ISAAC ERRETT.

      Isaac Errett was born in New York City, January 2, 1820. His father, Henry Errett, while a man of business, officiated frequently as a minister, and was one of the officers of the church in New York on or about the time the Declaration and Address of Thomas and Alexander Campbell was issued. He also frequently officiated in the church at Danbury, Conn., and was its founder. He was among the leading spirits, such as the Campbells, the Haldanes, and many others, who were looking for the abolition of the evils of sectarianism by the Bible method of Christian union.

      Young Isaac was fifth in a family of six sons, three of whom subsequently became ministers among the Churches of Christ. Losing his father at a very early age, his mother was married to Robert Sutor, who moved the family to Pittsburg and settled on a farm now within the bounds of the town of Carnegie. Here Isaac grew to manhood. His day schooling was terminated at the age of ten, and such schooling as he received later was obtained at night school before he had attained the age of fourteen. He was apprenticed to the printers' trade, which he followed as long as his health would permit. At the age of twelve he united with the church, and became one of the most active and trusted members in the organization of the Pittsburg church, which was among the earliest of the churches of the Restoration. At the age of twenty he married Harriet Reeder, and shortly after was selected to serve the church as minister, which he did for several years. From Pittsburg he was called to New Lisbon, in 1844, where he preached for five years. During this time he began to be more widely known among the growing people known simply as Christians.

      In 1849 he moved to North Bloomfield, Ohio, where, after a residence of two years, he was called to Warren, the county-seat of Trumbull county, Ohio. Here he spent five years, and rapidly became known wherever the brethren were gathered together in council.

      In 1856 he took the serious step of a removal to the frontier country of Michigan, with the purpose of founding, with others, a colony, and entering into the lumber business, and, at the same time, preaching the gospel in the State of Michigan. Ten years were spent in this State, although a large part of the time he was occupied as corresponding secretary of the American Christian Missionary Society. In 1862 he was called to Detroit, to serve the new church on Jefferson Avenue, organized by a number of brethren there, which he served for two years. At the end of this period he returned to Muir, Mich., where he remained until 1866, when he removed to Cleveland, Ohio, to join in founding and editing the Christian Standard, which proved to be his great life work. From this time on, the history of the Standard was very largely the history of Isaac Errett.

      The founders of the Standard were such men as the four brothers, Phillips, of New Castle, Pa.; Gen. James A. Garfield, then in Congress; G. V. N. Yost, the inventor, of Pennsylvania; Dr. J. P. Robison, of Cleveland, Ohio; Harrison Jones, now living at Alliance, Ohio, and many others of the foremost men among the disciples. The object was to establish a journal of a different type from the weekly papers then current among the brethren.

      For two years the paper remained at Cleveland without becoming self-sustaining. Having exhausted its resources, it was committed by the stockholders to Mr. Errett, who became responsible from that date for its success or failure. Accepting at the same time the position as President of Alliance College, he removed the paper to Alliance, Ohio, in the hope of keeping the paper alive by means of his labors for the college. His engagement at Alliance terminated with the first year, when Mr. Robert Carroll, of Cincinnati, Ohio, became interested in the paper and assumed the responsibility of its publication, employing Mr. Errett as editor.

      The paper rapidly increased in circulation, and Isaac Errett soon became a commanding figure in the councils of the brethren. There were several other able and spirited papers--one in Cincinnati, another in Lexington, a third in St. Louis, and a fourth in Oskaloosa, Iowa. Mr. Carroll remained in control of the paper until the year 1873, when he formed the Standard Publishing Company, and the following year disposed of his stock, and it passed into the hands of C. H. Gould, who, as trustee, held it for the members of the firm of Chase and Hall, until the year 1878, when, for financial reasons, they were obliged to dispose of their stock, and it came permanently into the hands of Mr. Errett and others of his family.

