My Genealogy Hound

REV. STUART ROBINSON, D. D., was a native of the North of Ireland, and was born at Strauane, County Tyrone, about 1812. His parents, James and Martha (Porter) Robinson, were poor. They emigrated to America while their son was yet small, and located at Martinsburg, Virginia. Here the strong will, quick wit, and rugged clear headedness of the boy attracted the attention of Rev. James M. Brown, a Presbyterian clergyman, who gave him a good private school education, and started him to teaching at one of the neighboring salt works. His education was completed at Amherst, Mass., where he graduated in 1834. Among his college mates were several who afterward achieved distinction, and who like him have passed to their reward in the hereafter; notable of these were Rev. Benjamin M. Palmer, D. D., of New Orleans; Rev. Henry P. Humphrey, D. D., of Louisville, and Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. Having studied for the Presbyterian ministry (Old School) he preached for some years at Maiden, near Charleston. In 1846, when his old college mate, Dr. Humphrey, was compelled by ill health to relinquish his pulpit, the Second Presbyterian Church in Louisville, it was filled by Mr. Robinson, and so acceptably that the same congregation, years after, when there was a vacancy, unanimously chose him as their pastor. From 1846 to 1854 he was pastor at Frankfort, Ky., and during that period found time to act as president of a female seminary, president of a cotton factory, president of a turnpike road company, and director of the Farmer’s Bank of Kentucky, with its seven branches and $2,200,000 capital. In 1854 he was called to the pastoral care of the Central Presbyterian Church of Baltimore, Md. With a large and growing congregation he yet found time to originate and edit, for two years, 1855-56, the Presbyterian Critic, a very able monthly, strongly controversial in character. In May, 1856, the Presbyterian General Assembly elected him professor of church government and pastoral theology in the Theological Seminary, at Danville, Ky., which he filled for two years with distinguished ability. His next call was to the pulpit of the Second Presbyterian Church of Louisville, which he held to the time of his death, October 5, 1881. In 1858 he wrote “The Church of God as an Essential Element of the Gospel, and the Idea, Structure and Function thereof,” a 12-mo. volume of great power and labor, which in a few months called for a second edition, much enlarged. He afterwards wrote several other smaller works, but his last and greatest work was “Discourses of Redemption.” In 1861 he began, at Louisville, the publication of a weekly newspaper, The True Presbyterian, which was twice suppressed by the military in July, 1862, and in November, 1864, not because of any political utterances, but because of its pronounced opinions on religious and church topics which were distasteful to some who sank their views of independent church government and personal action in the maelstrom of subserviency to the military spirit of the hour. In 1863 he went to Toronto, Canada, where he remained until 1866. The publication of his newspaper was resumed in 1865, by his co-editor, as the Free Christians Commonwealth” which he aided in editing from a “a far country.” In May, 1869, at the session of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (South), at Mobile, Ala., he was elected moderator, unanimously, a compliment as distinguished as it is rare. In 1873, in a series of lectures to his congregation, he delivered a commentary on the book of Genesis, both striking and exhaustive. They were published weekly in the Courier-Journal. In the summer of 1873 Doctor Robinson visited Europe, Egypt and Palestine; and in the winter following lectured upon his travels to crowded houses, always for the benefit of some worthy object — never for private reward. In 1877 he attended the Pau-Presbyterian Convention, in Edinburgh, Scotland, and was one of the most observed of that assembly of great and Christian minds, and one of the strongest of the American representatives to that body. The secret of Dr. Robinson’s power was his directness, simplicity, scripturalness and intense conviction of truth. Of course these traits were united with genius, learning and great industry. He married, in September, 1841, Miss Mary E. Brigham, a daughter of Col. Wm. Brigham, a native of Massachusetts, who survived him. Eight children were born of this marriage, only two of whom, daughters, are living.