It is my intention to post biographies, periodically in the Gadfly, of some of our great Baptist forefathers and also information on our oldest historic Baptist periodicals.
The following are some extracts of information of W. C. Buck of Kentucky. I apologize for not organizing this information so that it makes for a better read, without repetition, but hopefully it will nevertheless be of interest to those who are interested in Baptist history, especially in America.
I hope one day to put together a book of leading Baptist preachers and debaters who battled the Hyper Calvinists, Hardshells, and Anti-Mission Baptists, particularly of the 19th century. Certainly W. C. Buck was one of the first to do battle with these sects. He also had to battle the Campbellites and their heresies.
"This lengthy extract, giving so graphic a picture of Mr. Buck's labors, and indicating the condition of the Baptist denomination, in Kentucky, at that period, with respect to the support of pastors, by no means gives an adequate idea of the opposition the agent met with. The report would soon be read by the public, and had it embodied a full account of the opposition, from both churches and preachers, it would have encouraged the foes, and dispirited the timid and lukewarm friends of missions and ministerial support. Within two years after this report was published, several of the churches named in it, were divided on the subject of missions and ministerial support; insomuch that a new association, which declared openly its opposition to benevolent institutions and "hireling preachers," was formed on the territory referred to in the report. This new fraternity was called Mt. Pleasant Association of Regular Baptists, and still maintains a feeble existence.
In the manner described in the report, Mr. Buck continued to canvass the churches, as long as he was Agent of the General Association. But, in 1841, believing that he could reach the churches of the whole State, more speedily and effectively, through the medium of the press, he took the editorial charge of the Baptist Banner and Western Pioneer, a large religious weekly, hitherto conducted by John L. Waller. He edited this paper about nine years, with much ability. In 1840, he resigned the charge of the First Church, after which, among a multitude of other engagements, he preached in a market house, in the eastern part of the city, till East Church was constituted, in 1842. To this Church, he preached the rest of the time that he remained in the State.
In 1850, having lost his property, through an attempt to conduct the Louisville Advertiser, which he had purchased, on the retirement of Shadrach Penn, he moved to the State of Alabama. Here he labored some ten years, both with tongue and pen. He published a book entitled the Philosophy of Religion, and was editing a religious paper at the breaking out of the Civil War. After this he went to Texas, where he spent the evening of a long, busy and eminently useful life. He died of a cancer on his face, at his residence near Waco, surrounded by his children, on the 18th of May, 1872." (WILLIAM C. BUCK - Early Kentucky Baptist Pastor and Leader)
Baptist History Homepage
http://www.geocities.com/baptist_documents/buck.william.html
"This was a drastic step and in a few days the "Otter Creek Association of Regular Baptists" was a fact. History Vindicates the General Association. In the communities where the Otter Creek Association was strongest the churches have either perished or they have been mission territory for these ninety years. Other churches have had to contend with this anti-mission spirit."
http://www.kentuckygenealogy.org/meade/salem_association.htm
"Biographical sketches of most of the early preachers of this old fraternity have already been given. Some additional sketches are, as usual, appended here. Many transient preachers have labored within the bounds of this Association, with sketches of whose lives it would not be expedient, even if it were practicable, to multiply these pages. Only a few of the most prominent of these, will be briefly mentioned.
William Calmes Buck was one of the leaders of God's host, in Kentucky, at a period when a wise, bold leader was most needed. To him, the Baptists of this Commonwealth, and of the whole Mississippi Valley, owe, more than to any other man, their deliverance from the narrow prejudice against missionary operations, which had been chiefly fostered by Alexander Campbell, and the chilling spirit of Antinomianism, enkindled by Parker, Dudley, Nuckols and their satellites. More than any other preacher in the State, did this champion of christian benevolence stir up and foster the spirit of missions. Possessing great physical strength and remarkable powers of endurance, he traveled on horse-back, among the churches, winter and summer, day and night, and urged upon them the solemn duty of supporting their pastors, at home, and sending the gospel to the perishing, abroad. He possessed a strong, steady nerve, a cool self-possession and a courage that did not falter. His tongue was as the pen of a ready writer, and his voice was as the roaring of a lion. Perhaps no other man ever preached, in Kentucky, that could command the attention of so large an audience, in the open air."
"Who will question, that God called and qualified him, for the specific work he performed!
