HINGS were not always peaceful in the young churches of the reformation. On several occasions, elders, preachers and churches sent for Thomas Campbell to restore order and Christian fellowship. F. W. Emmons refers to one such occasion in connection with the church at New Lisbon, O., in 1831.

"I then felt that the testimony of Luke for Barnabas might well be applied to him (father Campbell), that 'he was a good man and full of the Holy Spirit and faith.' Yes, he was good, he was devout, and with Edwards and Judson and Payson he ascribed all his goodness to the grace of God."

Mr. Emmons assures us, too, that Thomas Campbell "was like Paul in withstanding and reproving error." This he heard him do once in Wellsburg. An effort was being made by a young preacher there to convince his hearers that "the Spirit was the Word and the Word was the Spirit." After terminating his discourse, before the preacher had time to dismiss the audience,

"Father Campbell arose, with the dignity and solemnity of a patriarch, as he was, and spoke for some ten or fifteen minutes in reply. Ah, with what force and plainness for the truth! and yet, with tenderness and kindness for the young man."

It will be recalled that there were some who [162] charged that Alexander Campbell was the author and maintainer of the teaching referred to above. May we be allowed to insert here a few words drawn from the mind of Alexander Campbell as he comments on the circumstance related by Mr. Emmons?

"The case of the young preacher is suggestive. Ardent, inexperienced, and fond of paradox, the recklessness, which is often mistaken for manly courage, to avoid a vicious extreme, he ran into its opposite, no less prejudicial to truth and righteousness--an event which is due to an unsettled state of the public mind. To relieve himself from views of spiritual influence which negative human responsibility, he made religion merely mechanical. Unread in the controversy, he accepted an extreme view which seemed to void all the difficulties of the subject. Doubtless Father Campbell's eclaircissement of the theme and our young friend's subsequent readings of the living oracles, led him, by a just exegesis of these Scriptures, to form more scriptural and spiritual views of his religion, and, we would fain hope, enjoy it in proportion to the increase of light" (Memoirs of Thomas Campbell, pp. 282, 283).

      It is an admirable comment on the independence of mind possessed by both, to observe that father and son did not always and entirely agree as to teachings and the advisability of published writings. They did agree on the great fundamental elements of faith, but in opinions each allowed the other latitude. The matter of the name for the new type of followers of Christ necessarily [163] presented itself. Barton W. Stone and his associates in the Kentucky region brought a revival of the name "Christian" which had so largely been discarded because of a predilection for denominational and sectarian names. To that name "Christian" Thomas Campbell leaned as the best. His son became persuaded that "disciple" was better, inasmuch as it was older in the Scriptures, was more humble and had not been appropriated. They did not quarrel in the matter of name, but each used what he pleased, and both men used both names. Once the young editor of The Millennial Harbinger had written the "Dialogue on the Holy Spirit," in which he had employed abstractions and philosophical distinctions in relation to "moral and physical powers," with a view to make himself, he said, "understood, but which really opened the way to new misunderstandings. . . ." Thomas Campbell quite disapproved of the dialogue as a full and just presentation of the subject. The dialogue had been included in a first edition of "Christianity Restored." In deference to the opinion of his father, the son omitted the questioned article from a subsequent edition of the book (Richardson's Memoirs of Alexander Campbell, Vol. H., pp. 354, 355). Only the two men knew how much each served as a check and balance upon the other.

      In December of 1831, Thomas Campbell made a tour of the churches in Virginia. He had numerous contacts with adherents of the reformation that were to be found in nearly all of the Baptist churches. There were those who were glad to [164] hear more of the teachings and proposals for union and restoration, and, of course, there were others who were bitter and endeavored to turn their fellows away from the teaching and Mr. Campbell. The stay was prolonged into 1832. Even the irenic temper and method of the advocate of Christian union availed not to avert division in several of the churches.

      Into the arena of the religious life of the United States in 1826 Alexander Campbell sent forth a new edition of the New Testament. It was really a work of Drs. George Campbell (not a relative), James MacKnight and Philip Doddridge. It had been well received in the British Isles, even though it paid scant respect to some of the old texts in the King James Version, that had been used to bolster Calvinism and Arminianism. It even conceded that the term "baptism" ought to be replaced in religious literature and the Scriptures by "immersion." Its new publisher sent it forth with a preface, various emendations and an appendix. What a furore this work caused! It was the "Campbellite Bible" even though it deserved rather the title, the "Presbyterian Bible." The first edition was soon exhausted, and a second was called for and evidently published, though there seems to be no record of it. The preface to the third edition opens as follows:

"Six years have transpired since we published the first edition of this work. During this period we have been receiving criticisms, suggestions and queries, relative to further improvements in the version and in the mode of exhibiting it. [165] We also solicited and obtained, from some learned and pious men their assistance in perfecting this translation."

