History of the Christian church (Volume 5) online

As a man and Christian, he had the love and rever-



The Christian Church in America. 265

ence of the thousand students who graduated from
his teaching.

Moses Stuart (i 780-1852) was a man of broader
scholarship, and the founder of Biblical learning, in
its modern sense, in the United States.

T-r t 1 1 • • ii i 1 1 •< Moses Stuart.

He showed his intellectual taste and abil-
ity in the leading of Jonathan Edwards's " On the
Will" at twelve. He graduated from Yale in 1799,
and was admitted to the bar in 1802. The same year
he accepted the offer of a tutorship at Yale. Having
been converted, he began the study of theology under
President D wight. In 1806 he was called to the pas-
torate of the First Church of New Haven. From
1 8 10 to 1848 he was Professor of Hebrew at Andover
Theological Seminary. His teaching was inspiring;
but he influenced thought perhaps as much by his
contributions, first to the *' Biblical Repository," and
then to the " Bibliotheca Sacra." He and Dr. Edward
G. Robinson, of New York, found their works re-
printed and read on the other side of the Atlantic,

A more original thinker than either of these was
Nathaniel Taylor (i 786-1 858). Dr. Taylor graduated
from Yale in 1807, and was pastor of First
Church, New Haven, from 1810 to 1822. ^^^^^^^^
Then he was called to the Professorship of
Theology in the Yale Divinity School, which place he
held until his death in 1858. As a thinker. Dr. Tay-
lor broke with Hopkins and Emmons, and sought to
modify Calvinism by teaching the freedom of the
will — the power men have to choose, notwithstanding
the decrees — and that Adam's sin does not impose
personal guilt. He made the New England theology
more preachable and better fitted for revival teaching,



266 History of the Christian Church.

and powerfully affected the New School Presbyterian
Church. As a preacher and a man he was worthy of
high praise.

In 1800 there were 810 Congregational Churches,
with 600 ministers and 75,000 communicants. In
1850, there were over 1,971 churches, 1,687
ministers, and 197,197 communicants. Up
to 1849, the American Home Missionary Society
had received $1,107,852. In Foreign Missions, the
receipts were three times more than any other Amer-
ican Church, and in the Home Missions more than
twice the amount given by any other Church. To
the same date the American Tract Society received
$349,335- Of course, to these causes the Reformed
and Presbyterians were in those years large con-
tributors.

The Congregational Board of Publication to the
same date had received $225,920. Adding these to-
gether, the grand total is $4,^33'384) an amount for
these objects nearly twice that received by any other
Church in America in these years. In learning and
liberality, and in revival work led by such men as
Charles G. Finney, Edward N. Kirk, and Asahel Net-
tleton, the Church of the Puritans had little reason to
be ashamed. Seldom has so small a body of Chris-
tians accomplished so much.

Thb Unitarians.

The origin of the Unitarian separation has already
been given, as also a sketch of their most distin-
guished preachers, Channing, Emerson, and Parker.
Henry Ware (i 794-1 843) was a man of ability, and
attractive in manners and character. Andrews Nor-



The Christian Church in America. 267

ton ( 1 786-1 853) was the ablest scholar and the sound-
est divine the Unitarians produced in these years. He
belonged to the school of Channing, and answered
Emerson's "Divinity School Address" in 1839. This
was replied to by George Ripley, who afterwards won
fame as the literary editor of the New York Tribune.

In 1825 the American Unitarian Association was
founded, and an earnest effort to propagate their faith
and form State Conventions was put forth. In 1844
the Unitarian Divinity School was founded at Mead-
ville, Pa., and in 1850 Antioch College, at Yellow
Springs, Ohio. In 1830 there were 177 Unitarian
churches in New England, and 1 6 outside its borders
or 193 in all. In 1850 these had increased to 206 in
New England; 40 outside of it; 246 in all; a growth
of a little over two a year in twenty years.

But these figures give no idea of the influence of
the Unitarian teaching in this era. In it were com-
bined the old common-sense philosophy
and hatred of mystery and disregard of his-
toric truth which characterized the eighteenth cen-
tury, and the German criticism and philosophy led by
Strauss and Baur. It had the immense advantage of
Harvard College, the best institution of learning in
America. Its presidents and professors were men of
high character and wide learning for the time, as well
as of liberal ideas. Hence it came to pass that, in the
revolt against Calvinism and the acceptance of the
new Unitarian teaching, not only the wealth and
culture and fashion of Boston were on that side, but
the public men, like the Adamses, Quincys, and
Storys, and also the great crowd of literary men
which began to make a name for American literature.



