One of our noble pioneers of the Baptist hosts of Missouri. The Protestant pioneers of the then Far West - the early years of the Nineteenth Century - led strenuous, adventurous lives. Even in localities where they were protected from the incursions of hostile Indians, they had almost savage opposition to meet from the Romish Church, which had already gained possession of the Territory and was occupying the vantage ground in all places.Then the natural obstructions: Trackless wildernesses, almost unapproachable regions, which, though traversed by trail-like roads, were still so rough as to render progress very difficult, the infrequency of settlements, all conspired to daunt the courage and dampen the enthusiasm necessary to lead the pioneer preacher to persist in carrying the good tidings into the "regions beyond."
The faith that inspired the efforts, and sustained the zeal of these devoted men, the advance guard of the army of the Lord, the Christian pathfinders of the Western wilds, was of a stalwart kind that quailed not in view of obstacles in the van, nor yielded to discouragements in the rear.
When we read of the monumental sacrifices and the disheartening disappointments that were the common lot of these early worthies, and contrast the conditions of that period with the favorable influences that surround the Christian workers of the early Twentieth Century, we involuntarily ask:
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"Are there no foes for us to face?
Must we not stem the flood?"But realizing that each period has trials peculiar to itself, we respond:
"Sure we must fight if we would reign.
Increase our courage, Lord!"
This worthy pioneer, J. E. Welch, was born in Fayette County, Kentucky, February 28, 1789, of Virginia parentage, James and Nancy Lee Welch. His attendance upon school was fitful, or perhaps intermittent would be the better term, as conditions rather than disposition caused the irregularities in his school life. These conditions were not peculiar to the subject of this sketch, but were the usual lot in the Western States at that time, of children of parents whose financial circumstances did not render them independent of the necessity to labor.This intermittent attendance upon the schools of the neighborhood, he continued until his seventeenth year, when he left home and went to work with his brother, a millwright. Here he worked for two years. The next two years, making his father's house his home, taught school during the summer with what efficiency can be imagined, when, from his own statement, we learn, that not till that time, nor yet until several years thereafter, had he studied either geography, history or grammar. During the remaining months of the year he performed such manual labor as the neighborhood gave him opportunity to do.
During this time he came under the spiritual influence of the gospel, made a profession of faith in the Christ, and was baptized into the fellowship of David's Fork Baptist Church by Rev. Jeremiah Vardeman, October 26, 1810.
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From the beginning his heart was fired with an earnest desire to exhort sinners to flee from the wrath to come; but he was irresistibly restrained from so doing lest his zeal might be construed into a presumptuous rushing unbidden into the presence of the living God. This fear was unintentionally injected into his sensitive mind by the caution of his spiritual father, who on one occasion checked his extraordinary zeal by the admonition, "You had better take care lest you run before you are sent."Finally, and fortunately, his zeal for souls overpowered his too conscientious scruples, and he began to preach in Georgia, in March, 1812, whither his spiritual unrest had driven him.
He was now twenty-three years of age, but his judgment not having been warped by the scholastic heresy that it was unnecessary to prepare one's self for the work of the gospel ministry, he found himself seriously handicapped both by the narrow limitations of his education and by the want of schools and instructors, that in these later days stand everywhere to give the enlisting soldier of the Cross the needed intellectual equipment.
In 1814 he returned to Kentucky, and in the same year visited Missouri, and preached here for the first time, but soon after returned to Kentucky and preached in the northern part of that State constantly and earnestly for several years.
On the 2nd day of March, 1815, when he was twenty-six years of age, he was set apart for the gospel ministry by the act of ordination in his mother church, David's Fork. Revs. Jeremiah Vardeman and David Biggs constituted the presbytery by which he was examined.
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The following year, desiring to serve as missionary in the Far West, as he said, "Among a people who have enjoyed no better advantages than myself," he went to Philadelphia and spent one year in study under the training of the celebrated William Staughton, D. D., and at the meeting of the Triennial Convention in May, 1817, he, with Elder J. M. Peck, was chosen for the work of establishing a mission in St. Louis, Missouri.Previous to starting upon this mission, May 28, 1817, in Burlington, New Jersey, he was married to Miss Sarah Ann Craft, a woman in every way fitted to bear her part of the arduous labor and anxious care incident to the life of a Home Missionary.
After a long and perilous journey of 1,100 miles in their own conveyance, Elder Welch and his young wife reached St. Louis. The details of this interesting journey would make good reading, but we have not space for them here, and so we will let this suggestive outline suffice.
This journey was made during the period of severe autumn rains. The primitive roads were miry, and the unbridged streams overflowing, but pluck and ingenuity brought them through almost insurmountable difficulties to their destination, November 12, 1817.
St. Louis was at this time a town of about 3,000 inhabitants, the great majority of whom were French Catholics. Previous to this a few Baptist churches had been established in the territory west of the Mississippi River, but in St. Louis, while there were a few isolated Baptists, there was no organization.
He at once entered upon his labors with the result
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that in three months' time, in February, 1818, he assisted in organizing the First Baptist Church of St. Louis, Missouri. Previous to this, however, four or five other Baptist churches had been organized in the adjacent territory and had banded themselves together in what was then called the Missouri (now St. Louis) Association, so that our noble pioneer had brother pioneers within reaching distance.During the Spring (1818) he organized a Sunday School for the colored people of the city. The first fruits of this mission as regards conversion was the baptism of two converts from the Sunday School for the colored people in the waters of the Mississippi River.
