"For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: but God hath chosen the foolish things of the world, to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world, to confound the things which are mighty; and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are; that no flesh should glory in his presence" (1 Corinthians 1:26-29).2. Some Wise, Mighty, Noble Not many wise, not many mighty, not many noble, but thank God, some wise and mighty and noble, were given. They were God's best gifts. If we, their descendants, fail to cherish their memory, if we fail to walk in the glorious paths which they blazed for us, we prove ourselves utterly unworthy of the heritage which they have handed down to us. It is ours now to trace briefly the story of vision, of courage, of vigor with which those mighty pioneer leaders laid, in their educational ventures, the foundations of our present prosperity.
3. Deposing of Henry Dunster The deposing of Henry Dunster from the presidency of Harvard College (1654), because he dared to oppose infant baptism, must have gone far to make clear to the Baptist leaders the necessity for establishing educational institutions of their own. Henry Dunster, educated and cultured, came over from England, being driven out by the persecutions which were then raging in the mother country. The very year of his arrival in Massachusetts, he was elected to the presidency of Harvard College.
Already he had felt serious misgiving concerning the scripturalness of infant baptism. Upon the birth of his fourth child, these sentiments crystalized into conviction, and he refused to have the child baptized. With the union of church and state which then existed, a refusal or denial of infant baptism was of course a serious offense, especially in one holding a position so eminent. Cotton
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Mather, the outstanding Congregational minister of the time, tells the story of Dunster's removal from the president's chair:Among those of our fathers, who differed somewhat from his brethren, was that learned and worthy man, Mr. Henry Dunster. . . . Wonderfully falling into the errors of Antipaedobaptism, the overseers of the College became solicitous that the students there might not be unawares ensnared in the errors of the President. Wherefore they labored with an extreme agony either to rescue the good man from his own mistake, or to restrain him from imposing them upon the hope of the flock, of both which, finding themselves to despair, they did as quietly as they could, procure his removal, and provide him a successor in Mr. Charles Chauncy.Only two years after the forced resignation of Henry Dunster emphasized the fact that Baptists, Quakers, and other dissenters could not hope to benefit by the educational facilities set up by others, a group of Baptists, led by Isaac Eaton, established an academy at Hopewell, New Jersey. Other private institutions of learning were established by other Baptists.
4. Establishment of Rhode Island College However, the first great co-operative movement on the part of the Baptist leaders looked toward the establishment (1766) of what they called Rhode Island College, and which afterwards came to be Brown University. Like so many other forward-looking developments, this plan for a really great educational institution had its beginning in the Philadelphia Association. For various reasons it was thought impracticable to obtain a favorable charter in New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, or other adjacent states, and these brave pioneering men looked toward Rhode Island where free and equal liberty was assured to all. James Manning was chosen as president of the new institution, and right well did he justify the faith of his brethren. The institution prospered even beyond the most sanguine hopes of its promoters. Its
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charter provides that the president shall be a Baptist; and that twenty-two of thirty-six trustees shall be likewise of the Baptist faith. Once definitely launched intq the field of education, the Baptist people saw rapid and gratifying developments.
A school which Dr. William Staughton opened in 1807 grew into Columbian College (later University), located in Washington, D. C., under the leadership of Luther Rice.
The larger number of the state conventions were organized expressly to promote education and missions. In the thinking and plans of the Baptist leaders, for much more than a century Christian education and Christian missions have gone hand in hand. Neither is sufficient in itself. They supplement each other. When Luther Rice sought to interest and enlist American Baptists in the foreign mission enterprise, he saw quite clearly that that enterprise would forever call for trained men and women in all of the mission fields, as well as trained leaders to sustain the work at home. Accordingly, Luther Rice sought immediately the establishment of a great Christian institution of learning, and challenged the people to its support. Thoughtful leaders from the days of Rice to the present have seen the inevitable connection between Christian schools and Christian missions.
The Baptist people in America have at the present time $244,000,000 invested in educational institutions. This represents, as we have already pointed out, a larger investment than that of any other evangelical denomination.
