A Window into Early American Presbyterianism: The Virginia Religious Magazine (1804-1807)

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Editorial note: Our guest writer today is Zachary Groff, Director of Advancement & Admissions at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary and Pastor of Antioch Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Woodruff, SC.

From 1804 to 1807, The Virginia Religious Magazine enjoyed the editorial labors of then-President of Hampden-Sydney College Archibald Alexander and “a few of his ministerial colleagues” (perhaps including Samuel Houston, Matthew Lyle, George A. Baxter, Samuel Brown, Daniel Blain, Samuel L. Campbell, Conrad Speece, and John Holt Rice) “under the auspices of the Presbyterian Synod of Virginia.”

This short-lived Presbyterian periodical ran through three volumes comprised of six issues each. Despite its short tenure and relative obscurity, The Virginia Religious Magazine deserves celebration as one of the earliest religious periodicals in the United States of America, preceded by the Connecticut Evangelical Magazine (published by the congregational Missionary Society of Connecticut). Barring the discovery of evidence to the contrary, The Virginia Religious Magazine was the first such publication in the American South.

Though the authorship of individual articles included in the Magazine is difficult to determine, readers will benefit from a careful examination and consideration of the contents. William H. Foote attributes four (unspecified) articles to the pre-Princetonian Archibald Alexander, though the principal contributors seem to have been Conrad Speece and John Holt Rice.

Readers may choose to read the contents of the Magazine from beginning to end to catch a glimpse of an important historical moment in the development of American Presbyterianism. Reflections on practical religion, church history, theological topics, and contemporary revivals provide a window into the religious life of American Christians as they pressed westward into the frontier. Alternatively, a more selective approach to the contents of the Magazine will yield great spiritual benefit to interested readers. For example, the cautionary tale of Jack Vincent (The History of Jack Vincent, as found in Vol. 2, No. 4, pp. 212-222), which is authored under the pseudonym Philo and attributed by William H. Foote to John Holt Rice, is a moving apocryphal – or at least embellished – account of the sad life and death of a certain Jack Vincent. Such tales powerfully warned readers away from carelessness in religion and child-rearing. In these stories we recognize one of the perennial concerns of ministers and parents: the diligent nurture and admonition of the rising generation.

To access The Virginia Religious Magazine in its entirety, please refer to the Archibald Alexander page. To pursue your own research into this fascinating periodical, be sure to consult the biographies of John Holt Rice, one by Philip B. Price and the other by William Maxwell, both available on the Log College Press website. Tolle Lege!

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William Maxwell's Virginia Historical Register

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It was largely attributable to the efforts of John Holt Rice that the Virginia Historical Society was founded, but after his death, it fell to William Maxwell, Rice’s biographer, to “resurrect” the institution. And so he did, as its librarian and as the editor of its journal. The journal which he edited began as The Virginia Historical Register, and Literary Advertiser, and later was known as The Virginia Historical Register, and Literary Note Book; and The Virginia Historical Register, and Literary Companion. All of these volumes, from 1848 to 1853, are now available to read on Log College Press.

The material contained within these volumes includes items relevant to the history of Virginia, poetical pieces and much more, including tributes to, and notices of, notable Virginians, such as Archibald Alexander, Rice’s dear friend; William Henry Foote, author of the Sketches of Virginia, in two volumes; Samuel Davies, the great pioneer missionary to Virginia; and Francis Makemie, “the father of the Presbyterian church in Virginia;” and others. The history of Governor Spotswood’s 1716 Knights of the Golden Horseshoe Expedition across the Blue Ridge Mountains; a notice of the French Huguenot family who emigrated from Ireland to Virginia [the Jacques Fontaine family, from which this writer is descended]; accounts of the Indian princess Pocahontas and Captain John Smith; and many other names of interest to the students of history are discussed in this journal. This a resource rich in historical treasures.

In Maxwell’s words, introducing the journal to the public, “We are…lovers of history.”

If you share this love, dear reader, be sure to check out these fascinating volumes edited by William Maxwell.

