The little town of Ozark is the county seat of Christian County, Missouri. It is built around the courthouse square, and is a lovely and peaceful community except when a trial of note takes place in the courtroom. Perhaps the most exciting of such events was when the leader of the "Bald Knobbers" was sentenced to death a number of years ago. Bald Knobbers were a lawless element ruling the hill country by threats and violence. They took their name from the rock-strewn treeless crests of hills where they hung their signal lanterns when getting ready for a foray. When the law finally caught up with them, the leader was sentenced to "hang by the neck until dead" and the sentence was carried out on an open scaffold erected in the courtyard. It attracted about the largest crowd ever seen in Ozark.
It was in Ozark I debated Rue Porter four nights, March 23-26, 1937. The debate resulted from a chain of circumstances. The congregation at Ozark had only one elder left, Charles F. Boyd, a respected attorney, and for a number of years the County Superintendent of Schools. In 1933, while I was in a meeting at Nixa, he arranged for me to conduct a similar meeting at Ozark the following year. As the date for the meeting was approaching he was visited by several members of the congregation who had recently moved into the area and who demanded that he cancel it. They objected that I was not a "loyal preacher," being an opponent of orphan homes and colleges created and maintained by the brethren. They did not want their names associated with that of an "anti." Brother Boyd firmly insisted he would not dispense with the meeting purely on the basis of their protests.
As time for the meeting drew near a number of them walked out and formed a rival congregation which began meeting in the Klepper Funeral Home. I conducted the meeting for which I had been scheduled, and while I was there announcements were posted about town to the effect that Rue Porter, of Neosho, Missouri would hold a meeting at the other place. Meanwhile I received a letter from Elton Abernathy who had graduated from Abilene Christian College and was associated with the Speech Department of the University of Iowa, suggesting that we discuss the whole question of "extra institutions" at Springfield, Missouri. He proposed a public debate there during the Christmas holidays of 1936.
I accepted at once and secured the promise of wholehearted cooperation from the brethren in Springfield who opposed the institutionalizing of the teaching and charitable functions of the body of Christ. While I was preparing for the encounter I received a letter from Brother Abernathy bowing out of the discussion and apologizing for even suggesting it. The brethren whom he purposed to represent had notified him they did not want these matters discussed in their area and would vigorously oppose such a debate. It was at this time word was conveyed to me that Brother Porter had publicly stated in a meeting at Ozark, held under the auspices of the brethren who were meeting in the Klepper Funeral Home, that we did not have a man among us who would dare to stand on the same platform with him and debate these matters.
I immediately wrote to him and told him I was picking up the gauntlet he had flung down and would gladly engage in a discussion with him. We agreed upon all of the details without lengthy correspondence. The Works Progress Administration had erected a lovely large Community Hall in the center of Ozark and we decided to use its spacious auditorium. There was no other place large enough to accommodate the audience. Excitement ran high and almost a thousand people crowded into the little town each night for the event.
Although I had never met Brother Porter, I knew a great deal about him and all of it was good. He was in the generation preceding mine, being twenty years older than myself. He was approaching his forty-eighth birthday, and I was less than two months away from my twenty-ninth. During the debate he constantly referred to me as "the boy." Brother Porter was one of a special class of preachers produced by the Churches of Christ in Arkansas and the Missouri Ozarks during that era. Many of these had no college training, but they knew the text of the Bible so thoroughly they could reel off whole chapters of it in one sermon, giving "book, chapter and verse" for every point of emphasis as they constantly reminded the audience.
They made great sacrifices of time and comfort, going often into remote rural areas for meetings, and being away from home for weeks on end. They held meetings in schoolhouses, brush arbors, and in the open air, as well as in little white meetinghouses. Often they were underpaid, sometimes taking a side of bacon, a gallon of sorghum molasses, or garden produce as part of their remuneration. Many of them gratified their hearers by "skinning the sects" and nothing pleased them more than to goad the Baptists into a free-for-all, and a verbal tug of war! Of course there were Baptists who loved it also, and men like Ben M. Bogard of the Landmark Missionary Baptist Church held there was no closed season on Campbellites. These country preachers on both sides were as "keen as a briar" and each one knew exactly what his opponent would say in reply to his arguments.
When Brother Porter and I met he had already engaged in twenty-five debates, all but one with Baptist preachers. He chose as his moderator, Joe Blue, another well-known hill country preacher and debater. I selected as my moderator W.G. Roberts. He was always ready to tangle with anyone in debate but specialized on Mormons. His favorite proposition was: "Resolved that Joseph Smith was a polygamist, a thief and a liar." He was ready to affirm it at the drop of a hat and if no one dropped a hat, he would throw down his own and affirm it anyhow.
My initial meeting with Brother Porter was when I shook hands with him on the platform the first night. In appearance he reminded me of Abraham Lincoln. His was the first affirmative, so he would both open and close the debate. The proposition he affirmed read: "The erection and maintenance of orphans homes, such as Tipton Orphans Home, Southern Christian Home, and others of like character, for the purpose of housing and otherwise caring for orphan children, is authorized by the New Testament scriptures." When the hour arrived to begin Brother Blue called on Brother H.H. Kiestenkamp of Rolla, Missouri to lead in prayer. Each side always called on a visitor favorable to their position. Neither side recognized an opposing preacher as worthy to talk to the Father.
After his preliminary remarks during which Brother Porter defined the terms of his proposition, he turned to the scriptures which he insisted authorized the building and maintenance of orphan homes. They were James 1:27, Ephesians 2:10, Galatians 4:18, Hebrews 13:16, and Romans 12:13. He declared that James 1:27 "will be the rallying ground and the center of the controversy, as the place around which every argument I shall make will be built. I propose to make but one argument on this entire proposition. One argument!"
My reply will be obvious to the reader, and I made it! When we are to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature, Brother Porter denied that the word "go" included a missionary society. By the same kind of reasoning, when we are told to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, I denied that the word "visit" included a charitable organization or society. Moreover James 1:27 not only enjoins one to visit the fatherless but to keep himself unspotted from the world. I asked Brother Porter what kind of an organization he would recommend for the last half of the verse.
The reporter for the Springfield newspaper who covered the event did a lengthy write-up after the first night. It featured the debate on the front page with headlines and carried over to the back page in a kind of blow-by-blow account. The cartoonist who accompanied the reporter did caricatures of both debaters. As a result of the publicity the feeling was a little more intense the second night. As I pressed my respondent, Brother Blue interposed several times while I was speaking. Brother Porter and I never "lost our cool" but some in the audience were not so calm. After the discussion for that evening was ended the people refused to leave. They stood about in small groups assessing the merits of the speeches. An elder passing by one small knot of brethren, overheard one remark, "That Ketcherside ought to be taken out and tied to a tree and whipped."
On the third night it was my turn to lead out. The proposition read: "The erection and maintenance of schools or colleges, such as Abilene Christian College, David Lipscomb College, and others of like character, for the purpose of teaching the Bible and other branches of learning in connection, is contrary to the New Testament, and should be opposed as an innovation in the church." My moderator collaborated with Brother Blue in urging the hearers to leave the debating to the men on the platform and not to "get warm under the collar" as some did the night before. He called upon D. Austen Sommer to lead the prayer and then introduced me for the first affirmative.
After defining my terms in formal fashion I said, "I shall demonstrate that the Bible College is the introduction of something new into the Church of Jesus Christ and should be regarded as something not apostolic, and therefore, contrary to the New Testament Scripture." I then proceeded with a chain of scriptural passages which had about as much bearing on my theme as the ones cited by Brother Porter did on his. I reinforced my charges with quotations from Alexander Campbell, J.N. Armstrong, David Lipscomb, the Freed-Hardeman College Bulletin and the Abilene Christian College Bulletin. Some of these were a little careless and unguarded in their statements and played right into my hands. I had researched them meticulously and had them indexed like a Philadelphia lawyer.
Brother Porter was indeed a worthy respondent. He placed the questions we were discussing in the realm of opinion, saying, "These are questions of an individual nature. They are for the Christian to decide as an individual. It is a matter of opinion not a matter of law. No, sir, it isn't a matter of law." His position was that a teacher in one of the schools was simply an individual exercising his right and duty to teach the Bible as he would in the home or on the street. Brother Porter told who did not own the schools, but he never told who did.
When the fourth night of discussion was ending and time was called on Brother Porter, he said, "Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, the debate is over. May God bless every one of you. Carl, I want to shake your hand as a manifestation of my friendliness toward you. I love you, and will be your friend for as long as we live."
I replied, "Thank you! I appreciate greatly the opportunity of discussing these issues with you, and I hope the time will come when all of God's people may be one in Christ." When I said it, I knew there would never be oneness until Brother Porter and all who stood with him reached the conclusion that I was right and they were wrong, and came to do obeisance and confess their error for endorsing such things as the orphan homes and Christian colleges.
But my respect for Brother Porter, already great, increased with the passing of the years. When he grew old and was unable to continue in active labor in the vineyard because of his infirmities, an appeal for financial assistance was made to pay for his heavy doctor and hospital expenditure. Nell and I wrote him about our prayers on his behalf which were fervent and sent a check to help in his time of distress. His reply was gentle and gracious, and when I heard that he had been summoned to meet the Lord I felt a real sense of personal loss. I expect to meet him some day in a land where there will be no further challenges and fellowship will not be judged upon the basis of earthly knowledge or of human conformity.
I doubt that the debate changed many minds. People left with the same prejudices they had when they came. The same congregations remain in Ozark although four decades have come and gone and most of the principals in the original cleavage are asleep with their fathers. The division has taken on new dimensions with the passing of time. It has solidified and crystallized. There is little remembrance that the saints once ate together at a common table.
But the discussion launched me as a debater in a factional orbit. I think now that I thought more highly of myself than I ought to have thought. This feeling was no doubt enhanced by the fact that congregations with whom I had labored in Springfield, Saint Louis and Kansas City publicly challenged Brother Porter to meet me in their cities. He at first indicated he would but then declined to do so. This stimulated my unholy egotism, especially when I learned from a reliable source that several preachers told Brother Porter that if he debated the issues with me in these centers he would set the cause back fifty years.
I confess with some little regret, and even a sense of shame, that I delighted in such confrontations. I liked being the "gun-toter" for a small party and taking on the best that the big "main-line" churches had to offer. Before I became convinced of the detrimentality of debates to the cause for which Jesus died I debated most of the recognized gladiators of that era -- G.C. Brewer, G.K. Wallace, Sterl Watson, W.L. Totty, Flavil Colley, and others.
We were lawyers for the prosecution seeking to interpret as a legalistic code the revelation of God given in love. All of us, without realizing it, were casuists, justifying what we did and condemning what others did, and doing so arbitrarily. We were defending a pattern which was not there and seeking to impose a binding dogmatism which God did not impart. But we had to go through this stage. It was a part of the maturing process for a movement seeking for status in a world made up of ancient religious forms which were hallowed and respected because of their age. We could, like children, call attention to our presence by fighting one another. I suspect the world looked on with amusement at our antics. I now look at them the same way!
I am writing this chapter on the forty-eighth anniversary of our wedding. I am doing so because it is also the thirty-ninth anniversary of our arrival in Saint Louis. Nell and I had come to the city a few weeks before and rented a modest cottage on Page Avenue, and then returned to Nevada to go through the traumatic experience of closing out one phase of our earthly sojourn. By the afternoon of June 23, 1937, the moving van backed out of our graveled driveway and started the journey across the state. Soon after, we followed in our automobile, and after staying all night at a motel enroute, arrived at our new home the next morning to find the movers there awaiting our coming.
