A suggestion that I accompany the article on Jesus' Prophetic Message with an autobiographical sketch at first had no appeal to me; but I was persuaded that it might have some practical value. If you will read beyond the earliest years a purpose should be clear to you.

Before the close of World War 1, I, the third of four children, was born to two wonderful people on a farm in Canada. My father had preached in the Church of Christ for more than a decade. In the few years he was to live afterwards I was to witness in him uncommon good will, vigorous sleeves-up service, and able preaching that together created a community response abounding in warmth and appreciation. My mother in her roll was selfless and dedicated to family, church and community as any of the paragons about whom I have since read. I was of the fourth generation of my family in the Church of Christ in Canada. I had the privilege of excellent example.

When I was two my grandfather found me trying to swim in a semi-liquid mass in a depression in the barnyard. Hoping better things for me he hazarded to rescue me and protect me against my mother's ill-contained exasperation. Since then I have evidenced a similar lack of wisdom and fastidious discrimination on occasions and have bumbled into situations that figuratively held reminiscences of this early venture.

When I was five I was on a mission of love or imbecility - trying to negotiate a precipice to pick dandelions for my older sister, and I fell into mire. She had the right idea and ran away, but a neighbor responding to my shouts, without giving thought to the future peace of the community or my later associates pulled me out. The next year my same talented sister pried one of my eyes partly out of its socket with a pitchfork. This wonder she performed without ever touching the pitchfork. It wasn't a magic show and we had not had a fight for some time. I have therefore been able to insist that I didn't deserve it and that she didn't intend it.

In four more years I was to have the shattering experience of moving to a mammoth city of 20,000 population. I remember how rebellious I was that I should be the victim of such a cruel fate. I went on strike to effect a compromise. I insisted on returning to school in the country. But both my parents also had striking ways at times and their will prevailed. It was during my year in the city that I fell into evil ways. I threw myself heartily into competition possibly to avenge myself on a cruel world. The result was that I won all the marbles in the neighborhood. I put them in one of my own knee-length black stockings and stashed them under the chair of the old one-armed man with whom we lived. A preacher friend of the stricter sort visiting learned of my acquisition and berated me for gambling. I took his lecture with little grace because there was no pew beside me to which I could make the application. After the preacher left my old one-armed friend confessed to me that he also played marbles for keeps in his youth. I felt a little better to know that I was not uniquely evil, but I was also somewhat chagrined that he had let me take the whole assault by myself when he was at least as guilty and unrepentant still as I. He should have stood in the stocks with me.

I remember my early teens as the years of the patched trousers. My father was dead, and my brother was at 17 the support of the family. I cooperated by spending my social occasions sitting on my one pair of patched trousers. They were durable and my mother was persistent. Between her patching and my learning to sit considerably still they lasted me three years. These are sometimes called the formative years. I have sometimes wondered if my physique and personality were not noticeably affected by this irregular regimen. Possibly adjusting to life that included a normal amount of standing with my back to people without my hands covering the formerly patched areas may have taken me more than three years.

Early I was drafted into responsibilities in my home congregation. I remember my first attempt at a sermon. It occupied an eternity of ten minutes. Some who hear me now long for such a day.... When I was about to finish High School brethren over a wide area began to suggest that I follow in my father's footsteps. Their suggestion, no doubt, was prompted far more by their memory of his love and service than by any promise they saw in me. I have always been a sucker for sentiment, and I'll never forget all the tears, warm expressions of affection, and the high hopes spoken. Maybe the tears were from knowing me, and the affection and high hopes from my knowing family. Anyway, I did not stop to analyze. I decided to give myself an exposure that could help me decide.

In September, 1935, I was in Abilene Christen College in company with an admired cousin with something over a hundred dollars between us after registration. We roomed in town and lived on a diet that depended heavily on raw cabbage, cornbread, watermelon and a three-day candy special that happily ran for two years at 15 cents a pound.

In A.C.C. I found a social warmth and faculty concern that contributed to one of the finest experiences I had known. There I saw again devotion and sacrifice in heroic proportions. I loved the people there devoutly and with good reason.

I left Abilene in 1938 and began preaching in Canada at the country church where I had remembered my father's work best. Most of them must have remembered it too. I could not help feeling the great disparity they must have been sensing between my message and his. I felt that they were the best, long- suffering, hopeful people anyone could hope to know. Anyway in the few months I was there I failed to recreate anything of the remarkable spirit I had remembered in my childhood. I think I began to ask what had happened in the interim, and what was lacking in my teaching and life.