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The Natural Bridge of Virginia: An American Wonder

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Visitors to the Natural Bridge of Rockbridge County, Virginia have been awestruck for centuries of recorded history. With ties to many American Presidents — such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Calvin Coolidge, and others — and references in American literature, including Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick — it is clear that the Natural Bridge has left a deep impression on the minds and hearts of many. American Presbyterian writers have also left a record of their impressions.

Benjamin Mosby Smith became engaged to Mary Moore Morrison (grand-daughter of the famous Mary Moore Brown, “the Captive of Abb’s Valley”), while on a picnic under the Natural Bridge in 1838, according to Francis R. Flournoy, Benjamin Mosby Smith, 1811-1893 (1947), p. 44.

Joseph Caldwell, who served as the first President of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, wrote about his 1808 tour of Virginia the following year, in which he described the Natural Bridge.

My Dear Friend — I write this from Douthit's tavern, one mile and a half from the Natural Bridge, and thirteen miles from Lexington; having just now returned from the bridge, I had determined on giving you a concise description of this sublime object, but fearing to fall short of the truth, I have turned to Mr. Jefferson's notes on Virginia, from whence I copy the following extract. "It is on the ascent of a hill which seems to have been cloven through its length by some great convulsiun. The fissure just at the bridge is by some admeasurement, 270 feet deep, by others only 205, it is about 45 feet wide at the bottom, and 90 feet at the top, this of course determines the length of the bridge, and its height from the water. Its breadth at the middle is about 60 feet, but more at the ends, and the thickness of the mass at the summit of the arch about 40 feet; a part of this thickness is. constituted by a coat of earth, which gives growth to many large trees ; the residue, with the hill on both sides, is one solid rock of limestone. The arch approaches the semi-elliptical form, but the larger axis of the ellipsis, which would be the chord of the arch, is many times longer than the transverse. Though the sides of this bridge are provided in some parts with a parapet of fixed rocks, yet few men have the resolution to walk to them, and look over into the abyss; you involuntarily fall upon your hands and feet, creep to the parapet, and peep over it, looking down from this height about a minute, gave me a violent head ache. If the view from the top be painful and intolerable, that from below is delightful in an equal extreme. It is impossible for the emotions arising from the sublime, to be felt beyond what they are here: so beautiful an arch, so elevated, so light, and springing, as it were up to heaven! the rapture of the spectator is really indiscribable. The fissure continuing narrow, deep and strait for a considerable distance both above and below the bridge, opens to a short, but very pleasing view of the north mountains on one side, and the blue ridge on the other, at the distance, each of them, of about five miles. This bridge is in the county of Rockbridge, to which it has given name; it affords a public and commodious passage over a valley, which cannot be crossed elsewhere for a considerable distance. The stream passing under it is called Cedar creek; it is a water of James' river, and sufficient in the driest season to turn a grist mill, though its fountain is not more than two miles above." I felt so strongly "the emotions arising from the sublime" that I could not in plain rational language convey to you my ideas of what I had seen, so you may be well pleased that I thought of the extract. I am here informed that Mr. Jefferson, since the publication of his Notes on Virginia, which first gave celebrity to this wonder of nature, has purchased from the United States fifteen acres of land, in the midst of which stands the bridge, and perhaps no private estate in the world can produce a grander or a more surprising subject of admiration — Adieu.

William Maxwell, in his 1816 Poems, includes a tribute to this very special place.

THE NATURAL BRIDGE

Hail! to thy Bridge, romantic Nature, hail!
O! more than true what I esteem’d a tale.
How light the wonder of that magic arch,
From cloud to cloud for angel bands to march;
So lightly pois’d upon the downy air,
For Art to view with rapture and despair!
But lost in wonder, I can only gaze,
While Silence owns the impotence of Praise.

And was it then the Spirit of the Storm,
Hiding in clouds his miscreated form,
With meteor apear, that smote the rocks aside,
And bade their frighten’d pediments divide,
For yonder Naiad with her tuneful stream,
To murmur thro’? O! this is Faney’s dream.
’Twas Heav’nly Nature made the magic pile,
And own’d the wonder with a mother’s smile.

