Henry Augustus Boardman
Henry Augustus Boardman [1]
a Presbyterian minister, was born at Troy, N. Y., Jan. 9, 1808. He received his preparatory education at the academies of Kinderhook and Troy, and graduated at Yale College in 1829, being the class valedictorian. On. leaving college he engaged in the study of law, but having been converted and become a member of the Second Presbyterian Church in Troy, he entered Princeton Theological Seminary and graduated in 1833. He was licensed by the Presbytery of New York, and ordained by the Third Presbytery of Philadelphia the same year. He was installed as pastor of the Tenth Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia. This was not only his first but his only charge, where he performed. his great life-work of forty-six years with distinguished ability, learning, and fidelity, and from which eminent position of usefulness he could not be drawn away. He was in 1853 elected by the General Assembly professor of pastoral theology in Princeton Seminary, but he declined. to accept. In 1835 he had been elected a director of the seminary, and retained the office until his death. In 1854 he was moderator of the General Assembly.
In May, 1876, he was released from the pastorate and elected "pastor emeritus," which relation he held to the end. of his life. He was appointed chairman of the committee to make arrangements for the Ecumenical Council of the Presbyterian Church, to be held in Philadelphia in September, 1880; but he died June 15 of that year. As a preacher, Dr. Boardman was evangelical and elevated in his thoughts, and pure, simple, and direct in, his style. His published works have been useful to the Church and honorable to his scholarship. They areas follows: The Scripture Doctrine of Original Sin (1839): — Letters to Bishop Doane on the Oxford Tracts (1841): — The Prelatical Doctrine of Apostolical Succession Examined (1844): — The Importance of Religion to the Legal Profession (1849): — The Bible in the Family (1851): — The Bible in the Counting-house, a Course of Lectures to Merchants (1853): — A Discourse on the Low Value set upon Human Life in the United States (eod.): — A Discourse on the American Union: — Eulogium on Daniel Webster: — A Pastor's Counsels: — The Great Question: — The Christian Ministry not a Priesthood. Dr. Boardman has also furnished many articles for religious periodicals. See the N. Y. Observer, June 24, 1880; Necrological Report of Princeton Theological Seminary, 1881, p. 40; Allibone, Dict. of Brit. and Amer. Authors, s.v. (W. P. S.)
