Reasons for Failure

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     "Do not all true and sincere Christians pray for the union of the church, as a Divinely ordained preliminary to the spread of his empire and the conversion of the world? And why pray for it unless we work for it? The great teacher, familiar with the cabinet of heaven and the purposes and instrumentalities of heaven, prayed thus -- 'Neither pray I for these only,' the consecrated apostles, 'but for all them that shall believe on me through their word,' or testimony, 'that they all may be one, that the world,' -- Jews and Gentiles -- 'may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them as thou hast loved me.'

     Schisms cannot but be most odious in his sight who conceived and uttered these words. We all know, or may know, and ought to know, that in the reason and argument of this prayer, schisms amongst

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Christians are the only assignable and valid reasons why the missionary operations, with a few and feeble exceptions, have hitherto been an awful failure." --Alexander Campbell.