William C. Buck was born in Virginia, August 23, 1790. His educational advantages were poor. But having a quick, strong native intellect, and being ambitious to acquire knowledge, he became what is termed a self-made man, of excellent attainments, both in general literature and theology. In early life, he united with the church at Waterlick, in Shenandoah county, Virginia, where he was ordained to the ministry, in October, 1815. In 1820, he moved to Kentucky, and settled on the present site of Morganfield, in Union county. Here he took charge of a little church, called Highland. The same year, he gathered another small church, called Little Bethel, to which he alsoministered. He afterwards took charge of a church near Princeton, where he baptized William Morrison, a Presbyterian licentiate, who became a very useful Baptist preacher. In September, 1820, Highland Association was formed, of the two churches ministered to by Mr. Buck, and a few others, almost equally small and poor. Within the bounds of this little fraternity, with no other Baptist preacher within thirty miles of him, and two-thirds of the population of his county being Catholics, he labored about sixteen years."
"In 1836, he moved to Louisville, where he succeeded the lamented John S. Wilson in the pastoral charge of the First Baptist church in that city. He served this church four years, during which period, its membership increased, from 306, to 532. In 1838, with the consent of his pastoral charge, he accepted the General Agency of the General Association of Baptists in Kentucky. It will be remembered that, at that period, very few Baptist pastors, in Kentucky, received a salary for preaching. It is probable that a very large majority of them received less than five dollars a year, for their ministrations: and the small pittances they did receive, were understood to be “gifts,” and not pay. The first object of the General Association, was to correct this evil. To secure the payment of reasonable salaries to the pastors, was the principal object of Mr. Buck’s agency; although he collected such small amounts as he could, consistently with this object, for missionary purposes. The following extract from his report, slightly abridged, will give some idea of the nature of his work, and his competency to perform it: "
"This lengthy extract, giving so graphic a picture of Mr. Buck's labors, and indicating the condition of the Baptist denomination, in Kentucky, at that period, with respect to the support of pastors, by no means gives an adequate idea of the opposition the agent met with. The report would soon be read by the public, and had it embodied a full account of the opposition, from both churches and preachers, it would have encouraged the foes, and dispirited the timid and lukewarm friends of missions and ministerial support. Within two years after this report was published, several of the churches named in it, were divided on the subject of missions and ministerial support; insomuch that a new association, which declared openly its opposition to benevolent institutions and "hireling preachers," was formed on the territory referred to in the report. This new fraternity was called Mt. Pleasant Association of Regular Baptists, and still maintains a feeble existence."
"'The Western Recorder.' Various attempts were made to establish a Baptist paper in Kentucky, but failed until the 'Baptist Banner' originated at Shelbyville in 1835. At that time it was a fortnightly; but in 1835 Rev. John N. Waller became its editor; when it was removed to Louisville and issued as a weekly. Soon it was united with the 'Baptist,' which was published at Nashville, Tenn., and with the 'Western Pioneer,' of Illinois, becoming the 'Baptist Banner and Western Pioneer.' In 1841 Mr. Waller ceased to be its editor, and was succeeded by Rev. W. C. Buck; but in 1850 Mr. Waller returned to the paper, aided by Rev. S. II. Ford, and in 1851 its name was changed to the 'Western Recorder.' Dr. Waller died in 1854, and Mr. Ford became its sole editor and proprietor; but, after a time, it passed into other hands until 1858. During a part of the civil war its issue was suspended, but it was resumed in 1863, when it was owned and edited by various persons till about 1872; then A. C. Caperton, D.D., became its solo owner and editor. It had never fully paid its way until that time, but he changed its form from a quarto to an octavo, and enlarged its size about one third, he also employed paid contributors and a field editor, and it steadily grew in power, popularity and financial value, until it is now regarded as one of the leading journals of the South."