Almost immediately we were caught up in the work of the congregations. I use the word in the plural because the brethren had decided not to wait our arrival to plant another community of believers. About fifty of them banded together and purchased a modest meetinghouse at 5344 Lillian Avenue, in the northern part of the city. A great many of the most talented brethren were associated with the new effort, but there were men of promise remaining with the original congregation, some of them still quite young. The older congregation held its midweek meeting on Wednesday night and the new one on Thursday night. On each of those nights brethren from both places were together exploring the Word. On Sunday nights there was an exchange of speakers and it was as if one large family, living in two houses, met together for visitation and sharing.
The Thompson and Bilyeu families bought a sizeable acreage in the beautiful and fertile Florissant Valley, and Brother Leonard Bilyeu developed five acres as a kind of playground for the brethren. Every fourth of July, all of the brethren from congregations on both sides of the Mississippi River gathered for a day of physical relaxation and spiritual uplift, and in late autumn all returned again for a wiener roast and a time of rejoicing in the presence of one another. There was a closeness among the families such as is seldom seen, and although rigid discipline was maintained in the congregations, it was not heavy-handed and authoritarian.
I began at once a door-to-door visitation in the area adjacent to the Manchester site, and soon a number of brethren joined together to place an invitation in every home in a carefully mapped-out territory. Meanwhile the brethren in the northern part of the city were knocking on fifteen hundred doors, and when I was free I went to work with them, helping to take a religious census which became a valuable aid in our future endeavors. Both congregations began to grow numerically and the fruit of hard work and fervent prayers could be seen. I do not recall ever seeing a more makeshift baptistry than the one at Manchester Avenue. It consisted of a steel stock tank installed beneath the floor of the speaker's platform, but scores of people were immersed into Christ and no one ever made a complaint about the inconvenience.
Before the first year was ended it became apparent that we were ready for the second phase of our plan. We had two congregations functioning without a special minister and with a leadership which knew how to involve the membership in active participation. A different speaker delivered a message of edification and exhortation each Sunday morning and evening, and the classes at midweek meetings were taught by various brethren who made diligent preparation. Open expression of different views was encouraged in the studies, and although firm opinions were set forth, I do not recall any rudeness or imposition. I took my turn in speaking, but most of the time I listened and learned from clothing salesmen, production line workers, bookkeepers, night watchmen, bakers and others. All of them drew upon incidents in their own lives to illustrate the message for the rest of us and we were thus permitted to hear a great many modern parables.
It was now time for us to share our life in the Lord on a wider basis. The brethren met for several lengthy sessions to talk about and plan the approach we should take in helping to develop the talents and abilities of those who were eager to prepare themselves for greater service. At the outset it was agreed that we would not organize anything. I would simply teach the Word of God with the Bible as our only textbook. The studies would be made available to any person, regardless of age, who wanted to come. There would be no tuition or charges of any kind. We would have a six-weeks course in the winter, on the same schedule as the public schools, starting at 9:00 a.m. and closing at 4:00 p.m. Each week there would be two night sessions of two hours each. One of these would be held at 7121 Manchester Avenue, the other at 5344 Lillian Avenue. All day classes would be at the Manchester Avenue address because of the accessibility to modestly priced eating places in the area.
Members who wished to do so would open up their homes and rent sleeping quarters to students. Other students would find such facilities in private homes near the place of study. This was never a problem and as time went on many of the students made a profound spiritual impact upon the homes where they rented rooms. One day each week the sisters from each congregation would bring home-cooked food at noon and serve it in the basement to all who wished to partake. It was expected that on these two days there would be sufficient food remaining so the out-of-town students could eat again that evening. So many persons were directly involved that the congregations were alive and active and all were sharing in a great learning experience.
A good many preaching brethren attended, and a number of young men and women who had just graduated from high school came to study before entering college or university. From the outset it was agreed we would not try to develop a certain class of brethren. We were afraid this would lead to a clerical caste. We decided to abide by the dictum of Benjamin Franklin, the gospel preacher, who said, "Teach the whole Bible to the whole church, and the leadership will rise to the top as cream rises on the milk." Ten congregations in the area opened their pulpits every Sunday to men who were attending, and thus heard a different speaker every Sunday morning and night. Some of these never intended to become evangelists, but many of them did become elders at a later date.
It soon became apparent that we could extend the period of intensive study and we doubled the time to three months. We did a great many interesting things together although the class grew to approximately one hundred. Every Thanksgiving Day we studied until noon and then went to a nearby Masonic Temple where we had rented a huge dining hall for the occasion. We had a basket dinner followed by a program of edification in the afternoon at which anyone could speak briefly about what was upon his heart.
When we studied about the death of Joseph and the embalming of his body, I took the whole class for an afternoon at the beautiful art museum. I had been accorded the privilege of lecturing on Egyptology in the "mummy room" and frequently the talk on the technique of embalming, made especially vivid by the sarcophagus on display, attracted a number of tourists and visitors who thought it was a regular feature presented by museum personnel. When we reached Exodus and Leviticus, we went on Friday night at sunset to Temple Israel where we occasionally outnumbered the Jewish worshipers at the first sabbath service. I became so well acquainted with the senior rabbi, Dr. Ferdinand M. Isserman, that he frequently announced, "We have Dr. Ketcherside and numerous of his disciples with us tonight, and after the blessing of the Torah I am going to request that he come forward and bring us a greeting." I never failed to express our gratitude to the Jews present because their fathers had guarded the sacred oracles and given us the Messiah to sit upon David's throne.
Every passing month in Saint Louis brought new triumphs of the Spirit, but there was an air of foreboding over the country which aroused fear and unrest in the hearts of the people. The name of Adolf Hitler began to appear on the front page of the newspaper every day. In March 1938 the German regime annexed Austria. In September goose-stepping troops occupied the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia. In the same month Neville Chamberlain, prime minister of Great Britain, sought to halt further inroads by signing the Munich Pact, representing a policy of abject appeasement. Hitler continued his ruthless acts of aggression and Chamberlain was forced to declare war on Germany on September 3, 1939.
Meanwhile we continued with "business as usual" in Saint Louis, although most of us realized that the United States would become actively involved. As President Roosevelt began to step up the preparedness program people began to move to the city, attracted by jobs and higher wages. The meetinghouses were filled on Sunday. The contributions grew perceptibly. Meanwhile, when Germany invaded Norway and the British forces were defeated, Chamberlain gave way to Winston Churchill, who told the British people, "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat."
All over the country, factories began to hum with intensified acceleration. Munitions manufacturing plants worked around the clock. Bombing planes were turned out with the precision of clockwork. Great army camps began to spring up in strategic locations, and it was at one of these posts my father became the first civilian casualty of World War Two, losing his life on October 25, 1941. He had hired on as a carpenter supervisor at the largest wage he had ever drawn in his life. He had dreams of paying off his debts in a very few weeks. For the first time in his life he would be free of the burden of owing money to others. He told my mother that as soon as he made enough the two of them would take a vacation and return to the place where she was born and lived as a girl.
He was sent to Neosho, Missouri to do construction work on Camp Crowder, but he was able to work but three days. The heavy autumn rains had fallen for days on end and the field was a quagmire. On the third day after his arrival, my father was working on a high scaffold bolting sections of a huge pre-fabricated dining-hall together near the roof. A shudder went through the structure and those who could leaped from it as it began to collapse. It drove the body of my father four feet into the earth and almost every bone was broken. He survived long enough to whisper his name and that of my mother through the bloody froth bubbling from his lips, and then the spirit fled from the crushed and broken tabernacle.
I went to Neosho to meet my mother and claim the body and we rode back to Topeka together. I think we were numbed by our loss. When the mortuary closed the night before the memorial service was to be held, I asked permission from the mortician to stay for a few minutes. He allowed me do so, and we were alone for the last time on earth -- a boy and his dad. As I looked at him it seemed that he moved. It appeared that his chest raised and lowered as if he were breathing in gently the precious oxygen which we all inhale without thinking about it. But I knew it was fantasy. I would never be able to speak to him again in the flesh. He would never hear me preach again, and I would never hear the good news from his lips. I made him a promise that I would keep the faith until we met. I closed the door softly and walked out into the night.
When we arrived in Saint Louis and I examined the mail there was a postcard from my father. It was written the night before he was killed. He told me how pleased he was to be in a place where there was a congregation which he could help without taking any financial aid. He also told me that he was sorry to have to be away from home and then added a phrase which seemed almost prophetic: "Sometimes we have to be absent from each other so our joy will be greater when we meet again." I still have the card. At the time when I first saw the old familiar handwriting, I thought, "He being dead, yet speaketh!"
A short time later I wrote an article for a special issue of Macedonian Call which was devoted largely to the life and death of my father. I am taking the liberty of sharing with you the first rather lengthy paragraph:
"I stood with bowed head beside an open grave a few weeks ago. The sun had hidden her face, and a gray sky wept tears, as the chill of the autumn afternoon crept into the blood of those who stood to look down upon the mountain of flowers surrounding a simple casket. I stood with my hand upon the shoulder of one of the dearest women on earth to me -- my mother, for there before us cold and rigid in death lay her husband and my father. The last song had been sung at the mortuary a short time before, and now a faithful brother in Christ was speaking his final words. Many of those who stood near were wiping away the tears which stole silently and unashamedly down their cheeks. But I could not weep for him who had gone on before. One does not weep for the hero who dies in his struggle for principle, who surrenders his armor to the only enemy strong enough to conquer him -- death! I have often wondered as I stood beside other graves as the speaker, just how I would feel when I stood beside one as a mourner. I knew now, and somehow the emotion was different than I had imagined. For mingled with the indescribable pang of regret that I would never hear my dad speak again, there was an almost glorious feeling, an uplifting thought bordering on happiness, that he died triumphant, uncompromising. I knew now what Paul meant when he said, 'We sorrow not as others which have no hope.' The world is emptier today than it has ever been for me, and heaven seems strangely closer than I ever conceived it. But overcoming that feeling of personal loss is the joyful thought that the grave cannot always be victorious over our beloved dead."
My father had been doing personal work in Riverside, California, going from door to door, soon after Daniel Sommer died. He knocked on the door of one of the elders of a congregation composed chiefly of members from Texas. This man said, a little contemptuously, to my father, "I see where your leader died." Dad replied, "Yes, and if you will read a little further in the same book, you will see that he rose again."
I am sure we made a lot of mistakes in the work in Saint Louis. Many of these were the result of attitudes. I can see now that we were quite exclusivistic, the first symptom of the sectarian spirit. It is probable that we could not have done too much to promote unity of the brethren at the time because the climate was not right. Bridges must be built from both sides of the stream. Our approach to unity was quite simple. If everyone else gave up what they thought and joined in with us we would be together. There was no other way because we were the Lord's people. Our way was "the way that is right and cannot be wrong." We were no different in this respect than other factions in the area. All of us thought that our group was the one which heaven had established and all recognized the others as apostates and teachers of heresy.
