[p. 108]

At the Alron meeting the draft of a constitution was prepared, but action on it was deferred for a year that it might be submitted to the churches. It was wise policy to be thus deliberate in the matter of organization, to give time for the discussion of objections, and the removal of prejudices, and for a thorough setting forth of its advantages. Tbe convention met at Whitehall, Greene county, October 9-12, 1834. The antimission part of the church however raised such an opposition that the use of the meeting house was refused, and the sessions of the convention were held in a barn belonging to brother Aaron Hicks.

"Let them keep their old shanty," one of the delegates remarked, "it won't last them long."

And so it turned out, for after a time the church was removed and their pastor left the country. This was, officially, our first Illinois Baptist State Convention. Only 31 were enrolled as present, out of a Baptist membership of 5,000 in the state. But out of that total membership only two-fifths were missionary in sentiment. The Friends to Humanity were this year more largely represented, furnishing more than a third of the delegates. Joel Sweet was not present, but his aged father was there, representing Diamond Grove church. His neighbor, William Spencer, represented Jacksonville. Both of these good men died three years afterwards. Jonathan Sweet came from New York state to Morgan county, Illinois, in 1820, and was a pillar of the truth there for the fifteen years of his subsequent life. Hubbell Loomis came up to this convention from Upper Alton bringing with him Eld. George B. Davis, a fresh arrival from New York, and at that time representing the New York Bible Society. He afterward became financial agent of Shurtleff College, and then pastor at Bunker Hill, Macoupin county, and died there in 1852. Jacob Bower was present with his friend Eld. Haycraft, and two others from his own church. He had been the means of winning the Manchester church from its anti-missionism, and now it sent three delegates to the convention. John Logan, John Clark (not Father Clark, who had died nine months before), Gardner Bartlett ang Sims Kinman came down from the newly

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[p. 109]
founded Salem Association. Five of the delegates were from Bluffdale, a village a dozen miles south of the convention town, and where two years before there was scarcely a believer. A Bible school was started, a great revival followed, and a church of fifty members was organized, nearly all being new converts. The postmaster of the place, John Russell, became the church clerk. Now they sent five delegates to the state convention.

Eight of the delegates were from the churches of the North District Association, Friends to Humanity, headed by Moses Lemen, William Kinner and Elijah Dodson. The latter was then in his prime. He was born in Clark county, Ky., in 1800, but the family removed to Indiana in 1809. His parents were Baptists, but he early became a skeptic. He married in 1820, and the next year remoyed to Crawford county, Ill. There alone in the forest he was converted, and was baptized by Daniel Parker. However, he wholly rejected Parker's wrong teachings, being helped to do so by his removal to the western side of the state and putting himself in the midst of a different environment. He identified himself with the Friends to Humanity. He was a born evangelist, and loved an itinerating life. Two years before the Whitehall meeting he baptized a hundred persons in Greene county, sparsely settled though it was. He died at Woodburn, Macoupin county, in 1859.

John M. Peck was chosen moderator of the convention, and P. N. Haycraft, of Morgan county, clerk. Committees were appointed to consider and report on the following subjects: State of Religibn, Education, Sunday schools, Family worship, Foreign missions, Home missions, Relatiqn of Pastors to Churches, Temperance, Religious periodicals, Bible societies, the Cincinnati Convention of Western Baptists, the pending constitution. From one point of view, so far as the public is concerned, it might seem profitless for thirty people to listen to one another for four days concerning matters on which they are already agreed. The audience they would convince is not there. But utterances get added weight by being uttered before an audience; besides giving information, inspiration and fellowship.

This was said of northern Illinois, in the report on the State of Religion:

North of Sangamon county information received reports the field white for the harvest, with scarcely a laborer of our order. Toward lake Michigan three or four churches have recently been formed.

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[p. 110]

The "three or four churches" were Hadley, Chicago First, Bristol, Dupage.

The report on family worship closed with this conclusion: "We conclude that family worship and household instruction are imperious duties binding on all christians who have families." Moses Lemen, reporting on home missions, was of the opinion that:

Ample means to sustain traveling missionaries exists among us, if the churches and brethren could but be rightly informed on the subject. . . . This can be effected by repeated interviews among the ,preachers and leading brethren of each clmrch, in which a free and full explanation should be given of such words as "missionary," "seminary," "theology," "union," etc.

Eight of the churches in the new Salem Association had Sunday schools. All honor to John Logan! The "Pioneer and Western Baptist" and the "Cross and Journal" of Cincinnati, and the "Baptist Repository," of New York, were recommended. Also a proposed theological monthly to be called the "Baptist Advocate." The proposal of the Baptist Tract Society, now the Publication Society, to place a bound volume of Baptist tracts in every family in the west that would receive it, was commended.

The Convention oganized permanently as "THE BAPTIST CONVENTION OF ILLINOIS," auxiliary to the American Baptists Home Mission Society, with the following officers: President, J. M. Peck; secretary, Elijah Dodson; corresponding secretary and field agent, Alvin Bailey; treasurer, Dr. George Haskell. Any Baptist church or society shall be entitled to three representatives at the annual meetings. Annual meeting on the second Thursday in October. Object of the Convention: To promote fellowship, itinerant preaching, education, and to collect and circulate statistical and other information regarding the Baptist cause. Auxiliaries of the Convention may be organized anywhere, with the privilege of using their funds on their home fields. The corresponding secretary was to be an itinerant preacher and collector of funds, not only for the state work but for all the missionary enterprises of the denomination.
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[Edward P. Brand, Illinois Baptists -- A History, 1930, pp. 108-110. -- jrd]

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Illinois Baptists, by Brand - Chapter 32

History of the Baptists of Illinois
By Edward P. Brand