McLearn, Alexander (1832–1907)

Baptist and Seventh Day Baptist minister who briefly became a Seventh-day Adventist educational leader.

Background

McLearn was born on March 9, 1832, in Cable Head East, Prince Edward Island, Canada, to William (1784-1864) and Janette or Jane (1789-1861) MacLaren.¹ His father was a Presbyterian minister. At age 17, McLearn joined the Baptist faith and attended the Prince of Wales College. In 1856, he immigrated to the United States. At age 25 (1861), he went to Massachusetts to study at Newton Theological Seminary where he eventually earned a Doctor of Divinity degree. He first served as pastor at the Baptist Church in Halifax, Massachusetts and later at Middleboro and Granville.²

On August 23, 1859, McLearn married Harriet Coffin (1838-1886), the daughter of James and Elizabeth Coffin, also from Prince Edward Island. In 1861, she was baptized by her husband into the Baptist Church in Halifax. The couple had five children: Henry (b. 1861), Minnie (b. 1863), Etta (b. 1865), Addison (b. 1868), and May (b. 1875). Etta tragically died at only two years old on February 23, 1867.

McLearn relocated to Michigan where he pastored at Manchester for two years, and then for five more years at Dansville. Once his health deteriorated, he moved to Mason, Michigan. While there, he was introduced to the Seventh-day Adventist faith after reading a tract about the Sabbath by Thomas Brown, a Seventh Day Baptist.³ Some of his congregation joined the Seventh-day Adventist Church during the summer of 1879 by profession of faith.⁴ McLearn traced his acceptance of the seventh-day Sabbath to 1880 after which he was unemployed for two years. Since he began work for the denomination in the fall of 1881, his conversion to Adventism may have happened as early as 1879.⁵ Either way, McLearn was affiliated with the Seventh-day Adventist Church around 1880.⁶

Battle Creek College

McLearn attended the Michigan Camp meeting in the summer of 1881 where he met James White. James stated: “Bro. McLearn is a highly educated Christian gentleman. He has made great sacrifices in coming with us. We should be pleased to see him holding a position of importance in the cause.”⁷ With this strong endorsement, right before James died from malaria, McLearn was elected on July 24, 1881, as president of Battle Creek College. In solidarity, McLearn purchased $20 worth of shares in the Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association.⁸ On September 10, 1881, McLearn preached at the Dime Tabernacle about Adventist education.⁹ Then, on September 30, 1881, he was granted ministerial credentials from the Michigan Conference.¹⁰

The new “liberal” and “compromising” policies of McLearn clashed with veteran Adventist educator, Goodloe Harper Bell, almost from the beginning. For his part, Bell felt bullied and stymied.¹¹ Among other things, McLearn allowed male and female students to sit together in his classes, unlike Bell who preferred that they remain segregated.¹² Smith vigorously defended McLearn which in turn provided a backdrop for tensions between him and Ellen White along with a wider debate about inspiration that developed within Adventism during the early 1880s.¹³

At one-point tensions got so heated that tradition maintains that McLearn’s son, Henry, pushed Bell down the stairs.¹⁴ Ultimately, the school closed for the ensuing school year. Ellen White summarized the situation:

I believe when he [McLearn] came to Battle Creek he was determined to do his duty, but students and church members have sacrificed him. I have the most sincere pity for him and his family. I feel sorry indeed for this state of things. Had the church stood right, this state of things would not be. His course toward Brother Bell was not justifiable, and Brother Bell with his sensitiveness has not acted discreetly.¹⁵

Ellen White placed the blame for the conflict upon the spiritual condition of the church in Battle Creek. This tendency to be “flattered by some and condemned by others” created a toxic environment.¹⁶ She added subsequently that McLearn, along with William Gage, “worked directly against the spirit of God” during this crisis. “They treated the warnings of the Spirit of God as a matter of indifference,” focusing upon other people’s wrongs instead of seeking repentance and reconciliation.¹⁷ White was especially incensed at Uriah Smith’s role in the conflict. Smith had been the board chair and, rather than helping the situation, made it worse.¹⁸

Soon thereafter McLearn separated from Adventism and joined the Marion Party, a splinter group of disaffected Adventists in Iowa.¹⁹ In a purported article written for the Sabbath Advocate, according to G. I. Butler, McLearn complained that Adventists:

. . . are taught to stultify their judgment, ignore facts, and destroy their individuality. They are afraid to investigate the Scriptures, lest something will be discovered unfavorable to the positions taken by Mrs. White . . . No man who is known to doubt the Testimonies is allowed to hold any position of trust, nor is he fellowshipped by the elders; and that means the church for the people simply do what they are told. The church polity makes it a hierarchy of a most despotic character…. Indeed a large proportion of the most intelligent of the S. D. Adventist people are perplexed and confused by the glaring inconsistencies of Mrs. White. They feel the demoralizing effect of this horrible nightmare that is destressing and destroying the church, and groan on account of it. There is not a minister in the denomination who feels that he is a free man. If he does not believe the Testimonies, he must either act the hypocrite or walk the plank, crushed under the iron heel of ecclesiastical despotism.²⁰

In McLearn’s obituary, it simply stated that: “His ideas of a college education seemed not to just fit with the [church] authorities there, at that time.”²¹ His time with the Marion Party appears to have been short-lived, and he soon afterward joined the Seventh Day Baptist denomination.

