Johnson, Lyman H. A Series of Lectures on the Church of the Bible and Its Apostasy, Delivered in the Court House at Charleston, West Virginia, by Lyman H. Johnson, Of Boston, Massachusetts, July, 1905. Also a Sketch of His Life and His Battle with the Preachers' Union of Toledo, Ohio, in 1895. Kendalia, W. Va.: Owen D. Hill, 1906. First Edition. [12389]
Olive cloth with bright silver titles, light edge-wear, rear inner hinge tightened up with pH neutral adhesive, 8 x 5 1/2 inches. Contemporary gift inscription in pencil on the ffep. B/w portrait of the author with tissue guard; additional b/w plate of "Court House at Charleston, W. Va." 391, [1] generally clean pp.; a few with pencil marginalia. Good. Hardcover.
"Published by Owen D. Hill of Kendalia, W. Va., by Whose Request and at Whose Expense it was Supervised and Printed at Bposton, Mass. 1906."
Lyman Huggins Johnson (1829-1917), b. Marion, Wayne Co., New York; d. Toledo, Ohio. He studied for the ministry in Beloit, Wisconsin, and in 1854 took studies at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. He was for three years the pastor of the Congregational Church in Elkhorn, Wisconsin, and in 1859 became pastor of Westminster Presbyterian Church in Rockford, Illinois. During all of this time he became less and less convinced of the wisdom of creeds and denominations, and eventually broke away from them.
His abolitionist views, his renunciation of "money power" in the churches, and other factors led him to what he considered to be a complete independence from such corruptions. He turned to farming as a means of sustenance, and continued to preach "against money governed churches and in favor of the primitive Bible church and a pure Christianity with Christ for the only head and a separation from the world." - p. 33.
In 1865 the local Congregational Association expelled him for being "guilty of a denunciatory and schismatic spirit and practice." He took up street preaching and published a periodical, The Stumblingstone.
This book consists of his Autobiography, Eight Lectures, and an account of his "Battle with the Preachers' Union."
The Lectures are The Church the Light of the World; The Two Covenants, or Jewish and Christian Church Organizations; Carnal Ordinances; The Spiritual Church; Church Unity; The Money Power of Man's Organizations; The Great Apostasy and Harlot Babylon; and Papal and Protestant Idolatry of the Sacraments.
