WHEN Robert, Rebekah, and little Nathaniel Richardson moved to Carthage early in June, 1834, it was to a respectable Christian community, located only seven miles from Cincinnati, directly on the Miami Canal. Two years before, in a matter of months, Walter Scott's phenomenal evangelistic powers had transformed a roistering, profane frontier town into a sober and civilized community. Cincinnati itself was a city larger than Pittsburgh, unashamedly calling herself "Queen City of the West." In the nation the hour of the West had struck. Increasingly the aristocratic East was yielding leadership to it. Andrew Jackson was president: The march of settlers for the Mississippi River and the Pacific Ocean was in full swing. Railroads were just beginning to reach out bands of steel toward the farthest outposts. A system of public schools was taking shape. America--big, uncoordinated, and self-conscious as an adolescent boy--was coming of age.

      Robert Richardson was now in his twenty-eighth year. As we have seen, he had been writing for Walter Scott's Evangelist for some time, having divided his compositions between it and Alexander Campbell's Millennial Harbinger. The Evangelist was run on a shoestring, for Walter Scott was poor. His impulsive generosity kept him that way. He therefore had nothing upon which to rely for the conduct of the magazine but the income from [65] subscriptions. These were always in arrears. This meant that the editorial assistant had to work gratis, supporting himself by his medical practice. The young doctor did not complain, for he had expected it to be that way.

      Identifying himself with the cause of the Disciples still more intimately was deeply satisfying to him, but this identification was kept as a private pleasure. No change in the masthead, announcing him as assistant editor, was made, nor did the magazine anywhere carry notice of his coming. He did not even sign his articles by his own name. Occasionally he affixed the unrevealing initials, "R. R." or simply "R." But most generally he wrote for this publication under three separate pen names: "Silos," "Alumnus" and "Discipulus." Thus he was able to preserve his anonymity and to assume an unobtrusive role in strong support of one of the main actors in the drama of the reformation, without drawing undue attention to himself.

      Over these various pen names and initials, he contributed a stream of articles to this magazine: two articles on "Christian Decorum," two on the "Kingdom of Heaven," two on "Thoughts on Parables," three on the interpretation of Scripture under the title "Simplification," one on "Eternal Life," and another "Faith Comes by Hearing." These appeared during 1834 and 1835. In addition, he proofread each issue and prepared manuscripts for the press. The old spelling and typographical errors which appeared so often while Scott was editing this publication alone, now vanished as if by magic. The doctor had painfully weak and troublesome eyes, but this did not prevent him from seeing details which the other missed. [66]

      In his essays on "Simplification"¹ he warned against two extremes of biblical interpretation, the extreme of "mystification" on the one hand, and "the error of simplifying the religion of Jesus Christ so far as to destroy its identity" on the other. If the Calvinists inclined toward the first extreme, the Disciples were in danger of being caught in the second. It required some art to understand the Scriptures, and there were laws of biblical interpretation to be learned.

      Indeed, the beauty, the uses, and the characteristic properties of everything is destroyed by too remote an analysis. The blooming rose with all its charms, may be changed into the same simple elements as the poisonous hemlock; and the brilliant diamond which glitters upon the tiara, may be converted into charcoal.

The doctor was already beginning to detect and to warn against the dangers of a mechanical legalism in the new religious movement. He even embellished his article with a touch of humor, saying that "those who are so fond of simplicity, show much simplicity themselves."

      The pen of "R. R." illumined all that it touched. It probed more deeply than most, finding hidden or unsuspected corners of thought, and at the same time it never forgot that it was dealing with Christianity as a living body of truth, an organism within which there was a heartbeat of the spirit. Yielding neither to uncontrolled mysticism, nor to unimaginative legalism, he strove to disclose Christianity as life rather than dogma and to reveal the church as a movement more than an institution.