I see her now. An angel sketch’d the view,
And bade her follow as his pencil drew.
Then smiling, conscious of celestial pow’r,
She took the rock, like some wild little flow’r,
And threw it lightly o’er the craggy ridge,
And gaily said, ‘Thus Nature makes a Bridge.’

Let pensive Beauty rove beside the stream,
To sooth her fancy with a tender dream;
While the sweet Naiad, as she trips along,
Beguiles her love with sympathetic song.
Let Genius gaze from yonder dizzy steep;
Whence Horror shrinks, yet madly longs to leap;
Then spread his wings triumphantly to soar,
And bless the world with one true poet more.
Here let Religion fondly love to stray,
A virgin pilgrim, at the close of day;
And sweetly conscious of her sins forgiv’n,
Exhale her soul in gratitude to Heav’n.
For me, fair Nature, far from War’s alarms,
Stealing thro’ shades to gaze upon thy charms,
The while yon Moon slow rises o’er the hill,
And Silence listening feels that all is still;
I gaze in wonder at the view sublime,
And own the charm that holds the breath of Time.
But hark! the voice of Rapture in my ears!
An angel sings! The music of the spheres!
A present God! — I feel myself no more, —
But lost in him — I tremble — I adore!

September 13th, 1813.

David Johnson, The Natural Bridge (1860)

The testimony of Archibald Alexander appears in J.W. Alexander’s biography, The Life of Archibald Alexander, D.D. (1854), in which Archibald writes of “the sublime”:

But in this same [Shenandoah] valley, and not very remote from the objects of which I have spoken, there is one which, I think, produces the feeling which is denominated the sublime, more definitely and sensibly than any that I have ever seen. I refer to the Natural Bridge, from which the county takes its name. It is not my object to describe this extraordinary lusus naturae, as it may be called. In fact, no representation which can be given by the pen or pencil can convey any adequate idea of the object, or one that will have the least tendency to produce the emotion excited by a view of the object itself. There are some things, then, which the traveller, however eloquent, cannot communicate to his readers. All I intend is, to mention the effect produced by a sight of the Natural Bridge on my own mind. When a boy of fourteen or fifteen, I first visited this curiosity. Having stood on the top, and looked down into the deep chasm above and below the bridge, without any new or very strong emotions, as the scene bore a resemblance to many which are common to that country, I descended by the usual circuitous path to the bottom, and came upon the stream or brook some distance below the bridge. The first view which I obtained of the beautiful and elevated blue limestone arch, springing up to the clouds, produced an emotion entirely new; the feeling was as though something within sprung up to a great height by a kind of sudden impulse. That was the animal sensation which accompanied the genuine emotion of the sublime. Many years afterwards, I again visited the bridge. I entertained the belief, that I had preserved in my mind, all along, the idea of the object; and that now I should see it without emotion. But the fact was not so. The view, at this time, produced a revival of the original emotion, with the conscious feeling that the idea of the object had faded away, and become both obscure and diminutive, but was now restored, in an instant, to its original vividness, and magnitude. The emotion produced by an object of true sublimity, as it is very vivid, so it is very short in its continuance. It seems, then, that novelty must be added to other qualities in the object, to produce this emotion distinctly. A person living near the bridge, who should see it every day, might be pleased with the object, but would experience, after a while, nothing of the vivid emotion of the sublime. Thus, I think, it must be accounted for, that the starry heavens, or the sun shining in his strength, are viewed with little emotion of this kind, although much the sublimest objects in our view; we have been accustomed to view them daily, from our infancy. But a bright-coloured rainbow, spanning a large arch in the heavens, strikes all classes of persons with a mingled emotion of the sublime and beautiful; to which a sufficient degree of novelty is added, to render the impression vivid, as often as it occurs. I have reflected on the reason why the Natural Bridge produces the emotion of the sublime, so well defined and so vivid; but I have arrived at nothing satisfactory. It must be resolved into an ultimate law of our nature, that a novel object of that elevation and form will produce such an effect. Any attempt at analyzing objects of beauty and sublimity only tends to produce confusion in our ideas. To artists, such analysis may be useful; not to increase the emotion, but to enable them to imitate more effectually the objects of nature by which it is produced. Although I have conversed with many thousands who had seen the Natural Bridge; and although the liveliness of the emotion is very different in different persons; yet I never saw one, of any class, who did not view the object with considerable emotion. And none have ever expressed disappointment from having had their expectations raised too high, by the description previously received. Indeed, no previous description communicates any just conception of the object as it appears; and the attempts to represent it by the pencil, as far as I have seen them, are pitiful. Painters would show their wisdom by omitting to represent some of the objects of nature, such as a volcano in actual ebullition, the sea in a storm, the conflagration of a great city, or the scene of a battle-field. The imitation must be so faint and feeble, that the attempt, however skilfully executed, is apt to produce disgust, instead of admiration.

