BIOGRAPHY

The Autobiography of J. W. McGarvey. J. W. McGarvey. College of the Bible, Lexington, Kentucky. 1960. 93 p., $1.50.

J. W. McGarvey had contemplated a biography to be prepared by his son John, Jr. To this end he wrote 121 pages in hand writing so precisely and closely written that a page of script equals a page of typing. This was to be used by his son in writing the biography. However, his son preceded him in death, and the biography was never written. The manuscript is here reproduced in its unfinished state.

In it we have the heart of a great disciple and scholar. One who knew personally the fathers of the restoration. A great treasure of the book is his reflections upon Campbell, Richardson, Franklin, Smith, Errett, Pendleton, and others of the early disciple period.

His reflections are apt to fill the restoration scholar with nostalgia, when we think of our present status quo. After reading some sections one wants to sit in meditation. His third visit to Bethany―the “Alma Mater”―was one that caused me to think of America’s receding glory, religiously and politically. The occasion was to deliver one of a series of lectures before the summer school.

“I was one of the speakers on the occasion, as was also Gen. Jas. A. Garfield whom I then met for the last time before his elevation to the Presidency and his tragic death. Little was thought then of the honors soon to be showered upon him or the speedy termination of his career, and no one could have imagined that I would so long survive him and Pres. Pendleton and others who figured conspicuously on that occasion.”

The book is a worthy addition to the literature of our heritage.

―CLINT EVANS

INTERPRETATION

The Song of Songs, Hugh J. Schonfield, Mentor paperback, 1959, 50c.

Controversy over the Song has raged for 2,000 years. The Pharisees debated its place in the canon. Jewish and Christians have long sought for justification for its inclusion in the sacred scriptures. While some have treated it as a kind of outline of history from the exodus to the Messianic Age, others have viewed as political or mystical. The most popular interpretation has been that the Song is an allegory depicting the love of God for his people. Christians have generally considered it a love song between Christ and his church.

Hugh Schonfield, known widely for his translation of the New Covenant scriptures, brings his knowledge of the languages to the problem of the Song. He has produced a beautiful and moving translation. He devotes 32 pages to background material: the people, the setting, the customs of the day. He thus has such chapters as Geography of the Song, Style and Structure, Age and Authorship, Setting of the Song, Place in the Sacred Canon. He deals with such theories of interpretation as the allegory theory, drama theory, wedding feast theory, fertility rite theory, and love song theory.

In bringing the major theories together, Schonfield has given us an invaluable work I believe with Bernard of Clairvaux that unless one comes to the Song with love he will miss its message, for the heart that doesn’t love cannot grasp its message. Love is like a language; unless you know the tongue itself, you will not understand it when you hear it spoken, for love’s language appears crude to the man who does not love. Love is a many splendoured thing. That, in a sentence, may serve as the best commentary on the Song of Songs, for it is the Bible’s timeless tribute to the recurring miracle of springtime in the heart and in nature.

―W ALTER SHORT

Beneath the Cross of Jesus, Reginald E. O. White. William Eerdmans, Grand Rapids. 1959. $3.00.

Mr. White’s book is a series of short meditations on the Passion of Jesus. An editor who writes the jacket blurb suggests that the book be read at well-spaced intervals so that one may reflect “upon the profound truths that are unfolded.” This reader cannot agree with the reason given, but does second the method in the belief that few readers could plow through the tortured prose without frequent rests.

There is a kind of stylistic cuteness about this book which defeats its good purpose. Every page is larded with parallelisms, balanced clauses and other rhetorical devices. The prose is labored and tiresome, both of which faults might be overlooked if the contents were meaty. But the meat is scarce and is all but hidden by the parsley.

There are some inspiring anecdotes which illustrate the author’s devotional essays. In these he tends to avoid the disconcertingly elaborate rhetoric. But they are not frequent enough to make one feel that he is justified in hurdling the formidable stylistic barriers.

A few short pieces seem better than the rest. ‘The Commentary of Jesus” examines five metaphors used by Jesus to show how his death would affect the life and faith of his followers, and is mildly interesting. But one comes away with an uneasy feeling that these better essays would not really be peaks at all were the general locale not so flat.

