SIMONTON
SIMONTON,
Rev. Ashbel Green
Ashbel Green Simonton (January 20, 1833 – December 9, 1867) was a North-American Presbyterian minister and a missionary, the first missionary to settle a Protestant church in Brazil, Igreja Presbiteriana do Brasil (Presbyterian Church of Brazil.
Simonton was born in West Hanover, southern Pennsylvania, and spent his childhood on the family's estate, named Antigua. His parents were the doctor and politician William Simonton (elected twice to Congress) and Mrs. Martha Davis Snodgrass (1791–1862), daughter of James Snodgrass, a Presbyterian minister, who was the pastor of the local church. Ashbel was named after Ashbel Green, president of New Jersey College. He was one among nine brothers and sisters. The boys (William, John, James, Thomas, and Ashbel) used to call themselves the "quinque fratres" (five brothers). One of his brothers, James Snodgrass Simonton, four years older than Ashbel, was also a missionary to Brazil, spending three years as a teacher in the city of Vassouras, in the state of Rio de Janeiro. One of his four sisters, Elizabeth Wiggins Simonton (1822–1879), also called Lille, married the Presbyterian minister and missionary Alexander Latimer Blackford, a colleague of Simonton in Brazil and the co-founder of the Igreja Presbiteriana do Brasil.
In 1846, the family moved to Harrisburg, where Simonton finished high school. After graduating in New Jersey College (the future Princeton University), in 1852, he spent about a year and a half in Mississippi, working as a teacher for young boys. Disappointed with the lack of attention by the local authorities for teaching, Simonton went back to Pennsylvania and tried to become a lawyer, although by that time many people would advise him to become a minister, something to which his mother had consecrated him at his birth. In 1855 he had a deep religious experience during a revival and went to the Princeton Seminary. In his first term, he heard in the seminary's chapel a sermon by Dr. Charles Hodge, one of his teachers, which moved him to the missionary work in foreign lands. He was ordained in 1859 and arrived in Brazil on August 12, the same year.
Soon after organizing the Presbyterian church in Brazil (January 12, 1862), Simonton spent his vacation in the United States, where he married Helen Murdoch, in Baltimore. They came back to Brazil in July 1863. In the next year they became parents to Helen Murdoch Simonton, Simonton’s only daughter. Besides the Presbyterian Church, Simonton created a newspaper, Imprensa Evangélica (1864), along with a presbytery (1865) and a seminary (1867).
In 1867, feeling ill, Simonton went to São Paulo, where his sister and brother-in-law were raising his daughter. Simonton died on December 9, 1867, victim of a tropical disease named "febre biliosa".
By: Rev. Hernandes Dias Lopes
The Presbyterian Church of Brazil is celebrating its 100th and 60th anniversary this year. Today we are present in all states of the Feder-ation and we already have more than two thousand churches with approximately one million members. The Presbyterian Church of Brazil is a church committed to evangelization, education and social action. It is a mainstay of homeland Protestantism. Now, let us know a little about our pioneer missionary, Ashbel Green Simonton. He was an idealistic young man. He left the United States in the glorious times of a great revival and came to Brazil in 1859 to plant the Presbyterian Church. Let us see some important aspects in its history:
Your family
He was the ninth child, the youngest, in a pious family. His father was an elder, doctor and politician, having twice been elected deputy to the National Congress. Simonton was consecrated to the ministry of the Word in infant baptism..
Your call to ministry
On October 14, 1855, after hearing a sermon by Dr. Charles Hodge on the task of the church, he felt called to the missions. He took a theology course at Princeton Seminary in New Jersey. After completing it, he decided to travel to Brazil. When someone questioned the fact that he dedicated himself to a country still poor and plagued by various endemic diseases, he replied: “The only security is in submitting to the will and divine purposes. Under the direction of God, the place of danger is the place of safety and, without his presence, no shelter is safe ”.
Your marriage
Upon learning of his mother's illness, Simonton left Brazil and returned to the United States. But when she arrived, she had already passed away. Simonton then spent a year in his home country. At that time, he married Helen Murdock. After two months of marriage, he returned to Brazil. On June 19, 1864, nine days after his daughter Helen was born, his lovely wife died.
Your job
The young pioneer left deep and indelible marks in the history of Presbyterianism and national evangelization: a) organized Sunday school on April 22, 1860, with five children, using as textbooks: the Bible, the Catechism and the Pilgrim, by John Bunyan ; b) organized the First Presbyterian Church in Rio de Janeiro on January 12, 1862; c) created the first newspaper - A Imprensa Evangélica, on November 5, 1862; d) organized the first presbytery, the Presbytery of Rio de Janeiro, on December 17, 1865, when former priest José Manoel da Conceição was ordained to the sacred ministry; e) created the first theological seminary on May 14, 1867.
Your death
On December 9, 1867, at the age of 34, he died in São Paulo of yellow fever, this heroic young explorer. His sister, the wife of Rev. Blackford, asked him, in his last flashes of conscience, "What will become of the believers and the work you are leaving?" He replied: “God will raise someone up to take my place. He will do his job with his own instruments. We can only lean on the eternal arms and be quiet ”.
SEE BLACKFORD AND DABNEY