Richard Fuller (1804-1876) is the 4th subject in our latest book, A Noble Company, volume 10.

What first attracted me to Richard Fuller was the unusual and evident blessing of God upon his pastoral ministry during the Civil War. In 1847, Fuller left his native South Carolina to become pastor of the Seventh Baptist Church in Baltimore. . . . .Now imagine pastoring not only when there is a War Between the States of your country, but also when your own state is divided over that war. Worse than that, imagine pastoring a church in which some of the members have sons fighting in one army, and others have sons fighting in the opposing army. . . .That’s what Richard Fuller did. That was his task Sunday after Sunday through thirteen tense years before the war, and then week after bloody week during those agonizing and anxious years of the war itself. But most amazing of all is that during more than two decades when the entire nation was torn asunder, and especially during those four years when every emotion in the hearts of parents and wives and sisters and sons and daughters tempted them to harbor bitterness and a divisive spirit, the fellowship of Seventh Baptist Church in Baltimore under the preaching of Richard Fuller not only remained united, it actually grew, from 87 members to an astonishing 1,200. There is much we can learn from the life and preaching of a man like that. --Donald Whitney