268 History of the Christian Church.

Such were the essayists, Edwin Whipple, Ralph W.
Emerson, James Russell Eowell, and Oliver Wendell
Holmes; the historians, Bancroft, Prescott, Sparks,
Parkman, Palfrey; the greatest of American novelists,
Nathaniel Hawthorne; the poets, Bryant, Eongfellow,
Holmes, Lowell, and Emerson; reformers and public
men, like Garrison, Sumner, Edward Everett, and
Rufus Choate. This list will give some idea of the
force of the Unitarian Movement, which was repre-
sented on the platform in every chief city by men
like Ralph W. Emerson and Theodore Parker. If
ability and talent could have given the Unitarian
Church the lead in America in these years, it should
have had it. That it did not, teaches an obvious
lesson. Religion is, and always must be, more than
intellect or culture. These are not substitutes for it,
even when allied with the soundest ethics.

The Universalists.

The Universalists owe their origin in America to
John Murray (i 741-18 15). His father, a Calvinist,
and a member of the Church of England, became a
follower of Wesley. When young Murray was
eleven years of age, his family removed to Ireland,
near Cork. There John Murray became a Wesleyan
class-leader and local preacher. In 1760 he went to
London and met Whitefield, when he embraced Cal-
vinistic opinions. Hearing of James Relly, he under-
took to refute his opinions, but was converted to his
belief, which was, that since Christ died for all, all
must be saved. In 1770, after a marvelous escape
from shipwreck, he landed in New Jersey, and, build-
ing a church, began to preach his doctrine. He



The Christian Church in America. 269

preached, until paralyzed in 1809, that as in Adam all
are lost, in Christ all are saved. At Gloucester,
Mass., he organized the first Universalist Church in
1780, and preached there until 1793. He died in

1815.

Elhanan Winchester (i 757-1 797) a man of remark-
ably keen intellect, became a Baptist preacher, and
served Baptist Churches from 1771 to 1780. Through
reading of the German Mystic Segovicke's " Ever-
lasting Gospel," he became a Restorationist ; that is,
believing that all things will be restored in Christ.
This faith he professed in 1780, in Philadelphia, and
was followed by many Baptists. He was in Europe,
1 787-1 795, and died two years after his return.

To these men succeeded in the leadership of the
Church Hosea Ballou (1771-1852). Ballou was t he
son of a Baptist minister. He united with his fa-
ther's Church, but became a Universalist in 1791.
Marrying in 1796, he became a Universalist pastor at
Dana, Mass. In 1795 he became a Unitarian. He
preached in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Salem,
Mass., until 18 17, when he accepted the call to the
First Universalist Church of Boston, of which he re-
mained pastor until his death. Ballou was a volumi-
nous controversialist and editor of the Universalist
periodicals.

From 1 81 7, Ballou taught that there was no pun-
ishment after death. To all, death is the end of sin
and the beginning of glory. The Winchester Pro-
fession of Faith, adopted in 1803 at Winchester, N. H.,
taught that Christ will finally restore all men. Un-
doubtedly the harshness of New England teaching,
and the extra Scriptural representation of future



270 History of the Christian Church.

punishment, especially in revival meetings, gave the
Universalist doctrines a hold upon many men of New
England birth which the positive teaching of none of
these men mentioned would have won. Perhaps it is
but just to say that the Unitarian and Universalist
teaching has had an influence to make the orthodox
preaching more Scriptural and more ethical. In 1835
there were in New England 169 Universalist churches,
and in the rest of the United States 139, or a total of
308. In 1 85 1 there were in New England 286, and
outside of it 356, or a total of 625 churches. The
Clinton Liberal Institute was founded at Clinton,
N. Y., in 1831.

The Baptists.

In the first half of the century the peculiar task
of the Baptists, as of the Methodists, was to plant the
Christian Church in the South and the West. It was
also an urgent need to bring an earnest, aggressive
Church into the broader life of the Church as a
whole, through Sunda3^-schools, missions, educational
institutions, a religious press, and the reform move-
ments of the time. The Baptists, like the other
Churches with a membership in the South, suffered a
division on account of Slavery.

The work of Adoniram Judson was of as great
value in its influence on the Baptist Churches in
America as in its direct result in Bur-
mah. His conversion to Baptist principles
led to the formation of the Baptist Foreign Mission-
ary Society in 18 14, this being the second American
Church to engage in that work. No Church has had
more successful missions than the Baptist Church



The Chrisgian Church in America. 271

among the Karens in Burmah, and the Telugus in
Hindustan. The mission to China was founded in
1833, to Germany in 1834, to the Telugus in 1840, to
Assam 1841. The Church has a splendid roll of
master missionaries. The Baptist Home Missionary
Society was founded in 1832, and has largely ad-
vanced the work of the Baptist Church in the newly
settled regions of the United States.