There was a constant open season on proselytizing. We rejoiced when one from another group "learned the way of truth more perfectly" and took his stand with us on "the old Jerusalem gospel," as we liked to think of our puerile system of traditions and opinions. We were all agreed upon one thing, even if we could not agree upon anything else. Instrumental music had originated with the family of Cain, was perpetuated by Satan, and was the sign and seal of spiritual departure and degradation. The Christian Churches had sold themselves to sin and when one of their members came around us we "Mistered" him while we reluctantly "Brothered" all who opposed the instruments even if we had to do it with our fingers crossed because they were "brothers in error."
It is obvious now that we had little consciousness of a vital personal relationship with the Lord. We were all affiliated with an institution whose chief men were skilled in legalistic nit-picking and who could "make out a case" for our procedural policy. Righteousness was not so much right standing with the Lord of glory, but standing right on the issues in which we gloried. We were very negative in our attitude toward the Holy Spirit and sought to confine him not so much to a compilation of printed pages, which would have been bad enough, but to our own understanding and interpretation, which was worse. This meant that if the Spirit did not work within the limits in which we worked and to which we assigned him, it was not the Holy Spirit at work at all, but Satan.
Not everything was bad, and we inaugurated some life-touching experiences. Perhaps the period from 1942 to 1947 constituted one of the busiest five years of my whole life. During that time the brethren started the third congregation. Taking about three dozen folk from Manchester Avenue who lived in the vicinity of Webster Groves, they planted them in a decrepit structure purchased from a defunct Pentecostal group. Emery Smith, who had moved to the city from Salem, Missouri, agreed to look after this group of humble people, and from the start they had "a mind to work." Brother Smith, who supported himself by hard manual toil at Missouri Bitumen Corporation, spent his spare time training, counseling and strengthening the saints. Because of their relative poverty the congregation at Manchester Avenue supplemented their contributions so they could meet their financial obligations.
Members of the other congregations went from work each evening to labor on the building. The sisters brought the evening meal and served it and there was a thirty minute prayer and praise service every evening while eating the "love snack," after which all returned to the task to continue until midnight. We grew as a spiritual temple even as the material building became more habitable. On December 18, 1946, the brethren at Manchester Avenue met to discuss the planting of the fourth congregation, and to pray for God to open up an effectual door for the fulfillment of their plans. It is interesting to recall that I was not even in the city when any of the congregations were started. All of them were started by the elders who told me about it when I returned from work elsewhere.
I developed a series of tracts to use in sowing the seed. We took advantage of the latest printing techniques, employing modern typefaces and illustrative material. We used these in "saturation bombing," marking out areas of the city in which we covered every house. Brethren carried a supply with them, distributing them at work, passing them out on streetcars and buses, putting them in letters to friends and using them wherever opportunity was presented. At Manchester Avenue a tract rack was erected close to the sidewalk and kept supplied. Other congregations in distant states learned about them and asked to purchase them, so that we began printing them in lots of 50,000 at a time. Even to this day, in out-of-the-way places I still run into stray copies of "This Way and That Way," "Daughters of the Horseleech," and "Human Ostriches." They are yellowed and faded now!
In 1943 we started a thirty minute radio program called "The Church of Christ Hour." It was aired on Sunday afternoons. Three singing groups alternated, and when I was out of the city, Hershel Ottwell directed the program and presented my talks from the script I had prepared. Hershel and I had known each other from boyhood in Pike County, Illinois. He was younger than I, but had been present when I presented my first talk at Old Pearl, where his family also attended. He was a great fellow-workman and did an excellent job on the radio. One cannot afford to make too many errors in a live presentation. I do not recall Hershel making any. The program averaged a pulling power of 400 letters per month. The greatest return for a single speech was 468 pieces of mail.
The manager wrote to inform us that the program was by far the most popular on the station. We never mentioned money and never asked for a contribution, but we received enough voluntary gifts to pay the entire cost some weeks. For a number of years after we closed the broadcasts I found individuals at various functions where I was the speaker who told me, "I used to listen to you on the radio every Sunday." At the end of each quarter my radio talks for the thirteen weeks were printed in book form. Some of the titles of these little volumes are indicative of their content, such as "The Bible versus False Theories," "Proven Proverbs," "Storm Clouds Over America," "The Sermon on the Mount," "Happy Homes," "Actions in Acts," and others like them.
It was late in 1945 I got into the publishing business in a very minor way. I brought out a rather large cloth-bound volume under the title New Testament Questions, by E.M. Zerr. I followed this with a compilation of some of the writings of W.G. Roberts which we called Lessons From Yesterday. In 1946 we began to plan publication of Bible Commentary by E.M. Zerr. It required a great deal of time, effort and money. Before it was completed it covered six volumes which cost a total of almost $35,000. At the outset it became apparent that Brother Zerr was not trained to write this type of material, in spite of his comprehensive knowledge of the Bible. Cleona Harvey, who was secretary to the dean of the Indiana State School of Dentistry, agreed to read and edit the entire manuscript. The arrangement did not suit Brother Zerr very well since he did not appreciate another telling him how to say what he wanted to say. But when I pointed out to him a whole lot of typographical and other errors in the first volume on which he had insisted correcting the proofs, and told him that I would not publish any further volumes without editing, he reluctantly consented.
A lot of the material was written in our home. Brother Zerr refused to work more than four hours daily on the writing. He arose before 4:00 a.m. and downed a couple of mugs of strong coffee and started promptly on the hour. When 8:00 a.m. arrived he stopped writing, even if he was in the middle of a sheet of paper. He composed at the typewriter and produced almost flawless copy insofar as margins and the number of lines were concerned. He worked six days per week and stayed with the stupendous task until he became the only man in the restoration movement to produce a commentary on the entire word of God. We brought out 3000 sets of six volumes each, which means that we sold 18,000 volumes. I coined the publicity phrase, "the commentary of the common man," after hearing Brother Zerr tell repeatedly how his cousin, Noah Smith, at Sullivan, Illinois, had said, "Now Eddie, if you do write a commentary don't wade in too deep and get over our heads. Just write it for folks like me and act as if we don't know nothin'."
Perhaps one of the most significant things I did in Saint Louis was to begin publication of a monthly journal called Missouri Mission Messenger. It was originally intended to be a chronicle of activities and news events of our party in the state. By keeping all of the congregations informed as to what was transpiring it was hoped we might be encouraged to greater activity and service to the Master. Gradually subscriptions began to come in from other states and eventually it seemed appropriate to drop the word "Missouri" and simply call it Mission Messenger. It was no longer a provincial publication.
At the time of its inception we had no idea that the paper would ever be sent to more than 8,000 readers, upon every continent of the globe, each month. It was only after I became convinced that what we termed "the Church of Christ" was not identical with the one body for which Jesus died, but had been fashioned into a party growing out of a historical attempt to restore the primitive order, the paper really began to be read more widely. The first article on fellowship was printed in 1957 and brought both public and private attacks from preaching brethren with whom I had labored. After the initial hue and cry, which I sought to answer in a spirit of loving concern, the paper reached out beyond our narrow and circumscribed factional limits. It was almost as if my own spiritual encounter had been timed for supplying a deep need of those who were growing tired of the party spirit with its wrangling and strife, its bitterness and hostility. But more about that later!
As mid-1946 approached, plans for my trip to Great Britain had progressed to the point that a date for going and an itinerary abroad had been worked out. Nell and I would leave Saint Louis on Tuesday, February 18, after I had finished the six-weeks annual Bible Study. It was a busy time of preparation, but then something occurred to make it busier. In late September I was visited by a large delegation of preachers from the other "Churches of Christ" in the area demanding that we debate the Bible College issue "once and for all." They were inviting Dr. G.C. Brewer of Memphis to represent their position and asked if I was afraid to meet him. I was not, and it turned out we had two debates within three weeks of each other, one in Saint Louis, the other at Freed-Hardeman College during their lectureship.
Brother Brewer submitted his affirmation which read: "The organization of schools and colleges as David Lipscomb College (Nashville, Tennessee) for the purpose of teaching the Bible and other subjects in connection, is in harmony with God's Word, and therefore scriptural." I signed it without a quibble. The debate was held in the auditorium of the Saint Louis House, the nights of December 16, 17, 18, 19. More than 600 persons attended each session. W.L. Totty moderated for Brother Brewer, E.M. Zerr for me. Presiding over all sessions was the Honorable William R. Schneider, a nationally known jurist, author of the Workmen's Compensation Law, and formerly a candidate for governor of Missouri.
It was evident our opposing brethren had made a good choice in Brother Brewer. He was distinguished in appearance, an orator of note, and a man of culture. He was a member of the faculty of Harding College and had been given his honorary degree of Doctor of Laws by the school. Many brethren sympathetic with his views flocked into Saint Louis, among them being Eugene S. Smith, publisher of Gospel Broadcast; Dr. George S. Benson, president of Harding College; A.B. Barrett, president of Florida Christian College; Frank L. Cox, of Firm Foundation; Edward J. Craddock, of Chicago; G.A. Dunn, Sr., of Dallas, Texas; and L.C. Sears, dean of Harding College.
Unfortunately, Brother Brewer jerked the rug out from under some of his supporters by taking the position that the schools were adjuncts to the church and represented the church at work. He said he had personally made pleas for their support from the treasuries of the churches, and had urged that they be put into the regular congregational budgets. A lot of brethren who were on his side of the fence told me that if what he said was correct they were more sympathetic toward my position than toward his.
Brother Brewer was so pleased with the conduct manifested in the debate, he suggested that the two of us hold a series of "Lincoln-Douglas" type debates in all of the college auditoriums. He further suggested that we begin at Freed-Hardeman, and Dean Sears invited us to hold the second at Harding College in Searcy, Arkansas. The Freed-Hardeman debate was held before an overflow crowd on January 7. We discarded the use of moderators since both of us knew we could act as gentlemen. W.L. Totty acted as timekeeper for Brother Brewer, Fred Killebrew served in the same capacity for me.
I took the position that the apostles planted a school for teaching the Bible in every city where they labored, and that Jesus Christ was the president; the apostles and evangelists were the recruiting and field agents to secure students for the institution; the elders and others under them constituted the faculty; every disciple was an enrolled student, with the only textbook being the Word of God. I asked him to find the place where any of the apostles ever created the kind of organization he was defending.
It was a great day and the two sessions were conducted in good order with great response. At the close, N.B. Hardeman arose and said that since I had now taught in Freed-Hardeman I might like a job on the faculty.
In these days of almost casual tourist travel it is difficult to explain the problems incurred in going to Great Britain in the early part of 1947. We had been in close contact for three years with Albert Winstanley, an outstanding young preacher of the gospel from Lancashire, who was by this time in Newtongrange, near Edinburgh, working with the Scots brethren. He contacted the various districts and we had drawn up an itinerary which would keep me occupied almost every day while we were in Great Britain. Since the first contact with Adam and George Bruce in Windsor, Ontario, in 1929, correspondence had been exchanged with saints abroad, and now sixteen years had elapsed, and we were waiting for a frightful war to cease.
On May 7, 1945, at a ceremony in the headquarters of General Dwight Eisenhower, at Reims, General Alfred Jodl signed an unconditional surrender of Germany's armed forces to the Allies. On September 2, just four months later, General MacArthur and Admiral Nimitz accepted the formal surrender of Japan aboard the battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay. Vast areas of the cities in England lay in ruins. The task of cleaning up the rubble and restoring order from chaos would take many months.