In a letter from Charles Hodge to his wife Sarah dated May 28, 1828, written during his trip to Europe, which appears in A.A. Hodge’s biography The Life of Charles Hodge D.D. LL.D. Professor in the Theological Seminary Princeton N.J. (1880), Charles refers to the Natural Bridge (which he had visited during his 1816 tour of Virginia):

My Beloved Sarah: -- I have seen the Alps! If now I never see any thing great or beautiful in nature, I am content. I felt that as soon as I saw you, I could fall at your feet and beg you to forgive my beholding such a spectacle without you, my love. You were dearer to me in that moment than ever. I left Basel about one o'clock with a young English gentleman for Lucerne. We rode about fifteen miles and arrived at the foot of a mountain. As the road was steep and difficult, we commenced walking up the mountain in company with two Swiss gentlemen. We ascended leisurely for about two hours before we reached the top. I was walking slowly with my hands behind me, and my eyes on the ground, expecting nothing, when one of the Swiss gentlemen said with infinite indifference -- "Voila les Alpes." I raised my eyes -- and around me in a grand amphitheatre, high up against the heavens, were the Alps! It was some moments before the false and indefinite conceptions of my life were overcome by the glorious reality. The declining sun shed on the immense mass of mingled snow and forests the brightness of the evening clouds. This was the first moment of my life in which I felt overwhelmed. Every thing I had ever previously seen seemed absolutely nothing. The natural bridge in Virginia had surprised me -- the Rhine had delighted me -- but the first sudden view of the Alps was overwhelming. This was a moment that can never return; the Alps can never be seen again by surprise, and in ignorance of their real appearance.

In the 20th century, inspired by this American wonder, Robert Alberti Lapsley, Jr. wrote The Bridge of God: A Spiritual Interpretation of the Natural Bridge of Virginia (1951) [not yet available on Log College Press].

A visit to Natural Bridge may be just another American Natural Wonder seen and checked off the list, or it may be a real spiritual experience. All depends on the visitor himself, and the spirit in which he approaches the Bridge. For here is something man with all his vaunted skill could never have made. Here is something straight from the hand of the Creator.
…
That God is recognized as the workman is shown by the comments of visitors to the Bridge. An employee found a German refugee kneeling under the Bridge just at twilight in the attitude of prayer. As he approached she rose and said, “I have been thanking God that there are place like this left in the world.” Two women stood under the Bridge for a long time in silence. Finally one said, “It gives me a feeling of mightiness.” But the other replied, “It gives me a feeling of smallness.” A mother, showing the Bridge to her child, said, “See, dear, the Bridge was made by God. Man did not build it.” Said a couple from York, Pennsylvania, “Often when we visit places and see things of which we have been told, we are disappointed. But Natural Bridge surpassed all our expectations.”

That God is recognized as the workman is shown by the comments in the Visitors’ Book at the entrance. In the Gatehouse there is a large volume where visitors are invited to write their names as they leave, with any comments they wish. Most of the comments are trite and commonplace, such as “Beautiful,” “Wonderful,” “Stupendous,” “Awe-inspiring,” “Grand,” etc. But every once in a while some visitor will take the time to record in this book a profound religious experience. Here are a few examples:

A lady from Pittsburgh: “It brought me as near to Heaven as I will probably get.”

A man from Indiana: “It would be hard to find something more God-like.”

A lady from Portsmouth, Virginia: “We left in a mood of reverence.”

