AS THE Richardson family moved into the 1850's it was in a nation boiling with activity of every sort. There were now 23,192,000 Americans. Ten million of these were living in the main basin of the Mississippi, and 120,000 of them were in California and Oregon. Driven by the potato famine, Irishmen had been pouring into America by the hundreds of thousands; in the previous ten years there were 1,700,000 immigrants. In this same decade five new states--Florida, Texas, Iowa, Wisconsin, and California--had added their stars to the national banner. The Gold Rush was on. Harriet Beecher Stowe was stirring up the hornets' nest of abolition. Only four years later Senator Summer of Massachusetts, in the full heat of verbal strife over slavery, delivered his ardent speech on "The Crime Against Kansas" and was beaten into insensibility with a cane by Preston Brooks of South Carolina. In the year 1852 the Pennsylvania Railroad reached Pittsburgh, and the following year the Baltimore and Ohio made connection with Wheeling.

      The Disciples were themselves an expanding frontier people, multiplying even more rapidly than the nation of which they were a part. In 1850 there were 118,000 of them; by 1860, there would be a quarter of a million. They were now organized in a huge cooperative body, having held their first national convention at Cincinnati in the fall of 1849, where they formed the American [142] Christian Missionary Society and elected Alexander Campbell president of both the society and the convention.

      For Professor Richardson the same steady pace of college duties continued. The faculty voted to impose a fine of five cents upon students for each class absence.¹ Pendleton and Richardson were appointed a committee "to have the tubes of the Fountain for the hall repaired so far as to conduct the water to Steward's Inn."² On March 9, 1853, the chemistry professor delivered a lecture on "The Atmosphere" to his class which so struck their fancy that they asked him to write it out to be published in their student journal, the Stylus. From the year 1852 the college session was shortened from ten to nine months, beginning October 1 and closing July 4.³

      As in previous years, the doctor handled a large correspondence with former and prospective students. W. C. Rogers, a son of Elder Samuel Rogers, wrote from Elizaville, Kentucky, June 19, 1851, saying that he had been a student for three terms in Bacon College and that while he was then teaching school, he wanted to come to Bethany for his senior year, to prepare for the ministry. He mentioned the fact that he had worked his way while in Bacon College and continued: "My father Elder Samuel Rogers with whom you are acquainted is a poor man unable to assist me. Of course I contracted debts, while in Harrodsburg. After I shall have discharged these, my purse will be very light." Then he got down to the point. "Will you permit me to go one session and trust me a short time for remuneration?" he wanted to know. As an inducement, perhaps, he added: "Two young gentlemen I think will go from this Co. with me. They will pay their way in advance." [143]

      Two Hiram students one of them to become president of the United States--were introduced--to Richardson by a letter they carried, written by A. S. Hayden:

MY DEAR BRO. RICHARDSON,

      The bearers of this are excellent young men, Bro. J. A. Garfield and Bro. H. B. Boynton, cousins, members of the Eclectic. We are happy in sending you a pretty full representation from Hiram this year; at least a dozen, came to enjoy the literary festivities of the fourth.

.   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .

	Kindest love always to your family,                         Yours truly,
A. S. HAYDEN
HIRAM       JUNE 25, 1853

      A teacher at Maysville, Kentucky, who had graduated from Bethany College a short time before, wrote:

      I am desirous of obtaining a situation where I can teach a small school and speak on Lord's Day. I have spoken frequently to some of the churches in this vicinity and can feel my strength increase at each effort. I have also been engaged in teaching but for several reasons do not like the location I had. . . . Remember me to all at Bethphage.

	Your affectionate pupil
JOHN SHACKLEFORD.

      Another graduate, J. S. Lamar, writing from Augusta, Georgia, on December 11, 1854, while in the midst of a difficult evangelistic effort, asked to be remembered to the family, stating that their "generous hospitality and [144] courteous attention" had contributed greatly to his enjoyment of the years in Bethany.