I contacted a steamship company representative who said there were no sailings yet and even if there were I would have to secure a priority from the State Department. The State Department informed me there was a doubt the English Government would approve travel at the time. I went to the British Consul who asked me to make application to His Majesty's Passport Approval Bureau. The bureau notified us they would grant a visa for travel in the United Kingdom. The Cunard Lines told us they had a waiting list "a mile long" when passenger traffic was resumed. We wired New York and found that the Queen Elizabeth was scheduled for her first eastward trip, after converting from a troop-carrying vessel, at the very time we wanted to go.
After our reservation was confirmed we set about getting a passport. It was not easy because of the war restrictions still in vogue and it was necessary to file three notarized letters from the Manchester Avenue congregation before we were granted permission to go. When all of the legal requirements had been met other details had to be arranged. The children were in high school but Nell's father and mother agreed to come to Saint Louis to look after them during our absence. It was not easy for them because her father was the mayor of Flat River, as well as an elder in the local congregation.
Because of severe food rationing in the United Kingdom we arranged for congregations to send food parcels to help out. Some items were in shorter supply than during the war, among them fats, sweets, fruits and soap. Regulations permitted the sending of only one parcel per week by any person or firm, and the weight of each parcel was limited to 22 pounds. We assigned various areas in Great Britain to congregations which wanted to help, and each congregation sent one parcel per week for three weeks, making a total of 66 pounds sent to each place. Manchester Avenue congregation sent to the Lancashire District; Hartford, Illinois to Birmingham; Anderson, Indiana to Belfast, North Ireland; while other brethren sent to Kirkcaldy, Glasgow, London, etc.
When it was announced publicly that I planned to make the visit to the United Kingdom at the invitation of the brethren, it apparently created consternation in the ranks of the "mainline" Churches of Christ in the United States. They resolved to thwart it at all costs. The political propaganda machines were turned on full blast. All who had any relationship with congregations in Great Britain, especially American servicemen who had been stationed there, were urged to write and insist that my visit be cancelled. It was decided that the one person best qualified to offset any influence I might exert was John Allan Hudson.
Brother Hudson, who is best known as the originator of the Old Paths Book Club, had served as the minister of Southwest Church in Los Angeles, where he assisted the George Pepperdine Foundation, but was currently with the congregation at 39th and Flora Avenues, in Kansas City. He was well-known to the British brethren because of his work in Birmingham, as well as in Australia and New Zealand. With their characteristic zeal for local autonomy, a group of preachers met together to plan the strategy for stopping my work in Britain before it began. It was decided the best way to do it would be to support a "faithful preacher" in England for a whole year, preferably Brother Hudson. His chief objective would be to keep the British brethren from hearing me. A few weeks before I left home I received this letter from a brother in Britain:
"Brother John Allan Hudson has written to say he is flying over here to be in Britain before you arrive. I thought I ought to tell you this, so that you should be prepared. Yesterday I learned that he had decided to come to Britain (supported by churches in the U.S.) for twelve months. This was to be from April onwards, but apparently, on hearing of your proposed visit, he decided to come earlier. You may draw your own conclusions from this. But I do want you to know it will in no way interfere with your visit, or upset the arrangements in hand. There is much I want to discuss with you regarding Brother Hudson's visit, and we shall be able to talk it over thoroughly while you are here."
The "Central Intelligence Agency" of the American Churches of Christ did its work well. Form letters were sent to the elders of many of the congregations where I was to speak. Later on, after Nell and I had been guests for several days in the homes of such brethren they would bring out the letters and we would read them and have a good laugh about them. They uniformly classified me as dangerous, divisive and destructive to the peace and welfare of the body of Christ. All of them made dire predictions of what would happen to the British churches as a result of my coming. One of them concluded with the frightening admonition, "You have been warned!"
Our American brethren who are accustomed to seeing elders "roll over and play dead" or "jump through a theological hoop" when certain preachers issued an ultimatum reckoned without the British brethren. They did not understand the innate sense of fairness which caused them to hear a man out before assessing him as guilty. They did not take into account the quiet stubbornness which resented interference from across the Atlantic. I am afraid some of the Scots had stereotyped Americans, perhaps from the movies, and thought they all wore wide-brimmed hats and cowboy boots, and slapped strangers between the shoulder blades and said too loudly, "How you doin' podner?"
I went one day to visit a precious aged sister who lived in a tiny stone cottage in a colliery village. She spoke with a brogue as thick as porridge. You could have sliced it with a knife. If her daughter had not been there to interpret neither of us would have known much about what the other was saying. But it was apparent she liked me from the start and I loved her and the cozy little "hoose" in which she lived. When I led a little prayer and was preparing to leave she was pleased I had not shown up wearing a big "bonnet" and "yelling like a coo-boy."
One day at Ulverston, I was sitting before the grate with Brother Walter Crosthwaite, the sage of the Old Paths movement, and one of the saintliest men I have ever met. He was preparing tea in a soot-covered kettle. Neither of us had said anything for several minutes. Then he spoke, almost as if in reverie and to himself. "All of the real problems which have plagued the churches in Britain in the past have come from America." After a pause he added, "Most of them from Texas." That day he paid me the highest compliment I received in his country. "I thank the Father for allowing Nell and you to come, and for making it possible for you to stay in our humble abode." He did not realize, in his unsurpassable humility, that to be with him was a mountain-top experience I could never forget.
Now we will get back to our trip. On Tuesday morning, February 18, a group of thirty brothers and sisters gathered with us for breakfast at the Fred Harvey Lunch Room in the Saint Louis Union Station. After we had eaten together, Nell and I bade our children and the others a rather tearful farewell, and boarded the famous Sunshine Special pulled on its eastern journey over the Pennsylvania Lines track. Twenty-four hours later, at 7:30 a.m., we arrived in New York City with thirteen hours to spend before boarding the huge ship which was scheduled to sail in the early morning hours.
Since neither of us had ever been in New York City we were like "babes in the woods," gaping and gawking at soaring skyscrapers, and "sunburning our tonsils" gazing upward in open-mouthed amazement. Fortunately, no city slicker buttonholed us to try and sell us the Brooklyn Bridge. We had heard about Automats but had never seen one, so we ate a large breakfast at one and then went on a walking tour of Rockefeller Center. From the 70th floor of the RCA Building we could see the Queen Elizabeth lying in dock at pier 90. Further on we could make out the Statue of Liberty which we would pass next morning.
At 8:30 o'clock that evening we joined the throng milling about and boarded the greatest vessel of her day. Since that type of transoceanic travel has now passed away, supplanted by air transportation, I would like to describe one of the queens. The other was the sister ship the Queen Mary. The Queen Elizabeth was rated at 83,673 gross tons, with 14 decks. The vessel was more than five city blocks long, 118 feet wide and 234 feet from keel to masthead. The total space available to passengers for deck games and strolling exceeded in area 21/2 football fields. There was even a special exercise area for dogs and each day the pampered pets were brought from the ship's kennels to be paraded around.
There were three anchors, each of which weighed 16 tons, and 2,000 portholes containing 2500 square feet of glass. There were 30,000 electric lights and 4000 miles of wiring. In all there were 35 public rooms -- lounges, smoking rooms, dance halls, restaurants, children's playrooms, libraries, swimming pools, gymnasia, and three theaters. One of these seated 338 persons. The area of the First Class Restaurant was 13,133 square feet. On the main deck was located the winter garden with a profusion of fresh flowers. Here the ship's orchestra played classical selections at afternoon tea and again at night. Here also one could obtain free a copy of the "Ocean Times," a newspaper published on board each night.
On "A" Deck there was a large shop retailing everything from safety pins to men's shirts. On the same level was a barber shop for men and a beauty shop for women, as well as a smoking lounge with comfortable seats for several hundred. "B" Deck contained the nursery, a tourist gymnasium, a cinema and a large library. I checked out a copy of "This Man Truman," written by an Englishman. I got back out of some of the expressions such as "biscuit-barrel politics," which is as close as the British can get to our "cracker-barrel politics." Winston Churchill was right. We are a single people separated only by a common language.
We traveled "tourist" which was cheapest. Our stateroom had a lower and upper bunk-style bed, wardrobe, dressing table, chair and wash basin with hot and cold water. The space was restricted and while one did not actually need to back out into the corridor to turn around it would have helped. It was our home for six nights, the last at the expense of Cunard Lines. We warped into the dock at Southampton promptly at 2:00 p.m. on Tuesday, February 25. Tourist passengers were to disembark at 4:00 p.m. Then it happened! After part of our luggage was already off, a dock strike was called and none of us could leave the vessel.
Passengers became infuriated. They besieged the Purser's staff. There was cursing, shoving and yelling, but all to no avail. Staterooms had to be made up with clean linens and the chefs had to serve an extra dinner and breakfast. Although we were sorry to disappoint the brethren waiting for us at Waterloo Station in London there was nothing we could do. After dinner the Winter Garden was crowded but there was no orchestra. Without asking permission I mounted the platform, took over the microphone, and called for attention. I pointed out what an extraordinary opportunity this was to become acquainted and to hold an open forum on world conditions. We had people present from many nations, we had just seen the end of a disastrous World War, and I felt we should quit talking about our own temporary inconvenience and discuss openly our divergent views of world problems.
I suggested we stay on each subject exactly one hour and allow any man or woman to speak. We discussed marriage and divorce, then family responsibility and authority, and last of all the changes taking place in moral and ethical values. I adjourned the meeting at midnight over the shouted protests of many who wanted to continue. It was interesting to see how quickly order had developed out of chaos. The meeting was made to order for me. As the self-appointed chairman I injected the teaching of the Bible into the discussion at the end of every speech. If anyone asked a question of the chair, I answered it with the words, "Of course, the Bibles says . . . ."
The next morning we abandoned ship at 9:00 o'clock, and exactly an hour later the boat train pulled out for London. Immediately evident were the signs of the bombing raids made on this great harbor city. Whole blocks were wiped out. Fire-gutted buildings were everywhere. Our train arrived in London promptly at noon. We stepped into a new world. At home we always "checked our baggage" but in London we "registered our luggage." The station was huge and there were several large restaurants. We chose one and ordered our luncheon. It consisted of pork and peas cooked together, mashed potatoes, and coffee. If that sounds like a lot of potatoes, it is because this was one of the few items not rationed.
After we had eaten we boarded a taxi and went madly dashing down the wrong side of the street toward the friendly home of Brother R.B. Scott.
Almost every believer who knows anything about it is willing to concede that the union of forces of the restoration movement in the Unites States and the United Kingdom seems an act of providence. The work in the latter had its roots in the Scotch Baptist development. In 1833 there was a small congregation of this persuasion meeting on Windmill Street, Finsbury Square, in London. There were hardly ever any visitors, but one Lord's Day morning a young man walked in and sat down near the speaker's platform. He was Peyton C. Wyeth, an American artist enroute to Paris to perfect his talent. He was born at Claysville, fourteen miles from Bethany (then in Virginia), knew Alexander Campbell personally, and had been immersed into Christ.
While in London he had visited various places of assembly only to be disappointed. On the Saturday before the day to which we refer, he had asked God to lead him to a place where men worshiped according to the ancient order. While walking the streets on the Lord's Day morning he found the chapel on Windmill Street and entered. One of the elders was William Jones, author of the Biblical Encyclopedia of the Waldenses, and other books of religious significance. When Wyeth told the elderly man there was a great and growing movement in the new world, whose members worshiped as they had that day, Jones was astounded and almost overwhelmed with emotion.
