RICHARDSON went everywhere on horseback. His spare, upright figure, astride his faithful horse, became an expected sight about the Bethany community. No matter what his errand--editorial, medical, or educational--he went to it and returned from it in the saddle. In the winter, his family rode in their fine sleigh, to the music of sleigh bells. In the summer, they used a coach or the spring wagon. But it was a rare thing for the doctor to set his foot inside either conveyance. Upon those occasions when he went abroad on a tour for the college or the Harbinger, it was with no little inconvenience that he undertook the journey, for on stagecoach and train, as in buggy or sleigh, he was miserably "seasick."

      Saddlebags were always a part of his riding accessories. In one of the bags he carried his books, notes, and apparatus pertaining to his work in the classrooms of Bethany College. In the other he carried his herbs, leeches, drugs, and bleeding bowl to be ready for the work of a physician. While thus employed in transporting himself from one place to another all over Brooke County and sometimes beyond it as far as Kentucky, he was always thinking, planning, devising; and now and then he drew his horse to a stop to make a note in the worn leather notebook which he always carried. It was thus on horseback that much of the grist for classroom and printer, pulpit and Communion table were prepared, to be worked up into finished products in the study later. [127]

      As he rode to and fro between Bethany and Bethphage year after year, his horse seemed to grow almost a part of him. He had a great tenderness for this horse and a humane concern about other farm animals. One day the horse was lame. When he started out for college that day, his wife asked, "How are you going?" wondering if he would not have one of the hands drive him to town in the buggy. Intending to walk instead, he replied, "By Adam's express!"

      Richardson's medical skill was dispensed without regard to compensation. The poor as well as the careless received help; frequently he gave them attention and medicine for which they never made an effort to pay. There are a large number of entries in the ledger that are charged, with the credit side of the page a complete blank. Many visits were made and medicine dispensed without pay; although each call was recorded in the ledger, no charge was entered. In such cases, the debt was forgiven at the time it was contracted. Some accounts were entered only to be marked "forgiven" at a later date.

      Medical calls summoned him as far away as Wellsburg and West Liberty, four miles toward Wheeling, and to many remote corners of the county. Jane Campbell McKeever, Alexander Campbell's daughter, who was principal of Pleasant Hill Seminary for girls at West Middletown, ten miles distant, often sent her buggy for him, and the nauseated doctor, lurching over the road in this disturbing wheeled vehicle, made himself ill to attend to the sickness of a patient! Students and faculty members made frequent demands upon him in his capacity as a physician, [128] and some of them even wrote to him after they had left Bethany, describing their symptoms and asking for his prescription by mail!

      Hygiene and sanitation received his unflagging attention, both in the classroom and in his private practice. When called into a home by the illness of a member of a family, he inquired into the drainage about the premises, their habits of eating and sleeping, the care given their teeth, and the guarding of other normal bodily functions. At the college he emphasized these same things again and again. He felt that a physician should prevent disease as well as cure it. He saw to it that his own premises were kept clean and neat. Good living depended to no small degree, he felt, on a good physical environment and upon a proper care of the body. He never failed to emphasize safe food, good air, ample sleep, and helpful exercise; and he not only taught but practiced these things.

      Dr. Richardson was very careful about carrying contagion. Once Rebekah greatly embarrassed him by a careless act of kindness which violated this rule. She lent a shawl to neighbors to protect a child that was being carried home during a storm, having forgotten that her own children had the measles. The result was that within a few days the neighbor's children all came down with the disease. It was a deeply chagrined physician who attended the sick in that case.

      The families of Alexander Campbell, W. K. Pendleton, C. L. Loos, A. F. Ross, Robert Milligan, and others relied upon him as their physician. In caring for the family of Mr. Campbell, he was also frequently asked to [129] treat one or another of the many prominent visitors and relatives who were always to be found at the mansion. In addition, the employees about the farms depended upon him. Sometimes during a severe illness where the condition was critical, he assumed the duties of both doctor and nurse, staying at the bedside throughout several successive nights and days, supervising diet and care, until his patient had passed the crisis.