A mother and son from Texas: “It brought us a new realization of God’s creation, beautiful and breath-taking.”

A couple from Massachusetts: “We found it a beautiful way to worship.”

A young lady from Kentucky: “It has the atmosphere of a Cathedral, and it drew me closer to my Maker.”

A girl from Elkton, Virginia: “It lifted me into the Seventh Heaven.”

A couple from Oak Ridge, Tennessee: “It brought us in touch with the Infinite.”

A professor from Yale University: “It is religiously inspiring.”

That God is recognized as the workman is shown by the tributes of famous men and women who have visited the Bridge. Samuel Kercheval, in his History of the Valley of Virginia, speaks of it as “the most grand, sublime, and awful sight I ever looked upon.” Arno B. Cammerer, Director of United States Parks, who is familiar with all the natural beauties of America, in a personal letter to a friend says that the Bridge impressed him as “one of the most wonderful and lovely examples of Nature’s Architecture” he had ever seen. Mildred Seydell, internationally known author and writer, put her feeling in these words: “Man expresses the beauty of his thoughts by making songs and poems and pictures and sculpture, but God has expressed the beauty of His thoughts by creating Natural Bridge of Virginia.” It was Henry Clay, the great Kentucky statesman, who coined this expressive phrase, “The Bridge not made with hands,” while John Marshall described it as “God’s greatest miracle in stone.”

Over and over, we see among these extracts references to the sublime. Truly, that word perhaps best captures the elevated impression that this remarkable natural wonder of God’s handiwork in creation. The tributes to this special found in the writings of many, including these American Presbyterians, testify to beauty, power and wisdom of God.

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At the border of Immanuel's Land: Last words of John H. Rice

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The following instances, in which some of God's dear ministering servants, as representatives of many of 'like precious faith,' when they reached the borders of the river between them and Immanuel's land, glanced at the hills and heard something of the harmony and inhaled the fragrance blown across, are replete with interest, and should not fail to be read with profit. — Alfred Nevin, How They Died; or, Last Words of American Presbyterian Ministers (1883), pp. 11-12

Among the stories told by Nevin of faithful ministers whose last words still echo today is that of John Holt Rice (on p. 44). But for a fuller account of this particular story, we turn to the memoirs of Dr. Rice, first professor of Union Theological Seminary (then located at Hampden Sydney, Virginia), by William Maxwell and Philip Barbour Price.

As they describe “the last scene,” it was Saturday evening, September 3, 1831, and 53 year-old Rice was laying on his sick bed in agony. Many had visited him that day, and all knew that the end was near. A little bit of opium was administered to him to ease the pain. He spent time in silent prayer. Then, in Price’s words,

About 9 o'clock, rising suddenly, he threw his arms around the neck of Mrs. Rice, and with a clear, bright eye beaming with heavenly joy, exclaimed, "Mercy is — " The last word died upon his lips. "Was it ‘great’?" said Mrs. Goodrich. "No," replied Mrs. Rice, "it was a longer word." In the dim twilight of receding consciousness the dying Christian perceived that he was not understood; and, lest he should fail in the delivery of his last testimony, with great exertion, recovering his strength, he exclaimed, "Mercy is triumphant."

His head fell upon his bosom, and the words "he is gone" were uttered around the room.

Dr. Horton gently released his arms and laid him upon his pillow, and with a few more signs of breathing he expired.

Thus did he exchange “this mortal coil” for Paradise. And so entered into glory a man whose passion for spreading the gospel in Virginia and around the world was surpassed by none. Of him it might well be said, “Do you not know that a prince and a great man has fallen this day in Israel?” (2 Sam. 3:38) While his earthly remains were laid to rest at the cemetery of his beloved seminary, his hope was in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, whose mercy indeed is triumphant over all.

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The Motive for Missions, according to J.W. Alexander

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James M. Garretson has written of James W. Alexander’s “passion” for missions which was “stimulated by preaching from Psalm 72 and his reading (in German) of [Ernst Wilhelm] Hengstenberg’s massive study on the christological passages in the Old Testament” (Thoughts on Preaching & Pastoral Ministry: Lessons from the Life and Writings of James W. Alexander, p. 103).

