USA > Pennsylvania > Lebanon County > Kleinfeltersville > Centennial celebration of the organization of the first conference of the Evangelical Church : held at Kleinfeltersville, Lebanon County, Pa., September, 25-26, 1907 > Part 5
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In 1751, the noted Rev. Michael Schlatter, who organized the Reformed Synod, arrived for the second time from Europe, bringing with him six missionaries, several of whom were edu- cated at the University of Herborn, for the service of the Re- formed Church. Among this number was Philip William Otter- bein, who soon after his arrival was settled at Lancaster, and later at York, Frederick and Baltimore. He was a Pietist of an aggressive and evangelistic type, and soon became the head of a distinct evangelistic movement almost wholly confined to the Reformed Church, save a small contingent of Mennonites led by Bishop Martin Boehm.
In the year 1789, this element organized itself into a body in the city of Baltimore. This was the beginning of the church of "The United Brethren in Christ," of which Otterbein was the leader until his death in 1813. And although a founder of an- other church, he was carried on the rolls of the Reformed Synod until his death. Contemporary records, especially Newcommer's Journal, show that this evangelistic element held their so-called "Big meetings" in many of the Reformed churches in the interior of Pennsylvania.
"The United Brethren," are generally regarded as an off- spring of the German Reformed Church, although doctrinally, it differs widely from that church.
At this point we reach the vital connection of Albright and his people with the Reformed Pietistic movement. A consider- able element of the pietistic Reformed did not go out with Otter- bein (as we believe) for doctrinal reasons. Among them were prominent ministers who for years had been co-workers with Otterbein. Among this number we will mention only three of vital interest to us. First was Rev. Anthony Houtz, Albright's spiritual father, of whom we might say much if time permitted. Second was Rev. Adam Ettinger, who died at Dover, Penn- sylvania, in 1809, and who is erroneously classed with Otter-
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bein as a co-founder of the United Brethren. He lived and died as a Reformed evangelist. The widow and family of this consecrated man united with the Albrights soon after his death. Several sons entered the ministry in 1816, of whom Adam Et- tinger, Jr., was the first editor of "Der Christliche Botschafter". in 1836. With the Ettingers came also a large part of the follow- ing of the Pietistic Reformed along the Conewago. The third we mention was Rev. Dietrich Aurand, of Buffalo Valley, in Union County, who with George Adam Gueting, and others, held great revivals in the valley as early as 1792. Their chief point was the Dreisbach church, near the home of Aurand. At this point practically the entire Reformed congregation were of the Pietistic type we have described. Here Aurand began his public ministry without a collegiate education, and served the church as pastor. In 1803 he was recognized and licensed as a minister by the Reformed Synod.
Although Newcommer and other leaders of the United Brethren held "big meetings" here, in connection with Aurand, the people did not sever their connection with their mother church.
Albright gained entrance into this community sometime prior to 1805, and was well received. Among the prominent Reformed officials who opened their homes as preaching places, were Rev. Dietrich Aurand, already mentioned, Father Martin Driesbach, the elder of the congregation, and John Aurand, brother of Rev. Dietrich Aurand. The Hoy-Bordner-Wermly-Betz-Dunkel- Herpst, and other Reformed families, became Albright adherents. An event of far reaching importance now occurred. Albright had labored as an evangelist for ten years, and yet the total num- ber of his society was but seventy-five souls, with no organiza- tion west of the Susquehanna River. In 1806 Albright, and his co-worker, George Miller, organized the entire Pietistic Re- formed element of the Dreisbach church into a class or society, of which the Elder of the congregation, Father Martin Dreis- bach, was made the leader. Rev. Dietrich Aurand, about this time, took charge of a Reformed congregation at Water Street, and where he labored until he died. His relatives and following in Buffalo Valley, however, united in the Albright organization.
The Otterbein evangelists now practically abandoned this field, as Albright and Miller effected no less than eleven organiza-
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tions or classes within a year in this region, where in most in- stances the older Pietistic element formed the nucleus of the new organizations. Within a single year Albright's infant society was trebled in membership, and his field of greatest interest was transferred from the east, to the west side of the Susquehanna, and centered at New Berlin, a few miles distant from the old Dreisbach home. More than this, the Dreisbach home now be- came the virtual headquarters of the church. Elder Martin Dreisbach's son John was given to the ministry; he was a mem- ber of the original conference of 1807, and in a few years after Albright's death was at the head of the church and president of the conference.
