What's New at Log College Press? - November 15, 2022

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As the year winds down, Log College Press remains in high gear as we continue to expand the site and make accessible more and more literature from early American Presbyterians.

Last month, in October 2022, we added 494 new works to the site. There are currently over 16,000 free works available at LCP. Today we are highlighting some of the new free PDFs available as found on our Recent Additions and Early Access pages, two features provided to members of the Dead Presbyterians Society.

Some highlights at the Early Access page:

Some highlights at the Recent Addtiions page:

  • Philip Schaff edited both The American Church History series and A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church (first and second series). All of the above has now been added to Log College Press (approximately 23,000 pages of material);

  • Working for the Presbyterian Board of Publication, William M. Engles edited the 12-volume British Reformers series, which has now been added to his page;

  • The full run of The Penn Monthly Magazine under Robert E. Thompson’s editorship (13 volumes);

  • Dozens of works by Theodore L. Cuyler, Benjamin M. Palmer and Thomas DeWitt Talmage;

  • Joshua L. Wilson’s 1845 first sermon on witchcraft; and much more.

Also, be sure also to check out the quotes we have been adding at our blog for DPS members: Though Dead They Still Speak, including George Howe on the importance of a well-educated spiritual ministry; E.S. Ely on the duty of civic rulers to "kiss the Son"; Alexander Proudfit on the Biblical qualifications for public office; and Robert D. Wilson’s life plan to defend the Old Testament.

We appreciate hearing from our readers if they find matters needing correction, or if they have questions about authors or works on the site, or if they have suggestions for additions to the site. Your feedback helps the experience of other readers as well.

Meanwhile, please feel free to browse the many resources available to our readers in print and in digital format. There is a lot to explore, and many Presbyterian voices from the past to hear. Thank you, as always, for your interest and support, dear friends.

What's New at Log College Press? - August 16, 2022

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There is always a lot going on at Log College Press. Here is a brief report to get you up to speed.

In July 2022, we added 349 new works to the site. Today we aim to highlight some of the new free PDFs available as found on our Recent Additions and Early Access pages, two features provided to members of the Dead Presbyterians Society.

Early Access:

  • In 1760, a letter authored by Gilbert Tennent and signed by seventeen other Presbyterian ministers was sent to the Archbishop of Canterbury concerning William McClanachan (1714-c. 1765), a sometime Anglican, Congregational and Presbyterian minister, which proved to be somewhat ecclesiastically messy for the writers. What is particularly interesting about the “eighteen Presbyterian ministers” who jointly signed the letter is that this is one occasion when Samuel Davies and the Tennent brother (Gilbert, Charles and William, Jr.) united in a literary production. Others who also signed include John Rodgers, Abraham Keteltas, Alexander MacWhorter, John Blair, Robert Smith, John Roan, Charles McKnight; all together at least seven alumni of the Log College signed this letter, which is now available to read on our Early Access page.

  • Speaking of the Tennents, we have added a volume by Mary A. Tennent titled Light in Darkness: The Story of William Tennent Sr. and the Log College (1971) to the William Tennent, Sr. page. It is a valuable study of the Tennent family and the Log College.

  • In the course of our research, we came across a volume of sermons once owned by Samuel Miller. Many of the individual sermons bear his handwritten signature on the title pages. Some of the sermons were delivered in connection with the May 9, 1798 fast day appointed by President John Adams (William Linn, Ashbel Green and Samuel Blair, Jr.). Also included was another separate fast day sermon preached by Nathan Strong and an 1815 thanksgiving sermon preached by James Muir (following the end of the War of the 1812).

  • We added some interesting works by John Tucker (1719-1792), including a noted 1771 election sermon and two editions (one published and one handwritten manuscript) of a 1778 sermon on the validity of Presbyterian ordination.

  • Robert R. Howison, author of a noted history of Virginia, wrote a history of the War Between the States in serial fashion which was published in the Southern Literary Messenger from 1862 to 1864. We have compiled each installment into one PDF file comprised of almost 400 pages.