5. Diligent in Sunday School Ministry While we tarry to consider the Baptist people in the field of education, we may well pause to think of their share in that greatest of educational institutions which has arisen in modern times, the Sunday school. Baptists in England were among the first to welcome the coming of the Sunday school. Indeed, it was a Baptist deacon, William Fox of London, who introduced voluntary instead
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of paid teachers, and caused the Bible to supplant secular studies. Thus the Sunday school, as we have it now, was primarily the contribution of the Baptists. It was this same Baptist deacon who promoted the Sunday school, establishing for this purpose the Sunday School Society. Robert Raikes, who seems not to have thought that his system might be widely used, wrote to William Fox:1I am full of admiration at the great and the noble design of the society you speak of forming. If it were possible that my poor abilities could be rendered in any degree useful to you, point out the subject, and you will find me not inactive.It was not in England, however, but rather in America, that the Sunday school was to come most fully into its own, and find its largest development. We may trace the course of the Sunday school in this country through its relation to the church building.
It is impossible to determine where and when the first Baptist meeting-houses were erected in the American colonies. According to the Baptist historian, Dr. A. H. Newman, there was a Baptist church building in Boston as early as 1669, in Charleston as early as 1700, and in Philadelphia as early as 1707. Doctor Newman writes interestingly of the effort of the Massachusetts authorities to suppress the Baptist church in Boston, and to prevent it from using its meeting-house. Two brethren erected a plain building for the church. It must have been a simple structure, as these men received in compensation only sixty pounds. The erection of the building escaped the notice of the authorities, and when their attention was directed to the completed building, they were "filled with indignation and alarm." The leading members of the church were arrested and brought before the authorities. Such audacity on the part of the outlawed Baptists had not been anticipated, and it was found that no law against their having meeting-houses had been enacted. It
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1 A History of the Baptists, Christian, page 356.
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was not difficult to remedy this oversight. Accordingly, it was ordered that no house of worship should be erected without a permit from the freemen of the town or from the General Court. If such house should be erected, it should be forfeited to the use of the county.2
When the Baptist people offered a courteous petition to be allowed to assemble for worship, the court ordered the meeting-house closed, and forbade further assemblies. The Baptists met for worship in the church yard the following Sunday, and finding the church doors mysteriously opened, they entered and conducted worship. Again they were haled to court and ordered not to use the building, "or any other public house except such as are allowed by lawful authority."
In its relation to the church building, the history of the Sunday school falls somewhat roughly into four sections:
(1) Outside of the church building. (To about 1825.) (2) Inside, but receiving no very special consideration (1825 to 1875.) (3) The days of the Uniform Lesson and the Akron Plan. (1875 to 1910.) (4) The era of grading and the departmental building. (1910 to the present time.)
The Sunday school of the early days in America was conducted largely outside of the church building. It was usually conducted in some Christian home, in some schoolhouse, or other convenient place. The "meeting-houses" were nearly all one-room buildings, and it was not considered proper for children to assemble in numbers in the sacred place where the preacher preached and the congregation worshiped.
Gradually the teachers and the children were permitted to use the church buildings. The records of the New Liberty (Ky.) Baptist Church, which are complete from 1801, the year of the organizing of the church, tell how, in 1832, the Sunday school was first permitted to occupy
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2 A History of the Baptist Churches in the United States, pages 190-l95.
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the church auditorium. Previous to that date the Sunday school had met in a near-by schoolhouse. For many years after the Sunday school began to occupy the church meeting-houses, no special provision was made for the teaching service. All of the classes were conducted in the large open room, somewhat after the noisy fashion of the ancient Jewish synagogue.
In the seventies of the last century, when the uniform lesson idea was adopted, there came the Akron Plan, which provided for an open assembly room, surrounded by classrooms usually arranged in circular fashion at the rear. In the struggle to displace the Akron Plan in favor of something better, some have seemed to forget what a blessing the plan was to its day, and what an improvement it was upon all that had gone before.