Jones knew of Campbell only as the brilliant opponent of Robert Owen in a debate held in Cincinnati four years prior. He had no idea that Campbell was pleading for the primitive purity of the church. That afternoon in his home he had Wyeth write to Campbell, virtually dictating the letter. A lengthy correspondence was inaugurated which resulted in Jones creating the British Millennial Harbinger which reprinted so much of what Campbell was writing. Out of this grew the visits of Campbell to Scotland and England, with their overtones of gladness and sadness, about which many of us know.
That's the way it began in London and I thrill to it. But I am convinced that no one can write the history of the cause I love, as it pertains to London in this century, and ignore the sacrificial work of R.B. and Mary Scott, and the little group of saints meeting at Hope Chapel, in Prince of Wales Road. I had heard of the Scott family from American servicemen who made that home their gathering place during the war. The family consisted of our genial brother and sister and their four children, Margaret, Dorothy, Isabelle and John. In spite of the fact that Brother Scott was employed as a clerk (the British pronounce it 'clark') and had a limited income they kept "open house" for saints from all over the earth.
Our first introduction to a meeting of the disciples in Great Britain was the day we landed. It was Wednesday, and after tea in the Scott home, where we also met Leonard Channing, a tireless young student and worker for the Lord, we made our way to the little chapel, riding our first double-decker bus. The night was bitter cold. Because of a severe fuel restriction there were no street lights. It was darker than the proverbial "stack of black cats" and we had to hold hands to keep from becoming separated. The little meetinghouse, more than a century old, had been damaged in a bombing raid. No permanent repairs had been made because of priorities on building materials.
We met in a tiny vestry behind the speaker's platform. There were just twelve of us. The gathering was quiet and solemn, with no talking or laughing. Brother Black, down from Dalmellington, Scotland, presided with the same formality as if there had been a thousand present. He began by announcing a hymn to which we turned in a little book called "Hymns for Churches of Christ" which contained 1036 hymns, all without staff or notes. Brother Black suggested the name of the tune we would employ. He then read the first stanza and then we stood and sang the hymn. I do not recall ever seeing an audience in Great Britain remain seated while singing praise to God. After a fervent prayer by Brother Scott, a brother read the first chapter of First Corinthians. Brother Black expounded upon it from notes he had previously made.
Following this I was asked to speak and was then questioned about what the brethren abroad uniformly referred to as "the American scene." Some of the questions were quite pointed. The American doughboys who had attended during the war had come from all sections of America and all segments of the restoration movement and had efficiently conveyed their own confusion to those whom they met. Some from the same town in the United States met at Hope Chapel and had never heard of each other, because of the rigid factional lines drawn at home. It took a world war to get brethren from the same village to shake hands and attend at the same place. It was very difficult for brethren in a land where there was no "color bar" to understand why there was a "white church" and a "colored church" in the same community.
When we arrived back at the Scott home we sat before the grate on this wintry night and talked for hours. It became apparent to me that it would be difficult to explain to brethren in Britain the multi-faceted complex in America known as "The Church of Christ." It also became obvious that it would be just as hard to portray the British scene to Americans. It was our mutual love for Jesus and His magnetic personality which drew us to R.B. and Mary Scott, and when we read a chapter together and kneeled to pray before the glowing hearth, before the little night remaining would give us a few hours of repose, I felt that God was with us and moving in our lives.
The next morning at 9:00 o'clock we boarded a London Northeast Railway train at King's Cross Station, bound for Edinburgh. We were told there was no guarantee of making it because of the heavy blizzard of the previous day. English trains are very different from ours. The coaches are small and passengers occupy compartments entered directly from the platform and walled off from the rest of the train. Ours had room for six but we were alone in it when we left London. At noon we unwrapped the lunch prepared for us by Mary Scott -- cheese sandwiches, Sultana bread and muffins, and a bottle of black currant juice to drink. Shortly after we finished eating, three soldiers entered our compartment. Two of them were taking back the third one who had been A.W.O.L. for seven weeks.
We gave them the remainder of our luncheon which they wolfed down with profuse apologies. They had eaten nothing since the evening before. All were members of the Durham Infantry, and stationed in an aged castle in which there was no heat at all. I began talking with them about Jesus and what He had done in my life. As I continued to share my faith with them they listened intently, occasionally asking a polite question. Time flew by and when they prepared to leave us at Newcastle-on-Tyne, one lingered behind, saluted and said, "Sir, this has been the happiest afternoon I have ever spent in my life."
Soon it was getting dark and the little engine was toiling through deepening snow. Finally we realized we were in a city. There are no conductors to come through and tell you where you are. You determine that from signs on the station platform. When the train stopped I saw no sign so I raised the window and asked if we were in Waverly Station. We were!
It was Nell who first spotted Albert Winstanley in the crowd. He was holding up a copy of Scripture Standard, our previously agreed upon badge of identification. "Uncle Will" Allen was there with one of his taxis and we soon covered the twelve miles to Newtongrange where we were to get our first sight of the work of our Lord in Scotland. God richly blessed us by allowing us to stay with "Uncle John" and "Aunt Mary" Pryde. All older folk are designated as uncle and aunt by the younger ones. I became "Uncle Carl" and Nell was always "Auntie Nell" by the younger folk. The Prydes had spent a number of years in the coal fields of Illinois, not too far from Saint Louis, and they eagerly awaited our coming. We somehow think they are still waiting our coming up there where they have long since gone.
Albert and I spent the first day walking from the home of one member after another, wading through deep snow. I shall not forget the cheerful cottage of "Granny Allen" who had been a member of the local body longer than any other person, far beyond a half century. In the evening I met with the oversight of the congregation to answer their questions. They were pleased to learn there were still brethren in America who contended for mutual ministry, and the right of all brethren to use their gift of edification. They made it clear they had thought that all the American churches had been betrayed by "the spirit of the age" to adopt the "one-man system" as they referred to the hiring of someone from somewhere to come in and pastor the flock professionally. They wanted to know how congregations administered discipline, and how elders were selected and appointed. They were especially interested in whether or not we voted for officers.
On Saturday, March 1, a bus load of us journeyed to Motherwell, near Glasgow, to attend the conference of the Slamannan District churches. A number of congregations had combined their efforts, with a special Evangelistic Committee to receive and disburse funds, and to recommend the places where preachers were most needed. David Dougal, a brother of great preaching ability, was secretary of the conference over which Abe Haldane presided. It was interesting to us that when the Scots wanted to show approval they stamped with their feet rather than clapping their hands. Following tea, I was asked to speak and afterwards was questioned at length by the audience. Some of the saints were a little skeptical about anything bearing the imprint "Made in the United States" and we explored differences in our varied concepts, but in deep love and respect for each other.
There is so much to tell our story will seem unduly long, yet there is hardly any way to shorten it without doing an injustice. It was late in the evening when Nell and I trudged down the snowy streets of Motherwell to the friendly home of Willie Wardrop. We were accompanied by his aged father, James Wardrop, almost 85, and the oldest evangelist in Scotland. He told us the history of the movement, with its hardships and trials, as vividly as if it were in "living color." That Saturday night was like a page out of "The Cotter's Saturday Night" by Scotland's favorite bard. Before we retired to our beds with their eider down comforters, our patriarchal brother summoned the family to gather in the glow of the ingle, as the fireplace was called. He opened "the big ha' Bible" and read from it with firm and unfaltering voice. All of us kneeled together and he lifted up his words of petition to "Heaven's Eternal King." I fell asleep with the words of the poem circulating through my mind:
Compared with this, how poor Religion's pride,
In all the pomp of method, and of art;
When men display to congregations wide
Devotion's every grace, except the heart!
The next morning the sun turned the snowbanks into millions of glistening diamonds for our first Lord's Day in Scotland. It was an invigorating walk between rows of ancient stone dwellings to the little meetinghouse. The procedure was so different from ours I must describe it. The table was set in the center of the speaker's stand. There was one chalice and a small loaf of leavened bread upon it. Three chairs were behind it. Promptly at the time for beginning, the aged James Wardrob, who was to preside, took the center chair. An assistant sat down on either side of him.
The president announced the opening hymn. He read the first verse with impressive voice. All of the audience then arose and sang. Then the president said, "Will some brother take us to the throne in prayer?" A volunteer in the rear of the building prayed. Another hymn was sung. A volunteer came forward to read an assigned portion of the New Testament. He was followed by another who read the Old Testament. Brother Wardrob then made an excellent talk about the meaning of the Supper. Thanks were offered and the assistants bore the loaf and cup to the audience in turn. Each person broke a bit from the loaf as it was handed to him. All drank from the one container. An offering was taken for the furtherance of the work and then a session of prayer was announced. Perhaps there were six or seven prayers in all, fervent and eloquent in their simplicity. Afterwards the president said, "We have been blessed of the Lord in having our American brother among us and I will invite him to come forward and exhort the brethren." Following my remarks there was a hymn suitable to the closing of the meeting and a benediction. It was all beautiful, impressive and touching.
Nell and I were invited for tea at the home of John Snedden. He was the youngest of the three bishops, being 83. John Anderson was 84, and James Wardrob 85. All three were together with us for tea. It was the first time I had been with three such men, all able speakers and debaters, all with a profound knowledge of the Book. John Snedden asked me if I had ever met a Campbellite. I answered in the negative. He said, "Then you have a new experience today. I am a Campbellite." He meant it. Next to Jesus of Nazareth he admired Alexander Campbell of Bethany. To prove it he pitched in and recited Campbell's "Sermon on the Law" and would have given a goodly portion of "The Christian System" from memory if they had not announced that tea was being served.
What an afternoon that was! In the evening I addressed the "gospel meeting." The saints in Scotland have a clear understanding of the difference between "the breaking of bread service" and a "gospel meeting." The first is for the family of God. Non-members are not invited. If there is to be a Sunday School for the "wee bairns" it is held in the afternoon. It is not a part of the gathering for the edification of the body. In a gospel meeting on the Lord's Day night, the message is addressed to the world. It is intended to reach the unsaved with the glad tidings of what Jesus has done for them.
After it was all over we rode the bus into Glasgow, largest city in Scotland, with Brother John Anderson. His home was to be ours for a few days as we went to other nearby areas to share with brethren. My stay with this godly man provided one of the greatest thrills of my whole life. I am indebted to him for insights which helped to change my life.
Glasgow was cold and gray and dirty from soot. The stores were without heat and the girls who clerked in Woolworth's wore heavy coats. One who waited upon us wore woolen gloves. The war years had depleted supplies and a large department store such as Lewis' had little to offer. At the close of our first day in the city I spoke to the little group of saints meeting in a storefront building on Hospital Street, located in the heart of a festering and decadent slum. Their faith in such a depressive area was to me a shining beacon in a bleak world. On every side of them paganism reared its ugly head, but they were not discouraged.
The following day five of us journeyed to Pennyvenie, by way of Ayr and Dalmellington. We visited the thatched-roof cottage of Robert Burns and I had a difficult time tearing myself away from the nearby museum with its many originals of the poems which had made the bard famous. At Dalmellington we sat down to tea in the hospitable home of Edward Jess. He was one of God's noblemen. There were but twelve of us present in the little schoolhouse at Pennyvenie, on a raw, cold night, but the warmth of fellowship will never grow dim in my memory.
