The Importance of Benefactors
By Ken B.
©
2012 Anonymous. All rights reserved
Over the years,
benefactors have played a significant role in making possible travel, research,
writing, and book distribution by my dad, Dick B. And, it turns out, a
benefactor played a key role in a series of meetings that very likely had a
profound impact on the family of A.A. cofounder Robert Holbrook Smith (“Dr.
Bob”), his boyhood church, his town, and his Christian upbringing. These
meetings became known as “the Great Awakening” of 1875 in St. Johnsbury,
Vermont.[1]
During our first research
trip to St. Johnsbury in October 2007, my dad and I learned of the “Great
Awakening” of 1875 in St. Johnsbury in a book I found in the small reading room
library of North Congregational Church, St. Johnsbury. This amazing series of
meetings, spread over a number of months beginning on February 6, 1875, was
launched when laymen from the Young Men’s Christian Association—led by H. M.
Moore of Boston and R. K. Remington of Fall River—began the first of a series
of “Gospel meetings” in St. Johnsbury. These meetings resulted in the
conversion of somewhere between 500 and 1,500 people in that town of about
5,000 people. The town historian, Edward T. Fairbanks, said: “. . . [T]he
influence of the religious uplift here was extended for a hundred miles around,
and left its permanent mark on this community.”[2]
In fact, what eventually
led to this “Great Awakening” began in a meeting at Detroit in 1868 between
Henry Martyn (H.M.) Moore and his friend, the evangelist K. A. Burnell, during
which they decided that “by the help of God the old Bay State [of
Massachusetts] should be conquered for Christ.”[3]
Then Moore made an “extended visit” to the home of his friend Burnell, who
lived near Aurora, Illinois, in the summer of 1871. That meeting produced the “regular
canvass of Gospel meetings” that started in the State of Massachusetts (in
January 1872), was expanded into the State of New Hampshire (in November 1873),
and was further expanded into the State of Vermont” on the basis of decisions
made at the State YMCA Convention in Norwich, Vermont, on November 19-20, 1874.
H. M. Moore and R. K. Remington of Massachusetts both attended that Vermont
YMCA Convention.[4]
K. A. Burnell was selected
by the State of Massachusetts YMCA Committee to lead the first and following
“regular canvass of Gospel meetings” in Massachusetts. And he was involved, at
least to some degree, in the canvasses in New Hampshire and Vermont that
followed. Burnell did a great deal of traveling in sharing the gospel—not only
in going from his home in Illinois to Massachusetts to lead the “canvasses,”
but also in traveling to many other parts of the United States. How he was able
to pay for the expenses involved in his evangelistic work is the subject of the
following three short articles.
What
a Christian Banker May Do
Mr. K. A. Burnell,[5]
the Evangelist, has been supported by Mr. C. D. Wood,[6]
a banker in New York,[7]
who was one of his playmates in their boyhood. Zion's Herald tells how this partnership was brought about. The
banker invited the western itinerant to his house in the country, in the
vicinity of New York. After tea they had a ride, and after the ride a long
walk, and many questions were asked about his mission work. The next morning
Mr. Burnell was asked, “How would you like a salary and go forth as the
banker's representative to do the Master's work as it shall open before you?”
“Nothing could be more gratifying.” Thus the firm was organized and began
business. The older partner just enters upon his twenty-seventh year of
continuous service, for seventeen of which C. D. Wood has supplied the sinews
of war. Certainly firms like this should multiply. Boston has several of them.
There are men who could furnish the capital for such a firm and reap the
richest interest on their investment. The junior partner has many other
investments of this character. Colleges and seminaries have received many
thousands at his hand, and he has often had as many as a half dozen young men
and women in college and seminary training for future usefulness. These two
partners are still comparatively young, and look forward to many years of labor
in the Lord's vineyard.—Honolulu, (H. I.), Friend.
Personal.
Trustees.[8]
“A noble instance of long-continued and unostentatious giving to
a single cause is that of Mr. C. D.
Wood, a Wall street banker. For
seventeen years he has paid a salary of $1,000 per annum to Mr. K.
A. Burnell, the well-known
evangelist, and the whole sum given him that time now exceeds $22,000, Mr.
Burnell devoted himself most assiduously to gospel work, helping many a soul to
a better spiritual life. Would that
there were hundreds of such copartnerships as this between Mr. Wood and Mr.
Burnell.” Mr. Wood is one of the largest
yearly donors to the college.
.