Lastly came the era of grading and the department building. With the coming of the graded school, there came also a demand for an entirely new type of building. This marked a new epoch in the history of the churches. At one stroke it rendered "out of date" every church building in the land. It inaugurated such a church-building development as has never been known before.
The stately progress of the Sunday school may be seen in many ways; in none more surely or more clearly than in its steady influence on the church building. When the Sunday school demanded a worthy place in the building, the churches made immediate response, and almost in disregard of cost began to erect plants so large and complete that they are the wonder of the present age. Beyond doubt the most significant educational development in Christian history, the most effective agency for Bible teaching, the most effective medium of the churches for practical evangelism, is the modern department Sunday school.
Following closely the Sunday school, and inseparably related to it, is the young people's movement, which among Baptists has taken the form of the B.Y.P.U., now the Baptist Training Union. In 1891, the Baptist
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Young People's Union of America was organized in Chicago, and in almost incredibly short time Unions were organized and bearing fruit in all of the states. It is a long reach from the tiny beginnings of 1890 to the present vast development which touches and molds the young people of our churches.
Another educational factor had its origin about the same time as the B.Y.P.U., and has along with it enjoyed great growth and wielded increasing power. It is the women's missionary organization, now known as the W.M.U. The men have likewise grown a meaningful Brotherhood organization which seeks to draw our men together for practical evangelistic and missionary effort.
The most significant mark of the American churches in the last generation, that which must forever distinguish them from the churches of earlier days, is the wide and persistent emphasis upon all forms of Christian education, and especially their emphasis upon popular training as conducted in the Sunday school, the Baptist Training Union, the Woman's Missionary Union, and the Brotherhood.
II. Faithful in Missions Both in America and England, the Baptist people from the earliest days had shown something of the missionary spirit. The Philadelphia Association, along with certain others, had sent missionaries into the newer sections, and had conducted work among various Indian tribes. We would have expected that these efforts would have grown in the homeland, and that ultimately they would overflow and reach out to the heathen in foreign lands. It was not to be so; rather the first full development of missionary effort was to concern foreign fields, and the zeal for the lost on distant shores was to kindle a kindred zeal for the lost at home.
The story of how the Baptist people in America were led into the larger missionary enterprise has been often told and is familiar. The fact that "God moves in a
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mysterious way his wonders to perform" was never more finely illustrated than in the Providence by which his people in America were led into the enterprise of world missions. For the real beginnings of this enterprise we must go across to England.
1. Fuller and Carey in England Andrew Fuller, in the year 1783, became pastor of the Baptist church in Kettering, England, and continued in that pastorate to the end of his life. The description of a contemporary enables us to visualize the man: "Tall, broad-shouldered, and firmly set; his hair was parted in the middle, the brow fair and of fair height, the eyes deeply set, overhung with large bushy eyebrows; the whole face had a massive expression." Between Andrew Fuller and William Carey, a neighboring Baptist pastor, a strong friendship based upon a kindred-ship in spirit sprang up, and the two became closely associated in one of the noblest and most far-reaching enterprises the Christian world ever knew. The two friends became imbued with the idea of giving the gospel to the masses of the pagan world. Together they led in the formation of The Baptist Missionary Society, the meeting for this purpose being held in Doctor Fuller's church, October 2, 1792. Of this Society, Fuller became the first secretary and Carey the first missionary.
