USA > Ohio > A history of the Disciples of Christ in Ohio > Part 8
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In early times it was said: "The disciples sing people into the kingdom of heaven." Re- ligious reformations have always been accompa- nied by musical revivals. Music is the language of the emotions and commands the emotions, and, when accompanied by appropriately selected words, is a powerful auxiliary in religious move- ments.
Before hymn-books were multiplied, the min-
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CENTRAL CHRISTIAN CHURCH, NINTH STREET, CINCINNATI, OHIO
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ister would line out the hymns-two lines at a time-and everybody would try to sing. Evident- ly, in these olden times, there was a better under- standing of the words than in the solo vocaliza- tions of modern times.
The leader of singing in olden times guessed at the pitch of his tune and sometimes became bewildered. It is related of one leader that, when the minister gave out the hymn, "I love to steal awhile away," the leader started, "I love to steal," and repeated it three times and then failed, and the minister is reported to have said, "Considering the propensities of our brother, let us pray."
Tuning-forks were adopted to give the correct pitch of tunes. Later, organs were introduced as aids in singing. Some opposed the use of instruments in church worship.
An edition of "The Living Oracles" was pub- lished by Alexander Campbell, and bound with it were many hymns. He also published a hymn- book which was finally turned over to the Ameri- can Christian Missionary Society, so that it would enjoy the profits of the sale to enlarge its missionary work.
When instruments began to be used they came through the Bible schools. The young people started Bible schools in opposition to many con- servatives in the church. The young people who started and managed the schools used instru- ments as aids in singing, and the music was so much improved that the churches gradually ad- mitted them as aids in worship. At first they would not allow them to be used at the time of the Lord's Supper, but later they were used in singing at all times. Individuals and whole
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churches objected to the use of instruments. They declared them to be innovations and wor- shiping the Lord by machinery. The discussion of the music question continued for years, and, while the question is settled in the minds of many, some continue to object to their use. Those who use them declare they are only aids in worship the same as a meeting-house. The dis- ciples being congregationalists, each church set- tles this question for itself. Those who oppose the use of instruments do not cut themselves off from the fellowship of Christ, and continue to sing with the spirit and understanding without the viol or organ. Instruments or no instru- ments, the general verdict is "we be brethren," and these matters of expediency shall not keep us from the Lord or one another.
In the early days among the disciples they did not call their special evangelistic meetings revivals. They chose to call them "meeting of days," or protracted meetings. Preachers were scarce, and these meetings were usually of short duration. The churches were mostly in the coun- try. The leaders in the congregation would arrange for bringing those who had no teams to the meetings. At the appointed time large loads of people would come from all directions and the assembly-room would be filled. The pioneers would laugh at "the close communion" buggies of modern times. Steam-cars, trolley lines and automobiles were unknown to the forefathers. Even the villages had inferior sidewalks, but the people were eager to hear the word of God preached and sung, so they came and pressed up to the pulpit end of the assembly-room. They brought their Bibles, and watched the quotations
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George A. Flower
W. T. Moore
J. Z. Tyler
R. T. Mathews
A. I. Hobbs
Frank A. Walker
G. W. Muckley
B. J. Radford
A. N. Gilbert MINISTERS OF CINCINNATI
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made by the minister and verified all that they received.
Walter Scott was the first evangelist among the disciples in Ohio. He took William Hayden with him as a helper and singer. Scott himself was a singer. It is reported of him that, when young, he sang on the streets in a city and col- lected a crowd of listeners, and then would take a collection for a poor, unfortunate man.
An evangelistic team of preacher and singer was started in 1885 by Alanson Wilcox, then sec- retary of the Ohio Christian Missionary Society. J. V. Updike and J. E. Hawes constituted the team, with Wilcox as manager. They were suc- cessful, and soon this method of evangelizing extended to other States.
Congregational singing is the ideal music for worship and evangelizing. It is imagined by many that there will be much singing in heaven to the praise and glory of God. It is well, then, to practice singing in this world.
