James Wilkinson Dale
James Wilkinson Dale [1]
a Presbyterian minister, was born at Odessa, Delaware, October 16, 1812. He received his preparatory education in Philadelphia under Mr. Cleanthus Felt; graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1831, and began the study of law in Philadelphia. In the fall of 1832 he entered Andover Theological Seminary; joined the middle class in Princeton Theological Seminary in the fall of 1833; the next year returned to the seminary at Andover, and graduated in 1835. He was licensed by Andover Association, April 16, visited the churches of Long Island, and those of eastern Massachusetts the year following, presenting the missionary cause, and was ordained at Dracut, August 29, 1837, as an appointee of the American Board of Commissioners for. Foreign Missions; but the financial condition of the society preventing it from sending him abroad, he studied medicine in the University of Pennsylvania, graduating April 6, 1838; and supplying at the same time the Fifth and the Fifteenth Presbyterian churches in that city. He was an agent of the Pennsylvania Bible Society, and labored for it throughout the state for the next seven years; was pastor of Ridley and Middletown churches, Delaware County, from May 17, 1846, to April 8, 1858; at Media, in the same county, from October 26, 1866, to August 3, 1871; and at Wayne from September 28, 1871, to October 23, 1876. He died at Media, April 19, 1881. Dr. Dale published many works, the chief of which are a masterly series on Baptism (Phila. 1867-1874, 4 volumes, 8vo), in opposition to the views of Baptists. Prof. A.C. Kendrick reviewed the volume entitled Classic Baptism, in the Baptist Quarterly, April 1869; Prof. Broadus his Patristic and Christie Baptism, in the same Review. 1875, page 245; and Dr. Whitsitt gave a general reply to Dr. Dale's works in the Baptist Quarterly, April 1877. See also the scholarly and valuable book by David B. Ford, entitled, Studies on the Baptismal Question, including a Review of Dr. Dal (Bost. 1879, 8vo).
