This foreshortened picture of a religious body may not convey to the reader all that the author desired or himself felt. If the reader feels there is any shortcoming in the story, the writer no less, and even more, knowing what he has had to omit. So far I have striven to acquaint readers with facts about which little or nothing has ever been put into print in Canada.

      This hope for a History of our Brotherhood (originating as far as observed in 1880), has climaxed in a time when the values of History are receiving in our Brotherhood and elsewhere a new emphasis. I doubt not but that the deep scholars of the Church are engrossed always with the ever-pressing problem of adjusting Christian truth to the age. But, for ourselves, its presentation here is to enable us to adjudge that from which we have proceeded, the measure of our accomplishment, and somewhat of that which we may expect the future to bring. Let the reader note too, that the deeper history perhaps lies within the original stories of Part Two.

      That a number of believers exists roundly numbering nearly two millions in the world testifies to the acceptability of our plea. This has affected, broadly, the faith of our evangelical churches. We may rejoice in this. It offers hope for man's future. Our history showed timidity at first, and courage was shown when new paths were charted, upon seeming divine warrant. The principles of the Reformers tested sternly their practice. We should still feel their loyalty. The early searching decades of the Reformers were devoted to tearing down false conceptions of the Church. In time the futility of mere iconoclasm was observedly leaders who sought a sense that Christian institutions were but slightly a matter of words, and fully a demonstration of human willingness to act, to fulfil human obligations [272] which proceeded from the sacred book--the treasury of the Founder, Jesus the Christ. The woman at the well was taught that obedience lay within the spirit, not in defining words or institutions or places. So, the Disciples found a wide freedom from rigid Mosaism and its spirit in applying the terms of the gospel. They found that the faith of the gospel in apostolic times was spread through means available to that age, though never specified or set forth in scripture as commands. Nothing short of such a conviction as this could have enabled the Reformers of old Eramosa to strike forward by means of the principle of co-operation, whilst at the same time they gave as little notice as possible to those amongst them who believed the New Testament to be a book conceived in the terms of Mt. Sinai, with categorical commands and threatenings. It seems easily apparent today that the fulfilment of apostolic injunctions must be by ways suitable to our day and no other day. This spirit of freedom was eventually fully set free in the method of Co-operation in the local area, looking to the world-wide ends, designated as ends by the Founder, with no limiting method set as an example. In attaining this fresh outlook they were released from the one-time assumption that a worshipping group in a local church, in its individual weakness, was charged with the implications of a world-wide character: Go, teach all nations. That supreme task was for the ages--the co-operative age to begin and lead the way. At this point the Disciples in Canada began to build rather than tear down; to seek unity rather than separation. This battle of principles was won in Canada's eastern provinces as well as in Ontario.

      The Disciples followed the lead of small undeveloped cults which made narrow studies in the New Testament. They were the followers of Glas, Sandeman, the Haldanes, the Scotch Baptists. Their research into the scriptures has doubtless often been seen in the long life history of Christianity. They expressed the idealistic yearnings for the perfect society of the saints on earth. This has been more notable in the pietism of certain sects, rather than amongst Disciples, who have never been given to emotion or excess idealism. We were perhaps blind to the bland wonders of the Johannine writings. The stern code of Pauline theology answered more readily our desires. The slant of the Disciple mind, searching for principles, is diverted from entering into emotional stress or enjoyment of the spiritual nuances which seem to lie behind all noble words. It may be simply asked: Who have our great 'saints' been? We may redress this balance, or lack of it, in the future; and God send us the adorable leaders of spirits. But we [273] realize too, that no Church on earth can be solely a perfectionist society for itself alone. The Scotch Baptists erred therein, and some alas have copied them. But, co-operation, and idealism in God's name will advance harmoniously together.

