University of Virginia Library

DR. H. T. ANDERSON

Dr. H. T. Anderson

The Andersons have been prominent in American life for
nearly three centuries. The first members of this family to
come to America were Richard Anderson, Sr., and Richard Anderson,
Jr., who sailed from England in July, 1635. Land Office
Book VII, page 272, shows that Robert Anderson, I, was granted
727 acres of land in New Kent county, Va., in 1683 for the importation
of 15 persons. He married Cecilia Massie, of New
Kent, and was vestryman of St. Peter's parish until the parish
of St. Paul was cut off in 1704. He died in 1712. Robert
Anderson, II, married Mary Overton and had issue as follows:
Richard, James, Garland, Matthew, David, Robert III, and
three others whose names are not known. Garland Anderson
owned much property in New Kent, Caroline, Hanover and
adjoining counties, and was a member of the Richmond Convention
of 1775, by which legislation was enacted placing Virginia
on a war basis. Garland Anderson married Marcia Burbage,
of Caroline, and to this union was born John Burbage Anderson,
who married Martha Tompkins, of Caroline, to whom were born
six sons and three daughters. Henry Tompkins Anderson, the

subject of this biography, was the sixth son of John Burbage
Anderson and Martha Tompkins, and was born on January 27,
1812. He was brought up in a home of culture and refinement.
His mother was an unusually brilliant woman and taught all
of her sons Latin and Greek. When barely twenty-one H. T.
Anderson united with the Christian Church (Disciples) and was
baptized by his elder brother, Dr. Benjamin Anderson, a widely
known physician, who for many years was an elder in the Antioch
Christian Church at Bowling Green. Within ten months after
his baptism he began to preach the Gospel, and in his twenty-fifth
year removed to Kentucky to accept the pastorate of the
Christian Church of Hopkinsville. Here he met and married
Henriette Ducker, a lady of great beauty and brilliancy. The
Church at Hopkinsville flourished under his leadership and his
labours there are commemorated by a beautiful window placed
in the Church and dedicated to him.

Through the influence of his life-long friend, John Augustine
Williams, President of Daughters College, Harrodsburg, Ky.,
Anderson turned his brilliant mind into educational channels
and for a time, after retiring from the Hopkinsville pastorate,
presided over a classical school in Northern Kentucky.

In 1847 he became the pastor of First Christian Church, of
Louisville (which Church has since been served nearly forty
years by E. L. Powell, another Virginian) and continued in this
capacity for six years. Upon retiring from the Louisville pastorate
Anderson re-entered the field of education as instructor in
Daughters College at Harrodsburg, Ky., and here he lived and
taught and preached for several years. Later he presided over
a classical school at Midway, Ky., where he was assisted by his
son, Henry T. Anderson, Jr., and his daughter Jessie, both of whom
were brilliant Greek and Latin scholars.

Writing his friend, John Augustine Williams, regarding the
school at Midway, he says:

"Seventy-two pupils give me as much as I can do. * * * 
There is a vast amount of work to be done, to which I am
addressing myself with all diligence. There is much good
material on which I shall bestow abundant labour. It is a
saying of the Wise Man that `one sinner destroyeth much good.'
I will ever keep this in mind, and my course will be to keep the
school free from such."

Anderson also presided over a classical school at Flemingsburg,
Ky., and while in this position wrote to his friend, President
Williams, in the following words:

"The people here are a substantial set. They have looked
more to their bodily than to their mental and spiritual wellbeing.
The field is a great one for labour and much may be
accomplished if the people can be taught that grand secret—
the habit of thinking. It falls to the lot of but few to learn this
secret. * * *  To look on the events of life and see them
working out one grand result, the glory of God and the happiness
of the race, is the lot of fewer still. * * * *  I know not what
will take place on the morrow, but this I know, that He who
put forth his hand and upheld the sinking Apostle from the
depths, can so guide my footsteps as to save me from all evil. * * * * *  If we commit our ways to Him he will so order
our steps that we shall enjoy the greatest amount of good, for
`no good thing will he withhold from them who walk uprightly.' "

The labours of an educator seem to have grown irksome to
Dr. Anderson, for in one of his letters to President Williams he
says:

"Give me a few acres, with a good garden, a small forest
and lasting spring, and I shall be content. The Lord made man
upright but he hath "sought out many inventions," boarding
schools being one of them." * * *  I would go to my little
place in the country, read Hebrew and Greek, translate, write
notes and essays, and beautify the little thirty-acre plot with
trees, flowers, shrubbery, and whatsoever is pleasant to the eyes
and good for food. This nervous affection is my `thorn in the
flesh'—a messenger of satan surely—that will allow me no rest
on earth save that which I find in study, translating, and writing."

