"OUR literature has thus far had a serious lack," wrote Charles Louis Loos in 1907. "The life of Dr. Robert Richardson has not been written. Dr. Richardson stood in the front rank of those remarkable men, who worked out in their minds a full and correct conception of the religious reformation inaugurated by the Campbells, Walter Scott and others. At an early date Alexander Campbell learned to appreciate the young Dr. Richardson as a man of admirable intellectual qualities, of fine scholarly attainments, an accomplished writer, and one who thoroughly understood, as few did at that time, the real character and aims of the reformation.

      "Dr. Richardson's quiet, but nevertheless fruitful life at Bethphage near Bethany, has not given him that fame which a more general public activity would have thrown around his name. But those who knew him well . . . were able to appreciate him at his real worth as an important factor in our reformatory movement." (From an unpublished MS. by F. P. Arthur.)

      No man was associated more intimately with the Campbells and with Walter Scott than this unusual doctor of medicine and of letters. He was the pupil of Thomas Campbell and of Walter Scott, as well as the tatter's convert, coeditor, and bosom friend. He was the Campbells' family physician. As coeditor of the Millennial Harbinger, he was the confidant and adviser to its distinguished senior editor from the year 1836, often carrying the entire editorial burden and the heavy correspondence of that publication. It was his fertile brain which [5] originated some of the most striking ideas to which Alexander Campbell later gave currency. His writings are second in volume only to those of Campbell himself.

      When Bethany College came into being, it was with Robert Richardson as a member of its first faculty and board of trustees. Often, when the president was on tour, it was "R.R." who became acting president. He was involved in the educational beginnings of Hiram College and he served as vice-president of Kentucky University. His luminous writings were the earliest and clearest interpretation of the principles of the Disciple movement. As Campbell's biographer, he wrote the monumental Memoirs o f Alexander Campbell, an important source book of Disciple history which must lie at the foundation of every other biographical effort.

      Perhaps the principal reason why Robert Richardson has not become a celebrated figure long before this is that he was not a public speaker. Quiet, unassuming, and retiring he was content to draw to himself little public notice. It was his wish and his genius to lose himself in the great cause of reform. It has been our serious loss that in this self-abnegation he almost succeeded.

      After a visit to Bethany, June 16, 1869, Editor J. F. Rowe, of the American Christian Review, informed his readers:

      Beyond the musical waters of the purling Buffalo, and over the broad brow of that gigantic hill, is located the arcadian retreat of Prof. R. Richardson, author of the Memoirs of Alexander Campbell, and who, in his silent, and unobtrusive rural home, is about completing the second volume of that splendid work so [6] eagerly sought after by all the admirers of the great reformer. Who shall write the life of Prof. Richardson? for he too is a mighty man. [Millennial Harbinger, 1869, p. 409.]

      Mr. Rowe's question has had to wait eighty years for an answer. The late Cloyd Goodnight, distinguished president of Bethany College, worked long to supply it. He devoted his spare hours over a period of fifteen years to that end. When he was cut off at the very peak of his effectiveness at the age of fifty in 1932, he left behind him the first rough draft of his unfinished manuscript. The chief treasure of this draft, which was nearly 400 pages long, was a faithful transcript of a large body of Robert Richardson's private correspondence and some of the doctor's daybook.

      It was at first my hope that I could edit this manuscript and offer it for publication largely as it was; but a careful reading soon disclosed its unfinished condition and made it clear that much was still to be done. Plainly, President Goodnight had intended to revise, rearrange, and. rewrite the entire Life, for he was far from ready to send the book to press. The only thing for me to do in that case was to immerse myself in research, reading everything ever written by or about Richardson, and then using all my sources, including Dr. Goodnight's manuscript, to write the biography from the beginning in my own way. That is what I have done.

      My admiration for Dr. Goodnight, who was my teacher and my own college "Prexy," as well as my debt of gratitude to him, are very great. This book is designed to complete a phase of his lifework which he was not allowed to finish for himself. [7]

      There are charm, deep wisdom, gentle goodness, mystic faith, and authentic greatness in the life of Robert Richardson. To convey its story to you is a sacred privilege. We hope and expect that Richardson's beloved Bethphage, with its flowering gardens, its neat and bounteous fields, its large happy family, and its quiet, book-lined study will become to you, as it was to him, a precious haven of recaptured peace and renewing faith. For myself, born as I was almost exactly one hundred years later than he, I can say that a century has been no barrier to one of the most meaningful friendships I have ever formed.

DWIGHT E. STEVENSON.

Lexington, Kentucky       November, 1948. [8]

[HTB 5-8]