William Alfred Waddell (1862-1938)

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(Translated from Portuguese)

William Alfred Waddell (1862-1938): A Life at the Service of a People, text by Carlos Afonso Augusto Pizarro, written at the request of the then Director of the JMC Institute, Olson Pemberton, Jr., published by JMC. (See also the photo of Rev. Dr. William Alfred Waddell, founder of Instituto José Manuel da Conceição, which illustrates the cover of this booklet).

WILLIAM ALFRED WADDELL
1862-1938
A Life in the Service of a People

HOMAGE from the JOSÉ MANUEL DA CONCEIÇÃO INSTITUTE.

Every year, the José Manuel da Conceição Institute, a minor seminary of the Presbyterian Churches of Brazil and Independent Presbyterian Church of Brazil, celebrates "Conception Day", as gratitude to God for another year of existence and opportunities.

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The Board of Directors and the Congregation of the Institute saw fit to dedicate this traditional day, this year, to the memory of its founder, the Rev. Dr. William Alfred Waddell, on the occasion of the centenary of his birth.

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Therefore, the JMC Institute, in its 35th year of existence, thank God for the life of its founder, and first Director, and offers friends and former students of Dr. Waddell, and the JMC Institute, this booklet.

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The work presented here was suggested by Mr. Carlos Afonso Augusto Pizarro, as well as research into its composition. Pizarro was born in Governador Valadares, Minas Gerais, and is currently studying the lll classical year at JMC. He is a candidate of the Independent Presbyterian Church of Brazil for the Sacred Ministry and has studied at JMC since 1957. He was Managing Director of O IDEALISTA, a magazine for Manueline students, and since 1961 he has been working as a reporter for several newspapers in the city of São Paulo, such as FOLHA DE SÃO PAULO, ÚLTIMA HORA, and O GLOBO.

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To Mr. Pizarro, and to Rev. Joaquim A. Machado, deputy director of the Institute, who represented the Board of Directors in the composition of this booklet, our thanks. We also wish to thank Rev. Júlio Andrade Ferreira, Magnificent Rector of the Presbyterian Seminary of Campinas, for the use of its museum, and the cooperation of Rev. Robert E. Lodwick, Executive Secretary of the Central Brazil Presbyterian Mission, for providing us with the use of the mission's archives.

Rev. Olson Pembertom, Jr.
Director

the the the

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If nature could foresee the great events, certainly the flowers of September, on the 8th, in the year 1890, would have radiated a more lively joy, would have announced with a more ardent and vibrant expression to the citizens of São Paulo that the development already imprinted on his so promising and beloved Brazil was about to take on a new impetus. It's just that on that date, a new seed was sown in its fertile spiritual fields that would blossom into the most vigorous trunk.

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They were the germs of knowledge that prepare a people to tread the routes of progress, and of Christianity that combines altruistic sentiment with knowledge and emphasizes in men their divine characteristics, launched on Brazilian soil, latent and hidden, in the vigorous figure of one of those our brave brothers from the other America who dedicated themselves to the evangelization of Brazil. It was William Alfred Waddell who landed on the beaches where Anchieta and Nóbrega had already vanished on the same mission and with the same purpose.

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Men of rare talents, arrived in Brazil after having graduated, with distinction, in engineering and theology in their homeland.

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He was born on February 5, 1862, in the small town of Bethel, in New York, USA. In 1882, he graduated from Union College, in the city of Schenectady, NY, where, since the beginning of his studies, he had managed to win first prizes. Feeling called to the sacred ministry, he entered Princeton Seminary in 1884, managing to shorten to 2 years the course that normally should have been taken in 3, and was licensed to the Albany Presbytery in April 1886.

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His profession of faith he had made before the Rev. T. Darling and the brethren of the Schenectady Presbyterian Church, in the fall of 1881. He later declared that this was the time when the voice of God began to call him earnestly to the missions.

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A licensed pastor, his first field was St. Peter's Presbyterian Church, California, of which he assumed the presidency of the Board on an "experienced basis" in the year of his graduation. On April 10, 1887, the Presbytery in Los Angeles definitively consecrated him to God, ordaining him in the city of San Diego. During the years 1887 and the mid-1890s, he devoted himself to the Church of St. Peter. At the end of this ministry, his eyes turned to the rich cornfields of Brazil, where Simonton, Blackford, Chamberlain and so many other "valiants of David" – as Júlio Andrade Ferreira insists in calling them, sowed by the handful.

