Because history is concerned with particulars, not with universals, Aristotle refused to categorize history as a science. Never the less, as Thucydides showed, history emulates science to the extent of its rendering an account (logos) of the causes of things and, for that reason, its obligations to truth should not be less than those of any rigorous science.

Opposed to history as truth is history as propaganda, that is, history founded on the equation of truth with utility, itself the basis of such propositions as may be upheld - in the words of the unspeakable Fritz Sauckel¹ - "politically correctly" (politisch richtig) such that if, for anyone at all, some truth is not useful then that truth is not true. History as propaganda is much associated with the history of politics or, at least, with the history of whatever substitutes for politics. And it is commonly to be found among literati who, as court-historians, are devoted to some political authority that others who, as revisionist historians, may be inclined to resent.²

The equation of truth and utility by which history comes to be a variable dependent on politics, or on the simulacrum of politics, is expressed most concisely in Machiavelli's notion of "effective truth" (la verità effettuale):

"Effective truth," then, pretends to be value-free (wertfrei) but, from it, the origins of "political correctness" and of any "politically correct" history are quite transparent. This species of "correctness" is not about truth. It is, instead, all about power.³

Despite the influence of his parents, Carroll was deeply troubled over his spiritual condition and privately skeptical toward the rudiments of Christianity. After his return from the war he was crippled and in debt and suffered numerous family crises. He was converted in 1865 at a Methodist camp meeting near Caldwell, Texas. The following year he became an ordained Baptist minister. From 1866 to 1869 Carroll preached in rural Baptist churches in Burleson and McLennan counties and participated in revivals throughout Central Texas. He also taught school and farmed to help support his family. In 1871 he became pastor of the First Baptist Church, Waco, where he remained until 1899. During his pastorate this church became a flagship church of Texas Baptists. Carroll's intellectual acumen and oratorical gifts contributed mightily to his prominence, but more than any single factor a doctrinal debate in 1871 and the publicity surrounding it thrust him to the forefront among the state's Baptists. Editor J. B. Link of the Texas Baptist Herald vigorously promoted Carroll as a rising champion of orthodoxy after the young Waco pastor purportedly vanquished a seasoned Methodist polemicist in an acrimonious confrontation. Proclaimed as a "new giant in Israel," Carroll began publishing a steady stream of trenchant editorials, doctrinal discussions, and sermons in the state's Baptist periodicals. Throughout the 1870s he held important positions on boards and committees of the General Association (a regional forerunner of the Baptist General Convention of Texas) and figured prominently in early negotiations and support efforts aimed at centralizing Texas Baptist educational institutions. In the 1880s he took an active role in consolidating regional associations and conventions into a single unified body, the Baptist General Convention of Texas. Carroll also served on several Southern Baptist Convention committees and addressed the convention on various occasions.

Having publicly maintained a firm stand against liquor since the beginning of his Waco ministry, Carroll, a Democrat, was a natural leadership choice in the McLennan County and statewide prohibition crusades of the late 1880s. In both he matched words and wits with two of the state's most influential politicians, Richard Coke and Roger Q. Mills. Before a crowd of 7,000 in Waco he engaged Mills in a heated three-hour debate that almost ended in a brawl. By weathering abuse in the political arena, he developed an imperviousness to criticism that served him well in guiding Texas Baptists through the turbulent 1890s. During the last decade of his ministry at the First Baptist Church, Carroll was involved directly and indirectly in virtually every controversy that touched Baptists in the state.

Carroll left the First Baptist Church to become corresponding secretary for the Educational Commission, an agency dedicated primarily to securing financial stability for Texas Baptist schools. For the remainder of his career he continued to work for the cause of Christian education. He taught Bible and theology at Baylor from 1872 to 1905. He began a fifteen-year term as chairman of the Baylor University Board of Trustees in 1886. He also served as a trustee of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, in the 1880s. In 1905 he organized Baylor Theological Seminary, which eventuated in the founding of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in 1908. Carroll taught at the new school, which moved to Fort Worth in 1910, and served as its president until his death.

Carroll's publications include addresses, doctrinal works, sermons, and Bible expositions. His magnum opus is An Interpretation of the English Bible (1973), a commentary in seventeen volumes. Baptist leader George Truett called Carroll "the greatest preacher our State has ever known." In 1866 Carroll married Ellen Virginia Bell. Nine children were born to this union. In 1899, after Ellen's death, he married Hallie Harrison. To them was born one son. Carroll died in Fort Worth on November 11, 1914, and was buried in Oakwood Cemetery, Waco.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Benajah Harvey Carroll Collection (Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Fort Worth). Benajah Harvey Carroll Papers, Texas Collection, Baylor University. James Milton Carroll, A History of Texas Baptists (Dallas: Baptist Standard, 1923). Alan J. Lefever, The Life and Work of B. H. Carroll (Ph.D. dissertation, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1992). Jeff D. Ray, B. H. Carroll (Nashville: Southern Baptist Convention, 1927). Vertical Files, Barker Texas History Center, University of Texas at Austin.

J. A. Reynolds

Carroll pastored churches in Anderson, Burleson, Grimes, and Washington counties, as well as in Corpus Christi, Lampasas, Taylor, Waco, and San Antonio. As an administrator and educator, he founded and was the first president of San Marcos Academy. Later he became president of both Oklahoma Baptist University and Howard Payne College (now Howard Payne University). He was the founder and guiding figure of the Education Commission of the Baptist General Convention of Texas during its first decade of existence. Carroll served as solicitor for the Texas Baptist and Herald, agent for the Southern Baptist Foreign Mission Board in Texas, secretary and statistician for the Baptist General Convention of Texas, financial agent for Baylor College (now Mary Hardin-Baylor University) at Belton, and endowment secretary for Baylor University. He is best remembered for his writings. The best known are Texas Baptist Statistics (1895); A History of Texas Baptists (1923); The Trail of Blood (1931), based on a lecture given in many states in the south; and B. H. Carroll,qv The Colossus of Baptist History (1946), a biography of his brother. Carroll, a man of many talents, also enjoyed a reputation as an amateur ornithologist and owned one of the largest collections of bird eggs in Texas. On December 22, 1870, Carroll married Sudie Eliza Wamble of Caldwell, Texas. He died in Fort Worth on January 11, 1931.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Encyclopedia of Southern Baptists (4 vols., Nashville: Broadman, 1958-82).

J. A. Reynolds

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