Baptist History, Heritage and Distinctives – Henry Holcombe, DD – 1762-1824 – Doing Good Under God – PART SIX

Thomas E Kresal November 8, 2019

Baptist History, Heritage and Distinctives – Henry Holcombe, DD – 1762-1824 – Doing Good Under God – PART SIX

In this city (Savannah), his whole soul seemed to be engaged in the work of doing good, and much under God did he accomplish. It may be well to state some of the means which he adopted to accomplish his benevolent designs:

1. In 1801, the “Savannah Female Asylum,” (a society for supporting and educating helpless female orphans,) was formed in his parlor, under a constitution and by-laws drawn up by himself. This institution, from its formation to the present time, has been the favorite of all denominations; and individuals as well as bodies in both the civil and religious departments of the community, have vied with each other in supporting it.

2. He published “the Georgia Analytical Respository,” a religious magazine, devoted to literature as well as religion.

3. About this time he published an address to the friends of religion in Georgia, on their duties in reference to civil government, in which he urged them to discard the idea that attention to affairs of State is incompatible with the Christian profession. After showing why we should support civil government and how we should do it, he concludes by saying, “At all elections, let everyone qualified to vote attend and do his duty, as in the presence of God, considering that incalculable benefits may be the result of it.”

4. As a pastor, he was indefatigable in his labors, visiting from house to house, not only the members of his church but the people of his congregation, and enforcing his public discourses by private exhortations and prayers.

5. The execution of a man, for the comparatively small crime of stealing a gun, attracted his attention to the extreme severity of the penal code of Georgia. He was instrumental in rousing public attention to this subject, and may be regarded as the originator of our State penitentiary.

6. His opposition to Deists, theatrical entertainments, etc., was open and manly, and subjected him to dangers from which he was delivered only by the hand of Providence.

Thomas E. Kresal from – J. H. Campbell, Georgia Baptists: Historical and Biographical, 1874, pp. 187-188