While congregational singing is the ideal music for the worship of God, choirs to lead in such music have been organized in many congre- gations of disciples of Christ. Anthems are often used by the choir in worship. Solos are presented by skilled and trained voices, and they are useful in protracted evangelistic meetings.
THE FILLMORE BROTHERS
The music-house called "The Fillmore Broth- ers" was established in June, 1874, in Cincinnati, O. The firm consisted of J. H. Fillmore, the eldest son of A. D. Fillmore, and Frank Fillmore, the next oldest son. Their first publication was a Sunday-school song-book entitled "Songs of
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Glory." This publication was issued at the birth of the firm. The book was very successful, and was followed by other Sunday-school and gospel song-books, also books for singing-schools and conventions, temperance and prohibition song- books, anthem-books and church-music books.
In 1882 they issued a church hymnal called "The New Christian Hymn and Tune Book." It became the immediate hymnal of the Christian Church, and is used widely at the present time -1916.
In 1896 they issued "The Praise Hymnal," by Gilbert J. Ellis and J. H. Fillmore, which was revised and enlarged in 1906, and is widely used among the disciples of Christ at the present day.
In the year 1902 the Fillmore brothers were organized into The Fillmore Brothers Company, an Ohio State corporation. A couple of years later they bought out the A. Squire band and orchestra music-house, and from that date have been the publishers of band and orchestra music, and dealers in band and orchestra instruments, in addition to being general publishers of all kinds of vocal music. The Fillmore Brothers Company consisted of the brothers of the Fill- more family, as follows : J. H. Fillmore, Fred A. Fillmore and Chas. M. Fillmore. L. C. Fillmore, the son of C. L. Fillmore, has been with the firm as general manager since 1877. He is now a stockholder. Among the stockholders at present, in addition to the above named, are the children of J. H. Fillmore, also Herbert L. Fillmore, son of Fred A., and a number of employees of the Fillmore Music House. The business has grown steadily, and it ranks among the popular music- houses of the United States.
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The Fillmores are the publishers of an anthem monthly called The Choir, also a band and orchestra musical magazine called the Musi- cal Messenger.
CAMPBELL AND OWEN
In 1829, Alexander Campbell met Robert Owen, the Scotch Socialist, in debate in Cincin- nati. Mr. Owen, managing mills in Glasgow, had become wealthy, and came to the United States to propagate his "Social System." He had established a community at New Harmony, Ind., and had predicted that in three years it would depopulate Cincinnati. The Government of Mex- ico had offered him a tract of land 150 miles broad, which included California, in which he might exhibit his "Social System." Mr. Owen's plans were for men's material interests and devoid of God. He undertook to prove that religion is the greatest bar to the supreme happi- ness of the world, and that man is the creature of his environment. Mr. Campbell had accepted his challenge for a discussion of his infidel, humanitarian theories. In view of the many different forms of skepticism prevailing, and of the false views entertained respecting Chris- tianity itself, his purposes took a much wider range, and he resolved to demonstrate, from his own point of view, the divine origin of the Bible and the simplicity, truthfulness and saving power of the apostolic gospel.