      As though all of this were not enough, the doctor sometimes rode away in the evening to attend a school meeting. He was interested in the public schools, then emerging on a national scale, and was a constant advocate of good school buildings and of educated teachers.

      He also rode far and wide as a servant of the churches, preaching and teaching, and sometimes mediating church disputes. Once when a quarrel had broken out among the elders at Wellsburg, the church sent for the well-known peacemaker of Bethphage. A certain elder by the name of Berry was the cause of the quarrel. Having been successful in restoring peace, the doctor was telling about it the next day at his own family table. He remarked that he had learned in medical college that the juice of the elderberry was often good for fits, but in this case Elder Berry seemed to have caused the fit.

      Richardson did not allow these constant calls of duty away from home to dull his keen delight in his own family. Conversation at table was spirited and happy. Family devotions made up a part of the pattern of each day. The parlor or front porch at evening, with visitors coming in more often than any Richardson went out, contributed vitally to a sense of family solidarity. [130]

      They all attended church together. The old Bethany church, built of stone, had been erected on the banks of the Buffalo in 1829, just inside the village. In 1852 it gave place to a larger building, made of brick. In both these buildings it was customary for the men to sit on the right-hand side and the women on the left. Two doors were provided, so that the sexes might enter the building separately. The narrow vestibule extending across the front of the church was also divided, so that the men might hang their coats on the racks, and the women might remove and hang up their riding skirts, before they walked in past the pulpit to take their places in the congregation, facing the doors. The Richardson children all sat with their mother, on the women's side. Since the light on that side was kinder toward his aching eyes, the doctor violated the general rule by sitting with them. When it came time for the singing of a hymn, his clear tenor voice was heard, soaring above the rest, and none of the Richardson throats were silent.

      Robert and Rebekah's fourth daughter, the seventh child, was born on September 6, 1849, at the end of the first decade in the history of Bethany College. Her name was Frances, but from the beginning she was nicknamed "Fannie." As she grew she came to have a regal air about her which made her the acknowledged "queen" among the children.

      Chemistry, French, logic, rhetoric, with general grammar and belles-letters, physiology and botany are the courses listed in the 1845-46 Bethany College catalogue to be taught by Professor Richardson. Except that he [131] dropped French in 1849, this curriculum varied little throughout the next five years.

      November 10, 1846, a brilliant graduate of the college and a student of languages, both ancient and modern, was added to the faculty. He was also employed as principal of the Family Institution at Point Breeze. It was the presence of Professor Charles Louis Loos, a brilliant linguist, that accounted for the shift in Dr. Richardson's teaching load at the end of the decade.

      Salaries remained an "unfixed quantity" up until 1847, depending upon the share of the tuition divided out to each professor after the bursar's deductions, the janitor's wages, and the secretary's stipend were subtracted. In 1847, when ninety students were enrolled, an effort was made to peg the salaries at $800. They had often fallen below that. The continuously low level of his income made it impossible for Richardson to meet his mortgage payments to Alexander Campbell promptly, and it is a matter of wonder that he was able even as early as January 21, 1851, to deliver the last payment and receive Campbell's release.

      An invariable feature of the college through all these years was the early morning chapel, held sometimes at 6:30 and sometimes at 8:00, with Alexander Campbell's or Dr. Richardson's lectures on the Bible. It was Campbell's custom to lecture almost the whole of the allotted hour and then close with a long prayer. Some of the young men occupying rear seats formed the habit of slipping quietly out of the room during these long prayers, to enjoy several minutes of unsupervised freedom before the beginning of the next class. Their absence [132] was unnoticed because heads were bowed, Campbell was absorbed in his prayer, and the roll had already been taken at the beginning of the hour. The practice was still in its early stages, however, when Professor Richardson detected the defection and moved quietly to check it. One morning he had been detained in his classroom to care for some work of an executive nature and came late to chapel during the closing prayer. As he entered, he securely fastened the latch, turned the key in the lock, and dropped it into his pocket. He then took his seat at the rear of the hall. Presently he heard someone try the latch, fail, and return to his seat. Another did the same. Only when a third failed in his effort to open the door did it dawn on all the culprits that something had foiled their plans. The doctor was greatly amused. When the, services ended, he applied the key and marched out at the head of the procession, without saying a word. Thereafter President Campbell's long prayers were attended unanimously.