Luther Rice, who, like Judson, became converted
to the Baptist belief on his voyage to India, came
back and aroused the Baptist Churches to
their duty toward missions. He was largely
instrumental in the formation of the Baptist Mission-
ary Convention in 1814. Later the work of educa-
tion engaged his attention In 1822 he founded
Columbian University at Washington, and labored for
it as its agent until 1826, when it became heavily
embarrassed by debt. Its reorganization and finan-
cial recovery came under other auspices. About this
time other Baptist institutions of learning came into
being. Madison (now Colgate) University was
founded in 18 19 at Hamilton, N. Y. Its theological
school was opened in 1822. Colby University, at
Waterville, Me., was fo^unded in 1820, and the theo-
logical school at Newton, Mass., in 1826; Georgetown
College, in Kentucky, in 1829.

Between 1830 and 1840, Baptist Colleges were
founded; as. Wake Forest Institution in 1839; Shurt-
leff College, 111., in 1835; and Mercer University, Ga.,
in 1837. Between 1840 and 1850 came: Franklin
College, Ind., 1844; Dennison University, Ohio, 1845;
Richmond College, Virginia, 1845; and the Univer-
gity of Rochester, N. Y., 1850. These were to become



272 History of the Christian Church,

strong institutions, and at their head was Brown Uni-
versity, at Providence, R.I., under Baptist patronage
and control, and with its present name since 1804.
The paper which eventually became the Baptist
Exa^nmer, began its career in 1819. The Baptist
Tract Society was founded in 1824, and the Bible
Union for improving in a Baptist sense, Bible ver-
sions, in 1850. To this record of Baptist work should
be added the work of revivals and of planting the
Churches in the wilderness in which this Church was
foremost.

On the other hand, when the Baptists were ear-
nest and aggressive in organizing State Conventions
from 1 82 1 to 1837, many Baptists, especially in the
South and the Southwest, who did not believe in
Sunday-schools, or ministerial education, or missions,
or temperance, would have nothing to do with the
State Conventions. In their literal interpretation of
Scripture, and their insistence on rigid Congrega-
tional polity, they kept entirely out of the advance of
Christendom. They had plenty of zeal, but little
knowledge. They were the sternest of Calvinists and
often Antinomians. It is surprising to notice that, in
1850, they had nearly one-fourth as many churches as
the Baptists of the North and South combined, and
one-tenth the membership. We usually think of
these as dwellers on the frontier, but the Baptist
Association of Baltimore in 1836 resolved, "They
could not hold fellowship with such Churches as
united with these societies of a benevolent, religious,
and philanthropic character." The names of congre-
gations co-operating in mission work, in Sunday-
school work, and in the distribution of the Word of



The Christian Church in America. 273

God through the agency of Bible Socities, etc., were
erased from the Minutes of the Association.

The secession of Alexander Campbell in 1829 led
to a large loss of members. In May, 1845, ^t Au-
gusta, Ga., the Southern Baptist Churches withdrew
their fellowship from the Northern Churches on ac-
count of slavery, and organized the Southern Mis-
sionary Convention. These Southern Baptists pushed
their work both at home and abroad with great vigor.

FRKB-W11.L Baptists.

The Free-will Baptists made great progress oe-
tween 1820 and 1830, and were earnest revivalists.
Their paper. The Morning Star, was founded in 1826.
A foreign mission was established in India in 1837.
In 1839 the General Convention pronounced against
slavery. In 1841 a General Conference was organ-
ized. In 1850, Hillsdale College was founded.

Sevknth-Day Baptists.

The Seventh-day Baptists began a mission to the
Jews in New York City, 1 836-1842, which was unsuc-
cessful, and one in China in 1847, with better results.
Alfred University was ^founded in 1836, at Alfred,
New York.

The men most influential in the Baptist Church
in this era laid molding hand on millions for genera-
tions to come.

Such a man was the greatly-loved and universally-
esteemed Richard Furman (i 755-1 825).
He was born at Bsopus, N. Y. When a ^'^»^«'-*'

^ Furman.

child his father removed to South Caro-
lina, and there carefully reared and educated him.
iS



274 History of the Christian Church,

At eighteen he began to preach. During the Revo-
lution he was an active patriot, and won the attention
of Patrick Henry and other leaders. He was a mem-
ber of the South Carolina State Convention which
ratified the Constitution of the United States. He be-
came pastor in Charleston in 1787. He was president
of the first Baptist Missionary Convention in 18 14. He
was an able presiding ofiicer, an impressive preacher,
and the most influential Baptist minister of his gen-
eration.

