USA > Ohio > A history of the Disciples of Christ in Ohio > Part 4
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OLD MEETING-HOUSE, FREDERICKTOWN, OHIO
The Cane Ridge meeting-house in Kentucky, connected with Barton W. Stone's labors, is of historic interest. So is the old meeting-house in Washington County, Pa., where Thomas Camp- bell preached. The cut we present above is of a log meeting- house at Fredericktown, Columbiana Co., O., near where Walter Scott held his first Restoration evangelistic meeting in 1827. At Fredericktown, a small country community, a church grew up, and in 1835 they built the log meeting-house shown in the cut. They occupied it twenty years, and then built a house on the hill. Isaac Errett, Alexander Campbell and J. Harrison Jones, at dif- ferent times, preached in the old log meeting-house. John Jack- man, an elder preacher, gave most of his time to the congregation for many years. When the church at East Liverpool was organ- ized, some of the charter members came from the Fredericktown Church. A little country church is far-reaching in its influence.
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IX GREAT LEADERS
1799-WILLIAM HAYDEN-1863
WILLIAM HAYDEN, companion of Walter Scott in his early labors as evangelist of the Mahoning Baptist Association, was a man of rare gifts : with a good physique, strong intellect, tender emotional nature, clear voice and fluent speech, he commanded attention at once and held it closely both in sermon and song. He was a logical reasoner, and pressed the claims of the gospel upon thinking men with convincing power and a pathos that was well-nigh irresistible. He used to say: "If I wish to convert a man, I never debate with him in public, but get as near to him as I can and kindly talk with him in private and bring his mind into personal contact with the gospel story of Jesus and His divine mission. But if a man is bold and defiant, like Goliath, and is leading people astray, then I will floor him if I can." And he could and often did, for he was quick in action and always had his cause and argument well in hand. He was especially strong in the internal evidences, and in miracles and prophecy.
He went to a village on the Western Reserve to preach on a Lord's Day, and was entertained at night at the home of a good sister, whose hus-
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band was an infidel, but very hospitable. In the early evening he introduced the subject of the claims of the Bible upon the rational confidence of men, and drew from his kind host a statement of his objections to Christianity. As he presented them one at a time, Hayden, with utmost frank- ness and fairness, discussed them and refuted them so clearly that the objector surrendered them one after another, regardless of the fleeting hours of the night. As the morning dawn ap- peared in the east, he said: "Have you any further objections to urge?" "Only one more," was the reply. It was stated and completely answered, and his candid opponent surrendered. Quickly he asked: "What, then, will you do?" As promptly the response came: "I will confess Christ and follow Him." And he did, and was a faithful Christian all the rest of his long life and blessed the world with an excellent family.
On another occasion, in a community where skepticism was prevalent and boastful, Wm. Hay- den preached a sermon on the miracles of Jesus -publicly performed, of great number, variety and beneficence, and wrought immediately, in- stantaneously and without failure in a single instance: so evidencing the divine power and prerogative of our Lord. It flashed upon him that skeptics claimed that miracles of a similar character were wrought by mesmerism and other powers. He turned suddenly toward the objectors and said : "What do men say to all of this? What do they do? They say, 'Put a man to sleep and take his leg off and he doesn't know it.' Humph! Take a man's leg off! That's nothing. Put a man's leg on once. Try that." His hearers caught the point and the scoffers were put to
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silence by the forceful reply. William Hayden once said that his brother Sutton, with his sweet voice, sang people into heaven, but he had kept many infidels from going to hell.
He was born in Pennsylvania, and came to Ohio when four years old. In 1828 he was set apart to preach the gospel. During his ministry of thirty-five years he traveled ninety thousand miles, sixty thousand of which were on horse- back, a distance of over three times round the world. He baptized 1,207, and preached over nine thousand sermons-that is, 287 sermons a year-and once he preached fifty sermons in the month of November. His industry was prover- bial. He was incessant in preaching, teaching and in conversation-in public and private. He created openings, occupied them, and when others could be found to hold the position, he broke new ground. He was the first man and the chief operator in raising up the churches in Ravenna, Aurora, Shalersville, Akron, Russell and several other places. He did all this work largely at his own expense. To perpetuate and carry on the work, he promoted the founding of the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute and the Ohio Christian Missionary Society. His converts were thorough and decided like himself. It is said that he could, from memory, almost reproduce the New Testa- ment.