A number of conference sessions were held at the house of Father Dreisbach, including the first General Conference in 1816, of which his son was president in the house in which he was born.
Scarcely less influential in the early Albright church was Henry Niebel, the bosom friend and brother-in-law of John Driesbach. He was studying for the Reformed ministry when Albright made his advent in Buffalo Valley. He, too, united with the Dreisbach Evangelical class in 1806, and soon exercised his ministerial gifts, and entered the active ministry in 1809.
These two men, Dreisbach and Niebel, both of Reformed antecedents, were soon the leaders of the church, the former as president, and the latter as secretary of the conference. To- gether they compiled the first hymn book, revised the discipline, founded the printing establishment, and were the first presid- ing elders of the church.
Much more might be said of the predominant Reformed Pietistic influence in the conversion of Albright, and the founding of his work, but we believe enough has been adduced to con- vince any thoughtful mind of the Reformed Pietistic origin of the original Albright Corpus.
Having traced the origin, we now proceed to examine the doctrinal basis of the original Albright body, and make good our claim that it was founded on a creed of Reformation times.
The original conference of 1807, besides electing Albright as the General Superintendent or Bishop, also imposed on him the task of formulating a discipline, or manual, to contain arti-
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cles of faith, rules of government, baptismal, marriage, sacra- mental, ordination, burial and other formularies.
Several things contributed to frustrate the action of the Conference, that the founder himself furnish such a work. The first was his rapidly declinig health, and the second was the uncertainty of the movement remaining independent, since it never was the intention of Albright to form a distinct denomina- tion, if the evangelization of the Germans could otherwise be ac- complished. Of this there is abundant proof. We have al- ready noted that Albright considered it his duty to confine his labors to the German element. This special mission idea, he infused into his co-workers, and proved to be the obstacle in the way of organic union with the Methodists, as Bishop Asbury re- fused to recognize any nativistic division. The folly of the good bishop is seen in the fact that his church, many years afterward, organized a German department, and in 1871, at the Naperville General Conference, invited the Albright Corpus to unite with the Methodist, giving assurances that none of the distinctiveness which formerly stood in the way of union, need be sacrificed.
Asbury had succeeded in attracting to his ministry a num- ber of Pennsylvania Germans. Among them the talented Henry Boehim, son of Bishop Martin Boehm, of the Otterbein move- ment. These men doubtless impressed Asbury with the neces- sity of giving the Germans something representative of Meth- odism. Asbury accordingly gave permission to Boehm, to pub- lish the Methodist Discipline into the German language. The translation was made by Dr. Roemer, of Middletown, and made its appearance in 1808, the year in which Albright died.
Rev. Geo. Miller, Albright's successor, having been com- missioned with the work of preparing a Discipline, proceeded to do so by appropriating about three-fourths of his materials from this newly published Methodist book. Of this first Discipline which Miller published in 1809, after the Evangelical body had endorsed the manuscript, we find that the entire confession of faith, consisting of twenty-one articles, save one, are taken bodily from the Methodist creed, with hardly half a dozen words changed to improve the sense.
The baptismal, communion, marriage and burial rituals, are all taken from the Methodist book. In 1817, Dreisbach and Niebel, by direction of the first General Conference, improved the
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Discipline, but the articles of faith and formulas mentioned, were left practically unchanged. A comparison of the Methodist Dis- cipline of 1808, and the Evangelical of 1817, shows that the creed in the former, contains twenty-five articles, while that of the Evangelical has twenty-one. The first ten articles of the Meth- odist creed, the Evangelicals took bodily in their regular order, merely changing a few words, without altering the sense. On the whole, sixteen articles were taken bodily, five which pertain to old Romish practices were thrown out as irrelevant. All the rest are taken substantially, and almost verbally, save that a few irrelevant paragraphs are lopped off without effecting the doctrine taught. The only new article the Evangelicals added, was their twenty-first, treating of the general resurrection and judgment. The Methodist creed having no such article.
