The desire for Christian union was conceived in the breast of Thomas Campbell before he left Ireland. It was in the New World that it was given birth. Moreover, it was to the capricious waters to the north of Ireland that the consecration of Alexander Campbell to the Christian ministry was due. He and his mother had set sail for America in the early autumn of 1808. A storm arose and the little vessel was soon driven before the wind onto the [362] rocks off the coast of Scotland. In the midst of their peril the youth of twenty vowed that if the Lord would grant them escape he would devote his life to the Christian ministry. To what purpose he was saved, we are here to testify to-day. It was too late in the season for them to set sail again that year, and hence opportunity was offered for him to enter Glasgow University, to begin the preparation for the ministry to which he had consecrated himself. It was here that he came into contact with such men, and read such books, as prepared his mind for the hearty acceptance of the principles laid down in the "Declaration and Address," the proof-sheets of which he read upon his arrival in America in August of the following year.

      These men, and the sentiments which they held, must enter into any record that is made up of the contribution of the Old World to the New.

      Nor did the leaven which produced these men fail to work in other quarters as well. There was celebrated on Whit-Monday, May 31 of this year, at our church in the Cathedral City of Chester, the one hundredth anniversary of the church of Christ, Coxlane, North Wales. Hence, to-day is not the first Centennial celebration. Coxlane is before Brush Run!

      And who knows but that if the Old World had not given up her sons, Thomas and Alexander Campbell, to the New World, this celebration might have been held to-day in London instead of Pittsburg?

      The first quarter of the last century saw the organization of churches in Bristol, London, Shrewsbury, Wrexham, and in a few places farther north, but the churches for the most part remained ignorant of each other, and of the greater movement in America, until the year 1833. It was in this year that Peyton C. Wyeth, a young American art student, entered a little Baptist chapel near Finsbury Pavement, London, on a certain Sunday morning. He knew Alexander Campbell and accepted his teachings, and in conversation with one of the officers of the church after the service, he told him of the Campbells and of the movement in America. This officer was Wm. Jones, himself a religious author of some note in his day. He was attracted by what Mr. Wyeth told him and a correspondence sprang up between himself and Alexander Campbell. Soon after this Mr. Jones started the British Millennial Harbinger, with the hope of bringing the Scottish Baptist churches in England into line with the new movement. But he soon grew faint-hearted for fear of creating dissension among his brethren.

      However, certain churches which stood for New Testament Christianity got into touch with each other, and in 1842 the first general meeting was held at Edinburgh, when there were said to be forty-two churches and thirteen hundred members. The next meeting was held in the autumn of 1847, at Chester, when the chair was taken by Alexander Campbell, who had come over in the spring of the same year, in answer to the earnest solicitation of the British brethren. It was then reported that there were eighty churches and twenty-three hundred members, but two years later, while there were said to be ninety-two churches, the membership was given as only 1029. Evidently the methods of computation in vogue in other times and places were in popular favor--guessing at half and multiplying by two.

      For the next twenty or thirty years the figures were sometimes up and sometimes down, but the hearts of the brethren were strong.

      In 1845 the late Timothy Coop, of Wigan and Southport, came into the work, and in the middle 70's became the storm-center around which great changes were wrought in the work in Great Britain.

      Mr. Coop had visited America and had caught the spirit of progress and of an intensified evangelism. H. S. Earl had already evangelized in England in 1861-64, and had demonstrated the possibilities of such work.

      Upon Mr. Coop's second visit to America he appeared before the board of the newly formed Foreign Christian Missionary Society, and offered to give the society $5,000 for every $10,000 they would devote to the evangelization of England. The proposition was accepted. H. S. Earl had already returned to [363] England and had begun work at Southampton. M. D. Todd and W. T. Moore soon followed at Chester and Southport. The more conservative of the British brethren did not take kindly to what in that day was the new evangelism.

      The principles which were emphasized were the same, but some of the applications were different. Dissensions arose, and in 1880 a division took place and the churches of the American type formed themselves into a missionary organization called the Christian Association.

      This, of all times and places, is not the time or place to say anything that would widen the breach or increase the difficulties of the situation, for this celebration is not that of a faction or of a party, but of our whole people. Indeed, it is a pleasure to testify to the faithfulness and devotion and the measure of success that has attended the efforts of our brethren of the older churches.

      But it is not in an old and conservative country that we can look for the best interpretation and application of such a plea as ours. Its very simplicity constitutes both its strength and its danger. The religious history of Britain is full of attempts to return to New Testament Christianity; but they mostly have gone or are going the way of all the earth. Their literalism soon goes to seed and their legalism soon crowds out all that is vital and spiritual, and they become the prey of dissension and division.

      It is not so in a new country. The very vigor of a young country's growth cracks the shell of an undue formalism and breaks the bonds of an overstrained legalism. There are growing pains, to be sure; but, after all, they are only growing pains.

      The organization of 1880 can not boast of great numerical success. There are now but twenty churches, with only just over two thousand members. The older churches have done better numerically, with their period of fluctuating membership largely past when we had only begun, and they now have about 190 churches, with a total membership of thirteen or fourteen thousand.

      It is no wonder that the workers in England often grow discouraged, as the work is viewed from certain angles, and especially in its details. Some one has said that the reason so many people are pessimists is that they lose sight of generals in the deluge of adverse particulars.

      Let us look at the situation. First, within. We have no college, and, in the very nature of the case, can not maintain one. But our young men have gone to our American colleges by the score--more than sixty missionaries and preachers having been given to the general work. It is a drain upon our resources, for they seldom return, but our churches are happy to live to serve.

