You Mean More Than You Know
No.59: May 28, 2021
Dear Friends,
For the past ten years a vast number of my books have been in hibernation, stowed away in cardboard boxes in various places of storage. These boxes have endured too many moves to count. But for the last seven years they have been stored in my garage. Why didn’t I unpack them? I had nowhere to put them. Our basement was in a state of unfinished disarray, and the five of us have been living for years on 1,000 square feet and one bathroom.
We still only have one bathroom. Me, and a household of four females, and you can imagine what the wait times look like.
Over the last couple of years I’ve managed, with an assist from some truly outstanding friends, to finish most of the basement. The second bathroom still remains to be done, but we’ve been able to essentially double our living space and give me the necessary room for…books.
This week we got a steal on a gorgeous china cabinet from Facebook marketplace—solid oak, none of that particle board garbage—and I’m still paying for it by way of extremely sore muscles moving that behemoth down the stairs. Out came the boxes. Out came the books. And I got reacquainted with a great many old friends.
I’d like to tell you about a couple of them. They contain some hidden lessons for all of us.
Two Extraordinary Names
To start with, here are two pictures:
There are two extraordinary names you should notice. First, Benjamin Breckenridge (“B.B.”) Warfield, the great 19th century Princeton Seminary Presbyterian theologian. He’s the author of the book, and that’s pretty self-explanatory. Among North American theologians, he’s one of the greatest of all time. A.G. Edwards, the owner of this book, is equally extraordinary because you might be old enough to remember “A.G. Edwards” as a longstanding successful financial investment firm founded in 1887 which eventually sold to Wachovia (now Wells Fargo) in 2007. A 120-year run isn’t shabby for a company.
Albert Gallatin Edwards was a Brigadier General in the U.S. Army and the Deputy Secretary of the Treasury under the Abraham Lincoln administration. There were close family connections. In fact, Lincoln had married the sister of one of his sisters-in-law: Mary Todd, and the ceremony happened in the Edwards family home. He was a West Pointer and a Union man during the Civil War. He later started his small family financial brokerage firm in St. Louis with his son, Benjamin Franklin Edwards. The firm was the first in the midwest to trade on the New York Stock Exchange and it ultimately became a household name as one of the best financial firms in America. After the Wall Street crash of 1929, they were so well-respected that their floor broker at the New York Stock Exchange was named President of the New York Stock Exchange, despite being only 31 years old. After 120 years, the firm was finally sold in a very controversial move in 2007 (The Board had hired a non-family member as CEO for the very first time; he sold the company and parachuted his way out with what ultimately became $17.5 Million). Albert, the founder, in addition to being friends with Lincoln and a financial titan, was also a Ruling Elder in the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A., ordained to that position in 1859.
Benjamin Franklin Edwards, the main son in “A.G. Edwards and Sons,” himself had a son, Albert G. Edwards II. It is his signature you see on the book in the picture. He became a Presbyterian minister and missionary. He bought this book while on mission in Hillah, Iraq, for a measly-seeming $3.00. I cannot verify this with my resources, but given the time frame it seems most likely that A.G. Edwards II studied theology at Princeton Theological Seminary, quite possibly under the tutelage of B.B. Warfield himself (who died in 1921), and most certainly under the sway and teaching of Princeton professor J. Gresham Machen.
Princeton, quite famously, embraced liberal theology. Machen commented upon Warfield’s passing that it seemed like when the pall-bearers carried Warfield out of the church, “they carried Old Princeton with him.” * Machen eventually left Princeton in 1929 and founded Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia to carry on the kind of convictional, biblically faithful Reformed teaching of his mentor. And, it very much seems, in spirit the Edwards family went with him.
* They did. An enduring memory: I once spoke at a conference at Princeton Theological Seminary on the topic of divine revelation. At one panel discussion, three contemporary scholars sat and insisted that Christian theology needs revelation for its project; the question is, where do we find it? Culture? The “living community” of the church? The “kerygma” of the gospel? On and on they went, and nobody ever—EVER—suggested that maybe they might find it IN THE BIBLE. Immediately behind them, above the mantlepiece, hung an awesome and gigantic portrait of B.B. Warfield, with his sharp eyes, wild eyebrows, and stern beard, frowning down on them. Warfield, of course, wrote The Inspiration and Authority of The Bible. Still available; buy now!