About this time he and Elder Peck purchased a lot 40 feet by 80 feet on the southwest corner of Third and Market Streets, upon which to build a meeting house. This house was a brick structure three stories high, one story used for the purposes of the church, the rest for revenue. When in 1821 the city decided to widen Market Street, 12 by 80 feet of the church lot was condemned for the purpose. The building which had cost $6,000, three years previous, was abandoned and sold for $1,200. This was the death blow to this church. It never regained its activity, but dwindled and finally dissolved in February, 1833.
Elder Welch's activity was not confined to St. Louis. For three laborious years he went here and there gathering together scattering Baptists and organizing them into churches, or, when this was impracticable, merely strengthening them in the faith and counseling patient endurance with the prophetic promise of ultimate success if they continued faithful in prayer and active in the Lord's service. In these
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itineraries he visited a large portion of the State now known as Southeast Missouri, and many counties north of the Missouri River from St. Louis to Howard County.If the prophetic vision could have been given to him that he might have had, if only a glimpse, of the prosperous denominational condition that he was at that time active in planning for, how his anxious spirit would have taken courage in the face of seeming discouragement, when he was called to relinquish his loved work in the "Western Mission," in October, 1820. He could then have known that the result of his arduous and successful toil for three eventful years had not been for naught. But this could not be. However, the seed had been faithfully sown, the Word earnestly spoken, and the divine promise, "My word shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I have sent it," has been gloriously honored in the subsequent prosperity of the Baptist cause in this representative portion of His visible Kingdom.
During Elder Welch's sojourn in St. Louis he was instrumental in organizing the "St. Louis Sabbath School Society," a shining manifestation of his progressive spirit. This may be considered the forerunner of the Sunday School Board of the General Association, that was eventually merged into the Missouri Baptist Sunday School Convention, which later, under the efficient labor of Dr. S. W. Marston, its agent, accomplished great things in the Sunday School cause among Missouri Baptists.
When he left St. Louis he returned to Burlington; New Jersey, and for three years (1820-1823), when failing health compelled him to relinquish his more
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active work for a while, he preached in Burlington, Trenton and Mount Holly, New Jersey.Leaving New Jersey in 1823, he made a trip to St. Louis and return on horseback for the purpose of regaining his health, in which he was comfortably successful. This casual return to the field of his former labors, renewed the impression of the importance of the denominational interests in the West created by his earlier experiences, and he soon - in 1826 - returned to Missouri and settled upon a farm in the section now known as Warren County. He spent the following two years in preaching and improving his farm, but was compelled to return to the East on account of his wife's declining health.
For twenty years subsequent to this he labored under appointment of the American Sunday School Union, either as Sunday School Missionary or as Financial Agent, in both of which offices he was eminently successful.
In 1848 he again removed to his farm in Warren County, Missouri, organized and served as pastor of Union church. In 1851 was elected Moderator of the Ministers' and Deacons' Conference of the State, and to this office was re-elected for several consecutive years.
At the organization of Bear Creek Association he was chosen Moderator and served the Association in this capacity with great efficiency for ten years.
In 1864, she who had shared in his joys and his sorrows, had rejoiced with him in his successes and sympathized with him in his disappointments, a comfort and stay as wife and co-laborer since their united life began in 1817, died. He subsequently married Mrs. Mary H. Gardner, of Burlington, New Jersey,
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and brought her to his Western home where they lived and labored together for several years.In 1875, after the death of his second wife, he went to the home of his youngest son, a prominent lawyer of Warrensburg, Missouri, and dwelt there for about two years, preaching as occasion offered, which, on account of his varied experience and eminent merit, was not infrequent.
He was appointed by Governor Hardin to attend the Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia in July, 1876, as representative from Missouri. While there he was seized with an acute attack of congestion of the stomach, and in an hour's short space, the noble life of 88 years, 64 of which had been spent in the ministry, came to a close.
Let us, in closing this short record of an heroic life, draw pertinent illustrations from two widely diverse sources. A man having a fine horse, good alike for general and specific purposes, upon which he placed an unusual valuation, thus eloquently descanted upon his varied and extraordinary merits: "He's a fine draft animal, and will work either at the wheel or in the lead. If you wish to break ground, just hitch him to the plow, he will go at that as though it was his main business. He is excellent as carriage horse, active, reliable, a good stepper, will drive single or double equally well. And when you want a saddle horse, there you have him - fine pacer, easy movement, kind spirit and swift."
Carlyle said: "Heroes are intrinsically of the same material. Given a great soul, open to the Divine Significance of Life, then there is given a man fit to speak of this, to sing of this, to fight and work for this, in a great, victorious, enduring manner."
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These illustrative passages, one crude, perchance commonplace, the other elegant, will serve to illuminate the life record of this Hero of the Cross. Zealous, self-contained, temperate, strong in his firmness of character and fixedness of purpose, resourceful and masterful, he was withal, a genial, cultured, Christian gentleman. He left his enduring impress upon the Baptist History of the West, and especially on that of Missouri, and in the memory of those who knew him, the sweet savor of a devoted Christian life.
========= [From J. C. Maple and R. P. Rider, Missouri Baptist Biography, 1912, pp. 43-51. The book is from the St. Louis Public Library. Scanned and formatted by Jim Duvall]
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