USA > Ohio > A history of the Disciples of Christ in Ohio > Part 6
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They contend for and practice this rite with- out a single precept or an example of it in all the Scriptures; and at the same time oppose immersion, and will not practice it except to obtain a member for their church whom they can not get without immersion! All the evidence in "baptize in water," "in the river Jordan," "in Enon, where there was much water," going
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"down into the water," coming up "out of the water," and burying "in baptism," all goes for nothing with them! However abundant honesty may be with them in other matters, in this it is entirely wanting. It is extinguished by the desire to have it otherwise.
EDMUND BURRITT WAKEFIELD
Isaac Errett used to tell with enthusiasm of the one occasion when his entire congregation responded to the invitation. It was in northern Ohio, near Bloomfield. There were sufficient reasons for the presence of a small audience, but, nothing daunted, Bro. Errett read a chapter from the Bible, sang a hymn, prayed, sang another hymn, then preached one of his powerful dis- courses and extended the gospel invitation. The whole congregation responded. He was Edwin Wakefield. Being already a man of pronounced piety and warm sympathy, Bro. Errett had little difficulty to persuade Bro. Wakefield to preach. On Bro. Errett's removal to Warren, Bro. Wake- field took charge of the little congregation at Bloomfield and became pastor of that and adja- cent townships. Few men have ever been held in higher esteem by their neighbors or more rever- ently loved by their own family than was the gracious Christian elder in the church of the Lord.
Into his family, on the 27th of August, 1846, a son was born. This son proceeded, as promptly as nature permitted, to discover the swimming- holes in the creek which cut through the farm; to pursue mercilessly, with twine and bent-pin hooks, the bass and suckers which the stream contained, and in such countless ways as are
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opened to buoyant boyhood, he comforted his father's heart, even while he ruffled the paternal nerves.
The farm was over in Green, Trumbull Co., O. When the war clouds began to darken the horizon, the family moved back from Bloomfield to the farm. A teacher named Green had a select school in the neighborhood; young Edmund Bur- ritt Wakefield made a habit of attending. The teaching was excellent; the learning was as good as could be expected. But, all things considered, young Wakefield succeeded in getting something really good out of his school life. Two of the teachers became captains in the army. At eigh- teen young Wakefield could restrain himself no longer. He enlisted and was sent quickly to the South, where his regiment was attached to Cox's division of the Twenty-third Army Corps. With the end of the Nashville campaign this corps was shipped through North Carolina to Cape Fear, where it took part in the operations immediately preceding the surrender of Johnson's army. It has taken a lifetime to show how ineffaceable were the impressions which the young man of nineteen gleaned from his experience. As men ripen in faith towards God and in tenderness toward fellow-men, the fearful savagery and human butchery called war become more and more unspeakable and full of horror.
At the close of the war, college life held out its lure. From 1866 to 1870-with one year spent in Bethany for the sake of association and good fellowship-young Wakefield enjoyed the life of the average college student and graduate. The year following the graduation he appeared at Hiram College as the professor of natural
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science. A few years later, yielding to domestic considerations, college work was surrendered for a time and E. B. Wakefield became a pastor of the North Bloomfield Church. After a few years the brethren at Warren called him to that church so freighted with hallowed memories. In 1890 Hiram called again so earnestly that pastoral cares were laid aside and college responsibilities and fellowship once more were undertaken.
Nearly every human life looks to certain places which thrill as centers of associations- nerve centers, indeed; centers of abiding influ- ence, shaping, controlling and determining char- acter and destiny. In the life of E. B. Wakefield three such centers of vital association are con- spicuous. First the boyhood home, where the first friends, the earliest and truest friends, abide; school days, church days, with their first religious aspirations, hopes, ideals; home life, where father and mother reign regal in parent- hood, royal in neighborliness, honored by men and blessed of God. What heart can fail to yearn toward the birthplace, especially if this be also the birthplace into the larger life where their silent graves witness to their living faith? Second, there is the Warren Church, that heart- throb of great faith in the capital of the old Western Reserve. It was a worthy aristocracy that came from New York and New England, in the pioneer days, to build that portion of the old Northwest. It was here that the mighty men amongst our pioneers pleaded with passionate earnestness and with devotion of love intense for the reunion of Christ's followers in obedient love to Him. To call the roll of influences which had been absorbed and radiated in turn by the War-
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ren Church would be practically to call the roll of the first and second generations of our pioneers of faith. In this work Wakefield was driven to strenuous effort, and was as loyally sustained as any pastor in the flock of God. When the mature man, conscious of his best and strongest powers, buries these energies in a radi- ating center such as Warren, O., future years are made unspeakably rich by the memories which throng at every turn.
