A NOVEL ON CAMPBELL’S LIFE

In our book review for this issue of the quarterly Carl Ketcherside and I inadvertently reviewed the same book. Due to the importance of this novel on Campbell’s life, I thought it well to go on and publish both reviews so that the readers might have the verdict of two men. Carl tells me be stayed up half the night reading this book (he told his wife he would not dare go to bed and leave any brother of his in a cold jail in Scotland), so it is nothing but right that our readers should have opportunity to share his enthusiasm—and to see if he got his brother out of jail!—the Editor

The Fool of God by Louis Cochran. Duell, Sloan and Pearce, New York, 1958. $4.95.

In another seven years we will come to the century mark since the death of Alexander Campbell, and we have gone all these years without an historical novel of one of the noblest and most remarkable leaders of early America. Professor Perry Miller of Harvard once told me that he thought historians had neglected Campbell, and that he believed that Campbell should be given credit as a great frontiersman who helped to shape the pattern of early American life. The Harvard historian observed that while the Disciples had adequately emphasized Campbell’s religious significance, he is nevertheless neglected by the scholars in general as a cultural and educational leader in America’s frontier life.

This vacuum is partly filled by this absorbing historical novel by Mr. Cochran, who is respected in literary circles for such works as Boss Man, Black Earth and Hallelujah Mississippi. It is gratifying that a novel on Campbell’s life is authored by a significant novelist and biographer and that it is published by a non-sectarian publishing house.

Mr. Cochran has done a pain-staking job in this biographical study. He gathered materials for fifteen years and spent three years in writing. He visited every principal locality frequented by Campbell, who was an incessant and enthusiastic traveler. He did research in many libraries, court houses, newspaper files, and historical societies both in this country and abroad. He talked personally with the three living grandchildren of Alexander Campbell, one of whom has since died. He worked with Boyd B. Stutler, who was the first to establish a link between John Brown the abolitionist and Alexander Campbell the reformer. He spent a summer at Bethany going through the Campbelliana at the college and exploring the countryside that gave birth to the Restoration Movement.

Since Cochran is so adept at characterization he makes some of the lesser known associates take on, new importance. There is Charlie Poole, a slave that Campbell set free and put on a pension long before the Civil War, who thirty years later attended Campbell’s funeral. It is a gripping scene with the former slave standing at the graveside of the man who freed him and supported him because of the love of God, while most other slaves had been liberated only after the cruel Civil War, which had recently ended.

Then there is William Pendleton who was twice Campbell’s son-in-law, whom Cochran makes a sounding-board for Campbell’s audible thinking. When the organization of a national convention was in question, Cochran has Campbell say to Pendleton: “Just because there is no New Testament authority for such an organization does not mean we are acting in an unscriptural manner. I am beginning to realize, William, that to ask for a positive precept for everything in the details of the church is as irrational as to ask for a uniform standard of apparel for all persons in the church.”

The two wives of Campbell will both endear themselves to the reader. Margaret is the beautiful daughter of a well-to-do Virginia farmer, who first saw Alexander as he walked out the pathway to her door to deliver some books to her father. Cochran draws upon historical fact when he has her say, “Lord, that’s my man! Cochran characterizes her as pretty and playful. She serves as a balance wheel to the impetuous and proud Alexander, who has considerable trouble with his own sense of power when a young man. It was Margaret who persuaded Alexander that he should accept her father’s offer of moving in with the Brown family and working on the farm. Alexander lad resolved that he would never accept money for preaching, and that he wanted to pursue the life of both a preacher and a family man. What was he to do? He could see that Mr. Brown’s offer was the answer to his problem once he brought his pride under control. Eventually Mr. Brown, who had but the one child, gave the farm to Alexander and Margaret and moved to nearby Wellsburg to open a store. Alexander proved to be an enterprising farmer and was soon the largest wool producer in Virginia and one of the largest land owners. Some of the ministers resented Campbell’s chiding them as “stall fed clergy” when he himself was one of the richest men in Virginia.

