276 – Oct. 03 – This Day in Baptist History Past

 

A Mightily used man of God

 

1791 – Dr. Adiel Sherwood, pastor and educator, was born in Washington County, New York, and after graduating from College was trained in theology at Andover Seminary. Andover was founded by the Conservative Congregationalists after liberalism had penetrated Harvard. There he studied under Dr. Moses Stuart, who had been used of God to eradicate the liberalism that Adoniram Judson had encountered in his college years. After that he pastored a Baptist church and taught in an academy at Waynesboro, Georgia. It was there that he was ordained in March of 1820, when James Mercer served on the Counsel. From there he was called to pastor the Bethlehem Baptist Church near Lexington, Georgia until 1821. In May of 1824 he was married to Miss Heriot of Charleston, S.C. For the next ten years until 1832, he labored in church planting and missions, and with Rev. Jesse Mercer established the Georgia Baptist Convention in 1822. In 1835 he participated in the national Triennial Convention. In 1841 he became the first president of the newly formed Shurtleff College in Illinois. For five years he was pastor in Cape Girardeau, Missouri until he returned to Griffin, GA to pastor a Baptist church and head up Marshall College there. The Sherwood’s home was devastated by the Federal army in their march through Georgia in 1864 and struggled with starvation. It is calculated that 14,000 converts were baptized from the ministry of this God blessed man. [R.S. Duncan, History of the Baptists in Missouri (St. Louis: Scammell and Company, Publishers, 1882), p. 805. This Day in Baptist History II: Cummins and Thompson, BJU Press: Greenville, S.C. 2000 A.D. 541-42] Prepared by Dr. Greg J. Dixon

 

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336 – Dec. 02 – THIS DAY IN BAPTIST HISTORY PAST

He prepared a room on to his house and began worship services
December 02, 1789 – Billington McCarter Sanders was born in Columbia County, Georgia. By age 9 he had lost both of his parents and he had gone to live with a Mr. Ambrose Jones family who provided an excellent home. He received his early education in the Kiokee Seminary. After further education in various institutions he returned to his native county, where he made a profession of faith and was baptized by Abraham Marshall, and was admitted into the Kiokee Baptist Church of Appling, the first Baptist church ever planted in Georgia. He was Married to Martha Lamar, who bore 9 children. All of them died in infancy but two. Martha died in 1822 and he married Cynthia Holliday, who bore him 13 children. Of the 22, only nine survived him. He knew the burden of standing at the grave of a wife and thirteen children. Sanders went on to serve in the state legislature and as a judge of the Superior Court, and taught school. His pastor, at a church conference where he was serving as clerk read a resolution recommending him to the work of the ministry. He bowed his head and burst into tears. But he knew that it was God at work in his life. He prepared a room on to his house and began worship services for his family, servants and neighbors. In 1831 the Georgia Baptist Convention determined to establish a Seminary and called on Sanders to take charge of the process which he did. With the cheapest of fare and the most bare accommodation, including no heat, the foundation of Mercer University was laid. Before his death at 65 he was involved in many ministries.
Dr. Greg J. Dixon from: This Day in Baptist History Vol. I: Cummins Thompson /, pp. 502-04.