In the third place stands Hiram College. Pro- fessor Wakefield has for a long time had the dis- tinguished honor of presiding over the "snap course" of the curriculum. If this impression seems at all obscure, ask any Hiram student of the present or older days, and full particulars will be promptly forthcoming. Invariably, how- ever, when the chuckles have signified the joyous memory of past "snaps," faces will fall into more serious mold and hearts will speak un- bidden, saying: "But, after all, that was the most profitable course I had in all the years I was there. We didn't learn so very much out of books, to be sure, but we could afford to surren- der all the rest of the college course for what we learned from Wakefield." Let it be said to his eternal honor that, as a drillmaster in the science of academic pedagogy, E. B. Wakefield used to be the most delicious failure conceivable. On the other hand, to his equally abiding honor, it must be truthfully said that the impression students gained in his classrooms was more powerful, creative and worth while in shaping ideals and the determination of character than any possible amount of book scholarship could have been. He taught by example.
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Some men are cold, metallic, hard; others are soft, yielding, irresponsible; some exhale an atmosphere morally noxious and spiritually neg- ative. To none of these does E. B. Wakefield gravitate. Human, essentially human, human in every outreach of affection and forth-putting of energy, but, withal, a humanity lifted up with its weaknesses and harshness and defilement all lost in the strength, the courage, the tenderness of humanity's Redeemer, Christ. Among the saints who live to bless the earth in quiet, inconspicuous and unostentatious ways, none is more really and truly a saint alive than Edmund Burritt Wake- field.
EUCLID AVENUE MEETING-HOUSE, CLEVELAND, OHIO
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Isaiah Jones
Dr. Orlando Wilcox
L. B. Wilkes
J. W. Errett
W. T. Horner
W. K. Azbill
R. G. White
H. J. White
SOME OHIO PREACHERS
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XII
IN THE CIVIL WAR
THE disciples were loyal to their country dur- ing the Civil War. Once in awhile one like Cyrus McNeely, of Hopedale, held to non-resist- ance. Now and then one went to Canada for fear of arrest for treason. The majority were true to their country. The disciples did not divide over the war. They believed in Christian unity. There were no North or South Christians. As" citizens, North or South, they were subject to the powers that be, so conscientiously they went to war. They that take the sword must perish by the sword.
E. B. Wakefield presents this subject in its true light. He writes as follows :
"In one way Ohio was fortunate during the Civil War. There were minor differences of sentiment, but the State was essentially a unit in standing for the preservation of the Union. Hence the people were almost wholly spared the evil personal differences and the deadly feuds which so often embittered the border States. As a rule, Ohio's soldiers fought from principle, and never from hatred or any hope of gain. They felt that the welfare of the world and of the age was wrapped up in the fate of this republic. When the war was ended and the life of the nation was assured, they were glad to lay off the
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trappings of war and hasten to the old firesides, to tread the old paths of peace.
"No church distinctions whatever were known during the war; and it is wholly impossible, at this date, to tell definitely of the part borne by the disciples of Christ. It is enough to say that everywhere, probably, they bore their proper part, and in nearly every regiment of more than two hundred that did service in the field, they had representatives. Although only a casual traveler, the writer has met scores of brethren, remote from his part of the State, who, as officers or in the ranks, had borne good parts in the war, and some of whom had risen to places of influ- ence and prominence.
"The only place, as I suppose, where any record whatever has been kept of our men who served in the old army, is at Hiram. And there the record has been kept wholly for the sake of the college, though students were so commonly church-members that it may serve for a page of church history. Hiram was still young when the war began, but some 250 of her students served from first to last in the Union Army. First of all among these, as he was first of all among men to those who truly knew him, was James A. Gar- field. Company A of his regiment, the Forty- second Ohio, was made up of Hiram boys, and J. S. Ross, who has since served just as heroic- ally, when courage and self-sacrifice are quite as sorely tried, led the company in the last cam- paign as captain. Maj. F. A. Williams, of this regiment, died early in the service, a Christian of splendid promise. The world has been poorer because he was taken away. Hiram furnished a good many officers. I recall, as majors, Eggle-
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ston, Johnston and Pettibone. There may have been others. Colonel Pritchard, the captor of President Davis, was affiliated with Hiram.