1813-CALVIN SMITH-1859
Calvin Smith was born Oct. 30, 1813, in Ver- non, O., and died at his home farm in Johnstown, near Cortland, Jan. 13, 1859. In 1837 he became a Christian under the preaching of John Henry. He soon became a preaching elder, as did many
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others in those early days. He could declare the unsearchable riches of Christ with power. An old brother declared that he could listen with delight as often as he would deliver his sermon on "Man : 1. As He Was. 2. As He Is. 3. As He Shall Be." From 1844 to 1848 he visited many churches in northeast Ohio. On Nov. 30, 1848, he commenced his first protracted meeting four miles west of Cortland. The meeting was held in a schoolhouse where there was no organized con- gregation. Stormy weather reduced the audience to eight persons. On the sixth evening eighteen were present and there were four confessions. The meeting resulted in the organization of a church of thirty-five members. The church still exists, with a good membership, at Weirs Corners in Trumbull County, and they have a well- arranged house of worship. In 1852 he held a meeting at North Jackson, and Joseph King, then a young man teaching school, was baptized. Bro. King became a pastor of the church at Allegheny, Pa., now Pittsburgh, for twenty-one years. Smith made extensive trips eastward, to New England and westward beyond the Mississippi. He planted several churches in northwestern Ohio, as at El- more and Kenton. It is said that often he would secure a shovel, go to a near-by stream, construct a dam, and, when asked what his object was, would say that he was going to hold a meeting and expected to baptize converts. Bro. Smith's work as an evangelist was of ten years' duration. It was brief, but brilliant and fruitful. In that ten years he had 1,536 converts and organized sixteen churches. At that stage of our history, eighty-five years ago, but few had surpassed these figures as evangelists.
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1831-CLARK BRADEN-1915
Clark Braden was born Aug. 8, 1831, in Gus- tavus, Trumbull Co., O. He was immersed by Calvin Smith, Feb. 29, 1855, in Rome, Ashtabula Co., O. He was educated at the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute at Hiram. He was a preacher nearly sixty years. He has been president of colleges in Illinois and editor of the Herald of Truth. Some of the last months of his life were spent with his brother at Ravenna, O. He delivered more than three thousand lectures, speaking in nearly every State in the United States and Provinces of Canada. He held 130 debates. He debated with infidels, and held eighteen debates with Mormons and with relig-
ionists. He debated the action, subject and design of baptism; the work of the Holy Spirit; human creeds; justification by faith only; and church organization, soul-sleeping, kingdom-com- ism, Seventh-dayism and Universalism.
During the last twenty years every prominent champion of infidelity has backed out of debating with Clark Braden. These statements were made at the veterans' camp-fire meeting in Pittsburgh in 1909. He said also: "I do rather avoid giving a challenge, but I have been selected by brethren : they have called upon me and I have responded and done my best in discussions. Another thing, when you get so very good and so very refined and cultured that you are unwilling to debate, you will know more than God Almighty, you are better than Jesus Christ, and purer than the Holy Spirit. The last six weeks of the Saviour's life was one strong debate, and he did some pretty plain talking too. Just so long as there
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is error in the world, just so long as truth has to be defended, there will be discussion. Every reform was born in debate, rocked in the cradle of discussion and grew strong in the battle for that which is right. And when you become so cultured that you won't debate anything any time, you will be a saint among saints, and then leave the result of it to God."
"After this stormy, strenuous life, I," said Braden, "sum it all up in this: that the supreme work of the followers of Christ is to learn the Christ teaching, live the Christ life, and grow in the Christ character in this life, and in the eter- nal life we shall be like Him and see Him as He is."
1788-ALEXANDER CAMPBELL-1866
It was in June, 1831-four years after the commencement of our Restoration movement in Ohio-that a great meeting was held "in the maple woods under the June sun." The great annual meetings had taken the place of the Mahoning Association meetings. Alexander Campbell was present at the meeting in Aurora. The following account of the meeting was written by A. G. Riddle, a member of Congress from Cleveland. Darwin Atwater and other disciples were characters in his book, "The Portrait: A Romance of the Cuyahoga Valley."
