Log College Press is the Place to Find American Presbyterian Psalters and Hymnals

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Have you visited our Compilations page lately? It is the home for many interesting works by denominations or groups of authors, but today we are highlighting the assembled psalters and hymnals which represent the sacred song utilized in the praise of God by American Presbyterians. This project is ongoing, but we invite you to check out what is currently available.

Psalters

• The Psalms of David in Meeter [Kirk of Scotland] (1650)

• The Book of Psalms [UPCNA] (1871)

• The Book of Psalms: The Scottish Version Revised, and the New Versions Adopted by the United Presbyterian Church of North America [UPCNA] (1871)

• The Psalter of the United Presbyterian Church of North America [UPCNA] (1887)

• The Psalms: A Revision of the Scottish Metrical Version With Additional Versions [RPCNA] (1888)

• The Psalter: With Music [RPCNA] (1890)

• The Psalter, or, Book of Psalms: A Revision of the Metrical Version of the Bible Psalms, With Additional Versions [RPCNA] (1893)

• The Psalter With Music [UPCNA] (1900)

• The Psalms in Meter [Joint Committee] (1905)

• The Psalter, or, Book of Psalms: A Revision of the Metrical Version of the Bible Psalms, With Additional Versions [RPCNA] (1907)

• The New Metrical Version of the Psalms [Joint Committee] (1909)

• The Psalter With Responsive Readings [UPCNA] (1912)

• Psalter Hymns: For Use in Families, Sabbath Schools and Bible Classes, Young People's Societies, Prayer Meetings, and Union Services [UPCNA] (1912)

• The Book of Psalms: Rendered in Metre and Set to Music [RPCNA] (1912)

• The Book of Psalms: Rendered in Metre and Set to Music [RPCNA] (1920)

Note that the first Psalter employed by the RPCNA (besides the 1650 Scottish Metrical Psalter which it inherited - which is true for all branches of American Presbyterianism as well) was produced by William Wallace Keys in 1863, and is known to history as the Keys Psalter.

Hymnals (including Psalter-Hymnals)

• [Isaac Watts] Psalms, Carefully Suited to the Christian Worship in the United States of America: Being an Improvement of the Old Versions of the Psalms of David; Allowed, by the Reverend Synod of New York and Philadelphia, to be Used in Churches and Private Families [PCUSA] (1787)

• [Isaac Watts] Psalms, Carefully Suited to the Christian Worship in the United States of America: Being an Improvement of the Old Versions of the Psalms of David; Allowed, by the Reverend Synod of New York and Philadelphia, to be Used in Churches and Private Families [PCUSA] (1787, 1794)

• Psalms and Hymns Adapted to Public Worship, and Approved by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America [PCUSA] (1830)

• [George Fleming] Psalms and Hymns, Adapted to Public Worship, and Approved by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America [PCUSA] (1834, 1835)

• Sacred Harmony: A Selection of Plain Tunes Adapted to the Use of the Psalms of David [Associate Reformed Synod of New-York] (1834)

• Devotional Hymns Adapted to Social, Private and Public Worship [Old School PCUSA] (1842)

• Church Psalmist, or, Psalms and Hymns: For the Public, Social, and Private Use of Evangelical Christians [New School PCUSA] (1843)

• Parish Psalmody: A Collection of Psalms and Hymns For Public Worship (1844)

• The Presbyterian Psalmodist: A Collection of Tunes Adapted to the Psalms and Hymns of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America [PCUSA] (1852)

• Hymnal of the Presbyterian Church [PCUSA] (1867)

• Psalms and Hymns For the Worship of God: Approved by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States, at Its Meeting in Memphis, Tennessee, November, 1866 [PCUS] (1867)

• The Sacrifice of Praise: Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs Designed For Public Worship and Private Devotion, With Notes on the Origin of Hymns (1869)

• The Presbyterian Hymnal [PCUSA, music and words] (1874)

• The Presbyterian Hymnal [PCUSA, words only] (1874)

• The New Psalms and Hymns [PCUS] (1901)

• Bible Songs: A Collection of Psalms Set to Music For Use in Church and Evangelistic Services, Prayer Meetings, Sabbath Schools, Young People’s Societies, and Family Worship [UPCNA] (1901)

• The Book of Common Worship [PCUSA] (1906)

• The Psalter Hymnal: The Psalms and Selected Hymns [UPCNA] (1927)

