T is a distinct pleasure to write a word concerning the significance and value of the pages which follow. In the judgment of the writer, no more valuable contribution to the early history of the Disciples of Christ has been made since the publication of Robert Richardson's Memoirs of Alexander Campbell. The source material contained in this book is of the highest value and serves as a corrective in certain particulars of even such authoritative biographers as Richardson and Alexander Campbell. The fact is that the latter depended upon his memory too exclusively and made frequent errors on this account. The main facts, of course, remain unchanged, but some very important details are set forth in a new light, so that the total picture is made more brilliant and luminous. Thomas Campbell becomes a much more lifelike figure than he had been before, and the action of the Associate Synod of North America likewise becomes much more explicable when its official minutes are read and studied. Mr. Campbell was obviously a little petulant and the Synod was likewise doing its best to reach a decision satisfactory to all parties. The whole situation, as Mr. Hanna discloses it to us, is decidedly human, dramatic and convincing. We recognize the personal motives back of the unwarranted persecution of the Chartiers Presbytery, and it is perfectly clear that the officials of the Synod [5] of North America saw through the situation also. At the same time they were quite justly suspicious of Thomas Campbell's orthodoxy, and their analysis of his theological position was, in the main, clear and sound. Campbell himself at this time appears to have been feeling his way, and, no doubt, failed to appreciate the full implications of his teaching. It required the bitter experience of censure and suspension on the part of the two ecclesiastical bodies to ripen his thinking into the full fruition of the "Declaration and Address." "God moves in a mysterious way his wonders to perform." If the Seceders had been a little more tolerant, the "Declaration and Address" would probably never have been written.

      Up until the appearance of this volume no satisfactory biography of Thomas Campbell has been available. The memoirs written by his son, as the author of the present book indicates, never met with public approval, and today only a few scattered copies are in existence. The reasons assigned for the inadequacy of the work by its author are no doubt partially correct, but they do not, seem to cover the entire ground. The truth appears to be that Alexander Campbell, when he undertook the job, was aging rapidly, his memory was failing, and there was something about the whole situation which made the task entirely hopeless for him. In the prime of his life he would have produced a great interpretation of his father's career, but when he set his hand to the undertaking he was no longer capable of measuring up to the responsibility which [6] was laid upon him. Nevertheless, just because he was Alexander Campbell, and because he had written at least a purported biography of his father, later writers felt estopped from touching the subject. For this reason, perhaps more than any other, Thomas Campbell has remained without an adequate biography, until Mr. Hanna, inspired by the discovery of his new source material, essayed the task. He has thus placed all of us under a debt of gratitude for filling in a gap which threatened to become permanent.

      One word more may be added concerning the immense value of preserving what may sometimes appear to be unimportant and uninteresting records. Perhaps to most people the minutes of the Chartiers Presbytery, written over a hundred years ago, would seem to be singularly inconsequential. The Campbell case was only one out of a number of similar instances of routine procedure which even to contemporaries were probably tiresome enough. We read them today with intense interest because of what history has done for some of the characters who are involved. The moral would appear to be that no transactions of any organization should be regarded as unworthy of preservation. It is highly desirable that future generations should understand the facts of past history in order the more surely to expand their own outlook. Accurate and detailed official records help to promote such an understanding more than anything else. We must be sincerely grateful today to the men who wrote and preserved the records upon which the present volume is so [7] largely based, and to the author of this book for making them available for the general public.

      It scarcely seems necessary to call attention to the fact that Mr. Hanna has once and for all laid the ghost of the imaginative schism between Thomas and Alexander Campbell which has been advocated at times by uninformed radicals. On only one or two rather unimportant matters was there any real difference of opinion between father and son throughout the long period of their harmonious and co-operative fellowship. The fact is that Alexander carried out the plan and program of his father to the very best of his extraordinary ability. Thomas Campbell, on the other hand, was delighted at the forensic leadership of his son and was content to remain in the background so long as the principles which he advocated were being promulgated in such admirable fashion. History records few instances of more thoroughgoing and consistent harmony between two great leaders in the work of the church. The famous relationship which existed between Luther and Melanchthon was far less ideal. Not the least service of the present volume is the fact that it helps to immortalize the sacred and beautiful unity of spirit which existed between Father Campbell and his illustrious son and successor.

FREDERICK D. KERSHNER.      

      BUTLER UNIVERSITY,
      Indianapolis, Ind.
      2nd of September, 1935. [8]

[TCSCUA 5-8]