"The woods were full of horses and carriages, and the hundreds already there were rapidly swelled to many thousands; all of one race-the Yankee; all of one calling-the farmer; hardy, shrewd, sunburned, cool, thoughtful and intelli- gent. The disciples were, from the first, emanci- pated from the Puritan slavery of the Sabbath;
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and, although grave, thoughtful and serious, as they were on this Sunday morning, it was from the gravity and seriousness of the occasion, and little from the day itself-an assemblage Paul would have been glad to preach to.
"At the hour of eleven, Mr. Campbell and his party took their places on the stand, and after a short, simple, preliminary service, conducted by another, he came forward to the front. He was then about forty years old, above the aver- age height, of singular dignity of form and simple grace of manner. His was a splendid head, borne well back, with a bold, strong fore- head, from which his fine hair was turned back; a strong, full, expressive eye, aquiline nose, fine mouth and prominent chin. He was a perfect master of himself, a perfect master of his theme, and, from the moment he stood in its presence, a perfect master of his immense audience.
"At a glance he took the measure and level of the average mind before him-a Scotchman's estimate of the Yankee-and began at the level; and as he rose from it, he took the assembled host with him. In nothing was he like Rigdon: calm, clear, strong, logical, yet perfectly simple. Men felt themselves lifted and carried, and won- dered at the ease and apparent want of effort with which it was done.
"Nothing could be more transparent than his statement of his subject; nothing franker than his admission of its difficulties; nothing more direct than his enumeration of the means he must employ, and the conclusion he must reach. With great intellectual resources, and great acquisi- tions, athlete and gladiator as he was, he was a logician by instinct and habit of mind, and took
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a pleasure in magnifying, to the utmost, the diffi- culties of his positions, so that, when the latter were finally maintained, the mind was satisfied with the result. His language was copious, his style nervous, and the characteristic of his mind was direct, manly, sustained vigor; and under its play he evolved a warmth which kindled to the fervor of sustained eloquence, and which, in the judgment of many, is the only true eloquence.
After nearly two hours, his natural and logical conclusion was the old Pentecostal mandate of Simon Peter, and a strong, manly and tender call of men to obedience. There was no appeal to passion, no effort at pathos, no figures of rhet- oric, but a warm, kindling, heated, glowing, manly argument, silencing the will, captivating the judg- ment and satisfying reason : and the cold, shrewd, thinking, calculating Yankee liked it.
"As the preacher closed and stood for a response, no answering movement came from any part of the crowd. Men were running it over and thinking. Unhesitatingly the orator stepped down from the platform upon the ground, and, moving forward in the little open space, began in a more fervid and impassioned strain. He caught the mind at the highest point of its attainment, and, grasping it, shook it with a half-indignation at its calculating hesitation, and, carrying it with a mighty sweep to a still higher level, seemed to pour round it a diviner and more radiant light; then, with a little tremor in his voice, he implored it to hesitate no longer. When he closed, low murmurs broke and ran through the awed crowd; men and women from all parts of the vast assem- blage, with streaming eyes, came forward. Young men who had climbed into the small trees from
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curiosity, came down from conviction, and went forward to baptism; and the brothers and sisters set up a glad hymn, sang with tremulous voices, clasping hands amid happy tears. Thus, in that far-off time, in the maple woods, under the June sun, the gospel was preached and received."
1831-H. W. EVEREST-1900
H. W. Everest was born in North Hudson, N. Y. At sixteen he was teacher in the common schools of his native town. Coming to Ohio, he took membership with the church at Rome, Ash- tabula County, then at Russell, Geauga County, then came to Hiram in 1852. He graduated at Oberlin College in 1861. In 1862 he became principal of the Eclectic Institute. Then, later, he became president and professor in several Western colleges. When he departed this life in 1900, he was dean of the Bible Department of Drake University. He was the author of "The Divine Demonstration," and "Science and Peda- gogy of Ethics." These books show him as the clear, critical scholar. One can judge of his character and ability from an article he wrote on "Spurious Liberality," which contains whole- some admonitions. "In our hatred of sectarian- ism and narrowness there is a strong temptation to be disloyal to the truth. We love the approval of good and learned men; it is unpleasant to find ourselves in conflict with them, and it is vastly easier and more popular to admit and approve. Then we are accounted good fellows and all is peaceful. One who is always hunting out errors, and always antagonizing something or somebody, is not an agreeable associate. Such a person often makes religion seem very uncertain and.
