John Albert Broadus, the most distinguished clergyman and writer
Kentucky Baptists have produced, was born near Culpepper, Virginia,
January 24, 1827. At the age of sixteen years Broadus united with the
Baptist church; and he shortly afterwards decided to study for the
ministry of his church. He taught school for a time before going to
the University of Virginia, in 1846, and he was graduated four years
later with the M.A. degree. While at the University Broadus was
greatly impressed by Professors Gessner Harrison, Wm. H. McGuffey, and
E. H. Courtenay. In 1851 Broadus declined a professorship in
Georgetown College, Georgetown, Kentucky, in order to become assistant
instructor of ancient languages in his _alma mater_ and pastor of the
Charlottesville Baptist church. In 1857 it was decided to establish
the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary at Greenville, South
Carolina, and Broadus, James P. Boyce, Basil Manly, Jr., William
Williams, and E. T. Winkler, were the committee on establishment.
Boyce and Manly urged the curriculum system, but Broadus advocated the
elective system so earnestly that he completely won them over. "So, as
Mr. Jefferson had drawn a new American university, Mr. Broadus drew a
new American seminary." The Seminary opened in 1859 with the members
of the committee, with the exception of Williams, as the professors.
Boyce was elected president, and Broadus occupied the chair of New
Testament Interpretation and Homiletics. Twenty-six students greeted
the faculty; and all were soon hard at work. After a few years,
however, the Civil War came and the Seminary shortly suspended. During
the war Dr. Broadus was a chaplain in the Confederate armies. At the
close of the war work in the Seminary was resumed with seven students
enrolled, Dr. Broadus having but one student in homiletics, and he was
blind! The lectures he prepared for this blind brother were the basis
of the work that made him famous, _The Preparation and Delivery of
Sermons_ (Philadelphia, 1870), which is at the present time the finest
thing on the subject, a text-book in nearly every theological school
in Christendom. Dr. Broadus declined chairs in Chicago and Brown
universities, and the presidency of Vassar College, in order to remain
with the Seminary, the darling of his dreams. In 1873 he read his
notable paper in memory of Gessner Harrison at the University of
Virginia; and the next year he joined Dr. Boyce in Kentucky in the
effort that was then being made to remove the Seminary to Louisville.
His lectures before the Newton Theological Seminary were published as
_The History of Preaching_ (New York, 1876). In 1877 the Seminary was
removed to Louisville, Dr. Boyce remaining as president and Dr.
Broadus as professor of homiletics. From the first the Seminary was a
success, it now being the largest in the United States. In 1879 Dr.
Broadus delivered his noted address upon Demosthenes before Richmond
College, Virginia, which is regarded as one of the very finest efforts
of his life. In Louisville he became the city's first citizen, honored
and beloved by all classes. In 1886 Harvard conferred the degree of
Doctor of Divinity upon him; and later in the same year one of the
most important of his books appeared, _Sermons and Addresses_
(Baltimore, 1886). This was followed by his famous _Commentary on
Matthew_ (Philadelphia, 1887), which was begun during the darkest days
of the Civil War, and is now considered the best commentary in English
on that Gospel. Dr. Boyce died at Pau, France, in 1888, and Dr.
Broadus succeeded him as president of the Seminary. In January, 1889,
he delivered the Lyman Beecher lectures on _Preaching_ at Yale; and
some months later his _Translation of and Notes to Chrysostom's
Homilies_ (New York, 1889) appeared. In the spring of 1890 Dr. Broadus
delivered three lectures before Johns Hopkins University, which were
published as _Jesus of Nazareth_ (New York, 1890). He spent the summer
of 1892 in Louisville preparing his _Memoir of James P. Boyce_ (New
York, 1893); and _A Harmony of the Gospels_ (New York, 1893), his
final works. Dr. Broadus died at Louisville, Kentucky, March 16, 1895.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. _Life and Letters of John Albert Broadus_, by A. T.
Robertson (Philadelphia, 1900); _Library of Southern Literature_
(Atlanta, 1909, v. ii).