In her introduction of Harvard Divinity School professor and author Catherine Brekus, Executive Director, Peggy Bendroth praised her award-winning book as one of the most influential current books as voted by church historians.
Professor Brekus introduced our History Matters group to a charismatic teacher, diarist and evangelical disciple. Born 301 years ago, Sarah Osborn was widowed at age 19. Just scraping by during two wars and the British occupation during the Revolution, often on the edge of indigence, this single mother cobbled together a life for herself and her son by baking, sewing and teaching school. Her Calvinist beliefs led her to question her own worthiness and after a dramatic conversion where she was "born again" she devoted her life to teaching and charity.
Sarah's life was consumed by bouts of serious illness and tragedy. Her "heart was not set" when she married a man 30 years her senior (the widow spurned other proposals from non-Christians); he had a breakdown soon after their union and she was left to support him and his children along with her own beloved son. To add to her sorrow, this son died, leaving her haunted by question of his salvation for the rest of her life.
In spite of so much sorrow, Osborn's strong faith attracted a large following in Newport. Her connection to the African community was so strong that at one point she preached to 100 slaves in her home (the town was home to many owners and slaves and Osborn herself was given a slave). Word spread and by the mid 1760's, over 500 people, young men, young women, adults and children, both white and black, met at her house in small groups.
We get to know Osborn through The Nature, Certainty and Evidence of True Christianity: IN A LETTER FROM A GENTLEWOMAN IN RHODE ISLAND[1]. Its subtitle, To ANOTHER, her dear Friend, in great Darkness, Doubt and Concern, of a Religious Nature, opens a window revealing Sarah's own torments.
One of a handful of women whose writings were published during their lifetimes in Colonial America, Osborn was admired and befriended by Reverend Samuel Hopkins whose portrait with red turban hangs in the Library & Archives Reading Room. Hopkins and his wife edited and published a selection of Osborn's memoirs and letters
posthumously.
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Samuel Hopkins in the Reading Room |
[1] Osborn, Sarah. The Nature, Certainty and Evidence of True Christianity: In a Letter from a Gentlewoman in New-England, to Another Her Dear Friend, in Great Darkness, Doubt and Concern of a Religious Nature. : I Cor. 1. 26-31. : N.b. Tho' This Letter Was Wrote in Great Privacy from One Friend to Another ; yet on Representing That by Allowing It to Be Printed, It Wou'd Probably Reach to Many Others in the Like Afflicted Case, and by the Grace of God Be Very Helpful to Them ; the Writer Was at Length Prevailed on to Suffer It-Provided Her Name and Place of Abode Remain Concealed. Boston: Printed for and sold by S. Kneeland, opposite the prison in Queen-Street, 1755.