      Up to the times of the Campbells some areas of Christian knowledge of the rise and meaning of the Bible had not been revealed. Scholars affirm that the viewpoint of the Campbells was an advance in intellectually presenting its message. Other deep thinkers led the way to the proclamation that the Bible had a direct message for the common mind which could be readily grasped in the realm of personal attachment and alliance with the Church, which Christ founded. The dictum that we should read the Book as any other book is studied, with regard to the writer, to whom speaking, at what time, and with what immediate purpose, led to a wide development of Bible knowledge. In an elementary way, Alexander Campbell was an early, if not the first, searcher of the Bible upon the method of the Historical approach. On these grounds mostly we have developed; and now, at the call of the Spirit perhaps, should it not become the grand aim of every organized Church or group more fully to possess the riches of the Bible by study--not by listening merely to sermon preaching? We need a revival of personal study of the Book: by that method the religious empire of the Disciples was first created and enlarged. To disdain or neglect this duty is to deny our name.

      The Disciples began as truth-seekers. They established some faithful lines. As a body on the march for truth and attainment, they possessed unrest and conflict. Ultimately they settled into religious career after 1870. They had a Plea and intellectualism was behind it. Thomas and Alexander Campbell alone attracted few disciples. Theirs was a root in a somewhat dry ground--the belief that a new and simpler creed would charm the religious world. Had there not been the fires of the Great Awakening in Kentucky and elsewhere, and had there not been added to their cold intellectualism the fervor of Walter Scott, Barton W. Stone and others, the bright flame of a religious Brotherhood lit by the Campbells might have been blown out in a rough world. A not-negligible deduction is: that we cannot afford to allow our admiration for our Liberty-making Plea, to abolish or diminish our efforts for the major aim of the gospels--"to make disciples, teaching [274] them." It is possible that to attain this end the flame of Christian love must be caused to burn brighter in every Disciple heart. Would an effective Five Year Plan of this sort ever stop this side of the Kingdom? We need a 20th century awakening to a mastering spiritual emotion; and the Disciples (unlike disciples) never sought but avoided emotion.

      The religious truth men grasp and follow is always that of their time, or a prelude to a new time. (This, if true, ought to terrify us into Christian activity.) Men's journey towards truth revealed in the Bible may be regarded as an adjustment from time to time as new light was offered from above. (It was just so to Abram, and to Thomas Campbell.) The patriarchs, the great leaders, the prophets of Israel have functioned, until the greater Light that lighteth every man coming into the world broke in after the Resurrection, in the victorious words of the Man of Nazareth. Amazed and convinced by the outpourings at Pentecost, the apostles first (disciples later) began to spread the news of a new hope for man through the words of one crucified, dead and buried, who yet rose from the dead to proclaim life and salvation to all who would accept it. This fact, in apostolic times, and since, has been the seed and root of the eternal gospel, and in that great hope generations have been re-born, committing their faith to their successors. And now, honestly, in the spirit of judicially-attested truth, can we say that this program of Jesus-His hope and message--has ever been over-preached, or even preached to its limit within our churches? Our pulpits echo with many Pleas, but seldom with the sense of the everlasting hazard of neglecting this wonder word of Jesus.

      "The very God! think Abib; dost thou think? sang the Christian Browning.

      This great Scriptural teaching is either the abiding hope, with an undying vitality, for professing Christians, or it is their dilemma. Shall we from this individual corner we all occupy, plot a new fellowship in Christ--from this cornerstone of history?

      These were first abhorrent as derogatory to the Church, which was assumed to be the sole organ of Christ's followers. That this view arose from a fear of the errors which the Church then sheltered can scarcely be denied. Yet in view of the nature of things it seems to have been a mere assumption--a natural throw-back--an assertion of fear against a Church [275] so institutionalized that organization was more apparent than spirit. Such hazards of thinking have imperilled Truth many times. If this conjecture proves true, it surely provides an important meditation between the differences of the 'progressive' and the 'anti.'

      Consider again the spiritual fact that the Church is the reservoir of all spiritual truth, what an apostle declared to be the "pillar and ground of the truth" (I Tim. 3:15). It seems to lie from God's beneficent hands as the spiritual base, from which all proceeds.