Excerpts from any page will illustrate the defects of style. Here are sentences from a half page chosen at random: “And Jesus died, victim of man’s sin against light and love and innocence; sacrificed to cowardice, selfishness, ingratitude; broken by corporate wrongdoing in which all share blame, yet each claims personal innocence; killed by the ‘little’ sins that accumulate to a whole world’s undoing.” “Sin in the cross is exposed, cauterized, and cleansed. It does its worst, and is defeated: it unveils its dire malignancy, but cannot overcome the love of Christ. Yet all the interweaving melodies of redemption, forgiveness, security and peace, the joyous descant of the hope of glory, sound against the deep bass undertone: He was despised, and rejected of men.”

Such sentences defeat their purpose even as one sees them standing alone; in context, in company with hundreds of others just like them, they first annoy and finally numb the intelligence.

Mr. White’s purpose is so good and his devotion so obvious that one would want to pass along to him in the purest kindness that famous remark made to discursive Polonius: “More matter with less art.”

―ROBERT MEYER

PROBLEM OF EVIL

Between God and Satan, Helmut Thielicke, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1958, $2.00.

Mr. Thielicke’s book is an interesting exposition of the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness giving insights into our own temptation. It contains material for serious reflection. Certainly with the casual “hands in pocket” attitude that is taken toward God these days it is needed. The brisk sale of books that make God to be some kind of a bargainer who will grant us this or that if we will do something for Him have made man to think that he is the god of God.

God must conform to our conception of what he ought to be. He can cause us to suffer as long as it serves a purpose that we can rationally explain. The wicked must not prosper, the pious must do well.

Our temptation arises when we do not understand his ways. He appears to have no purpose and man’s belief is a belief in a purpose. When he finds none, he reasons, “Is God really there at all? Does God exist?” Concerning such a belief in God, Mr. Thielicke writes,

“This belief is belief in the highest wisdom; and lo―

God is foolishness (I Cor. 1:18, 21).

This belief is belief in the glory of God and in his splendour; and lo―

God comes near to us despised and spat on and nailed to the tree of torment.

This belief is belief in miracles (I Cor. 1:22); and lo―

God is silent (Matt. 12:39) and does not descend from the cross (Matt. 27:40).

This belief is always, secretly and under cover, a belief in man himself; and lo―

God is God and not this human being.”

Jesus temptation lay in whether he would be forced to prove he was God’s Son by miracle mongering. If Satan succeeded it would be he who prescribed Christ’s action. “It would then be he who held the real power. It would then be in his name and to his glory that the miracles would be worked.”

Mr. Thielicke treats the three aspects of Jesus’ temptation under the headings “The Reality of Hunger,” “Alluring Miracle of Display,” and “J esus’ Kingdom of This World,” and then draws interesting analogies to our own.

This book will inspire awe before God, one whose thoughts and ways are not as ours. You will be reminded how vastly different God is from the god “Nature,” the god “Fate.” These are “comfortable gods,” “nodding gods,” “yes sayers,” and “the originators of a pious intoxication that commits us to nothing.”

―HAROLD HENDERSON

THE VICTORY

Faith is the Victory. E. M. Blaiklock. Wm. B. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, Mich. 1959. 64 p. $2.00

Faith is the Victory is a study of the First Epistle of John, and is based on the authors own translation E. M. Blaiklock is professor of Classics in the University College in Auckland, New Zealand. His illustrations are often illuminated by fresh insights of classical learning.

The message of John’s Epistle is as needed today as then. We too need to restore the Lordship of Jesus, to recognize his authority in our lives. Those who walk in light portraying the fellowship in Christ through their love for one another, need not fear the hate of the world. The world!; consistent opposition to all that saviours of God and good is a fact of history and experience. Hate always translates itself into persecution. Righteousness, all through history and everywhere, challenges evil, and evil will have none of it. Plato, four centuries before Christ, had said, “The Just Man will be scourged, racked, thrown into chains; he will have his eyes burnt out and after enduring every pain he will be crucified.”

