Three Wrights at Log College Press

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Three years ago we introduced to our readers the famous 19th century author, Mrs. Julia McNair Wright (1840-1903), who penned numerous biographical sketches and works of fiction, primarily aimed at younger readers. Today, on his birthday, we introduce her husband, the also noteworthy Rev. Dr. W.J. Wright (August 3, 1831-February 26, 1903).

Born at Weybridge, Vermont, the latter Wright graduated from Union College in Schenectady, New York in 1857. After a brief period spent teaching and in the practice of law, he pursued theological studies, first at Union Theological Seminary (New York), and then at Princeton Theological Seminary, graduated from there in 1862. From 1863-1865, he served as a chaplain in the U.S. Army. Except for a two-year period spent studying in Europe (1871-1873), he served as pastor of several congregations in New Jersey, Ohio and West Virginia. Briefly, he served as professor of mathematics at the Wilson Female College in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania (1876-1877), but more significantly, he served as the chair of metaphysics and as vice-president at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri (1887-1899). Author of several tracts of mathematics, he was the first American admitted to the London Mathematical Society. Like his wife, he was a contributor to The Presbyterian Quarterly, including one article on the powerful but unBiblical legacy of Darwinism, a generation after the hypothesis was first proposed.

Married in 1859 to his bride, it was Julia McNair Wright who became a 19th century household name, rather than her husband. It was in that year that Mrs. Wright published her first story, beginning a long and successful career as an author of so many works of a biographical, fictional, Biblical and scientific nature. Her pen was particularly active in the late 1860s and early 1870s, when numerous articles and stories appeared in the press, including two sets of 12 volumes each: True Story Library No. 1 and No. 2. She often focused on the temperance cause, or on anti-Catholic stories, but the diverse range of her interests was tremendous, and included some translation work. Her particular forte was in writing to young readers to stimulate minds and hearts for service to God. She often wrote for Presbyterian periodicals, as well as for the Presbyterian Board of Publication.

Together they had two children, who survived their parents after both passed away in the same year: a son, John M. Wright, of New York City, and a daughter, Jessie Elvira Wright Whitcomb, of Kansas City, Missouri. Jessie, born at Princeton, New Jersey, also became known as both a writer and a lawyer. She was a member of the Presbyterian church, like her parents. She and her husband, George Herbert Whitcomb, were classmates at Boston University Law School, and later became partners at George’s law firm. He also served as a judge and a professor of law. They had six children, several of whom were also noted in their fields.

B.B. Warfield had occasion to review some of the writings of both Julia and Jessie over the years, and gave them high commendation. All three Wrights highlighted here used their gifts for the service of others, and as authors left a legacy that still enriches readers over a century later. The Wrights are worth getting to know.

Machen on the consecration of culture

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Some have well and truly observed that the interest of religion and good literature hath risen and fallen together. – Increase Mather

Of the five paradigms sketched by H. Richard Niebuhr in Christ and Culture (1951), it is clear that J.G. Machen fits not into the “Christ Against Culture” category, or most of the others found therein, but the “Christ Transforming Culture” paradigm is good match. Culture is not irredeemable or inherently antagonistic to Christianity, but can be sanctified to the glory of God, in Machen’s view.

Machen’s 1912 address “The Scientific Preparation of the Minister” was published in 1913 as Christianity and Culture, and here he makes this case.

Are then Christianity and culture in a conflict that is to be settled only by the destruction of one or the other of the contending forces? A third solution, fortunately, is possible — namely, consecration. Instead of destroying the arts and sciences or being indifferent to them, let us cultivate them with all the enthusiasm of the veriest humanist, but at the same time consecrate them to the service of our God. Instead of stifling the pleasures afforded by the acquisition of knowledge or by the appreciation of what is beautiful, let us accept these pleasures as the gifts of a heavenly Father. Instead of obliterating the distinction between the kingdom and the world, or on the other hand withdrawing from the world into a sort of modernized intellectual monasticism, let us go forth joyfully, enthusiastically to make the world subject to God. …