      It is true that the Church is the sole organ of Christ' followers as a treasury of fellowship: nothing can derogate from this. But this invisible fellowship, composed in its essence of things spiritually discernible by the Master himself, is a secret symbol before God of the local congregation in Christ which has been won by the Spirit and the Word of the Lord to His service. As such it is the voice, feet, and hands of the Lord to work his gracious will in this sinning and suffering world. The actual truth seems to be (in the complete absence of declaratory instructions) that His followers must devise after spiritual fashions the actual ways and means of carrying out the Master's will best suited to every age and to every people. This only means that Christ trusts each of his followers to interpret his gospel to his neighbor.

      Brethren of every persuasion, conservatives, liberals, or laxly liberal, consider the following. The recorded acts and words relative to the Church of Christ reveal two sorts of decisions: first, those appointed by the Spiritual essentials, and which may be assumed to be but part of the Saviour's promise to guide his followers into all truth (John 6:13). These, which are fully illustrated in Acts as the holy words of the gospel, won men and women to the Christ. Second, there are those acts or decisions governing important phases which arose, as we should say naturally, without a precept being quoted for guidance, for they appear even at first not to have been present in mind. As fresh conditions arose in pursuit of the Saviour's desire that his will be made regnant, it is apparent that his followers acted without precept: that they were guided by prayer, study, and forceful decision (including a casting of ballots), just as their descendants have been through all ages. From these and other premises we may conclude something like the following:

      1. The Founder left the followers free, without scroll, book, or device that was visible, to work his will. In full possession of a conviction that he had arisen from the dead by the power of God as proof of his ministry, he [276] sent his living followers to bring this wonder word to all nations. He surely meant the perpetuation of his. Church on earth amongst all nations, for he said "the gates of hell shall not prevail against it".

      2. Whilst the apostles were fulfilling their duty as proclaimers of all truth (Acts 6:4) an opportunity of action occurred right in the middle of the Church's early operations at Jerusalem. The first problem of the young Church was how to lighten the physical burden of the Twelve for fuller spiritual effort by releasing them from the duty of mere serving of tables. This was not the Lord's table, but the distribution of food. Now, note the democracy of the Twelve in their reply. They did not assume the role of dictators, but said "to the multitude, look ye out from among ye seven men of honest report." (Acts 6:3). It is not said that they should thereafter 'constitute the deacon's board'. What happened there, as a pertinent example of New Testament economy, was that the apostles met a simple need by a method justifiable by reason. Similar needs arise in every congregation, nor are two congregations perfectly alike in their needs. The apostle Paul later added spiritual qualifications to the original declaration. (I Tim. 3:8.)

      3. Those who conceive of the first churches as operating always under a divinely before-revealed pattern of words and actions, must sometimes seem confused by the apparently casual human wisdom employed in various scenes. Example: a crisis arose in the first church of Jerusalem through secret teaching that Christians should also obey the Jewish law (Acts 15:24). Here the device of a modern 'conference' was brought about with happy results. (Acts 15:20.) The centuries have witnessed countless conferences in cathedrals or conventicles, where brethren, lacking defining scripture, have been led by spiritual wisdom to wise decisions. These are not quoted as ordainments of either 'boards' or 'conferences', but as examples bearing definitely upon the freedom of Christ's followers to devise ways of doing things in His name, which individuals or churches could not otherwise effect. It means that you should bring just common sense to your New Testament and bar from your thought the age-old fears which affected saints of earlier centuries as they saw pure religion defiled by the commandments of men.

      4. Nothing can be more significant of the nature of Jesus' promise of conveying 'all truth' to his disciples than the fact that no apostle, deacon, or evangelist ever breaks into the record with injunctions to build, or conduct, the Church of Christ thus and so, after the words of some Scripture or ordainment of the Lord, after the manner of Moses to the [277] Israelites. (This is outside definite spiritual definings by apostles as to fundamental doctrine.) It was spiritual endowment--a profound perception of his divine Saviourhood--which he conveyed: not a framework of church order dependent upon rules or ordainments. The testimonies of the apostles concern none of these things.

