Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Matthew Brown Fellowship Brochure, Matthew Brown

Brown, Matthew, 1776-1853

In the early 2000s, the First Presbyterian Church of Washington, Pennsylvania established the Matthew Brown Fellowship. In the words of this informational brochure, the Fellowship is a "college-aged ministry program" that seeks to "increase this church's involvement with its oldest friend, the College, and to extend its ministry...to meet the growing needs throughout the greater Washington Community."

04. Radio Addresses, Melville Homer Cummings, Robert H. Ellison

Cummings, Melville Homer, 1890-1978

The Cummings collection includes 35 addresses delivered over the radio. Most aired on station WMON in Montgomery, West Virginia; a few were broadcast over WLW in Cincinnati. They are posted here as a single PDF, and combined with the sermons in a single tab in the User Guide.

03. Sermons, Melville Homer Cummings, Robert H. Ellison

Cummings, Melville Homer, 1890-1978

The Cummings collection includes approximately 100 typed and handwritten sermons, sermons printed or summarized in the newspaper, and some "sermons in rhyme." The sermons and radio addresses have been combined in a single tab in the User Guide.

The master PDF of the sermons is nearly 150MB in size; to make things somewhat more manageable, the contents of each folder in the physical collection have been upload as supplemental files.

Episcopal Sermons In The Library Of Appalachian Preaching, Robert Ellison, Larry Sheret

English Faculty Research

The Library of Appalachian Preaching provides online access to sermons preached in Appalachia, or elsewhere by preachers with ties to the Appalachian region. This article, in a newsletter published by the Historical Society of the Episcopal Church, discusses Episcopal sermons that are currently in the Library, and some that will be added in the very near future. 

Series Iii. Folder 7. Handwritten Notes, N.D, Melville Homer Cummings

Cummings, Melville Homer, 1890-1978

The final folder contains a miscellaneous assortment of letters, sermon manuscripts, and sermon notes or outlines. Topics include “Mutual Dependence” (1 Cor. 3), “A Stairway to Heaven” (Gen. 28:12), “The Misunderstood Christ” (Mark 15:36), and “The Looks of Christ” (several verses in Mark and Luke).

Series Ii(B). Radio Sermons. Folder 3. Radio Sermons, N.D., Melville Homer Cummings

Cummings, Melville Homer, 1890-1978

This folder contains of approximately 20 sermons delivered on the radio at unspecified times (some bear the month and date, but not the year). Some are typed, others handwritten; some are complete, others unfinished. Topics include “domestic subjects,” church membership, and “turning defeat into victory.”

Series Ii(B). Radio Sermons. Folder 2. Radio Sermons 1948-1960, Melville Homer Cummings

Cummings, Melville Homer, 1890-1978

This folder contains typescripts of approximately 20 sermons Cummings delivered between 1948 and 1960. Most were broadcast on WMON, a radio station in Montgomery, WV; one, a “Pre-Christmas Sermon,” was done for the “chapel” of WSAZ, a TV station with studios in Huntington and Charleston. Other topics include self-examination, “falling and rising,” “trusting in God,” and “the importance of the home and the family.”

Series Ii(B). Radio Sermons. Folder 1. Radio Sermons, 1929-1941, Melville Homer Cummings

Cummings, Melville Homer, 1890-1978

This folder contains typescripts of approximately 10 sermons Cummings delivered on the radio between 1933 and 1941. One indicates that it was given on Cincinnati-based WLW; the station is not identified on the others. Topics come mostly from the New Testament and include the early church, the Apostle Paul, and the second coming of Christ.

Series Ii(A). Sermons. Folder 9. Sermons, N.D., Melville Homer Cummings

Cummings, Melville Homer, 1890-1978

This folder contains a song/hymn entitled “A Sacrifice of Praise” and typescripts of approximately 15 sermons, some of which appear to be unfinished and/or have handwritten notes on them. Titles and text include “An All Night Wrestling Match” (Genesis 32:29), “Bartimaeus” (Luke 18:35-38), “The Laziest Man in this Community” (Proverbs 12:27), and “The Living Past” (Ecclesiastes 3:15).

Series Ii(A). Sermons. Folder 8. Sermons, N.D., Melville Homer Cummings

Cummings, Melville Homer, 1890-1978

This folder contains typescripts of approximately 15 sermons, some of which appear to be unfinished and/or have handwritten notes on them. Titles and texts include “After that the Judgment” (Eccles. 11:9), “Christ Our Example” (1 Peter 2:21), “Self-Examination” (2 Cor. 13:5), and “Ministerial Ethics” (no text specified).