The attendance at the debate was immense. Owen claimed he had discovered certain laws of human nature, a knowledge of which would, he thought, abolish religion, marriage and private property. Ignorance of these laws, he declared,
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had caused the vice and misery of mankind. He then commenced reading a manuscript two hun- dred pages long, in which he concluded that all religions are founded in error and opposed to the laws of human nature he had discovered. Mr. Campbell showed that the idea of God had been revealed, and when the time came in which he was unlimited as to time, he occupied twelve hours in all, and gave a view of the nature and evidences of Christianity which, for cogency of argument, comprehensive reach of thought and eloquence, has never been surpassed, if ever equaled. He showed that man is not a mere creature of circumstances, that he has the power to will and to act upon his decisions, and that the gratification of temporal wants fails to con- fer happiness. He closed the debate as follows:
"Religion-the Bible; what treasures untold reside in that heavenly word! Religion has given meaning and design to all that is past, and is as the moral to the fable, the good, the only good, of the whole-the earnest now of an abundant harvest of future and eternal good. Whence has been derived your most rapturous delights on earth? Have not the tears, the dews of religion in the soul afforded you incomparably more joy than all the fleshly gayeties, than all the splendid vanities, than the loud laugh, the festive song of the sons and daughters of the flesh? Even the alternations of hope and fear, of joy and sorrow, of which the Christian may be conscious in his ardent race of a glorious immortality, afforded more true bliss than ever did the sparkling gems, the radiant crown or the triumphal arch be- stowed by the gratitude or admiration of a nation on some favorite child of fortune or of
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fame. Whatever comes from religion comes from God. The greatest joys desirable to mortal man come from this source. Worlds piled on worlds, to fill the universal scope of my imagina- tion, would be a miserable per contra against the annihilation of the idea of God, the Supreme. It is a mystery to me how any good man could wish there was no God. When the idea of God the Almighty departs from the earth, not only the idea of virtue, of moral excellence, but of all rational enjoyment, departs. Teach me to think that I am the creature of chance, and to it alone indebted for all that I am, was, and ever shall be, and I see nothing in the universe but mortifica- tion and disappointment. Death is as desirable as life; and no one creature or thing is more deserving of my attention and consideration than another.
"But as well might Mr. Owen attempt to fetter the sea, to lock up the winds, to prevent the rising of the sun, as to exile the idea of God from the human race. As soon could a child annihilate the earth as to annihilate the idea of God once suggested."
At the close Mr. Campbell took a vote, asking all who believe in the Christian religion to rise. Nearly all the congregation rose; only three rose on the negative vote.
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J. M. Van Horn
M. J. Maxwell
J. C. B. Stivers
James G. Coleman
J. S. West
William Wirt
N. Zulch
L. G. Walker James Vernon MORE RESTORATION MINISTERS
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XVI HISTORIC DEDICATION SERMON DELIVERED BY J. S. WEST AT LIBERTY CHAPEL, BROWN COUNTY, OHIO, IN 1874
B RETHREN AND FRIENDS :- Our text on this, to me, very solemn and important occa- sion is the first verse of the twelfth chapter of Paul's letter to the Hebrews: "Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin that doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race set before us, ever looking to Jesus the author and finisher of our faith.""
In opening our new house for worship to-day, it has been suggested by the brethren that a dis- course embodying, to some extent at least, the past history of the church would be appropriate, and the duty of delivering that address has been assigned to me. I undertake it cheerfully, as I am persuaded that the subject will prove mutual- ly interesting to us. To give a history of the church here will necessitate a history of the neighborhood, as the two are inseparably inter- woven. Within the lifetime of some who are with us to-day, the country surrounding us was an unbroken wilderness, traversed only by wild animals and wild hunters. To the country imme- diately around us, Providence has been very
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lavish in his gifts. Perhaps, in its virgin state, no more fertile spot could be found anywhere. It was covered with the greatest variety and best of timber, abounded in limestone and pure limestone water, but, above all, a very healthy location. This very desirable spot received its first settlers about the year 1800. Almost from its first settlement this vicinity was selected as a place to worship God. Ere the howl of the wolf and the scream of the panther ceased to be heard by night, the primitive inhabitants were wont to meet here for prayer and praise. When the mind runs back over the past, and we think how long and continuously God has been worshiped here, and how many of his saints have spent their lives here "battling against the hosts of sin"-have here fallen asleep in Jesus and gone to that recompense of reward-we almost feel like uttering the sentiment God addressed to Moses at the bush: "Let us take off our shoes from our feet, for the place where we stand is holy ground." For if God's once meeting with Moses hallowed the ground where they met, how much more is this a hallowed spot, where, we trust, God has for more than sixty years, almost every Lord's Day, met his people and communed with them. We may at least, as we look around us here, repeat the language of the poet :
"Where'er we tread, 'tis haunted, holy ground."
