IT is apparent by the year 1830 that a new period has dawned in the movement for the union of all Christians by the restoration of primitive Christianity. The Baptists have declined to lend their organization to the purposes of the "Restorationers" and have thrust them out into a separate existence. There are scattered through Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and Virginia, larger or smaller groups of persons called "Reformers" or nicknamed "Campbellites," composing a religious community of twenty or thirty thousand.

      It must not be forgotten that the movement was for the most part a propaganda among Baptist churches from 1813 to 1830. We shall look in vain for any wide diffusion of the "ancient order of things," [177] outside of Baptist churches or in regions not covered by them. The movement travelled most rapidly over the way prepared for it by the diffusion of Baptist principles and societies. The people who became Reformers were first of all Baptists. The separation was against their choice and seemed without reason when they agreed with their Baptist brethren in the majority of fundamental Christian doctrines, such as the authority of Scripture, the divinity of Christ, justification by faith, the atonement, and the forgiveness of sins. It was impossible for them entirely to shake off their Baptist proclivities and inheritances, or to cut all the ligaments which bound the new body to its mother. The mother could not disown the child, and the child could not deny the mother, so striking were the resemblances between them. Many churches of Reformers were separated with the expectation of continuing as Baptist churches. They could scarcely [178] believe that it was the end of fellowship with the Baptists until the crisis came in a general separation in 1829-30. Cut off in one place, they entered into fellowship with Baptists in another and felt themselves in the larger fellowship of the entire body. It was some time before and only by degrees that the Baptists convinced the Reformers that they would have to go alone. In some places Baptist churches admitted Reforming preachers to their pulpits, while in other places they were debarred. By 1832 the Reforming element was practically eliminated from the Baptist churches, and wherever their preachers went they were obliged to seek a new opening and to establish a new society, if their converts desired Christian fellowship. Hitherto the Baptist churches had profited by the recruits of Reforming preachers.

      That the process of separation was not a painless one is evidenced by the violent [179] closing of church doors against Reforming preachers, the many estrangements between lifelong friends, and the many legal contests over the ownership of church property. Very often the property of a Baptist church passed over to the Reformers without contest, as at Warren and Hubbard, Ohio. But besides these various material inheritances, the Reformers took with them the remnants and forms of Baptist organization. In this way they got their start in the new world into which they were thrust. Fragments of local churches that were cut off, simply changed their places of meeting and went on. The same was true of associations. When the Mahoning Association of Ohio was dissolved in 1830, though Alexander Campbell was present and used his influence against the action, yet he could not stem the tide that was setting against all forms of institutional authority or control in religious matters, and he reluctantly consented [180] to its transformation into a "Yearly Meeting" for edification and mutual acquaintance. When the Reforming churches of North District were disfellowshipped in 1829, they met under their Baptist constitution in 1830, and again in 1831; but at the last meeting the Association was dissolved to meet at Sharpsburg the following year, "and there communicate with one another, either by letter or otherwise, information respecting the progress and affairs of each church."

      The Reformers of different neighboring Baptist associations, conscious of their sympathy with each other, began to hold separate meetings, from which were omitted those known to be out of sympathy with them. Such a meeting was held at Mount Zion, Clark County, Kentucky, in October, 1829. In 1830 a notice was sent out calling a meeting of those friendly to the reformation, under the name of "Baptist Reformers," to be held at Mayslick, [181] Kentucky. This meeting was attended by Campbell. Such meetings grew more common after 1830, and were the earliest form of association of Reformers. Every element of authority or control over either persons or churches was eliminated from them, and they amounted to little more than meetings for worship, instruction, and acquaintance. Since nothing was undertaken by them in the way of missionary or evangelistic work, it was inevitable that people would lose interest in them, until they passed away, to be succeeded later, in the period of organized missionary effort, by the "convention" system. Campbell deprecated the loss of cooperation and urged some form of organization to take the place of the old Baptist associations. The Reformers were indifferent to it, or were occupied in the work of propagandism, to the exclusion of every other interest. The thing that bound them together was the common devotion to the [182] restoration of the "ancient order" and the proclamation of the "ancient gospel." Every preacher was a missionary of this new crusade.