http://www.reformedreader.org/history/armitage/ch16.htm
"Dr. W. C. Buck, gives the following history of the situation and the reasons for the rise and progress of this schism among the Baptists of Kentucky:
In order that we may be able to see things as they now are, let us look back to the state of things as they were in 1832, when the friends of effort began to agitate the plan of a Baptist State Convention, as the only expedient which then appeared practicable, to save the denomination from utter anarchy sand ruin; and what do we see? Previous to that tremendous shock which the Campbellistical heresy inflicted upon the denomination in the west, and by which one-half of the churches in this State were rived asunder, and a large proportion of the ministry subverted, the denomination in Kentucky numbered somewhere about 400 churches, contained between 25 and 30,000 members, who were nerved by about 250 to 300 preachers. This we suppose to be about the statistical condition of the denomination, in 1828 and ‘30, when Campbellism broke out in our churches; and had they been united, properly instructed and disciplined, that schism never would have occurred; but they were deficient in all these respects. They were generally descendants from Virginia Baptists, and had been cradled and schooled in settled aversion to clerical distinction and clerical support, by legal enactment, as it was in the State before the Revolution; but they had suffered these correct opinions to degenerate into an entire, practical neglect of the ministry, and with a large proportion this degeneracy had become sentimental; so that they did not only deny the right of earthly potentates and national hierarchies to control their consciences, and gather tax by law to the support of the Episcopal clergy, whom they did not acknowledge as the ministers of Christ; but they proceeded farther to deny the authority of Christ, to demand a support for those whom they acknowledged to be chosen and sent by him, as his ambassadors. They averred that they were under no obligation to support the gospel, and regarded their contributions to the ministry (if they ever made any), as mere acts of charity. And so prevalent was this sentiment, that it was selected as a popular topic for the pulpit by the ministry,’ and many have rode into popular favor upon this hobby. No preacher, therefore, who wished to keep his credentials, dared to oppose the popular current and tell the churches their duty. The consequence was, the preachers had to engage in secular employments, for support, deprive themselves of study, and preach when they could; so that there was not, even five years ago, one settled pastor in Kentucky, nor one minister supported, and not one that performed pastoral labor, except in the Louisville church. A very few churches had preaching twice a month; once a month was thought to be the rule of perfection, and beyond this few aspired, while a large proportion were entirely destitute; and yet if you would attend one of those monthly Sabbath meetings, you would see from one to half a dozen ordained and licensed preachers, assembled to avail themselves of the stated preacher’s popularity, in calling out an assembly, in order to show their talent in preaching; and often have the moat (sic - most?) patient assemblies imaginable, been drilled half to death by this system of ministerial polygamy, when all the country for miles around was left in perfect destitution. We will venture to assert that not more than a third of the ministry were employed, taking one Sabbath with another, the year around. And yet, if this miserable state of things had been all, the trouble would not have been half so great; but, alas! the fever of faction raged in all the violence of embittered personal strife. The controversy between Elkhorn and Licking Associations, had been insinuating its poison into the vitals of society for years, and when the cause of personal pique was worn threadbare, the original pugilists forced it into a doctrinal difference, and the whole denomination was kept in agitation and turmoil upon the subject. Nothing was heard from the pulpit but the extremes of these opposite sentiments; nothing was Gospel to the different parties, but what favored their side of the question in the most ultra forms; and nothing error but what opposed it; so, that one wide and deep line divided the denomination and every church in it; giving all on one aide to Calvinism, and all on the other aide to Arminianism; neither party as such deserved the appellation bestowed upon it by the other, but still as perfectly separated upon these lines, as are the antipodes; and the spirit of war was rife among them, as when their fathers and the red man battled on the Bloody Ground. All the ties of Christian fellowship were sundered, the order of society broken up, and little else was talked about in social or religious circles but these matters of party strife and feud; and thus were the materials prepared for the convulsion which ensued. A volcanic fire burned to the very center of the denomination; which finally burst out in one widespread and ruinous disruption, by which the extremes of those parties were thrown off at opposite poles; the ultras on one side to Campbellism, and those on the other to antinomian-particularism. Few churches in the State escaped unscathed by this avalanche of error, and not one wholly untainted with the spirit of jealousy, captiousness, and discord which it engendered, and from which the denomination has not yet recovered; and hence the suspiciousness and jealousy manifested toward those who are engaged in efforts to do good.
The spirit of antinomian-particularism, has not yet fairly worked off, and is still throwing up its murky fires, and threatening some of our churches with anarchy and disunion: Not so with Campbelliem; it rode upon the passion of its votaries with the speed of a dromedary, and did its work of destruction in a hurry, by which the denomination in Kentucky was reduced to something like 20,000, with perhaps near 200 preachers, while the number of churches remained undiminished. We appeal to the candor of every one, whether friend or foe, who has any personal acquaintance of those times, for the truth of the statements here made, and also for the gentleness which we have evinced in coloring the drapery." (The Baptist Banner and Western Pioneer, April 30, 1840)
http://www.pbministries.org/History/John%20T.%20Christian/vol2/history2_part3_08.htm
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