  • Perhaps the most famous sermon delivered by Clarence E.N. Macartney was Come Before Winter, first preached in 1915 and then annually for many years after. We have added the 30th anniversary edition of that sermon to his page.

  • We have also recently added more sermons and letters by Samuel Davies, some of which are now at the Recent Additions page.

Recent Addtiions:

Be sure also to check out the quotes we have been adding at our blog for DPS members: Though Dead They Still Speak, including some by John Murray on the regulative principle of worship; David Rice on religious controversy; and Louis F. Benson on early Presbyterian psalmody.

As we continue to grow, please avail yourself of the many resources (both digital and in print) at Log College Press, and be sure to tell your friends about us. We hope that brushing off these old tomes will indeed enrich the 21st century church - that is our prayer. Thank you, as always, for your interest and support, dear friends.

Remembering Theodore L. Cuyler on His 200th Birthday

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Theodore Ledyard Cuyler was born two hundred years ago today in Aurora, New York on January 10, 1822. He was a graduate of Princeton University (1841) and Princeton Theological Seminary (1846). He served as pastor of the Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church in Brooklyn, New York from 1860 to 1890.

In his ministerial career and lifetime he published many books, and around 4.000 articles in the press. It is has been said that he was the “Dean of the American Pulpit.” He was a world-traveler, and was friends with many notable leaders of the church and society, including Charles H. Spurgeon, William Adams, Eliakim Littell, Richard S. Storrs, Samuel H. Cox, Henry W. Beecher, Archibald Alexander, James W. Alexander, Joseph A. Alexander, Charles G. Finney, Benjamin M. Palmer, James McCosh, Horatius Bonar, Dwight L. Moody, President Benjamin Harrison, President Abraham Lincoln, William Gladstone, Thomas Guthrie, Thomas Binney, Albert Barnes, William B. Sprague, Stephen H. Tyng, and others, many of whom he wrote about in his autobiography, Recollections of a Long Life (1902).

He was noted for inviting the first woman to preach from an American Presbyterian pulpit — Sarah Smiley, a Quaker, in 1872 — while at the same time publicly opposing women's suffrage (see his 1894 pamphlet, “Shall Women Be Burdened With the Ballot?”). Cuyler was also a Unionist, an abolitionist, and a teetotaler.

Source: The American Monthly Review of Reviews, Vol. 25 (Feb. 1902), p. 153.

Perhaps most significantly, Rev. Cuyler lost two infant children, as well as a 22 year-old daughter, and in the midst of his grief, he wrote God’s Light on Dark Clouds (1882), and other books and articles which spoke words of comfort to his readers. Many would say that the experiences he endured gave fruit to a spiritual comfort that only one who had walked through the valley of the shadow of death could comprehend and convey to others.

He died of bronchitis on February 26, 1909, in Brooklyn, New York, at the age of 88, and is buried at Green-Wood Cemetery.

Two centuries after his birth, we remember Rev. Cuyler with great appreciation, and invite our readers to explore his works which are available to read at Log College Press. A very prolific writer, we are still adding his works to the site, but there is much of great value to read even now. Though his name was often in the press of his day, he was a most humble minister of the gospel. A park in Brooklyn is named after him but he declined the erection of a statue in his honor. He once said, "A genuine revival means trimming of personal lamps." When remembering Cuyler, we give glory to the God who called him to the ministry, and we note that Cuyler’s legacy points us, even now, to Beulah-Land.

An American Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving has long been a national American tradition, dating back to the first Protestant thanksgiving in America at Fort Caroline, Florida as observed by the French Huguenots on June 30, 1564, upon their arrival after a cross-Atlantic journey, and more especially, as observed by the Pilgrims at Plimoth Colony, Massachusetts in the autumn of 1621, after a difficult first winter and a promising first harvest.

In William Adam’s 1873 volume titled Thanksgiving: Memories of the Day, Helps to the Habit, the author speaks not only of the nostalgia for the past, but shows us the Biblical and historical basis for setting apart times of thanksgiving for the particular mercies of God. It is good to take note when God answers prayer, or when blessings are bestowed, and not to let such mercies go without giving God the glory.