      The Reformers were now confronted by all the difficulties and problems that lay before the setting up of independent ecclesiastical housekeeping. They had nobody to please but themselves, and they alone were responsible for failures or successes. That a new era had dawned was apparent to Alexander Campbell. He recognized that his teaching had created a party, which had begun to be designated by various distinguishing names, as "Reformers," "Restorationers," "Campbellites," and "Christian Baptists"; and for fear that the last name might cling to them, he decided to terminate the publication of the Christian Baptist in 1830. It was to be succeeded by a publication with a broader scope and a different spirit, and was to be called the Millennial Harbinger. He felt that the [183] Christian Baptist had served the purpose for which it was established, but that new conditions had arisen which called for another method. He regretted many things that had appeared in the Baptist, on account of their harshness and severity, but he felt that "desperate diseases require desperate remedies." He began to caution writers for the Harbinger to preserve a spirit of mildness and meekness and went so far as to decline to publish some articles sent in by Reformers because "they were at least seven years after date," and admonished them "to reform as the reformation progresses; and if there be any flagellating or scalping to do, let it be reserved for capital offenses." There was present in the first articles of the new periodical the consciousness of a new task with new duties and responsibilities. It was no longer the task of destroying the old and uprooting the false, but of establishing the new, of guiding and developing an unorganized community into [184] cooperation for service. The Harbinger became the agency for its welding together.

      One of the first problems to concern them was the name they should wear. The question had been discussed from the early days of the Christian Baptist. The choice lay between two New Testament designations for the people of God, "Christians" and "Disciples of Christ." The former name had been taken by the followers of Stone, and was thought by Campbell to have become a sectarian badge because of the heretical teachings attributed to them. For this reason he preferred the name Disciples of Christ, as one that could be worn by all Christians, without carrying with it any sectarian distinction or assumption of superiority. Both names came into use by the Reformers, the name Christian preferably by those who came under the influence of Stone, and the name Disciple of Christ by Alexander Campbell and those who came under his influence. As a matter of course [185] they came to repudiate the name Reforming Baptists, or Campbellites, or Restorationers, and every other name without New Testament sanction. A part of their testimony against other religious bodies was their use of names to distinguish them as followers of great theological teachers or party leaders, such as Lutheran or Wesleyan; or to call attention to some peculiarity of faith or practice, such as Methodist, Presbyterian, or Baptist. They opposed them on the ground that they were both unscriptural, unnecessary, and divisive in their tendencies.

      The question of supply of ministers for the new churches created by the separation from the Baptists, seems to have solved itself, as no measure was adopted to enlist men in the service of the Reformers. Enough preachers from the Baptists and other religious bodies joined the Reformers to provide for the pastoral needs of the new congregations. Very few of them had [186] settled pastors. The missionary spirit of the preachers and the evangelistic cast of their preaching, as well as the smallness of the congregations, made them by choice and necessity itinerant preachers. With such low requirements for entrance upon the ministry, and with such a simple, clear-cut message to proclaim, it was not difficult to enlist or find men of sufficient preparation to go out and win converts. Learning was held in low esteem and was not considered necessary for the exposition of the Bible, the preacher's text-book, which was capable of neither a double nor a doubtful meaning in its vital parts. Most of the communities into which the preachers went did not require a high degree of learning. Piety, mother-wit, and a ready tongue were far more important than the contributions of the schools. The first school that was established to supply a ministry for the Disciples was not opened until 1840. It was founded by Alexander Campbell and [187] called "Bethany College." Without preparation of any sort, from the farm and the shop, scores of young men went out to preach the "ancient gospel." Among such were John Henry, who was born in 1797, and died in 1844. He learned to play on nine kinds of instruments in his youth, was brought into the church by Adamson Bentley at thirty years of age, started out to preach from the farm where he had spent most of his life, and became one of the most powerful and eloquent masters of religious assemblies among the Disciples. He and Alexander Campbell were to speak at the same meeting. He spoke first and many who did not know either of the speakers supposed it was Campbell. After Campbell had spoken some time at the close of Henry's sermon many of the hearers said: "We wish that man would sit down and let Campbell get up, for he knows how to preach." His ministry was spent chiefly in Ohio. Another Ohio man was William [188] Hayden, who was born in 1799 and died in 1863. He was without education, became a Baptist, passed from the farm to the pulpit, and of him Walter Scott said to the Mahoning Association in 1828: "Brethren, give me my Bible, my head and William Hayden, and we will go out and convert the world." He became singing evangelist to Scott "and during a ministry of thirty-five years he travelled ninety thousand miles, fully sixty thousand of which he made on horseback. . . . The baptisms by his own hands were twelve hundred and seven. He preached over nine thousand sermons." There were many other preachers of lesser talent and influence whose educational opportunities were as limited as those of Henry and Hayden.

