Andrews, William Watson

ANDREWS, WILLIAM WATSON: Catholic Apostolic Church, brother of Samuel James Andrews; b. at Windham, Conn., July 26, 1810; d. at Wethersfield, Conn., Oct. 17, 1897. He was graduated at Yale in 1831. During this year his attention was drawn to the religious movement then going on in England which culminated in the Catholic Apostolic Church. The point that seems at first to have interested him most was whether the gifts of the Spirit as originally given were or were not to abide in the Church, and his study of the Scriptures led him to the conclusion that they are a permanent endowment, and, if not still possessed, it was because of unbelief. Closely connected with the work of the Spirit in the Church was another question: Was the return of the Lord to be desired, and the Church to be ever praying and looking for it? Believing this return to be an object of hope, he was led to ask if any preparation was needed; and, if so, might not the work in England be the preparation? In 1833 he was licensed to preach, and in May, 1834, was ordained pastor of a Congregational church in Kent, Conn. Here he continued fifteen years, declining invitations to go to larger spheres of labor, preferring his quiet country life, which gave him time for study and reflection. In 1842, partly for his health, and partly to learn from personal observation the progress of the religious movement which interested him, he went to England and became fully convinced that the movement was of God. He offered himself to its leaders as ready to take part in it, but was directed by them to return to his parish and continue his work there. This he did, but on the death of his wife in 1848, he was released from his charge by the North Association of Litchfield County, and soon entered the Apostolic communion. In 1849 he was appointed pastor of a small congregation at Potsdam, N. Y., and remained there for six years, doing some work elsewhere as an evangelist. In 1856 he left Potsdam and entered upon his evangelistic work in which he continued till his death. From 1858 his home was in Wethersfield, Conn.

The only book published by Mr. Andrews was The Miscellanies and Correspondence of Hon. John Cotton Smith (New York, 1847). Of his numerous addresses, articles, and pamphlets mention may be made of his sermon at Kent, May 1849, on withdrawing from the Congregational ministry; The True Constitution of the Church, read before the North Association of Litchfield County, 1855; Review of Mrs. Oliphant’s Life of Edward Irving, in The New Englander, 1863 (reprinted in Scotland, 1864 and 1900); Remarks on Dr. Bushnell’s “Vicarious Sacrifice,” published at the request of the Hartford Fourth Association, 1866; The Catholic Apostolic Church, in the Bibliotheca Sacra, 1866; The Catholic Apostolic Church, in Schaff’s Creeds of Christendom, i., New York, 1884, 905-915; and an address at Kent, his old parish, on the sixtieth anniversary of his ordination, May 27, 1894.

(Samuel J. Andrews†.

Bibliography: William Watson Andrews, a Religious Biography, with Extracts from his Letters and other Writings prepared by his Brother, Samuel J. Andrews, New York, 1900 (contains the sermon at Kent, May, 1849, and the address, 1894, mentioned above, pp. 206-265).