Series Ii(A). Sermons. Folder 7. Sermons, N.D., Melville Homer Cummings

Cummings, Melville Homer, 1890-1978

This folder contains typescripts of approximately 10 sermons, some of which appear to be unfinished and/or have handwritten notes on them. All are undated, but one—“The Hand of God in History”—is labeled an “Armistice Address.” Titles and texts of the others include “All Things Work Together for Good” (Romans 8:28), “Christ’s Charge to the Women of Jerusalem” (Luke 23:28), “Finding God” (Psalm 42:3), and “A Funeral Discourse for a Child” (Isaiah 49:21).

Series Ii(A). Sermons. Folder 6. Sermons, N.D., Melville Homer Cummings

Cummings, Melville Homer, 1890-1978

This folder contains typescripts of approximately 10 sermons. Titles and scripture texts include “Backsliding”(Luke 22:31-32), “Building Skyward” (Hebrews 8:5), “The Signs of the Times” (2 Timothy 3:1-6), and “The Span of Life” (Psalm 90:10).

Series Ii(A). Sermons. Folder 5. Sermons, N.D., Melville Homer Cummings

Cummings, Melville Homer, 1890-1978

This folder contains typescripts of approximately 10 sermons, some of which appear to be unfinished and/or have handwritten notes on them. Some, such as “the father” and “the ideal husband,” appear to be duplicated in other folders; those unique to this folder include sermons on Moses, heaven, and the Christmas season.

Series Ii(A). Sermons. Folder 4. Sermons, N.D., Melville Homer Cummings

Cummings, Melville Homer, 1890-1978

This folder contains typescripts of 8 sermons. Titles and texts include “The Old-Fashioned Way” (Jeremiah 6:16), “Family Religion” (Mark 5:19), “Reasons for Missions” (Mark 16:15), and “His Riches—Our Riches” (2 Corinthians 8:9).

Series Ii(A). Sermons. Folder 3. Sermons, N.D., Melville Homer Cummings

Cummings, Melville Homer, 1890-1978

This folder contains typescripts and handwritten notes for approximately 10 sermons. Titles and texts include “It is Not Good that Man should be Alone” (Gen. 2:18), “A New Commandment I Give unto You” (John 13:34), and a “Commencement Sermon” and “A New Year’s Message” (no texts specified).

Series Ii(A). Sermons. Folder 2. Sermons, N.D., Melville Homer Cummings

Cummings, Melville Homer, 1890-1978

This folder contains typescripts and handwritten notes for approximately 10 sermons. The texts come from both the Old and New Testaments; titles include “How to Get Saved,” “The Blessing of Suffering,” “The Home,” and “After that the Judgment.”

Series Ii(A). Sermons. Folder 1. Sermons Of M. Homer Cummings, 1937-1960, Melville Homer Cummings

Cummings, Melville Homer, 1890-1978

This folder contains typescripts of approximately 10 sermons, some of which appear to be unfinished. Most of the ones that are dated were preached in 1937, with others delivered in 1940, 1941, and 1952.

The texts for the sermons come from throughout the Old and New Testaments. Two of the sermons are about the new year; the rest are on such domestic topics as “the home,” “the mother,” “the wife,” “the father,” and “the ideal husband.”

Series I. Personal Materials. Folder 7. Miscellaneous Material Of Rev. M. Homer Cummings, Melville Homer Cummings

Cummings, Melville Homer, 1890-1978

This folder contains approximately 15 miscellaneous items, including an unfinished sermon on Job; several poems; and ledger pages detailing Cummings’ account with the E. E. White Coal Company of Glen White, WV.

Series I. Personal Materials. Folder 6. Trevecca College Materials, 1959, Melville Homer Cummings

Cummings, Melville Homer, 1890-1978

This folder contains 4 documents from Cummings’ time at Nashville’s Trevecca College (formerly the Literary and Bible Training School and now Trevecca Nazarene University), from which he graduated in 1909. They are an “examination on theology,” what appear to be two versions of an “examination on homiletics,” a sermon on “the consequences of obedience and disobedience,” and the text of a speech he gave upon his graduation (and which he delivered again at Trevecca fifty years later).