      In 1852 the Bethphage family grew by two more members. On September 2, twins were born! The startled parents named them Emma and Edgar. It was on December 20, 1856, that little Willie, the tenth and last child, came into the Richardson household.

      Meantime the house at Bethphage had been growing to make room for all these children. As the family increased, Richardson kept adding rooms, until the original six-room structure now boasted nineteen, wings and annexes sprawling out in all directions. In this, Richardson was following the example of Campbell, whose fourteen children and many visitors had impelled him to a similar expansion at an earlier time.

      A painful bereavement visited Richardson in this period. Nathaniel Richardson, his father, died September 29, 1851. Robert left his studies, his farm, and his patients to sit at the bedside of the dying man throughout the last week of his illness. The brief obituary notice, appearing in the Pittsburgh Gazette, gave no evidence of the poignant meanings which lay back of such a message:

DIED

      This morning at 9 o'clock, N. Richardson, in the 73rd year of his age. The funeral will take place from his late residence, Allegheny, at 2 o'clock, this afternoon. The friends of the family are respectfully invited to attend.

      Carriages will be waiting at the east end of the Old Allegheny Bridge, at 1 o'clock. [145]

      Long since, Robert and his father had been reconciled, and the two had found much joy in the flowering gardens about Bethphage, which the latter had planned and nursed along with loving care. He had also found much pleasure in his grandchildren. Now, the happy visits of Grandpa Richardson to Bethphage were over forever.

      January 4, 1854, Thomas Campbell, father of Alexander--"Father" indeed to the whole reformation--passed to his saintly reward. He had often visited in the home at Bethphage and enjoyed the hospitality of the Richardson table. How amazed the children had been the first time they saw him take all his food, including dessert, onto his plate and mix it all together, remarking that it was all going to the same place and that the mixing might as well be done sooner as later! Doctor Richardson attended him as physician in his last illness and then assisted with the funeral. He wrote the obituary notice with a heavy sense of personal loss:

      I have to announce to the brethren and friends of the Reformation, the death of the venerable THOMAS CAMPBELL, Sr. He died an the evening of Wednesday, January 4th, having attained to the advanced age of ninety-one years, lacking about a month.

.   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .

      Never was there an individual who manifested greater reverence for the Word of God, or a truer desire to see it faithfully obeyed . . . And never was there one who more fully exemplified the doctrine which he taught, or whose life was more evidently guided by the teachings of the Spirit, and controlled by the Divine principle of love to God and man . . . Oh, who that has enjoyed the pleasure of his society, can ever forget that countenance of benignity; those thoughtful eyes, beaming with affectionate regard; those venerable silvery locks . . . upon the high and ample forehead, and contrasting so agreeably with the [146] fresh and lively tints of his complexion; those kindly greetings and inquiries with which he so politely welcomed his friends; or that ready overflow of Christian feeling and instruction which he seemed unable long to repress within a heart filled with love and Divine truth!⁴

      While the Department of Agriculture was still an obscure bureau in the Department of the Interior, and before a weather bureau had come into existence, farmer Richardson was pioneering agricultural experiments and writing regularly to Washington, D.C., about crops, fertilizers, soils, and weather conditions. On December 28, 1855, he wrote to Dr. Daniel Breed, agricultural chemist of the Department of the Interior, one of a series of letters which passed back and forth between them. Discussing a technical question concerning fertilizer, Richardson stepped aside from the main issue long enough to admit, modestly, that his experiments at Bethphage had won him renown throughout Virginia:

      I live on a little farm and take great delight in agriculture. The Agricultural Society adjudged to me the ways for the best farming in this fertile portion of Virginia, but I must confess that I am by no. means satisfied with my own methods. I am conscious indeed that they are very imperfect and that there is yet much to be learned as respects the proper application of scientific principles to agriculture.

