Preaching for Pay

[Page 12]

     The opposition of Alexander Campbell to the hireling clergy system is well known to every student of the Restoration Movement. However, when it is pointed out that he did not preach for hire, the modern gospel peddlers are quick to retort that he was wealthy and did not need to do so. Thus, it is made to appear that this was not a matter of principle with him. However, the purveyors of truth for a price have distorted this as they do most everything else that they touch. It is true that Campbell married into wealth, and it is just as certain that he was a qualified farmer and a capable manager. But this had nothing to do with his refusal to receive a salary for declaring the word of God. Soon after he landed in the new world, and read "The Declaration and Address" as written by his father, he felt it his duty to announce the glad tidings to suffering mankind. We offer the following quotation from "History of the Disciples of Christ" by Walter Wilson Jennings:

     "Alexander Campbell determined, moreover, never to preach for pay, though his father warned him: 'Upon these principles, my dear son, I fear you will have to wear many a ragged coat.'"