Note that other hymnals are available on individual pages, such as Archibald Alexander, A Selection of Hymns, Adapted to the Devotions of the Closet, the Family, and the Social Circle (1831); Leonard Woolsey Bacon, Congregational Church-Music; With 150 Psalms and Hymns (1854); Nathan Sidney Smith Beman, Sacred Lyrics: or, Select Hymns, Particularly Adapted to Revivals of Religion, and Intended as a Supplement to Watts (1832) and Sacred Lyrics, or Psalms and Hymns Adapted to Public Worship (1841); Louis FitzGerald Benson, The Hymnal (1895) and The Chapel Hymnal (1898, 1910), as well as others; Henry Augustus Boardman, A Selection of Hymns: Designed as a Supplement to the “Psalms and Hymns” of the Presbyterian Church (1861) and Hymns of Praise (1867); George Buist, A Collection of Hymns for Public and Private Worship, Approved by the Presbytery of Charleston (1796); Thomas Cleland, Evangelical Hymns, For Private, Family, Social, and Public Worship (1831); Henry Sloane Coffin, Hymns of the Kingdom of God: With Tunes (1910); William Coombs Dana, A Collection of Hymns: Supplementary to the Psalms and Hymns of Dr. Watts (1859); James Gallaher, New Select Hymns, Designed to Accompany Watts’ Psalms & Hymns (1835); Edwin Francis Hatfield, Freedom's Lyre: or, Psalms, Hymns, and Sacred Songs, For the Slave and His Friends (1840), The Church Hymn Book, With Tunes; For the Worship of God (1872), and The Chapel Hymn Book, With Tunes; For the Worship of God (1873); Robert Pollok Kerr, Hymns of the Ages For Public and Social Worship (1891); Willis Lord, Hymns of Worship: Designed For Use Especially in the Lecture-Room, the Prayer-Meeting and the Family (1858); James Lyon, Urania: A Collection of Psalm-Tunes, Anthems and Hymns (1761); Lowell Mason, Church Psalmody: A Collection of Psalms and Hymns, Adapted to Public Worship (1831), and more; James Ormsbee Murray, The Sacrifice of Praise: Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs Designed For Public Worship and Private Devotion, With Notes on the Origin of Hymns (1869); Samson Occom, Hymns (1773 and A Choice Collection of Hymns and Spiritual Songs (1774, 1785); Charles Seymour Robinson, Songs of the Church: or, Hymns and Tunes For Christian Worship (1862, 1864), Songs For the Sanctuary: or, Hymns and Tunes For Christian Worship (1865, 1867), Psalms and Hymns, and Spiritual Songs: A Manual of Worship For the Church of Christ (1875); Philip Schaff, Hymns and Songs of Praise For Public and Social Worship (1874); Gardiner Spring, The Brick Church Hymns, Designed For the Use of Social Prayer Meetings and Families, Selected From the Most Approved Authors and Recommended by Gardiner Spring, D.D., Pastor of Said Church (1823); Nathan Strong, The Hartford Selection of Hymns From the Most Approved Authors (1799); Thomas DeWitt Talmage, Many Voices; or, Carmina Sanctorum (1891); Robert Ellis Thompson, The National Hymn-Book of the American Churches (1893); Henry Jackson Van Dyke, Jr., The Church Psalter: One Hundred and Four Psalms Arranged Under Subjects For Responsive Reading (1891); James Patriot Wilson, Sr., Hymns For Social Worship, Collected From Various Authors (1817); and Samuel Ramsey Wilson, Hymns of the Church, Ancient and Modern, For the Use of All Who Love to Sing the Praises of God in Christ, in the Family, the School, or the Church; With a Discourse on Music as a Divine Ordinance of Worship (1872); among many others.

There is much matter here for those who wish to explore how early American Presbyterians offered “the sacrifice of praise, the fruit of lips” (Heb. 13:15) in the sanctuary. The questions raised by the regulative principle of worship about the content of song to be used (inspired psalms or uninspired hymns), as well as the propriety and practicality of instrumental accompaniment, are dealt with in a whole other body of literature to which we have alluded in the past. This collection on the pages of Log College Press is drawn to a great extent from the Louis FitzGerald Benson Collection of Hymnals and Hymnody at the library of Princeton Theological Seminary, as well as from a variety of other sources. We continue to add more literature related to psalmody and hymnody often so be sure to check back here periodically as our collection grows.

Eyewitnesses to History

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One fascinating feature found within the writings of early American Presbyterians is the window some authors have given us to key moments in history. Amidst the doctrinal and devotional literature are records and observations, speeches, sermons, diary entries, letters and more that tell future generations, including ours, what it is like to be present at some of the most momentous historical events in the annals of America and the world.

• One of the earliest Presbyterians in America was Alexander Whitaker, a chaplain who arrived at the Jamestown colony in Virginia in 1611, and who ministered to the Indian princess Pocahontas. He reported in a June 18, 1614 letter to his cousin William Gouge, later a Westminster Divine, concerning both her conversion to Christianity and her marriage to John Rolfe: “But that which is best, one Pocahuntas or what Matoa the daughter of Powhatan, is married to an honest and discreete English Gentleman Master Rolfe, and that after she had openly renounced her Country Idolatry, professed the faith of Jesus Christ, and was baptised; which thing Sir Thomas Dale had laboured a long time to ground in her.”

This portrait of The Baptism of Pocahontas by John Gadsby Chapman (1840), which shows Alexander Whitaker administering the sacrament, hangs in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol Building, Washington, District of Columbia.

• Reportedly, among the 56 signers of the U.S. Declaration of Independence at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, twelve were Presbyterians, including Richard Stockton and John Witherspoon, the only clergyman present. Witherspoon also had a hand at another historical moment - the signing of the Articles of Confederation.

Signature of John Witherspoon on the 1776 U.S. Declaration of Independence (Witherspoon signed it on August 2, 1776).

