Born: Belmont County, Ohio, November 10, 1851.
Died: Peoria, Illinois, March 2, 1922.

Isaac J. Spencer, the subject of this sketch, was born in Belmont county, Ohio, and was reared upon a farm. At the age of eleven, on account of the death of his father and two older brothers, the management of the farm devolved upon him and his grief-burdened mother. They were successful in their business and when, eight years later, he decided to quit the farm and to prepare himself for the ministry of the gospel, a wealthy and worldly old uncle wept to think that so good a farmer would degenerate into a preacher.

After receiving such instruction as could be obtained, at the point of a hickory switch, in the "White Oak Grove" schoolhouse, one mile from his home, he attended Hillsdale College in Michigan for two sessions and afterward taught for the same length of time in the public schools.

The ministry of the gospel was chosen after much prayerful deliberation and in the face of tempting inducements to become an educated land-owner and farmer. He had an idea, then, that a very useful field lay before the scientific and expert agriculturalist. He had joined the Methodist Episcopal church, at an early age, going to the mourners' bench, and later into his mother's barn to pour out his soul in prayer for some token of forgiveness and acceptance at the hands of the heavenly Father. Having become convinced, when teaching school, that nothing but an immersion in the name of Christ answered to the scriptural act of baptism and that only repentant believers were scriptural subjects of the ordinance, he left the Methodist fold and united with the congregation of Disciples of Christ in Morristown, Ohio. Later he was ordained by that congregation as an evangelist. Before he left the Methodist denomination he preached one sermon at the request of his uncle, Rev. Jesse Van Law, a devout and gifted Methodist minister. His text was Nehemiah 4:6: "So we built the wall, and all the wall was joined together unto half the height thereof; for the people had a mind to work."

After spending two weeks in conference with his esteemed uncle he determined to take his uncle's advice and enter Bethany College, from which institution he graduated with honors in 1875, delivering the valedictory of his class. Later his Alma Mater conferred upon him the degree of LL.D.

His first regular pastorate was with the First Christian church in Bellaire, Ohio, with which he has held four evangelistic meetings in which there were many conversions. A Sunday-school address he had delivered led to his engagement as the minister for this church. He was called from Bellaire to the First Christian church, in Baltimore. He spent two years as pastor of that congregation, during which time the church was strengthened by many new members. During his brief ministry in Baltimore, he had the privilege of co-operating with Dwight L. Moody, for four months, in a very successful series of gospel meetings. Mr. Moody's simple, scriptural method of preaching produced a profound impression upon Dr. Spencer.

He was married in 1878 to Miss Louise Pendleton, of Louisa County, Virginia, a daughter of Dr. Philip B. Pendleton, and a niece of Dr. William E. Pendleton, then, president of Bethany College.

Dr. Spencer's health failed him in the Monumental City and he went South, occupying J. S. Lamar's pulpit in Augusta, Georgia, during the autumn and winter of 1880, during the absence of Mr. Lamar in New York. Both Mr. Lamar and Mrs. Emily Tubman urged him to consent to become the pastor of the First church, in Augusta; but he had accepted a call to Clarksville, Tennessee, and refused to allow himself to be considered by the congregation as the successor of Mr. Lamar. From Clarksville he moved to Virginia, and, in addition to preaching every Sunday, was for nine years the editor of the Missionary Weekly. The journal grew in circulation, especially in the East and South. Later, when Dr. Spencer's health was fully restored, and the paper was published by a stock company, in Richmond, Virginia, he accepted a call to Winchester, Kentucky, where for two years he enjoyed a very happy and successful ministry. Since the beginning of his pastorate with the Winchester congregation he was instru mental in adding more than four hundred to the number of Disciples of Christ in that city.

From Winchester he went to the Broadway Christian church, in Louisville and after a short, but fruitful pastorate there, accepted a call to the Central Christian church, in Lexington, Kentucky, which he had served for twenty-three successive years on the 31st day of December, 1917.

He is a trustee of Hamilton College, a curator of Transylvania College, a director of the National Board of Ministerial Relief, a member of the National Commission on Christian Union, a director of the Christian Board of Publication and served for fifteen years as a member of the Executive Committee of the Foreign Christian Missionary Society. In 1913 he made a three months' tour of Palestine and the Orient, through the kind courtesy of the Central Christian church to which he ministers.

He is the father of four children, one son and three daughters. Mrs. Spencer has been his intelligent, efficient and beloved helpmeet, especially gifted as a lifelong Bible teacher and Christian worker.

During 1915 the Central Christian Church dedicated a new educational building of three stories, more than forty classrooms and segregated departments and redecorated and improved its splendid auditorium. The plant is now supposed to be worth approximately $125,000.

Dr. Spencer is an expository preacher. His sermons are richly freighted with Bible quotations. From these he draws his lessons, which are enforced with an earnestness that carries conviction to many hearers. He unites the qualities of a pastor with those of an evangelist, and therefore he believes in preaching the simple gospel in its facts, conditions and promises, and as a consequence, his is always a growing church.