A powerful example of that passion is found in the sermon he preached before the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (Old School) meeting in Richmond, Virginia on May 23, 1847. Titled Love to Christ the Motive of Missions: A Discourse, he focused on the primary reason why the church engages in missionary labors. It is, simply put, “that the great motive to Christian Missions is personal love to the Lord Jesus, manifested in the desire and expectation of his reign over converted sinners.”

Acknowledging that missionary work results in many kinds of temporal and spiritual benefits to the redeemed — “they inform the Intellect, and enlarge the knowledge; they civilize and refine; they rescue from temporal evil, and they save the soul” —

Yet all these are but subsidiary to one grand intention, which is the glory of Messiah in his kingly power over redeemed sinners, as his satisfying recompense; and holy affection reaches forward, to accomplish by this means the mighty yearnings of an incarnate God, who is at the same time the Husband of His elect and loving Church. So that the subjection of man to our Redeemer, as the reward which He claims and waits for, is a result which true piety craves, with immeasurable love, and inexpressible longing.

Again and again, Alexander brings home the point that all that we Christians do to magnify and honor our King and our Redeemer on earth arises out of the love in our hearts towards him and the consequent desire to see him exalted by all.

• “What is true religion? Not fear — not submission — not benevolence — not regard for being in general — not philanthropy — great and essential as some or all of these may be — but LOVE TO CHRIST.”

• “Love to the person of Immanuel, God manifest in the flesh, a dying, reigning Saviour, is the mark and criterion of all the family in heaven and earth.”

• “‘Lovest thou me? Feed my sheep!’”

• “Here is the token of the missionary host; and the missionary spirit, whether in childhood or age, in the pastor or the apostle, looks up, from the cross and the sepulchre, to the crown and the second-coming; and sighs forth its expectant longing, and says to the Bridegroom, Priest, and Sovereign, ‘Thou art fairer than the children of men: grace is poured into thy lips; therefore God hath blessed thee forever.’”

• The individual, and the church, glow with unspeakable desire for the universal acknowledgment, that Jesus Christ is Lord.”

• “To behold this love, and the things therein freely given us of God, is faith, is eternal life: but it is also the prime motive to all individual effort, and to all the sacrifice and warfare of the church.”

• “What has peopled these wastes, and pushed the tide of population even to the wintry coast of the inhospitable North? What has reared cities, and impelled the wheels of a thousand manufactures, and decked the earth with an agriculture unsurpassed among men? — The love of Christ. What has scattered schools, from town to town, and hamlet to hamlet, and founded universities, which, in spite of sectarian narrowness, are yet the pride of human learning? — The love of Christ. What has exchanged the misrule of Celtic chieftainship, and the feuds of warring tribes, for rational government and balanced concord? — The love of Christ. What has sent colonies, to become greater and happier and freer nations, in a late undiscovered hemisphere? — The love of Christ.”

• “…we shall one day cry, ‘All Israel shall be saved, as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer!’ To this Deliverer, the whole missionary work is a tribute of love.”

Alexander also cites the words of his uncle and mentor, Dr. John Holt Rice, as quoted by William Maxwell, in an 1831 overture to the General Assembly to this effect:

In the judgment of this General Assembly, one of the principal objects of the institution of the Church, by Jesus Christ, was, not so much the salvation of individual Christians — for, ‘whosoever believeth shall be saved’ — as the communication of the blessing of the Gospel to the destitute, with the efficiency of united effort….The Presbyterian Church is a Missionary Society, the object of which is to aid in the conversion of the world, and every member of the Church is a member for life of said society, and bound to do all in his power for the accomplishment of this object.

If we love Him who saved us, we will desire the glory of his name to be exalted in us and by all those around us. This is the true motive for all kingdom work, according to our place and calling. But especially in the case of missions, where love compels us to speak to others of the love that set us free — His love towards his sheep. May the love of Christ stir us all up to do what we can on behalf of the kingdom of Christ, and for the good of the lost souls all around us. Read Alexander’s sermon here, and get a glimpse of the passion and desire of this 19th century minister for that very goal.