HE literature from the headquarters of the centennial of the Disciples of Christ is stamped with the pictures of B. W. Stone. T. Campbell, A. Campbell and Walter Scott. This is an official acknowledgment that these illustrious men are the prime leaders of the restoration movement which the Disciples represent.

      Of these four men the historical precedence must be conceded to Barton Warren Stone. He was the harbinger of this restoration; a messenger of the Lord sent to prepare the way by calling men to repent, "for the restored kingdom of heaven is at hand." He was the John the Baptist of a new era of the gospel of the grace of God.

      This humble man was the voice of one crying in the wilderness of sectarian confusion, and making straight the paths of the Lord for all nations upon whom his name is called. He was the only one of this quartette who was of American birth. He was born at Port Tobacco, Maryland December 24, 1772, when the colonies were in the throes of a new birth into national liberty. He never knew his father and struggled bravely against poverty and other hardships of life with his widowed mother and the disturbances incident to the revolutionary war. He heard the roar of artillery when Green and Cornwallis met at Guilford Court House, thirty miles distant from his backwoods home, in Pittsylvania County, Virginia. His moral fibre was severely tested by the vices brought back with the returning soldiers. He became familiar with the Bible by reading it constantly in the public schools and received Information and impressions which were not erased through life. He drank deeply into the spirit of liberty from his earliest recollections. At sixteen years of age he determined to acquire a liberal education and qualify himself for high usefulness and was cordially approved in this purpose by hie; mother and brothers.

      He entered a noted academy of Guilford, North Carolina, and diligently pursued his academic course to completion. While a student at Guilford he heard the pious and popular Presbyterian preacher, James McGready, of Tennessee. He was deeply impressed with a sense of his need of salvation, but sunk into an indescribable apathy, caused by the absurdities of the doctrine that were then publicly taught.

      These were that mankind are so totally depraved that they could not believe, repent nor obey the gospel--that regeneration was an immediate work of the Spirit whereby faith and repentance were wrought [24] in the heart. For a year he was tossed on the waves of uncertainty--laboring, praying and striving to obtain saving faith--sometimes desponding and almost despairing of ever getting it. His mother, a member of the Church of England, wept much with him in his distress, and she united with the Methodists and lived and died with a firm trust in Christ as her Savior.

      The honest seeker after God returned to the academy after this short visit to his mother and heard a young preacher, William Hodge, preach from the text, "God is love." This doctrine appeared new to him and his mind was absorbed in it. He soon saw that a poor sinner was as much authorized to believe in Jesus at first as at last--that now is the accepted time and day of salvation. From that time he devoted himself to the service of God. He was filled with joy by his new view of the gospel. He saw that the gospel is "good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people." An epitome is found in these words: "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

      He read that "the gospel of Christ is the power of God to salvation to every one that believeth," and that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. He said, "As faith is a simple idea, we cannot give any definition of it that will make it plainer than it is already. And it would have been happy for the church if no definition had ever been attempted. A child of a few years old understands the meaning of believing as well as a doctor of divinity. But if we must have a definition we say it is admitting testimony upon the authority of the testifier. Or it is simply believing the testimony of God." His mind was filled with these simple truths of the gospel. His soul was saturated with this divine spirit of universal philanthropy. The gospel is self-evidencing to every candid and open mind. It is God's will that all men should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. It is our imperative duty to bring this knowledge to all nations. Failure to meet this obligation laid upon its by our crucified, risen and crowned Lord is the evincing of unfaith and the deadliest treason to our King. Hence "woe is me if I preach not the gospel" is the dynamic force that makes heroes of faith.

      This was the impulsive power of a new affection that made Stone a great evangelist. It brought him to Caneridge and Concord in Bourbon County, Kentucky, in 1798. It emancipated him from the bondage of Calvinistic creed and other human speculations and impelled him to say to the Presbytery that ordained him: "I do receive the Confession of Faith as far as I see it consistent with the word of God." Henceforth he was a free lance, wielding the sword of the Spirit unhampered by decrees of councils or doctors of divinity, and accepting no authoritative rule of faith in religion, but the inspired word of God and no name unknown to the Bible.

      It caused the dissolution of the Springfield Presbytery and the publication of its "Last Will and Testament," wherein it wills to die [26] and be buried into union with the body of Christ at large, to forget its name of distinction, "that there may be one Lord over God's heritage and His name one, and to forever cease the power of making and executing laws for the government of the church," that the people may have free course to the Bible and adopt the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.