Later Years

By early 1883, the McLearns joined the Seventh Day Baptist Church in Walworth, Wisconsin. He pastored the Milton Church for the next three years “under rather difficult circumstances," including the loss of his wife, Harriet, who died in 1886. He remarried Harriet Evaline (1853-1937) on January 25, 1888. They moved to Rockville, Rhode Island, and pastored the congregation there for nineteen years. Harriet was notable for her involvement in the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). She became a WCTU member in 1887. About a year before he died, they moved to Walworth, Wisconsin,²² where he died March 17, 1907. His grave is situated in the Walworth Cemetery near his two wives.²³

Sources

“Alexander McLearn.” In The Ellen G. White Encyclopedia, edited by Jerry Moon & Denis Fortin, 466. Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald, 2013.

Jones-Grey, Meredith. As We Set Forth: Battle Creek College & Emmanuel Missionary College. Berrien Springs, MI: Andrews University Press, 2002.

Kaiser, Denis. Trust and Doubt: Perceptions of Divine Inspiration in Seventh-day Adventist History. St. Peter am Hart, Austria: Seminar Schloss Bogenhofen, 2019.

Land, Gary. Uriah Smith: Apologist and Biblical Commentator. Boise, ID: Pacific Press, 2015.

Lindsay, Allan G. “Goodloe Harper Bell: Pioneer Seventh-day Adventist Christian Educator.” Ed.D. dissertation, Andrews University, Berrien Springs, Michigan, U.S.A., 1982.

McLearn, A. “The Author and Finisher of Our Faith,” ARH, October 11, 1881, 229.

McLearn, Alexander. “Personal Experiences in Accepting the Sabbath.” Sabbath Recorder, March 21, 1895, 186.

Obituary. The Sabbath Recorder, April 1, 1907, 216.

Obituary. The Sabbath Recorder, April 22, 1886, 5.

Obituary. The Milton Junction Telephone, February 11, 1937, 1.

Schwarz, R. W. and Floyd Greenleaf. Light Bearers: A History of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Nampa, ID: Pacific Press, 2000.

Seventh-day Baptists in Europe and America: A Series of Historical Papers Written in Commemoration of the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Organization of the Seventh Day Baptist General Conference; Celebrated at Ashaway, Rhode Island, August 20-25, 1902. Plainfield, NJ: The Seventh Day Baptist General Conference, 1910. 2:1317.

Vande Vere, E. K. The Wisdom Seekers: The Intriguing Story of the Men and Women Who Made the First Institution for Higher Learning Among Seventh-day Adventists. Southern Publishing Association, 1972.

Notes

1. At some point, after arriving in Canada, the family seems to have dropped the “a” in MacLearn. See http://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/tools/tree/185342973/invitees/accept?inviteId=35123047-1863-454a-9580-2521d5604d8a [accessed 10/2/22].↩

2. Obituary, The Sabbath Recorder, April 1, 1907, 216.↩

3. Alexander McLearn, “Personal Experiences in Accepting the Sabbath,” Sabbath Recorder, March 21, 1895, 186.↩

4. T. M. Steward and E. P. Daniels, “Progress of the Cause: Michigan,” ARH, September 4, 1879, 86.↩

5. John Kearnes, “Ethical Politics: Adventism & the Case of William Gage,” Adventist Heritage, 5, no. 1 (Summer 1978): 14.↩

6. Obituary, The Sabbath Recorder, April 1, 1907, 216.↩

7. J[ames] W[hite], “Spring Arbor Camp-Meeting,” ARH, June 7, 1881, 360.↩

8. ARH, October 31, 1882, 688.↩

9. See announcement in ARH, October 11, 1881, 240. The sermon appears on page 229 of the same issue.↩

10. “Michigan Conference,” ARH, October 11, 1881, 237.↩

11. Allan G. Lindsay, “Goodloe Harper Bell: Pioneer Seventh-day Adventist Christian Educator” (Ed.D. dissertation, Andrews University, 1982), 198-200.↩

12. Meredith Jones-Grey, Meredith, As We Set Forth: Battle Creek College & Emmanuel Missionary College (Berrien Springs, MI: Andrews University Press, 2002), 7, 12, 14-15, 33.↩

13. Kaiser, Trust and Doubt, 110-112, 134-135.↩

14. E. K. Vande Vere, The Wisdom Seekers: The Intriguing Story of the Men and Women Who Made the First Institution for Higher Learning Among Seventh-day Adventists (Southern Publishing Association, 1972), 45.↩

15. Ellen G. White to W. H. Edwards, June 14, 1882, Letter 29, 1882.↩

16. Ellen G. White, Testimony for the Church, No. 31 (Battle Creek, MI: Review and Herald, 1882), 88.↩

17. Ellen G. White, Special Testimony to the Battle Creek Church (Oakland, CA: Pacific Press Publishing House, 1882), 1.↩

18. See Arthur L. White, Ellen G. White: The Lonely Years, 1876-1891 (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald, 1984), 3: 197.↩

19. G. I. Butler, “A Brief History of the ‘Marion’ Movement,” ARH Supplement, August 14, 1883, 7-8.↩

20. Ibid.↩

21. Obituary, The Sabbath Recorder, April 1, 1907, 216.↩

22. Seventh-day Adventist Baptists in Europe and America: A Series of Historical Papers Written in Commemoration of the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Organization of the Seventh Day Baptist General Conference; Celebrated at Ashaway, Rhode Island, August 20-25, 1902 (Plainfield, NJ: The Seventh Day Baptist General Conference, 1910), 2:1317.↩

23. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/97669332/alexander-mclearn [accessed 10/2/22].↩