BY 1850 the Disciples of Christ had grown to be a body numbering nearly 200,000, and were distributed widely throughout the states. On account of the strict independency of church government among them, cooperative work was very slowly developed, and often under severe opposition, from fear of creating ecclesiastical organizations likely to become a menace to freedom. The various missionary, Bible, and educational enterprises that had sprung up among them grew out of individual or local initiative. They would countenance nothing but the freest and loosest kind of cooperation. The widest cooperations thus far were those of state churches for work in their own borders. But there was work to be done beyond the borders of states for which there [259] was no provision. Some enterprises, such as the educational and foreign missionary, which were general, could only be carried on by general support. The advisability of providing an agency for doing something for the general causes of education, missions, and Bible circulation, was discussed for many months in the papers and finally issued in a call for a general convention, to be held at Cincinnati, Ohio, in October, 1849.

      Of the one hundred and fifty-five delegates which composed the convention, some were appointed at state meetings of churches to represent the various states, some were appointed by local churches, and others came on their own motion. No one had any authority to do anything that would bind the churches sending them. They were simply sent as representatives to confer and suggest, but if they organized no one could be a member of the organization but those who voluntarily joined. [260]

      After wrestling with the problem of the scope of their business as a convention, they finally settled to the serious task of missionary organization. They started in to settle a variety of questions troubling the churches, such as the ordination of ministers, the discipline of unworthy ministers, the organization of Sunday-schools, and the publication of a Sunday-school library. During the five days of the convention they discussed fifty-eight different resolutions upon a wide range of subjects and interests, many of which they concluded did not belong to their business. The one thing which came out of their deliberations was the organization of the American Christian Missionary Society. They drafted a constitution providing for a board of managers for the foreign field and a board for the home field; for annual delegates, life-members and life-directors, according to the amount of money paid into the treasury. The following leading men were present in the convention: [261] D. S. Burnet (chairman of convention), W. K. Pendleton, John O'Kane, Elijah Goodwin, James Challen, John T. Johnson, L. L. Pinkerton, Benjamin Franklin, J. J. Moss, T. J. Melish, Walter Scott, B. U. Watkins, and James Mathes. The society was regularly incorporated in the state of Ohio in 1850.

      The first work which the society undertook was the sending of Dr. J. T. Barclay as a missionary to Jerusalem. This field was selected for reasons that were largely sentimental. The mission was interrupted in 1854, and finally abandoned during the Civil War, on the ground that, "The field was as sterile as the rock on which Jerusalem is built." The only other foreign mission undertaken by the society was in Jamaica in 1858: and after the organization of the Foreign Christian Missionary Society in 1875 it confined its operations exclusively to the home field. The offering for the first year, under James Challen as secretary, was [262] $2,496.79; the largest offering between 1850 and 1884, was in the year 1860, under Isaac Errett as secretary, when $15,831.25 were contributed; the largest offering in the history of the society was in 1899, under Benjamin L. Smith as secretary, when $115,004.00 were contributed. The total amount of money raised to 1903 was $1,383,611.11. It has organized through its missionaries 2,848 churches, and has brought 138,960 persons into the churches by baptism. During 1904, $85,755.96 were contributed, 225 churches were organized, and 16,861 persons were baptized by its missionaries. Its work lies principally in the states where the Disciples have few churches, and in the larger cities. In 1903 the convention created a Bureau of Evangelization under the management of the society, to devote its attention to evangelism in the cities, to reenforce the general evangelism of the body by producing a literature and holding assemblies on modern evangelistic methods. Besides [263] the general society, each state has its own local missionary society for work within the state, which should be included in home missionary work. The amount of money raised by these state societies for 1904 was $226,633.67.

