BIO:Robert Greene Lee 1886-1978

   Robert G. Lee began his career on a farm near Fort Mill, South
Carolina, where he was born of poor but deeply reli- gious parents.
Early in life, he felt the call to be a preacher, and in spite of many
obstacles he heeded that call. He won many scholastic and oratory
honors at the Furman Preparatory School and Furman University,
Greenville, South Carolina, where he graduated with an A.B. degree in
1913. He took postgraduate work at the Chicago Law School, receiving a
Ph.D. in international law in 1919. He was ordained at his boyhood
church at Fort Mill, South Carolina, in 1910.

   His first full-time pastorate was at Edgefield, South Carolina. This
was followed by pastorates at First Baptist Church, Chester, South
Carolina; First Baptist Church, New Orleans, Louisiana; and Citadel
Square Baptist Church, Charleston, South Carolina. He was pastor of the
Bellevue Baptist Church, Memphis, Tennessee, from December, 1927, to
April 10, 1960. During his pastorate at Bellevue, over 24,000 people
joined the church, over 7,600 of these for baptism. Dr. Lee preached
his famous sermon, Payday...Some Day, over 1,200 times in the United
States and other countries. He died July 20, 1978, in his home in
Memphis, Tennessee.