      Looking without, we see, on the one hand, the Established Church, firmly entrenched behind the law of the land, and surrounded with vested interests, regarding with arrogance all the Free churches. And, on the other hand, we see the Free churches themselves sailing so near in to the haven of New Testament Christianity as to have taken much of the wind out of our sails. Or, to change the figure, they have verily stolen the thunder of our fathers.

      Let us compare our position with that of the Free churches.

      A point of emphasis with us has been our hatred of ecclesiasticism. But, however skilled we may have shown ourselves, we can give the Free churches of England no instruction in the use of invective as applied to this matter. We would have indeed to show ourselves men of valor if we hoped to distinguish ourselves on this battlefield.

      We have stood for the right of any truly Christian man to preach the gospel. The descendants of Oliver Cromwell will not soon forget that his blood was made to boil within him as he saw a man horsewhipped in the streets of London because he claimed the right to preach the gospel without a license, or that Cromwell declared that he would live to see the day when this intolerance would be put down in England. Nor will the descendants of Bunyan forget the main principle for which he languished in Bedford goal. The Baptist and Congregational churches of England and Wales have three times the number of lay preachers that they have regular ones, and the local preachers of the Wesleyan Church outnumber [364] their regular ministers by four or five to one.

      Do we oppose binding creeds, manmade and oppressive? Who are the two thousand clergymen who went out from the Church of England because they would not sign the articles of conformity? They are the men who have flamed the way for every Free church of to-day, and that for which they stood has not been forgotten.

      Do we stand for Christian union? The Free churches have stood for no special theory of Christian union, but for that very reason, perhaps, some of them have been all the more ready to unite. All are federated, and for the present the most of them are satisfied not to go beyond it; but it can not last--union is in the air.

      In this situation, what shall we do--withdraw because the field is too nearly ripe, or remain because the harvest is so nearly ready to gather?

      Evidently it is no place for negation. Of all places in the world, England is the place for constructive tactics. This demands strong men. Almost any one can tear down; only skilled workmen can wisely build.

      Our negations and our protests that have won us victories in other places have been taken from our lips and given to the world with a force and power scarcely possessed by a Campbell or a Stone; but we have a message--we have the divine creed, and there can be no other; we have the name, and many admit it; we have the ordinances, that must at least be held up by the united church as the ideal for the individual; we have the principles which will give liberty to the individual and unity to the church; we have not only the passion for union which enables us to preach it with power, but we have the divine basis for union, which alone can make its consummation desirable; we of all people ought to be able to show the free churches the real logic of their position, for they preach better than they know.

      With these positive truths to be emphasized, we would be recreant to our duty if we shunned the task.

      What would a Campbell do? The answer may be found in what was done in 1812; they joined hands with the one denomination in that day that was willing to take the proffered hand, and then from that vantage-ground proceeded to sow the seed of New Testament Christianity beside all waters.

      We may never be able to build up a great organization in England that we can call "ours," but there is no better field for showing that we are not a denomination, and that to build up one is the furthest from our desire and aim. Indeed, the situation is a powerful challenge to the sincerity of our claim!

      Must we either become a denomination, or else abandon every field where the sentiment in favor of Christian union is such that we can not make it our exclusive hobby, especially in its negative phases? No, certainly not; but it may be necessary to lose sight of ourselves sometimes, that Christ may be glorified.

      It is a significant fact that we are comparatively weak, or not represented at all, in almost every field where Christian union has been most to the fore--in Scotland, where, in 1902, two great denominations united at a tremendous sacrifice of worldly goods; in South Africa, where a most sane and Scriptural basis of union has been adopted by the Presbyterian, Baptist, Congregational and Methodist churches; in Canada, where a courtship has been going on for the past six years between the Congregational, Methodist and Presbyterian bodies, and where the bans have practically been announced; in England, where three branches of the great Methodist host have become one, and where the Free Church Council presents such a solid front that some have almost mistaken it for union already accomplished.

      The stampede for Christian union is on, and if we are as wise and tactful as a cowboy, yea, if we are not recreant to our duty, we will ride before the advancing host and seek to direct the stampede.

      In a word, now, let me suggest a policy and say what we have done, and are doing, to carry it out. From the first we have supplied preachers and missionaries, from a country of preachers and from a land steeped in missionary zeal. These have gone forth in numbers quite out of proportion to [365] what is usual, considering our numbers. We have organized a few churches, but this is not our supreme aim. From the first we have circulated literature; the Christian Commonwealth for a score of years went into the homes of thousands, breathing the spirit of Christian union; literature in the form of tracts, leaflets, gospel posters and hand-bills is being circulated more largely than ever before; eighteen months ago advertisements were inserted in six of the leading weeklies of London, asking for correspondence with those who were interested in Christian union. Replies were received from every part of the kingdom, and some hundreds of letters have been exchanged. Four preachers have come into our work as a result, and others would do so if there were openings; distributors of literature have also been obtained in other places. Recently two churches have come over to our position, and recently negotiations were under way with a small group of churches with the same object in view.

      A church of a thousand members would be of value to us, as an example of what the proclamation of the simple gospel can do, but of infinitely more value to the cause of Christ in general, and to Christian union in particular, would be a thousand individuals in a thousand different communities, lovingly, yet earnestly, advocating the cause of Christian union on New Testament lines. There are probably these and more, we may never know the number, but we will pray and work for their increase. The glory may never be ours, but the joy of no sincere Christian will be the less because of that fact.

      This, then, is our task and our labor of love. The time is ripe; the day is at hand; the end is almost in sight; if we would be in at the finish--at the "kill"--at the killing of sectarianism--let us not lose sight of the green fields of England.

[CCR 362-366]