In December, 1861, he began to translate the New Testament
from the original Greek and, in a letter to President Williams
about this time, says:

"If I succeed in translating the New Testament will it not give
a reason for my past retired labours in the study of the Holy
Oracles? Surely such a result would be worth a life of labour!
Whatsoever the result one thing is certain: I shall have filled my
own mind and heart with the knowledge of His truth. * * * 
I am here, `like a sparrow on the housetop,' to use one of
David's figures. I have always thought this simile one of

the most apt and striking in the Bible. Did you ever
see a sparrow upon a housetop? Of all lonely and insignificant
looking things surely this is the most lonely. * * * * * 
I am better this morning and attribute my improvement to a
glass of lemonade. Acids are good for nervousness; if you are
unbelieving, try it. I know you will here exclaim, `What a
descent!—From Hebrew and Greek, and David's similes, to
lemonade!' Oh, well, `Variety is the spice of life.' "

When the Civil War broke out, and young men laid down their
books and took up the sword, Anderson gave up his school work
and devoted his time to translating, preaching and lecturing.
Writing to President Williams about this time he says:

"Tell me what it is within the mind, which sees that a thing
will not be; or, on the other hand, pierces the veil of the future
and lights up some spot, and says we shall be there—sometime?
Benjamin Franklin (a noted Disciple preacher and publicist of
Anderson's day) would have me come to Cincinnati in a short
time, but this `inward something' has told me, and yet tells me,
that I shall not be there. When I look in the direction of Mercer
that `something' seems to say to me that I shall be there—and
that I ought to be there. Is this an illusion? Or is it that a ray
from a better world flashes upon the future and lights it up for
the lonely soul that is to sail out upon an uncertain sea? The
latter, let us believe, for, as the poet said, "We are not all
clay." * * * * .

So the next year finds him in Mercer, as the "inward something"
had foretold. Here he was near President Williams,
between whom and himself existed a friendship like that between
David and Jonathan of old, and here he gave himself wholly to
the work of translating. From Mercer he wrote to President
Williams in these words:

"I have finished the Acts. Have re-written Matthew, Mark
and Luke. I took the Acts next to Luke that I might not have a
change of writers by translating John. I knew I would have but
little difficulty with John, so left this for the warm weather.
The translation is such as satisfies me. I have no fear for
Robinson, Bloomfield and the rest of the critics, as their views,
collected by Trollope, of Cambridge, in his Analytics, sustain me.
Pendleton and Loos—like Aaron and Hur with Moses—will
hold up my hands. I have sent Pendleton two chapters of

Romans, and he and Loos gave them fulsome praise—almost as
extravagant as that given by Pendleton in his notice of my
version of Matthew. Favourable notice from such scholars as
these adds to my joy. How could I ask for more?"

In July, 1862, he writes to President Williams as follows:

"I am now translating the Second Epistle to the Corinthians,
and intend to finished the New Testament by the first of September,
if health lasts, and publish the whole this fall. You will
say this is doing the work in too great haste, but my work is the
result of nearly thirty years study, and I find that all I have
read and studied has not been lost, but has been in a somewhat
dormant state ready for being used in my present work."

Dr. Robert Richardson, the brilliant President of Bethany
College, said, "H. T. Anderson's knowledge of the Scriptures is
greater than Mr. Campbell's at his best years."

Benjamin Franklin, noted Disciple minister and publicist,
wrote:

"I am pleased with Brother Anderson. He has a mighty
fund of learning and knowledge. He is a great man."