      The American Christian Missionary Society was the pioneer in the struggle for organized missionary work among the Disciples, and consequently bore all the blows and suffered all the experiments incident to pioneer work. By 1874, when the next general society was organized, the idea of missionary work through organized societies had won a place in the program of the Disciples. When the severest of its battles were over, the era of specialization in missionary work began in the organization of the Christian Woman's Board of Missions. This society was organized at the General Convention of the Disciples in Cincinnati, in 1874, to utilize the consecration and services of the women of the churches in [264] cultivating a missionary spirit, encouraging missionary efforts, disseminating missionary intelligence, and securing systematic contributions for missionary purposes. With Mrs. C. N. Pearre originated the suggestion of an organization among the women of the Disciples for missionary purposes. To Isaac Errett and his interest and advocacy, belongs the credit for its actual organization. The plan was to band together the women of the churches in "auxiliary societies" which should become feeders of the society's treasury. It has demonstrated the value of systematic giving, for it has taken the "monthly dues" of ten cents from each of the members of its auxiliaries and has swelled them from a total contribution of $1,200.35 the first year, to $167,084.72 in 1904. The total receipts for thirty years amount to $1,468,721.73. It supported two missionaries the first year and 287 missionaries in 1904. It had a total membership of 41,211 women in its [265] auxiliaries in 1904, through which it reached 600,000 women in the churches. Its field of work covers all forms of missionary service--educational, medical, and evangelistic--both home and foreign--among women and children. It is doing work in thirty states of the Union, in Mexico, Porto Rico, Jamaica and India. It has 500 children in its orphanages, 3,000 pupils in its schools, and treats thousands of sick in its hospitals. The Society has developed a new form of missionary service, and was the first to introduce Bible instruction into state universities. The inauguration and development of this work in its first stages were due to the leadership of C. A. Young and H. L. Willett. The later development has been carried on under the leadership of Geo. P. Coler, W. M. Forrest, and W. C. Payne. The first Bible Chair was established in 1893 at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor); the second Chair, in 1899 at the University of Virginia (Charlottsville); [266] the third Chair, in 1900 at the University of Calcutta, India; the fourth Chair, in 1901 at the University of Kansas (Lawrence). The Chairs at Ann Arbor and Charlottsville have been endowed with permanent funds of $25,000 each. These Bible Chairs provide instruction in the English Bible for students in the state universities, and have not only served the purpose of placing the literature and history of the Bible alongside of the Greek and Latin literatures for the intellectual and moral benefit of the students, but they have served to foster the religious life in many young persons and to turn some to ministerial and missionary service. The multitudes of young men and young women in the state institutions without religious instruction in their courses of study, proved to be a ripened field for the society which it has been quick to appreciate. As rapidly as possible it is projecting the work into all of the larger state universities. [267] Other denominations are following the example.

      In the further development of specialized missionary activity the Foreign Christian Missionary Society was organized in 1875, to do work solely in heathen lands. Opposition to societies had prevented the American Society from doing anything either at home or abroad, but the wisdom of specialization and division of the field to utilize the effectiveness of the foreign appeal was recognized, and resulted in the creation of the Foreign Society at the Convention of the Disciples at Louisville, in 1875. The leading spirits in this new enterprise were Isaac Errett, W. T. Moore, B. B. Tyler, Thomas Munnell, Robert Moffett, A. I. Hobbs, F. M. Green, J. S. Lamar, and W. S. Dickinson. Its first president was Isaac Errett; its second C. L. Loos, and its third A. McLean. Its official management and financial basis are similar to the American Society. It is an independent, [268] voluntary society, and looks for support to the friends of foreign missions among the churches. So indifferent were the Disciples to the foreign missionary interests at first that the society was unable to find men to go to the foreign field. Its first work was done in England; its second field was Denmark and the Scandinavian countries; its third field was Paris, France; while the first work among distinctly non-Christian peoples was begun in Turkey in 1879. India was entered in 1882. In 1904 the society was doing work in India, Japan, China, Turkey, Africa, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, England, Cuba, Hawaiian Islands, Philippine Islands, and Thibet. The income of the society the first year was $1,706.35; in 1904 the income was $211,318. The total amount received by the society since its organization is $2,244,151. The whole number of missionaries in the service of the society at the present time is 143, and of native helpers 295, making a total [269] missionary force of 438. The annual income of the Foreign Society exceeds that of any other missionary society among the Disciples. Within three years it had outstripped the pioneer American Society and has gone on steadily increasing its receipts, taking the lead of all others as the favored missionary activity of the denomination. It has set the mark to which all others have aimed, and it has helped others up as it has gone up the ascending scale. This is probably due in large measure to the advantage of an ideal and persuasive appeal, of which it has had the exclusive use; but in some measure to the time of the year at which it makes its appeal to the churches. It reaps the benefit of the year's first missionary offering, the first Sunday in March. But no account of the society's success would be complete which did not take into account the wisdom and consecrated leadership of A. McLean, its secretary for eighteen years and its president since 1900. [270]