      Of a somewhat different type was David S. Burnet, who was born at Dayton, Ohio, in 1808, and died in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1867. His father was a lawyer and for twelve years mayor of Cincinnati, Ohio. [189] He was brought up as a Presbyterian, but at sixteen years of age, after careful study of the New Testament, was baptized into the Baptist church. He began preaching at once, and at twenty years of age became pastor of the Baptist church at Dayton, Ohio. He began to read the writings of Campbell and at the time of the separation of Baptists and Reformers he went with the latter. His activities were various. He was preacher, pastor and college president, editor and author, and in every capacity he excelled. If in any particular he excelled more than another it was as a speaker. He was a pulpit orator of no mean ability and occupied the most responsible positions and was held in the highest esteem among the Disciples.

      The most significant event in the development of the body of Reformers, following close upon the heels of their separation from the Baptists, was the union of the Reformers and the Christians, the followers of [190] B. W. Stone. We have traced the process by which Stone broke with the Presbyterians in 1803, followed by the organization, and within a year, the dissolution of the Springfield Presbytery, with the abandonment of creeds, human organizations and names; by which he made converts to his plan of Christian union upon the Bible alone, and organized churches in Ohio and Kentucky under the name Christians. The Reformers among the Baptists and these Christians were continually meeting upon the same field of labor from 1826, and upon discovery of agreement in many principles and practices, began to fraternize.

      There were present at the meeting of the Mahoning Association at New Lisbon, Ohio, in 1827, three Christian preachers, J. Merrill, John Secrest, and Joseph Gaston, who were invited to have a seat in the Association. They had come up from Kentucky and were preaching the doctrines of Stone everywhere through Ohio. Secrest, the [191] most able and influential of the Christian preachers in Ohio, after visiting Alexander Campbell at his home, came away convinced that "he was a man of great talent, a scholar, and forty years ahead of this generation; and that if he carries the thing through as he has commenced, he will revolutionize the whole Protestant world, for his foundation can never be shaken."

      There was one difference in teaching and practice between the Reformers and these "New Lights" and that was as to the requirement of baptism. The Christians did not make it a condition of fellowship in their churches. They received persons into their churches by giving "the right hand of fellowship" and left it to each one as to whether he should be baptized afterwards. When Secrest learned the design and place of baptism as taught by Campbell, he went back to the churches he had established, calling upon the people to be "immersed for the remission of sins." [192]

      John Gaston was led into the fellowship of the Christians by Secrest and became a close personal friend and preaching companion of Walter Scott, by whom he was brought over to the views of the Reformers. They went together among Baptist and New Light churches, bringing them together, where they existed side by side, as in Salem, New Lisbon, East Fairfield, Green, New Garden, Hanover and Minerva, all in Ohio. Among the preachers of the school of B. W. Stone in Ohio who fell in with the teachings of Campbell and Scott, were Joseph Pancoast, James Hughes, Lewis Hamrick, Lewis Comer, William Schooley, John Flick and John Whitacre.