Margaret’s wit and wisdom helped to check the pride of her influential husband. When he proudly told her that his views had penetrated into the Western Reserve, she remonstrated: “Your views or God’s truth?” But Margaret was sickly and was destined to go to an early grave, She bore Campbell eight children, all of whom died before Campbell himself passed on. Tuberculosis was one of America’s worst enemies in that day and it certainly decimated the Campbell family. The reader is gratified that Margaret was able to make a thrilling trip to the South with her husband before she died, which included three weeks in Nashville. Campbell was forty years old and a famous man when Margaret died. She herself once suggested to Alexander that if he ever needed another wife he could do no better than to select her dear friend, Selina Bakewell, who had often been in the Campbell home and whom Campbell himself immersed into Christ.

Selina was so different from Margaret and yet an equal blessing. Margaret was witty and playful while Selina was serious and straight-laced. She lived in the shadow of an avenging God and conducted her home with the austerity of a pioneering Puritan. When they were once in New York, Alexander suggested that they hear Jenny Lind, the nightingale of Sweden, who was captivating America at that time. But this was too worldly for Selina, who chose to go to the Fair instead. On another occasion she supposed it would not be a sin to visit the White House, so she and Alexander enjoyed a thirty minute conversation with President Buchanan, who had heard Campbell preach the day before. Selina’s temperament was such a contrast to Margaret’s that ole faithful Holly, the Negro cook who had served as midwife to Margaret, confided to Alexander that she was not happy with Selina and wanted to move to Wellsburg and work for the Brown family. Holly was a wedding present to Margaret from her father. Campbell freed her and put her on a pension. These precious moments in the life of Campbell make Cochran’s book an absorbing one.

Selina, who was not so charming as Margaret (Cochran says she was “almost pretty” in the moonlight!), mellows with the years and her aloofness gradually transforms into one of the warmest personalities of the book. She is not only a loving mother to Margaret’s sickly children, but she bears six of her own, naming one of them Margaret in honor of her husband’s first wife and her own dear friend. She encourages Campbell to take his long, arduous journeys that kept him away from home months at a time. She gave birth to children and buried others while Alexander was far away preaching the gospel. The reader is almost moved to tears when Alexander presents her with the first copy of his volume of addresses, which he dedicated to her for her loyalty. Her misty eyes reveal that she is visibly moved by the surprise and says, “I’ve tried to be a good wife. I love you, Mr. Campbell. I’ve loved you since the first time I heard you preach in Wellsburg. My goodness me, that’s been forty years ago!” And then she added as she ran her fingers over the printed lines of the dedication: “And all these years I’ve felt I was living in Margaret’s shadow!”

The characterization of Thomas Campbell, his father, is also excellent. When Alexander received word from “Racoon” John Smith that the Disciples and Stonites were uniting, he sent a servant after father Thomas. He and Alexander discussed the significance of the new development for hours. Thomas would team up with Margaret in an effort to check the impulsiveness of the militant, youthful Alexander.

Cochran knows Alexander Campbell. He vividly portrays him as a man of sorrows, grieved as much over the strife that led to the Civil War as the deaths in his family. He was acquainted with grief and knew well the pale rider of death that so often visited his home. Perhaps the greatest shock of his life was the drowning of his twelve year old son, Wycliffe, the most promising of his children, a lad who had memorized the entire book of Proverbs and who had imbibed the spirituality of his father. This tragedy was even more penetrating since it took place while Campbell was in Europe, where incidentally he had many trying experiences, including ten days in jail and a siege of illness that followed. Campbell was a persecuted man. Three times his enemies charged him with libel, but he felt in each case the real reason was animosity aroused by his opposition to sectarianism. Ostensibly he was jailed in Scotland because of a libel charge growing out of his views on slavery, but Cochran shows that it was an unholy effort to discredit Campbell’s plea for Restoration. He became almost immune to the cruel sting of death. After one of his many trips to “God’s Acre,” the family cemetery, he replied to a question about death by turning and looking back at the many graves of his own children and saying, “Death? There is no such thing as death.”