None of these are mentioned by name. Then there was a praiseworthy plan to issue a pocket edition of the New Testament, a "stereotype edition." The second paragraph of the preface to that issue reads in part:

"Aware of all the difficulties in our way, and most solicitous to have the stereotype pocket edition of this work as perfect in its typography as any in existence, we have been at the labor and expense of preparing two editions at one and the same time--so that any errata discovered after the sheets of the third edition were worked off, might be corrected in the standing form of the pocket edition."

And now the third paragraph of the aforementioned "Preface to the Fourth, or Stereotype Edition":

"The sheets of the third edition, after having been read repeatedly by myself and others, were submitted to the examination of Thomas Campbell, Sen., and of Francis W. Emmons, to whom we are much indebted for the care which they have bestowed on them, and the numerous suggestions with which they have favored us. Their classical and biblical attainments have been of much service to us and to the public, in the completion of this work."

A very justifiable tribute of not only youth to age, but of one scholar to another, Alexander Campbell, junior, to Thomas Campbell, senior. There never was a more conscientious effort put forth to have a humanly perfect copy of the writings of the New Covenant. An extract from a long letter written [166] by the father to his son concerning the state of the cause in Virginia touches the above translation work. The date is Aug. 1, 1832, Spotsylvania, Va., the place, and the sentiment the following:

"I think long, my dear son, to be at home, not only for the sake of my family enjoyment, but, in a peculiar measure, for the sake of a final revision of your intended impression of the New Testament. Were this satisfactorily accomplished, I should be comparatively at ease about other achievements. It was with great reluctance I left home on that account. If the Lord be graciously pleased to spare my unworthy life to see this thing happily accomplished, I shall greatly rejoice in his goodness, through his special grace. May the Lord bless and prosper his precious word that it may be light, life and joy to a guilty and erring world."

And both father and son were committed to the idea that the Scriptures ought to be translated so as to give the mind of the Spirit back of its giving. It requires no stretch of the imagination to believe that the elder Campbell acquiesced in the deliverance of the younger which is found at the close of the first preface, which is dated Jan. 29, 1826:

"I do, most solemnly declare, that, as far as respects my feelings, partialities, reputation and worldly interest as a man, I would become a Presbyterian, a Methodist, a Quaker, a Universalist, a Socinian, or anything else before the sun would set today, if the apostolic writings would, in my judgment, authorize me in so doing; and that I would not give one turn to the meaning of an adverb, [167] preposition or interjection to aid any sectarian cause in the world. Whether every reader may give me credit in so declaring myself I know not; but I thought it due the occasion thus to express the genuine and unaffected feelings of my heart. May all who honestly examine this version abundantly partake, of the blessings of that Spirit which guided the writers of this volume, and which in every page breathes 'Glory to God in the highest heaven, peace on earth, and good will among men'."

      Our data are quite meager as to the relations of our "Advocate of Christian Union," and the followers of Barton W. Stone and his colaborers. Their converts had spread into Ohio and farther west. There are occasional references to the Christians of the Stone type in the regions of Ohio, where the older Campbell preached and evangelized. In 1824, Alexander Campbell and Mr. Stone met in Kentucky, and from that time they had a warm regard for each other. They saw a great similarity in the message and the main task of each other. They read each other's writings and sought to help each other into the larger truth. But not until the early '30s did the groups of "Reformers" or "Disciples" and "Christians" begin to get together in appreciable degrees. Much is owed such preachers as Samuel Rogers, John Gano, John T. Johnson, John Smith and John Rogers. The union of the important churches in Georgetown, Lexington and Paris stirred the two groups in the entire state of Kentucky to unite and there was great joy in most hearts. There [168] was a group of the adherents of the Stone movement that sharply criticized the action of Mr. Stone, but he said: "This union, irrespective of reproach, I view as the noblest act of my life" (History of the Disciples, p. 120). The name of Thomas Campbell does not seem to figure in the union spoken of, but he felt called upon to conduct a sort of magazine debate with Mr. Stone on the subject of "The Atonement." There were many who doubted that Mr. Stone was sound and completely scriptural in his views. In four installments in The Millennial Harbinger, (Millennial Harbinger, pp. 493ff., 503ff., 548ff., 594ff.), the elder Campbell set forth his ideas and made strictures on what he thought were the defective views of the Kentucky reformer. The first writing appeared in Volume III., 1833. As people understood him, they thought that Mr. Stone seemed to be satisfied with a moral theory of the atonement. His reviewer sought to show that, while the moral theory was not wrong, it did not satisfy all the teachings of the Scriptures on the subject. There was no denunciation, but an earnest desire and hope that each one might attain to the full truth.