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irreligious: in avoiding this extreme we are liable to fall into the opposite one.
"But any degree of liberality which leads us to be disloyal to the truth is spurious. We may well admit that those who entertain other religious views are as honest, as learned and as pious as we are; that they have the same access to the Bible and to the means of correct interpretation that we have; and that they should follow their honest convictions as to its teachings just as we should, no matter how much we may differ from them. But nothing can justify us in being dis- loyal to the truth and disloyal to our Master, who is the way, the truth and the life.
"In perusing our religious periodicals-and more frequently now than in former years-I find what seems to me a kind of spurious liber- ality. It is often like what we find among the broad-gauge religionists, who seem willing to give up, or hold in doubt, nearly every vital doc- trine of Christianity-the validity of prophecy, the fact of miracles, the real divinity of our Lord, the inspiration and reliability of the Scrip- tures, the possibility of a place formerly called hell, the reality of regeneration, the necessity of church membership and the decisions of a final judgment-day. Not that any of our 'scribes' or 'Pharisees' would go so far, but they seem to be traveling in this direction; undoubtedly there is danger on the other side. We may stand so perpendicular as to lean backward. We may magnify differences, and widen the chasms which separate the churches. An extreme and indefensible position is a source of weakness. Of course, editors, and other writers of influence, need to be cautious. But the best and the safest
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-
----
GARFIELD MONUMENT, CLEVELAND, OHIO
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way is this : That we look neither to the right nor to the left, but try to be right; try to 'speak the truth in love.' This is not only the honest course, but also the best policy, for a half-way position is partly in the enemies' country, and is easily assailed. If a few writers are representa- tive of our brotherhood, we seem to be weakening on several subjects once thought to be firmly established.
"Of late there seems to be a desire to find Scriptural reasons for the reception of the un- baptized to membership in our churches. Now, much as we love many of these people, we must not swerve from the terms of the gospel.
"What the apostles bound on earth is bound in heaven. By what authority can we modify these conditions? Who has authority from the King to do so? If tempted to receive such per- sons, this would be my trouble. He himself said, 'All authority in heaven and in earth is given unto me;' and he has not delegated such authority to any man. Besides, what good would be accom- plished by so doing? Not to the church receiving such, since it would break down the argument for their complete submission to Christ. Not to them, since it would be a partial mitigation of their disobedience, and would not in the least add to their enjoyment of our religious services : they now join us in everything, even in the Lord's Supper : only this, we could not number them as members and could not expect them to pay as others do!"
1831-JAMES ABRAM GARFIELD 1881
James Abram Garfield, twentieth President of the United States, was born in Orange, Cuyahoga
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Co., O., Nov. 19, 1831. He was the youngest child of Abram Garfield and Eliza Ballou, his wife, both of excellent New England stock, but, like their pioneer compeers, of humble circumstances. In 1833, Abram Garfield died, leaving his young widow, with four small children, in a rude log house on a small farm in the forest. The battle with fortune was a hard one; but Mrs. Garfield, by dint of courage, faith and hard labor, kept her children together, and trained them for honorable manhood and womanhood. James was early inured to severe toil and close economy. His education began at the usual age in the dis- trict school, where he early gave evidence of unusual abilities. Later he attended a neighbor- ing academy, and also engaged in teaching in the district schools. In 1851 he became a student at the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute, now Hiram College, Hiram, O., and soon became a tutor in that school. In 1854 he entered Williams College, and graduated from that institution with high honors two years later. He now returned to Hiram as a teacher, and in 1857 became prin- cipal of the Institute, which office he held until 1861. As a teacher and school administrator he was very successful, awakening great enthusiasm in his scholars for study, attaching them thor- oughly to himself, and inspiring them with noble purposes. In these years he also combined preaching with his work as an educator.
