A Small Beginning

A Small Beginning

Imagine a theological seminary with a faculty of one.

ARCHIBALD ALEXANDER was born to a Presbyterian family near Lexington, Virginia, in 1772. At the age of seventeen he became the tutor for the family of a general in the army of the new nation. Mrs. Tyler, an elderly woman in the general’s home, took young Archibald under her wing. She was a Baptist who viewed Presbyterians as sound in doctrine but often lacking the experience of spiritual rebirth.

The general hired a millwright for the mill on his plantation. One day the millwright, who also was a Baptist, asked Archibald whether he believed that to enter the kingdom of heaven one must be born again. Uncertain how to answer, Archibald answered yes. The millwright then asked him whether he had experienced the new birth. Archibald answered, “Not that I know of.”

“Ah,” said the millwright, “if you had ever experienced this change, you would know something about it!”

The conversation got Alexander thinking. Surely the new birth was in the Bible, but he had never heard the Presbyterians he knew talk about it.

Old Mrs. Tyler had poor eyesight and would frequently ask Alexander to read to her. Her favorite author was Puritan writer John Flavel. When Alexander learned that Flavel was a Presbyterian, he became very interested in learning what he had to say about the new birth.

On Sunday evenings Alexander was asked to read to the whole family. On one particular Sunday night he read the family a sermon of Flavel on Revelation 3:20, where Jesus says, “Behold I stand at the door and knock. . . .” As Alexander read the sermon, every word seemed to apply to him. By the time he finished, his voice was quivering with emotion. He laid down the book and ran to his room. Shutting the door, he fell to his knees and poured out his soul in prayer, inviting Jesus into his life. He had not prayed very long when he was overwhelmed by a joy that he had never experienced before. The joy was accompanied by a full assurance that, if he were to die, he would go to heaven.

Giving up tutoring, Alexander went to study theology at Liberty Hall (now Washington and Lee University) and entered the Presbyterian ministry. After serving as an itinerant minister on the Ohio-Virginia frontier, he became president of Hampden-Sydney College in 1796 at the age of twenty-four.

In 1807 Alexander became pastor of the Third Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia and moderator of the Presbyterian General Assembly. In his final address as moderator in 1808 he suggested the formation of a Presbyterian seminary in America. As a result of his leadership, Princeton Theological Seminary was founded in 1812 with Alexander as its sole faculty member for the first year. The first fall he had three students who were joined by six more in the spring and five more during the summer. Alexander’s modest home served as library, chapel, and classroom. There the students studied and shared in his family worship. He continued teaching at Princeton Seminary until his death on October 22, 1851.

Archibald Alexander’s heart can be seen in a prayer he penned shortly before his death:

O most merciful God! . . . Thou has a perfect right to dispose of me, in that manner which will most effectively promote thy glory: And I know that whatever Thou dost is right, and wise, and just, and good. . . . And when my spirit leaves this clay tenement, Lord Jesus receive it! Send some of the blessed angels to convey my inexperienced soul to the mansion which Thy love has prepared. And O! let me be so situated, though in the lowest rank, that I may behold Thy glory. May I have an abundant entrance administered unto me into the kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ; for whose sake and in whose name, I ask all these things. Amen.

Reflection

Archibald Alexander yearned to experience God’s glorious heavenly kingdom. He became part of that kingdom when he was born again as a youth. Have you been born again? If not, invite the Lord Jesus to come into your life, and you can experience the joy of the new birth as Alexander did.

Jesus replied, “I assure you, unless you are born again, you can never see the Kingdom of God.”

John 3:3