March 23 Today in OPC History

The Reverend Samuel J. Allen, a constituting member of the now Orthodox Presbyterian Church, was born on this day in 1899. Having enrolled at Princeton Theological Seminary in 1927, Allen was one of the students that transferred to Westminster Theological Seminary in 1929 and was a member of the first graduating class there. After his ordination in the Presbyterian Church in 1930, he became pastor of the Carson, Leith and Lark congregations in North Dakota. After those three congregations joined the new church at the end of September in 1936, Allen invited his dear friend, J. Gresham Machen, to visit the congregations after Christmas. Machen accepted, and after speaking at Leith on Tuesday, December 29, was taken ill. Allen drove Machen to the hospital in Bismarck and stayed with him. As Machen's condition worsened, Allen called briefly on New Year's Eye and offered prayer. Machen said to Allen about a vision concerning heaven, "Sam, it was glorious; it was glorious." Then, he told Allen, "Sam, isn't the Reformed Faith grand?" Machen would die the next day.

Allen would go on to pastor Gethsemane OPC in Philadelphia from 1940 to 1947. In 1947, he was called as pastor of First PCUS, Fort St. Joe, Florida. He was continue to serve in the Presbyterian Church, U.S., until his death in 1954.

Picture: Sam Allen