Happy Thanksgiving From Log College Press!

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This years marks the 400th anniversary of the Pilgrim Fathers’ arrival at Plymouth, Massachusetts, and we are now in our third year of the project to make the past come alive and give voice to Presbyterians from a by-gone era — known as Log College Press. At this time of Thanksgiving, we want to express how thankful we are for the saints who have gone before us and paved the way for Christians in 21st century America, and how thankful we are for you, our readers and supporters, who do so much to help make this project — as we trust — a blessing to the Church.

“The First Thanksgiving, 1621” by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris.

“The First Thanksgiving, 1621” by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris.

We are conscious that 2020 has been a hard and challenging year for America and the world. The year 1620, too, presented enormous challenges (and rewards) for Christians such as the Pilgrims. The Lord often brings judgments upon sinful people and nations, and yet always gives cause to be thankful. One striking message on this parallel working of God is J.R.W. Sloane’s God's Judgments, and Thanksgiving Sermons: A Discourse (1858). It was a time of financial distress for America, and war was brewing on the horizon. Yet, in the midst of judgment, Sloane found cause for thanksgiving and rejoicing, as well as for personal and corporate repentance.

God is more merciful than we deserve, and we can even be thankful that He chastises His people, calling them to return to Him, and not forsaking them utterly. As Ecclesiastes teaches us, “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven…A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance” (Eccl. 3:1, 4). And as Martin Luther teaches, in this world we are called to joy while walking through a vale of tears: “We say, 'In the midst of life we die.' God answers, 'Nay, in the midst of death we live'" (cited by Roland H. Bainton, Here I Stand, p. 290).

Thank you, dear friends, once again for all of your support for Log College Press. It means a great deal to us. We wish each of a very Happy Thanksgiving, and God’s richest blessings to you and yours.

RP Minister Nathan R. Johnston's 200th Birthday

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Horace Greeley said that "no man should die without planting a tree or writing a book." I have planted many a tree and I have written much in various forms; why should I not write a book also? The only apology I feel like making is that it has in it so much about myself. But if I had not written it the book would never have been written. — Nathan R. Johnston, Preface to Looking Back From the Sunset Land: Or, People Worth Knowing

It was 200 years ago today that Reformed Presbyterian minister Nathan Robinson Johnston was born on October 8, 1820. He lived a remarkable life, as told in his 1898 autobiography, Looking Back From the Sunset Land: Or, People Worth Knowing, and in biographical sketches found in the histories of the Reformed Presbyterian Church by W. Melancthon Glasgow and Owen F. Thompson.

Nathan R. Johnston — younger brother of John Black Johnston (1802-1882) — was born near Hopedale, Ohio, studied at Richmond Academy and Miami University, and ultimately graduated from Franklin College in 1843. Before commencing his seminary studies, he served as Principal of the Academy in St. Clairsville, Ohio for two years. He also edited the New Concord, Ohio Free Press in 1848. Johnston was ordained as a minister in the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America (RPCNA) in 1852, and his first of many pastorates was at Topsham, Vermont.

Johnston, Nathan Robinson photo cropped smaller.jpg

With a heart for reaching the lost, he served as a missionary at Port Royal, South Carolina in 1863. He also engaged in missions work in Minnesota and founded a missions school for the Chinese at Oakland, California. In Johnston’s autobiography, he writes about a missionary tour he took through the Southern United States, including Selma, Alabama. His thoughts on the RP Mission to Syria are expressed as well (he was called to serve there but declined).

He served as Principal of Geneva College for two years, thus helping to revive that institution founded by his brother. He later served briefly as a Professor there. He also opened his own academy, located variously at New Castle, Blairsville and New Brighton, Pennsylvania.

As a Covenanter, Johnston was a committed abolitionist. His support for the cause of freedom and activities of the Underground Railroad are evident in his autobiography, and in correspondence with his friend William Still, who included Johnston’s letters in his important work The Underground Railroad. His heart bled, as he himself says, for those in bondage, and both before and after the War, he made every effort to aid those suffering oppression.

What stands out particularly in his autobiography is the notice he takes of the people he met and formed friendships with over the years. His observations and reflections are valuable as they reveal insights about the famous and those who ought to be more so. They include William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, Samuel May; Chinese ministers Jee Gam and Chan Hon Fan; Covenanter ministers such as Lewis Johnston and George Elliott, James Renwick Willson, John M. Armour, J.R.W. Sloane, Samuel O. Wylie, Alexander McLeod Milligan, and others. They are not biographical sketches but a record of the interactions with and thoughts concerning those of great interest to church history and history in general, as well as an appreciation of the times in which Johnston lived. He crisscrossed the country in the service of the church, and met many along the way. As a journalistic editor and correspondent, as a pastor and missionary, and as an educator, his experiences are well-rounded and varied. And the people he met are, as he says, “people worth knowing.” So is Johnston himself, who, in a lifetime of contributions to the cause of Christ, “planted” many trees and wrote a book.

In his later years, he returned to Topsham, Vermont, where he entered into glory on March 21, 1904.

Get to know Nathan R. Johnston, Reformed Presbyterian minister and author, by reading his fascinating autobiography and other writings here. Happy birthday to a saint now at rest after a long and valuable life of service.

An Address to President Lincoln

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In the autumn of 1862 (after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued on September 22, and before it took effect on January 1, 1863), two Covenanter (Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America) ministers met privately with President Abraham Lincoln to discuss some particular priority goals that they wished the Lincoln administration to achieve. The Oval Office has rarely heard such a speech reminiscent of Psalm 2.

The address below to President Lincoln was authored and presented by James Renwick Wilson Sloane and Alexander McLeod Milligan (brothers-in-law as well as brothers in the Lord).