At this distance it is difficult, perhaps impossible, for us to appreciate fully the vision and mental courage of the men who launched this enterprise. Carey faced apparently insurmountable obstacles when he sailed away thousands of miles to a continent whose people lay in dense ignorance and gross wickedness, and to whose very languages he was an utter stranger. Fuller encountered obstacles no less grave when he undertook to arouse the people of England to support such an apparently hopeless enterprise. There is something grim and almost pathetic in the simple picture which Doctor Fuller drew: Our undertaking to India really appeared to me, on its commencement, to be somewhat like a few men, who were
[p. 100]deliberating about the importance of penetrating into a deep mine, which had never before been explored. We had no one to guide us, and while we were deliberating, Carey, as it were, said, 'Well, I will go down if you will hold the rope.' But before he went down he, as it seemed to me, took an oath from each of us at the mouth of the pit, to this effect, that while 'we lived, we should never let go the rope.'Besides Carey, who sailed in 1793, two others whose names are to be forever memorable in missionary annals, Marshman and Ward, went to India to share the perils and labors of the new venture. These mighty men wrought results which have been at once the wonder and admiration of succeeding generations. The claim has been made for Carey that he had a greater aptitude for learning languages than any other man that ever lived. His seeming aptitude may have been in part a burning zeal to open a way for Christ's gospel, and the willingness to "toil terribly." He lived to see upwards of two hundred thousand copies of the Scriptures sent out from Serampore in languages which made it possible for 300,000,000 people, one-third of the human race, to read the Bible in their own tongue.
Andrew Fuller, secretary of the Foreign Mission Society, had taken special pains to inform and enlist American Baptists in this undertaking. Many people on this side of the water gave both their prayers and their money to sustain the mission work in far away India. Great as were the results in India, greater perhaps were the fruits of this missionary venture back at home in England and America. The achievements of Carey and his associates in far-away Serampore were such as might well stir the hearts of aspiring young men in all Christian lands.
The earliest response in America came, as might have been expected, from young Christians in the colleges and seminaries. A little group of like-minded men, four in number, Adoniram Judson, Samuel J. Mills, Samuel Newell, and Samuel Nott, all Congregational students in
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Andover Theological Seminary, offered a memorial to the General Association of Massachusetts, asking that they be sent to establish a mission, or missions, to the heathen. This led to the founding of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, and later to the sending out as missionaries three of the young men named above. Later, by reason of his own importunity, Luther Rice was included in the list on condition that he would gather the funds necessary for his support.
2. Judson and Rice in America Adoniram Judson (1788-1850), the brilliant and scholarly young Congregational preacher, induced the beautiful and gifted Ann Hasseltine to share with him the great venture upon which he was setting out. On the long voyage - it was before the days of steam-driven vessels - Judson and his young wife had much time to contemplate the mighty task upon which they were entering. Right well they knew that Baptist missionaries would greet them on their arrival. Denominational rivalry was strong in those days, and it was not improbable that discussions might arise on controversial subjects. At any rate, the Judsons thought it worth while to equip themselves and be prepared to discuss any questions that might arise. They would in particular make a study of baptism, and be ready to answer any arguments which might be made against the custom of sprinkling and pouring as practiced by the Congregationalists. As a result of their studies, largely confined to the Greek New Testament, both Judson and his wife were constrained to accept the Baptist position, which demanded baptism by immersion upon a credible profession of faith. The young missionaries on their arrival found themselves in a most perplexing and embarrassing position. True to the new light which they had so earnestly sought, they asked for baptism at the hands of their Baptist brethren. They now found themselves in a most anomalous position. They held a commission from the Congregational Board in
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America, and yet they had accepted Baptist views and had actually become Baptists.
Sailing a little later, Luther Rice joined the missionary group, having become, during his voyage, aroused and concerned about the Congregational views of baptism in which he had grow up. Discussions with the missionaries, in which he sought to defend the views of his people, further unsettled him, and at length, after much and serious mental struggle, he also renounced his former beliefs and sought faith-baptism by immersion. Thus there were three American Baptist missionaries in far away India with no association or connection with the Baptists of their own country. In fact, American Baptists had not at this time organized for foreign mission work, although they had given glad support to the effort launched by their English brethren, and their better-informed leaders were fully in sympathy with the effort to evangelize the heathen. It was agreed that Luther Rice, who was possessed of rare gifts of inspiration and propagation, should return to America, start a missionary propagandism among American Baptists, and thus secure the support of the Judsons.
