ANNALS

OF THE

AMERICAN PULPIT:

OR

COMMEMORATIVE NOTICES

OF

DISTINGUISHED AMERICAN CLERGYMEN

OF

VARIOUS DENOMINATIONS,

FROM THE EARLY SETTLEMENT OF THE COUNTRY TO THE CLOSE OF THE YEAR
EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY-FIVE.

WITH HISTORICAL INTRODUCTIONS.

BY WILLIAM B. SPRAGUE, D.D.

________

VOLUME IV.
________

NEW YORK:
ROBERT CARTER & BROTHERS,
530 BROADWAY.
1858.

137     

JAMES GILLILAND.*
1794--1845.

   James Gilliland, a son of Alexander and Frances Gilliland, was born in Lincoln County, N.C., October 28, 1769. His grandparents emigrated from Ireland. His father was a farmer, and James, during his boyhood, was occupied with his father in assisting to support the family.
   He was fitted for College under the Rev. William C. Davis of South Carolina. In due time, he became a member of Dickinson College, Carlisle, where he was graduated in 1792. He then returned to Carolina, and prosecuted his theological studies, partly at least under the direction of the same clergyman by whom he had been fitted for College. He was licensed to preach by the Presbytery of South Carolina on the 26th of September, 1794; and was ordained and installed Pastor of the Broadaway Congregation, in the summer of 1796.
   During his residence at Carlisle, Mr. Gilliland’s views of the subject of slavery seem to have undergone an important change; and it would appear from the Records of both Presbytery and Synod, that his zeal in the cause of emancipation subjected him to some degree of embarrassment. The Rev. Dr. Howe, Professor in the Theological Seminary at Columbia, S.C., has kindly furnished me the following statement as the result of his examination of the Presbyterian Records:--
   “At his ordination and installation over Broadaway Church, in 1795, a remonstrance signed by eleven or twelve persons against his ordination, is mentioned. Mr. Gilliland denied that he had preached against the government, but acknowledged that he had preached about slavery before he was called by the Church and since. The next day he siad that he thought the voice of God, through the counsel of the Presbytery, advised him to desist from preaching upon that topic, and that he would not do so without previously consulting the Presbytery. The difference between him and the remonstrants was thus made up, and he was ordained. He afterwards consulted Presbytery on the subject. They advised that he should still desist until he should have an opportunity to obtain the judgment of the Synod.”
   The following minute appears in the Records of Synod, at their meeting in November of that same year:--
   “A memorial was brought forward and laid before Synod, by the Rev. James Gilliland, stating both his conscientious difficulties in receiving the advice of the Presbytery of South Carolina, which has enjoined upon him to be silent in the pulpit on the subject of the emancipation of the Africans; which injunction Mr. Gilliland declares to be, in his apprehension, contrary to the counsel of God. Whereupon, Synod, after deliberation upon the matter, do concur with the Presbytery in advising Mr. Gilliland to content himself with using his utmost endeavours in private to open the way for emancipation, so as to secure our happiness as a people, preserve the peace of the church, and render them capable of enjoying the blessings of liberty. Synod is of the opinion, to preach publicly against slavery, in present circumstances,...

*Foote’s Sketches of N.C.--MSS. from his son, Rev. A.B. Gilliland, and Rev. H.B. Fullerton.
   VOL. IV.         18

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...and to lay down as the duty of every one to liberate those who are under their care, is that which would lead to disorder, and open the way to great confusion.”
   Mr. Gilliland retained his connection with the Broadaway Congregation a little less than eight years. Both his character and ministrations were highly appreciated, and even those who dissented most earnestly from his views of duty in regard to slavery, were not slow to award to him the credit of acting from deliberate and conscientious conviction. It is understood, however, that this difference ultimately led him to seek a residence in another State. He was dismissed from Broadaway congregation on the 4th of April, 1804, and had leave to travel beyond the bounds of the Presbytery, being furnished, at the same time, wth the requisite credentials. On the 3d of April, 1805, he was dismissed to join the Presbytery of Washington, in Kentucky, and about the same time settled in Red Oak, Brown County, Ohio, where he remained till the close of his life.
   Mr. Gilliland had naturally a vigorous constitution, but it was very much broken by a severe attack of typhoid fever in the year 1818; and, though he continued to preach till within a year of his death, he suffered not a little from bodily infirmity. The disease which termnated his life was ossification of the heart. It was long and painful, but borne with great patience. He died on the 1st of February, 1845, in the seventy-sixth year of his age. Two Sermons were preached with reference to his death--one by the Rev. J. Rankin, the other by the Rev. L. Gilmer.
   Mr. Gilliland was married to Frances Baird,--it is believed in the year 1793. She died on the 23d of August, 1837. They had thirteen children, three of whom received a collegiate education. One of them is a Presbyterian clergyman--two are  lawyers.
   Mr. Gilliland published a Dialogue on Temperance, 1820; a Sermon on Missions, delivered before the Synod of Kentucky; and a Sermon delivered before the Synod of Cincinnati on the abuse of ardent spirits.

