The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 4

V. Ohio College President Maintains Premillennial Positions

Out in southeastern Ohio, Prof. J. P. WEETHEE, ²⁵ president uniting with the Congregational Church, he was graduated from Bowdoin with a B.A., and received his M.A. from Brown University in 1810. Through the study of Greek he became convinced that sprinkling was not valid baptism, and so was buried in baptism. A revival led him into the ministry. Ordained in 1811, he taught successfully in Maine, Massachusetts, and at Washington, Pennsylvania, from 1814-1839. At the request of the Virginia Education Society he became president of Rector College at Pruntytown, now West Virginia, where he served from 1839-1851. He was declared to be a good administrator, and during the ten years of his presidency the institution grew in usefulness and influence. Dr. Wheeler was loved by his students. Following his death the college declined rapidly, and by the time of the Civil War had ended its career of Beverly College in the little town of Beverly, under Cumberland Presbyterian sponsorship, expressed his belief in the pre-millennial advent and the literal first resurrection and judgment in a letter to Joshua V. Himes, dated March 17, 1843. He likewise declared that, having long discarded the idea of a spiritual millennium, he had now—rejected the popular position on the literal return of the Jews and was active in publicly presenting his convictions on the second coming in neighboring towns over the week ends between his major administrative duties at Beverly. One expression is indicative of his entire position: “The last sands are dropping from the glass of time; the great time—bell is about to toll the hour of midnight.” ²⁶ In Weethee’s chief work, The Coming Age (issued in 1884), he still generally follows the British Literalists, although he avoids future specific dating. PFF4 375.3