The Blighted Life of Methuselah
Nashville, Tenn. National Baptist Publishing Board, 1908. 7¾” x 5½”. Green cloth, title gilt. Pp. 114. Very good: tiny tear to bottom edge of one leaf; light spotting to front pastedown and inked former owner's name to rear; just a touch of scattered spotting and one light crease at a leaf's edge.
This is a scarce work of bible interpretation by a noted African American medical doctor from Mobile, Alabama, H. Roger Williams.
Henry Roger Williams graduated from Nashville's Meharry Medical School in 1900 and opened the first Black-owned drugstore in Mobile in 1901. He was the second African American to practice medicine in the town and served in leadership positions with local medical and civic organizations. He was also a published poet; OCLC locates two titles of “Emancipation Day” poems as well as a volume entitled Heart Throbs: Poems of Race Inspiration. Per a news interview with his grandson in 2022, Williams defied the city's order to put the word “colored” on his drugstore's sign, and instead placed a giant picture of himself in the window. The store has a historical marker on the African American Heritage Trail of Mobile, and a local housing project was named in his honor.
In this work's preface, Williams expressed his “earnest hope that this little book may lead some sinner to repent, or arouse some slothful Christian from the spiritual stupor into which so many have fallen.” An extended title page explained the book's purpose:
“A treatise from Genesis v: 27. Showing the many opportunities which Methuselah had for making a Christian record, and how by letting them pass unnoticed for nine hundred and sixty-nine years, he died and was lost. The treatise is to saints and sinners as a warning against neglecting the opportunities that come to them daily for doing something to make the world better for their having lived in it, and clear their own pathway to eternal glory.”
In an introductory chapter, Williams further conveyed his goal “to gather the rays of Scripture truths, and, focusing them through the lens of Reason, by the electrical force of the Holy Spirit, produce a violet X-ray of logical conclusion” as to the fate of the aged Methuselah in the afterlife.
An uncommon work of religious study by a prominent African American doctor and citizen. OCLC shows seven institutions with holdings over two entries. Very good. Item #8160
Price: $1,350.00