      To Robert Richardson, his work in Bethany College was no toilsome burden. It was a happy part of the great work to which he had given himself. He did it with enthusiasm. That enthusiasm is clearly reflected in his report on the 1848 commencement exercises:

      We cannot withhold the opinion . . . that Bethany College is destined to rise still above its already high reputation; and, as it becomes better known, be also more and more appreciated for the combined excellences of its location, discipline, and instruction. No place could be more healthy or free from all demoralizing influences;--no discipline could be more parental and efficient; and the course of instruction, scientific, literary, moral, and [133] religious, is without exception. We are assured it only needs a little more time to enable Bethany College to take her 'stand among the highest of our Literary Institutions, and to secure to her the widest field of usefulness.¹

      About this time, Richardson became involved in the emergence of another college. In 1849 and, 1850, A. S. Hayden, a convert of Walter Scott's, and Isaac Errett, a self-educated liberal, were laboring on the Western Reserve to bring another college into being. Chartered in 1850 and located at Hiram, it was to be known during its first seventeen years as Western Reserve Eclectic Institute, and then as Hiram College.² Both Errett and Hayden consulted Richardson frequently while this new institution was in its formative period. A letter from Errett, then minister of the church in New Lisbon, Ohio, the scene of Walter Scott's initial evangelistic success, was dated November 12, 1849:

      We of Northern Ohio are at present intent on the establishment of a high school for boys and girls. There had been some debate as to whether the institution should be of high school or college rank. There have been held two conventions of Delegates, and the location of the institution is fixed at Hiram, Portage Co. The town of Hiram has subscribed $3,800. The interest on the subject is considerable in a number of churches. We think it probable that $10,000 may be raised for the erection of the school edifice, furniture, etc., etc. I am one of a committee of 3 appointed to draft a plan of government for the institution--and also a charter to be presented to the Legislature this winter. We are to report to a Convention in Hiram next month. Knowing the interest you feel in the cause of education--and your experience in such matters, I write to request your advice and such suggestions as you may think valuable. . . . What ought to be embraced in the Charter? Will you be kind enough to [134] write soon and furnish as many thoughts as may occur to you in reference to the management of such an Institution? It will very greatly oblige me.

      In the following letter, dated May 16, 1850, A. S. Hayden offered Richardson the presidency of the new school:

      The ground is broken, and the foundations are actually laid . . . The cost of the building complete, is estimated at about $10,000. Half of this is raised, and vigorous efforts are about being set on foot to obtain the rest. Our charter is obtained, a charter we think with provisions well suiting our purposes. A meeting of the Board of trustees was held this week on the ground and among other arrangements, a committee of two was appointed to negotiate for teachers; so if possible to have the school open at the completion of the building next fall. This is a delicate and responsible task imposed on Bro. Isaac Errett and myself; and we agreed, without any hesitation, first of all to consult with yourself on the subject. We scarcely allow ourselves to entertain the hope that it will be at all possible for you to disengage yourself from your very responsible and interesting relation to Bethany College. But we were unwilling to look in any other direction, until we first intimated our preference to you, and should receive a reply, and know whether there would be any reason or inducement for us to continue our correspondence with you on the subject. We feel that to no one within our acquaintance could we commit the charge of this institution, with a confidence quite so great as to yourself, in this, the most important period in its history.