      He read up-to-date journals and books bearing on his hobby. The American Farmer, the American Agriculturalist, and the Cultivator came periodically to his study table. He filed the issues and had them bound for ready reference. Books like Johnston's Lectures on Agricultural Chemistry occupied a considerable section of his library. [147]

      But he was not content merely to read what others had written. He wrote up his own soil testings, crop rotations, and stock experiments, publishing them far and wide in newspapers and agricultural journals.

      His neighbors, including Alexander Campbell, who farmed on a grand scale, respected and deferred to Richardson's leadership in the farming movement. Many of them gathered in the evenings at his house to question him and to hear the news of his latest experiments.

      He was active at an early date in agitation and planning for agricultural colleges. W. L. Irwin, a Bethany College graduate living in Missouri, wrote him in 1853, for instance, asking him to outline a charter for an agricultural college in that state.

      Later he published a detailed proposal for an agricultural department at Bethany, stating his hope that this would be America's first agricultural school.⁵ His plans for the department, as disclosed in seven open letters to John C. Campbell, appearing in the Wheeling Daily Intelligencer for May 18 through June 27, 1855, outlined every phase of the subject from a full curriculum to buildings, classrooms, and laboratories. In the initial letter he praised J. C. Campbell for his prudent foresight some sixteen years before, which had secured the introduction of a clause in the Bethany College Charter "which gives to the Trustees of the Institution full authority to establish an Agricultural Department."

      Richardson's "objects and arrangements of this Department" need not concern us here, but his final argument for educated farmers cannot be resisted: Maintaining that "farming is not the simple and ignorant occupation [148] which many suppose," he declared that "the farmer has by virtue of his calling no inherent nor acquired right either to be a blockhead or to disfigure and impoverish, by his stupidity, any portion of the surface of God's earth, which may, indeed be his patrimony, but not the less that of the State and of mankind."⁶

      Thus a professor of chemistry and a doctor of medicine, whose main interest was the reformation of religion and whose avocation was farming, antedated the proposal of the Merrill Act and, as a vigorous progressive, showed the way, far before his time, to a scientific agricultural economy.

      The years 1853 through 1855 brought on another severe attack of eye trouble. Although the doctor wore glasses from his youth, this trouble was nothing that glasses could then reach. No treatment for it proved effective but rest of his vision. He bathed his eyes and face frequently in cold water to gain momentary relief from the pain, but the weakness continued, and deepened. This was his worst attack. When it did not lift, but dragged on, even increased, through three whole years, he began to fear that he would become blind.

      Standing helplessly by as the doctor fought this battle alone was a fearsome experience for his family. His daughter Mary tells us about their apprehension and sorrow:

      In order to endure more tolerably the hours of darkness that he felt approaching, he procured a flute and violin on which he practiced whenever he had a few minutes of leisure. This was generally in the evening between daylight and dark, and I seem [149] to hear yet the plaintive strains of his favorite airs, such as "Life Let Us Cherish," "Oft in the Stilly Night," "Last Rose of Summer," etc., as they floated down from his study. Of course they were doubly sad and plaintive to us in view of the impending calamity.⁷

      Amazingly, the afflicted doctor did not let his troubles halt his work. He continued his medical practice. His lecturing at the college went on without abatement. Pressing members of his family into service as secretaries, he even managed to get some reading and writing done--a great deal of it, in fact.

      It was a matter of sorrow to him that he could not continue as coeditor of the Harbinger. That, plainly, was beyond the limits of his mortal strength. He chafed under his inability to contribute to the ongoing of the reformation in the way for which he felt he was best fitted, but his disappointment simply spurred him on in his search for other means by which he might serve the cause.

      He went on tours. We find him meeting in a tent with Adamson Bentley, A. S. and William Hayden, Samuel Church, Isaac Errett, J. P. Robison, and W. K. Pendleton far a four-day rally called the "Annual Meeting at Bedford, Ohio."⁸ D. C. Gordon reported having seen him in Baltimore in 1853.⁹ He spoke several times at the "Re-Union at Allegheny City, Pa.," in November, 1854, and served on one of the committees.¹⁰ On this trip he was helping with the college program to endow professorships.