Mr. Garfield's interest in politics dated from 1856. The aims of the Republican party com- manded his hearty assent, and he identified him- self with that organization on his graduation from college. In 1859 he was elected to the Senate of Ohio, where he took a very prominent
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part in legislation. On the breaking out of the Civil War, his whole nature was enlisted in the Union cause; and in September, 1861, he entered the army as colonel of the Forty-second Regi- ment of Ohio Volunteers. In the winter of 1861-2, he commanded an army in the Sandy Valley, Kentucky; afterwards, he served in the Army of the Ohio, under General Buell, and was present at the battle of Shiloh; and later he was appointed chief of staff to General Rosencrans, commanding the Army of the Cumberland, and took part in the battle of Chickamauga.
Having served as a soldier with great credit for more than two years, he entered the lower House of Congress, as the representative of the Nineteenth Ohio Congressional District, in De- cember, 1863. To this body he was elected nine times by the same constituency. From the first he took high rank in the House, and finally be- came its best known member. His name will ever be associated with the most prominent meas- ures of legislation in the period of 1863-80; such as the army, civil service, reconstruction, the currency, the tariff, and the resumption of specie payments. In January, 1880, he was elected to the National Senate, to take his seat in the Forty- seventh Congress.
Honors now multiplied upon him. On June 8, 1880, the National Republican Convention, at Chicago, nominated him as the party candidate for President; and after an exceedingly active campaign he was elected to that high office, re- ceiving 214 electoral votes to 135 votes cast for General Hancock, the Democratic candidate. On March 4, 1881, he was duly inaugurated President of the United States.
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Few men have ascended to the national Chief Magistrate's chair attended by larger popular expectations. President Garfield's career had inspired the country with unusual hopes. But hardly had he organized his administration, when, July 2, as he was leaving Washington for a visit to New England, he was shot by the assassin Guiteau. After undergoing the greatest sufferings, he died, September 19, at Elberon, N. J., and was buried the 26th of the same month in Lake View Cemetery, Cleveland, O. The eighty days that elapsed between the fatal shot and his death were marked by world-wide tokens of respect, affection and sorrow. For weeks the civilized world waited anxiously for the latest word from his bedside; multitudes of his country- men stood with uncovered heads as his funeral car passed from Washington to Cleveland; while whole nations followed him, in sympathy, to the grave. The monument to his memory cost $150,000.
Religiously, he was baptized by W. A. Lilly before he went to Hiram. He retained his mem- bership in the Hiram Church to the close of his life. He adorned his profession. As a minister of the gospel he was an able and Scriptural preacher. In all his travels as a public man he was sure to find a place to worship with the Lord's disciples on the Lord's Day. What an inspiration it was to see him in the great wor- shiping assembly, with face lifted heavenward and to hear him sing :
"Ho, reapers of life's harvest, Why stand with rusted blade, Until the night draws round thee, And day begins to fade!
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Why stand ye idle, waiting
For reapers more to come?
The golden morn is passing; Why sit ye idle, dumb ?""
Garfield's statement as to the religious prin- ciples of the disciples :
"1. We call ourselves Christians, or disciples of Christ.
"2. We believe in God the Father.
"3. We believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, and our Saviour. We regard the divinity of Christ as the fundamental truth of the Christian system.
"4. We believe in the Holy Spirit, both as to His agency in conversion and as an indwelling in the heart of the Christian.
"5. We accept both the Old and New Testa- ment Scriptures as the inspired word of God.
"6. We believe in the future punishment of the wicked and the future reward of the right- eous.
"7. We believe that the Deity is a prayer- hearing and a prayer-answering God.
"8. We observe the institution of the Lord's Supper on the Lord's Day. To this table we neither invite nor debar; we say it is the Lord's Supper for all the Lord's children.
"9. We plead for the union of God's people on the Bible, and the Bible alone.
"10. The Christ is our only creed.
"11. We maintain that all the ordinances should be observed as they were in the days of the apostles."
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