      Hayden solicited advice on all phases of the task in getting the new school under way: "We are all quite inexperienced in this kind of business, and any hints you may have time to offer in your reply will be thankfully considered." [135]

      Though flattered and intrigued by this request, and more than a little tantalized to try his hand at building up a new educational institution, Richardson decided that his love for Bethany and his duty there were too great to permit his acceptance. He did write fully and frequently to both men, however, taking a keen interest in the fortunes of the budding Eclectic Institute. Learning that A. S. Hayden himself had received the nomination to the presidency, Richardson wrote to Isaac Errett, a trustee of the new school, recommending Charles Louis Loos for the faculty. This former student of his had nearly starved as principal of the declining Family Institution, with an instructor's pittance for part-time teaching at the college added; and Richardson felt that a man of Loos's stature deserved a better fate. The letter from Bethphage is dated July 27, 1850:

      I am happy to hear that Bro. Hayden has been induced to take the presidency of the school at Hiram. His connection with the institution I should think essential to its success . . . With regards to Bro. Loos he is at present just freed from his engagement with the Wellsburg brethren. He has been doing but little during the past year except practicing the lesson which it is so necessary for our preachers to learn; that is, how to live upon nothing. He has begun to fear that, like the horse of which the old Grecian tells us, he will die about the time he has attained to full proficiency in this mysterious art, and is desirous of securing a situation in which he can recruit a little. I have no doubt the situation you mention would suit him well if there be connected with it any reasonable and certain salary.

      Bro. Loos is an excellent young man, very amiable, honorable and correct in his deportment. He is a fine scholar and is especially proficient in the languages. He is also well acquainted [136] with the scriptures and with Bro. Campbell's course of Sacred History. . . .

      There is one objection to Brother L.--his being a German and having of course the manners and the mind of a German.

      Perhaps this one qualifying sentence prevented Loos from getting the post, for he went to a church at Somerset, Pennsylvania, instead. But it was not long until he was back in the academic world, where he fitted so admirably. He served a long period as a professor in Bethany College and was president of both Eureka and Transylvania Colleges. He was one of many of Richardson's students who became college presidents. If the doctor turned down this post for himself, perhaps he could supply others to hold it for him--many times over.

      Beginning in 1847, the Richardson pen was again busy for the Harbinger. W. K. Pendleton was now added to the editorial staff, and he and Richardson were announced to the reading public as coeditors.³

      Throughout the next three years, several important series of articles were to come from "R. R.'s" hand, articles which worked close to the center of Disciple concerns and which were to have widespread and enduring influence. He wrote nineteen pieces on "The Reformation," began his celebrated Communings in the Sanctuary, and wrote voluminously on education, religious education, popular reaction to excitement over the millennium, and even composed one piece upon child prodigies.

      Since about 1830 the American scene had been alive with wild expectations of the Second Coming of Christ [137] and the Last Judgment. Many of the Disciples, not excepting Walter Scott, were swept into the full tide of this excitement. Some even went so far as to set dates for the sublime event. To all of this speculation Coeditor Richardson turned a disapproving eye. Articles on the Second Advent then appearing in the religious press were like the tales of the Arabian Nights, he said: full of fancy and overstrained imagination. "But I greatly fear they have far exceeded the reasonable number of one thousand and one, to which the story-telling Arabians have been restricted, and that the effect of the whole has been to lead away the minds of men from the simple, yet great and precious promises of the divine word!"⁴

      Nothing he did in this period was more vital than his articles on "Interpretation of the Scriptures." These appeared at frequent intervals over the next four years.

      In this series Richardson started from the conviction that we have "no fallacy to fear in the Book of God, as we have in the books of men" and that "we are enabled to commit ourselves heart and mind to the word of God as to an infallible guide; an unerring teacher; and an ever faithful friend." As a consequence, we need have no fear about the soundness of the Bible as we read it; we need only to be on our guard against errors whose source is ourselves. "Our own perceptions may be at fault. We may fail to pay a proper degree of attention. Our minds may be biassed by preconceived opinions and theories. Our reasoning may be unsound, and our deductions false." As a scientist may take a false view of nature, so may a biblical student take a false view of the [138] Bible; and in both cases it is the method of study, not its object, that needs to be corrected. It was to such an aim of clarifying valid methods of biblical interpretation that the series addressed itself.