On Wednesday afternoon we went to Slamannan and were received into the home of Brother Wilson for tea and scones. We were talking every minute. The house was one in which Adam Bruce, whom we knew in Windsor, Canada, once lived. The village had also been the home of our beloved Harry Topping whom we knew in our own land. As darkness descended the men in our party walked down Station Road to the meetinghouse. It was a cold, crisp, snowy hike. The brother who presided over the meeting asked Albert Winstanley to sing a solo, and then requested Nell and me to sing. We used "Give Me The Bible" as our number. Later I spoke for forty minutes and then answered questions for an equal period of time.
Slamannan had been a center for the work of James Anderson, who was born near Airdrie in 1837. As a humble evangelist he had left a mark upon the whole district, planting congregations, defending the faith, and proclaiming the Word for more than half a century. John Anderson, in whose home we stayed in Glasgow was a worthy son of James Anderson, and served to tie together for us the history of the work in Scotland for a hundred years. It was a saga of labor and suffering, of smiles and tears, of sorrow mingled with hope.
When we prepared to say farewell to the Andersons they presented us with a replica of their tartan, and every time we look at it we recall the glorious fellowship with these members of a genuine clan. We went by bus to Blackburn, near Bathgate, to be received for tea into the home of John and May McCallum. After a satisfying meal of fish and chips we were off to the meetinghouse at Blackridge, where the heating pipes were frozen and we had to hold the meeting wearing heavy coats. When John McCallum arose to preside, his steaming breath ascended in a cloud. Despite the shivering experience the meeting was prolonged by questions and we left the gathering edified and strengthened, to spend the night with Joe and Agnes Kerr, who lived in a new pre-fab in Harthill.
I had written to Joe several times before we left the United States and it was a great blessing to meet him face-to-face. Agnes was a Burns enthusiast and entertained with "Tam-o-Shanter" and several other poems, all delivered in a delightful Scottish brogue. The next morning, Joe, Albert Winstanley, Nell and I took the early bus into Edinburgh so we could see a little of the city before going on to Kirkcaldy, across the Firth of Forth. We walked down Princess Street, one of the most beautiful avenues in the world, and paused to look at the remarkable memorial to Sir Walter Scott, and the statue of Livingstone, the great missionary.
We climbed the steep hill to the great castle which frowns down as a lonely sentinel from the huge rock in the very center of the city. It was like moving into a world of a thousand years ago, for some of the buildings are that old. We tore ourselves away reluctantly to descend to street level and to the railway station. Joe Kerr returned home but Albert went with us as our train crossed the great Forth Bridge, that mile-long cantilever marvel constructed by Sir John Fowler and Sir Benjamin Baker, and finished in 1890.
I was anxious to get to Kirkcaldy which the natives call Lang Toon (Long Town) because it stretches out so far along the Forth. I knew it was the home of the great Nairn Linoleum factory, and that Congoleum had originated there, but one could have guessed that from the odor of linseed oil which hung over the city. At the station we were greeted by our genial host Dave Mellis, and his son Stanley. Dave was a "Wagon Inspector" for the L.N.E.R. lines, and in his home we found a hospitality which was warm and gracious.
The American restoration movement owes more to Kirkcaldy than most of us realize. In 1763, Robert Carmichael and Archibald McLean were conversing together in Glasgow when the subject of infant baptism arose, and each revealed he had some doubts about it. They agreed to study the scriptures on the matter and by 1765 Mr. Carmichael and five others were convinced they should be immersed. There was not a single baptist in Scotland to assist them, so they wrote to the eminent Dr. Gill in London, whom Alexander Campbell later labeled an able expositor and critic, and asked if he would come and baptize them. He wrote that his age would not permit him to make the trip, but suggested that Mr. Carmichael come to London and be immersed and then baptize the others upon his return to Scotland.
Mr. Carmichael was baptized by Dr. Gill on October 9, 1765, and immersed the other five on the day of his arrival back in Scotland. In November he baptized two more, and when Mr. McLean moved from Glasgow to join them there were nine. They banded together to observe the Lord's Supper each week and to edify one another. They were called Scotch Baptists, not because of the country, but to distinguish them from the English Baptists. The latter embraced the one-man minister plan, whereas, according to a historian who wrote in 1883, "The church in Scotland was organized on the scriptural plan of mutual ministry, and a plurality of elders."
The first baptist in Kirkcaldy was a mole-catcher. He communicated his views to a Mr. Cooper who was baptized about 1784. They began to meet together and the work grew until the congregation was set in order November 15, 1798. In 1819 two brethren, Messrs. Tosh and Arthur, whose property joined, each took a piece of his rear garden and deeded it to the congregation for a building lot, and began erection of the Rose Street meetinghouse in which I was privileged to speak. Exactly one hundred years before I spoke from the platform of this building, Alexander Campbell spoke from the same spot. When he finished the congregation resolved to no longer call themselves after an ordinance but to become Christians only. They marched outside and took down their sign and erected one which read "Christian Meetinghouse." That was the sign which I saw as I entered the building.
We had a busy time in Kirkcaldy. On Saturday, March 8, the brethren held their annual social with 183 present, representing a goodly number of congregations. The next day I spoke at "the breaking of bread service," the afternoon children's meeting for "the wee ones," and at the gospel meeting at night. The congregation had an excellent choir trained and directed by Sister Glass. They always sang at gospel meetings which also had a solo or two, in addition to the congregational singing.
On Monday we visited in the home of John and Agnes Wotherspoon in the country, before returning to town so Nell and I could speak at a meeting of the women of the congregation. The visit with the Wotherspoons impressed me greatly. They were set for the defense of the faith and knew the Word of the Lord. Their house had been built over a coal shaft originally, but had been moved. John had fixed it up himself and it was furnished with lovely antiques. There was a grandfather's clock which was huge, and there were two heavy mahogany chairs, beautifully carved, which had once been in the captain's quarters of a ship which sailed the route to India.
On Tuesday we went on a little trip which made our entire journey worthwhile. A bus from Kirkcaldy to Leven connected with the Anstruther bus which made its way through the narrow streets of villages squatting along the Firth of Forth until it came to a veritable story-book town called Pittenweem. We were met in this age-old fishing village by our brother, Neil Patterson, a leader of the little group of saints who met in the "Toon Hall" as the brethren called the Town Hall. We left the bus on a paved square in the upper part of the town. Narrow walkways bearing such picturesque names as Water Wynd, School Wynd, and Cove Wynd led from the brae down to the waterfront.
The harbor was filled with fishing boats, one of which belonged to Brother Patterson. Fishermen were working on their nets. Gulls strolled about bravely on the cobblestones just out of reach. The breakers rolling in crashed against the sea wall. We walked to the home of the Pattersons where delicious homemade shortbread topped off the tea. Neil stood in front of the cheery ingle, and in a voice made strong by long years in a small dory upon the open sea sang hymn after hymn for us. Then in the company of Jimmie Hughes we visited the home of every member and prayed in each home. In the home of Sister Strachan her aged father regaled me with stories of more than fifty years of salt water fishing for a living.
The next day was to be our last in the "Kingdom of Fife" for Kirkcaldy lies in Fifeshire. It was a memorable day since it gave me an opportunity to meet Bro. Alfred H. Odd, an aged stalwart of the faith who began publication of a monthly journal The Interpreter the year before I was born. The January 1908 issue listed 45 congregations in Scotland. At 6:00 p.m. we attended "Sunshine Corner" held every Wednesday for boys and girls, under the able direction of Sister Glass. I spoke for 20 minutes to the "wee bairns" and later to the older saints at the regular prayer meeting. It was late when we arrived at the Mellis home for fish and chips, but later yet when Walter Hoggan came in. This tall, handsome policeman was on night duty but was free to share with us. He was deeply concerned about preservation of the concept of mutual ministry and was fearful that with men coming from the states the Scotch brethren might be seduced into adoption of the one-man system. We talked until long after midnight.
The next morning a blizzard was raging. Snow was drifting and some train service was curtailed. But we said a sad farewell to those who came to see us off and boarded the train for Waverly Station in Edinburgh where we arrived at noon. The double-decker bus which took us to Newtongrange that Thursday had to plow through accumulating snow. That night Albert Winstanley and I walked two miles back to town where I addressed a meeting of the sisters. Forty of them had braved the storm. Later I walked the two miles back alone. It seemed strange indeed to be hiking along a road in Scotland by myself at night. Overcome by emotion I stopped in the middle of the road with the swirling snow shutting off vision and fervently prayed aloud for many minutes that men would come to revere the name of Jesus and that malice and hatred be driven out of our hearts so that we might love one another. Uncle John and Aunt Mary Pryde were sitting with Nell in front of a welcome fire when I banged on the knocker, and we continued to talk, unwilling to draw the curtains on this peaceful scene until the large clock struck the hour of one o'clock in the morning.
The Minister of Education in Edinburgh had sent a letter approving my visits to the Council Schools under his jurisdiction and on Friday afternoon I went to the first. The headmaster, Mr. Lamb, received me graciously, and I spent several hours talking to teachers and pupils. I could write a book about my impression of the contrast with American schools. At night I spoke to the children at "Sunshine Corner" and when we dismissed a number of boys and girls followed us to the bus stop where they formed a circle and held an open air chorus, singing lustily for twenty minutes with the snow sifting down upon us all. Pedestrians walking to their homes stopped and joined in.
On Saturday afternoon I conducted a two hour analytical study in the Philippian letter and spoke at the gospel meeting in the early evening. We lingered over the supper table at the home of Bro. George Robertson until 10:30 p.m. when Nell and I caught the last bus to Newtonloan Toll from which we walked a half-mile to Gorebridge where we were staying.
On Sunday at Newtongrange the children gathered at 10:30 a.m. for Bible Study, but the "breaking of bread service" began promptly at noon and continued until 1:30. From 3:00 to 5:00 p.m. I conducted the analytical study, and at 6:00 o'clock we began the gospel meeting. The audience was the largest in the memory of most of the brethren, and our hearts rejoiced when two precious souls resolved to put on Christ. We walked home in a driving rain which turned the snow into slush. We retired at 11:00 o'clock, the earliest we had gone to bed since leaving the States. But we were tired.
The cold rain proved Nell's undoing and she became quite ill from a heavy cold. I had to go on alone, first to Bathgate, where a goodly number of saints had assembled in an upper room. I was impressed by the depth of their spirituality, and by the hospitality in the home of Brother Fleming, a great man of God. Next I was scheduled at Wallacestone, so-called from the stone which legend says was the one upon which the Scots hero, Sir William Wallace, sat in 1298 as he watched his men engage the forces of Edward I of England, in the broad valley below. As we climbed the steep hill toward the village my brain was echoing the words of the poem I had learned in elementary school:
"Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled--
Scots, wham Bruce has often led--
Welcome to your gory bed,
Or to victorie!"
Albert Winstanley and I were entertained in the home of another Scotch hero, David Dougal. An American, an Englishman, and a Scotsman sat down to tea, one in spirit through Christ Jesus. David was sincere and studious, and an able proclaimer of the gospel, as was Albert. To be with them was for me "a season of refreshing from the presence of the Lord." When David arose to open the gospel meeting the house was full. We were all uplifted in heart.
The largest audience to which I spoke in Scotland was at Tranent. I first arrived there on Thursday, March 20, two days prior to their annual social which had been postponed a month to enable me to be present. I stayed in the home of Brother and Sister Wilson and it was extremely interesting because they could not understand my American dialect and I could not fathom their Scotch brogue. Had it not been for their daughter Jean, who translated for us, we would have been in a real predicament. But there was one thing I understood and that was the oat cakes made by Sister Wilson. I translated them myself. An excellent audience was present for the gospel meeting the first night, and the following night the greatest number of non-members to be seen in many years attended. It was apparent that the social might set a new record.