FROM THE REV. H. S. FULLERTON.
SOUTH SALEM, O., MAY 7, 1855.    

My dear Sir: Father Gilliland, concerning whom you ask for my personal recollections, was, for about forty years, a member of the Presbytery which licensed and ordained me, and with which I have been connected ever since. He was, however, an old man before I knew him. His once erect and manly form was shriveled and bowed with disease and age; and time had given him the hoary head which was "a crown of glory," because it "was found in the way of righteousness." If it had been possible for a stranger to look upon him without observing his expansive brow, and his keen, sparkling blue eye, he might have supposed that he had before him the image of feebleness, mental as well as bodily. But these features could not be overlooked at any time, especially when he was speaking. It was then seen that beneath those snows there was a glowing fire which clothed his countenance with brightness, and shed light all around him. There was a singular transparency in his mind. On one occasion, during an animated and earnest discussion in our Synod, an eminent minister from abroad sat at my side -- a man well-known throughout our country, especially the West and Southwest. Father Gilliland rose to speak. The stranger, not knowing him, seemed, for a little while, listless and inattentive; but his eye was soon fixed upon the speaker with an expression of interest and wonder; and, as... 

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...soon as the speech was closed, he turned to me, and exclaimed, --"Sir, that old man's path was a path of light."
   At another time, one of our Western Presbyteries refused to license a young man, who had just graduated at one of our Theological Seminaries, because they considered him ultra on some points of Christian morality. One of his supposed errors was on the subject of war. He had embraced the notion that war, whether offensive or defensive, is, in all cases, sinful. A distinguished clergyman who was a Professor at the Seminary where the young man had graduated, and was also a member of the Presbytery that had refused to license him, felt aggrieved at the manner in which he had been treated. At his request, the young man appeared before the Chillicothe Presbytery, as a candidate. Father Gilliland proposed to him a series of questions, which led him on, step by step, with irresistible force, until he fully and frankly confessed that he had been in error. He soon became a very devoted and useful minister.
   Father Gilliland was a very humble and modest man. He shrank from every thing like ostentation or display. Plainness, extreme plainness characterized hs dress, his style of living, and his style of speaking; -- every thing he said, and every thing he did. In preaching, more perhaps than any man I ever knew, he hid himself behind his subject, especially when that subject was the cross. Self, nothing--Christ, all in all, seemed to be his motto. His great modesty never forsook him to the last. On visiting his grave some years after his burial, I was grieved to find that the only memorial on the plain head-stone that marked the spot was this,--"James Gilliland, Born ----, Died ----." When I remonstrated with his friends about the meagerness of the inscription, they assured me that all had been done in accordance with his expressed wishes. But while he was modest, he was not mean; and while diffident, he was far from being timid. He was distrustful of himself; but not of the cause he espoused, or the doctrine he preached. He never embraced doctrines until he was well convinced that they were true, or appeared as the advocate of a cause until he felt confident that it was right. And then he seemed to say,--"What I have written, I have wrtten." He appeared never to ask the question,--"are my sentiments popular?" but simply, "Are they true?"--and when this question was answered in the affirmative, nothing could induce him to shrink from their avowal on all proper occasions. There were some memorable instances in the course of his ministry of his exhibiting an almost martyr-like spirit, in adhering to his honest convictions.
   Father Gilliland was of a social, cheerful disposition. Although never forgetful of his dignity as a Christian minister, there was a vein of good humour and pleasantry in his conversation which made him a highly attractive companion. Neither the infirmities of old age, nor the depressing effects of disease, destroyed his vivacity when among hs friends, or his animation when in the pulpit. His conversation was always edifying and instructive--his sermons eminently so. Although not written, they were carefully thought out, and well arranged. They were clear, practical, experimental, instructive, and often strikingly original; and the impression they made was not a little deepened by the solemnity of the speaker's manner, and by a voice clear and strong even in old age. I never heard Dr. Alexander speak in public but once; and that was in 1842, when he was quite an old man. His voice reminded me at once of Father Gilliland's, though I thought it had less volume and more treble in it. Father G.'s gestures were few, but they were always natural and simple. You will observe that I speak of him as he was in his later years--of his manner when he was a young man I have no knowledge.
    But I must not omit to say that that which imparted the richest lustre to all his powers was his sincere, heartfelt godliness. He was an eminently devout and experimental Christian. A short time before his death he remarked to me,--

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"I hear one class of men who preach the doctrines of the Gospel very well; and another who preach its practical duties very well; but none of us preach enough on experimental religion." That remark seemed to me as just as it was characteristic.
                                             Very truly your friend and brother,
H. B. FULLERTON

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Transcribed by Kate Maynard, 2008