William Nevins, part 2: Ministry Begins in Baltimore (1820-1822)

First Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, approximately as William Nevins would have known it. (From A Brief History of the First Presbyterian Church of Baltimore, by William Reynolds, 1913.)

In the summer of 1820, William Nevins left Richmond for Baltimore to become pastor of the First Presbyterian Church. The name of the church wasn’t meant for boasting or as a marketing ploy; it truly was the first Presbyterian church in Baltimore. Presbyterians were not a significant portion of Maryland's population, and the entire presbytery of Baltimore was only 13 years older than Nevins.

This church had unexpectedly lost their beloved pastor about a year before, and their pastoral prospects included several men in addition to Nevins. In the first round of voting, Sylvester Larned was selected but declined the offer because he had moved to New Orleans to do mission work. Nevins obtained a large majority of votes in the second round, but it seems plausible that this order of events may have been used by God to weaken any confidence Nevins might have had in himself. Here he was, the second choice, a 23-year-old with no pastoral experience and faced with the weighty responsibility of a notable church in a major port city.

In spite of his youth, Nevins was humble, and he would continue to grow in humility in the coming years. His journal contains frequent declarations of dependence; he often expressed his conviction that his ministry would be ineffective unless God prospered it. It seems likely that this frame of mind is also what gave him the courage to take on this high calling.

He began preaching in August 1820, and was quickly accepted by the congregation. On October 19, he was officially ordained to serve that congregation. At his request, Samuel Miller, his former professor, came to preach the ordination sermon. Nevins and Miller would remain close friends for the rest of William's life.

Nevins was young but he had been well-equipped at Princeton. One person who knew him early in his ministry said that at first his sermons tended to have the flourish and rhetorical flair that might be expected from a newly-minted seminarian. This style of preaching brought in some of the upper class of Baltimore, but in time he adapted his manner, becoming more direct and zealous, and more useful to the average citizen.

Nevins placed a high value on prayer and prayer meetings. Shortly after his arrival he reinstituted the weekly prayer and lecture meeting that had stopped upon the death of his predecessor a year before. Prayer was often a theme of his private and published writings.

Early in his ministry God gave him a young friend and eager fellow-laborer in the person of John McHenry. McHenry was from a wealthy, socially respected family but was one of the few of that status whom God called into his service (1 Cor. 1:26-29). The special nature of the friendship can be seen in a humorously satirical letter that McHenry wrote to Nevins, “complaining” of the innovations he had brought to the church.

Five minutes are a very long time, sir, particularly if the week has been a busy one. Many of us are up late at balls, plays, cards etc., and find a little slumber, induced by a well kept up monotony of sounds, greatly refreshing. The Sabbath is a day of rest to all, and this rest to which your people have the right, should not be invaded by loud and harsh noises, by suddenly stopping to take a drink of water, (I suppose it is water under your pulpit,) or examine your notes, or by talking too seriously about sin, repentance, or damnation and the things of another life, with which, having a great deal to do here, we do not wish to concern ourselves. (full letter here)

As dear and encouraging as this friendship was, it was not to last. The first of several heavy trials to strike Nevins came in 1822. McHenry left Baltimore to visit Pennsylvania but never came home. Around the middle of October Nevins received news that McHenry had come down with a serious illness and fever and had died. Nevins reported this heavy news in a letter of the 15th. His heart is clearly broken.

I have been bereaved of a very valuable male friend and counsellor and help in my congregation. It was just the day after my last letter to you that I heard of the death of young Colonel M'Henry, who was carried off by a fever, at Mercersburg, Penn., on his return from Bedford. And since that time, I have been suffering under the severest sorrows of bereavement. He was a young man [31] of the first understanding, of the first family, of great wealth, possessed of every ability and opportunity to be greatly useful, and besides all, was one of the most devoted, pure, consistent and active Christians that I ever saw. There was a uniquely strong and personal bond between us; but that was nothing, compared with the strength and sacredness of the tie which joined us together as fellow-laborers in the same part of the Lord’s vineyard. He was soon to have become one of my elders, and we had laid plans of usefulness and of co-operation in the cause of Christ, that were to reach far forward into the future. But he is taken and I am left. A very bright page has been torn out of the book of my anticipations. Oh, my beloved and much lamented M'Henry!

Two graves in a cemetery in Mercersberg, Pennsylvania. John McHenry lies on the right. Beside him is his brother-in-law, who traveled there to help care for him. He died, apparently of the same illness, shortly after John.

What do you do as a young pastor when a dearest friend, a friend who is useful for ministry, who works while others watch—what do you do when God takes him away? Nevins tells us what he did—he forced his faith into action in the face of grief and confusion. His letter continued:

My mind last week was very much agitated and cast down; yet my reflections on his death led me to appreciate more highly than ever the worth of that religion, which gave him perfect peace on his death bed, and filled his departing soul with glorious and confident hope, so that he entered eternity with a willing obedience and a childlike fearlessness.

As so often happens, God took from Nevins, but he also gave. A month after losing McHenry, he “found a good thing” (Prov. 18:22), when on November 13 he married Mary Lloyd Key. He was now a pastor and a husband, and before long would be a father to five.

Map of Baltimore (1822) showing the location of the First Presbyterian Church. The dark area at the bottom center labeled “Basin” is today’s Inner Harbor. (Map by Lucas Fielding, Jr., Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division)