3. The Triennial Convention The news of what had occurred on the distant mission field, the tidings of the doors thus providentially opened, spread quickly among the Baptists of the New World. They had experienced great growth, having doubled their numbers in a few years and having greatly increased their possessions. Many conditions conspired to prepare them to hail the challenging opportunity. Luther Rice became a veritable evangel, and with flaming zeal he visited all parts of the land, mightily stirring the hearts of the people everywhere. In 1814, The General Missionary Convention of the Baptist Denomination in the United States was organized. Because the Convention met once in three years, it was called The Triennial Convention.
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Thus was organized mission work begun among American Baptists. The special challenging object was foreign missions. Under God the call of the heathen and the response made to that call created a wide range of interest and effort. At once new interest was aroused in Bible translation and Bible circulation. It was out of that period that there came the great American and British Bible Societies, which have literally filled the earth with the printed Word. At its second session in 1817, the Triennial Convention moved toward the undertaking of home mission work, as is indicated in the following resolution: That the Board of Foreign Missions for the United States have full power at their discretion to appropriate a portion of the funds to domestic missionary purposes, in such parts of the country where the seed of the Word may be advantageously cast, and which mission societies on a small scale do not effectively reach.From the impetus which came from the foreign mission revival, as we have previously suggested, there came also a renewed concern for Christian education, resulting in the establishment of Columbian College, which later was to become Columbian University, located in Washington, D. C., and was ultimately to lead before 1850 to the founding of scores of colleges and seminaries in all parts of the land. Out of this same movement came the organization of state conventions in the various states of the Union.
In a mysterious way, indeed, God was moving his wonders to perform. It is not difficult now to see clearly the hand of Providence as we think of the mighty developments and the far-reaching movements which within a quarter of a century followed the entry of the Baptist people upon the foreign mission enterprise.
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4. The Southern Baptist Convention The Triennial Convention continued as the medium through which the Baptists of the United States conducted their general missionary efforts at home and abroad until the year 1845. At that time, as we have already seen, the Baptists in the Southern States withdrew and organized the Southern Baptist Convention. This division, which was due to heated controversies over the question of slavery, was a painful ordeal, especially for the older brethren who had long loved the fellowships of the Triennial Convention. Trying as was the separation, it brought its own blessings. Within a short time Southern Baptists were giving several times as much for the support of missions as they had given before the division. The parent body likewise increased its efforts, and in spite of the losses sustained was able to multiply its activities.
5. The Two Bodies More Efficient The Southern Baptist Convention immediately organized two boards, one for the promotion of domestic or home missions, and one for the carrying of the gospel to the uttermost parts of the earth. Northern Baptists, likewise, entered upon an era of expansion and conquest.
Besides the home and foreign mission work thus conducted in a larger co-operative way, the State Conventions, and in many cases, district associations, have conducted evangelistic and missionary enterprises which have been abundantly fruitful.
It was thus the challenge of world missions that led the Baptist people to form the nationwide organization, and to mold the ties by which they became a denomination rather than a multitude of separate units scattered throughout the country.
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Teaching Suggestions Question-Answer Study
Why would the Baptists be expected to stress education? Relate the story of Henry Dunster's ejection from the presidency of Harvard College. Tell of the founding of Brown University. Show the part of the Baptist people in the early development of the Sunday school. Give in outline the stages of Sunday school progress in America. Tell of the beginnings of the Baptist Missionary Society and Doctor Fuller's vision for it. Relate the developments which led to the organization of the Triennial Convention. Show how the interest in Home Missions and Christian education grew out of the new Foreign Mission interest. Tell of the organization of the Southern Baptist Convention. Blackboard-Outline Discussion
I. Forward in Education 1. Early Baptists plain people 2. Some wise, mighty, noble 3. Deposing of Henry Dunster 4. Establishment of Rhode Island College 5. Diligent in Sunday school ministry
II. Faithful in Missions 1. Fuller and Carey in England 2. Judson and Rice in America 3. The Triennial Convention 4. The Southern Baptist Convention 5. The two bodies more efficient ============ [From P. E. Burroughs, The Baptist People, SSB of SBC, 1934. This document provided by Pastor Tom Byrd. Scanned and formatted by Jim Duvall.]
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