Among the first settlers, and near the time mentioned, were John Knox, on the Pickerill farm; Thomas Hatfield, on that now occupied by his son David; Andrew Dragoo, on that now owned by John Milligan; John Mclaughlin, on that occupied by his son David; Lawrence
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Ramey, on that now owned by John Stevenson; George Fisher, whose farm just beyond Allen Abney's is now unoccupied, and John Dunlevy, the Shaker preacher, where Billy Montgomery now lives. So far as we now know, the first religion taught and established in the neighbor- hood was that of the Shakers. This was first preached in Kentucky and some parts of Ohio, about the year 1804. Knox was with them and the meeting-place was upon his farm. Bryant the poet says :
"The groves were God's first temples."
The first meetings here were in the groves and private houses. Afterwards a very primi- tive structure was erected on the ground now occupied by Sister Pickerill's house. It at first consisted of a log pen, built perhaps as high as one's head, floored and divided into two apart- ments, in one of which the men, and the other the women, worshiped. After being occupied in this condition for some time, it was completed in the form of a house and covered.
Perhaps it may prove interesting to some to give the peculiar faith and practice of the Shakers. Their doctrine, as given by B. W. Stone, was: The Christ appeared first in a man, and through life was preparing the way of salva- tion, which he could not accomplish till his second appearance in a woman, Anne Lee, who was now the Christ and had full power to save. They had new revelations, superior to the Scriptures, which they called the old record, which old record they said was true, but was superseded by the new. They denied the literal resurrection of the body from the grave. They said the resurrection of
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the body meant the resurrection of Christ's body, meaning the church. Their elders had constant communication and conversation with angels and all departed saints. They looked for no other or better heaven than that upon earth. They prom- ised the greatest blessings to the obedient, but certain damnation to the disobedient. They
urged the people to confess their sins to them- especially the sin of matrimony-and to forsake them all immediately; husbands must forsake their wives and wives their husbands. They
claimed to work miracles.
They lived together, and had all things common entirely under the control of their elders. Their worship consisted in voluntary dancing together. They assert that their dancing is the token of the great joy and happiness of the new Jerusalem state, and de- notes the victory over sin. Some may feel dis- posed to criticize them severely. But we should remember they flourished here during a period of great religious excitement; when enthusiasm passed current for religion everywhere. We should remember the scenes of wild excitement that received the approval and encouragement of the Wesleys, and the no less extravagant revivals encouraged by the Whitefields and Ed- wardses of the Presbyterian Church, culminating in those remarkable exercises at Caneridge, Ky., participated in by Stone and others of the Pres- byterian Church. We should also remember that, at this time, religionists almost universally rested their hopes of salvation more upon feelings and impressions, upon visions and ecstasies, than upon an honest trust in Christ, and an earnest effort to love and obey him; that they might appropri- ate to themselves his exceeding great and pre-
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cious promises. When we lose confidence in the Word of eternal truth, it is but a step to the wildest vagaries. Their race here, as a religious body, was very brief-beginning, as near as I can ascertain, about 1804, and ending about 1810; covering a period of some five or six years. Some sold out and removed elsewhere; others lost confi- dence in them; some followed them, afterwards returning to their families and friends. Knox sold his farm to Samuel Pickerill, who removed with his family from Kentucky to this place in 1810. His coming, together with other changes, wrought an entire change in the religion of the neighborhood.
We come now to speak of a second distinctly marked era in the religious history of this com- munity. The closing part of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century were marked by a spirit of free and earnest religious inquiry. Established institutions rested more upon the orthodoxy of their faith and the estab- lished forms of their religion than upon an exhi- bition of the fruits of the Spirit. The rigidity of their creeds and the bitterness of their prejudices held the religious parties at a distance from each other. Many earnest men saw and deplored the divisions among God's people, and the rancor of party spirit, and sought for a remedy. Re- formers arose simultaneously, without concert, in different parts of the country. These arose in the East among the Baptists, among the Presby- terians in the West, and the Methodists in the South. They labored at first to reform, to infuse a more liberal spirit and more vital piety into the parties with which they were connected. In this they generally failed, were subjected to
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discipline, and either retired or were excluded from these parties. Prominent among these efforts at reformation was one now of especial interest to us, which had its origin among the Presbyterians of Kentucky. Barton W. Stone, born in Maryland, reared in Virginia, and edu- cated in North Carolina, migrated to Kentucky, and as the Presbyterian minister settled in Bourbon County, in the fall of the year 1796.
