Spotsylvania, August 1st, 1832.      

Alexander Campbell

      My Dear son, I arrived here at my good Friend's Dr. John Anderson yesterday evening in good health, accompanied by by good friend Bro. Jas. Dabney from Richmond, who proposes to accompany me as far as Dr. Straith's. I propose leaving this for Fredericksburg on Wednesday the 5th instant.

      I intend occupying the intermediate days in preaching at the request of the brethren, in this vicinity. I do not intend making any delay in Fredericksburg, except for a night, but shall prosecute my journey thro' Warrenton on towards Winchester & thence to Dr. Straith's. From the heat of the season, the hilliness of the road and the baggage I have to carry. I do not expect to travel fast, but still hope if spared to reach home about the first of September.

      I dropped you a few lines as I passed thro' Louisa, at Jackson's Post office, advising you of a remittance by a check, and showing by the agency of Bro. Wm. Bootwright, for 160 dollars. My reason for so doing was that if any accident should befall the mail, you might take the proper steps to prevent defraud.

      There is some degree of excitement in the towns about the cholera, but not more than might be reasonably expected at the apprehended approach of such a dreadful calamity. We humbly hope the Lord will overrule it, and save his people that fear his name. The 91st Psalm is the Christian's refuge & hiding place from all such evils as are sent for the punishment of an ungodly world.

      The opposition here are doing all they can, but the cause of reform is daily gathering strength--is on the ascendant. If the public advocates from the pulput & the press would only keep their temple; use soft words & hard arguments, it would progress still--"for the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. May we not expose evils, without exposing the persons that practise them, farther than to endeavor affectionately to convince him that they are wrong? No man can will his own unhappiness; but the man who abets or practises error is promoting, & indeed securing his own unhappiness; he is therefore an object of pity, and the more perverse, the more pitiable. "Moreover the servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle to all, apt to teach, patient; in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God, peradventure, will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth, and so they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will." Surely, such are in a pitiable condition; and such is the benevolence of our holy religion towards them. Let us then practice and recommend it to all the brethren. And let us give them good measure of this divine benevolence, pressed down, and running over; for our holy religion abounds with this blissful production--its native product. I most cordially wish never to see or hear one ironic hint, [1] one retaliative retort by any friend or advocate of the reformation. Let these weapons remain the exclusive property of the disputers of this world. When a soldier of the faith assumes them he loses cast. They sit awkwardly upon him, as Saul's armor did of old upon the champion of Israel;--till laid aside he cannot conquer. Speaking the truth in love is the christian motto; "In hoc vince"--Amor omnia vincit. Tho' suaviter in modo, et fortiter in re has been my favorite aphorism from my youth yet, I have to regret, I have not always obeyed this charming dictate of sound wisdom, but for the future I intend to double my diligence in this respect; yea, to quadruple it, that, upon every occasion, I may thus both defend myself, and overcome evil with good. Let us then pity our poor clerical brethren, that oppose the reformation, for they know not what they do. They may mean well, but they act badly, both for themselves, the church, and the world. I was present, last Lord's day at a full exhibition of the Episcopalian religion, in the court house at Bowling green, which I had not witnessed before for upwards of forty years. It was very solemnly performed by a polite grave-looking young man, who was devoutly accompanied by a number of decent attentive worshippers, who performed their part with apparent solemnity. The whole was a perfect consistency, all of a piece. The prayers, the hymns, the preaching, though containing many great and excellent things, yet, from the beginning to the end of the service; it addressed the congregation as sinners, taught them to confess themselves poor guilty miserable sinners, "who had done the things which they ought not to have done, and left undone the things which they ought to have done;" that there was no health in them. The sermon that followed, and the hymns sung before & after it, were completely adapted to this wretched, guilty state and so left them with some instructions and exhortations upon the subject of repentance, which upon the whole of the premises, appeared very necessary; but alas! after the best use they could make of the subject for their reformation. The next meeting would throw them back upon the old ground and find them just where they started, viz. "Poor, guilty, miserable sinners," having done no better than formerly; that is, still doing "the things that they ought not to have done, and having left undone the things that they ought to have done; consequently having no health in them." Would not ten or twenty years of such fruitless labor depress the Spirits, and sink the courage of a Hercules? But so it is; and these poor people are never to see themselves better.

      But what then, should we do for them? ridicule or satirize them for this? Far be it. They are serious, they mean well; and tho' thus depressed, and robbed of the more blissful enjoyments of the christian religion, yet we have good reason to believe that many of them love the Savior; and are beloved of him. [2]

      And would lay down their lives for his sake. But again, can a sincere, humble believer feel otherwise than sorrowful to see a portion of his highly favored fellow creatures, thus, thro' ignorance & error, deprived of the blissful enjoyments of gospel liberty, wherewith Christ makes his people free? Surely not. And can he hope to help them by any other means than the manifestation of kindness--than by presenting the truth to their consideration with love & pity? At least, if this will not do, nothing will. I think long, my Dear Son, to be home, not only for the sake of my family enjoyments, but in a peculiar measure, for the sake of a final revision of your intended impression of the New Test. Were this satisfactorily accomplished I should be comparatively at ease about other achievements. It was with great reluctance I left home on that account. If the Lord be graciously pleased to spare my unworthy life to see this thing happily accomplished, I shall greatly rejoice in his goodness, thro' his special grace.

      May the Lord bless and prosper his precious word, that it may be light, life, and joy to a guilty, erring world.

      Present my kindest love to my beloved consort and all our dear children, as you may have opportunity. I have the pleasure to inform you that every place I have been the reformation is gaining ground; several young men are enlisted lately who in a short time will, I hope, make able advocates.

      I have nothing further, at this time, to communicate. Hoping that the Lord will graciously hear and accept our supplications for each other, and for the good cause in which we are engaged, and that we shall shortly meet in health & peace and his gracious protection. I remain, my Dear Son, your affectionate Father & fellow servant in the Gospel

Thomas Campbell.      

      P. S. I had the pleasure of spending last Lord's day evening with our good friend & Bro. Thos. M. Henley, who having heard of my intended arrival at the Bowling-green, came on to see me and bid me fare well. He and Family are all in good Health. My love to Robert.

Farewell,

Thomas Campbell.       .

[Campbell Family Papers. Letter. Author: Thomas Campbell, Spottsylvania County, Virginia, August 1, 1832. Recipient: Alexander Campbell, Bethany, Brooke County, Virginia. ALS. Original. 2 letter pages. 19.5 x 31 cm.]

      Thomas Campbell's letter to Alexander Campbell, was written at Spottsylvania County, Virginia, on August 1, 1832. The original copy of this letter is held by: Archives and Special Collections. Campbell Collection. Private Library of Alexander Campbell. Accession number AC.0276. No. 0606. Bethany College, Bethany, West Virginia.

      Grateful acknowledgment is made to R. Jeanne Cobbs, Archivist and Coordinator of Special Collections at T. W. Phillips Memorial Library, for providing a Xerox copy of this autographed letter and for granting permission to publish this transcription as an online document.

      An edited version of this letter was first published as "Letter IX." in Alexander Campbell's Memoirs of Elder Thomas Campbell (Cincinnati, OH: H. S. Bosworth, 1861), pp. 167-171. The third paragraph of the autographed letter is not included in the published version.

      I have let stand variations and inconsistencies in the capitalization, punctuation, and spelling of the autographed letter.

      Addenda and corrigenda are earnestly solicited.

Ernie Stefanik
Derry, PA

Created 8 January 1998.
Updated 9 July 2003.