Brother Wilson spent the entire day making arrangements for the meat pies and other foods essential to serving those who came. Although everything was strictly rationed the government allowed special concessions to churches upon application. The social was held in the Town Hall auditorium on Saturday evening. Visitors were present from most of the places where I had spoken. There were 242 for tea. Afterwards Willie Steele presided and the Motherwell and Blackridge choruses rendered special numbers. Albert Winstanley spoke for fifteen minutes and I followed for an hour. I bade farewell to many precious brothers and sisters whom I would never see again on earth.
The following morning I spoke at the Lord's Day gathering, and again in the afternoon to about 80 boys and girls. The house was almost full at night for the gospel meeting and my final message in Scotland. The next day Albert accompanied us on the seven-hour train trip to Ulverston, in Lancashire, and our first meeting with Walter Crosthwaite. The congregations which combined to support him rented "Ford Villa," the home where our aged brother and his good wife lived, and where the little band of saints met. What a blessing it was to us to stay with the Crosthwaites.
No other person I have met in my life has impressed me any more than this man. When the tide of compromise, augmented by American influence and money, began to sweep across the congregations in Great Britain many decades ago, he stood like a rock of Gibraltar. As a result his name became revered by some and despised by others. He was as unmoved by the praise of his friends as by the attack of his enemies. Now that he had grown older and was unable to travel as before, it was decided to take advantage of his scriptural knowledge, historical ability and great experience. Young men of promise were sent to live with him for many months during which they sat at his feet for training. Many of those who are active in Great Britain today can look back upon their association with this patriarch with deep appreciation for his help.
We spent hours together exploring our concepts and talking about the problems which had always troubled us as a people. The clergy system, open communion, methods of evangelism -- all of these and many other things came under review. Brother Crosthwaite came to love and cherish Nell as one of his own children. One of our treasured letters from Great Britain after we arrived home came from him and mentioned "dear Nell" with special warmth. I spoke every night while in Ulverston in the little tri-cornered room which seated 34 people. It was full every night with 18 non-members present the first night. One brother who came to share with us was Levi Clark from Barrow-in-Furness. We wrote to each other for years until his death ended our correspondence. I loved and admired him very sincerely.
Our time was not all occupied by meetings. One day we visited the famous English Lake Region. We went to the home of John Ruskin on Coniston Lake. We spent an hour at Bowness and the village church where George Washington's relatives worshiped three generations before his birth. Another day we went to the Quaker meetinghouse built by George Fox in 1688 after he had been imprisoned so many times for open expression of his opposition to war, slavery, and political and religious authority. Upstairs, over the simple meetingroom we found the plain bed and chair used by the persecuted crusader. The large Bible which he studied was upon the desk.
Nell and I had a lump in our throats as we said good-bye to Brother Crosthwaite and Sisters Wood and Ormandy at the Ulverston Railway station. I boarded the train for the Wigan District with a distinct feeling that one of the significant periods in my life had suddenly ended. At Wigan we were met by three outstanding men -- Leonard Morgan, of Hindley; Carlton Melling, of Scholes; and Leonard Channing, then of London. Leonard Morgan was an owner of several shops and an elder at Hindley. We were scheduled to stay in his lovely home which was also graced by his wife, Doris, and little son John. Carlton Melling was an elder at Scholes, and employed in the public library at Wigan. He succeeded Bro. Crosthwaite as editor of Scripture Standard, the paper published by our British brethren. It is currently under the efficient editorship of James Gardiner, of Haddington, East Lothian, Scotland. Len Channing resided in London, but was engaged in a gospel mission at Scholes. He was capable, active and alert, and already several had been added to the Lord through his personal efforts at Scholes.
It had been arranged that I should meet the first night with the elders and deacons at Hindley. They were a fine group of brethren and they questioned me at length about my views of what was transpiring on "the American scene." I did not realize until later that this was one of the places to which John Allen Hudson had written warning the brethren against receiving me. Our visit turned out to be a glorious one. After seeing me, the brethren concluded they could probably handle any wild ideas I might advance, and after meeting Nell they realized that if my judgment about other things was half as good as it was in selecting a wife, England needed me. The Hindley congregation had produced three outstanding evangelists -- Albert Winstanley, Frank Worgan and Tom Kemp. It was a blessing to me to be associated with them.
My first meeting in the district was at Scholes, with Leonard Channing presiding. At the close of the service two expressed their decision to obey Christ and Carlton Melling announced the fact with well-chosen words. The meeting on Sunday at Hindley was not hindered by the cold coupled with mist and rain. Leonard Morgan presided capably. The order consisted of a hymn, a prayer and another hymn. One brother then arose and read from the old covenant scriptures, and another followed with a new covenant scripture reading. The "prayers of the church" were called for and three brethren prayed in turn. Following another hymn the brethren contributed of their means. The president made an appropriate talk about the meaning of the Lord's Supper, and thanks were given for the bread and cup, and they were offered to the disciples. I was then invited to exhort the saints which I did briefly. There was no invitation given to aliens. This was a family gathering for the children of God, and not a gospel meeting. British brethren knew the difference.
At luncheon in the Morgan home we met Bro. Harold Baines from Morley, in Yorkshire, who informed us that all was in readiness for our visit to that area and promised that we would be treated to the famous "Yorkshire pudding." At 2:00 p.m. we were back at the meetinghouse. Bro. Stephen Winstanley called the youngsters together, and after several choruses, dispatched them to their classes. I spoke to a room filled with older children and their teachers. At 6:00 o'clock I addressed an excellent audience present for the gospel meeting, and at 8:00 o'clock the house was filled for the second gospel meeting. Every seat was taken.
On successive evenings I addressed goodly crowds at Albert Street church in Wigan, at Blackburn and again at Scholes. One evening we held an open air meeting in the public marketplace. Wigan is the oldest borough in Lancashire, having been charted by Henry III in 1246. A hundred years before the American Declaration of Independence was signed the city was known all over the world for its manufacture of bells and pewter.
On Thursday night the brethren in Hindley held a Farewell Rally, attended by representatives from all of the other district congregations. It was evident the Hindley congregation possessed great potential for sparking the work throughout the British Isles. The elders were men of vision, the members of the body seemed consecrated, and the future appeared bright.
If I may digress a wee bit, let me inform you that Wigan was the original home of Miles Standish. He was a resident of Duxberry, Wigan, and named his New England estate after it. It is now well-known as Duxbury, Massachusetts. His wife Rose was the first to become ill on the fateful trip on the Mayflower, and the first to die. She lies sleeping in Burying Hill, at Plymouth Rock. His subsequent infatuation for Priscilla Mullens, who married John Alden, has very little historical basis.
On Friday we flew from Ringway Airport in Manchester, to Belfast, to attend the annual conference of British congregations. Our arrival by the air terminal bus in Donegal Square was greeted by three marvelous people -- Mary Hendren, Pearl Hunter and Robby Hendren. Since we were to stay in the lovely home of Sammy and Pearl Hunter, we took the tram up Ballygomartin Road, and walked up Glencairn Crescent to the house. The streets were lined with emergency bomb shelters, now being used as playgrounds by boys and girls. After tea we again walked through a lovely park to Shankill Road and then up Berlin Street to the meetinghouse, a former schoolbuilding purchased and remodeled by the brethren.
William Hendren presided over the welcome rally and, in characteristic Ulster fashion claimed that virtually all great men came from North Ireland, including 19 presidents of the United States, as well as Alexander Campbell and Saint Patrick. Speeches were made by George Hudson from Birmingham, England, and Andrew Gardiner from Glasgow, Scotland. I was also invited to speak as a representative of a former British colony which became upset over tax on tea.
On Saturday the conference business was transacted, and reports given, with Joe Hamilton presiding. In the evening William Hendren and I spoke. I was tremendously impressed with his knowledge and ability. The Lord's Day meeting began at 11:30 a.m., and made use of the talents of four English brethren -- Robert McDonald, Dewsbury; George Hudson, Birmingham; Fred Hardy, Morley; and Stephen Winstanley, Hindley. George Hendren from Belfast also participated and I gave the exhortation. At the Children's Meeting at 2:30 p.m., Joe Hamilton introduced Stephen Winstanley and myself to speak after encouraging the "lads and lassies" to pay attention.
We adjourned for tea in the home of Granny Hendren, on Brussels Street, just around the corner, and at 6:00 o'clock were all back at the meetinghouse to start the open air meetings. Eighty people marched down the street singing, "Come Ye That Love the Lord!" Stops were made at four intersections with additional songs and an announcement of the meeting to follow. The final open air presentation was directly in front of the meetinghouse. Later, as I arose to speak, the forms (benches) were filled to capacity and people were standing about the walls.
On Monday Nell and I visited the memorial to the Titanic which sank on her maiden voyage in 1912 with a loss of 832 passengers and 680 crewmen. We also went to the monument dedicated personally by General Dwight D. Eisenhower to celebrate the landing of American troops in the war so recently ended. After tea in the home of George and Rachel Hendren, I met with the oversight of the congregation consisting of Joe Hamilton, George Millar, William, Charles and George Hendren. They asked my permission for them to write the brethren in America to send me back to Belfast to help in the evangelizing of Northern Ireland. I little realized then what a change would take place in my life and thought upon my return. We held two open air meetings before the evening service and again the building was full.
The following day a chartered bus took all of the visitors for a tour of Northern Ireland, including the Giant's Causeway. We returned by way of Carrickfergus and the old castle where William of Orange landed and started the drive which made Northern Ireland a Protestant country by the decisive Battle of the Boyne, July 12, 1690. Our tour was on Junior Orangemen's Day which created enough excitement with its massive parade that the gospel meeting was not quite so well attended. It is hard to compete with the Orange Society in North Ireland.
On Wednesday night before the gospel meeting, Bro. Millar presented me with a well-preserved copy of the Millennial Harbinger. Thursday evening the meetinghouse was again crowded out. Seven had already obeyed the gospel during our stay and enthusiasm was great. After the regular service a farewell meeting was held, which began with the serving of tea and scones. Joe Hamilton presided. Rachel Hendren was called upon to make a speech of appreciation and ended by presenting Nell with a lovely hand-embroidered Irish linen tablecloth. Bobby Hendren presented each of us a gift and then the chorus stood and sang, "Will Ye No Come Back Again?" We felt a bit flattered for this was the song the Capetown Africans sang to the king and queen as their ship sailed away from the harbor.
All of us were in tears as the meeting ended. Young and old were sobbing as if their hearts would break. We clung to each other, reluctant to accept the fact that we had to part. It was long after midnight when we said goodnight to the Hunter family and went to our bed, but we arose early next morning for breakfast, and when we arrived at the airport bus station in Donegal Square we found a company of saints awaiting us. I could name every one of them, but I must limit myself to a special tribute to Mary Hendren who, for thirty years, has faithfully written to us and kept us informed by letters, newspapers and books, of the changing fortunes of the saints in these troublous times.
When we arrived back at Ringway Air Terminal in Manchester, we soon transferred to the rail station to board the train for Morley, near the great industrial city of Leeds, in Yorkshire. The train trip through the hills was beautiful. Gray stone fences centuries old climbed up the steeps. Patches of snow lingered in the upper valleys. Rushing streams tumbled under old stone bridges. The train went through a long tunnel and emerged at Morley.