      Interpretation of Scripture required intellectual and moral discipline, he said. Like any other field of inquiry, its meanings are open only to those who will study. A successful student of the Bible needs a teachable disposition, reverence for divine truth, prayer, as well as a knowledge of Bible history, Bible geography, and Bible chronology, manners, and customs. Also needed were an acquaintance with the history and religious views of ancient nations contemporary with the Jews, the grammar of the English language, the fundamental principles of rhetoric, and the laws which underlie logic and sound reasoning.⁵

      He railed against the pompous ignorance of those who supposed that they could pick up the Bible and understand it without undergoing these preliminary disciplines:

      They can speak with so much confidence, in unlicensed prose, of all the arrangements in the garden of Eden, that one would almost suppose them to have been there; and, as to the future, they feel themselves elevated upon the shoulders of both the lesser and the greater Prophets; and seeing, therefore, afar off, can tell you the very day, and give a shrewd guess as to the hour of the second Advent, and demonstrate the correctness of their views not only prophetically, but chronologically, arithmetically, hieroglyphically, pictorially, and almost geologically. To these persons there is nothing new or unlooked for, and . . . they wonder at nothing, unless it be at the only mystery which they admit to be inexplicable--to wit, that every body will not agree with them in their opinions. [139]

Moreover, it was notorious that these same persons could not agree with each other!

      Although he emphasized "the infallibility of the divine teachings," Richardson did not tie the inspiration of the Scriptures to the letter. "Ideas only, and not the words of scripture, were the dictation of the Spirit," he wrote. With regard to biblical authors he said, "They were not, then, properly inspired writers, but inspired thinkers; and delivered to us, each, in the language which he judged most appropriate, the thoughts suggested by the Heavenly Monitor."

      Above all, our own preconceived notions and prejudices do us most harm when we are trying to understand the Bible. "It is against ourselves we must be upon our guard. We have to watch against our own imperfections in knowledge and capacity; our own prejudices and preconceptions; our own proneness to hasty and erroneous conclusions." It was with refreshing common sense that he observed: "However brilliant the light of heaven, it may not penetrate eyes that are closed."

      The Scriptures possess no absolute and necessary power to make themselves understood. "Like the gold, the diamonds, and precious things of earth, the priceless gems of divine truth demand an earnest and diligent search, and can never be the reward of the careless and indifferent." The study of the Bible is as open as the study of nature and upon relatively similar conditions.

      There is required, then, in the student of the scriptures, the same condition of mind necessary to the successful student of Nature. Both must have a just reverence for the common Author. . . . Both should have the same freedom from prejudice [140] and prepossession, and both exercise the same care in observation. . . . The virulence and dogmatism of party spirit would be replaced by the calmness and liberality of the spirit of Christ in religion, . . . and we should have a happy end of strife and controversies.

      Nothing is more germane to an understanding of the Bible than a recognition of the fact that it is a library containing a variety of literary forms. "The style of the Bible, however, is not uniform. It is not every where equally picturesque, metaphorical and ornate." Parables and allegories differ from one another, and each type of literature must be read in terms of its own meanings. A parable must not be interpreted as history, a law as an allegory, or a poem as prose.

      Clearly, all that Richardson wrote on this subject was a part of the larger treatment of Christianity within a vital framework of devotion. At no time should the Christian aim at a learned dogmatism, but at "a renovation--a regeneration of the soul." Lacking this beauty of Christ within, Christians are "clouds without rain; trees that bear no fruit; failing fountains, which mock the thirsty traveler." [141]

[HTB 127-141]