In 1798 he received a call from the united churches of Caneridge and Concord. During his theological studies his mind became much exer- cised over some points of doctrine he was re- quired to receive. He was led, after much anxiety, to refer the whole matter to the word of God, and to fearlessly follow where it led. He accepted the call from the above-named churches and a day was set for his ordination. At his ordination, by the rules of the church, he was required to adopt the Confession of Faith as the system of doctrine taught in the Bible. When the presbytery met and the above question was proposed, he answered: "I do, as far as I see it to be consistent with the word of God." Not- withstanding this qualification, influenced by his known and earnest piety, he was ordained. Soon after his ordination he became much perplexed over the doctrine of Calvinism. After much study and many prayers, he says: "I was re- lieved from my perplexity by the precious word of God. From reading and meditating upon it, I became convinced that God did love the whole world, and the reason why he did not save all was because of their unbelief; and that the reason why they believed not, was not because God did not exert his physical almighty power
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in them, to make them believe, but because they neglected and received not his testimony given in the word concerning his Son. 'These are written, that ye might believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and that believing, ye might have life through his name.' I saw that the requirement to believe in the Son of God was reasonable, because the testimony was sufficient to produce faith in the sinner, and the invitations and encouragements of the gospel were sufficient, if believed, to lead men to the Saviour for the promised Spirit, salvation and eternal life. This glimpse of faith, of truth, was the first divine ray of light that ever led my distressed, per- plexed mind from the labyrinth of Calvinism and error in which I had been so long bewildered. It was that which led me into rich pastures of gospel liberty."
There were at this time five preachers in the Presbyterian Church who were in accord in their preaching. They were Richard McNemar, John Thompson, John Dunlevy, Robert Marshall and B. W. Stone-three in Ohio and two in Kentucky. David Purviance, then a candidate for the minis- try, was in sympathy with them. Stone says the distinguishing doctrine preached by us was: "That God loved the world-the whole world- and sent his Son to save them, on condition that they believed in him; that the gospel was the means of salvation, but that this means would never be effectual to this end until believed and obeyed by us; that God required us to believe in his Son and had given us sufficient evidence in his word to produce faith in us, if attended to by us; that sinners were capable of understand- ing and believing this testimony, and of acting
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upon it by coming to the Saviour and obeying him, and from him obtaining salvation and the Holy Spirit. We urged upon the sinner to be- lieve now, and receive salvation-that in vain they looked for the Spirit to be given them while they remained in unbelief. They must believe before the Spirit or salvation would be given them; that God was as willing to save them now as he ever was or ever would be; that no previ- ous qualification was required or necessary in order to believe in Jesus and come to him; that if they were sinners, this was their divine war- rant to believe in him and come to him for salva- tion; that Jesus died for all, and that all things were now ready."
Of the effects of this preaching, Stone further says: "The people appeared as if just awakened from the sleep of ages; they seemed to see for the first time that they were responsible beings, and that a refusal to use the means appointed was a damning sin. They preached these doc- trines with much success among the people, until they excited hostility among the rigidly orthodox of their brethren. McNemar was arraigned upon a charge of heresy, and seeing he would be con- demned, and they would suffer a like condemna- tion one by one, they withdrew in a body from the presbytery and constituted a new one of their own, styled the Springfield Presbytery. But, seeing their position to be an inconsistent one, they, in less than a year, willed its dis- solution. We quote some of the items of the last will and testament of the Springfield Pres- bytery :
"Item: We will that our name of distinction, with its reverend title, be forgotten; that there
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be but one Lord over God's heritage and his name one.
"Item: We will that this body die, be dis- solved and sink into union with the body of Christ at large, for there is but one body and one spirit, even as we are called in one hope of our calling.
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