"Of the great rank and file who fight battles from heroic sense of duty and fill essentially un- marked graves, we may say with reverent pride, we have full measure. Allyn, Ryder and Cook, of the Forty-second, died in the Vicksburg cam- paign. Chas. P. Bowler and Wallace Coburn, of the Seventh Ohio, were killed, one at Cedar Mountain and one at Winchester in '62. They were fitting for the highest Christian work. And as you name every leading battlefield we recall names and faces that vanished there. It was a cruel war: when you recall the death-roll, more cruel to the North than to the South.
"I can not forbear speaking of Maj. Delos R. Northway, who commanded the Sixth Ohio Cav- alry when he was killed in the Wilderness in '64. He was always a Christian and he always led his men. One of his last acts was to write my father, asking him to come to be chaplain of their regiment. He said the boys would all love him! No better soldier ever fought for any cause.
"Now it is all over. Let it remain to us all a bit of heroic, and yet melancholy, memory. In it all, we never thought of dividing from our brethren of the South. We always felt there was something in our fellowship that went far beyond political bonds. We knew that the environment of the South, its economical and social interests, were different from ours. There seemed no way but that we should come into collision. But now that the storm is over, mutually chastened, we can sit down together and nothing shall come between us. Inevitably we shall more grow to
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be one. And the dearest and truest unity will be of our faith."
At this time there is no North or South. We all march under the "Stars and Stripes."
Capt. C. E. Henry was educated at Hiram. For many years he was president of the Board of Trustees of Hiram College. He was a valuable detective of the United States Government and was made marshal of the District of Columbia by President Garfield. At a G. A. R. meeting in Cleveland a poem by Captain Henry was read, and dedicated to the wives and children of the comrades of the Forty-second boys. It may apply to others also. It was ordered published.
"More than forty years ago, dear boys, You tramped o'er hill and plain, And scaled the lofty Cumberlands, 'Mid snow and sleet and rain. Treason's banners fled before you, When you met them in the fray; Fled beyond Kentucky's border, O'er the mountains far away. With Garfield for commander, And with Sheldon good and true, And with gallant, fighting Pardee To lead the boys in blue, And Cowles, with battle-flag unfurled, 'Mid cannon's roar and noise, You charged upon the rebel foe- Brave Forty-second boys.
"Far down the Mississippi, boys, Your flag was in the van; Five thousand at Fort Hindman Surrendered to a man. Port Gibson, Jackson, Champion, And on Black River's shore,
You helped to take, with Vicksburg, Full thirty thousand more. Your comrades who fell in the charge Along the battle-way,
Beneath the green magnolias Sleep peacefully to-day ;
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And the old slave, with thanksgiving For the freedom he enjoys, Casts fairest flowers on the graves Of Forty-second boys.
"Who sent you forth with blessings, boys, And gave the flag you bore
To victory 'gainst treason's hosts,
For three long years or more?
Who followed you with fervent prayers
Through battles and alarms? Your mothers, wives and sisters, And your sweethearts dear and true,
Gave all their wealth of trust and love To their hero boys in blue:
Then, hand in hand with them through life, More dear to you than pearls,
And now we pray God's blessing on The Forty-second girls."
The Ohio Christian Missionary Society con- vened in Shelby in 1863. A. S. Hayden, secre- tary, and R. M. Bishop, president. J. W. Lan- phear moved the following, which was unani- mously passed :
"WHEREAS, Our country is involved in the calamities of civil war, inaugurated by the rebel- lion of a part of the Southern States of our Union, threatening the destruction of our civil and religious liberties; therefore
"Resolved, That we hereby declare our un- wavering allegiance to the Government under which we live, and pledge to it our unqualified support.
"Resolved, That we recognize our chief ruler as the minister of God, 'a revenger to execute wrath on him that doeth evil,' and as such en- titled to our earnest prayers that he may be endowed with wisdom from God adequate to this dangerous crisis.
"Resolved, That we will submit to all legally constituted authorities, both civil and military, to
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the express intent that we may not only be loyal citizens, but that we may also see the present rebellion speedily crushed, and our good Govern- ment triumphant in the administration of right- eousness and peace throughout the whole land.