      In 1855 the trustees of Bethany College were laying plans for a campaign to get different states to endow [150] chairs in the college. Dr. Richardson undertook to formulate and present the matter to Disciples in Ohio. A letter from Isaac Errett, dated April 20, 1855, reveals the progress being made at that time. "That Ohio will, with proper effort, endow a chair in Bethany College, is, I think, pretty well settled," he wrote. "That is the settled conviction and purpose of most of our leading brethren." But, as this same letter shows, Bethany College was now caught in the Euroclydon of the slavery strife:

      You are well aware that there is a very decided anti-slavery feeling in this portion of the State and that Mr. C's essays on slavery have given offense, and cooled the zeal of many in behalf of Bethany College. [Neither an abolitionist nor a proslavery advocate, Alexander Campbell took a position favoring the gradual, compensated liberation of slaves, as England had done.] There has been up this way a strong prejudice against Bethany from an impression that Southern students ruled everything there; and that Northern students had no equal chance. This however, is dying out. It has happened, unfortunately that most of our Northern students who had any brains, went South after graduating and your college has never been creditably represented in the North, save by Bro. Charles L. Loos.

      The chief means, however, through which Richardson sought to perpetuate his efforts for the reformation was a little book published in 1853. It gathered together in brief form the contribution of the long series in the Millennial Harbinger on "The Reformation," running since 1847. He called his little book by a long name: The Principles and Objects o f the Religious Reformation, Urged by A. Campbell and Others, Briefly Stated and Explained. It was printed on the presses in Bethany and [151] published by Alexander Campbell. Mechanically it was a most attractive piece of work, and it was just 88 pages long. A model of brevity, comprehensiveness, and clarity, it was a work so fully expressive of all that the Reformers worked for that it deserves to be called the "Disciple Manifesto."

      In announcing the publication of this book, Richardson himself said:

      As the feeble condition of my eyes renders it difficult for me to contribute much to the pages of the Harbinger, and has even induced me to withdraw my name, for the present, as co-editor in the work, I trust my friends and brethren will, by the circulation of this little work, enable me to hope that I am still thereby doing something in aid of the good cause in which we have a common, and, I trust, an abiding interest.¹¹

      Response to the book was enthusiastic. The circulation was extensive. Alexander Campbell's own reaction reflected the common mood:

      The author of this essay has himself been connected with it the reformations for almost a quarter of a century, and is well posted in its history from the beginning. This tract gives a well proportioned miniature view of it in a lucid and chaste style, and is worthy of himself and the cause. It ought to be circulated, not only among our brethren, but the religious and reflecting of all Protestant Christians. He is about having it stereotyped in Philadelphia, that it may be cheaply and extensively circulated through the country.¹²

      A year later, Coeditor Pendleton could report to the readers of the Harbinger that the demand for the book was still strong: "We are gratified to learn that the brethren have shown their appreciation of this little work, [152] by the liberal orders which they have sent in for it."¹³ The book was to go through three editions and unnumbered printings, not only during the author's life, but for many years after his death.

      Believing, as did other Protestants, in the authority of the Bible, but, contrary to most of them, in the equal right of all Christians to interpret the Scriptures for themselves, and without reference to theological dogmas, the author stated the program of the reformation as an effort "to establish a unity of faith, instead of that diversity of opinion which has distracted religious society; and to restore the gospel and its institutions, in all their original simplicity, to the world." Its dominant purpose, he said, was "to establish CHRISTIAN UNION upon the basis of a SIMPLE EVANGELICAL CHRISTIANITY."¹⁴ The movement rested upon three principles: "1st. The distinction between FAITH and OPINION. 2d. The distinction between what may be emphatically termed THE CHRISTIAN FAITH and the doctrinal KNOWLEDGE. 3d. The true BASIS OF CHRISTIAN UNION."¹⁵ From these basic principles stemmed six "objects," which were regarded as instrumental. These may be summarized as follows:

      1. The discovery that the revelation recorded in the Bible is not level but progressive, disclosing itself through dispensations.