      It was in Kentucky, however, the home of the movement, where the formal union took place between the Reformers and the Christians. They were stigmatized as "Arians" and "Unitarians," on account of the opposition of Stone to the metaphysical doctrines of the trinity, the divinity of [193] Christ, and the atonement. He was disposed to bring forward these doctrines in his preaching and writing, not to make them tests of Christian fellowship but to criticise and speculate upon them, to the neglect of the simple and essential doctrines of Christianity. His opposition to Calvinism began as a revolt against these orthodox doctrines, and without pausing to understand his own view of them, his enemies drew the conclusion that he passed over to the extreme Unitarian position. As a matter of fact he taught an evangelical and biblical doctrine upon these subjects which would be regarded as orthodox to-day. But enemies of the movement were glad to believe and circulate the worst constructions of their teaching, so that prejudice against them was bitter in orthodox circles. They had no stronger haters than the Baptists, and when some of the Reforming Baptists were found to be mixing with them in purely religious intercourse, the orthodox [194] were outraged. In 1828 the North District Association, notwithstanding the presence of a strong Reforming party, resolved not to have correspondence with any association that would retain in its connection a church that communed with Pedobaptists or with Arians. The Baptists of the Mayslick church were grieved that some of their brethren were opening the meeting houses to the Arians. Bracken association voiced her grievances against the Reformers as those who were not satisfied until they had brought into the churches and to the communion table every one that professed faith in Christ, regardless of whether they were Arians or anything else. Presbyterians and Methodists held the Christians in the same light.

      It was under reproaches such as these that the Reformers began to associate with the Christians. The latter seems to have been the party principally influenced by this association. Stone always acknowledged his [195] debt to Campbell for many important truths and wrote to him in 1827 as follows: "Brother Campbell, your talents and learning we have highly respected; your cause we have generally approved; your religious views, in many points, accord with our own; and to one point we have hoped we both were directing our efforts, which point is to unite the flock of Christ, scattered in the dark and cloudy day." "From you we have learned more fully the evil of speculating on religion, and have made considerable proficiency in correcting ourselves." But he goes on to lament the tendency in some of Campbell's writings to speculate upon religious questions in a metaphysical way. Campbell replied: "Some weak heads amongst my Baptist brethren have been scandalized at me because I called you brother Stone. What! say they, call an Arian heretic a brother? I know nothing of his Arianism, said I, nor of his Calvinism." "I am truly sorry to find that certain [196] opinions called Arian or Unitarian, or something else, are about becoming the sectarian badge of a people who have assumed the sacred name Christians; and that some peculiar views of atonement or reconciliation, are likely to become characteristic of a people who have claimed the high character and dignified relation of "the Church of Christ." I do not say that such is yet the fact; but things are, in my opinion, looking that way; and if not suppressed in the bud, the name Christian will be as much a sectarian name as Lutheran, Methodist, or Presbyterian.

      From time to time friendly communications passed between the two great leaders of the movements, calling out the position and attitude of each as to the practicability of the union of their respective followers. What seemed to be serious obstacles to the union in the way of differences in practice were discussed In 1831 Stone wrote as follows: "The question is going the round [197] of society, and is often proposed to us, Why are not you and the Reformed Baptists one people? Or, why are you not united? We have uniformly answered: In spirit we are united, and that no reason exists on our side to prevent the union in form." But there were certain differences which kept them apart, and these Stone states as follows: "1. That we have fellowship and communion with unimmersed persons. They contend--so we understand them--that, according to the New Institution, none but the immersed have their sins remitted, and therefore they cannot commune with the unimmersed. . . . We believe and acknowledge that baptism is ordained by the King a means for the remission of sins to penitent believers, but we cannot say that immersion is the sine qua non, without maintaining the awful consequences above, and without contradicting our own experience. We therefore teach the doctrine 'Believe, repent, and be [198] immersed for the remission of sins,' and we endeavor to convince our hearers of its truth, but we exercise patience and forbearance towards such pious persons as cannot be convinced.

      "2. Another, cause or reason why they and we are not united as one people is, that we have taken different names. They acknowledge the name Christian as most appropriate; but because they think this name is disgraced by us who wear it, and that to it may be attached the idea of Unitarian or Trinitarian, they reject it, and have taken the older name Disciple. This they have done in order to be distinguished from us. . . . We are ready any moment to meet and unite with those brethren, or any others who believe in and obey the Saviour, according to their best understanding of his will, on the Bible but not on opinions of its truth."