Our stay in Yorkshire was memorable for many reasons. For one thing we were privileged to stay in the home of Fred and Hilda Hardy and their charming daughter Bessie. Bro. Hardy was a plumber and contractor and had created a lovely house called "Windyridge" out of an antique stone dwelling. I spoke five times at Morley with increasing crowds each night, and once at Ardsley and Dewsbury. The brethren seemed greatly uplifted and my own spirits soared. Bro. Hardy owned an automobile and resolved to show us as much of Yorkshire as possible, including the seven-hilled city of Morley, the home of great woolen mills.
Some areas still remain engraved in my memory. The great city of Leeds with its famous university, renowned modern hospital, the unique city hall, and the huge apartment building spread over several city blocks and erected in a perfect and unbroken circle. The quaint old city of York, looking like a throwback to the days of Charles Dickens. We visited York Minster with its crypts in the floor containing the dust of English nobility, and the days of Roman occupation in the first century. The lovely city of Harrogate, famous spa and health resort, where the crystal clear mineral waters run though the bath houses, and along the valley by the promenade where the wealthy walk.
The age-old city of Knaresborough, clinging precariously to the slopes rising above the River Nidd, and looking like an illustration from a Mother Goose book. This was the traditional home of "Mother Shipton" who was credited with prophesying the advent of automobiles, planes and other modern developments centuries ago. One day, through the kindness of Bro. Fred Sugden, who worked in a woolen mill, we were permitted to go through and observe the processing from the time the wool was received until the cloth came off in huge rolls bound for export to the United States. The week sped by all too quickly and we had to depart for Warwickshire before we were ready to go. We will never forget the Hardy, McDonald, Sugden, Sykes and Baines families, nor shall I forget Geoffrey Lodge, the astute and capable young brother who later married Bessie Hardy.
When we arrived in Birmingham, Friday, April 18, the signs of the fearful devastation wrought by Nazi bombers were everywhere evident. The Summerlane meetinghouse had been blasted into fragments one Saturday night and the brethren with whom I was to labor were using an old mess hall purchased from the government and hauled to their site. We were given hospitality in the home of Bro. Fred Day, one of the elders, and also one of the gentlest and humblest men I have ever met. Scholarly and informed, he was one of the most qualified Bible teachers with whom I have ever been associated.
On Saturday, the brethren had arranged a welcome meeting, preceded by a 4:00 o'clock tea, to which all of the congregations in the area were invited. Instead of one returning thanks when we were all seated, the brethren sang a thanksgiving hymn in unison. Bro. Earl Stuckenbruck and wife, who were enroute to Tuebingen, Germany, were in Birmingham, and came out to meet me. His father was a minister of the Disciples of Christ congregation in Topeka, Kansas, where I finished high school. The Stuckenbrucks were the first Americans we had met on our tour and the "Yankee twang" with its midwestern accent sounded good to our ears.
On Saturday afternoon I was taken to the home of John McCartney, who was to be 93 years old the following Wednesday. He lived contemporary with David King, the leader of the reform movement in England for forty years. He was a boy of twelve when news reached England of the death of Alexander Campbell. I had long read his writings and it seemed like a dream that I should be in the home of this renowned scholar. He was totally blind, but his mind was clear and lucid, and as he sat with the shawl about his shoulders, talking about the Book which had been his rod and staff, it was a little like being in the presence of one of the prophets.
From the home of Bro. McCartney we went to the cemetery where the body of David King lies buried. I had already read the large book titled "Memoir of David King" by his wife Louise, and knew that the Cause had been launched in Birmingham through his efforts coupled with those of J.B. Rotherham. From a congregation of eleven members which they planted, the community of saints grew to number hundreds. In some ways David King excelled Alexander Campbell and it is a tragedy that his work is so little known in the United States. Carved upon the simple stone erected over his resting-place are these words: "rejecting all human creeds, He pleaded that the Teaching of Christ and His Apostles is the only Divinely authorized and all-sufficient Way of Salvation and basis of Christian Union. He was a good man. Mighty in the Scriptures. Ask for the Old Paths and walk therein."
Warwickshire fairly crawls with literary greatness. On our way to Leicester to speak we visited Stratford-on-Avon. The home of William Shakespeare looked just as it had been pictured in my high school English Literature textbook. I read with interest the original manuscripts of some of his plays exhibited upstairs. In an adjoining room, where he was born, many of the world's great have scratched their names in the glass of the old Tudor windowpanes. Easily identified were the autographs of William Makepeace Thackeray, Sir Walter Scott, and John Barrymore. Speaking of Scott reminds me that as we left Stratford we went to Kenilworth to visit the castle tower featured in his novel named after the town.
At Coventry we saw the frightful havoc wreaked by the German Luftwaffe. The city grew from a Benedictine monastery established in 1043 by the famous Lady Godiva and her husband. Hitler resolved to wipe it from the earth. In two months of insane bombing the center of the city was devastated and 70,000 homes were utterly destroyed or severely damaged. The 14th century St. Michael's Cathedral was blasted into oblivion except for the 303-foot steeple which remained like a lone finger pointing toward the heavens.
The little body of brethren in Leicester met in a council schoolroom. They had recently left the large congregation affiliated with the British Cooperation for conscience' sake. We had a good audience present and a grand spirit of fellowship was apparent. The following day we drove through Sherwood Forest, the one-time haunt of Robin Hood and his merry men on our way to Loughborough where I was to speak. We stayed with Basil and Elizabeth Jaynes who were tenants working on the great Sir Julian Hall estate, embracing several thousand acres. A great many German prisoners were under guard on the estate sorting and cleaning potatoes for the market. Many of them were young and looked like anything but Nazi supermen. They were forced to wear a diamond-shaped patch of another color on the back of their drab jackets and trousers to permit immediate identification and to provide against escape. They were hungry for news of what was transpiring in the world and eagerly snatched up every bit of stray newspaper, which some of them could read.
At East Kirkby, on Wednesday night, I encountered the first serious opposition I had experienced. The British brethren, with very few exceptions, are vigorously against the idea of bearing arms in time of war, under any circumstances. Some of the older ones endured imprisonment and even physical torture for their convictions during World War One. So pronounced was the feeling at East Kirkby during World War Two that it was made a test of fellowship. The brethren refused to pass the Lord's Supper to those who were in uniform. American soldiers who attended were deliberately barred from the privilege of communing in the body and blood of the Lord.
Since I regarded war as an evil, and not necessarily a sin, I had written my book Fighting Christians a number of years before. In it I took up one by one the scriptural deductions affirmed by the brethren who were opposed to war and dealt with them. Thinking to prejudice the British brethren against me before my arrival certain ones in the United States had mailed several copies of my book to what they considered strategic areas. The brethren knew I was not a political pacifist. The question period following my message was without incident, but following dismissal several of the brethren gathered around me and walled me in, demanding how I could be in the fellowship of those trained to kill. It reminded me of how things are done in the United States and turned out to be an interesting engagement with some of the most militant pacifists I have ever met. Since I made no test of fellowship out of their opinion it was not nearly so tense for me as for them. I could receive and love them without their changing. But the danger of making tests of fellowship out of personal deductions from the scriptures was borne home to me as I had never seen it before.
After a final meeting in Birmingham we returned to London to spend more than a week with the Scott family before embarking on the Queen Elizabeth for home. It was a time literally crammed with interest, but would require too much time and space to describe. On Sunday, April 27, there were 24 present for the breaking of bread in this great city of ten million souls. In the evening Bro. Scott asked me if I would be willing to engage in a question forum after the gospel meeting. Although I was surprised at the request, I agreed to do so. Later I learned that two or three in the congregation had raised objections to allowing me to speak because of my position as to bearing arms in international conflict. The forum was a good one and the contention quite sharp at times, although good order predominated. Some were more dogmatic than others and the questioners disagreed among themselves, but the session helped clear the air. I came away with a sense of deep appreciation for the brethren, even those who disagreed with me.
We sailed from Southampton on Saturday, May 3, and arrived back in St. Louis on May 10, my thirty-ninth birthday. Our eager hearts were filled to overflowing to see the children well and hearty and doing well in school. In the ensuing weeks scores of letters came from those whom we had met and as we replied to them our hearts drifted back across the ocean and in memory we lived again with those who were so dear unto us. As I write this thirty years have passed into history since we first set foot in Great Britain, but we still hear from several of those whom we met. We would like to hear from all of them.
Almost at once my services were in demand by congregations which wanted to hear of our trip and see the amateur movies we had made of the entire time. I resumed my weekly radio broadcast which had been temporarily placed in the efficient hands of Hershel Ottwell after my 171st consecutive message. Too, we had to begin distribution of the first volume of the Bible Commentary by Brother Zerr which we had published under our imprint. It sold for $4.00 per copy, bound in cloth and stamped in gold.
Our paper Mission Messenger, now almost ten years old, was full of reports of congregations being planted, new meetinghouses being erected, and people being immersed into Christ. Every issue contained letters from abroad and it seemed as if God was smiling upon the efforts of "the brotherhood." It never entered our minds that we were exclusivists forming a divisive party. We were the one body for which Jesus had died. It was a propitious season for resuming the debates with Brother Brewer who had suggested that we hold an open discussion upon every Christian college campus. Inasmuch as he was on the staff of Harding College at Searcy, Arkansas, he suggested it as the best place for our third encounter.
On October 20, 1947, I wrote this genial "brother in error" and asked him to select a date. I was ready when he was. In his reply he said: "I suppose you keep up with the papers and, if you do, you realize that there is a considerable interest now aroused over a question among ourselves. This is the old question of whether or not a church should contribute to a school. You know my position, and this is the position held by the vast majority of my brethren. However, the Bible Banner group has been seeking to destroy me for some years and they thought they would get me committed to an issue on which none of the schools or orphan homes or papers would agree with me, and then they would have me branded as a disloyal, unfair man. They have failed in this and it is about to turn the other way. The Bible Banner is about to find itself standing alone on this point except for the sympathy they get from the Sommers. They are inconsistent or they would go over to the Sommers or else drop the point they are making an ado about. Right now we have a challenge out to them and it is possible that Roy Cogdill will finally be urged to meet me in debate. If that happens, I'll have him as an opponent instead of you; and when the debate is over, you can probably take his arguments and debate with me or some other man on our side.
"At any rate, this is the status of the case now and I am not prepared to tell you that you and I can have a debate soon. If this other debate fails to develop, then we may get Harding to invite our debate and we can move it to Memphis where we will have a big auditorium. We shall have to wait, however, for a while before we pursue this matter any further. With all good wishes, I am faithfully yours, --G.C. Brewer."
I never debated Bro. Brewer again. The trouble which was fomenting in the ranks of those with whom he was directly affiliated continued to grow until eventually another major cleavage occurred and the restoration movement was disgraced by another unnecessary division. Today in some cities there are representatives of both sides meeting and challenging one another for debate. One side refers to the other as "liberals" while they think of themselves as "conservatives." The fact is that neither group is the body of Christ in its fulness and both are simply factions which cannot get along with each other.
In January of 1948 we had 85 students from ten states enrolled in the study of the Word in Saint Louis. It was a great learning experience and we explored the Bible with a keen sense of desire for knowing more about the divine revelation. For six weeks we studied every day and held three night sessions of two hours each. We drew so close together that we wept when the time came to bid one another farewell.