Biography of J. J. Brantly:
Rev. J. J. Brantly, the polished and learned Professor of Belles Lettres in Mercer University, was born in Augusta, Georgia,December 29, 1821. When John was about five years old his father, Dr. William T. Brantly, the elder, moved to Philadelphia, and there he spent the next twelve years of his life, enjoying the best educational advantages of the city.
Reminiscences of Georgia Baptists By Shaler Granby Hillyer:
The service which the Christian Index has accomplished for the Baptists of Georgia deserves to be put on record. The present generation can hardly appreciate it, for the simple reason that most of the Baptists now living became acquainted with the Index at a period when it had already accomplished a large part of its work. They see the work, but they do not know how much of it is due to the power and influence of that paper.
My memory reaches back to an earlier date. I can remember when the Index was called The Columbian Star. It had its origin in 1821, in the city of Washington, D. C. In a few years, however, it was removed to Philadelphia, and was edited by the elder William T. Brantley, who was a giant Baptist, and for several years was pastor of the Baptist church in Augusta, Georgia. Under his management, the Columbian Star became a most excellent paper. My mother was a subscriber for it, and though I was myself too young to appreciate it I remember well how she loved it and with what pleasure she welcomed its weekly visits.
At the time above mentioned, I doubt if there were twenty thousand white Baptists in all the State, and very few of these could claim any mental culture much beyond the range of a common-school education. Nor were the preachers, as a rule, much advanced in culture above their people. It was night over all our Baptist Zion in Georgia, with only here and there a star to relieve its darkness.
The reality of this darkness is shown by other facts. Sunday-schools were almost unknown. The few that existed were found in cities and in towns as union schools, open to all denominations, and in no sense regarded as institutions of the churches. I doubt if there was a Baptist Sunday-school in any church in Georgia prior to 1830, except perhaps in Savannah, Sunbury and Augusta. Again, the cause of missions, especially of foreign missions, was just beginning to attract the attention of Georgia Baptists. The contributions were very meagre, probably not more than one thousand or, possibly, one thousand and five hundred per annum for the whole State. And as to the temperance reform, that had not dawned. Eggnogs before breakfast and toddies before dinner were frequent in all homes, and church members and their preachers often indulged in such beverages. The cause of education, also, was in a very low condition. It is true some interest was manifested in it from the beginning of the century, but the efforts made in its behalf came to nothing.
But at length, Dr. Jesse Mercer bought the Columbian Star—the Christian Index—and planted it near his own home in Washington, Georgia, and became its editor. This was the dawn of a brighter era for our Baptist denomination. The subscribers, though few, were some of the best and most intelligent of our people. They were able to appreciate the teachings of the Index, to imbibe its spirit and to adopt its suggestions. And then they were able to give to all with whom they associated their own impressions concerning the aims of the paper, and thus its influence was felt far beyond the limits of the subscription-list. That influencewas manifested in many ways.
It stood for the faith once for all delivered to the saints. It came into the State when the denomination was rent with divisions. Some held the "doctrines of grace" to such a degree that they became practically antinomians, and went so far as to declare non-fellowship with all the benevolent enterprises in which their brethren were engaged. The Index, without compromising or impairing the doctrines of grace, became the champion of every benevolent and pious work.
I have already alluded to the meagre contributions for missions during the twenties. They were very small. In the year 1834 the Georgia Baptist Convention met at Shiloh Church, in Greene County. I was there for the first time, as* a member of that venerable body. Many of the Baptist fathers were on hand. Doctor Mercer was moderator. The Index had been in Georgia only about five or six years. When the subject of missions was reached, a brother moved that the Convention should pledge itself to raise for the ensuing year for missions the sum of three thousand dollars. After an interesting debate, the resolution was adopted. The amount pledged was at least double, perhaps three times, what had ever before been contributed directly for missions in one year by Georgia Baptists. Now, I risk nothing in claiming that it was the Index which, by the grace of God, had done most to raise our people to so high an advance upon their earlier contributions.
