CHAPTER L
The Pastoral Union
[p. 167]
For more than half a century the General Association or State Convention and the Pastoral Union have been one and inseparable. Wherever the former was appointed to be the latter has been sure to get there a day ahead. Trial and time is the test of usefulness, and the Pastoral Union has successfully passed that test. There was once a committee appointed to consider the propriety of dissolving it, that more time might be had for "business," but. the report was laid indefinitely on the table. It was wise. We have too much business already. There is business at every session and business in sections; sometimes while the body is doing business in one place forty-eight brethren may be doing business in another place.
The Pastoral Union is the devotional and educational department of the State Convention. It began at Peoria, October 19, 1846. Ira Dudley, pastor at St. Charles, was elected president, and J. F. Tolman, clerk. The next year at Jacksonville the organization was completed, and Burton Carpenter elected president. It was the last meeting he lived to attend. Eighteen members were enrolled, but afterward the membership idea was dropped.
The annual report of the obituary committee, giving life sketches of ministers who have died during the year, has from the first been the task of the Pastoral Union. Most of the sketches were prepared by Justus Bulkley, who was chairman of the obituary committee forty-six years. Since his death they have been prepared by L. A. Abbott, also of Shurtleff.
Justus Bulkley was from Leicester county, New York, and came to Illinois with his parents in 1837, when eighteen years of age. The same autumn he was baptized by Joel Sweet into the fellowship of the Barry Baptist church. In 1842 he entered Shurtleff, graduating in 1847. He studied theology under Washington Leverett, and in 1849 was ordained by the Baptist church at Jerseyville. In 1853 he became professor of mathematics in the College. But the battle among us over the revision of the English Bible was raging, and as he was a strong Bible Union man and most of the faculty and trustees were not, he resigned. After a ten years' pastorate at Carrollton he again entered the college as
[p. 168]
professor of church history, which post he held for 34 years. He died at his home in Upper Alton in 1899.
A persevering attempt was at one time made to simplify the gathering of obituary facts by securing them from the brethren during life, but the attempt was finally abandoned. Most of the sketches presented were so brief that they had to be referred back to the authors for completion. Filling out our blarik for the obituary committee is somewhat like filling out a blank for the undertaker.
An important task for several years was the carrying on of annual Ministers' Institutes. The plan was suggested by G. S. Bailey, then state superintendent of missions. He was from Pennsylvania, born in 1822. He came to Illinois in 1846, and was pastor at Springfield for three years. He was afterwards pastor at Tremont, Pekin, Metamora and Morris. He was state superintendent of missions, 1863-7, and financial secretary of the Chicago Baptist Theological Seminary, 1867-75. He was the author of the History of the Illinois River Baptist Association, and of several denominational works.
The first Ministers' Institute was held for two weeks, July 1-13, 1864, in the old University of Chicago. There were two lectures a day on Doctrinal, practical, polemical and pastoral theology, christian evidences and elocution. The fee for the course was $2.00, and the attendance averaged 70. The next year the fee was increased to $5.00, in the hope that there might be some compensation for the lecturers, but finding it would greatly reduce the attendance it was lowered to the old figure. The next year, 1866, by securing free entertainment in Chicago -- at a cost to the Chicago Social Union of $600 -- the attendance was increased to 180. In 1869 it mounted up to 200. Three lectures a day were given, chiefly Bible exposition. In 1870 an Institute in the German language was added. All this involved so much gratuitous labor that one man could continue it, and the next Institute was held in Bloomington in 1873. The next was at Peoria, in 1875, and the last was at Freeport in 1880. Their place is now filled by the, various summer assemblies, which afford the needed variety, and combine instruction with recreation. The essential principle is to carry to the people what they need rather than wait for them to come and ask for it. It is the principle involved in the Bible School Home Class, and in the College Extension lectures so popular a few years since.
A notable illustration was given in the Alton church under pastor Jameson, 1864-9. Twenty-eight members had each a district which
[p. 169 they visited monthly, with a selected tract as a means of introduction. In 7,640 visits in five years there were only 230 refusals to receive the tract. The expense for tracts was borne by church collections. Some of the visitors became so much attached to their districts that they would not give them up, and some of the families when they removed requested that the visits might be continued in their new homes. What were the elements in this form of pastoral visitation which made it so welcome?
Those in attendance at the meetings of the Pastoral Union, and those preparing programs therefor, should aim to introduce the practical and the expository. Let "What to Think" be supplemented by "What to Do". At the Edwardsville Association in 1848 it was complained that, "Business occupies too great a portion of the time." It was recommended that every delegate bring the best he has, in the way of facts, that the sessions may be strong and stirring. It was good counsel. Demosthenes defined eloquence as action. In comparison with the latest fact, "the latest thought" is but a plaything with which scholars amuse themselves. =================== [Edward P. Brand, Illinois Baptists -- A History, 1930, pp. 167-169. -- jrd]
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