Our author does his best work in revealing the complex character of Campbell He was a willful man, filled with conviction, and consumed by a great cause. He was austere, sometimes even caustic, and yet as meek as a Iamb and a lonely solitary figure. He was a man of many contradictions. Though he passed through the many changes in conviction that goes with intellectual maturity, he sought to be consistent with the Alexander Campbell of yesteryear. Cochran calls him “a strange complex man,” one that his closest friends never really understood.

The book is exciting also because of its setting. The reader comes to feel the atmosphere of the Virginia hills that cradled the Restoration Movement. He is introduced to Campbell the editor and preacher, and Campbell the college president, Campbell the postmaster, and Campbell the statesman. He sees towns rise and receive their names, Campbell himself naming Bethany. He sees the early American stagecoach and later the steamers, not to mention the 300 mile journeys that Campbell made on horseback. Campbell is a great traveler for his times, perhaps as itinerant as any man of his day. The times bristle with interesting people. Campbell encounters John Randolph, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and John Marshall in the state constitutional convention; meets Jefferson Davis, Daniel Webster, and Stephen Douglas in the halls of congress; entertains Henry Clay in his home and collaborates with him in the cause of abolition in Kentucky. Campbell educated the nephews of Jeff Davis, one of them being accidentally killed while at Bethany. Campbell talks about Lincoln, pointing out that his father was in the Restoration Movement.

Above all Campbell was a reformer. Cochran takes us behind the scenes of the Purcell, Owen, and Rice debates. The novelist concludes that Campbell was displeased with the Rice encounter due to its sectarian spirit, and he feels this experience modulated Campbell’s belligerency, and that he was henceforth more tolerant toward sectarian differences. It was upon his return from the Rice debate that he wrote his answer to the now famous Lunenburg letter. This may be the most significant conclusion Cochran reaches in regards to an interpretation of the man.

The readers of this book will look for more on Campbell from the pen of Mr. Cochran, for his fifteen years of research into Campbelliana has no doubt made him the best informed person on the life of Alexander Campbell.

 —Leroy Garrett

KETCHERSIDE’S REVIEW OF
THE FOOL OF GOD

This book, a novel based on the life of Alexander Campbell, is the eighth volume by Louis Cochran, and was produced after fifteen years of extensive research. It is a thrilling story, filled with authentic background material, and is a valuable contribution to the study of pioneer Americans. The author says, in his preliminary note: “In its essentials this is a factual book. Every event actually occurred, or had its basis in solid fact; each person lived, and played his role much as is related here. The story does not presume to be a study of Campbell’s religious thinking, or an account of the movement to re-establish Christian unity by the elimination of human creeds and the restoration of New Testament Christianity. It is rather, the portrait of a man whose heart embraced all Christians as brothers; whose mind was open to all truth; whose eyes had seen the vision of the coming of one church.”

The average reader will be amazed at the close acquaintance of Campbell with historic figures. He knew intimately Henry Clay, President Buchanan, ex-presidents James Madison and James Monroe, Chief Justice Marshall, et. al., and was respected by them. The family of Jefferson Davis came under the influence of the restoration movement. Thomas Lincoln, father of Abraham Lincoln, was a member of the congregation at Charleston, Illinois. Of special interest is the connection with John Brown, radical Abolitionist, who seized Harper’s Ferry, and was later hanged.

The family life at Bethany is described in fascinating detail, with sunshine and shadow faithfully depicted. The loss of his first wife, and all the children she bore him, by the dread killer, consumption; and the drowning of his son, Wycliffe, while the father was on a foreign preaching tour, these make the tears start as you envision the trust and faith which made it possible for Campbell to keep going despite the chastening hand of sorrow. The author portrays him as a man of ambition, tempted by pride and aspiration to leadership, against which he was forced to fight with all his will. A master of sarcasm and ridicule, some of his earlier writings created a furore, much to the dislike of his father, who was of gender temperament.

There were great moments in the life of Campbell, and the author handles these crises with befitting candor. The sensation caused by his sermon on the law, the sense of frustration while he was a member of the Virginia Constitutional Convention, and the account of each of his major debates, will be of more than passing interest. The reader will learn much about the conditions which led to starting the periodicals, The Christian Baptist, and Millennial Harbinger, and the establishment of Bethany College and the Christian Missionary Society.