From the time just referred to, the paper has continued its fostering care of missions till the contributions for them have reached sometimes as much as sixty thousand dollars in a single year. Indeed I am not sure that I have not understated the amount. Of course, this increase of contributions is, in part, due to the natural increase of our people in numbers. But the Index must be regarded, under God, the most effective factor in the case. It should be remembered that mere numbers are of little avail for any of the great works of piety unless the people are well informed in regard to such works. It was the Index that gave to our constantly increasing membership the information that was needed to call forth their enthusiasm in behalf of our various missions.
He removed with his father to Charleston in 1838, where he entered the Sophomore class of Charleston College, of which institution Dr. Brantly, Sr., became President at that time. Before the completion of his college course, and, while on a visit to relatives living at Scottsboro, near Milledgeville, Georgia, in the summer of 1839, he professed conversion in the progress of a revival in the Milledgeville church, of which Rev. S. G. Hillyer was pastor. He was baptized by his own father, in the Ocmulgee River, not far from Milledgeville, and joined the church in that city.
Graduating in 1841, he taught for four years, part of the time as an assistant of his half brother, Dr. William T. Brantly, the younger, in the Richmond Academy, Augusta, Georgia, and part of the time as Principal of the Male Academy at Pittsboro, Chatham County, North Carolina.
On a visit to his father, who was stricken down with paralysis in the year 1844, in the city of Charleston, he decided a point which had long agitated his mind, and resolved to enter the ministry. The First Baptist Church of Charleston licensed him to preach, and the last official act of his father was, as pastor of the church, to sign his certificate of licensure. Returning to North Carolina, he remained in Pittsboro until November, 1845, when he moved to Fayetteville, North Carolina, and there married. Soon afterwards he was called to the pastoral charge of the church in Fayetteville, and was ordained by a Presbytery consisting of Rev. Thomas Meredith and Rev. James Finch. In the spring of 1850 he moved to Newberry, South Carolina, and became pastor of the Baptist church there, sustaining that relation most pleasantly for himself and most profitably for the church, until January, 1867, when he removed to Penfield, Georgia, to take the chair of English in Mercer University, to which he had been elected the preceding summer.
For nearly twenty years he filled his chair with an ability to which no exception could be taken. Painstaking and faithful, he was rigid in exacting a full discharge of duty on the part of his pupils. Gifted with a superior mind, and having been a life-long student, it was needless to say that he did honor to the University, and would have done honor to any literary institution in the country. Soon after the removal of the University to Macon, Dr. Brantly was invited to serve as temporary pastor [of the Washington church], and held the position for several months, much to the satisfaction and edification of the church.
Dr. Brantly was not what might be called a popular preacher; for his style of delivery was unimpassioned, perhaps even cold; his utterance and elocution were not such as caught the ear of the multitude; but his sermons were full of thought, well matured and elegantly expressed. Through all his thinking ran a semipoetic vein, which to minds of a more refined order, was very attractive. To an audience of literaturs, he would always prove a most acceptable preacher, and had he lived and preached in a community of highly cultivated taste, he would have attained to distinguished eminence.
Quiet, retiring, and exceedingly modest in his disposition, he loved the seclusion of his study. With an insatiable appetite for books, he was never so happy as when closeted with them. Especially was he fond of the ancient classics, and probably read a portion of them in the original Latin or Greek, almost every day of his life since he left college. He was also fond of patristic literature, and read it largely. He studied constantly, and yet he studied not as the means to an end - the study itself was the end; he studied for the mere love of study, and for nothing else. In his retirement and mostly without a teacher, he mastered the French, German and Spanish languages, so far as those languages can be learned from books, and would have been at home, in that regard, at Paris, Berlin, or Madrid. While his scholarship was broad, it was also peculiarly exact; for his mind was of the critical cast, and his habits of thought were precise and accurate. His style of composition was surpassingly elegant, and his productions evinced an intimate acquaintance with English literature - with the characteristics of its best authors, among whom, if he had sought it, he might have won a niche for himself. He ranked among our ablest theologians in this State; with a culture too thorough and an intellect too well-balanced to be visionary or extreme; while purity of feeling and depth of experience made him conspicuously evangelical in doctrine and spirit. If he had had more self-assertion, in the better sense of that term, no member of the distinguished family to which he belonged would wear the laurels of a higher distinction, as none were worthier - perhaps, in compass of mental gifts and scholarly attainnments none as worthy of it
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