      2. The discovery that the church began, not in Jewish times, but at Pentecost, and is therefore not to be confused with Old Testament institutions.

      3. The action of baptism (immersion), and its design (remission of sins). [153]

      4. The place of the Holy Spirit.

      5. Weekly Communion.

      6. Autonomy of the local church.

      Coming to the first principle, Richardson said that the whole effort of the Campbells and others was to uncover at the heart of a great mass of theological speculations, the solid core of "common Christianity." This, they held, is to be found in the empirical facts of Scripture. Christianity is primarily a deed, not a dogma; the deed must be kept central, but the rise of dogma is inevitable. This situation is to be resolved by adherence to the following proposition: "Each individual must have a perfect right to entertain what opinions he pleases, but he must not attempt to enforce them upon others, or make them a term of communion or religious fellowship."¹⁶

      It is in his discussion of the second principle that Richardson rises to the heights. "The Christian Faith" is not to be confused with "knowledge" or intellectual belief. At this point, the Disciples differed from other religious bodies in "one important particular," namely, that these bodies supposed Christian faith was doctrinal, while the Disciples maintained that it was personal. "In other words, they suppose doctrines, or religious tenets, to be the subject-matter of this faith; we, on the contrary, conceive it to terminate on a person--THE LORD JESUS CHRIST HIMSELF."¹⁷ "The Christian faith . . . is personal in its object, leading to personal regard and love for Christ, and a personal interest in his salvation." This faith does not consist in definitions; it is not concerned with the "litigated questions" upon which sectarianism feeds.¹⁸ [154]

      It is important, says the author, to know what the Christian faith is not: "It is to be noted, that to believe in Christ is not simply to believe what Christ says; that is, to receive as true whatever may be regarded as the teaching or doctrine of Christ . . . Again: to believe in Christ is not merely to believe that there lived a person bearing that name."¹⁹ What, then, does it mean to believe in Christ? Richardson's answer is clear:

      To believe in Christ, is to receive him in all the glory of his character, personal and official; to trust in him in all the relations which he sustains to us; . . . to behold in him our only hope and refuge; and renouncing ourselves, our own self-confidence, our righteousness, and every vain device, to lean on him only as our stay, and to look to him only as the "Lord our Righteousness," as our salvation and our life. It is . . . to trust in him as our Saviour, to walk with him as our teacher, our friend; to realize his gracious presence with us, and to discern his foot steps in the path we tread. It is to be brought into direct relation and fellowship with him; to think of him as a person whom we know, and to whom we are known; to speak to him as to one who hears, and to listen to him as to one who speaks.²⁰

      Such a faith in Christ, declared Richardson, "is the CHRISTIAN'S CREED, and the only creed to which any one may be justly called upon to subscribe."²¹

      As for the third principle, Christian union, it is not to be confused with mere unity or uniformity. Like the Christian faith, which is its only secure foundation, it is vital, dynamic.

      As Christ is himself the chief cornerstone of the church and its only foundation, so also is he the true basis for the reunion of its splintered fragments. To substitute [155] "an exact knowledge of remote points of Christian doctrine" as the basis of union would be "as unscriptural as it would be irrational to prohibit men from enjoying the light and warmth of the natural sun until they had first attained a high proficiency in astronomy."²²

      The reasonableness, the tolerance, and the catholicity of this book breathe their spirit through every paragraph. In them we discover no internal struggle toward faith, only calm serenity; no human bitterness, only love; no inclination to admit defeat by untoward circumstances, only resolute purpose.

      When Isaac Errett came to Bethany in the spring of 1854 to deliver a course of lectures, not all eyes were upon him. With growing appreciation, many were beginning to single out side-bearded "Dr. Richardson, with his hacking little cough, and his varied and vast attainments," who was spoken of as "the saintly."²³ [156]

[HTB 142-156]