Daily Baptist Encyclopedia Christian, Rev. Richard Allen, M.D., was born in Charles City Co., Va., July 27,1798.

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AdminTop Contributor  · 4/25/24  · Daily Baptist Encyclopedia Christian, Rev. Richard Allen, M.D., was born in Charles City Co., Va., July 27,1798. At the age of about twenty-one years he graduated as Doctor of Medicine at the University of Pennsyl- vania, and immediately began the practice of his profession at Urbana, Middlesex Co., Va. In 1838, he made a public profession of faith in Christ, became a member of the Baptist church at Clark’s Neck, and soon afterwards was ordained to the ministry. Still continuing in the practice of med- icine, he did not for some years assume any pastoral charge, although he preached regularly on the Sab- bath in the neighboring churches. At a later period he became pastor of Clark’s Neck and Ham- ilton churches (and for a time, also, Zoar and Glebe Landing churches), and he held this relation until his failing health compelled him, two or three years before his death, to relinquish it. After repeated strokes of paralysis, he died May 8, 1862. Dr. Christian was deservedly one of the most influen- tial and popular men, not only of the county, but also of the region in which he lived. His mind was strong and active, his person large and impos- ing, and his manners polished and winning. As a neighbor, he was kind and charitable in the highest degree, and ever sought the things that make for peace. As a citizen, he was characterized by the strictest integrity, and by a decided talent for the management of public business. As a physician, he was eminently skillful, attentive, and tender- hearted, and by these qualities he secured and re- tained the largest practice in his county, which, however, after the period of middle life, he grad- ually relinquished for the purpose of devoting his energies to the Christian ministry. Although Dr. Christian was some forty years of age before he entered the ministry, and although for several years after his ordination he was laboriously en- gaged in the practice of medicine, yet he became an able and instructive preacher. His sermons were well arranged, abounded in apt illustrations, were filled with the very spirit of the gospel, and were uniformly earnest, and sometimes -powerful. His ministry, although comparatively brief, resulted in the edification of the churches which he served, and in numerous conversions. His talents were held in high estimation, and for a long time to come no name in the district of Virginia to which his labors were confined, will be pronounced with greater reverence than that of Dr. Richard A. Christian.From the Baptist Encyclopedia by William Cathcart