"Resolved, That we assure and reassure our brave and noble soldiers in the field that they have our warmest sympathies and constant prayers, and that they shall have our material and spiritual aid whenever it is possible to bestow it."
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M. L. Streator
A. J. Marvin
W. S. Errett
Joseph King
Prof. Amzi Atwater
Harrison Reid Cooley
Lloyd Darsie
T. B. Knowles
SONS OF VETERANS WHO HAVE KEPT THE FAITH
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XIII
THE FIRST RESTORATION CHURCH IN OHIO
T HE first church of Christ of the Restoration movement in Ohio was organized at Mantua, O., Jan. 27, 1827. Walter Scott organized the (New) Lisbon Church in November, 1827. The Mantua Church is, then, historically at the head of the 570 churches of Christ in Ohio. A Baptist church was established in Nelson in 1808, the first church of any order in Portage County, O. In 1820 the celebrated Mahoning Association of Baptist Churches was formed. Alexander Camp- bell, in time, joined this association, and the Christian Baptist circulated in all the churches. Through the presence of Campbell and his writ- ings, reformatory views took possession of the people in the fifteen churches of the Mahoning Association. In about 1824, the Nelson Church declared in favor of the Scriptures as the rule of faith and practice. For two or three years the disciples of Nelson, Hiram and Mantua met at various places for Bible instruction and wor- ship. Then, in January, 1827, they organized at Mantua. Later the church at Hiram was organ- ized, then the church at Garrettsville.
The first year eighteen members were added to the Mantua Church. The church, in May, was visited by Thomas Campbell. "The infant cause derived great advantages from this visit. He set
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in order the things wanting, confirmed the faith of the members, and new converts were added to the congregation." At this visit of Thomas Campbell, May 24, 1828, he preached in a barn, and Symonds Ryder, of Hiram, confessed the Lord and was baptized. He became a strong leader in the Hiram Church.
In the early days of this church there were some severe trials, and the greatest of these was "Mormonism." Sidney Rigdon, of Mormon fame, was the preacher at Mantua. Rigdon was once a Baptist preacher. It is evident, to those who were familiar with his doings in those days, that he came among the disciples as a schemer. He talked about the Aborigines and the Mound- builders, and in his eloquent, enthusiastic style spoke of a book to be published setting forth these subjects and the restoration of miracles. He led off Oliver Snow, who became a leader among the Mormons. He led off Symonds Ryder, a man of
genius and mental ability. Ryder, however, was soon cured of the delusion. Joe Smith wrote to him to sell his land and property and put it into the "community" at Kirtland. This letter pur- ported to be from the Almighty, and inspired. Ryder was to be a Mormon elder. The letter spelled Ryder's name wrongly. His name is Symonds Ryder, and the letter spelled it Simon Rider. He said, if this letter was from the Lord, he would know how to spell his name. With this keynote he started anew an investigation, and came back to the church, kept his fortune, cor- rected his mistake, and was a valuable member of the church at Mantua and Hiram. Joe Smith and Sidney Rigdon were tarred and feathered and driven from Hiram.
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The Mantua Church has given to the world many valuable disciples of Christ. Among them may be mentioned Oris, John and Amzi Atwater, Almeda Booth, Mary Atwater Neely, the Der- thicks, Frederick Truedley and many others. For ninety years it has kept on the even tenor of its way in a country-village community and a power for good in the locality. The church has more than one hundred members, and 125 in the Bible school. It has fellowship in all our missionary and benevolent enterprises. Being located only five miles from Hiram, they frequently have student preachers. Bro. Truedley is professor at Ohio State University at Athens, O.
AN HISTORIC CHURCH-MENTOR
As the church at Mentor, O., is an historic church of interest, attention is called to it. The church, in 1826, was a Baptist church and had Sidney Rigdon as minister. Rigdon had been a reader of the Christian Baptist, and had adopted its restoration teaching. In the spring of 1828 he visited Walter Scott at Warren. At other times he had interviews with him, and had adopted his Scriptural view of baptism. When he returned from Warren he brought with him Adamson Bently, the great Warren preacher of the Restoration movement. Bently was a broth- er-in-law of Rigdon. Together they conducted a successful meeting, and baptized about fifty persons. A. S. Hayden, in his "History of Dis- ciples on the Western Reserve," says: "Nearly the whole church accepted cordially the doctrine of the Lord, exchanged their 'articles' for the new covenant as the only divine basis for Christ's church, and abandoned unscriptural
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titles and church names, choosing to be known simply as disciples of Christ."