Series I. Personal Materials. Folder 4. Methodist Church Conference Materials, N.D., Melville Homer Cummings

Cummings, Melville Homer, 1890-1978

The title of this folder may be somewhat inaccurate. It contains not “church conference materials,” but an essay on hymns, a brief handwritten letter to a Mrs. G. N. Shirey, and typescripts of approximately 10 sermons. Titles and texts include “Taking Offence at Christ” (Luke 7:29), “The Gospel Invitation” (Matthew 11:28-30), and “The Immortality of the Soul” (Job 14:14).

Series I. Personal Materials. Folder 1. Articles About Reverend M. Homer Cummings, 1923-1978, Melville Homer Cummings

Cummings, Melville Homer, 1890-1978

This folder contains approximately 40 newspaper articles about Cummings. The few that include identifying information were published in the Charleston Gazette, the Huntington Herald-Advertiser, and the Coalwood-Caretta News, with dates of publication ranging from 1935 to 1963.

The articles cover such topics as Cummings’ moves from Fayetteville to Williamstown and from Glasgow to Huntington, his 25^th and 50th anniversaries in the ministry, and his work as a composer of hundreds of hymns. The newspapers also published the complete texts of several of his sermons.

Uniting Conference Addresses, David Frederick Wertz

Uniting Conference Addresses

This volume contains 8 addresses by 4 speakers: the bishop of the West Virginia Area, the dean of the Duke Divinity School, the “minister of reconciliation” for the West Virginia Area, and the superintendent of the Buckhannon District.

Trinity Church, Huntington, West Virginia: Something Of Its Story, James Rodgers Haworth

Atkinson, Robert Poland, 1927-2012

This is Chapter XVI of Haworth's history of Trinity Episcopal Church from its beginnings in 1869 through the early 1960s. The book focuses primarily on the rectors who have served the church over the years; there are also chapters with such titles as “The Building of the Church,” “The Vestrymen,” “The Women,” and “The Sunday School.”

Trinity Church, Huntington, West Virginia: Something Of Its Story, James Rodgers Haworth

Tyler, S. Roger, 1878-1963

This is Chapters XI-XIV of Haworth's history of Trinity Episcopal Church from its beginnings in 1869 through the early 1960s. The book focuses primarily on the rectors who have served the church over the years; there are also chapters with such titles as “The Building of the Church,” “The Vestrymen,” “The Women,” and “The Sunday School.”

Thoughts Ii, S. Roger Tyler

Tyler, S. Roger, 1878-1963

According to the Preface, this book was “prepared in response to a number of requests which have come from Dr. Tyler’s friends and from those who have read the first volume, which was published in 1963” (p. v). Like its predecessor, it is a collection of articles published in two newspapers: the Advertiser in Huntington, West Virginia, and the Gazette in Charleston. Those articles were shortened versions of “sermons prepared and delivered by Dr. Tyler over a period of sixty years in the ministry.”

Thoughts, S. Roger Tyler

Tyler, S. Roger, 1878-1963

According to the title page, the book is a collection of articles published in two newspapers: the Advertiser in Huntington, West Virginia, and the Gazette in Charleston. Those articles were “based on sermons prepared and delivered by Dr. Tyler over a period of sixty years in the ministry.”

Sermons For Special Sundays, John Agee Holt

Holt, John Agee, 1920-2012

The 14 sermons in this collection “were first preached to…the Luther Rice Memorial Baptist Church of Silver Spring, Maryland” (Preface). They were thus delivered outside Appalachia; they are included in the Library to help illustrate the full range of Holt's preaching.

Seven Words, John Agee Holt

Holt, John Agee, 1920-2012

According to the Preface, “This book is based on a series of pre-Easter messages first delivered to…the Luther Rice Memorial Baptist Church of Washington, D. C.” They were thus preached outside Appalachia; they are included in the Library to help illustrate the full range of Holt's preaching.

Children's Sermons In Stories, Julius Fischbach

Fischbach, Julius, 1894-?

The Preface states that “The stories presented in this collection were given to the children of the First Baptist Church, Lansing, Michigan, during the morning worship programs” (p. 7). They were intended to be “always in harmony with the theme of the morning sermon,” and to add “color and attractiveness” to the messages delivered to the adults (p. 8).

The sermons were delivered outside Appalachia, but Fischbach has significant ties to the region, so they can be included in the Library.

Highlights Of My Life And Ministry In Old Time Revivals, Thomas P. Roberts

Roberts, Thomas P., 1872-1956

This book contains 3 of Roberts’ sermons, along with autobiographical material and “Testimonies” from people who worked with him or were converted under his preaching.