John A. Broadus: Man of Letters and Preacher Extraordinaire
By Raymond H. Bailey
Broadus was widely respected, likely suggesting a sensitivity to others that earned their respect. At the time of his death, The Louisville Evening Post mourned the loss of "the leading personal influence in this community."19 Broadus was not provincial. In addition to preaching in the great churches across America, he delivered major lectures at universities across the nation: in addition to Yale, he gave stated lectures at such places as Johns Hopkins and Harvard. The latter institution awarded him the degree of doctor of divinity.
The last five years of his life he served on the board of trustees of the Kentucky School of Medicine and for a portion of that time was president of that board. One of the most eloquent eulogies at the time of Broadus' death was delivered by Rabbi Adolph Moses of Temple Adas Israel. The rabbi noted that, through Broadus, Christianity had been presented as "a living power for good, as actualized in an ideal man." Rabbi Moses surely captured the spirit of Broadus in his loving summary of the man:
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He was the most intensely and genuinely religious man I ever knew. Religion was not with him some theory of divine government which he professed, no system of theology which he accepted and taught. Religion was life itself with him. Faith in God ... fear of God and love of God, hatred of evil and love of righteousness dwelt central in his soul as its ultimate, ruling ideas.... They determined all his actions from the greatest to the least significant, from composing a standard work or establishing a seminary to writing a note recommending a worthy person to a friend's kindness.22
The prayer recorded by John Broadus in February 1851 was surely granted. It is a worthy petition for all of us.
"Deliver me, O Lord, from wrong ambition, from every improper desire to be first among my brethren. May I be enabled to subordinate all my desires and plans and hopes to Thy will, and when I labor and strive for success and eminence and fame, may I 'do all for the glory of God'."21
1. Archibald Thomas Robertson, Life and Letters of John Albert Broadus (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1901). p. 49.
2. John A. Broadus, Sermons and Addresses, Second edition (Baltimore: H. M. Wharton, 1888), p. 399.
3. John Albert Broadus, A Treatise on the Preparation and Delivery of Sermons (New York: A. C. Armstrong and Son, 1889), p. 120.
4. Ibid, p. 124.
5. Seminary Magazine, 1891.
6. R. J. Williams, Western Recorder, Apr. 4, 1895.
7. Broadus, Preparation, pp. 76-77; also Broadus scrapbook MSS 286.108 B78n v. 1.
8. J. A. Broadus quoted in Hints on Bible Study, ed. by H. Clay Trunbill (Philadelphia: John D. Wattles and Co., 1885), p. 98.
9. Broadus, Preparation, p. vii.
10. David McCants, "The Lost Yale Lectures on Preaching, by John A. Broadus," Southern Speech Journal, #1, vol. 36 (Fall, 1970-71), pp. 49-60.
11. Broadus, p. xi.
12. Broadus, Preparation and Delivery of Sermons, p. 303.
13. Ibid, p. 151.
14. Ibid, p. 152.
15. Ibid, p. 346.
16. Seminary Magazine, Vol. IV. March 1891, No. 3, p. 75; RPP Se52inym microfilm.
17. Review and Expositor, Vol. 4, No. 3 (July 1907), p. 343.
18. Ibid, p. 343.
19. Louisville Evening Post, March 30, 1901.
20. Yahwism and Other Discourses by Rabbi Adolph Moses, ed. by H. G. Enlow (Louisville: Council of Jewish Women, 1903), pp. 285-286.
21. Prayer of John Broadus on February 2, 1851, after reading Mark 10.