      Meanwhile the circulation and influence of the paper had steadily increased, and from this time it became more and more influential. In 1875, at the suggestion of W. T. Moore, Mr. Errett, entered into the formation of the [425] Foreign Christian Missionary Society, of which he was chosen president, a, position which he retained until the day of his death. This was a most important step in the history of the disciples, for the formation of this society was the beginning of all real activity in the missionary work of the brethren. Meanwhile he had been very influential in enabling the ladies to form the missionary organization known as the Christian Woman's Board of Missions, and it was largely through his support that they were enabled to make a. successful beginning. From 1875 all the public activities of the body with which he was associated were greatly enlarged, and it is not too much to say that this was largely due to the leadership voluntarily conceded to the editor of the Standard. The paper had begun its life by the championship of organization in missionary work, and after fighting the battles of this cause for many years under every discouragement, both in the form of active opposition and inertness among the membership, the victory was finally Avon when the missionary organizations began to raise large sums of money and to expend them in the extension of the work of the church, both at home and abroad. The increase in this work was very rapid. Largely through Mr. Errett's efforts, through the paper and through personal solicitation, the funds of the Foreign Society increased at the rate of from five to ten thousand dollars a year, and the other societies shared in the growth. And when through ill health he was finally compelled to give up his labors, in the year 1888, the receipts of the Foreign Society were something like $60,000 a year, and a large force of missionaries were actively at work in foreign lands.

      The limits of this sketch forbid the recognition of the work of many others. It is not intended to arrogate to our subject anything more than a leadership in this important work. Early in 1887 he was compelled by ill health to take a vacation, and his friends united in a subscription to send him abroad. In a tour of several months he visited the Holy Land and Egypt and Europe, and returned during the summer of 1887. The following October he attended the national session of the Foreign Convention for the last time. He lingered one year more and died on the 19th of December, 1888, at his home in Terrace Park, Ohio.

      In the limits here assigned it it impossible to give any adequate sketch of Mr. Errett's editorial labors, or his work as a minister or an author. He was a most successful preacher, and during the ten years of his stay in Michigan conducted a work which resulted in the addition of two thousand members to the churches and the founding of perhaps half a dozen congregations in that state. His work may justly be said to have been the beginning of extensive work in Michigan. After assuming the editorial chair he continued to preach until the day of his death, and for one year served the church in Chicago, his ministry there terminating with the great fire in 1873, which swept away not only the church, but the substance of its members. In all, not less than four or five thousand were added to the church under his ministry.

      As in author his works are found chiefly in the editorial columns of the Standard. From time to time there have been reprinted of his contributions to the Millennial Harbinger and the Standard such works as "Walks about Jerusalem," "Talks to Bereans," "Letters to a Young Christian," "Evenings with the Bible" (three volumes), and "Linsey-Woolsey," a volume of lectures and addresses. These works are regarded as among the ripest and most valuable in the literature of the disciples. A little pamphlet from his pen, entitled "Our Position," and intended as a statement of the views of those who advocate a restoration of the New Testament order of faith and worship, has become the best known publication of this character among us, and has attained a far greater circulation than any print ever issued in behalf of the New Testament system.

      It would be unjust to the subject of this sketch to attempt any estimate of the value of his life and character. Himself a powerful personality, he provoked intense antagonisms and intense attachments. His life-long friends ascribe to him a leading place in the life and growth of the body of Christians whom it was his delight to serve. We believe it perfectly safe to say that no man among the brethren was ever more widely known among them or more generally recognized as a leader, with the exception of Alexander Campbell. His ceaseless travels brought him into touch with every part of the country, and for many years he was such a conspicuous figure in our annual gatherings that none who attended them could fail to become familiar with his personal appearance and his methods, if they did not become personally acquainted with him. His prominent characteristic was a perfect equipoise that prevented him from going to extremes. Undoubtedly the most voluminous writer among us for a period of fully twenty years, and writing on questions hotly contested, it can hardly be said that during that time he was ever led into an unguarded statement on any vital point or into any position which he had subsequently to retract. Writing without passion, he preserved a cleanness of mind and of object that guided him safely through multiplied difficulties in a course that was all but untried.

      Personally Mr. Errett was a striking figure. Originally very delicate and slender in the extreme, by a temperate and active life he developed a physical system that endured under a strain of enormous burdens. The last forty years of his life were years of almost unceasing toil. In that time he was known to have but two vacations. As the head of a family and as a citizen, he lived without reproach and was foremost in all social and political reforms. Among other things he was a staunch advocate of temperance from his early youth. He reared from childhood to manhood and womanhood a family of eight children, and left as a monument a paper which is to-day recognized as a leading power in Christian journalism. [426]

[COC 425-426]