From this it might seem that the Evangelicals were sim- ply Methodists under a different name. As a matter of fact this view has obtained generally, and hence the Albright denomina- tions are grouped in the Methodist family by writers. A closer investigation however, discloses the fallacy of this view. The Evangelicals simply appropriated for their own use what the Methodists themselves had bodily taken. Let us give the facts : When England broke away from Catholicism the Anglican Church, in 1553, adopted a Confession of Faith, consisting of forty-one articles, which were later reduced to thirty-nine, and since 1562 has remained unaltered, and together with the book of common prayer has been the test of orthodoxy for all Anglican Protestants. It is probable that more men of learning and emi- nence, have stood on this formulary than any other ever drawn up by man, and it is worthy of note that the great Puritanic and other English religious revolutions were not directed against the Creed, as such, but against the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy of the Anglican Church which sought to dominate private conscience, and compel submission to outward forms. "The thirty-nine articles," as the creed was called, was undoubtedly the strongest creed of the Reformation, and belongs to the Reformed group of confessions. It was represented by some of the ablest men of England at the great Synod of Dort, in 1618-1619, when a com- munity of faith was established for all the Reformed bodies of Protestantism.
Rev. John Wesley, as said, sought not to reform the creed,
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but the life of the people, and his followers in his day were simply so to speak, Methodist Episcopalians. Wesley lived and died as a Presbyter of the Church of England, as also most of his high ministerial co-laborers. The movement was early plant- ed in America by Wesleyan lay ministers, and eventually as- sumed a denominational form.
In 1784 Wesley commissioned Dr. Thomas Coke, one of his co-workers, and who was also a Presbyter of the Church of Eng- land, to come to America and properly organize the work and im- part Episcopal ordination to Asbury, who had for several years already served as Superintendent of the work. Wesley also pre- pared a manual, or discipline, for the American Methodists, which is practically nothing but an abridgment of the Book of Common Prayer, of the mother Episcopal Church. Of the twenty- five articles of faith which his manual contains, all were taken without verbal change from the Anglican creed except the 23d, which relates to the recognition of the American government, and which was drawn up by Wesley. The baptismal, commu- nion, marriage, and burial services, Wesley took bodily from the Book of Common Prayer, which for nearly three hundred year's has been the doctrinal and devotional summarium of the Anglican Church. And all this was simply adopted by our Evangelical fathers. Without wounding Methodist susceptibil- ities we may therefore truthfully say, we owe that Church noth- ing for our creed except the 23d article, relating to the American government. The creed of our Evangelical fathers was the same old impregnable castle of Reformation times. Her foundation stones cut from the quarry of God's Eternal Truth, have stood the test of opposition for nearly 350 years, and she stands out in the articles of faith of our Evangelical fathers, in all her solemn and magnificent grandeur.
Albright's Standing as a Minister.
In this connection we may properly examine the mooted question of Albright's ordination. We are often asked, why he did not apply to an established ecclesiastical body for ordination instead of at the hands of his lay followers. As there are no records on this subject, our answer must be hypothetical, but we hope, none the less convincing.
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We have already said that Albright was very strict and methodical, and we believe powerful reasons led him to resort to this primitive method of ordination. From a careful study of the entire situation, we have arrived at the conclusion that his- course, in this respect, was the only one he could consistently take for the following reasons : There were three possible sources of official ordination open to Albright. First, The old German churches from which he and his people sprang. It is plain that the very character of his work, which was a protest against the church life of these bodies, precluded recognition from that source. Secondly, There was the Otterbein movement. Otterbein having been ordained in Germany was competent to impart the so-called "Apostolic succession" to his following.
As a matter of fact, as herein shown, the United Brethren movement, of which Otterbein was the head, was in the hands of lay evangelists, just like that of the Methodist, and Otter- bein imparted no ordination until October 2, 1813, when he or- dained three men, one of whom, Christian Newcommer, had preached over twenty years, and had already been elected Bishop in the month of May previous. Then too, there were vital doc- trinal differences. Otterbein and his following at their first con- ference in 1789, adopted a sort of creed consisting of only five articles, in which the sacraments were practically ignored. At the end of the creed is simply an addenda, recommending the practice of baptism as a sign, the Lord's Supper as commem- orative, and feet washing as an example, and hence the impro- priety of seeking ordination from this source.