This reviewer believes the book has come at an opportune time in God’s program for our generation. The term “restoration” is heard more frequently now than at any time for the last seventy-five years, and once more the theme of “the unity of all believers” challenges the thinking of dedicated men who are convinced that sectarianism thwarts the divine plan and the party spirit is a work of the flesh. The factions and fragments of the disciple brotherhood need to recapture the dream which drove the pioneers with such inner compulsion. We need to sense again that we are tools of God and instruments of destiny.

It will become apparent how far The System, which today equates itself with the New Testament church, has drifted from its moorings. Its unwritten creeds, humanly devised tests of fellowship, intolerant legalistic attitude, and exaltation of opinions, have fractured and shattered its constituency into so many hostile parties, that the plea for “unity of believers” has degenerated into a weak attempt of each splinter parry to proselyte from the others, no one else being regarded as a child of God. It will do these partisans good to read the following words of Alexander Campbell, as quoted in the Book:

“I was once so straight that, like the Indian’s tree, I leaned the other way. I was once so strict a Separatist that I would neither pray nor sing praises with anyone who was not as perfect as I supposed myself to be. In this most unpopular course I persisted until I discovered the mistake and saw that on the principle embraced in my conduct there never could be a congregation or church upon earth. This plan of making our own nest and fluttering over our own brood; of building our own tent and of confining all goodness and grace to our noble selves and the elect few who are like us, is the quintessence of sublimated pharisaism.” —W. Carl Ketcherside

HISTORY AND THE BIBLE

The Bible As History, Werner Keller, W. Morrow Pub. Co., New York, 1956, $5.95.

This is a profound and scholarly work which should be read closely. It would appear that the author has done a masterful job of corroborating the Bible with history. Biblical accounts that many of us would interpret as miraculous and supernatural, such as the Story of Moses and the burning bush, the crossing of the Red Sea, the manna that fell from heaven, are explained by Mr. Keller as natural occurrences. The burning bush was no more than a mistletoe in full bloom, while the manna was merely a resinous exudation from the tamarisk trees caused by plant lice. The crossing of the Red Sea is explained as being the “Reed Sea,” a shallow body of water that is easily forded. But Mr. Keller did not explain how Pharaoh’s forces were swallowed up in this shallow stream!

Moses produces water out of a porous limestone rock as anyone could have done, not by any miraculous power. The author seems consistently eager for “natural” explanations, which are harder to accept than the miracles themselves. While this will disappoint many of our readers who believe in the supernatural origin of the Bible, it is nonetheless true that Mr. Keller has given us a book that will greatly enhance our appreciation for the Bible as a book of history.

He shows us, for instance, how Hezekiah’s conduit was discovered after nearly 3,000 years, thus confirming the Biblical account. He also tells the Story of the finding of copper mines, which substantiates the Biblical account of Palestine: “The Lord thy God bringeth thee into a land whose stones are iron and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass” (Dt. 8:7,9). The diggers have turned up blast furnaces used by King Solomon.

In other chapters Mr. Keller tells about ancient Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon, explaining the biblical references to the history of these mighty empires. References to the bondage of the children of Israel have been found among the inscriptions of old Egypt. In the ruins of the old Assyrian empire a mass grave of some 2,000 soldiers has been found, which are believed to be from the army of Sennacherib mentioned in Isaiah 37. Babylon has been resurrected and Nebuchadnezzar has been confirmed as one of the greatest builders of history, which agrees with Daniel 4:30. —Eliot Williams

Rabbinic Stories for Christian Ministers and Teachers, William B. Silverman. Abingdon Press, New York, 1958. $3.50.

This volume, written by an outstanding rabbi, contains stories, homilies, legends, and interpretations from rabbinic literature—the type of material that Jesus studied in his early life. In the Introduction Halford Luccock says, “Rabbi Silverman brings forth fascinating stories from some of the world’s richest collections. Indeed there is nothing in world literature to compare with them. And as they say solemnly over TV, ‘It is a live presentation.’ Very live! And ‘in living color’—the color of life.”