From Mentor, Rigdon and Bentley went to Kirtland, five miles distant, where an ingather- ing awaited them. The converts were so many that they organized a church at Kirtland.
The Mentor Church has at this date (1917) a substantial meeting-house and about one hun- dred members; also a Bible school of one hun- dred. In 1828 it was shaken by a tempest under the outbreak of Mormonism. Few of its mem- bers were led astray. Kirtland, with less expe- rience and more under Rigdon's power, became engulfed, and has never since been recovered. The church in Mentor, with stronger material, resisted the shock. They were much aided in their resistance by the presence of Thomas Campbell, who spent several months there and in the vicinity during the agitation it produced.
M. S. Clapp, a young man, came into the church in the Rigdon-Bentley meeting, and soon attained prominence by his zeal and ability. He began the study of the classics under Thomas Campbell, and in time became a good Greek and Latin scholar. In 1830 he married Miss Alicia Campbell, sister of Alexander Campbell. He
studied in Bethany, Va., and West Middletown, Pa., and returned to Mentor, and for years was the minister of the gospel at Mentor and other places. He saw, in the Christian religion, the germ of all good to man in the world, as well as the sure and only basis for hope hereafter. He was a friend of the poor, against slavery and intemperance, and stood firm in defending the Bible against infidels. In 1830 he defended the truth as against Mormonism.
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In the fall of 1830, Parley P. Pratt, a young minister from Lorain County, under Rigdon's influence, passing through Palmyra, N. Y., be- came converted to Mormonism. In November, Pratt and three others came to Rigdon, in Men- tor, and remained a week. In Kirtland some disciples had formed "a community" of goods, and had all things in common, and advocated the restoration of miracles. There were seventeen of them. They were rebaptized into the Mormon faith. Then Rigdon and his wife were baptized into the same order of things, and many of the Kirtland members went the same way. Three weeks after this, Rigdon went to Palmyra, N. Y., and tarried with Joe Smith two months. Soon after his return to Ohio, Smith and several of his relatives arrived. The delusion immediately assumed an aggressive attitude. They formed the Mormon hierarchy, and Rigdon's popularity gave it success. The opposition to it was quick on its feet. One J. J. Moss, a young schoolteacher, had recently come into the Mentor Church. He there and then began his great and long opposition to all forms of error. Under his influence, and that of M. S. Clapp and Thomas Campbell, little head- way was made in Mentor by this Mormon raid. Only the church at Kirtland went down. Thomas Campbell proposed to pursue an exposure of the claims of Mormonism :
1. By examining the character of its author and his accomplices.
2. By exposing their pretensions to miraculous gifts and the gift of tongues ; and by testing them in three or four foreign languages.
3. By exposing their assertion that the author- ity for baptism was lost for fourteen hundred
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years till restored by the new prophet and by showing it to be a contradiction of Matt. 16:18.
4. That the pretended duty of "common prop- erty" is antiscriptural, and a fraud upon society.
5. That rebaptizing believers is making void the law of Christ; and the pretensions of impart- ing the Holy Spirit by imposition of hands is an unscriptural intrusion on the exclusive preroga- tive of the primary apostles.
6. That its pretentious visions, humility and spiritual perfections are nowise superior to those of the first Shakers, Jemima Wilkinson, the French prophets, etc.
7. In the last place, by examining the in- ternal evidence of the Book of Mormon itself, pointing out its evident contradictions, foolish absurdities, shameless pretensions to antiquity, and thus restoring it to its rightful claimant as a production beneath contempt, and utterly un- worthy of reception of a schoolboy.
Rigdon threw Campbell's communication into the fire. His reputation, however, lifted Mor- monism into notice. He had been a popular preacher at Hiram and Mantua. He took Smith to those places. Some converts from the dis- ciples were made to the new order of things. The majority of them, however, saw in it a scheme to get their property into a common fund, and allow certain persons to live without work. The big stone temple was built at Kirt- land. All those who joined in this "community" lost their property. After the Hiramites saw through the scheme, they gathered together and were joined by adjoining townspeople, and they "tarred and feathered" Rigdon and Smith and drove them from the township.
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