      In the course of its work the American Society encountered one serious need of the churches with which it dealt--the need of houses of worship as a condition of their permanence and highest efficiency. Appeals for loans of money to help them build frequently came to the secretary from churches too weak to undertake it alone. This led to a recommendation by Robert Moffett, the secretary, to the convention of 1883, that a Church Extension Fund be created by the Board to be loaned to churches needing help to build. A special committee under the Board was created to have this work in charge. The receipts the first year amounted to $2,105, and by 1887, when a secretary was appointed to devote all of his time to the work, the fund amounted to $5,648.83. A regular Board of Church Extension was created in 1888, and was located at Kansas City, Mo. The receipts of the Board the first year of its history were $2,105; in 1904, under George W. [271] Muckley, as secretary, they were $58,988.30. The total amount in the fund at the last report (1904) was $435,183.70. It has assisted in building 821 churches during its existence. With this fund many struggling churches have been helped to larger life and not a few actually saved from death. It has stepped in many times to save a valuable property to a church that has met with temporary reverses while carrying a building debt. In 1892 it inaugurated the policy of going into places of strategic importance and buying ground in growing centres to be held for future church building purposes. In 1904 the Board was holding lots in commanding locations in fifty-six cities of the Union. During its entire history it has lost on uncollectable debts but $563, and has handled in its operations $828,454.29.

      The more benevolent side of Christian work was not begun by the Disciples as an organized national movement until 1895, in [272] the organization of the Board of Ministerial Relief. This work owes its inauguration to A. M. Atkinson, a Christian business man, who was its first secretary and gave himself to its promotion until his death in 1899. It has for its field of service the care of disabled and aged ministers, their widows and orphans. While the ministry among the Disciples has never received generous or even ample support, yet there has not been any unusual distress among them. The compensation of the early preachers was notoriously, if not infamously, small, and the majority were obliged to engage in business to eke out a living. Alexander Campbell had decried the "salaried clergy" as a part of the corruption of the popular systems of religion until the acceptance of compensation for services on the part of ministers was looked upon as a degradation of the calling. As a result of the early tendency to lower the ministerial qualification, and admit men to the ministry [273] without education or training, and the early practice of allowing the minister to look out for himself in some business calling along with his preaching, the ministry among the Disciples has been the most poorly paid of any of the denominations. Yet the denomination did nothing to provide for the period of disability in the lives of its ministers until 1895, and has not yet provided for honorable retirement under sickness or advanced age, such as other denominations have done. The Board of Ministerial Relief is poorly supported and does not have more than $10,000 a year to devote to its work. In 1904 its income amounted to $11,562.

      The National Benevolent Association was organized in 1886, and did work principally in St. Louis, Mo.; it did not become national in its activities until about 1901 when it appointed a general secretary to urge its cause on behalf of the orphaned young and the aged upon the entire denomination. Since then it has rapidly [274] consolidated the local state benevolent enterprises of the Disciples under its auspices, and has increased its income from $85 the first year, to $77,040.28 in 1904. The association supports two old peoples' homes, one at Jacksonville, Illinois, and one at East Aurora, New York; a babes' home and free hospital, at St. Louis, Mo.; and orphanages at St. Louis, Mo., Cleveland, Ohio, Dallas, Texas, and Loveland, Colorado. The association is entirely under the management of Christian women.

      The Disciples have from time to time undertaken the work of education among the negroes of the South. A beginning was made in a mission to the Freedmen at the close of the Civil War. The Southern Christian Institute was organized in 1875 and finally established near Edwards, Miss., in 1882. The Board of Negro Evangelization and Education was organized in 1890; C. C. Smith was appointed secretary in 1891; the Board was merged with the American [275] Society in 1898; and in 1900 it was taken under the care of the Christian Woman's Board of Missions, as part of the work of that society. It supports four schools in the South for the education of negroes, and for the training of negro ministers.

      A Board of Education was organized in 1894 and has struggled for ten years to make a place for itself in the sympathies of the people and in the missionary calendar of the churches, with some success. The cause of education has not kept pace with the development of the missionary enterprises of the Disciples.

      The missionary development of the Disciples becomes really impressive when it is remembered that in 1873 there was but one society with an income of $4,159, contributed by a body numbering 450,000 communicants; while in 1904 there were seven or eight societies--missionary, benevolent, and educational--with an income of $661,737, contributed by a body numbering 1,200,000. [276]

[TDOC 259-276]