Tennessee's Pioneer Baptist Preachers

Sketches Of

Tennessee's Pioneer Baptist Preachers

MICAH H. SELLERS

(pages 473 - 474)

Micah H. Sellers was born in North Carolina, January 13, 1786. In his seventeenth year he professed faith in Christ. With his conversion came impressions to preach, but he struggled against his impressions of duty for several years. In 1809, or thereabout, after a protracted delay and painful kicking against the goads, he began his ministry, with little education and under very "unfavorable circumstances," but with a keen sense of responsibility and a fixed purpose to qualify himself as best he could by the study of the Scriptures for his high calling as a minister of Christ. Little is known of his early ministry, which was in North Carolina, but we are told that he had a "strong mind, an indomitable will, great energy, and ardent zeal for the cause of Christ; that he was an original thinker, and at length attained to a great knowledge of the Bible."

Somewhere between 1812 and 1815 he came to Tennessee, settling in the Hiwassee district. He was ordained in 1820 by Little Emory Church. He was instrumental in gathering and organizing most of the older churches of the Hiwassee Association, south of the river, and is credited with baptizing the first convert ever baptized in the Hiwassee district before its purchase from the Indians.

At the organization of the Hiwassee Association at Pisgah meeting-house, "May, the fourth Saturday, 1823," Micah Sellers was clerk. In 1829 he was chosen Moderator, and was reelected Moderator of that body for thirty-eight consecutive years (till 1867), with the exception of two years. As a presiding officer and as a preacher his manner and bearing were dignified and impressive. His language was chaste and his style attractive - all acquired from the classic English of the King James' version of the Bible, which was his daily companion.

The theme with which "he melted the hearts of his hearers moved them to tears was Christ and Him crucified." At the close of life he realized the. truth and power of the promise: "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is staid on thee; because he trusteth in thee."

November 23, 1870, Elder Micah H. Sellers, in his eight-fifth year, finished his earthly course. The Association which he had so long been a standard-bearer appointed Elder Z. Rose, Jesse P. Roddy and J. B. McCallon a committee to memorialize him before the body and in its minutes. The committee in its report, spoke of him in terms of appreciation anal affection as an able minister of the New Testament and as a Father in Israel: "He labored with us in the ministry more than half a hundred years, and enjoyed the affection of the entire brotherhood, and shared the unbounded confidence of all who knew him."

Burnett, J .J. Sketches of Tennessee's Pioneer Baptist Preachers. Nashville, Tenn.: Press of Marshall & Bruce Company, 1919.

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