A portion of the letter that John A. Broadus wrote to his church, the Charlottesville Baptist Church, Charlottesville, Virginia, when he resigned the pastorate in order to take up a teaching position in the newly established Baptist Seminary in Greenville, South Carolina. J. P. Boyce had prayed to God and pleaded with Broadus that he might help begin what was soon to become The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, which eventually moved to Louisville, Kentucky. The letter was written August 28, 1859.
I am unable to express my feelings of gratitude for all your kindness and of affectionate interest in your welfare, as a church, as families, and as individuals. I trust you will always look with charitable indulgence upon my faults of character, and failures in duty. I have little fear of being personally forgotten here, but I especially ask that you will not forget the truth I have preached among you, but will seek to profit hereafter by the labors which are now ended; so ‘that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither labored in vain.’
Life and Letters of John Albert Broadus, by Archibald Thomas Robertson, 1901, reprint by Gano Books, p. 166.
No comments:
Post a Comment