Indiana Baptist History -- 1798-1908
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Indiana Baptist History
1798-1908


Page 174

Sunday morning so that he might have a time for
quiet meditation before the public exercises began. It
is said that each Sunday morning he read through
that famous hymn of Faber, in which occur the words,
which summed up his creed:

There's a wideness in God's mercy
Like the wideness of the sea;
There's a kindness in his justice,
Which is mare than liberty.

Mr. Henderson is worthily represented by his chil-
dren, who have taken places of honor and influence
in society; his son, the Rev. Charles R. Henderson,
D. D., professor in the University of Chicago, is al-
ready known in this country and Europe as an author-
ity on Public Charities; and Mr. J. L. Griffiths, his
son-in-law, represents this government at the court
of St. James as ably ,as any one who was ever chosen
to the high office.

Among the ministers of the Association we would
think first of the Rev. Charles J. Bowles, Sr., who
was born in Ohio in 1818. At the age of nineteen
he became a sailor, but after three years of sea life
he returned to his home, and in 1841 he and Miss
Nancy Knapper were married. He was a large, stout
man, and his mind was as imperial as his physical
frame. His main pastoral work was done in Wayne-
town church, but his labors extended into all the sur-
rounding country. His advocacy of distinctive Bap-
tist doctrines was so clear and strong that many
paedo-Baptists who heard him, became dissatisfied
with their former denominational beliefs and joined

Page 175

Baptist churches. This power did not consist alone
of intellectual grasp and forceful diction, but more
than all of a cheerful fraternal spirit coupled with
an intense earnestness to know and declare truth
as it is set forth in God's word. It is told of him
that in his earlier ministry he was invited to hold
meetings in a Presbyterian house of worship, as
there was no Baptist house near; the result was that
a large part of the membership of the church became
Baptists, and yet no one accused him of taking any
undue advantage of the opportunity. At the annual
session of the Tippecanoe Association in 1883 he sub-
mitted the report on Foreign missions, a report that
shows broad Christian views and sympathies, and a
clear conviction of the causes that hinder the spread
of the gospel in heathen lands. He died in Newtown
in October, 1889; and his brethren said: "A great
man in Israel has fallen." He left a son in the Bap-
tist ministry--the Rev. C. J. Bowles, Jr.

Elder Williams Rees (from a sketch by Rev. T.
R. Cressey, 1850), was born in Pennsylvania in
1797; and at ten years came with his parents to
the vicinity of Columbus, Ohio. At the age of nine-
teen he united with the Union church, and in 1820
he and Miss Mary White, of Muskingum county,
were married. He was ordained in 1820 and had
charge of several churches in that part of Ohio, and
was much loved for his work and was successful in
winning many to the service of Christ. In October,
1832, he moved to Delphi, Indiana, and before a great
while had organized a Baptist church. After a hard
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