      5. On the contrary Acts reveals the Church with a more democratic mode than the synagogue, of which it was a copy. No fact in early church history is more capable of demonstration than this. Its 'elders' who 'ruled' in New Testament times were drawn upon Hebrew models. They were elderly men, naturally believed to have ripened experience fitting them for their task. Paul, if not apostles, designed for them a fitting spiritual equipment (I Tim. 1), not too high for his time, but undeniably high as modern churches have developed. We should recover or attain to that fine model. Scholars assert that in Grecian churches particularly, the 'town meeting' model affected Gentile church government. Revelation (chap. I) reveals in its records of errors that many abuses must have threatened the purity of the original gospel, just as today.

      6. And, lastly, a historic rebuttal to the idea of more than 80 years ago in Canada that organizations other than the Church were the means of degrading the faith and denying its freedom to the individual soul. Let this be said, in all kindness and truth: there lies in no record, public or private anything to show in all these years that our simple organizations of any kind whatsoever have supplanted or diminished the character or dignity of the Church of Christ. On the contrary, they have been mere hand-maidens to it. Their aims and effects have always been to magnify its power and usefulness. And, lastly, the unjust detraction: they have never "lorded it over the Lord's heritage". These personal deductions, thrust into this History, are the regretful recollections of one who, born into the fellowship of Christ nigh to seventy years ago in Ontario, has viewed with sorrow the effect of needless divisions that have been perpetuated, all because of narrow thinking in the long ago.

      If not Christian Union, in action and effect what have we done in Canada beyond (we hope and, trust) being a large but unreckoned factor in moving religious opinion towards unity? Has it not rather been upon the rationale of acceptance of Christ and his rule through a well-known formula dearly held as scripturally invulnerable to all religious winds that blow? That was the scriptural formula developed in the Restoration period which [278] all Churches of Christ in Canada still abide by as the water-mark of safe evangelical preaching. I mean here the old formula of faith, repentance from sin, or a new attitude towards life, and with an ever fresh idea of what it constitutes; confession of the Name; baptism by immersion into that name, and rising to walk in newness of life, so as to enjoy the gift of the Holy Spirit; entrance into the visible local church of Christ, His body, according to the precepts and practices of Acts and Epistles. If any consider this sketch of our characteristics as a religious body as either artificial or lacking, let him or her undergo a proper verbal presentation of the same--and accept the gospel.

      Who said this was our problem? Whilst we have preached Christian Union in a perfectly scripturally organized Church, since the year 1830, we have never united with any Christian body, generally, and but in a very few instances locally. But, we have been a voice crying in the wilderness, often without the austere sincerity that accompanies such a herald.

      I regret to have to state that in an experience verging on seventy years, I have heard little exposition or desire for Christian unity. Not until the breaking of the twentieth century did I discover that it was supposed to be the major effort of the Disciples wherein I was reared. All I heard before that largely was a plea for the Restoration of the Church to its scriptural fidelity. President Garfield's brief analysis of our practice, and Isaac Errett's excellent "Our Position" were both used to excess. Of recent years it has become a secondary aim, but we have taken no steps towards realizing it in the midst of our Canadian Church population that are at all comparable to the dignity and value which we might render were we adequately to make an effort to inform our brethren elsewhere in Canada, what we have to offer. The first thing we should do to begin to place ourselves on record, is to forget forever that we are less than one percent of the population. On the contrary, we may magnify our principles, which are fit for 100 per cent. Quietly, beyond our knowing and without our co-operation for the last seventy years, the good people of Canada have been amalgamating their Churches. We have been perhaps effective proponents, but not nationally exponents of the idea. Of course, it is not our idea, but it is our aim. This makes it possible for us at any time to venture more boldly into the field of endeavor, where, as Disciples we believe we still have much to offer.