      While the great leaders were discussing their differences and the obstacles to union, [199] the preachers and the people were consummating union between Reformers and Christians wherever it was possible to do so in local communities. John T. Johnson, as soon as he made the acquaintance of the views of both Campbell and Stone, concluded that there was not sufficient difference to keep their followers apart and began at once to urge a union. Stone lived near to him at Georgetown, Kentucky, and an intimate intercourse sprang up between them which resulted in Johnson's joining Stone as one of the editors of the Christian Messenger--a periodical established by Stone in 1826. To promote a closer relationship and acquaintance between the Disciples and Christians Johnson invited John Smith, who was known to be friendly with the Christians, to come to Georgetown in November, 1831, to hold a meeting with him, and confer upon the practicability and conditions of union between the two bodies. Several conferences were held and they arranged to [200] have a general conference at Lexington, January 1, 1832. Representatives of the two movements were invited, and Smith and Stone, the one for the Disciples and the other for the Christians, were appointed to speak. They agreed in their proposals to make the Scriptures the basis of their union, and began the consummation of it by extending the hand of fellowship before the company then and there present. The members of the two bodies followed the example of the two speakers and gave to each other the hand of fellowship amidst universal thanksgiving and rejoicing. Some persons asked the Christians after the union, "Are there no differences of opinion between you and the Reformers?" To which they replied, "We are not concerned to know; we have never asked them what their opinions were, nor have they asked us. If they have opinions different from ours, they are welcome to have them, provided they do not endeavor to impose them [201] on us as articles of faith, and they say the same of us."

      This act of union could not bind any one but those present and parties to it. To extend it among the two bodies throughout Kentucky and other regions, two evangelists were chosen, John Smith for the Disciples and John Rogers for the Christians, to go together among the churches consummating the union. The event was felt to be a signal victory for the cause of Christian union as advocated by both parties. Similar coalitions between Disciples and Christians took place at the same time in Indiana, Illinois, and Tennessee. There was an element, however, among the Christians that looked with no favor upon union with the Disciples because of their teaching concerning baptism and the Holy Spirit, and who refused to go into it. They have survived, after union with the followers of James O'Kelley and Abner Jones, as the "Christian Connection Church." There were prejudices [202] against the union on the part of many Reforming Baptists because of the reputation of the Christians for Arianism, and loose teaching on baptism. John Smith had no little difficulty in convincing his friends in the churches about Mt. Sterling that the union was wise and scriptural, and he felt it needful to put out an "Address" to his Reforming brethren defining his action and correcting false impressions concerning the teaching and practices of the Christians. They had never heard any of the preachers of the Christians and knew of them only by hearsay. Wherever the two evangelists went they met with objections and prejudices against the union on the part of members of one body or the other. The congregations of the two bodies in Lexington came together at first, but later separated on account of differences and did not finally unite until 1835.

      The contributions of the Christians to the joint movement were by no means [203] unimportant. The biographer of John Smith estimates the number of Christians who came into the union in Kentucky alone at 8,000. The number must have reached a third or a half more in other states. They contributed to the movement, besides Stone, several other preachers of superior talent and character. Samuel Rogers was born in Virginia in 1789; came to Kentucky in 1793 with his parents, and finally settled there in 1812. He was converted under the preaching of B. W. Stone, and after serving as a volunteer soldier in the war of 1812, began to preach the gospel as he had learned it from the Christians. He travelled extensively as a preacher through Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Missouri, and everywhere met with success. His early life, as narrated by himself, was full of the labors and privations of an itinerant preacher in the wilds of backwoods settlements, for which he received in payment scarcely enough to support himself. On many long [204] journeys by boat and on horseback, he received less than he had expended along the way. From reading the writings of Alexander Campbell and after meeting and hearing him at Wilmington, Ohio, in 1825, "cloud after cloud rolled away from his mind, letting in upon his soul light and joy and hope that no tongue can express." The members of the church at Antioch, where he lived and preached, began to study the Bible in the new light, and within a year unanimously introduced "the ancient order of things" into their government and worship. He was thus prepared for the coalescence of the Disciples and Christians which began in Ohio in 1827 and was consummated in Kentucky in 1832. During a ministry which continued past the eighty-fourth year of his age he baptized more than seven thousand persons. Associated with him in the work of the ministry and as a companion on many of his travels, was his younger brother, John Rogers, whom he [205] introduced to the ministry in 1819. He was baptized by Stone in 1818 and studied under him at Georgetown, Kentucky, and was ordained to the ministry by him in 1820. He met and heard Alexander Campbell at Carlisle, Kentucky, in 1824, from whom he "learned the true design of baptism--the necessity for weekly communion--the distinction between faith and opinion--and the true basis of union upon the great and all-comprehensive proposition that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God." He "cordially embraced the views of the Reformation about the year 1831," and was one of the most active promoters of the union between the followers of Campbell and Stone in 1832. He was chosen by the Christians to travel with John Smith, the representative of the Disciples, to unite the two bodies in Kentucky.