Now, a couple more pictures to continue our story:
Albert G. Edwards II got a birthday present on June 21st, 1934, from his wife and four children: another lovely volume from his revered Dr. Warfield. After wishing him “A Many Many Happy Returns of the Day” (Don’t you love how archaic that is?), his children scrawled their names. Among them is the hilarious all-caps “ALBERT.” That was Albert G. Edwards III, the great-grandson of Lincoln’s friend and Deputy Treasury Secretary. This Albert, forever known as “Al,” was to follow in his father’s footsteps and go to seminary.
But where to go? There was no thought of Princeton anymore, since Warfield and biblical and confessional fidelity had departed with him. Where else but Machen’s school? Westminster Theological Seminary it was. Young Al studied there and ultimately became a Presbyterian minister. He was ordained on November 21, 1956, and no less than Westminster legend Cornelius Van Til delivered the sermon.
Al Edwards left all his elite pretensions with him (except his ever-present bowtie) when he and his wife Polly left New Jersey in 1977(8?) and took a call for a pastorate in remote Billings, Montana. As far as I know, nobody around here ever knew or appreciated his incredibly prestigious pedigree. He simply—and I mean simply—preached the Word. The whole counsel of God. He would type up sermon notes that were included with the bulletin, with his clear three-point outline set forth. He met with people far and wide, and the most common phrase they ever heard come from his mouth was: “Well, what does the Bible say?” And then he would open it up and show them. Pretty simple ministry model.
It wasn’t fireworks. No light shows. No smoke machines. No skinny jeans. I am sure it looked like failure to the world, although he did gather a fairly substantial number of people hungry for the word of God. His own father had experienced modest ministry results; I seem to recall, but cannot verify, that he never had a single convert in his mission to the Muslim world, from whence he bought his lovely Warfield volume. He got a nice birthday present from his kids in 1934, though.
A couple of young boys in Al the Third’s congregation started to take notice of his preaching. We would sit after the service, and talk through the sermon notes, giving running commentary on what we thought were the better points. I remember Al and Polly being delighted at the ten-year-olds critiquing the sermons. Al started us reading Van Til before too long, and then started on New Testament Greek. Using Machen’s Grammar, of course. (Which I also still have on my shelf.)
One of those boys is now a Presbyterian minister and has a Ph.D. in New Testament studies from the University of Cambridge, and the other is me, Ph.D. in Systematic Theology from the superior (ahem) University of Aberdeen. I think we probably still disagree on the finer points of the sermons. Boys will be boys.
I, too, you see, eventually attended Westminster Theological Seminary for graduate school. I find myself at the moment teaching at Westminster Theological Seminary. A.G. Edwards II labored in the deserts of Iraq without noticeable fruit; he raised a son, who labored without what worldly eyes would see as a great “success.” But I am standing here holding his book in my hands. His name, and his toddler son’s name, is inscribed in it. A Warfield book! I am truly confounded how a scrawny little precocious kid from Nowhere, Montana, has the Warfield book from the Edwardses of the Lincoln Administration and Princeton Seminary and is now himself a teacher at Machen’s Westminster.
Everything you do matters. It has meaning. It has influence. It has reach, far more than you can ever perceive, imagine, or know. It might be great and mighty cultural influence or it might be just raising children who call you “Dear Daddy” and wish you “A Many Happy Returns of the Day.” We plant seeds, we water the ground, but only God really brings the harvest in at the end of the day.
Miscellany
Westminster Seminary is not the only institution to benefit from the A.G. Edwards family. In 1956 Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis was founded, and the Edwardses helped buy the land. The main building there is “Edwards Hall,” and most students assume it was named after Jonathan Edwards, the early American theologian. They are wrong.
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the compelling evidence that the Covid-19 virus was created in a lab in Wuhan, an idea widely ridiculed by our intellectual betters. Suddenly, as in “overnight,” it is becoming a prevailing consensus. Which is good. What is not good is the complete obtuseness of our media institutions, who now just pretend they never engaged in such ridicule. Click on this Tweet thread and see example after example of craven dishonesty from our “journalists.”
Erick Erickson (whom I congratulate on having his radio show now nationally syndicated!) has some salient thoughts on the complete breakdown of our institutions of journalism.
Human culture—just Wow:
For those of you dying to know what Arthur Conan Doyle sounded like:
I cannot believe I’ve gone almost 60 weeks without closing out with The Milk Carton Kids. These kids are… really good.
Great encouragement.