      What he wrote delighted the senior editor, but it interested Alexander Campbell even more. This watchful eye [67] of the reformation saw that Robert Richardson was no common scribbler, adding nothing more than volume to the growing periodical literature of the Disciples. His insights were illuminating and fertile with suggestions. In particular, the editor of the Millennial Harbinger was struck by Alumnus' two "Thoughts on Parables."² In the course of the second of these two articles, their author had taken notice of the phrase "Kingdom of Heaven," which had previously been supposed to signify the Church. Dr. Richardson believed this oversimplification to be endlessly confusing because it made nonsense of many passages of Scripture. He showed, therefore, that "the idea involved in 'kingdom' was a compound one, embracing at least three distinct conceptions--viz., a king, subjects, and the territory or place where the subjects lived under the government of their king. In the kingdom of heaven Jesus was the king, those who had acknowledged him were the subjects, and the world [kosmos] in which they lived was the territory."

      Reporting much later on the influence of his ideas concerning the kingdom, Richardson observed, "This view both Mr. Campbell and Mr. Scott regarded as an important addition to the truths developed during the progress of the Reformation."³

      Soon adopting the idea as his own, Mr. Campbell fell to work elucidating it in an extra of the Millennial Harbinger on "The Kingdom of Heaven." This was published in August, 1834.⁴

      It was to be expected that both Robert and Rebekah would become intimately involved in the life of the Carthage church. The doctor was soon chosen clerk of [68] this organization, and in November, 1834, was made one of a committee--with Solomon Rodgers, John Ludlow, Harvey Fairchild, William Myers, and Hezekiah Wood--which was "to take charge of the government and edification of the meeting" and "to hear and examine into all cases of discipline, to prepare them for the consideration of the church when it becomes necessary to make them public, and so to manage and arrange them that the laws of Christ shall be faithfully executed and unity, peace, and love be preserved among the Brethren."⁵ The Carthage church records of November 29, 1835, show that the young doctor was a trusted leader, for these minutes resolved "that there be appointed to teach . . . B. U. Watkins, Robert Richardson, Walter Scott."

      In the spring of 1835, while on his tour of southern Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky, Alexander Campbell came out from Cincinnati to visit Walter Scott and Robert Richardson. He found the Richardson family cozy and happy. Nathaniel was now more than two years old, and a baby sister, Anne, was horn May 13, 1835.⁶

      It was now six years since the Campbell-Owen debate. It was more than three years since the movements of Stone and Campbell had united. The brotherhood numbered possibly 30,000 at this time and was spreading at such a rapid pace that Walter Scott's vision of winning over the whole world did not seem wholly visionary. Alexander Campbell himself had by now attained a very considerable celebrity, far wider than the brotherhood itself. His debates and his magazines were chiefly responsible for this. Besides, he was an impressive personality, a man upon whom the mantle of greatness seemed to rest. [69]

      The effect of this visit was to deepen a resolution that had been growing in the young doctor's mind. For some time he had felt that he was doing too little for the cause. He wanted to surrender his full time to it and was determined to do so even if it meant living on the edge of poverty. The more he thought of it, the more certain he became regarding the course he should pursue. Accordingly, in late November or early December, 1835, he wrote to Alexander Campbell, offering to devote his "whole energies to the work of the Lord, on prospect of only a reasonable earthly support." He went on to suggest that he might even go as an evangelist to France. His fluency in the French tongue fitted him for just such an assignment!

      When Alexander Campbell replied, he was delighted with the offer of Robert Richardson's services, but, he said, "Touching the tour to France, and the desire you have expressed of introducing the gospel as formerly preached in that country, I cannot speak with much confidence of my own readiness."⁷ He went on to say that he was not sure as to what kind of public speaker the doctor was:

      I have never been favored with hearing one discourse from you to a popular assembly either in French or English. I have heard you speak a little in a church on some points of order or of doctrine, and converse by the social hearth but further than this deponent saith not. As I hear, I judge.

      Campbell then suggested that since Richardson had never done much evangelistic work, it might be best to try out his talents in his native land for some two or three [70] years before making plans to go abroad. Campbell hastened to explain, however, that he really had something entirely different in mind for the doctor:

      I have, indeed, for some two or three years often thought of visiting the land of my fathers, England, Scotland, Ireland and if the Lord opened the way, I have been willing to make preparation and to spend a year or two in those countries . . .

