14 Facts About Gardiner Spring

Gardiner Spring was an American minister and author.

Gardiner Spring served as pastor of the Brick Presbyterian Church in New York City for 63 years.

Gardiner Spring's parents directed him towards the ministry, which he initially resisted.

Gardiner Spring delivered the valedictory address at the Commencement exercise in 1805.

Gardiner Spring did not then appear to incline toward the Church, and on leaving college pursued the studies of law in the office of Judge Daggett, in New Haven.

Gardiner Spring was admitted to the Bar in 1808, and commenced practice under favorable auspices, but he subsequently abandoned the profession against the wishes of his wife, whom he married in 1803, and declared his intention of becoming a minister.

Gardiner Spring described the impression the discourse produced as miraculous; he could not restrain from tears, and from that moment he followed the ministry with zeal and piety.

Gardiner Spring spent one year at Andover Theological Seminary, and was ordained in 1809.

Gardiner Spring frequently received calls of higher trust and responsibility, including the presidencies of Dartmouth and Hamilton colleges, but he did not desire to abandon his first field of labor, and during the sixty-three years of his pastoral care of that church he was regarded as second to no preacher in this city.

Gardiner Spring's congregation moved to Murray Hill in 1851, and in the following year he accepted as his associate Rev William Greenough Thayer Shedd.

Gardiner Spring was appointed to the Board of Princeton Theological Seminary in 1814.

Gardiner Spring was a trustee of Lafayette College from 1853 to 1861.

Gardiner Spring famously moved the controversial Gardiner Spring Resolutions, which were adopted by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America in May 1861, and precipitated the creation of the Presbyterian Church in the Confederate States of America and the schism of the Presbyterian Church along regional lines and that lasted from the American Civil War until 1983.

Gardiner Spring was an industrious author, and his works, among others, included:.