The third, and logical source, was the newly formed Metho- dist Church, of which Albright had been a member, and an of- ficial evangelist. No question of doctrine or polity here stood in the way. Why then was not Albright ordained in the church of which he was a member, and on the creed and polity of which he worked? Here is a missing link which can only be supplied by inference.
In our opinion, Nativism, proved to be the obstacle, as it also constituted the barrier in later years to a union with that church. Albright was German, Bishop Asbury, the head of the Methodist Church, was from England, and came as the personal representative of the founder, John Wesley. Albright and his
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people believed they had a special mission to evangelize the Germans. Asbury could recognize no nativism in his body. It therefore follows logically, that Albright could not consistently expect ordination from a source which ignored his distinctive mission, and he therefore appealed directly to his own followers to give a standing to his ministry.
An examination of this ordination now seems pertinent. Was it legitimate? If not, then the ordination of over 3,000 Evangelical ministers has been invalid, and we have no right to exercise the holy office of the ministry. This legitimacy hinges on the necessity of the so-called "Apostolic succession" of or- dination which in other words means that Apostolic succession has been transmitted in an unbroken chain from the Apostolic Church to the present time. An examination of this subject shows that in proportion as churches grow formal and ritualistic, they also insist on this so-called "Apostolic succession" as a sine qua non, to a legitimate ministry.
Just the reverse is true of the "low church," or Evangelical wing of Protestantism. Low church cultus, has always fostered lay evangelism as is seen in the German Pietistic movement and the Wesleyan Anglican Reformation, as well as the evangelistic movements of the present time in which ritualistic churches do not participate. The high church cultus considers lay evangelism an irregularity, and hence the interdictions and persecutions of a century or more ago.
Furthermore, low church cultus has never placed any cre- dence in Apostolic succession as an established fact of history. It has been repeatedly and unanswerably shown that "Apostolic succession" is a myth, and even though the line of succession could be proven, there are character links such as Popes and Bishops, whose hands were imbrued in the blood of dissenting saints, and steeped in unspeakable crimes, that would make such an ordination repugnant to all good men. The Anglican Church, on whose formularies the Albright body was founded, has ever been the strictest to uphold the "Apostolic succession" tradition, and yet some of her ablest representatives have been the loud- est in its denunciation. Among this number we may mention Bishop Stillingfleet, one of the best expositors of the Anglican polity. John Wesley, too, dissented strongly from this succes-
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sional tradition, as he says "The uninterrupted succession I know to be a fable which no man ever did, or can prove." *
Albright's ordination therefore, is legitimate or illigitimate as it may be viewed from either a high church or low church standpoint.' We have already shown that Albright was granted exhorter's license by a Methodist quarterly conference. This office was then a quasi or sub-ministerial office. In the Otter- bein, or United Brethren movement, exhorters were licensed by the annual conference for many years, and in both the Methodist and Otterbein work they were practically local evangelists. In view of these facts which anyone can read for himself in the histories of 'these movements, it is clear that Albright's position as an evangelist up to 1803, was a proper one according to a low church standard. In 1803, occurred Albright's ordination at the hands of an assembly of his own creation-Was this proper? It is a principle of American jurisprudence, founded on natural equity, and embodied in the Declaration of Independence and United States Constitution, that all law and government resides in, and must eminate from the sovereign will of the people. This identical principle on which the American Republic was founded, was always maintained by the Protestant Reformers in respect to faith as opposed to the Papal doctrine of the bind- ing character of ecclesiastical decrees.
In the Otterbein, or United Brethren movement, nearly all the ministers were laymen for the first twenty-five years, and even Bishop Christian Newcommer, the successor of Otterbein, as we have seen, preached over twenty-five years, and was elected Bishop five months before he was ordained as a minister by Otterbein, on Oct. 2, 1813.
It is moreover a fact, that for many years, a certain num- ber of United Brethren ministers were authorized to administer the ordinances, not by right of ordination, but by resolution of the conference composed almost wholly of unordained men.t
Turning from the Otterbein, to the Wesleyan movement, we find that nearly all of Wesley's co-workers were lay evangelists,
*McClintic and Strong Ency., Vol. ii, p. 234. Ibid, Article "Wesley," p. 170.
tSee Berger's History of the U. B. Church, pp. 171-195, 219, 222, etc.
