Pencil Notes
1843 Christian World essays: pencil sketches of Virginia—Harper's Ferry, Natural Bridge, Vaucluse—blending travel description, local biography and meditations on nature and memory.
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Archives
The Confessional Presbyterian Archive is a curated digital library dedicated to preserving and promoting the writings of 17th–20th century Presbyterian pastors, teachers, and leaders. Featuring thousands of searchable texts, biographies, and historical resources, the archive provides direct access to the primary-source materials of American Presbyterianism.
Pencil Notes
Sketching at Richmond
A 19th-century travel sketch of Richmond: vivid seasonal scenery, historical reflections (Pochahontas, Powhatan, Wirt, Burr), and proposals to beautify and ennoble the city.
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Sabbath and Annfield
Rev. T.B. Balch's 'Sabbath at Annfield' recounts a rural Sabbath visit to a pious, hospitable lady, highlighting humble devotion, charity, prayer, and missionary concern for Africa.
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South West Range
Travelogue across Virginia's South West Range describing Montpelier, Monticello, the University of Virginia, with reflections on nature, Madison, and immortality.
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The Wigwam
A Virginia vignette of Nim Carter's hunting life, genteel society, and a winter of English reading—contrasting sporting pursuits with literary taste.
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Sabbath School Hymn
A Sabbath School hymn urging children's instruction and devotion, paired with the account of a Reformation martyr who calmly confessed Christ before execution. Themes: worship.
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The Ivy Bridge
Advocates Christian charity and reform; a travel vignette at Ivy Bridge shows a father seeking a lost son and a pious mother with a sick daughter.
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The Free Church of Scotland
Poem praising the Free Church of Scotland's expansion and a revival account of conversions, baptisms, and 'Pentecostal seasons' from The Christian World (1843).
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Lorton
A magazine sketch recounting young artist Lorton's brief life and death, reflecting on nature, genius, memory, and the melancholy of mortality.
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The Patriarch’s Vision: A Discourse Delivered at the Dedication of the Central Presbyterian Church, Washington City, Sabbath morning, May 31, 1846
Dedication sermon declaring the new church a true house of God, rooted in Jacob's vision (Gen. 28) and Scripture, affirming God's presence, worship, and public ministry.
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Summer in the Blue Ridge
Essays on humane advances: educating 'idiots' by French methods (Voisin, Seguin, Conolly), asylum reform, and sketches of Southern life and Blue Ridge summers.
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Byron and Burns
Southern Literary Messenger (Mar 1849) reviews Europe's 1848 upheavals and Germany's struggle for liberty, and includes poems plus an essay comparing Byron and Burns.
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The Sabbath in Its Poetical Aspects
Contents of the April 1849 Southern Literary Messenger: essays on 1848 European events—including Pius IX and Italian revolutions—and an essay on the Sabbath's poetic influence.
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Africa — A Miniature Poem
Reports cholera outbreaks disrupting 1849 emigrant voyages to Liberia, raising costs and delaying colonization. Includes a poem praising Africa and urging Christian advancement and education.
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The Poems of Sir William James
Dec 1849 Southern Literary Messenger: essays on rhetoric in the college course, reviews and translations of Sir William Jones' poems, plus original poetry and literary notices.
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A Miniature Poem: “Our Town”
Nostalgic poem celebrating a small American town—its settlers, river, woods, Sabbath life, immigrants, and changing fortunes; memory and loss of simpler days.
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The Ringwood Discourses: Or, Sermons on Various Subjects
Collection of sermons by T.B. Balch. 'The Farmer in Rural Pursuits' examines agricultural life through Scripture, urging moral, civic, and spiritual duties for farmers.
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Reminiscences of Georgetown, D.C.: A Lecture
An 1859 lecture recounting Georgetown's founding, settlers' origins, and local character—landscape, river life, and social change. A call to revive civic hospitality.
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My Manse During the War: A Decade of Letters to the Rev. J. Thomas Murray, Editor of the Methodist Protestant
A minister's letters from his Virginia manse during the Civil War recount refugees, soldiers attending worship, wounded funerals, and pastoral reflections on faith, grief, and peace.
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The Literature of the South
Argues for permanent provision for deceased ministers' widows and orphans, and advocates a distinctive Southern literature rooted in local scenery, history, and character.
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