Signature of John Witherspoon on the 1781 Articles of Confederation (New Jersey delegates signed the document on November 26, 1778).

• Samuel Miller (then known as “Sammy”) was a young witness to history having been present at the State House in Philadelphia (Independence Hall) at the time of the 1787 Constitutional Convention. He watched as George Washington, and many other founding fathers, some of whom were friends of his father, John Miller, entered and departed while the work of preparing the US Constitution was going on. He was also a student at the University of Pennsylvania in 1789 while the first General Assembly of the PCUSA was meeting and working to revise the standards of the church. Miller’s friend — and later, colleague — John Rodgers played an important role at that Assembly (Miller was Rodgers’ biographer). He also developed close ties at this time to Ashbel Green, whose advice and counsel to young Miller would prove important as he entered upon his theological studies.

Junius Brutus Steams, Washington as Statesman at the Constitutional Convention (1856)

• One of the most amazing meteor showers recorded in history took place in during the night and early morning of November 12-13, 1833. There were many who witnessed the Leonid meteor storm in which between 50,000 and 150,000 meteors fell each hour, one of whom was David Talmage, the father of Thomas De Witt Talmage, who later told his father’s story in a sermon.

Engraving of the 1833 Leonid Meteor Shower by Adolf Vollmy (1889), based on the painting by Karl Jauslin.

• Albert Williams, who founded the First Presbyterian Church of San Francisco, California, wrote about the series of fires that plagued the city in 1851 in A Pioneer Pastorate (1879): “So frequent and periodical were these fires, that they came to be regarded in the light of permanent institutions. Fears of a recurrence of the dread evil, in view of the past, were not long in waiting for fulfilment. On the anniversary of the fire of the 4th of May, 1850, came another on the 4th of May, 1851, the fifth general fire. The city was appalled by these repeated calamities. And more, it began to be a confirmed conviction that they were not accidental, but incendiary. On the 22d of June, 1851, the sixth, and, happily the last general fire, and severest of all, occurred. The fact that the point of the beginning of this fire was in a locality quite destitute of water facilities, with other attending circumstances, left hardly a remaining doubt of its incendiary character.”

Depiction of the June 22, 1851 San Francisco Fire.

• The summer of 1855 was devastating to the city of Norfolk, Virginia. George D. Armstrong, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, endured the epidemic of yellow fever that decimated the city. He stayed during the outbreak to minister to the sick, often serving them for over 15 hours per day, but lost his wife, one daughter, a nephew and a sister-in-law to the disease. He wrote The Summer of the Pestilence: A History of the Ravages of the Yellow Fever in Norfolk, Virginia (1856).

Market Square, Norfolk, Virginia.

• The War Between the States saw Presbyterians on both sides of the conflict. Robert L. Dabney, Stonewall Jackson’s chief of staff and biographer, wrote What I Saw of the Battle of Chickahominy (1872) concerning the June 27, 1862 conflict also known as the Battle of Gaines' Mill in Hanover County, Virginia. Later that year, on the same day as the Battle of Antietam (or Sharpsburg, Maryland) [September 17, 1862], a terrible tragedy took place in at the Allegheny Arsenal in Lawrenceville, Pennsylvania, now a neighborhood in Pittsburgh. Three consecutive explosions rocked the facility and 78 people were killed along with 150 injured, making it the worst civilian and industrial accident of the war. Presbyterian minister Richard Lea was at his church one block away, who immediately rushed over to render aid. Eleven days later, he preached a Sermon Commemorative of the Great Explosion at the Allegheny Arsenal. Before the war ended, Henry Highland Garnet made history in Washington, D.C. by becoming the first African-American to address the House of Representatives on February 12, 1865. His sermon called for the death of slavery and freedom for all American citizens.

Henry Highland Garnet preaching to Congress.

Thomas De Witt Talmage had a very successful ministry at the Brooklyn Tabernacle in New York. But the congregation was challenged by the occasions when their building was destroyed by fire, not once, but three times — in 1872, 1889, and 1894. After the third conflagration, Talmage retired from that pastorate. As he began a trip around the world, he wrote to his friends: “Our church has again been halted by a sword of flame. The destruction of the first Brooklyn Tabernacle was a mystery. The destruction of the second a greater profound. This third calamity we adjourn to the Judgment Day for explanation. The home of a vast multitude of souls, it has become a heap of ashes. Whether it will ever rise again is a prophecy we will not undertake. God rules and reigns and makes no mistake. He has his way with churches as with individuals. One thing is certain; the pastor of Brooklyn Tabernacle will continue to preach as long as life and health last. We have no anxieties about a place to preach in. But woe is unto us if we preach not the Gospel! We ask for the prayers of all good people for the pastor and people of Brooklyn Tabernacle.”

Brooklyn Tabernacle after the fire.

• On May 31, 1889, after days of heavy rain, the South Fork Dam upstream of Johnstown, Pennsylvania burst leading to the deaths of over 2,000 people. David J. Beale was one of the survivors and his account of the tragedy is gripping: Through the Johnstown Flood (1890).

Debris from the Johnstown Flood.