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EVANGELICI SCHOOL OF THEO!
or local preachers. as they were afterwards called. The move- ment spread to the United States, and in 1768 they built their first chapel in New York City, from which the work then spread into adjoining colonies, and was for 15 years wholly in the hands of lay evangelists. In 1771 Wesley sent to America Francis As- bury, a young man who began as an evangelist at the age of six- teen years. Asbury, too, was unordained, and soon after his ar- rival became the general superintendent of the entire work.
In 1784, Wesley sent Dr. Coke to America, as we have seen, to effect an organization of the Methodist movement, he also gave this body a doctrinal basis taken from the mother Episcopal Church, Coke also imparted ordination to Asbury, first as a deacon, next day as elder, and then confirmed him in his office as Bishop, an office which he had already, defacto, exercised for many years. *
We give these germinal facts concerning the early Methodist and United Brethren pioneers, not in a derogatory or disapprov- ing sense, but as indicating the exact spirit of the great evan- gelistic movements of Albright's times, and the status of his ordination.
Furthermore, it is worthy of record that after having re- ceived ordination at the hands of a consistory of his own follow- ers, Albright in turn imparted ordination to his co-workers, which has been transmitted to over three thousand men, whose able work in the Gospel ministry is the best evidence that their calling is of God, and bears the seal of the Divine approval.
Casually, too, we may add, the Albright ordination is now generally recognized by all Protestant denominations of America, except by the Episcopal, on whose creed his church was planted, and this for the lack of the mythical "Apostolic succession" which Stillingfleet, one of her own highest authorities has char- acterized "as muddy as the Tiber itself."-P. This leads us to consider the world-wide effects of Albright's labors. The school boy who throws a pebble into a mill pond and watches the waves in graceful circles, spread from the centre, and widen in suc- cessive undulations until they spend themselves upon the shore, sees in minature what we see to-day in Albright's work.
The influence of Albright's mission on the life of mankind,
*Asbury's Journal, Vol. ii, p. 378.
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is like a pebble cast by the hand of Providence into the sea of time. Its waves roll in widening circles, and will not cease their vibrations until they have spent themselves on the shores of Eternity, where all human action shall be finally weighed in God's righteous balance. We even now see these waves beating the shores of the four quarters of the globe: First, America; next, Europe; then Asia, and lastly, thank God, "Darkest Af- rica," and "the Isles of the Sea." But these far reaching activ- ities are not the only visible result.
Turning from the field of evangelism to that of education and literature, we see additional Evangelical agencies which exert a potent and permanent influence on Christian life and character. Flourishing institutions of learning loom up in statelier grandeur than the towering Pharos of old, and shed their radiant beams far across the dark waters of time.
We point with pride to Albright College, and Schuylkill Seminary, in the East, to Northwestern and Western Union Col- leges, in the West, and Dallas College on the Pacific slope, and the institutions at Reutlingen in Germany, and Tokio in Japan, as an effectual reputation to the oft repeated libel that the Evangelicals are simply an "Association" of ignorant and fa- natical people, devoid of high ecclesiastical standards. To the schools we may add the great Evangelical Publishing Houses, with their mighty presses, which send their literature of the high- est standard of excellency, all over the land. It remained for the spiritual sons of Albright to launch the first permanent German denominational periodical in America, and this organ, "Der Christlicher Botschafter," has grown to be the most powerful German denominational periodical in the world. The Evangel- ical Messenger," brother to the Botschafter, is not far behind. To these must be added the Evangelische Zeitschrift and the Evangelical, of the United Evangelical Church, together with the many Sunday-school, Missionary and other periodicals of both bodies, all of which are most ably edited, and constitute an in- fluence of world wide potency. Finally in this connection, the influence of Albright's work reverberates on the atmosphere of every Christian land in the melody of song. Over a half a cen- tury ago Mother Ruthanna Vallerschamp, the gifted wife of an Evangelical itinerant, gave to the world anonymously, the beauti- ful hymn, "The Gospel Ship is Sailing," which was set to music
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