John Wilbur Chapman
Encyclopedia
John Wilbur Chapman was a Presbyterian evangelist in the late 19th Century, generally traveling with gospel singer Charles Alexander
Charles McCallon Alexander
Charles McCallon Alexander , a native of East Tennessee, was a popular 19th Century gospel singer who worked the evangelistic circuit for many years. Over the course of his ministry, he toured with R. A. Torrey and John Wilbur Chapman, most notably. In 1904, Alexander married Helen Cadbury,...

. His parents were Alexander H. and Lorinda (McWhinney) Chapman.

Faith & Education

Chapman grew up attending Quaker Day School and Methodist Sunday School. At age 17, he made a public declaration of his Christian faith and joined the Richmond Presbyterian Church. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Lake Forest College
Lake Forest College
Lake Forest College, founded in 1857, is a private liberal arts college in Lake Forest, Illinois. The college has 1,500 students representing 47 states and 78 countries....

 and his seminary degree from Lane Theological Seminary
Lane Theological Seminary
Lane Theological Seminary was established in the Walnut Hills section of Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1829 to educate Presbyterian ministers. It was named in honor of Ebenezer and William Lane, who pledged $4,000 for the new school, which was seen as a forward outpost of the Presbyterian Church in the...

 in Cincinnati, Ohio
Cincinnati, Ohio
Cincinnati is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio. Cincinnati is the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located to north of the Ohio River at the Ohio-Kentucky border, near Indiana. The population within city limits is 296,943 according to the 2010 census, making it Ohio's...

. He completed his ordination into the ministry 13 April 1881, while still attending Lane. He was later awarded a Doctorate in Divinity from the College of Wooster and an LL.D. from Heidelberg University.

Family

In May 1882, Chapman married Irene Steddon. In April 1886, she bore him a daughter, Bertha Irene Chapman. Irene Steddon Chapman died in May 1886. Chapman remarried on November 4, 1888 to Agnes Pruyn Strain; they had four children: Robert (who died in infancy), John Wilbur, Jr., Alexander Hamilton, and Agnes Pruyn. His second wife died on June 25, 1907 and Chapman married a third and final time on August 30, 1910 to Mabel Cornelia Moulton.

Ministry

Chapman took on several pastorates before shifting to the evangelistic circuit. He began preaching with the legendary D. L. Moody in 1893, as well as leading many evangelistic events of his own. Among Chapman's disciples on the evangelistic circuit was Billy Sunday
Billy Sunday
William Ashley "Billy" Sunday was an American athlete who, after being a popular outfielder in baseball's National League during the 1880s, became the most celebrated and influential American evangelist during the first two decades of the 20th century.Born into poverty in Iowa, Sunday spent some...

.

In late 1895, Chapman was appointed Corresponding Secretary of the Presbyterian General Assembly's Committee on Evangelism, overseeing the activities of 51 evangelists in 470 cities. In 1904, Chapman began work on an evangelistic campaign to maximize the efforts of his field evangelists and result in more converts. The testing ground for his theories was Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh is the second-largest city in the US Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Allegheny County. Regionally, it anchors the largest urban area of Appalachia and the Ohio River Valley, and nationally, it is the 22nd-largest urban area in the United States...

, which he divided into nine zones in which simultaneous tent meetings would be occurring. Syracuse, New York
Syracuse, New York
Syracuse is a city in and the county seat of Onondaga County, New York, United States, the largest U.S. city with the name "Syracuse", and the fifth most populous city in the state. At the 2010 census, the city population was 145,170, and its metropolitan area had a population of 742,603...

 was the second city in the campaign, meeting with a satisfactory level of success.

