Robert Pearsall Smith

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Robert Pearsall Smith (born February 1, 1827 in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania , † April 17, 1898 in London ) was at times a formative figure in the sanctification movement . He was married to Hannah Whitall Smith (1827-1911), the author of The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life ( The secret of a happy Christian life ), the most influential book of the Holiness movement, which has been sold since 1870 to now over two million copies.

Life

Robert Pearsall Smith was born into a Quaker family in Philadelphia on February 1, 1827 . He first worked as a sales representative for the Whitall-Tatum glass factory in Glasstown, Pennsylvania, and in June 1851 married Hannah Whitall, the daughter of the factory owner. They had six children together, including Alys (1867-1951), who later became the first wife of the British mathematician and philosopher Bertrand Russell , the art historian Mary (1864-1945), who was married to the art historian Bernard Berenson , and the writer Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1946). In 1865 the family moved to Millville, New Jersey , where Robert Pearsall Smith took over the management of the local branch.

During this time there was a religious revival among the workers of the factory by Methodist sanctification preachers, which finally led to the experience of a baptism with the Holy Spirit in 1867 for the Smith couple . They came to the conviction of a possible "sanctification by faith", i. H. a profound and lasting overcoming of sinful behaviors, as described in the influential book Holiness through Faith (1870). The Smiths now joined William Edwin Boardman (1810-1886), the founder of the sanctification movement and author of the book The Higher Christian Life (1858). When he moved to England, the Smiths followed him in 1873, where they appeared together as speakers at sanctification conferences.

From August 29th to September 7th, 1874 they organized and led the “Oxford Union Meeting for the Promotion of Scriptural Holiness” with 1500 participants. A number of later leaders of the German community movement also took part in this, such as B. Carl Heinrich Rappard , Otto Stockmayer and Theodor Jellinghaus . They invited Smith to a lecture tour through Germany and Switzerland. In April / May 1875 he preached in overcrowded churches in Berlin , Basel , Zurich , Karlsruhe , Korntal , Stuttgart , Frankfurt , Heidelberg and Barmen . In many places it was translated by Friedrich Wilhelm Baedeker . With his sermon in Heidelberg he influenced the theologian Georg Ziegler significantly for his later missionary work in China. In Karlsruhe, on April 15, 1875 , the Methodist Ernst Gebhardt composed the most famous song of the sanctification movement, which set the only German-language sentence to music that Pearsall Smith shouted to the meetings evening after evening: " Jesus saves me now ". This trip was later referred to as the "trip of triumph". In the course of this trip, the young confirmand and later revival preacher and Bible translator of the miniature Bible, Franz Eugen Schlachter, came to believe. Salvation Army officer Anna von Wattenwyl also reports on the effects of Smith's events in her book Some Memories from My Life .

From May 29 to June 7, 1875, the largest sanctification conference was held in Brighton, England, under the direction of Smith. Among the 8,000 visitors were 200 from Germany (including 50 pastors). The conference was a great success, but soon after it was rumored that Smith's pastoral talks with women had resulted in sexual harassment and the spread of heresy. The allegations were ultimately never resolved, but this made any further effectiveness in Europe impossible for the Smiths.

Robert Pearsall Smith returned to Germantown, near Philadelphia, a broken and depressed man in the fall of 1875 . In the following years he finally renounced the Christian faith completely. In 1882 he made friends with the poet Walt Whitman (1819-1892) and organized a large reception for him on April 14, 1887 in New York. In 1888 Robert Pearsall Smith and his family moved to London, where his daughter Mary had married and settled with the Irish lawyer Frank Costelloe. Robert Pearsall Smith died in London on April 17th, 1898. Until the end he found no connection to the Christian faith. His impulses from the years 1874–75 continued to have an impact and were one of the decisive factors in the development and formation of the German community movement and the later Oxford group movement of Frank Buchman .

Literature on Robert Pearsall Smith

  • Paul Fleisch: Die Heiligungsbewegung , TVG Brunnen 2003 (reprint);
  • Karl Heinz Voigt: The sanctification movement between the Methodist Church and the regional church community. Robert Pearsall Smith's "Journey of Triumph" in 1875 and its impact on church relationships. R. Brockhaus Verlag, Wuppertal 1996, ISBN 3-417-29418-5
  • Dieter Lange: A movement breaks out , TVG Brunnen 1990;
  • Rudolf Dellsperger u. a .: On your word , Bern 1981
  • Karl-Hermann Kauffmann: Franz Eugen Schlachter and the sanctification movement. (Biography with reference to the spiritual environment of Schlachter and with a short history of the Schlachter Bible, detailed version with 100 illustrations. Commemorative publication for the anniversary "100 Years of the Schlachter Bible") Self-published by Freie Brüdergemeinde, Albstadt 2005 / Brosamen-Verlag, Albstadt 2010 ISBN 978-3-00-046811-7 .
  • Karl-Hermann Kauffmann: Franz Eugen Schlachter, a Bible translator in the context of the sanctification movement , Verlag Johannis, Lahr, 2007, ISBN 978-3-501-01568-1
  • Karl Heinz Voigt:  Smith, Robert Pearsall. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 10, Bautz, Herzberg 1995, ISBN 3-88309-062-X , Sp. 696-704.  ( Article / beginning of article in Internet archive )

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hartmut Weyel: Friedrich Wilhelm Baedeker (1823-1906). In: Wolfgang Heinrichs, Michael Schröder, Hartmut Weyel: The future needs a past. Biographical portraits from the history and prehistory of free evangelical communities. Vol. 2, Bundes-Verlag, Witten 2010, ISBN 978-3-933660-03-9 , p. 15
  2. ↑ Wilfried Wolf: A great son of our village: Georg Ziegler in 1200 years Eschelbronn, 789–1989 , page 84
personal data
SURNAME Smith, Robert Pearsall
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American manufacturer and Methodist
DATE OF BIRTH February 1, 1827
PLACE OF BIRTH Philadelphia
DATE OF DEATH April 17, 1898
Place of death London