      Now, if it could be so arranged that you would accompany me to England, or in case it should be thought by both of us to be more eligible for you to attend to my office of editor in my absence, or that after my return you should go to France via England, I should think that we had done our immediate duty, and that our anticipations of the spread and progress of the truth might be greatly enlarged as respects Europe.

      So! Mr. Campbell thought highly enough of him to propose that he, a young fledgling, should occupy his editorial chair in the senior editor's absence! Here was a proposal that looked even better than his own suggestion of evangelizing France.

      In any case, Mr. Campbell went on to say, he had a definite proposal to make for the present:

      As preparatory to this prospect, as necessary to our present obligations and prospects at home, I will make you the following proposition:

      Come to Bethany next April. I will find you a comfortable little wigwam which I have built since you were here (a frame building one story, containing three apartments on one floor 30 feet in front by 10 in width, having under the same roof a folding room for Harbinger) and I will guarantee you five hundred dollars for the year. I may want your assistance and supervision of the affairs of the press for a part of your time, say [71] three or four months of the year while I may be absent on some tours, but that need not much interfere with your labors in the word.

      Reading this letter with mounting excitement, Robert and Rebekah exchanged happy glances over the words:

      There will be a garden connected with the house. I have rented almost all my premises to E. Bakewell from whom you can find pasture for a horse and cow. I need not be further particular. You will freely and familiarly communicate all your views on these points as soon as possible.

      Alexander Campbell's proposal brought joy to both Robert and Rebekah. After all, Bethany was in the same county with Wellsburg, and Rebekah would be close to her home place. In addition to a more vital role in the reformation, the prospect of living in Bethany itself, and of working almost daily with the acknowledged leader of the reformation, filled him with exquisite delight.

      Just a little earlier, he had written the editor of the Millennial Harbinger a long letter in which, among other things, he had said: "Fancy, annihilating time and space, renews the pleasures of the past, presenting again to me your hospitable mansion embosomed by lofty hills which shield it from the storm, permitting me once more to partake with the social circle around the cheerful hearth in happy and solemn conversation respecting the high matters of our holy religion, the love of Christ, the restoration of the gospel, and the salvation of the world."⁸ Now, it would be no longer necessary to visit that hospitable Bethany fireside in fancy--it could be done in [72] fact. The doctor had already disclosed himself from behind the mask of his various pseudonyms to the readers of the Millennial Harbinger. At the close of an article in which he had written somewhat bluntly about the abuses of the press in some quarters of the brotherhood, he said that he thought it proper, after such "plainness of speech," to drop the signatures of Discipulus and Alumnus, and sign his own name to this article and to those he expected to write in the future.⁹

      He was going to his new work, the fledgling editor said, with a strong conviction about its worth. "The press is indeed a mighty engine," he said, "and stands preeminent among the means by which the Truth has been disseminated." In fact, the prospect of his new work was so pleasing to him that the physician could not wait until April to move to Bethany. The records of the Carthage church read: "February 14, 1836. Brother Richardson, being about to move away and having resigned his appointment as clerk of the society, the Church appointed Brother John Ludlow to fill his place." Early in March he was located in Bethany, soon enough, in fact, to serve as secretary of "the Churches of Christ in co-operation in the Western District of Virginia," meeting in Wheeling on March 19.¹⁰ Richardson was the "eternal" secretary; wherever he went, he was clerk of the meeting; and whenever committees were appointed, he was on them!

      Robert Richardson had much to contribute to Alexander Campbell. One of the Disciples of the second generation who knew both men, said:

      He was especially a fine critic. His scientific studies were helpful to him in forming exact conclusions with respect to [73] Biblical interpretation, and nowhere perhaps did he manifest greater ability than in the field of Biblical exegesis. It was here that he was a great helper to Mr. Campbell. The latter's fondness for generalization sometimes led him into doubtful statements with respect to particular things. Not so with Dr. Richardson. He was careful about the most minute matters, and while many of his criticisms and Biblical interpretations had upon them the stamp of originality, he never, in a single instance, advocated any position which may not be defended on purely critical grounds. Indeed, it is well known to a few who are still living that he saved Mr. Campbell from some critical mistakes which the latter would have made had it not been for his trustworthy and able co-labourer.¹¹ [74]

[HTB 65-74]