A man of very different order and influence was

Spencer Cone (i 785-1 855). Dr. Cone was born in

Princeton, N. J., and entered college there

Spencer ^^ ^^^ ^f twelvc. A financial failure

Cone. "

affecting his father, young Cone could not
complete his course. He taught school and studied
law, but in 1805 began his career as an actor. This
he followed until his conversion in 18 14. The follow-
ing year he began to preach, and was elected chaplain
to Congress, 181 5-18 16. Until 1823 he was pastor
at Alexandria, Va. The rest of his life was spent as
pastor in New York City; 1 823-1 841 at Oliver Street
Church, and 1 841-1855 at the First Baptist Church of
the metropolis. From 1 832-1 841 he was president
of the Baptist General Convention and an officer of
the Baptist Home Missionary Society. Dr. Cone's
vigor of intellect and power as a preacher, made him
most influential in the general work of his Church.
In 1 832-1 855 he also was influential in founding the
Baptist Bible Union. Kate Claxton, the actress, was
his grand-daughter.

Asahel Clark Kendrick (i 809-1 895), who for fifty



The Christian Church in America, 275

years taught at Madison and Rochester Universities,
is worthy of mention in any sketch of Baptist history.
He was graduated from Madison Uni-
versity in 1 83 1. For the next nineteen ^g^j*,'^'
years he taught Greek in his Alma Mater.
In 1850, when the University of Rochester was
founded, he came to that city, which was his resi-
dence, and where he was loved and honored until his
death. At first he was the virtual head of the uni-
versity. Then and always, however, he made his
work and his fame as an instructor of Greek. He
was a sturdy exponent of Baptist views. His clear
and well-trained intellect, warm sympathies, and
Christian spirit made his fellowship go far beyond the
bounds of his own Church. His translation of
Olshausen's "Commetary on the New Testament,"
and " Life of Mrs. Emily C. Judson," shows only
what he might have done with his pen. His impress
was left upon thousands of j^oung men, and felt
throughout the Church he loved and served.

In 1800 the Regular Baptists had 1,500 churches,
with 1,200 ministers, and 100,000 communicants. In
1850 they had 8,406 churches, 5,142 minis-

^^ statistics.

ters, and 686,807 communicants. The
Free-will Baptists had increased from 3,000 members
to 50,223, with 1,126 churches, and 867 ministers. In
1850 the Seventh-day Baptists had 6,351 communi-
cants, 71 churches, and 58 ministers. The Seventh-
day German Baptists numbered 400, with four minis-
ters; the Six-Principle Baptists 3,586 communicants,
with 21 churches, and 25 ministers; the Anti-Mission
Baptists (so-called Hardshell), 67,845 communicants,



276 History of the Christian Church.

with 2,035 churches, and 907 ministers. The total in
1850 of Baptists of all names was 11,659 churches,
7,003 ministers, with 815,212 communicants. Of these,
the greater part were in the South; the Baptist
Church South having 390,393 members, and the Anti-
Mission Baptists, mainly in the South, 67,845, making
a total of 458,238 to 356,974 in the North, or, deduct-
ing the Free-will Baptists, 306,752; that is, three-
fifths of the Baptist membership in 1850 were in the
South. These figures lack the precision of later
years, but are true as to general proportion and tend-
encies.

Thk DiSCIPIvES.

Alexander Campbell (i 788-1 866) was the founder
of the Disciples Church. His father, Thomas Camp-
bell ( 1 763-1854), had been a Roman Catholic, but be-
came an Episcopalian, and afterwards (1798) a minis-
ter in the Associate Scotch Church. He was settled
in county Antrim, Ireland, where Alexander was
born. In 1806, Thomas Campbell went to Scotland
to secure the ecclesiastical independence of the Asso-
ciate Church in Ireland, but failed in his effort. In
1807 he came to America. Alexander, as the oldest
son, had charge of the family, and sailed to meet the
father from Londonderry, October, 1808. A week
later they were wrecked in the Hebrides.