      One reason for this presuming boldness is that during the last twenty-five years we have become better acquainted with our Canadian brethren in [279] the 'denominations'--and we smile at that word. We have been co-operating very freely with them. Some of our most prominent local leaders have been active in the operations of the Religious Educational Council of Canada, of which our esteemed brother, George H. Stewart, of Winnipeg and chairman of the All-Canada Committee for so many years, was himself chairman with honors. The Disciples in Canada are founding members of the Canadian Council of Churches, which is affiliated with the continental Federation of the Churches of Christ in America. These, and other efforts, are but the beginning of practising Christian Union in advance, lest we be ashamed to join in it when it arrives. This moiety does perhaps help to offset our long record of talking about its appropriateness for everybody. It may be asked, why may not this favorable acceptance by the denominations be used to further other progressive steps? With the years our sense of fellowship with all who profess the great and holy name of Jesus has been growing; and liberalizing influences set afoot by the religious world have helped to interpret it for us. Many of us who have been laboring in lowly areas, have we not heard that the outside world is calling for a wider witness to the Christ of the ages? During this century the repeated ecumenical conferences on faith, order, and Union, are leading the religious world undeniably to the last discoverable dilemma--that we must either totally exalt Jesus or deny him. And we are not without witnesses outside our ranks that an increased organized effort to affect the religious world through its organized masses, might accomplish more for the kingdom in a few decades than our weak and scattered individual efforts have developed during the past century?

      Christian Union as leaven in a measure of meal is quickening the Christian world. Great Religious leaders in Canada are today sounding forth pleas and prophecies looking towards union in Christ, that were undreamed of even twenty-five years ago. It may be doubted that any religious body in Canada would welcome the cessation of the plea of the Disciples for union. We must go forward with them, yet keeping our particular principles at the masthead. It is not in the scope of this writing to discuss how union will come and when. No one knows when, but what is important, all followers of Christ in all ranks are more united than ever on the road to unity. Our happy recollection may be that we as a people began with that Plea, and have helped it forward, with a might not yet scrutinized by history. [280]

      The old evangelism has fallen under public discount and we ask ourselves, have the Churches contributed to this end? We cannot reverse human social patterns easily, or at all; but we can help to re-mould our society by adopting methods which it cannot reject and may even endorse. Hard as it may be for some of us to admit, some of the operations of the local church do not attract society as they were meant to and as they once did. It is time we considered the re-making of the Church's attack upon our whole front upon all the powers of spiritual darkness.

      New trials seem to be urgently called for: the wisdom of the whole Church can provide them. It is surely the conviction of all thinking Christians that the Church lies in the backwash of the wave of progress. Tremendously has the world changed socially, and it is still moving rapidly. Let us ask ourselves whether the age-old method of 'divine worship' on set occasions--in houses of our own making and with methods pleasing only to those who love them--can any longer be said fully to serve the need of a sinning and neglectful population? Possibly the closing of an evening service and the sending forth upon the community--perhaps picked persons to pick out groups of persons--those only who can communicate the original Christian message with the warm conviction of love--might effect much more in three months than a year's regular services--where the wanted one never attends! We have for this the great example of the winning of the greater brother by the lesser Andrew. This is a mere suggestion of many that might be devised. But, let it be recalled as history, that the boundaries of the Roman empire were said to have been widened as the swords of the legionaries were shortened. The dynamic of the gospel lies where it is seldom preached: in the belief of God's caring for us in the resurrection from the dead of His Son, Jesus Christ. It is not alone sufficient to affirm that 'He is the Son of God'. His reality as a Saviour is in this: that he lives. Paul immortalized this outburst of cosmic truth by his marvellous words: "The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus." Life in Him is not guarded by commandments but by Spirit. Can there be any doubt that, the true unwinding of the Gordian knot of misery which is engulfing this planet, lies in unfolding to the nations the true vision of the Man of Galilee, the Son of God, our risen Saviour!

      "See the Christ stand" must still be our timeless watchword until--yes until--even our sun may become but a darker blot of dust amidst a desolation of darkness. (But then, faith tells us, then the Sun of [281] Righteousness will arise and the leaves of the tree of Life become the healing of the nations.)

      *used by permission of the author. [282]

[DCC 272-282]