James Brainerd Taylor

James Brainerd Taylor, (1801–1829) was a Presbyterian minister and missionary and the primary founder of what is now the Princeton Christian Fellowship at Princeton University. He was a highly influential voice during the Second Great Awakening, bringing or winning back many thousands of people to the Christian faith.

Early life

Taylor was born on April 15, 1801, the son of Colonel Jeremiah Taylor of Middle-Haddam, Connecticut, and Mother, Ann Brainerd Taylor. Both his parents were highly respected members of the Protestant Episcopal Church. Taylor was a cousin of David Brainerd, a noted Presbyterian minister and missionary to the Native Americans among the Delaware Indians of New Jersey.

Ministry Taylor arrived at the Lawrenceville School in New Jersey on January 13, 1820, and undertook a preparatory course for entering college. Upon his graduation in 1826, he entered the Yale Theological Seminary. After an initial entrance examination Taylor was examined and admitted a sophomore at the college of Nassau Hall, in Princeton, New Jersey where he studied for three years.

James' older brother, Knowles, arranged for James to find employment as a clerk in the store of a merchant in New-York, during which time life in a big city proved distracting and not in accord with his moral values. Subsequently, he was growing disenchanted with his faith, which did not go unnoticed by his two elder brothers who attentively watched over him giving him spiritual council and guidance. After regaining his faith James decided to attend the ministry of the Rev. Dr. John B. Romeyn, co-founder of the Princeton Theological Seminary, pastor of the church then in Cedar-street, New-York; and there, at the age of fifteen, publicly professed his faith in Christ.

In 1828 Taylor became licensed to preach by the Middlesex Association at East Haddam to hold services in the Haddam territory At this time his health was beginning to worsen where he resolved to spend the winter at the Theological Seminary in Richmond, Virginia. Taylor died of tuberculosis at a relatively young age on March 29, 1829, in his home in Virginia, at the age of 27.

Legacy

Taylor was known for his fervent preaching and as the primary founder of what is now the Princeton Christian Fellowship at Princeton University. .

Taylor admired the writings of John Wesley, the principle founder of the Methodist Church and recorded his impressions of his life and works in his memoirs: In one definitive entry Taylor writes:

So impressed with Taylor's vocational commitment, John and Benjamin Rice subsequently published a journal article in 1934 of taylor's short lived missionary life

Charles Grandison Finney, a Presbyterian minister and leader in the Second Great Awakening, said of Taylor's memoirs: