Manly grew up in Charles­ton, South Car­o­li­na, where his fa­ther was pas­tor of the First Bap­tist Church. By the time he was 14, his fa­ther had be­come pre­si­dent of the Un­i­ver­si­ty of Al­a­bama; Man­ly ma­tri­cu­lat­ed there, grad­u­at­ing in 1844. He then brief­ly at­tend­ed the New­ton The­o­logical In­sti­tu­tion in New­ton Cen­tre, Mas­sa­chu­setts; he moved to the southern United States in 1845, com­plet­ing his stu­dies there.

He was or­dained a Bap­tist min­is­ter in 1848 at Tus­ca­loo­sa, Al­a­ba­ma, and over the next 11 years, served in Al­a­ba­ma, Miss­iss­ip­pi, and Vir­ginia. In 1850, he helped es­tab­lish the Sun­day School Board of the South­ern Bap­tist Con­ven­tion. That same year, he was called to the First Bap­tist Church in Rich­mond, Vir­ginia, where he pas­tored four years; he then helped found and be­came pre­si­dent of the Rich­mond Fe­male In­sti­tute. In 1859, he wrote the “Ab­stract of Principles” (ar­ti­cles of faith) for the na­scent South­ern Bap­tist The­o­lo­gic­al Sem­in­ary, of which he was one of the four found­ing fa­cul­ty mem­bers. He brief­ly taught Old Test­a­ment and He­brew at the sem­in­ary, un­til it closed dur­ing the Amer­ican ci­vil war. In 1871, he ac­cept­ed the po­si­tion of pre­si­dent of George­town Coll­ege, George­town, Ken­tucky. In 1879, he re­turned to the fa­cul­ty of the South­ern Bap­tist The­o­lo­gic­al Sem­in­ary when it re­o­pened in Louis­ville, Ken­tucky. He served there as pre­si­dent for a num­ber of years.

Manly wrote near­ly 40 hymns, a number of which ap­peared in The Bap­tist Psalm­o­dy, 1850, which he ed­it­ed with his fa­ther. His works in­clude:

• The Young Deserter
• Bap­tist Chorals: A Hymn and Tune Book (Rich­mond, Vir­gin­ia: 1859)
• The Bi­ble Doc­trine of In­spir­a­tion, 1888
• Manly’s Choice, 1891

For some years it has been ap­par­ent that the rage for no­ve­lties in sing­ing…has been driv­ing out the use of the old, pre­cious, stand­ard hymns. They are not mem­o­rized as of old. They are scarce­ly sung at all. They are not con­tained in the non-de­nom­in­a­tion­al song books, which in ma­ny church­es have usurped the plac­es of our old hymn­books. We can­not af­ford to lose these old hymns…But the young peo­ple to­day are un­fa­mil­iar with them and will sel­dom hear any of them if the pre­sent ten­den­cy goes on un­touched.

Basil Manly, Jr., The Choice: A Selection of Approved Hymns for Bap­tist Churches, 1899

Sources

Hymns

1. Before a Pool the Sufferer Lay
2. God of the Seas, Whose Ruling Voice
3. God with Us, O Glorious Name
4. Ho­ly, Ho­ly, Ho­ly, Lord God of Hosts in Heaven Adored
5. In Doubt’s Dim Twilight Here I Stray
6. Jesus, My Lord, I Own Thee God
7. Lord, I Deserve Thy Deepest Wrath
8. Sol­diers of Christ, in Truth Arrayed
9. Our God Invites the Wanderers Home
10. There Is a Light Which Shines from Heaven