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On September 19, he joined the Brasil Central mission in São Paulo. From then on, he would dedicate himself to a fruitful ministry – which was also teaching, as we will see below.

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IN BRAZIL

With rare intelligence, deep knowledge, and almost perfect didactics, Waddell was sent to the then-embryonic Mackenzie College.

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Around 1890, Dr. Horácio Lane, recently elected director of the American School, feels obliged to introduce American higher education methods in Brazil, since "government schools cannot successfully carry out these experiments". "The plan was tested: the preparation of preparatory courses began, higher literary courses, pure science and applied science (which was later called the Engineering Course)".

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About two years ago, a commission of North American educators visited São Paulo and recommended the "establishment of university courses, supplementary to the American School", which is why a Board of Trustees was constituted that tried to put the suggestion into practice. The then Councilor Rui Barbosa was consulted and informed that there was "in accordance with Brazilian law, no way in which the association could be incorporated, to regularize the title of properties, and recommended the organization of the corporation in the United States, with the administration of its assets in Brazil, through a proxy".

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So it was that on February 9, 1893, the University of New York incorporated, on an experimental basis, the higher course of the American School, however, the incorporation became effective on November 21, 1895.

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In this way, the powerful educational institution "that stands on the heights of Higienópolis" began to blossom.

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It is in the midst of this structuring phase that William Alfred Waddell appears. His engineering knowledge and his stupendous notion of didactics led him to become one of the mainstays of the new university. He participated in the commission that coordinated the engineering courses and was one of its first professors. About his ability, said Dr. Horacio Lane once, when purposely accused: "he IS quite intelligent and capable of directing all of Mackenzie's work, working only at night, after dinner".  In December 1891, an American citizen named JT Mackenzie donated the sum of 50,000 dollars to the school, destined for the construction of a building suitable for its operation.

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The work was entrusted to Waddell. Once the plan was conceived and construction started, the cornerstone was laid on February 12, 1894.

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From then on, the educational work assumed such proportions that Waddell himself wrote: ''She is an honor to the American name; and by whatever point of view its standards are considered, it will have few rivals anywhere. Dr. Lane has introduced the Bible into the school, and into every department; she is an active and valued part of the advertisement. The College will be of value as an outgrowth of the present situation. All men in the country will be most anxious for the growth of work beyond parochial schools."

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At the end of 1893, on the 2nd of November, his wife was taken to another address. A gentle soul, with relative culture, Mary Lenington Waddell, who had inherited a profound Christian feeling from her parents, was undoubtedly one of the greatest stimuli for her husband, despite the short duration of their marriage.

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MISSIONARY

Despite his previous work as a teacher, William Waddell had come to Brazil attracted by the missions. His dream was to evangelize and, although in the magisterium he rendered great help to the missionaries' work, the voice of the fields never ceased to sound in his heart. It sounded bland at first. He spoke aloud and cried later.

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At the end of 1896, he undertook a trip to Bahia. The white cornfields ready to be harvested, which his eyes could contemplate there, fascinated him and sent him shouts of challenge.

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In that state, Pinkerton, Finley and Kolb had already, in recent times, made a relatively deep penetration, leaving, as milestones of their passage, several converts and even several preaching points. Rev. Chamberlain, appointed by the Presbytery of Rio de Janeiro. An idea of ​​the fecundity of the soil, Chamberlain himself gives, in the reports he prepared for the synods of 1894 and 1897: but heeding the errand of the Synod, I sought to fulfill the ministry of an evangelist in regions beyond. To this end, I was absent for several months on long journeys through the interior of Bahia, leaving the priests in charge of the services in the city of Bahia (Salvador), and a group of young men, fervent believers, from those of the church in Cachoeira. These trips revealed such an interesting state of mind among the inhabitants of the interior that, when I found myself relieved of the task of pastoral work in the said churches by the return of Rev. JB Kolb of the United States of America, I dedicated myself to the work of evangelization in the interior regions of Bahia, visiting the important squares accessible by railroads, extending, as far as my strength allowed me,

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"In no city that I visited was the mayor's office denied me the use of the Jury's room, a very significant fact, of the opportunity that must be ardently embraced by us to supply the word while it's day. The night comes.

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This first missionary contact would lead Waddell to temporarily abandon Mackenzie.