One will find such rabbinic wisdom as, “Everyone must have two pockets, so that he can reach into the one or the other according to his need. In his right pocket are the words, “For my sake the world was created,” and in the other, “I am earth and ashes.”—Leroy Garrett

The Spreading Flame, F. F. Bruce. London: Paternoster Press, 1958, $3.00.

If you are interested in a one-volume church history that is excellently done, I would suggest this one. Not only is Bruce a scholar of first rank, but this particular work treats the rise and progress of Christianity to the conversion of the English in 597 AD. Splendid use is made of primary sources and the story of the early church is vividly told.

The publishers say of this work: “Professor Bruce here presents some thing much more than mere history; he follows the course of the Spirit of Christ kindling in men’s souls an in extinguishable blaze that spread over the face of the earth. It is the story of the shame and glory of the lowly Nazarenes, repudiated alike by an arrogant Pharaisaism and a hostile Gentile world; the story of the Kingdom of God advancing on an earthly city that itself claimed to be eternal, and eventually mounting the very throne of the Caesars. So across Europe to Britain, where the Scots, the Irish, and finally the English, took up the torch which they were eventually to carry to the uttermost parts of the earth.”—Leroy Garrett

TOOLS OF THOUGHT

A New Testament Wordbook and More New Testament Words, William Barclay, Harper & Brothers, New York, $2.50 each.

The desire to learn is the most important attribute a student can have. Pertinent and profitable material from which to learn is next in importance. Pertinent and profitable material in that it treats of the subject you are interested in and is profitable to you and those who hear you. The difference between people very often is, that those who stand out have communed with the great. I have heard the editor of Mission Messenger say that all men know is between bookends. What does all this mean to you and me? It means this, that you and I too can commune with the great—through books. It means that a good library is invaluable to students of all ages as a source of material from which to broaden our knowledge.

Barclay’s New Testament Word Books would be worthy additions to your library. They are deserving of the things we have intimated above. He treats of Greek words, but no knowledge of Greek is necessary. He brings forth untranslatable riches of great NT words by taking us into the mind of the people of NT times. We live with them, and become one of them. Involuntarily we give to these words the sense which they had in the age when the NT was being written. Their ideas be come our ideas; we understand the words agreeable to the degree of knowledge possessed in that age. The religions professed by them, and the sacred and civil rights or customs, become tools to enable us to probe deeper into those “sound words”. The associations these words had with persons, events, ideas, and with other words, give them a certain flavor which cannot be rendered in translation. These associations effect their meaning and significance in a most important way. Words you will especially thrill at are, fellowship, church, sin, covenant, patience, mercy, and so many others.

You will be pleased with the simple arrangement too. All words are transliterated and alphabetized. The verses and different ways the word is used in the NT are cited. He discusses etymology and points out how different translators have rendered the word in English. Literary and historical writings are used to show how the word was used prior to and during NT times. Its everyday usages as discovered in business letters and inscriptions are shown. After displaying each facet of the word, it is again placed in its NT setting where it reveals a new dimension of meaning. A reading with or without a knowledge of Greek, will find his understanding deepened.—Clint Evans

(All books reviewed in this column may be ordered from Restoration Press, 1916 Western Dr., Alton, Illinois.)
 

 

WORDS OF THE WISE

“The only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our Own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs or impede their efforts to obtain it. In proportion to the development of his individuality, each person becomes more valuable to himself, and is therefore capable of being more valuable to others. There is a greater fulness of life about his own existence, and when there is more life in the units there is more in the mass which is composed of them.” (John Stewart Mill, Essay on Freedom)

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“Freedom has a thousand charms to show,

That slaves, howe’er contented, never know.” (Cowper)

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“The sad passion for heresy-hunting, which obtained among Christians as early as the second century, was not only a result of fanatical devotion to true doctrine, but quite as much an outcome of their rigid organization and of the exalted predicates of honour which they applied to themselves as the church of God.” (Adolf Harnack, Expansion 2, p. 62)

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Queen Elizabeth I stated that when she was a child she knew six languages better than English. She read the New Testament in Greek and once made her own translation of Paul’s epistles. She states, “I walk many times in the pleasant fields of Holy Scripture. . . and lay them up at length in the high seat of memory.”