• At 5:12 am local time on April 18, 1906, the city of San Francisco was rocked by one of the deadliest earthquakes ever to strike the United States. Over 3,000 people were killed and 80% of the city was destroyed. Among those affected were the Chinese girls who were being cared for at the Occidental Board of Foreign Missions after having been rescued from involuntary servitude. Superintendent Donaldina Cameron was able to, shepherd those girls to the premises of the San Francisco Theological Seminary after the earthquake. Edward A. Wicher, a professor at the seminary, wrote an appeal for emergency funds to help the suffering, which Cameron co-signed. Cameron later wrote of the blessings that God wrought in the midst of that tragedy: “‘As the night brings out the stars’ so through the shadow of disaster there shines for the Chinese Rescue Home the unfailing light of God's love and peace, and we are happy.”

The Occidental Board of Foreign Missions Headquarters after the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake.

• From 1915 to 1917, approximately 1 million Armenians were slaughtered by Ottoman forces. The Armenian Genocide was documented in part by American missionaries, such as as William Ambrose Shedd and his wife Mary Lewis Shedd, Mary A. Schauffler Labaree Platt, author of The War Journal of a Missionary in Persia (1915), and Frederick G. Coan, author of Yesterdays in Persia and Kurdistan (1939). Rev. Shedd: “It lies with us to see that the blood shed and the suffering endured are not in vain. May God grant and may we who know so well the wrongs that have been borne, so labor that the cause of these wrongs be removed. That will be done when Christ rules in the hearts of those who profess His name and is acknowledged by all, not merely as a great prophet but as the Saviour for Whose coming prophecy prepared the way, Who is the fulfillment of revelation, and in Whom human destiny will find its goal.”

Ottoman troops guard Armenians being deported. Ottoman Empire, 1915-1916.

• Wilson P. Mills was an American missionary who served also in a diplomatic capacity during the 1937-1938 “Rape of Nanjing,” a massacre by Japanese soldiers that resulted in the deaths of somewhere between 40,000-300,000 civilians in occupied Nanjing, China. His efforts to help arrange a truce are described in letters to his wife dated January 22/24 and January 31, 1938. The story of his eyewitness account of the Japanese occupation of the city and the reign of terror that existed is told sequentially in letters from January to March 1938. For his role in protecting the 250,000 citizens of the Nanjing Safety Zone, Mills received the Order of the Green Jade, the highest honor given to Westerners by the Chinese government.

Scene from the Nanjing Massacre.

Examples of eyewitnesses to history among American Presbyterian could be greatly multiplied. So many of them have left us a valuable record of some of the most momentous events in our history, “all [of which] have a common place in the great scheme of Providence” (Henry A. Boardman, God's Providence in Accidents (1855).

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New Year's Wishes From Log College Press

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“So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom." — Ps. 90:12

At the close of 2021, we at Log College Press wish to thank you, our dear readers, for your support and encouragement.

In years past, we have highlighted New Year’s sermons and meditations by Samuel Davies, Francis James Grimké, Benjamin Morgan Palmer, Henry Augustus Boardman, George Barrell Cheever, Elias Harrison, Erskine Mason, Gardiner Spring and others. This year we turn the spotlight on a message from Thomas DeWitt Talmage: Standards For the Measurement of Life: A New Year’s Sermon (1899).

How do evaluate or measure our mortal existence? That is a question for all of us, and an appropriate one at the close of one year and the beginning of another. Based on the text from Genesis 47:8 (“How old art thou?”), Talmage asks us to consider whether we are using a good standard to measure our time spent on this earth. As he notes, there are wrong ways to measure our time, and a right way. There are some, he says, who measure their years by the money they make, or the joys or sorrows they experience. “They say, ‘The year 1866, or 1870, or 1898 was wasted.’ Why? ‘Made no money.’” But hear how Talmage concludes the matter.

I remark again: there are many — and I wish there were more — who are estimating life by the good they can do.

John Bradford said he counted that day nothing at all in which he had not, by pen or tongue, done some good. There have been men who have given their whole life in the right direction, concentrating all their wit and ingenuity and mental acumen and physical force and enthusiasm for Christ. They felt in the thrill of every nerve, in the motion of every muscle, in every throb of their heart, in every respiration of their lungs, the magnificent truth: “No man liveth unto himself.” They went, through cold and through heat, foot-blistered, cheek-smitten, back-scourged, tempest-lasht, to do their whole duty. That is the way they measured life — by the amount of good they could do.

Do you want to know how old Luther was; how old Richard Baxter was; how old Philip Doddridge was? Why, can not calculate the length of their lives by any human arithmetic. Add to their lives ten thousand times ten thousand years, and you have not exprest it — what they have lived or will live. Oh, what a standard that is to measure a man’s life by? There are those in this house who think they have only lived thirty years. They will have lived a thousand — they have lived a thousand. There are those who think they are eighty years of age. They have not even entered upon their infancy, for one must become a babe in Christ to begin at all.

This is a good day in which to begin a new style of measurement. “How old art thou?” You see the Christian way of measuring life and the worldly way of measuring it. I leave it to you to say which is the wisest and best way.