The "great man's" opinion of himself may be learned from
the following extract from a letter to President Williams regarding
certain complimentary notices which had appeared concerning
his translation:

"Whatever merit it may possess is only the reflection of the
image of my Master, to whom be all the glory and honour. * * * 
I am poor and weak, and in my weakness and poverty I have
taken refuge under His wing. I have felt His power and, apart
from men, I have lived in His presence."

Dr. Anderson, while of a deeply spiritual nature, was not
without his humourous side. Referring to some complimentary
review of his Translation, by one Dr. Rice, he writes as follows
to his friend, President Williams:

"If others think as Dr. Rice thinks then my work will enable
me to buy a horse and ride around some. Don't you think that
a man who has made such a Translation, as you know mine to
be, ought to have a horse?"

Again he writers in the same vein to President Williams:

"Double thanks for your wonderful essay on `To Be and to
Live.' I know of nothing that excels it save my Translation."

In 1864, he completed and published his Translation, which, he
said, was intended to open and illuminate the Scriptures for the
masses, and the work found instant favour in both America and
Europe. Writing from Louisville, Ky., in 1865 he says:

"But now I am, and that is about all of me. I am in the
right place, no doubt, for my mind must rest for future motion
and life. A new world opens before me for a full play of all
my powers, whatever they are. Isaac Errett wishes me to
deliver lectures on the Greek Testament—principles of interpretation—and
this will suit me very well, but the presidency of a
college in Iowa has been offered me, and my wife is inclined to
that region. * * *  The presidency of a college presents no
pleasing anticipation to me. * * * *  I have no desire to
accept. * * * * 

Contemporaneous with Dr. Anderson's labours of translation
was Tischendorf's discovery of the Codex Sinaiticus. Writing to
Dr. Williams, regarding this discovery, he says:

"I feel as if my fortune was made. I have the Codex Sinaiticus,
the most ancient of the Codices. This crowns my joy. I know of
nothing I wanted so much. * * * * . It is wonderful how
works flow to my hand—the very works I want. The Lord is
surely with me in this, and sends me what I want, both in books
and in a friend to help me."

From Washington, D. C., he wrote to Dr. Williams in August,
1868, in the following words:

"I have made a version for the masses which, I believe, will
illumine and make plain many obscure passages, heretofore
hidden to the multitudes; and now, here in the East, I shall make
a version for scholars which will defy all the efforts of fault-finders."

Writing again from Washington, in 1869, he says:

"Do you know a sound man? If you do let me hear from you.
I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and
earth; and in Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son, our Lord:
and also, I am persuaded that all who so believe, and live
righteous lives will be saved. I believe in one Baptism for the
remission of sins, to all who have sufficient knowledge; but I think
man's obligation is limited by his knowledge. `To him that
knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.' Well,
I want to see a man who has a soul, a large soul, a soul full of
the love of God and of man. I am sick, John Augustine, of small

souls, of cold, narrow souls. I want to see a man with a soul
that burns with divine fire, a man who soars to heaven like an
eagle, and who can guide me in my solitary way. * * *  Daniel
was a great man, better than kings, yet he was in Babylon and
lived and loved God, without a temple, an altar, or a sacrifice.
I tell you, "J. A." that I am of the Scribe's opinion, that to
love God with the whole soul, heart, mind and strength, and
one's neighbor as himself, is better than all burnt offerings and
sacrifices. There is salvation in the love of God, and the love
of God is the supreme law."

This letter was probably called forth by certain strictures of
the "legalistic" and "ceremonially minded" leaders in Dr.
Anderson's communion, who thought that he did not place enough
emphasis on Church ordinances, and did not sufficiently stress
the dogma, then held by a few leaders among the Disciples, of
the absolute necessity of immersion for the remission of sins.

Dr. Anderson preached for the Disciples in Washington during
the year 1868 and the early part of 1869, after which he returned
to Caroline and spent two or three years at the old home, near
where his brother, Dr. Benjamin Anderson, lived, and here for a
short time his wish for "a few acres of land—a forest—and a
lasting spring" was realized to some extent. Here, amid the
scenes of his childhood and youth, he spent many hours in
translating and other literary pursuits.

After this brief sojourn in Caroline he returned to Washington,
where he died on September 19, 1872. The "dust and ashes"
of this distinguished son of Caroline rests in Glenwood Cemetery
near the National Capitol.