15
April 1883 A.D. Mr. (Rev. Dr. Prof.) George Howe passes, a
Southern Presbyterian Churchman.
April 15: Dr. George Howe
15 April, 2014
Wise Words
In his eulogy for Professor George Howe, the Rev. John L.
Girardeau prefaced his comments with this fitting summary on the subject of
Christian biography and eulogy:
“In
doing honor to those who have attained to eminence, there is a tendency unduly to
exalt the perfection of human nature, from the indulgence of which we are
restrained by the principles of Christianity. It can never be forgotten by
those who are imbued with its instructions and possessed of a consciousness
illuminated by its light, that all men, even the greatest and best, are
sinners; and that, whatever advancement in mere moral culture may be effected
by the force of natural resolution, neither the beginning nor the development
of holiness is possible without the application of the blood of atonement, and
the operation of supernatural grace. To signalise, therefore, the virtues of a
departed Christian is to celebrate the provisions of redemption, and to magnify
the graces of the Holy Ghost.”
In
other words, we write biographies of leading Christians and seek to preserve
their papers—their writings and their correspondence—not to emulate them, but
to praise the God who worked through them, that future generations of believers
might profit from their walk with the Lord.
George
Howe was born at Dedham, Massachusetts on November 6, 1802. His father was
William Howe, whose lineage ran back to one of the pilgrims who landed at
Plymouth Rock. His mother was Mary (Gould) Howe, daughter of Major George and
Rachel (Dwight) Gould.
When
he was still quite young, George came across a copy of Cotton Mather’sMagnalia
Christi Americana (The Glorious Works of Christ in America — vol.
1 of which can be read here.) among
his father’s books. There he encountered Latin sentences peppered throughout
the text, and so began his study of the Latin language. He pursued that study
formally at Mr. Ford’s school in Dedham, and, as he later related, “said his
hic, haec, hoc in his trundle-bed.”
At
the age of twelve the family relocated to a town near Philadelphia. As a young
teenager, he was able to attend First Presbyterian Church in the Northern
Liberties of Philadelphia, where the Rev. Dr. James Patterson was pastor. It
was Patterson’s habit to speak with every member of the family when he visited,
and on one such occasion, he turned to George and asked George whether he had
come to trust in the Lord Jesus Christ for his salvation. The question caused
George a great deal of discomfort, but this brought him under conviction of his
sin, and not long after he made a public profession of his faith there at First
Presbyterian.
Graduating
with first honors from Middlebury College, in Vermont, in 1822, George then
entered Andover Theological Seminary, taking the full three year course of
studies. Upon graduation, he was awarded the Abbott scholarship, which afforded
him another year and half of study, after which he was appointed, at the age of
twenty-seven, as Phillips Professor of Sacred Theology at Dartmouth College.
This was during the presidency of the Rev. Dr. Bennett Tyler, who was closely
tied with the troublesome New Haven Theology. At about the same time as Howe’s
appointment, he was also ordained, on August 7, 1827.
For
three years he served at this post, when his health was threatened with
consumption (tuberculosis), and medical advice urged him to remove to the
South. Rev. Howe soon sailed from Boston in a ship bound for Charleston, South Carolina,
and he spent the month of December, 1830 in that city.
Providentially,
it was about this same time that the Synod of South Carolina and Georgia met
and took up a request from Dr. Thomas Goulding, asking for the appointment of a
teacher of Greek and Hebrew. Dr. Goulding had only recently been appointed head
of a new seminary in South Caroliina, and already the school needed another
teacher. Rev. Howe’s reputation with the languages preceding him, he was
elected to the post. Thus began Dr. Howe’s lengthy career of fifty-two years at
the Columbia Theological Seminary. When the Seminary’s semi-centennial was
observed at the end of 1881, Dr. Howe was there to celebrate the occasion, with
many congratulations focused on his own central role in the establishment of
the school. A year and a half later, he was gone, passed to his eternal reward,
on April 15, 1883.
Dr.
Howe did not write many books, but of the less than ten, several remain
monumental works, to this day. In particular, his two volume magnum opus
on The History of the Presbyterian Church in South Carolina is still required
reading for anyone interested in the subject of religion in the Southern
states. Print copies are rare, but the text can be found on the Web here [vol.
1] and here [vol.
2].
As
George Howe lay near death, he expressed his desire to receive visits (despite
his doctor’s wishes) from the other faculty of Columbia Seminary. One colleague
asked him, “My dear brother, do you trust in Jesus?,” to which Dr. Howe readily
answered, “Yes; what would I do, did I not trust in Him?”
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