College documents key Methodist figures
By Mike Haynes
Asbury,
Coke, Wesley.
If you keep
up with Christian denominations, you know which one counts those three among
its founders.
Having
grown up in a Methodist church, I certainly know and respect those names. So
while on the Southern Methodist University campus in Dallas with Amarillo
College journalism students a few weeks ago, I visited the Bridwell Library,
part of the Perkins School of Theology. On display were books and documents
associated with those iconic Methodist names as well as many others – including
Carhart.
If you’re
familiar with Clarendon, one of the Texas Panhandle’s first towns, you might
recognize that name. I have a cousin who lives on Carhart Street, in fact, in
the Donley County seat.
We’ll get
back to Carhart. First, I have to tell you how glad I was that I walked across
the gorgeous SMU campus to that library. One of the first documents I
encountered was a yellowed piece of paper with a circular, bright red, wax seal
on it – signed “John Wesley.” The 1770 signature of the founder of Methodism
was at the bottom of the manuscript in brown ink.
It was his last will and testament,
in which the 67-year-old preacher entrusted James Rouquet with many of his
Methodist duties, such as making payments to the Kingswood School and allowing
other ministers to use his personal library.
Rouquet
died in 1776, 15 years before Wesley, so the will later was revised. But 12 inches
in front of my eyes was the signature of one of the most well-known preachers
in history.
The
Bridwell collection also includes a May 14, 1765, letter from Wesley explaining
his theory of “Christian perfection.” Who did he send it to? John Newton. You
may have heard of Newton, too; the Anglican vicar wrote “Amazing Grace.”
There’s
a Bible bought in 1806 for the Methodist church in Coeymans, N.Y. The renowned
Francis Asbury used it when he preached at that New York church. But just as
interesting to Panhandle residents is the fact that it later was owned by John
Wesley Carhart (1834-1914), another Methodist minister, writer, physician and
inventor who was the cousin of Clarendon’s founder, the Rev. Lewis H. Carhart.
Lewis
Carhart, who established the town in 1878, had gotten J.W. Carhart, living in Oshkosh, Wis., to print Clarendon’s
first newspaper. For a while, it was mailed from Wisconsin to Texas.
Clarendon
began as a Methodist community and was known as “Saints’ Roost.” For the full
story, see “Panhandle Pilgrimage,” a book by Pauline Durrett Robertson and R.L.
Robertson.
Still excited
to see the Clarendon connection in the SMU library, I made a quick descent to
the Bridwell basement to be sure I didn’t miss anything in this building where
so many pastors have studied.
In a hallway were three library
carts with signs that read, “Free Books.” Not able to resist, I scanned the
carts for books that looked old. I picked J.B. Phillips’ “Letters to Young
Churches” from 1948, Evelyn Underhill’s “Worship” from 1937 and, mainly because
it was printed in 1856, “Life of Rev. John Clark” by the Rev. B.M. Hall.
It wasn’t until that night, back in
the hotel, that I discovered this in the Clark book, written in brown ink:
“J. Wesley Carhart’s Library.”
The minister and printer of
Clarendon’s first newspaper was born in Albany County, N.Y., and the book has a
sticker that says it was sold in “Albany.” He would have been about 22 when it
was published.
I’ll have to do more research to
confirm that one of the Carharts inscribed his name in that now-fragile book,
but it sure looks like it.