There are two objections to our solution of the problem. If you bring culture and Christianity thus into close union — in the first place, will not Christianity destroy culture? Must not art and science be independent in order to flourish? We answer that it all depends upon the nature of their dependence. Subjection to any external authority or even to any human authority would be fatal to art and science. But subjection to God is entirely different. Dedication of human powers to God is found, as a matter of fact, not to destroy but to heighten them. God gave those powers. He understands them well enough not bunglingly to destroy his own gifts. In the second place, will not culture destroy Christianity? Is it not far easier to be an earnest Christian if you confine your attention to the Bible and do not risk being led astray by the thought of the world? We answer that of course it is easier. Shut yourself up in an intellectual monastery, do not disturb yourself with the thoughts of unregenerate men, and of course you will find it easier to be a Christian, just as it is easier to be a good soldier in comfortable winter quarters than it is on the field of battle. You save your own soul — but the Lord’s enemies remain in possession of the field. …

I do not mean that the removal of intellectual objections will make a man a Christian. No conversion was ever wrought simply by argument. A change of heart is also necessary. And that can be wrought only by the immediate exercise of the power of God. But because intellectual labor is insufficient, it does not follow, as is so often assumed, that it is unnecessary. God may, it is true, overcome all intellectual obstacles by an immediate exercise of his regenerative power. Sometimes he does. But he does so very seldom. Usually he exerts his power in connection with certain conditions of the human mind. Usually he does not bring into the kingdom, entirely without preparation, those whose mind and fancy are completely dominated by ideas which make the acceptance of the gospel logically impossible. …

Modern culture is a tremendous force. It affects all classes of society. It affects the ignorant as well as the learned. What is to be done about it? In the first place, the church may simply withdraw from the conflict. She may simply allow the mighty stream of modern thought to flow by unheeded and do her work merely in the back-eddies of the current. There are still some men in the world who have been unaffected by modern culture. They may still be won for Christ without intellectual labor. And they must be won. It is useful, it is necessary work. If the church is satisfied with that alone, let her give up the scientific education of her ministry. …

The church is puzzled by the world’s indifference. She is trying to overcome it by adapting her message to the fashions of the day. But if, instead, before the conflict, she would descend into the secret place of meditation, if by the clear light of the gospel she would seek an answer not merely to the questions of the hour but, first of all, to the eternal problems of the spiritual world, then perhaps, by God’s grace, through his good Spirit, in his good time, she might issue forth once more with power, and an age of doubt might be followed by the dawn of an era of faith.

As man can be redeemed, so can the society of men, and all their political, scientific, artistic and other endeavors and forms of expression when consecrated to God. The Spirit works not only in individuals, but in their social relationships as well. And as we pray, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, so may we affirm, work for, and rejoice with the promise that one day it will be evident that, "The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever” (Rev. 11:15). Machen believed in cultural engagement — not abandonment or rejection of culture — and in the transforming power of God’s grace to redeem society as well as individuals. Consecration, as Machen would say, is key.

Eyes open to the world around you: Julia McNair Wright

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He claimed that, while reading about nature was fine, “if a person walks in the woods and listens carefully, he can learn more than what is in books, for they speak with the voice of God.” — Helga Schier, writing about George Washington Carver (George Washington Carver: Agricultural Innovator: Agricultural Innovator, p. 79)

If God is the author of two books, Nature and Scripture (Ps. 19), we do well to attend to both. It was said of the Presbyterian minister James L. Woods (1846-1918) that:

Mr. Woods loved God and all things that He made — the trees, the flowers and the grandeur of the mountains. To him they spoke a "various language" as he held "communion with her visible forms." It was his custom to take long walks among the mountains, sometimes spending days among their fastnesses. It was when returning to his home in Lakeport from one of these rambles that he succumbed.on the 13th of June, 1918, at the close of a beautiful day. A friend wrote: How fitting that he should fall asleep in the arms of nature (Harriet E. Jones in James L. Woods, California Pioneer Decade of 1849: The Presbyterian Church (1922)).

Maltbie D. Babcock loved to hike, especially along the Niagara Escarpment to enjoy the overlook's panoramic vista of upstate New York scenery and Lake Ontario, telling his wife he was "going out to see the Father's world". Such hikes inspired his famous poem, which later became the hymn “This is My Father’s World.”