As 2021 comes to an end, and we look ahead to 2022, we encourage our readers to consider Talmage’s message about how we measure our days, and to meditate upon the words of the Psalmist above. We are excited about the growing number of resources available at Log College Press to aid in the study of spiritual devotion, the Christian life, church history, Christian biography and much more. And we are grateful for the input of all those who continue to support and encourage us in our endeavors. May the Lord bless richly bless you and yours in the coming New Year!

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An Honorable Princeton Roll Call

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Among the addresses delivered at the 1912 Centennial celebration for Princeton Theological Seminary was one given by William Lenoard McEwan titled “Princeton in the Work of the Pastorate.” In this message highlighting the contributions of Princeton-educated men to the work of the ministry, he includes a roll call of names that are also highlighted here at Log College Press. Today’s post is an extract from that address with links to pages for these men so that the 21st century reader may better acquaint themselves with their lives and labors. It is just a partial snapshot — Princeton has contributed much, much more — but it is a way to recognize some important but often-neglected names from American Presbyterian history.

Indeed if there were time to revive the memories of those who are familiar with the great movements that are written in our history, the reading of the names of the men whose influence has been great in the time of crisis or through long years of service would be sufficient— James W. Alexander, John C. Backus, for forty-eight years in Baltimore; J. Trumbull Backus, for forty-one years in Schenectady, N.Y.; George D. Baker, for a score of years in Philadelphia; Albert Barnes, forty years in Philadelphia; Charles C. Beatty, for sixty years in Steubenville, Ohio; William Blackburn; Henry A. Boardman, for forty-seven years in Philadelphia; Rob't J. Breckinridge of Kentucky; James H. Brookes of St. Louis; T. W. Chambers, nearly half a century in New York City; William C. Cattell, Joseph Christmas, founder of the American Church in Montreal; Bishop T. M. Clark; Richard F. Cleveland (father of a president of the United States); Theodore L. Cuyler, for thirty years in Brooklyn; Doak of Tennessee; J. T. Duryea, Philemon H. Fowler, Sam'l W. Fisher, P. D. Gurley of Washington, D.C; Leroy J. Halsey, A. A. Hodge, C. W. Hodge, E. B. Hodge, F. B. Hodge, William H. Hornblower, William Henry Green, Charles K. Imbrie, pastor, secretary and editor; Sheldon Jackson, Bishop John Johns, M. W. Jacobus, S. H. Kellogg, John M. Krebs, of New York; John C. Lowrie, Willis Lord, Bishop A. N. Littlejohn, J.M. Ludlow, Erskine Mason, Bishop C. B. Mcllvaine, David Magie, George W. Musgrave, Thomas Murphy, N.G. Parke, R. M. Patterson, W. S. Plumer, S. I. Prime, William M. Paxton, George T. Purves, Nathan L. Rice, Rendall of Lincoln, David H. Riddle, Stuart Robinson, Charles S. Robinson, W. D. Snodgrass, William A. Scott, W. B. Sprague, J. G. Symmes, E. P. Swift, H. J. Van Dyke, C. Van Rensselaer, Charles Wadsworth.

In this one packed paragraph, the names are easily passed over but each one represents a part of the story of the Lord’s kingdom work in this country and in the world by means of “an able and faithful ministry” (to use Samuel Miller’s words) as taught at Princeton. We are thankful for these men and take note of them here at Log College Press, also intending to add more as we are able. To God be the glory for these faithful witnesses.

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The Value of Life: Testimony From Three Centuries

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If ever a culture needed to hear a message about the value of human life, our nihilistic 21st century America would be at the top of the list. Today’s post constitutes a witness from the past three centuries of American Presbyterian sermons and essays on the topic.

18th Century - Hugh Knox (1733-1790), “The Value and Importance of a Child,” Essay 58 in The Moral and Religious Miscellany; or, Sixty-One Aphoretical Essays, on Some of the Most Important Christian Doctrines and Virtues (1775):

The moment in which a rational, immortal spirit animates a human foetus, a spark is kindled which shall never be extinguished. The materiąl sun will grow old, wax dim with years, and be probably put out as a lamp that burneth; the stars shall fall from their orbits, and be covered with darkness; but this breath of the Almighty, this intellectual spark once kindled up in the moral world, ſhall burn on with undiminiſhed and ever increasing lustre, as long as God himself endures.

The birth of a child we deem to be but a trifling event, and look with indifference, perhaps with contempt, on the little helpless stranger. But if we viewed it with the penetrating eye of reason; if we considered it as emerging from eternal night into life immortal; — as an heir of worlds unknown, and a candidate for an everlasting state; — as a glimmering spark of being, just struck from nothing by the all-creating rock, which must burn and flame on to eternity, when suns and stars have returned to their native darkness or non-entity; — which must survive the funeral of nature, and live through the rounds of endless ages; which must either rise from glory to glory, ascending perfection’s scale by endless gradations, or sink deeper and deeper into the bottomless abyss of misery, and to which its immortality must either prove an unsufferable curse, — or a blessing inconceivable, according to the manner in which it shall have acquitted itself in its present probationary state — we shall clearly discern, that the value and importance of a human infant can scarcely be computed.

