B. B. TYLER.

      Benjamin Bushrod Tyler was born on a farm in Macon county, Illinois, five or six miles east of Decatur, April 9, 1840. His father was John W. Tyler, a native of Fayette county, Kentucky, and his mother was Sarah Roney, a native of Oldham county, Kentucky. The elder Tyler was a minister in the Baptist church, a school teacher, a farmer, and an all round business man. When Alexander Campbell began the publication of the Christian Baptist, Mr. Tyler began to read after the distinguished "Reformer." He found himself in sympathy with his idea that the way to peace, and union, and victory, was by a return to the simple, practical, spiritual religion of the New Testament. As there was no association of Baptist churches in Illinois, Mr. Tyler enjoyed great freedom in his ministerial work. His converts were baptized into Christ on a confession of Jesus as the Son of God, and the Savior of man. When congregations were organized they were called only Churches of Christ.

      It thus came to pass that B. B. Tyler was brought up in the faith. His parents, as to religion were simply, and only, disciples of Christ.

      The thirty-first, day of July, 1859, he confessed Christ. The following day, the first of August, he was baptized by his father, in the Sangamon river--a stream of water about midway between the family residence and Decatur.

      His chief ambition now was to do good. He was at the parting of the ways. A vocation in life must be selected. His mother had brought him up to think that he would be a preacher. This he desired to be above anything else; but, he said: "I do not know enough to preach--I am not good enough." What then? The vocation of the teacher presented itself to him as next to that of a [468] preacher in the opportunity it afforded of doing good. But, first of all, an education must be obtained. The tenth day of September, 1859, he entered Eureka College, Eureka, Illinois. The Civil War interrupted his college course. Only two years were spent in college. His father's income was, in part, from Kentucky. This was cut off by the civil strife. J. W. Houston, state evangelist, for Illinois, visited Decatur, in the prosecution of his work, during the summer of 1861. He requested the young man to speak in his meeting. His effort received the commendation of the evangelist. The next Lord's day, at the request of Mr. Houston, he preached at Litchfield. Illinois, in place of the evangelist, who had an appointment to begin a protracted meeting there at that time. Three persons confessed Christ the first Lord's day. Mr. Houston spent one evening in the meeting and passed on in the prosecution of his work as general superintendent of missions in the state. He returned to Litchfield at the end of the week. There were eleven candidates for baptism. This decided the life work of B. B. Tyler. He was employed as evangelist in the counties of Montgomery and Macoupin, Illinois, for one year, on a salary of $240. Three hundred persons were added to the churches. The Illinois State Missionary Convention met at Eureka. During the convention, September 4, 1861, B. B. Tyler was formally set apart to the work of the ministry by prayer and the laying on of the hands of the eldership.

      While he was in college he became acquainted with Miss Sarah Burton, second daughter of James R. Burton, a prosperous merchant in the village and one of the pillars of the Church of Christ. The marriage of Miss Burton and Mr. Tyler was solemnized by Dr. J. M. Allen, in Eureka, December 25, 1862. This union has been especially fortunate in every way. Miss Burton has been for more than forty years an ideal wife for a busy preacher.

      Until the winter of 1864-5 Mr. Tyler was engaged in evangelistic work in his native state. He became minister of the Church of Christ, Charleston, Illinois, in December, 1864. He removed to Terre Haute, Indiana, December, 1869. From Terre Haute he went to Frankfort, Kentucky, where he began work as minister January 1, 1872. He entered the ministry of the First church, Louisville, Ky., May 1, 1876. The first day of October, 1883, he began work with the Church of Christ on W. 56th street, New York, leaving there October 1, 1896.

      Thirteen full years were spent in New York. During this period he served as a member of the Board of Managers of the American Bible Society, on the committee on Versions, as President of the Chautauqua Union of New York City, as President of the Christian Endeavor Union of New York and vicinity. He served as Secretary and Treasurer of "The Peoples' Municipal League," "The Ministerial Arm of the League," during which time he was in correspondence with every minister of religion in New York, Hebrew and Christian, Protestant and Catholic. In 1891 Drake University conferred on Mr. Tyler the degree of Doctor of Divinity.

      For ten years he, wrote every week for the Christian Standard, "The New York Letter." Since then he has been engaged as a writer on The Christian Evangelist.

      In 1882 he presided over the meeting of the American Christian Missionary Society, in the old Main Street church in Lexington, Kentucky. During his residence in Kentucky he was, one year, president of the Kentucky Sunday School Union. In 1880 he was sent to London, England as a delegate to a Sunday school Convention. Upon his return he was elected a member of the Executive Committee of the International Sunday School Convention. While in this position he secured a representative of the Church of Christ on the International Sunday School Lesson Committee. He named Isaac Errett. When the International Sunday School Committee met in Pittsburg, in 1890, he was made a member of the Lesson Committee in place of Isaac Errett, deceased. At the International Sunday School Convention in Denver, 1902, he was elected president for a term of three years. Mr. and Mrs. Tyler spent the winter of 1902-3 in Egypt and the Holy Land.

      When he gave up his ministry in New York he expected to spend the remainder of his life in what he calls "Didactic Evangelism." He held meetings in Kansas City, Cleveland, DesMoines, Quincey, Ill., Mount Sterling, Ky., Tacomah, Washington, San Diego, California, Decatur, Illinois, Troy, New York, New York City, Washington, D. C., Irvington, and Vincennes, Indiana, McKinney, Texas, Colorado Springs, Colo., Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Springfield, Brockton and Boston, Mass., and Lexington, Kentucky. Mrs. Tyler, who [469] accompanied her husband in this campaign, failing in health, in October, 1900, he located in Denver, with the South Broadway church. He thinks that in Denver he is doing the best work of his life. His health is perfect, his work is a perpetual joy, and he says he was never in such demand as he is now, in the sixty-fourth year of his age.

[COC 468-470]