Theron Hall Rice: Man of God

In the preface to John Miller Wells' Southern Presbyterian Worthies (1936), he mentions three ministers that he desired to write about but was unable to do so because of limitations of time: "Robert Lewis Dabney, the Theologian; Stuart Robinson, the Eccleiast; and Theron Hall Rice, the Man of God. 

To give but the briefest of introductions to the man that Ernest Trice Thompson also referred to as "one of the great spiritual leaders" (Presbyterians in the South, Vol. 2, p. 331) of the Presbyterian Church in the United States (PCUS), he was born on July 8, 1867 in Wetumpka, Alabama, and went on to study theology at Union Theological Seminary in Richmond, Virginia, graduating in 1892. From Richmond, he went to Alexandria, Virginia, where he pastored the Second Presbyterian Church from 1892 to 1896. Rice received a doctorate of divinity from Davidson College in 1899. He ministered to the Central Presbyterian Church in Atlanta, Georgia from 1896 to 1908. Following that pastorate, he returned to Richmond, becoming the Stuart Robinson Professor of English Bible and Pastoral theology at Union Theological Seminary. In 1918, he received a Doctor of Laws degree from Kings College in Bristol, Tennessee. 

He wrote often for The Union Seminary Review, and some of his articles are available to read at Log College Press. He also contributed to the 1912 Centennial Celebration of Union Theological Seminary a tribute to the seminary's accomplishments that William B. Sweetser, Jr. termed "the most insightful work produced for the Centennial" (A Copious Fountain: A History of Union Presbyterian Seminary, 1812-2012, p. 238). "Theron Rice places Union in the landscape of American theological education. Over a decade before the first systematic study of American seminaries and twenty years before the very idea of accreditation was broached, Rice explores Union's strengths and weaknesses."

Take a look at this particular article, and others by Rice, and see what this man of God had to say. Theron Hall Rice, Jr. is a pastor worth knowing.