19th Century - Henry Augustus Boardman (1808-1880), The Low Value Set Upon Human Life in the United States: A Discourse Delivered on Thanksgiving-Day, November 24th, 1853 (1853):

It is impossible to frame any suitable conception of the value of life , or of the criminality of abridging its duration , without viewing man as an immortal being. The moment this idea is admitted into the inquiry, it overshadows everything else. The pains of dissolution, the pang of parting, the blighted hopes, the sorrows of widowhood and orphanage, the destruction of the vital spark , and whatever of grief and woe we may be accustomed to associate with the name of death considered simply as a temporal event — all becomes insignificant when we think of its future issues. It is the dismission of an individual from time into eternity. It is the sending him to the bar of his Maker. It is a terminating of all his opportunities for repentance and reformation . He is, thenceforth , done with the Bible and the throne of grace , with Sabbaths and sermons, with offers of pardon and tenders of reconciliation , with the Saviour's invitations and the Spirit's strivings, — all these are finished . He goes to appear before the “ great white throne,” and to receive his award of everlasting life , or of shame and everlasting contempt.
…
There is nothing over which the Deity has reserved to himself a more implicit control than life and death. “The Lord killeth and maketh alive; he bringeth down to the grave and bringeth up.” “I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal.” As He alone can give life, so no creature may take it away without His permission. The wilful destruction of it, He has not only forbidden in the decalogue, but marked with His special abhorrence, by requiring every murderer to be put to death. And, as if to set forth in a yet more emphatic way, His estimate of the sacredness of life, and of the enormity of extinguishing it, he required even the involuntary homicide, among the Hebrews, to be tried; and if proved innocent, he was still treated as a quasi-prisoner, and prohibited, on pain of death, from quitting the city of refuge during the life of the high-priest. If further proof were wanting of the value He sets upon life, it offers itself to us on every side, in the various and inexhaustible provision He has made for its nurture and protection; in the antidotes He has prepared to the diseases sin has introduced; and above all, in the infinite love He has displayed towards our race in sending His be loved Son into the world to redeem us.

These are all His mercies. We are responsible to Him for the use we make of them. It is for Him to say how long, and under what circumstances, we shall enjoy them. Upon our conduct here, “everlasting things” are suspended. This is our probation; heaven and hell hang upon it. Nor is this all. We are so implicated with one another, that we are all helping to determine each other's characters and destiny. Our life or death may seriously affect, for good or ill, the welfare of a nation, or the prosperity of the church. Nay, we are even allowed to say, that the glory of God Himself, the ever-blessed and incomprehensible Jehovah, may have some connexion with our longer or shorter continuance here.

20th Century - Theodore Ledyard Cuyler (1822-1909), The Value of Life (1908):

Life is God’s gift; your trust and mine. We are the trustees of the Giver, unto whom at last we shall render account for every thought, word and deed in the body.

In the first place, life, in its origin, is infinitely important. The birth of a babe is a mighty event. From the frequency of births, as well as the frequency of deaths, we are prone to set a very low estimate on the ushering into existence of an animate child, unless the child be born in a palace or a presidential mansion, or some other lofty station. Unless there be something extraordinary in the circumstances, we do not attach the importance we ought to the event itself. It is only noble birth, distinguished birth, that is chronicled in the journals or announced with salvos of artillery. I admit that the relations of a prince, of a president and statesman, are more important to their fellow men and touch them at more points than those of an obscure pauper; but when the events are weighed in the scales of eternity, the difference is scarcely perceptible. In the darkest hovel in Brooklyn, in the dingiest attic or cellar, or in any place in which a human being sees the first glimpse of light, the eye of the Omniscient beholds an occurrence of prodigious moment. A life is begun, a life that shall never end. A heart begins to throb that shall beat to the keenest delight or the acutest anguish. More than this — a soul commences a career that shall outlast the earth on which it moves. The soul enters upon an existence that shall be untouched by time, when the sun is extinguished like a taper in the sky, the moon blotted out, and the heavens have been rolled together as a vesture and changed forever.
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What is the purpose of life? Is it advancement? Is it promotion? Is it merely the pursuit of happiness? Man was created to be happy, but to be more — to be holy. The wisdom of those Westminster fathers that gathered in the Jerusalem chamber, wrought it into the well-known phrase, “Man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.” That is the double aim of life: duty first, then happiness as the consequence; to bring in revenues of honor to God, to build up His kingdom, spread His truth; to bring this whole world of His and lay it subject at the feet of the Son of God. That is the highest end and aim of existence, and every one here that has risen up to that purpose of life lives.

The truth spoken by these voices is timeless, just as every being made in the image of God is of eternal worth. May today’s generation give heed to these witnesses to the value and dignity of human life from centuries past.

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Out with the old, in with the New: Sermons for a New Year

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As 2019 comes to a close, and a new year dawns, we at Log College Press want to thank all of our readers for all of your support in the past year. We are most grateful for your interest, appreciation, feedback and encouragement. It is a joy for us to dust off old Presbyterian works and make them accessible to a new generation, and we, along with our readers, are learning much along the journey as well. As we round out this year and prepare, with the mercy and blessing of God, to enter another, we wish to highlight some special sermons from the past which are worthy of consideration.

