number of Baptist ministers who could in any way approach him in argumentative power or in ability to sway the mass of the people was very small.

...

Bitter opposition, however, was not confined to the Presbyterians and Baptists alone. It was shown by other religious bodies, and especially by the Methodists. Peter Cartwright, one of the famous Methodist ministers of early days, was very radical against the Disciples, "Christians,' Lights," which terms he used as synonymous. Thus or "New he wrote:

"Soon the Shaker priests came along, and off went McNemar, Dunlevy, and Huston into that foolish error. Marshall and others retraced their steps. B. W. Stone stuck to his New Lightism, and fought many bloodless battles, till he grew old and feeble, and the mighty Alexander Campbell, the great, arose and poured such floods of water about the old man's cranium, that he formed a union with this giant errorist, and finally died, not much lamented out of the circle of a few friends. And this is the way with all the New Lights, in the government, morals, and discipline of the church.

"This Christian, or New Light Church, is a feeble and scattered people, though there are some good Christians

among them.

38

Out in Illinois, Cartwright, after a very heavy rain, had this conversation with a "New Light" preacher named Roads. The circuit rider recorded the exchange of words thus:

37 A History of the Baptist Churches in the United States, 489. 38 Autobiography of Peter Cartwright, 32, 33.

14

"""Good morning, Sir.

'Good morning,' he replied.

Said I, 'We have had a tremendous rain.’

'Yes, sir,' said he, 'the Lord sent that rain to convince you of your error.'

'Ah,' said I, 'what error?'

'Why, about baptism. The Lord sent this flood to convince you that much water was necessary.'

'Very good, sir,' said I; and he in like manner sent this flood to convince you of your error.'

'What error?' said he.

'Why,' said I, 'to show you that water comes by pouring and not by immersion.' '' 80

Soon after this conversation, Roads moved away, whereupon Cartwright remarked, "His New Light went out because there was 'no oil in the vessel.' '' 40 Other Methodist writers, besides Cartwright, were particularly irritated by the question of baptism. James Shaw, another one of their ministers, writing in 1867, after treating the Roman Catholic, the Unitarian, and Universalist churches as unevangelical, continued:

"Swedenborgians, Tunkers, Shakers, Winebrennerians, Christians and Campbellites form the completion of the minor unevangelical sects, most of whom are immersionists in their views of baptism. The largest of these sects is the last mentioned. They are the followers of the late Alexander Campbell, an Irishman by birth, a Presbyterian minister in his younger days, a Baptist after, and lastly the founder of a sect who are numerous in the west. Mr. Campbell was a fine scholar, an eloquent controversialist, and a voluminous

Autobiography of Peter Cartwright, 251.

40 Ibid., 251.

writer. He died a year ago. His followers first assumed the name of Reformers, then Disciples, now Christians, and by others are known as Campbellites. Mr. Campbell and his followers made an earnest attack on the leading doctrines and institutions of the churches, and in their stead offered to the people salvation through immersion. He ridiculed the necessity of a change of heart, or the profession of the forgiveness of sins in any other way than by baptism. So easy a form of religion soon took hold of the indifferent and the irreligious; the system became popular, and thousands left the Baptist church, and some the Presbyterians and others to join it, so that the denomination is made up of nearly all kinds of isms-Unitarians, Universalists, and the apostates from other churches the only bond of unity among them being baptism for the remission of sins. This denomination is feeling the outside pressure of the evangelical churches around them, and as a consequence, they are becoming more evangelical themselves. They are at present in a transition state, and probably will, ere long, merge into the Baptist church from whence they came, or, being evangelized in spirit and doctrine become useful in society; otherwise they are destined to melt away. Whenever the piety and zeal of evangelical churches become low and lukewarm, then the unevangelical prosper; and as soon as the orthodox are revived and flourish, the others die and perish.''

9941

In a more bitter attack later on, Shaw wrote:

"In and around this town [Niantic, apparently in the Decatur circuit] there was a large number of Campbellites, a sect to whom I referred in Chapter X, on the American churches. They viewed with jealousy the encroachments of the Methodists. As they are generally fond of controversy, and their preachers flippant proclaimers of the Gospel in Water, their sermons are a strange medley of all sorts of stuff about Salvation by immersion. Their style that of

Twelve Years in America, 164, 165.

an auctioneer, reserving their wit and railing for other churches, and their praises for their own. Bible, missionary societies, Sunday-schools, and colleges, received their loudest denunciations. Things the most sacred they ridiculed, and institutions the most solemn they reviled. The Sabbath they disregarded; the forgiveness of sins, a change of heart, they laughed at, unless what was connected with immersion. The Divinity of Christ they did not generally believe in; the Personality and operation of the Holy Spirit they scoffed at. They were literally immersed infidels, having little of the form or power of godliness. Where evangelical churches were cold and lukewarm, these prospered; but when alive and earnest, the Campbellites sank to their coverts by the waters.''

In addition to doctrinal differences and the numerical losses of other bodies, there were further reasons for opposition, especially of the ministers. Alexander Campbell was a radical iconoclast. At first he opposed a paid clergy, and his attacks on the salaried preachers were exceptionally bitter. At the close of his debate with Walker, June 19, 20, 1820, he said:

"You have heard and patiently attended to this tedious debate. What are you now to do? I will answer this question for you: Go home and read your Bibles; examine the testimonies of those holy oracles; judge for yourselves, and be not implicit followers of the clergy. Amongst the clergy of different denominations, I charitably think, there are a few good men; but, as a body of men, they have taken away the key of knowledge from the people. And how, do you say. By teaching you to look to them for, instruction as children to a father; by preventing you from judging for yourselves,

42 Twelve Years in America, 294.

through an impression that you are not competent to judge for yourselves. This is the prevailing opinion with many. I do not say that all the clergy are doing so, but I am sure that a vast majority of them are doing so.'' 43

...

When the Christian Baptist was founded, three years later, the attacks became much stronger. The articles on the Clergy" deservedly aroused intense opposition and served to explain, if not entirely justify, some of the bitter things said of the Reformers. In the introduction, "The Origin of the Christian Clergy, Splendid Meeting Houses, and Fixed Salaries, Exhibited from Ecclesiastical History," Campbell repeated a statement made about seven years earlier, and gave his object thus:

"The present popular exhibition of the Christian religion is a compound of judaism, heathen philosophy and Christianity.' From this unhallowed commixture sprang all political ecclesiastical establishments, a distinct order of men called clergy or priests, magnificent edifices as places of worship, tithes or fixed salaries, religious festivals, holy places and times, the Christian circumcision, the Christian passover, the Christian Sabbaths, etc., etc. These things we hope to exhibit at full length in due time.'' 45

He concluded his first article as follows:

"In the meantime, we conclude that one of those means used to exalt the clergy to dominion over the faith, over the conscience, and over the persons of men, by teaching the people to consider them as specially called and moved by the

43 Richardson, R. Memoirs of Alexander Campbell, II., 27. August 3, 1823; October 6, 1823; November 3, 1823; December 1, 1823; January 5, 1824; February 2, 1824.

45 The Christian Baptist, August 3, 1828.