Bernard H. Nadal
Bernard H. Nadal [1]
a distinguished minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church, was born in Talbot County, Maryland, March 27, 1812. He was converted in 1832; and after the necessary preparatory studies, which he pursued in private, he was admitted as a preacher in the old Baltimore Conference in 1835. His subsequent fields of labor as a pastor were Luray Circuit, Virginia; St. Mary's Circuit, Maryland; Bladensburg, Maryland; City Station, Baltimore; Lewisburgh, Virginia; Lexington, Virginia; Columbia Street, Baltimore; Carlisle, Pennsylvania; High Street, Baltimore; City Station, Baltimore; Foundry Church, Washington; Sands Street, Brooklyn; First Church, New Haven; Wesley Chapel, Washington; Trinity Church, Philadelphia. During his entire pastoral life he was a close student, and made up for the absence of an early college training by extraordinary application afterwards. In 1848, while stationed at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, he graduated at Dickinson College, having pursued his studies in the college in connection with his pastoral work. During a part of his pastorate in Carlisle he taught a class in the college. In 1849 he was appointed agent of Baltimore Female College; but as it was thought inexpedient at that time to prosecute the agency, he consented to supply for that year the pulpit of an Independent Church in Baltimore. From 1854 to 1857 he was professor in Indiana Asbury University. In the latter year he returned to the Baltimore Conference, and became presiding elder of Roanoke District in Western Virginia. This was a time when the great waves of agitation on the subject of slavery were rolling fiercely over the Border States. Dr. Nadal entered vigorously into the contest, and boldly and successfully defended the position of his Church and Conference on the subject. By his sermons and addresses he exerted a marked influence in favor of the national government during the war of the rebellion. He enjoyed the friendship of president Lincoln, and poured forth in an able discourse his sorrow at his death. In 1867 he accepted the professorship of historical theology in the Drew Theological Seminary at Madison, and after the decease of Dr. M'Clintock (q.v.) he was also acting president of the institution; but he was removed by death shortly afterwards, June 20, 1870. Dr. Nadal was an able and forcible preacher, and maintained to the last a high rank in the pulpit. Many of his discourses on special occasions were printed and widely read, and exhibited a high order of pulpit eloquence. He was also well known as a vigorous and polished writer, and contributed very largely to the periodical literature of his time. He was one of the editorial staff of The Methodist, whose editor, Dr. Crooks, said of him that "in writing he was almost without a peer in the American Methodist Church." Dr. Nadal's thorough scholarship, fine social qualities, and his ability to communicate instruction, made him an efficient and popular instructor, and his professional career in both the institutions which he served was marked by enthusiasm, energy, and success. A volume of his Sermons (entitled New Life Dawning, etc.) was published under the editorship of Prof. Buttz, with a Memoir prefixed (N.Y. 1873, 12mo).