• Henry Augustus Boardman (1808-1880) - Mottoes For the New Year, as Given in Texts of Sermons (1882);

• George Barrell Cheever (1807-1890) - A New Year’s Sermon (1843);

• Samuel Davies (1723-1761) - On January 1, 1760, he preached "A New Year's Gift" (see Sermons on Important Subjects, Vol. 3, Serm. 59, pp. 309 ff), using Rom. 13:11 for his text: "And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed." On January 1, 1761 (his last year of life), Davies preached "A Sermon on the New Year" (see Sermons on Important Subjects, Vol. 2, Serm. 34, pp. 139 ff), from Jer. 28:16: "This year thou shalt die";

• Elias Harrison (1790-1863) - New Year’s Day Sermon (1817);

• Erskine Mason, Sr. (1805-1851) - The Approach of Death: A New Year’s Sermon (1845) and New Year’s Sermon for 1848: Dependence on the Future (1848);

• Benjamin Morgan Palmer (1818-1902) - Century Sermon (1901), preached on January 1, 1901; and

• Gardiner Spring (1785-1873) - Something Must Be Done: A New Year’s Sermon (1816).
  

Each of these sermons has a message that is good for 21st century readers to consider as we stand at the same point on the calendar between years that Christians have done before. New Year’s is always an appropriate time to review the past and consider our resolve to walk closer with the Lord in the future. We close with this meditation and resolution from Gardiner Spring’s “Reflections on the New Year” in Fragments from the Study of a Pastor (1838):

In entering on another year, I know not from what unexpected quarter, or at what an unguarded hour, difficulties and dangers may come. O that I could enjoy more of the favour of God, more of the presence of the Saviour, more of the sealing of the ever blessed Spirit! O for more of a calm, approving conscience, and more of the delightful influence of the peace-speaking blood of Jesus Christ!

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God's Providence in the Deaths of Log College Press Saints

Henry A. Boardman once had occasion to preach a funeral sermon for several individuals who perished in a railroad accident. In his 1855 sermon titled "God’s Providence in Accidents,” he said:

That death is among the objects of his providence, is a necessary corollary from his sovereignty. It is one of his inalienable prerogatives to create life, and he alone can destroy it. “I kill; and I make alive." Such is the concatenation of events, that the death of an obscure individual, or of an infant, at a different time or place from that which he had prescribed, might disorganize the entire scheme of terrestrial things, and even spread confusion through the whole boundless domain of his administration. "Is there not an appointed time to man upon earth?" "Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months are with thee: thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass." "Thou turnest man to destruction, and sayest: 'Return, ye children of men.'“

And this implies that the mode, and all the attending circumstances of death, are appointed in every instance. We may no more exempt one class of deaths from God's control, than another. The sword, the poison, the accident, are as much his instruments as the paralysis and the fever — the battle is no less his than the pestilence. The murder of Abel, and the tranquil death of Jacob; Joseph dying in Egypt, and Moses in Mount Nebo; Jonathan slain in battle and David peacefully expiring in the bosom of his family; John the Baptist beheaded, and Stephen stoned to death; all have a common place in the great scheme of Providence.

One of the features that makes Log College Press’ database of American Presbyterian writers so special is that — as often as possible — we have included photographs of these men, along with pictures of where they are laid to rest, as well as biographical information. Reviewing the lives and deaths of our Log College Press men, it is worth taking note of some of the unusual ways that some of them have finished their earthly course.

Maltbie Davenport Babcock — Composer of the famous hymn “This Is My Father’s World,” “Babcock died at age 42 in Naples, Italy, on May 18, 1901, returning from a trip to the Holy Land. According to a New York Times report of May 20, 1901, and widely carried by newspapers coast-to-coast, he committed suicide by slitting his wrist and ingesting ‘corrosive sublimate’ or mercuric chloride. He was being treated in the International Hospital in Naples for what was called ‘Mediterranean fever,’ an archaic term for brucellosis. Several of his travel companions suffered from this bacterial infection which causes fever, pain and depression. Babcock had been hospitalized for ‘nervous prostration’ (depression) in Danville, New York, ten years before his death.” — Wikipedia

Hezekiah James Balch — Presbyterian minister and one of the three primary authors of the 1775 Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence, it is not known precisely how he died, merely that he died in early 1776, around the age of 30.

Elias Boudinot — After signing the Treaty of New Echota (1835), which ceded all Cherokee land east of the Mississippi to the U.S. federal government, Boudinot was assassinated at his Oklahoma home on June 22, 1839, by a group of Cherokees who were angry about his role in the removal of the tribe.

Ephraim Brevard - The reputed author of the 1775 Mecklenburg Resolutions and the scribe who penned the 1775 Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence spent time in British custody as a prisoner of war at Charleston, South Carolina, where the unwholesome air and diet crushed his health. After his release, he reached the home of his friend John McKnitt Alexander, in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, only to breathe his last shortly thereafter in 1781.

William Jennings Bryan, Sr. — This Presbyterian statesman and lawyer is most famous today for his role in the 1925 Scopes Trial in Tennessee regarding the teaching of evolution. He won the case for the prosecution (contra evolution), which was decided on July 21, 1925, though he lost in the court of public opinion. However, he passed away in his sleep just five days later on July 26, 1925.

