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FROM THE BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY OF PRIMITIVE OR OLD SCHOOL BAPTIST MINISTERS BY DAVID MONTGOMERY AND MARK GREEN:
ELDER JAMES ALVIN MONSEES
FROM “THE BAPTIST WITNESS” 1961: Elder James Alvin Monsees was born in Davidson County, N. C., August 31, 1883, the son of Deacon Henry and Mrs. Louise Virginia Monsees.
On account of poverty and poor school advantages, it was through great difficulties that this minister obtained an education. He finished the free schools and one year in high school in North Carolina, after which he made use of every available opportunity to pick up whatever information he could secure from books, travel and observation, and entered the law school at Mercer University, in Macon, Ga., where he graduated in June 1913.
In the spring of 1902, he began to feel the sting of sin and realized more plainly than ever its awful consequences, whereupon he sought solitude and, in his awkward way, as he many times expressed it, tried to seek the Lord in earnest, hoping thereby to not only appease the wrath of God but to find relief to a burdened and guilty heart. He frequently refers to the time when he sought an opportunity to pray in silence, as he thought for the last time, as he faced what he thought to be certain impending death, when, to his surprise and joy, the heavens opened up and glory shined into his soul, when the voice of Jesus said, “I am your Saviour, and have borne your sins all the days of old.” Immediatelyfollowing this experience there came the impression to “Go ye thereforeand preach the gospel to every creature.” This impression killed his joy assuddenly as it was created. However, these impressions were pungent andapparently irresistible, and while the experience was still new and fresh and likefire shut up in his bones, he went before the church at Pine, N. C., on the third Sunday in September, 1903, about three weeks after he was permitted to claim a hope with Jesus, and was baptized the same day, together with his oldest brother and another brother, who had joined previously, by Elder W. T. Broadway.
On Saturday before the second Sunday in November, about seven weeks after his baptism, he made his first effort to speak in the name of Jesus. He hadonly a few words to say, but the entire church seemed to be impressed with his earnestness and gave him liberty to exercise his gift wherever God in His providence had cast his lot. He was placed suddenly in the field, and began filling appointments among the churches. There were several small, destitute churches in the bounds of the Abbott’s Creek Association, and he began visiting these churches on their regular meetings, and filling special appointments through the week at other churches and in the homes and wherever an open door was found. There was a growing and incessant demand from the churches for the ordination of Elder Monsees, and accordingly a presbytery was called in to confer upon him the full functions of the ministry, which was attended to on the second Sunday in November 1904.
He has baptized between three and four hundred people and married nearly as many couples, and has gone far and near to preach the funerals of the dear ones who have passed on. In 1907 Elder Monsees moved from North Carolina to Macon, Georgia, where he has been engaged in the service of churches ever since.
For three and one-half years, he lived in Atlanta, but continued to serve the church at Elizabeth, Macon, GA, which he has served for the past twenty years. He has seen this church grow from a membership of 16 to about 70. The church at Bethany, Atlanta, was constituted in 1926, with a membership of 25, who had drawn their letters mostly from East Atlanta Church. They immediately called for his services, and he has been the only pastor of this church. The Lord has greatly blessed his efforts here.
In one year, he baptized twenty-three members, and the church at one time numbered 120 members. On the 12th day of December 1917, Elder Monsees was married to Miss Onie McGee, of Macon, Ga. At the time of their marriage, his wife was a member of the Missionary Baptist Church and had never heard anOld Baptist sermon before hearing her husband some few months before their marriage. She immediately became interested in the doctrine and principles of the Old Baptist Church, and stated that she had believed those principles for some time but did not know that there was a denomination of people, which believed in and maintained such principles. Accordingly, she went before the church at Elizabeth shortly after they married, was heartily and cheerfully received, and was baptized by her husband.
Elder Monsees passed from this life in 1967. |
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