In 1905, John H. Converse, a wealthy Presbyterian philanthropist, offered to underwrite Chapman's expenses if he would re-enter the evangelistic field full time. Converse also set up a trust fund so as to finance Chapman's crusades posthumously. Chapman accepted the offer and in 1907, joined forces with popular gospel singer Charles McCallon Alexander
Charles McCallon Alexander
Charles McCallon Alexander , a native of East Tennessee, was a popular 19th Century gospel singer who worked the evangelistic circuit for many years. Over the course of his ministry, he toured with R. A. Torrey and John Wilbur Chapman, most notably. In 1904, Alexander married Helen Cadbury,...

 to launch the "Chapman-Alexander Simultaneous Campaign."

The duo assembled an impressive team of evangelists and songleaders and took to the streets. The first joint campaign was held in Philadelphia
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...

 from March 12 to April 19, 1908. They partitioned the city into 42 sections covered by 21 evangelist-musicians teams. They spent three weeks on each half of the city, resulting in approximately 8000 conversions. It was at a similar Chapman-Alexander event in North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...

 that the legendary King James Only
King-James-Only Movement
The "King James Only movement" advocates the superiority of the Authorized King James Version of the Protestant Bible. The topic increased in newsworthiness in 2011, the 400th anniversary of the translation's 1611 initial publication....

 proponent, David Otis Fuller
David Otis Fuller
David Otis Fuller was a graduate of Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois and Princeton Theological Seminary...

, committed to the Christian faith.

In 1909, Chapman demanded that any field evangelist who doubted the inerrancy of Scripture be removed from ministry. Chapman's biography reports, "The first Chapman-Alexander worldwide campaign left Vancouver, British Columbia on March 26, 1909, and returned on November 26, 1909.

The itinerary included: Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...

, Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...

, Ipswich
Ipswich
Ipswich is a large town and a non-metropolitan district. It is the county town of Suffolk, England. Ipswich is located on the estuary of the River Orwell...

, Brisbane
Brisbane
Brisbane is the capital and most populous city in the Australian state of Queensland and the third most populous city in Australia. Brisbane's metropolitan area has a population of over 2 million, and the South East Queensland urban conurbation, centred around Brisbane, encompasses a population of...

, Adelaide
Adelaide
Adelaide is the capital city of South Australia and the fifth-largest city in Australia. Adelaide has an estimated population of more than 1.2 million...

, Ballarat, Bendigo, and Townsville in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

; Manila
Manila
Manila is the capital of the Philippines. It is one of the sixteen cities forming Metro Manila.Manila is located on the eastern shores of Manila Bay and is bordered by Navotas and Caloocan to the north, Quezon City to the northeast, San Juan and Mandaluyong to the east, Makati on the southeast,...

 in the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...

; Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...

, Kowloon
Kowloon
Kowloon is an urban area in Hong Kong comprising the Kowloon Peninsula and New Kowloon. It is bordered by the Lei Yue Mun strait in the east, Mei Foo Sun Chuen and Stonecutter's Island in the west, Tate's Cairn and Lion Rock in the north, and Victoria Harbour in the south. It had a population of...

, Canton
Guangzhou
Guangzhou , known historically as Canton or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of the Guangdong province in the People's Republic of China. Located in southern China on the Pearl River, about north-northwest of Hong Kong, Guangzhou is a key national transportation hub and trading port...

, Shanghai
Shanghai
Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...

, Hankow, Peking and Tientsin in China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

; Seoul
Seoul
Seoul , officially the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea. A megacity with a population of over 10 million, it is the largest city proper in the OECD developed world...

, Korea
Korea
Korea ) is an East Asian geographic region that is currently divided into two separate sovereign states — North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by the People's Republic of China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the...

; Kobe
Kobe
, pronounced , is the fifth-largest city in Japan and is the capital city of Hyōgo Prefecture on the southern side of the main island of Honshū, approximately west of Osaka...

, Kyoto
Kyoto
is a city in the central part of the island of Honshū, Japan. It has a population close to 1.5 million. Formerly the imperial capital of Japan, it is now the capital of Kyoto Prefecture, as well as a major part of the Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto metropolitan area.-History:...

, Tokyo
Tokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...