. . K. A. Burnell[9]
In 1868, Mr. C. D. Wood of Brooklyn suggested that Mr. Burnell
devote his life to evangelistic work from wherever the call should come and he
would furnish the salary. For 37 years he led a life of intense activity along
many lines. In 1869 he settled in Aurora, Ills., and from that center he
traveled at the rate of 1,000 miles per month. He was intimately associated
with that wonderful circle of workers, Mr. McGranahan, Major Whittle, P. P.
Bliss, D. L. Moody, B. F. Jacobs, and Ira D. Sankey. . . . Mr. Sankey was
singing in meetings Mr. Burnell was holding in Ohio when Mr. Moody first heard
him, and soon secured his services. In 1875 Mr. Burnell made a trip around the
world, spending three of the fourteen months with his brother Thomas, for forty
years a missionary in India.
Perhaps
you may be such a benefactor!
Gloria Deo
[1] For much more information on “the Great Awakening” of 1875 in
St. Johnsbury, see Dick B. and Ken B., Dr.
Bob of Alcoholics Anonymous: His Excellent Training in the Good Book as a
Youngster in Vermont (Kihei, HI: Paradise Research Publications, Inc.,
2008). http://dickb.com/drbobofaa.shtml
[2] Edward Taylor Fairbanks, The
Town of St. Johnsbury, Vt; A Review of One Hundred Twenty-Five Years to the
Anniversary Pageant 1912 (General-Books.net reprint of: St. Johnsbury, VT:
The Cowles Press, 1914), 234-35.
[3] Dick B. and Ken B., Dr.
Bob of Alcoholics Anonymous, 6.
[4] Again, please see Dick B. and Ken B., Dr. Bob of Alcoholics Anonymous, for these and many more details.
[5] Kingsley A. Burnell (1824-1905) was born in Chesterfield,
Massachusetts. He learned the trade of carpenter and builder in Northampton. He
married Cynthia Pomeroy, of Williamsburg, Massachusetts, daughter of “Old
Deacon Pomeroy.” In 1852, Burnell decided to “drop the jack-plane” and entered
Sunday-school work under the American Sunday-school Union. At the outbreak of
the Civil War, he entered the service of the Christian Commission, meeting
Dwight L. Moody. See “. . . K. A. Burnell,” in The Advance, September 21, 1905, 318-19. http://goo.gl/v7AnG ; accessed 3/20/12.
[6] Cornelius Delano Wood (1832-1906) was born on December 12, 1832,
in Northampton, Massachusetts. He was a member of the banking firm of Vermilye
& Co. during the Civil War and “exercised a large and useful influence upon
the financial arrangements of the Government at that crisis.” He later lived at
880 St. Mark’s Avenue, Brooklyn.
He was a Trustee, a member of the Executive Committee, and a Vice
President of the Union Trust Company for many years; and he was one of the most
prominent men in Wall Street. His listing in the book Notable New Yorkers of 1896-1899 reads: Wood, Huestis & Co.
(Special Partner), Bankers. Here is other information about that firm: Wood,
Huestis & Co., bankers, No. 31 Pine Street, New York. Government
securities. Stocks and bonds, bought and sold on commission: New York Stock
Exchange sales, October 14, 1887. Sales of bonds and stocks from 10:00 A.M. to
12 M. [Wood, Huestis & Co. were the successors to Wood & Davis (C. D.
Wood and S. D. Davis), bankers and brokers.]
In Brooklyn, he took a large share in the foundation of the
Children’s Aid Society, donated $125,000.00 to erect the Young Women’s
Christian Association building, and had a large share in building the Tompkins
Avenue Congregational Church. He was widely known in Wall Street as the
representative of the affairs of the Congregational Church. See “Cornelius D.
Wood . . . The Former Banker Was Well Known as a Philanthropist,” in The New York Times, published June 12,
1906; http://goo.gl/K0cxZ ; accessed 3/20/12.
[7] “C. D. Wood.—Banking and securities. Was formerly with Vermilye
& Co., New-York City.” See “American Millionaires: The Tribune’s List of
Persons Reputed to be Worth a Million or More,” in The Tribune Monthly, Vol. IV. June, 1892. No. 6., page 36; http://audio44.archive.org/details/cu31924029948258 ; accessed
3/20/12.
[8] A note in the Lafayette
College Journal, Vol. 9, No. 5, February 1884, 78; http://goo.gl/ktk8J; accessed 3/20/12. Cornelius D. Wood
was a Trustee of Lafayette College.
[9] “. . . K. A. Burnell,” in The
Advance, September 21, 1905, 318-19. http://goo.gl/v7AnG ; accessed 3/20/12
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