The following is an excerpt from the book, Sketches of Our Mountain Pioneers, edited by J. W. West, containing a biographical sketch of Silas Shelburne.
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Silas Shelburne was of a long line of ancestors and descendants who became ministers. One of his relatives told me that they could trace their ancestors back to the Shelburnes of the Fifteenth century—that in the family there was first a line of priests in the Roman Catholic Church, then priests in the Church of England, followed by Baptist ministers, and later ministers affiliated with the Christian Church in the restoration movement.
Silas was the son of James Shelburne, a Baptist minister. When Jeremiah Walker endeavored to introduce the Philadelphia Confession for adoption at the meeting in Meherrin Baptist Church in Lunenburg County, Virginia, James Shelburne arose and opposed the adoption of any human creed, maintaining that the Scriptures were a sufficient rule of faith and practice.
Between 1810 and 1815 Silas Shelburne began to accompany his father on preaching tours. In one of their meetings held together, several persons presented themselves for baptism and church membership. Shelburne, Sr. said, “Let the candidates be examined to see if their Christian experience is satisfactory.” The son spoke up and said, “Father, that is not the way the Apostles did. How can these men, who have been sinners all their lives, and who have never lived a Christian life, give a Christian experience? You might as well require every young couple who comes to you to be married to give a married experience before you perform the ceremony.”
His father replied, “Go on, Silas, and do right.”
From that time forth they baptized believing penitents on their confession that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. Silas cooperated with his father until the death of the latter in 1820. Before his death, he gave his son, Silas, this admonition, “Oh, my son, the church lies heavy, very heavy on my mind. I fear that a cold and trying time is approaching, and that many will be seeking a more fashionable religion. Watch over their souls as one who must give an account unto God, and keep yourself unspotted from the world. Do not aspire after men of great swelling words, but study the Scriptures; be meek, lowly and unassuming in your manners, with all holy conversation, as becometh the Gospel of Christ. Never aim at things too deep and incomprehensible for mortals to know, remembering that there is as much made plain as it is the will of our Heavenly Father we should know; for ‘secret things belong to God, and things revealed to us.’”
“Throughout life, whatever difficulties you may have to encounter, never return railing for railing, but contrariwise, in doing which will overcome ten where you will one by the other method.”
After the death of his father, he devoted his entire time to the ministry. He began to read the Christian Baptist and to adopt reform measures, among them the weekly observance of the Lord’s Supper. He preached for the Baptist churches left vacant by the death of his father.
Abnet Clopton, a leading Baptist preacher of the Meherrin Association made an effort to have Brother Shelburne disfellowshipped by the publication of proscriptional decrees. In that effort he failed.
After he had baptized persons upon the confession of their faith in their Lord, in 1830 a report was made to the Burlington Church, in King and Queen County, that certain persons had been baptized contrary to the usual Baptist custom. Not once did they declare that such practice was contrary to the teachings of the Scriptures, or that of the primitive church.
Brother Hodge states that Shelburne traveled all over Virginia as an evangelist. He brought many souls to Christ. Ultimately all of the group of churches for which he preached became simply Churches of Christ.
He was uneducated, quaint and humorous, yet frank and brave. It used to be the custom of the yearly state meetings to devote one session to preachers. After each speech time was given to criticism of the speaker. On one occasion Brother Shelburne, growing weary of such exercises, started to leave old Sycamore Church in Richmond. As he was nearing the door, one of the preachers said, “I see old Brother Shelburne going out, and before he goes, I want to say to him that I do wish he would stop saying ‘agin’ for ‘against’ and ‘gwine’ for ‘going.’” The old man replied without hesitation, “Well, if that’s all you’ve got agin me, I’m gwine along.”
A young preacher who had an exalted opinion of his powers, after preaching in the presence of Brother Shelburne, asked him what he thought of the sermon. Brother Shelburne replied, “Wall, brother, there’s a pint down on the Eastern Shore they call ‘pint no pint.’ You were as near there today as you’ll ever get.”
Another preacher had gone rather deeply into some metaphysical speculation in a sermon. He asked Brother Shelburne what he thought of his metaphysics. The reply was, “Metaphysics! Wall, I didn’t know what kind of physic it was, but it made me mighty sick.”
Someone asked him at a meeting where he had preached in the presence of Alexander Campbell, if he was not afraid to preach before Mr. Campbell. “No,” he answered, “I have preached before God Almighty many a time, and I don’t know why I should be afraid to preach before Alexander Campbell!”
Three of his children and three grand children became preachers of the gospel. Montgomery and Pulaski counties, Virginia, knew the Shelburnes for their services to the Church of Christ, and Lee County, Virginia, was blessed by their untiring efforts to establish Churches of Christ in that county.