      Other items in this characteristic "Will" may be summed up in a single statement, viz.: That the people may henceforth take the Bible as the only sure guide to heaven, cast away all other books which stand in competition with it, cultivate a spirit of mutual forbearance and standing on the Rock of Ages, follow Jesus for the future.

      The spirit of this historical document is that expressed in the word of the fore-messenger of our Christ: "He must increase, but I must decrease." It was the sinking of the human in religion that the divine may be forever exalted in the hearts of all believers in Christ. For this act of humility the beloved Stone, too, "shall be great in the sight of the Lord" and in the memory of all Christly men. This notable "Will" is dated June 28, 1804, and marks the rise of a distinct tributary of the "current reformation."

      In 1824 A. Campbell and B. W. Stone became acquainted at Georgetown, Kentucky. His biographer, John Rogers, says: "They conversed freely together and were mutually led to love and highly esteem each other as brethren in the same heavenly family, * * * advocates of the same great and glorious principles and expectants of the same blissful immortality. They were pleading for primitive faith and practice, for a return to original, apostolic, Bible ground; and in order to attain this most desirable end, urged upon all Christians to take the Bible as their only rule of faith and practice--to cultivate its spirit and to yield implicit obedience to its precepts. * * * Union and liberty was their motto; not union without love, not, liberty without light, nor either without faith in and devotion to the Lord Jesus."

      Such principles, advocated by Stone since 1804 and by Campbell since 1809, by their inherent force caused the thousands of followers of these mighty leaders to move in converging currents and as they came near each other they naturally flowed together into one happy, glorious brotherhood, commencing at Lexington, Kentucky, in 1832. Whether styled Christians or Disciples, they became one in Christ, and thus gradually illustrated the practicability of their common pleadings and granite principles. From that confluence the two great tributaries have flowed on in a resistless current of reformation with cumulative force for the evangelization of the world.

      The new birth into the freedom of Christ quickened the desire to know the truth. Theological speculations were laid aside and apostolic teaching was carefully studied. Views of the Trinity and the Atonement were conformed to the plain word of God. Baptism arrested early attention, first of a few, and then of the churches generally. They [27] agreed to act in concert and not adventure on anything new without advice from one another.

      Brethren, elders and deacons came together to consider the subject in a brotherly spirit. They decided that every one should act freely according to personal conviction of right, and all should cultivate forbearance toward each other whether immersed or not.

      Many became dissatisfied with infant sprinkling, among whom was Stone himself. Believers' immersion was so forcibly argued that sprinkling of infants ceased entirely. The question arose, who will baptize us? It was concluded that if they were authorized to preach they were authorized to baptize.

      Then the preachers baptized one another and crowds came and were also baptized. The congregations to which Stone ministered very generally submitted to immersion, And it soon prevailed generally, and "yet the pulpit was silent on the subject." The design of baptism engaged attention widely and Stone with others concluded that baptism "was ordained for the remission of sins and ought to be administered in the name of Jesus to all believing penitents." Once at Concord, when mourners were collected for prayer, as the custom then was, Stone thought of the words of Peter on the day of Pentecost. He arose quickly and addressed these seekers In the same language: "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit," and urged them to comply.

      Into the spirit of the doctrine he tells us he was never fully led until it was revived by A. Campbell some years after. He labored for the union of Christians and Reformers in 1832, but deplored that "a few ignorant, headstrong bigots" rejected from Christianity all who were not immersed for the remission of sins and did not observe the weekly communion.

      Having removed to Illinois in 1834 this revered father in Israel returned in 1843 for a farewell visit to the scenes of his early labors in Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky. He was greeted everywhere by throngs of people, who loved him for his works' sake. He was overwhelmed with demonstrations of affectionate remembrance by the multitudes who held him in their hearts and who wept sore when they knew they would see his face no more.

      His most zealous opponents praised his manifest Christliness and great worth. In Jacksonville, Illinois, his last earthly home, he refused to accept the fellowship of either of the churches calling themselves Christians or Disciples until they showed their faith by their works in coming into one body in Christ that the world might know the sincerity of their common plea. Grand man of God, this glorified saint of the Holy One ceased from his sufferings and abundant labors of over forty years, and on November 9, 1844, he passed peacefully and triumphantly into the saints' everlasting rest, "to the general assembly and church of the first born and to the spirits of just men made perfect." [28]

[29]

[CA 24-29]