This is my Father’s world,
and to my listening ears
all nature sings, and round me rings
the music of the spheres.
This is my Father’s world;
I rest me in the thought
of rocks and trees, of skies and seas;
his hand the wonders wrought.

This is my Father’s world;
the birds their carols raise;
the morning light, the lily white,
declare their Maker’s praise.
This is my Father’s world;
he shines in all that’s fair.
In the rustling grass I hear him pass;
he speaks to me everywhere.

Another Presbyterian writer who loved nature and aimed to instill that love in children was Julia McNair Wright (1840-1903). We have taken note before of her historical fiction and biographical sketches for children. Today we take note of her writings on science and nature; specifically, those focused on teaching children to open their eyes to the world around them to the glory of God.

Among the 90 or more published writings by Mrs. Wright (which we continue to upload to Log College Press as we are able) are a number of works for or about children and science or nature. She published a popular four-volume set of Nature Readers: Sea-Side and Way-Side in the late 1880s and early 1890s; and volumes for young people on astronomy and botany in 1898.

She also wrote short articles for periodicals such as Fiddler-Crabs (for The American Naturalist, May 1887); “Shall Our Children Study Natural Science?” (for the Nashville, Tennessee Southwestern Journal of Education, September 1887); The Cultivation in Young Children, of a Taste for the Literary and Scientific (for the Boston, Massachusetts American Teacher, January 1888); and Scientific Collections: How Made (also for the American Teacher, April 1888). Several nature “dispatches” written from her home in Fulton, Missouri were published in the weekly newspaper Science. Those “dispatches” consisted largely of personal, scientific observations pertaining to creatures which lived nearby.

So many of these sorts of writings by Mrs. Wright seem to have arisen because of a deeply personal appreciation for the world around her, and a desire to share that interest and passion with young people. A love of nature is apparently contagious, and for those who may be housebound, it is worth reading over some of these writings to be stirred up in the appreciation of the world outside. Even in isolation, through windows at least, one can still appreciate the beauty of the birds, the stars, the trees, and take note of many facets of God’s creation. Reading books is fine, as George Washington Carver has said, but few things can surpass a walk in the woods or through fields or at the beach, with friends or family, and with eyes open to the glory of God in his creation.

New Presbyterian Women Writers Added to LCP

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Two new female Presbyterian authors have recently been added to Log College Press.

The first is Susan Mary Brown Alexander (1828-1910). She was the daughter-in-law of Archibald Alexander - married to Henry Martyn Alexander (1822-1899). Among the works she wrote, at LCP we have:

  • How to Study the Old Testament: In a Series of Questions - First Series: From Genesis to First Samuel (1873)

  • Questions on the Acts of the Apostles, 1882-1883 (1883)

The second is Julia McNair Wright (1840-1903). She was the wife of Presbyterian minister and mathematician William Janes Wright. An extremely prolific author, she published dozens of books over the latter half of the 19th century, which were all extremely popular. These include both fiction and non-fiction, such as her volumes on astronomy, botany, and nature; a Ladies’ Home Cook Book; an encyclopedia of domestic life; a work on church history; a number of stories critical of Roman Catholicism; adventure stories, travelogues and historical fiction; several works relating to the temperance movement; a translation of a novel from the original French; and a series (the True Story Library, published by the Presbyterian Board of Publication) of Reformation-era biographical sketches for younger readers on the lives of the Scottish Reformers George Wishart and John Knox; German Reformer Martin Luther; Bohemian Reformer John Huss; French Huguenot Reformers John Calvin, Queen Margaret of Valois, Duchess Renée of Ferrara, and Admiral Gaspard de Cologny; English Reformer William Tyndale; and English Puritan Richard Baxter. Always active, always writing, the words found on the cover of one particular volume reflect her ethos: “For day by day we should be instant in doing God’s errands as we move across the world.”

In her biographical sketch of Martin Luther, she wrote these words:

The world and the Church need a good shaking just now to wake them up to the work of the Lord, and where is the Luther strong in Jesus to do it? He may be some boy reading this book. God knows.

Take time to peruse these newly-added authors and their writings now available at LCP. You and your family will be richly rewarded.