In 1861, the Civil War began in earnest. Most northern cities experienced outburst of enthusiasm for the war. That enthusiasm often took the form of young men—whole neighborhoods of young men at times—enlisting in the Federal Army. Plumer avoided politics entirely in the pulpit and in his writings. Although a native of the North, he lived much of his life in the South and felt the Union’s division keenly, and personally. Babies he baptized now raised rifles to kill each other. Central Presbyterian, like many other churches north and south, got caught up in the war-fever.
The Reformed Faithful, both those baptized in the church and those who find the gospel of grace later in life, is a tradition rich in history. The catholicity and historic strength of the Reformed faith is often underappreciated and taken for granted. That is understandable. In the twenty-first century we enjoy masses of books available through digital media; publishers print titles by famous pastors which are bought rapaciously by ministers and laypeople. Yet although someone may have heard of Charles Hodge, James Henley Thornwell, or Robert Dabney, for the most part the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries remained less explored than the Early Modern Reformed. Only church historians and an occasional curious academic venture to regularly read sources written between 1750 and 1900. But the words of ministers and theologians active in the late eighteenth and nineteenth century proved to be boons to their parishioners. Their pastoral and theological concern helped create a powerful ethic of Reformed churchmanship, intellectual pursuit, and pastoral care in North America.
Although largely unknown today, William Swan Plumer was among the better-known ministers in his own era. Born in Pennsylvania, Plumer spent much of his childhood among relatives in Virginia. He graduated from Washington College—now Washington and Lee University—and received his divinity degree from Princeton Seminary. In 1826 Plumer became an ordained evangelist in the Presbytery of New Brunswick, and adhered to the Old School Presbyterians.
Plumer’s star rose rapidly in Presbyterian Church. He took prominent pulpits and wrote prolifically. His early works tended to address the grand religious questions of the day or they dealt with practical application of the Bible in aspects of Christian life. He wrote on child-rearing and family. He addressed the errors of Roman Catholicism in a time of mass-immigration of historically Roman Catholic peoples. Plumer spent the prime years of his ministry working in mercy ministry as well. He helped found Staunton, Virginia’s institute for disabled peoples. Between 1837 and 1845, he served as the editor of Richmond’s—and the Upper South’s—major weekly Presbyterian newspaper, The Watchman of the South. Plumer also pushed for enslaved people to receive religious education, and earned a reputation as a moderate and even progressive on the question of emancipation. Prominent churches sought Plumer for their pulpit. Plumer pastored Richmond’s First Presbyterian Church, The Franklin Street Presbyterian Church in Baltimore, and Central Presbyterian Church in Allegheny, Pennsylvania (the modern-day northside of the city of Pittsburgh).