Absalom Waller was the nephew of John Waller, known as “Swearing Jack Waller,” due to the pattern of his old life. Nephew Absalom, the eldest of six children, was raised under the preaching of the gospel, and when he was fourteen, was saved by the grace of God. After being baptized by his uncle, he became a member of the Baptist church in Spotsylvania. But Absalom was a shy and retiring young man, so much so that Uncle Jack despaired of him ever becoming much of a servant of God. That was before John Leland came to preach in Spotsylvania. When the visitor heard Absalom Waller in prayer one night, he prophetically told the pastor that this young man was going to be greatly used of God.
Absalom Waller planned on becoming a farmer, living in the shade of obscurity, but despite a lack of formal education, the church began to see in him a gift from God. At the age of 21 the church called for his ordination, and he became the assistant of his Uncle Jack. Then before the year was over, the pastor resigned in order to move to South Carolina, and Absalom became pastor of the Spotsylvania church, as well as the Baptist churches at County Line and Bethany.
God blessed the ministry of the unassuming man. On this day (September 6) 1817, he wrote a letter in which he said, “It would require the pen of an angel to describe the sensations of joy and gratitude which filled my own soul, when meeting the broken-hearted sinner at a throne of mercy. I had long since been watching the coming of the Master by fervent prayer, and now to behold numbers upon their knees, crying out, “What shall we do to be saved?” produced in my enraptured mind, a foretaste of those immortal pleasures which bloom in the paradise of God.”
It is said that in the two years prior to that letter, Absalom Waller had baptized more than 1,500 people.
He died at the age of 58 just three years later.