In the years following I preached in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Niagara Falls, New York. In these years, although I gave myself credit for some growth, I had a more persistent voice saying that my message was not doing justice to the gospel and was really unworthy of God. . . . I married a wonderful third-generation member of the Church of Christ from Scotland. Now I was related by all kinds of ties to hundreds of members of the church in three countries and on two continents. Rarely, I suppose, has anyone had more reason to love its people.

After expressing to several my feeling of inadequacy for the important work of the ministry I took the advise of an older preacher and returned to school after practising more than nine years on a long-suffering people. In 1947 I was in George Pepperdine College. The two years I was there I preached for the church in Arcadia, and enjoyed both there and at college an association with some of the finest people I have ever known.

I worked briefly with the church in Bradford, Pennsylvania, after I left California, and I felt I beginning to get closer to an emphasis in preaching that was truly the gospel. The response of the members made me feel I was not missing the mark so badly any more. I have a deep affection for the people everywhere I have worked but these people were certainly second to none. /2/

I worked as director of Christian Heights camp in Little Valley, New York, for six years during the summers. Through this too I came to search for truth that would live with people and mould them into Christian maturity.

In 1950 we moved to New York city to begin work with the Manhattan congregation. The first day there I stated that I intended to be a disturbing influence. This proved to be a prophetic statement in an unforeseen way. Where I had hoped to inspire a people to a new appreciation of the gospel and challenge them to a more thoughtful, spiritual life I found that some few became unsettled at their old point of view and practice or else disturbed at the unfamiliar form of mine. At any rate in the summer of 1954 an action was initiated that resulted in the church's terminating my services. The dismissal was accompanied by the charge of doctrinal unsoundness. Accusations found their way into some brotherhood papers and other literature distributed. These charges were further amplified and disseminated by word of mouth so that I found myself with less than a fluttering reputation.

It is pointless now to assign or assume responsibility for the trouble. Once a dispute wages hot no one remains guiltless. Anyway, a majority of the congregation disagreed with the charge, and some of these formed a new church in Manhattan and asked me to preach for them. These people did not necessarily agree with my theories, approve all my emphases, or credit me with wisdom. They simply had faith in my essential Christianity and the basic validity of my message. They took the name - Central Church of Christ. Unfortunately these people were labelled because of their association with and fellowship with me before and after the trouble. But I assure you the labels that ran the gamut all the way to atheists are quite inappropriate.

In the ensuing years we tried to outgrow the emotional disturbance. Never did we make any attempt to answer the initial charges. But partly due to others who willed it so, partly because of our emotional upset, and partly on account of the limitations of our physical set up Central has been isolated from the Church of Christ generally.

In these nearly six years we have tried to study carefully our faith, our place, and our mission. The few of us who remain are praying that the excitement and emotional excesses of 1954 have abated and that we can be heard with a reasonable degree of objectivity. We believe our faith is valid and we want to give expression of it to our brethren. Once we tried to venture into publishing but found our resources and time far too limited. Since then we have hit on sending out an occasional article to people that we feel may be interested in studying into their faith. We are asking that you let us know of others that you believe might like to receive them.

I am sure that I have suffered much spiritual loss by isolation from the brethren I have known and worked among so long. I am not inclined to pretend that my point of view coincides precisely with the prevailing emphases in the church today. Neither do I pretend that my brethren everywhere would pronounce me sound, but I do not know anyone else they would either. If I must confess faith in a greatly proliferated and minutely detailed creed to be acceptable to my brethren I must decline. There are so many things I do not know and I am not going to pretend. But I do have a faith that I long to tell. To me it makes the difference between life and death. I think it is the gospel many need to hear. I believe it is exciting good news somewhat worthy of God and true to Christ.

Although I have known some scholarly brethren I make no pretence to scholarship; although I have known those whose ministries evidently have been fruitful I make no claim to such success. I think I know some with great spiritual insight, but I claim no such powers of comprehension. I know men of exalted Christian stature and shining devotion, but I claim no such maturity. Possibly I possess only one unusual characteristic, and that is the folly to speak any truth whether popular of not when I believe it is needed. My wisdom is limited and my judgement faulty but the world needs truth, even the little that I can speak.

I want to speak in word and life the truth of God in Christ Jesus. I speak with conviction and enthusiasm, and with assurance that the message is worth while. I have often wished in recent years that I could speak through art, poetry and music because these seem to be only vehicles fit to convey so sublime a message, except the most fitting of all - the radiant life.

I know that reasoning sometimes converts men to a point of view, but it takes concern, warmth and love to convert men to Christ. If I cannot somehow express my love by at least telling you about it I cannot hope to be an influence for moving you nearer to Christ. I hope the things I have to say ring true to you, but regardless of that I hope you believe in the sincerity of my concern and love. But if you can be convinced of both I am sure you can be helped to a higher blessedness.

Central Church of Christ
152 West 66th Street
New York 23, New York