      Thomas M. Allen was born in Virginia in 1797. He was brought up under Presbyterian influences, studied and practiced [206] law until he was converted by Stone in 1823. He was one of the six original charter members of the "Old Union" church, Fayette County, Kentucky. He began to preach and was ordained by Stone in 1825. He established churches at Paris, Antioch, Clintonville, and Cynthiana, Kentucky. After the union of the Christians and Disciples, in which he took a leading part, he moved to Missouri, and was one of the earliest as well as the most influential preachers of the Disciples in that state.

      John Allen Gano was another preacher who came under the influence of Stone, first as a student in his school at Georgetown, and later as an attendant upon his ministrations in the pulpit. He was converted and baptized in 1827 by T. M. Allen, and began at once to preach as he had opportunity. He had prepared himself for the practice of law, but his fervent religious nature and his readiness of expression so admirably qualified him for the preaching [207] of the gospel, that he found no difficulty in turning away from his long-cherished purpose to practice law. He was the grandson of the eminent Baptist preacher of New York City, Rev. John Gano, who came to Kentucky and died there in 1804. He met Alexander Campbell in 1827 and came at once under his influence.

      Among other preachers who came by way of the Stone movement into the ranks of the united body must be mentioned the two brothers, F. R. Palmer and H. D. Palmer, B. F. Hall, Tolbert Fanning and Elijah Goodwin. The readiness with which the leading preachers espoused the cause of Campbell justified the observation of Samuel Rogers when he declared: "Stone, and those laboring with him, had constituted churches throughout central and northern Kentucky upon the Bible and the Bible alone, and all these without exception came early into the reformation. Stone's reformation was the seed [208] bed of the reformation produced by Alexander Campbell." These preachers and many others of lesser note had prepared the way for the teaching of Alexander Campbell not only in Kentucky, but through Ohio, Virginia, Tennessee, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri.

      Stone and his followers were primarily Christian unionists, as had been Thomas Campbell and the Christian Association of Washington. There was emphasis upon reformation of faith and practice in their advocacy, as a preparation for union, but the union of the children of God was ever the end before them. As a consequence, their basis of fellowship was broader, and larger liberty was allowed to the individual conscience. They did not insist upon baptism as a condition of fellowship in their churches. Stone's conception of union was more spiritual than that of Campbell. He looked to a diffusion of the spirit of holiness and love among Christians to unite [209] them, while Campbell rested his hope of union upon an agreement in New Testament faith and practice. Campbell and many of his followers held aloof from the Christians at first on account of their supposed departure from sound doctrine, and it was not until the Christians had practically signified their acceptance of the teaching of the Reformers upon the subject of baptism and the Lord's supper, that union with them was deemed advisable. Union came because the two parties found themselves upon the same ground of faith and practice. The Stone movement was born out of a religious revival and the preachers of that connection were primarily winners of souls. They were all evangelists; and it was due to this fact that the movement spread so rapidly and widely. Alexander Campbell was not an evangelist. He was essentially a teacher and set for his aim the transformation of the minds of Christian people with respect to the doctrines of [210] Christianity. The Campbell movement started as a propaganda among the churches and would have resulted in a proselytism when separated from the Baptists had it not been leavened by the evangelism of Walter Scott and the Stone movement. These two elements, a proselytism and an evangelism, have survived side by side throughout the history of the Disciples, and have contributed more than all other elements to their growth. [211]

[TDOC 177-211]