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During the visit, he met Laura Chamberlain, daughter of the old missionary, who since 1894 had worked at the "City School" in Salvador. He married her on January 12, 1897, in Feira de Santana, bringing her for a brief stay at Mackenzie College.

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In 1899, Waddell requested his transfer to the field of the "Igreja da Bahia" (Salvador), starting to reside, then, in the capital of Bahia.

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So he started plowing those fields in the company of his brother and mother. Laura, Rev. Pierce Chamberlain, and Diocleto Simões Ferreira, who had been, for some reason, excluded from the Church and whom Waddell had seen fit to restore communion. From then on, itinerant trips to the interior intensified.

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At that time, the missionaries visited the small town of São Felix, where they carried out fruitful work of evangelization. In 1900, William Waddell started the temple of the Church of Salvador. For the next 4 years, he devoted himself to his pastorate and traveling.

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In 1905, he moved to Cachoeira, where he was born. Laura devoted herself to teaching at the "Girl's School"

On one of his evangelization journeys, he felt "immensely attracted by the Palmeiras countryside". It was a tiny village, but it was located in an extremely strategic location: in the geographic center of a prosperous region, which could later be transformed into an intellectual and spiritual center. He tried to acquire land there for the foundation of a new school. Religious intolerance, however, led landowners in the region to completely close their doors to work. This did not discourage him, however. He immediately turned his eyes to the nearby village of Ponte Nova. There is a pleasant corner.

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On the banks of the Utinga River, he acquired the place he had dreamed of and initially the "little school" that he would later transform into Colégio Ponte Nova. The foundation took place in 1906. It was another work destined to immortalize itself in patriotic evangelism.

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Based in Ponte Nova, where he would remain until 1914, Waddell began to divide himself again between the ministry and the teaching profession. He did both jobs. He continued to visit nearby churches. Cachoeira, Palmares, Cabeças, Lavras, and countless other cities became his field. It was years of intensive work.

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Around 1913, he idealized a missionary expedition to the center of the country. A man of great vision, Waddell already felt the need to penetrate the Brazilian countryside. He knew the value that would represent for national evangelization the fact that, when the nation's progress began to move inland, there were already formed Churches in the regions that would be affected by such progress. Then, the conquerors of the earth would have to face the Christian mentality, and, overcoming the environment, they would be overcome by the Spirit. The expedition departed from Salvador. It was headed by the newly arrived Rev. Franklin Graham, who completed an extensive journey, establishing the landmarks of Christianity in the states of Goiás, Mato Grosso, and even in regions further away from Bahia.

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The Church of Cuiabá would have originated from this excursion.

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Speaking of the broad vision with which Waddell was endowed, the Rev. Phillip Landes says:

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"It was he who gave the shout of TOWARDS THE WEST. He foresaw that progress would soon reach all the frontiers of Brazil, and he tried to open the eyes of the mission to this aspect. That purpose led me and my wife to work in those fields. Waddell could see the future. If I had to put a nickname on him, I'd call him the missionary statesman ."

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During the missionary work, he could always feel the benevolent presence of his second wife, d. Laura. A dedicated Christian teacher with a sweet soul, she learned very early to feel how the country people felt and to live as they lived. These qualities, allied to "an unparalleled desire, which had pursued her since her school days, to see Brazil grow in fundamentally Christian progress", led her to become an efficient worker and stimulus for her missionary husband. During her pastorate in Cachoeira, she had already taught at the "Girl's School". Afterward, she taught at the Ponte Nova College, cooperating decisively in the evangelization of the place. Her skill in dealing with the countryman was one of the causes of the success of the work.

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SCHOOL

The Ponte Nova school was founded due to the lack of a sufficient number of workers for the region. Waddell's plan was to prepare professors who, in turn, would be used in the preparation of others, thus unleashing a veritable wave of culture and Christianity in those sertaneja lands.

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Once the school started, the "self-help" system, then in vogue in North America, was adopted for students. Students only paid an annual fee of 50,000 réis, with expenses in excess of this to be covered by their own work.

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In the beginning, there were few rough constructions, which were suitable, at the same time, for boarding schools, classrooms, and teachers' residences. The work, however, prospered. Today, the school has large and proper buildings for its operation. In 1927, I. Graham built the "Waddell Pavilion".

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Eight years later, the largest school building in those regions was erected: "The Bixler Pavilion".