In memory of the day, be sure to look over William Carlos Martyn’s The Pilgrim Fathers of New England: A History (1867).

Since we last wrote about the American Presbyterian tradition of Thanksgiving sermons a year ago, many more have been added to our inventory. Here is a sample of what we have:

George Dodd Armstrong (1813-1899) preached a July 1861 Thanksgiving sermon giving thanks for the Confederate victory at Manassas, Virginia.

Lyman Hotchkiss Atwater (1813-1883) preached an historical Thanksgiving sermon commemorating the bicentennial of Fairfield, Connecticut in 1839.

William Pratt Breed (1816-1889) spoke eloquently on the distinction between church and state, and quoted Samuel Davies powerfully, in The Lights Which God Hath Shewed Us: A Thanksgiving Discourse (1861), a sermon delivered in Philadelphia following the commencement of the War Between the States.

George Burrowes (1811-1894) preached a patriotic 1852 Thanksgiving discourse.

Samuel Davies (1723-1761) preached a Thanksgiving sermon for national blessings received in 1759 (Serm. 71 in Vol. 4 of his Sermons). 

Robert B. Davidson (1808-1876) preached The Evils of Disunion: A Discourse Delivered on Thanksgiving Day, December 12, 1850 (1850) directly in response to the Compromise of 1850.

George Duffield II (1732-1790), who had served as a chaplain to the Continental Congress, preached a 1783 Thanksgiving sermon following the conclusion of the American War of Independence.

George Duffield IV (1794-1868) preached an 1820 sermon titled Judgment and Mercy: A Sermon, Delivered...On the Day of "Humiliation, Thanksgiving, and Prayer,” in which he took note of America’s national sin in failing to acknowledge God in the U.S. Constitution or requiring religious standards for public officials, as well as God’s mercy to this nation nevertheless.

George Duffield V (1818-1888) preached The New Capitol; or, The Wilderness Rejoicing: A Thanksgiving Sermon (1878) following the completion of the construction of the state capitol building in Lansing, Michigan.

Ezra H. Gillett (1823-1875)'s November 1862 Thanksgiving sermon was meant to inspire his Northern listeners in the midst of a great civil conflict. 

Francis James Grimké (1850-1937) delivered a 1914 Thanksgiving sermon which addressed racial injustice, as well as a 1918 Thanksgiving sermon in which thanks was given for the Allied victory in Europe at the conclusion of World War I (see Vol. 1 of his Works).

Drury Lacy, Jr. (1802-1884) preached A Thanksgiving Discourse, Delivered in the Presbyterian Church, Raleigh, N.C. (1851) to give thanks for mercies received by the State of North Carolina and the United States of America.

Samuel Miller (1769-1850)'s 1799 Thanksgiving sermon was delivered after a terrible epidemic struck New York City. 

Benjamin M. Palmer (1818-1902) preached a notable 1860 Thanksgiving sermon on the eve of war, which was to provoke a strong reaction by Charles Hodge. 

Gardiner Spring Plumley (1827-1894) preached an 1866 Thanksgiving sermon titled Piety Secures the Nation’s Prosperity: A Thanksgiving Discourse.

James Renwick Wilson Sloane (1823-1886) published a sermon God's Judgments, and Thanksgiving Sermons: A Discourse (1858) in response to the international economic panic of 1857.

William B. Sprague (1795-1876) preached an annual (December) Thanksgiving sermon in 1824. He would later preach another during the War Between the States in November 1861 entitled Glorifying God in the Fires.

Gardiner Spring (1785-1873)'s November 1861 Thanksgiving sermon called attention to national sins which had provoked the "Great Rebellion," as well as blessings received.

Robert Lodowick Stanton (1810-1885) preached a sobering sermon titled Ungodly Nations Doomed: A Discourse Preached on the Occasion of the Annual Thanksgiving, November 29, 1849, Recommended by the Governor of Louisiana (1849).

Charles Wadsworth (1814-1882) was known for delivering annual Thanksgiving sermons. We have here his Thanksgiving sermons from 1852-1856, 1858-1859, and 1868.