TO HIS EXCELLENCY ABRAHAM LINCOLN,
PRESIDENT OP THE UNITED STATES

We visit you, Mr. President, as the representatives of the Reformed Presbyterian, or, as it is frequently termed, "Scotch Covenanter," Church, — a Church whose sacrifices and sufferings in the cause of civil and religious liberty are a part of the world's history, and to which we are indebted, no less than to the Puritans, for those inestimable privileges so largely enjoyed in the free States of this Union, and which, true to its high lineage and ancient spirit, does not hold within its pale a single Secessionist, or sympathizer with rebellion, in these United States.

Our Church has unanimously declared, by the voice of her highest court, that the world has never seen a conflict in which right was more clearly wholly upon the one side, and wrong upon the other, than in the present struggle of this Government with this slaveholders' rebellion. She has also unanimously declared her determination to assist the Government by all lawful means in her power in its conflict with this atrocious conspiracy, until it be utterly overthrown and annihilated.

Profoundly impressed with the immense importance of the issues involved in this contest, and with the solemn responsibilities which rest upon the Chief Magistrate in this time of the nation's peril, our brethren have commissioned us to come and address you words of sympathy and encouragement, also to express to you views which, in their judgment, have an important bearing upon the present condition of affairs in our beloved country; to congratulate you on what has already been accomplished in crushing rebellion, and to exhort you to persevere in the work, until it has been finally completed.

Entertaining no shadow of doubt as to the entire justice of the cause in which the nation is embarked, we nevertheless consider the war a just judgment of Almighty God for the sin of rejecting his authority, and enslaving our fellow-men, and are firmly persuaded that his wrath will not be appeased, and that no permanent peace will be attained, until his authority be recognized, and the abomination that maketh desolate utterly extirpated.

As an anti-slavery church of the most radical school, believing slavery to be a heinous and aggravated sin both against God and man, and to be placed in the same category with piracy, murder, adultery, and theft, it is our solemn conviction that God by his Word and Providence is calling the nation to immediate, unconditional, and universal emancipation. We hear his voice in these thunders of war saying to us, "Let my people go." Nevertheless, we have hailed with delighted satisfaction the several steps which you have taken in the direction of emancipation. Especially do we rejoice in your late proclamation, declaring your purpose to free the slaves in the rebel States on the first day of January, 1863, an act which, when carried out, will give the death-blow to rebellion, strike the fetters from millions of bondmen, and will secure for its author a place high among the wisest of rulers and the noblest benefactors of the race. Permit us, then, Mr. President, most respectfully yet most earnestly, to urge upon you the importance of enforcing that proclamation to the utmost extent of that power with which you are vested. Let it be placed on the highest grounds of Christian justice and philanthropy; let it be declared to be an act of national repentance for long complicity with the guilt of slavery. Permit nothing to tarnish the glory of the act, or rob it of its sublime moral significance and grandeur, and it cannot fail to meet a hearty response in the conscience of the nation, and to secure infinite blessings to our distracted country. Let not the declaration of the immortal Burke in this instance be verified: "Good works are commonly left in a rude and imperfect state through the tame circumspection with which a timid prudence so frequently enervates beneficence. In doing good we are cold, languid, and sluggish, and of all things afraid of being too much in the right." We urge you by every consideration drawn from the Word of God and the present condition of our bleeding country, not to be moved from the path of duty, on which you have so auspiciously entered, either by the threats or blandishments of the enemies of human progress, nor to permit this great act to lose its power through the fears of its timid friends.

There is another point which we esteem of prominent importance, and to which we wish briefly to call your attention. The Constitution of the United States contains no acknowledgment of the authority of God, of his Christ, or of his law as contained in the Holy Scriptures. This we deeply deplore, as wholly inconsistent with all claim to be considered a Christian nation, or to enjoy the protection and favor of God. The Lord Jesus Christ is above all earthly rulers. He is King of kings, and Lord of lords. He is the one Mediator between God and man, through whom alone either nations or individuals can secure the favor of the Most High God, who is saying to us in these judgments, "Be wise now, therefore, O ye kings! be instructed, O ye judges of the earth! serve the Lord with fear. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that trust in him. For the nation and kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish; yea, those nations shall be utterly wasted."

This time appears to us most opportune for calling the nation to a recognition of the name and authority of God, to the claims of him who will overturn, overturn, and overturn, until the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ. We indulge the hope, Mr. President, that you have been called, with your ardent love of liberty, your profound moral convictions manifested in your sabbath proclamation, and in your frequent declarations of dependence upon Divine Providence, to your present position of honor and influence, to free our beloved country from the curse of slavery, and secure for it the favor of the great Ruler of the universe. Shall we not now set the world an example of a Christian State governed, not by the principles of mere political expediency, but acting under a sense of accountability to God, and in obedience to those laws of immutable morality which are binding alike upon nations and individuals?

We pray that you may be directed in your responsible position by divine wisdom, that God may throw over you the shield of his protection, that we may soon see rebellion crushed, its cause removed, and our land become Immanuel's land.

Another Covenanter minister, Thomas Sproull, reminisced shortly after Lincoln’s assassination about the president’s response to this powerful appeal:

Some time last winter two men connected with the Reformed Presbyterian Church were in Washington City, and called at the President’s house. While in the room that is always open to visitors, the President came in, and got into a conversation with them, in the course of which mention was made,of the Covenanters. The name seemed to arrest his attention, and he remarked: “I know something about these people — they want the Constitution amended by putting slavery out of it, and by putting a recognition of God in it.” To this they assented, and he proceeded to speak in kind and earnest terms of the brethren who had been with him urging the amendments. He added that they had obtained one object of their mission during his first term in office, and he hoped they would obtain the other before the end of his second term.