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The note, however, that is most distinguished in the college today, is the "Grace Memorial Hospital", which is built there as a refuge for the suffering sertanejo. Wood envisioned it in 1916, and made it a reality in just a few years, with the help of Reese and other tireless workers.

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Its normal school was made official in 1936 and, in 1939, its first class graduated with a diploma recognized by the government. Progress followed, one after the other, year after year,

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The great personalities, who were formed on the banks of Utinga, are spread throughout Brazil today. There are many. Difficult to list them. Some, however, can be mentioned. These are just a few of those that make up the great flocks of true human eagles that were generated and raised there, in that humble and simple nest: Paulo Freire climbed the skies of national politics; he is now a federal deputy for the state of Minas Gerais. Alexandrina Passos and Eulália Alcântara are dedicated teachers and valiant workers. Adauto and Othon Dourado are the most representative figures in the Presbyterian scene in Brazil.

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Élson Castro is now the director of the school.

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And what about others...

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SAO PAULO AGAIN

In early 1914, Waddell returned to São Paulo. On March 5, he was elected president of Mackenzie College. The college, however, was beginning to become impractical for one of his dreams: the special preparation of candidates for the Ministry. A new school began to form in his fertile mind. The occasion, however, was not propitious: first of all, he needed to attend to Mackenzie's needs. He limited himself to planning it and paving the way for its foundation.

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The following year, the Federation of Evangelical Schools was organized, of which all "the institutes and colleges of the Church" became a part. In 1927, he left Mackenzie's presidency and, on July 1 of the same year, he was elected its President Emeritus.

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Henceforth there would be nothing to prevent him from starting the new school.

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JMC

It had been a few years since Mackenzie College had acquired a farm at Km 32 of the Estrada de Ferro Sorocabana. There were more than 40 bushels located in a gentle valley, between small mountains of the Cordillera del Mar. Below, right at the confluence of the hills, stretched endless kilometers, the bed of Sorocabana. From one of its sides, in the opposite direction and with a morbid languor, ran the Jordão stream. On the other, a steep slope and, a little further on, a small swamp.

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It was there that he devoted himself to installing another "eagles' nest", skilfully built, straw by straw, by the statesman of Landres. Three rude houses were the starting point. Others, also rude and humble, would follow them over the years.

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After the first preparations, classes began. Thus, "on February 8, 1928, the Rev. Dr. William A. Waddell, Rev. and Mrs. CR Harper, Rev., and Messrs. Terêncio Vitorino, Eduardo Pereira de Magalhães and Tuffy Elias, for the opening of classes at the university course José Manuel da Conceição". These last three were the first students, the others, the first masters.

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A brief history of the life of Rev. José Manuel da Conceição and the foundation of the American School, and a prayer, uttered by Waddell, moments after the singing of hymn 26 of Psalms and Hymns, sealed the brief foundation ceremony and definitively consecrated the work of God.

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In the years that followed, new waves of students arrived. João Euclydes Pereira and Francisco Alves were among the first groups. They came from the Minas Gerais province, which would later send other of its noble sons. Today, one is vice president of the Supreme Council of the Independent Presbyterian Church; the other is an eminent theologian and professor at the seminary in Campinas. From Bahia, among others, came Adauto Dourado and José Dias, and Eudes Férrer came from Mato Grosso. Goiás, Santa Catarina, Paraná, and Rio Grande do Sul also sent distinguished students. Almost all states of the Federation were represented. São Paulo par excellence. Aretino Matos , Daily France, Renato Teles, Fernando Buonaduce. Today, they are all dedicated teachers and ministers; are the mainstays of homeland evangelism.

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Currently, JMC has about two hundred students. Its director is Olson Pemberton, Jr, who for many years was a missionary in the south of the country. Its teachers, mostly former students, are Renato and Maria Elza Teles, Fernando Buonaduce, Jean Pemberton, João Euclydes Pereira, João, and Queila Faustini, Joaquim and Yolanda Machado, Josué and Samuel Xavier, Maria Block Cruz and Floyd Gilbert.

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100 YEARS LATER

This, in short, is the story of William A. Waddell. He was a man of courage, a fervent Christian, and a profound intellectual: he was one of "the mighty men of David". His work, he lived it at the service of a people that was not his, in a homeland that was not his.

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Today, after a century has passed since his birth in Bethel, we students and teachers of this teaching house, fruits of his work and love, lift our heads to the heavens, pay homage due to true Heroes, thanking him for God his coming, and we pray others...