The Revivalist Who Left Discord Behind
A traveling evangelist spent a summer working Puget Sound's Baptist pulpits — and the association's verdict was blunt: imposter.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
At the sixth annual session of the Baptist Association of Puget Sound and British Columbia, Hon. R. S. Greene was chosen Moderator for the ensuing year, and Rev. J. A. Wirth clerk. There are eight churches connected with the Baptist Association of this district, with a membership of about 200, of whom 35 were received into fellowship during the past year.
The following is from the Olympia paper of the 15th inst.: "B. A. Hill, the evangelist, spent several weeks on [the] Sound this summer in revival work among the churches, the principal result of which was to engender discord and ill feeling." In its report the Association stated: It coming to the knowledge of the Association that one B. A. Hill was publicly presenting himself to others as a minister, the standing committee brought in a resolution, which was adopted in the roundest and severest terms, accusing him of deception and wrong conduct in one case at least. A letter was also sent to The Evangel, the religious organ in San Francisco, reading: "B. A. Hill is an imposter. See particulars by mail."
“B. A. Hill is an imposter. See particulars by mail.”
Nineteenth-century revival circuits had no credentialing body, so a persuasive stranger could preach his way across a region before anyone checked his papers. When the Baptist Association finally acted, it did so in print — a public denunciation mailed to a San Francisco religious paper. Reputation in these small communities was managed through letters and the press long before it was managed online.
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