Dorothy Ripley
Zachariah Taft and women evangelists. Five women to encourage and inspire.
Part 3: by Catherine Coffey.
By any standards, the life and evangelistic ministry of Dorothy Ripley of Whitby is a notable one. Taft himself led with this acknowledgement in his sketch of her, arguing ‘she must have received an extraordinary call from the Lord ’. Much of his account reproduces Ripley’s own correspondence recounting her truly exceptional evangelistic career.
She was born in 1767 and by her own account Ripley had crossed the Atlantic at least eight times by the publication of Biographical Sketches. In an age of legal slavery (but aware of the growing abolitionist movement) she preached predominantly in the United States to diverse congregations of both black and white people, ‘which alarmed the magistrates, and slave holders so much, as to bring many out to watch my words; to lay hold of me if possible’. She collaborated in missions with African American preachers, such as Andrew Bryan of Savannah, Georgia, whose church had over five hundred members.
Ripley endured gossip about her marital status (she never married), preached to a crowd of three hundred and fifty prisoners at the New York State prison, was friendly with Presbyterians, Methodists, Quakers, Episcopalians and even Universalists. She preached in alms houses, and visited and preached to Native Americans (who she described as the Oneida tribe), corresponded with women of the Muheconnuk Nation, and spoke to crowds of three or even six thousand people at time. It’s an exhausting and impressive account.
Ripley’s reputation for passionate preaching went before her and on January 12th 1806, Ripley became the first woman to preach at a service in the US Capitol. The event was attended by none other than President Thomas Jefferson and Ripley recounts that ‘I was empowered to speak to the honour of God, and not regard the appearance of any man, high or low’. This was not the first time that Jefferson had heard her speak - she had previously rebuked him for his ownership of slaves.
Ripley’s compassion for enslaved people and people living in poverty drew her into multiple opportunities to preach. She visited the poor house in Norfolk, Virginia where the gathered crowd of three thousand caused her to have to ‘extend her voice and speak very loud’. She recounted ‘If I say we had a precious time, I tell the truth; for many were weeping and praying in secret places’. Ripley is an excellent example of Taft’s complaint that women of evangelistic repute are quickly forgotten. However, her intrepid character and love for people of every skin tone and any status caused Taft to finish his sketch by hoping that she would eventually ‘be gathered home to her fathers with the multitudes of the redeemed of every name and colour, whom she has been the instrument of gathering into the fold of Christ’.
Dorothy Ripley was far from the only renowned female evangelist. No less energetic was Sarah Crosby, the first women whose ministry was acknowledge by Wesley.