Aaron Burr, Sr. — Burr was the second president of the College of New Jersey (Princeton). Like the next two succeeding presidents (Jonathan Edwards and Samuel Davies), Burr preached a New Year’s sermon on Jeremiah 28:16 and died later that same year on September 24, 1757.

James Caldwell — The “Fighting Parson” of the American War of Independence, “Rev. Caldwell was picking up a traveler in his buggy. After carrying the baggage to the horse-drawn buggy, he went back to pick up a package. An American sentry ordered him to stop but distance precluded the command from being heard. With that, the sentry fired and killed Rev. Caldwell on November 24, 1781. At the trial and subsequent hanging of the sentry, there were rumors that he had been bribed by the British to kill the soldier parson. At any rate, he was buried beside his wife in the cemetery of the First Presbyterian Church of Elizabethtown, New Jersey. A monument was placed up honoring him in 1846. Three towns in New Jersey are named after him, including an educational facility.” — This Day in Presbyterian History

Samuel Davies — Davies was the fourth president of the College of New Jersey (Princeton). Like each of the prior two presidents (Aaron Burr, Sr. and Jonathan Edwards), Davies preached a New Year’s sermon on Jeremiah 28:16 (“This Very Year Thou Shalt Die!”), and by February 4, 1761, Davies had passed away from pneumonia.

Moses Drury Hoge — “On Friday, November 4, 1898, Moses Drury Hoge was heading home after consoling a bereaved family when he suddenly heard the clanging bell of a trolley as it rammed into his buggy. He was thrown into the air and landed on his right side on the stone pavement and was severely injured. Dr. Hoge suffered with his injuries until he died on January 6, 1899.” — Presbyterians of the Past

George Howe — "In the case of George Howe, his fatal injury occurred after the Lord’s Day service. He was riding home when he was thrown from his carriage resulting in the breaking of one of his legs. He survived through two weeks of suffering before dying on April 15, 1883.” — Presbyterians of the Past

James Latta — An Irish-American Presbyterian who served as the third moderator of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, “The circumstances of his death, as related by one of his daughters, were as follows: — Riding to church one Sabbath with his daughter Mary, he was thrown from the carriage, and falling on his head, he was somewhat stunned. He observed to her, — ‘I am killed; but do not tell your mother.’ He proceeded to church, preached with some difficulty, and returned home. He soon after fell into a sleepy, comatose state, until his daughter, the next day, alarmed, related to her mother what had happened. Help was immediately called in, but in vain. He continued a few days, almost insensible, and then died.” — This Day in Presbyterian History

John Greshem Machen — After traveling to North Dakota in December 1936, Machen developed an inflammation of the lungs, and then was hospitalized for pneumonia. Before he passed away on January 1, 1937, at the age of 55, he dictated a telegram to his friend and colleague John Murray in which he stated: “I'm so thankful for active obedience of Christ. No hope without it."

Nathaniel Smyth McFetridge — In 1881, McFetridge was seriously injured in a railroad accident, and never fully recovered. He passed away on December 3, 1886 at Minneapolis, Minnesota at the age of 44.

Benjamin Morgan Palmer — “Palmer was struck by a streetcar in New Orleans on May 5, 1902, and died twenty days later.” — Wikipedia

Charles Henry Parkhurst — Parkhurst died on September 8, 1933, by sleepwalking and walking off the porch roof of his Ventnor City, New Jersey, home.

David Ramsay — Famed Presbyterian historian David “Ramsay was appointed by a court to examine one William Linnen, a tailor known for serial litigation and nuisance suits, after Linnen had attempted to murder his attorney. Ramsay reported to the court that Linnen was ‘deranged’ and that it would be ‘dangerous to let him go at large.’ After apparently regaining his sanity, Linnen was released; though he threatened Ramsay, the latter did not take the threat seriously.

On May 6, 1815, at 1:00 p.m., Ramsay passed Linnen on Broad Street in Charleston. Linnen took out a ‘horseman's pistol’ that he had concealed in a handkerchief, and shot Ramsay twice, in the back and hip. According to a contemporary source:

Having been carried home, and being surrounded by a crowd of anxious citizens, after first calling their attention to what he was about to utter, he said ‘I know not if these wounds be mortal; I am not afraid to die; but should that be my fate, I call on all here present to bear witness, that I consider the unfortunate perpetrator of this deed a lunatic, and free from guilt.’

Ramsay died at 7 a.m. on May 8, 1815.” — Wikipedia

Robert Lodowick Stanton - “Stanton died en route to Europe and was buried at sea on May 28, 1885, at the age of seventy-six.” — Wikipedia

William Tennent III — “In 1777, upon the death of his minister father, he sought to bring his surviving mother to South Carolina. In that trip, he was seized with fever and died on the way. It was said that his mind was calm at the sudden turn of events and that he was willing to die. Thus, on this Day in August 11, 1777, he went into the presence of his heavenly Father.” — This Day in Presbyterian History

Samuel Hall Young — This pioneer missionary who survived an accident on an Alaskan glacier decades previously was hit and killed by a streetcar in Clarksburg, West Virginia on September 2, 1927.