He made a difference
by Thomas Ray
William Collier was born in 1771 in Scituate, MA. His mother was a devoted Christian, and she instilled in William biblical principles that would mold and guide him throughout his life.
While still in his teens, he moved to Boston to become a carpenter’s apprentice. There he came under the influence and preaching of Thomas Baldwin, pastor of Second Baptist Church, where Collier was converted and baptized shortly after his 21st birthday. William believed God was speaking to him, and consequently he felt it was his duty to preach the gospel. Acting upon this belief, he enrolled in Brown University in 1793, graduating in 1797.
After his ordination, he preached a year at First Baptist Church in Newport, RI. The church was founded about 1638 by John Clarke, who is often recognized as the father of American Baptists. Next, Collier moved to New York City where he assumed the pastorate of First Baptist Church. First Baptist possessed a great heritage. One of its former pastors was the renowned John Gano, Revolutionary War chaplain and the man who baptized George Washington. After four years in New York, Collier accepted the pastorate of First Baptist Church, Charlestown, MA.
Collier was not renowned as a public speaker, but his humility, faith, and pastoral skills gained him not only his congregation’s esteem but their love as well. Like the good shepherd, he knew all his members and their families’ names. He visited each member of his congregation, counseling, instructing, and strengthening his Christian faith. He always possessed a special burden for society’s neglected outcasts. He was often seen visiting the poor and the prisoners incarcerated in Charlestown prison. His ministry among the prisoners resulted in life-changing conversions which led the authorities to appoint him as chaplain.
After laboring in Charlestown 16 years, his health began to fail, and, believing he could no longer perform his pastoral duties, he reluctantly resigned. But, this was not the end of William Collier’s ministry. God would give him 20 more years of effective service. After his resignation, he was employed by Baptist Female Society of Boston as city missionary. His labors were confined primarily to the poor, the neglected social outcasts, and the criminal element. He was a minister of kindness to the afflicted, an angel of mercy to the suffering, and a counselor to the tempted. He visited the sick and the dying in places where Christians seldom ventured. He shined the light of truth and mercy into the darkness taking hope and salvation to society’s forgotten and abandoned.
Collier rescued a number of women from lives of shame and debauchery. Neglected and abandoned children were special objects of his care. He provided them with food, clothing, and education, and many of these children escaped their environment to become respectable and useful citizens. None but the few who accompanied him as he “went about doing good,” could appreciate the amount of labor he performed and the sacrifices he made to take the gospel to the people he deeply loved. No one knew better than William Collier the evil effects of alcohol, and acting upon that knowledge he became one of the early leaders of the temperance movement.
In 1826, he launched the National Philanthropist, the first temperance newspaper not only in America but the world. God allowed William Collier to labor until just a few weeks before his death on March 19, 1843. William Collier is an example of the multitudes of men and women who labor in obscure and unheralded ministries but who make a difference.