Alexander Campbell was nearly a year in Scot-
land, spending most of his time in Glasgow in inter-
course with the professors of the universit}^ and espe-
cially with Robert and James Haldane. Finally the
family again embarked, and he arrived in America in
1809. The same year the conviction borne in upon
Thomas and Alexander Campbell of the non-validity



The Christian Church in America. 277

of the usual creedal tests of the Christian profes-
sion, which had produced such an abundant crop of
division in the Scotch and Scotch-Irish Church,
and the necessity of some simple Scriptural con-
fession, found expression in the "Declaration and
Address," issued from Washington, Pa., in 1809. On
May 4, 18 10, they, and those who thought with them,
formed the Independent Church of Christ. They
contended that "human creeds and confessions had
destroyed Christian union, and that nothing ought to
be received into the faith or worship of the Church, or
be made a term of communion among Christians, that
is not as old as the New Testament. Nor ought any-
thing to be admitted as of Divine obligation in the
Church constitution or management save what is en-
joined by our Lord Jesus Christ and his apostles upon
the New Testament Church, either in express terms
or by approved precedent." In 18 12 the Campbells
became convinced that immersion is the mode of bap-
tism, and the Baptist Elder Luce immersed them,
June 12, 1812, Ini8i3 they joined the Redstone (Pa.)
Baptist Church Association.

In 1816, Alexander Campbell's sermon on "The
Law," before the Association, gave offense, and he
withdrew from it. Soon after he joined the Mahoning
Baptist Association, and remained in connection with
it until 1827. Then it was dissolved as lacking war-
rant in Scripture. In 1820, Alexander Campbell be-
gan his career as a public controversialist, a role in
which he delighted, and in which figure and voice, as
well as his ready command of language and his intel-
lectual qualities, gave him more than ordinary ad-
vantage. In 1820 he held a public debate at Mount



278 History of the Christian Church,

Pleasant, Ohio, with John Walker, a Presbyterian
minister; in 1823, with Rev. William McCalla on
Christian Baptism, at Washington, Ky.; in 1828, with
Robert Owen on the Truth of Christianity, at Cincin-
nati ; in 1836, with Archbishop Purcell on the Infalli-
bility of the Church of Rome; and in 1843, with Dr.
Rice on Baptism. The controversies were carried on
in the Christian Baptist, 1 823-1 830, and the Millennial
Harbinger, 1 830-1 870, both edited by Alexander
Campbell.

That Campbell was able and honest, none can
question; that creedal subscription and peculiarities
were a prolific cause of sectarian division and strife,
all acknowledge; but truth compels the statement
that never did an apostle of Christian union use more
bitter language, or show a more intolerant spirit*
Seventeen centuries of Christian history were wholly
disregarded, and there was no disposition to under-
stand the position or accept any justification from
those who differed from him.

In 1832 the followers of Barton W. Stone, who
had been a Presbyterian minister, but withdrew from
the Church in consequence of proceedings taken
against those prominent in a great revival at Cane
Ridge, Ky,, in 1801, joined those who received the
teachings of Alexander Campbell in 1832, and took
the name of Disciples. The only creed is the afiirma-
tive answer to these two questions — " Dost thou be-
lieve that Jesus Christ is the Son of God?" and ''Wilt
thou be immersed for the remission of sins?" The
Lord's Supper is administered every Sunday. The
Church is Arminian in belief.

In 1840, Alexander Campbell founded Bethany



The Christian Church in America. 279

College, West Virginia, and there he lived and taught
in the college until his death. In 1850 there were
1,896 churches, 848 ministers, and 118,618 communi-
cants, and the period of growth had just begun.

The Christians.

In 1802 the Republican Methodists who followed
the leadership of James O'Kelly took the name of
Christian. Two years before, Dr. Abner Jones, a
member of the Baptist Church in Hartland, Vt., or-
ganized a Church of twenty-five members in Lyndon,
Vt., on the Bible only as their creed. In a few years
he received large accessions from the Baptist Churches.
Barton Stone and his followers, who founded the inde-
pendent Springfield Presbytery in 1803, in 1804 took
the name of Christian. These came together, and in
1844 there were said to be 325,000 members, with
1,800 ministers. The Advent Movement under
William Miller in 1844 cut down those numbers one-
half. These Christians practiced immersion, and
were Arminian and Arian in doctrine. Congrega-
tional in Church government, they most resembled
the General Baptists of England. Their periodical,
The Herald of Gospel Liberty y founded September i,
1808, was the first religious newspaper published in
this country.

The Presbyterians.

The Presbyterian Church in these decades made
vigorous growth, but was rent with the grievous
division of the Old and New School Churches, the
first religious division between the North and South,
in 1837. The Cumberland Presbyterian Church arose



28o History of the Christian Church.

from the new spirit in the West seeking to reach
modern needs rather than to conform to old standards,