, and Yokohama
Yokohama
is the capital city of Kanagawa Prefecture and the second largest city in Japan by population after Tokyo and most populous municipality of Japan. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of Tokyo, in the Kantō region of the main island of Honshu...

 in Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

."

During these years, Chapman was also heavily involved in the promoting of religious summer conferences. He was at one point the director of the Winona Lake Bible Conference in Indiana and also helped to establish bible conferences in Montreat, North Carolina
Montreat, North Carolina
Montreat is a town in Buncombe County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 696 in 2008. It is part of the Asheville Metropolitan Statistical Area...

 and the Stony Brook Assembly summer conferences on Long Island
Long Island
Long Island is an island located in the southeast part of the U.S. state of New York, just east of Manhattan. Stretching northeast into the Atlantic Ocean, Long Island contains four counties, two of which are boroughs of New York City , and two of which are mainly suburban...

, founded in 1909. Chapman became heavily involved in the Stony Brook conferences in his later years, seeing that it had the most promise of flourishing because of its close proximity to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

. After his death, his widow, Mabel Cornelia Moulton, gave to the Stony Brook Assembly the gift of a paved driveway in his memory. Today, 1 Chapman Parkway still serves as the address of The Stony Brook School
The Stony Brook School
The Stony Brook School is a private independent Christian boarding and college preparatory school for boys and girls, grades 7 to 12. It was founded by the Rev. Dr. John F. Carson and fellow members of the Stony Brook Assembly in 1922. Its founding headmaster was Frank E. Gaebelein...

, which was founded in 1922 as an extension of the summer conferences.

By the end of 1910, Chapman's "mass evangelism" technique was losing favor in evangelistic circles, and Chapman and Alexander were back to large meeting revivals by 1912. The final Chapman-Alexander revival tour was conducted January 6, 1918 to February 13, 1918. In May 1918, Chapman was elected Moderator of the Presbyterian General Assembly, a position which inundated him with such a high level of stress that he developed a serious enough case of gall stones to need emergency surgery on December 23, 1918 and died two days later, on Christmas Day, aged 59.

Pastorates

  • College Corner, Ohio
    College Corner, Ohio
    College Corner is a village in the southwestern part of the U.S. state of Ohio in Butler and Preble Counties, five miles northwest of Oxford. It was settled in 1811 and takes its name from its position in the northwestern corner of the "College Township", the survey township designated the previous...

     Presbyterian Church, 1882
  • Liberty, Indiana
    Liberty, Indiana
    Liberty is a town in Center Township, Union County, Indiana, United States. The population was 2,061 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Union County.-Geography:Liberty is located at ....

     Presbyterian Church, 1882
  • Dutch Reformed Church (Schuylerville, New York
    Schuylerville, New York
    Schuylerville is a village in Saratoga County, New York, United States. The population was 1,197 at the 2000 census. The village is named after the Schuyler family....

    ), 1883–1885
  • First Reformed Church (Albany, NY), 1885–1890
  • Bethany Presbyterian (Philadelphia, PA), 1890–1892, 1896–1899
  • Fourth Presbyterian Church (New York City, NY), 1899–1902

Published works

  • Ivory Palaces of the King (1893)
  • Receive Ye the Holy Ghost (1894)
  • And Peter (1895)
  • The Lost Crown (1899)
  • The Secret of a Happy Day (1899)
  • The Surrendered Life (1899)
  • Spiritual Life of the Sunday School (1899)
  • Present Day Parables (1900)
  • Revivals and Missions (1900)
  • From Life to Life (1900)
  • The Life and Work of D.L. Moody (1900)
  • Present Day Evangelism (1903)
  • Fishing for Men (1904)
  • Samuel Hopkins Hadley of Water Street (1906)
  • Another Mile (1908)
  • The Problem of Work (1911)
  • Chapman's Pocket Sermons (1911)
  • Revival Sermons (1911)
  • When Home Is Heaven (1917)

Hymnography

  • "One Day"
  • "Jesus, What a Friend for Sinners"
  • "'Tis Jesus"

External links

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