      In 1833 the two Campbells and three other companions set forth on a horseback tour of Virginia and the East. They traveled together as far as Richmond, and, after some time in that city, they separated--Alexander to go on north as far as New York, the father turning south into North Carolina. The latter was more than seventy years of age. at the time, and just as earnest as ever [169] in his advocacy of the principles of the "Declaration and Address." His desire was for peace among the churches and forbearance in love, but he saw and heard sorrowful things. The, "Dover Decrees" had crossed from Virginia into the Carolinas, and were being read and circulated among the Baptist churches. During his visit he saw the Yeopim Union Meeting formally excluding the group of "Disciples" in the church of Edenton. A committee was appointed and called "The Committee on the Case of the Campbellite Reformers." This body made its report in three resolutions, the third being to the effect that it is

"due to the cause of truth and Christian concord to guard our brethren against the ministrations of the one, Thomas Campbell, a teacher of Campbellism, who has been for some time visiting among our brethren, carrying with him letters of recommendations from persons residing in Edenton, and laboring, it is believed, to disseminate his peculiar sentiments among our people."

So outrageous were the reports about him and his mission that Mr. Campbell felt called to issue a pamphlet in reply and self-defense. There were places, however, during his prolonged stay of six months in North Carolina where he was gladly received, and he had joy in his ministry (Vare, Disciples of Christ in North Carolina, 1). 59ff.).

      A preaching and lecturing tour of seventy-five duration, turned the editing of The Millennial Harbinger, for several of the early months of 1835, over to the elder Campbell. The regular [170] editor (Alexander Campbell) had left some articles for insertion, but the editor-ad-interim did considerable writing also. A letter from J. R. Howard touching the sufferings of Christ and the relations of the act of baptism to the same drew forth a rather extended reply. Thomas Campbell answers a series of six questions, the last of which was, "Is baptism a church ordinance?" There had been manifested "the editorial itch" among many converts to, and adherents of, the "Reformation" with the result that many magazines sprang up in various quarters. Both of the Campbells, although they felt many of those journalistic efforts were ill-advised, manifested no jealousy and gave due notice of the competitors, in some respects, in the Harbinger. Not only in some of those new magazines and papers, but also in some pulpits, was attention being given to "untaught questions," "vain philosophies" and heresies, both ancient and modern. Such writings and preachments were a grief of mind to the originator of the plan for Christian union, and during the period now under review, he wrote as follows:

"Had the advocates of the proposed reformation continued to sustain and enforce it (the abundant and alone sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures) as in the document referred to [the "Declaration and Address"], we are constrained to believe that the sectarian popular objections which have been brought against it, and with which its progress has been unhappily embarrassed, could never have been advanced by any who acknowledged the all-sufficiency [171] and alone-sufficiency of the belief and obedience of the Holy Scriptures in the obvious grammatic sense, for the salvation of sinners, for the perfect edification of the Christian church, independent of all human opinions and inventions of men. . . . Thus instead of a genuine scriptural reformation reducing and restoring our holy, religion to its original heaven-born purity, in the belief and practice of a divine declaration, expressly upon the face of the sacred page, we should have a reiteration, a renewed exhibition of metaphysical abstractions, of theological polemics, notions and opinions to which Buck's Theological Dictionary might again serve as a portable index. Ainsi ne soit il."

Again:

"If we calculate the future by the past, especially the last ten years, we might live to see an exhibition of all the curious questions and controversies of the last fifteen centuries upon the page of the periodicals professedly in favor of the proposed reformation."

At this time, Thomas Campbell and wife were living with a son-in-law and the daughter Jane, the McKeevers, near West Middletown, Pa.

      In 1835, Mrs. Campbell was taken with what proved to be a fatal illness. Her husband was constantly at her bedside, and they had much intimate fellowship in the things of their common faith. Her remains were laid to rest in the family burying-ground at Bethany. The aging widower wrote a very human account of the last illness and death of his wife to the daughter Alicia (Mrs. Matthew C. Clapp), who was living in Ohio. The [172] same letter was inserted in the Harbinger. Reference was made by the bereaved father to the fact that in the last eight years his wife had been deprived of his company three-fourths of the time. He confessed that in the years of their almost fifty of wedded life, his wife had carried the heavy load of nurturing and training the children and keeping the home. But she had agreed to be a sharer with him in his life's work, and that called for her to share him with a world which he felt needed his message. Herewith the closing paragraph of the obituary letter:

"And now, dear daughter, what remains for me thus bereft of my endearing, attached companion, from whose loving, faithful heart, I am persuaded, I was not absent a single day of our fifty years' connection--yes, what now remains for me without any worldly care or particular attachment, but with renewed energy, with redoubled diligence, as the Lord may graciously be pleased to enable, to sound abroad the word of life." [173]

[TCSCUA 162-173]