The whole pattern of history shows that those who seek righteousness as a minority, and over against them the conforming multitude, the few against the crowd. And the conforming multitude hate the few who stand out. THEY RESENT THE CHALLENGE.

―CLINT EVANS

RESTORATION

The Sage of Bethany, edited by Perry E. Grehsam, St. Louis, Mo., Bethany Press, 1960, $1.95.

This is a collection of ten essays on Alexander Campbell, written by Perry Gresham, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., W. E. Garrison, Louis Cochran, Roland Bainton, S. J. England, Harold Lunger, Eva Jean Wrather. The Schlesinger essay was previously published in this journal.

Gresham deals with Campbell’s educational and social philosophy. He thinks it is an injustice that Campbell is not sufficiently recognized by American history. While Daniel Webster was hardly recognized in his own day, he is honored by history. Alexander Campbell, on the Other hand, was highly esteemed by his contemporaries, while neglected by history. Gresham believes, however, that there is presently some inclination to recover Campbell’s merited stature.

Campbell began the Millennial Harbinger, Gresham points out, in order to give expression to his educational philosophy: “To show the inadequacy of the present systems of education, literary and moral, to develop the powers of the human mind, and to prepare man for rational and social happiness.” Perhaps nothing illustrates Campbell’s concern for education more than his establishment of Bethany College on his own farm with an initial outlay of $15,000 of his own money. Gresham shows that Campbell’s aim in starting a college was to educate young men in the liberal arts and sciences. The Sage of Bethany did not start a seminary or Bible college. Parochialism was as far from his mind as it is from the mind of Robert Maynard Hutchins. In starting a college Campbell was influenced both by Glasgow University, where he once studied, and the University of Virginia. Campbell made Bethany distinctive by offering courses in constitutional and international law. Bethany’s “bill of fare” was for the purpose of educating man “to recognize his responsibility to carry on the great institutions, such as the school, the church, the state, the home.

Gresham’s second essay is a treatment of Campbell’s political and religious controversy with Robert Owen, The British socialist, in 1829. To Gresham the Sage of Bethany was “a significant educator reformer who brought his forensic skill to bear on the great social issues of his time.” He thinks Campbell was instrumental in defeating the socialist impetus in young America and in sending Owen back to England with injured pride.

Gresham’s essays make use of Mark Twain’s reference to Alexander Campbell in his Autobiography. Though Twain’s account of Campbell is fabulously interesting, it is almost certainly a case of mistaken identity. I learned this the hard way in that this journal recently published the same story. Dr. Claude E. Spencer, curator of Disciples of Christ historical society, has shown in The Discipliana that Campbell could not have been in Hannibal, Mo. at the time Mark Twain was a printer’s devil. An authority of Mark Twain also commented on the case for me, confirming that Twain was careless about such references, that he would sometime take a notable name and use it in lieu of the facts. Mark Twain may well have been talking about some Campbellite preacher that was visiting in Hannibal, but Spencer has proved to my satisfaction that it could not have been Alexander Campbell himself.

In his essay on “The Drama of Alexander Campbell” Louis Cochran describes Campbell as vividly as if he had just had a personal interview with the man. He concludes that he was “as distinguished-looking a Virginia gentleman as one would hope to find even in Richmond.” Campbell is a hero to Cochran: “Alexander Campbell was a tremendous human being; a great champion of human freedom and religious liberty, and the foremost advocate in modern times of Christian unity.” The essay is rich in tidbits on Campbell’s life: he was always in a hurry and walked rapidly; sometimes his steps were irregular as if he could not make up his mind; he rarely raised his voice; he raised sheep and presided at conventions of wool growers; he was five feet eleven inches tall and weighed 175, but the force of his personality caused him to appear larger.

Cochran tells how he was first discouraged in his plan to write a novel on Campbell, for authorities assured him that Campbell’s personal life was as dull as a dishwasher. But Cochran has found drama there―personal risk, sacrifice, uncertain tortuous struggles, mighty conflicts, passionate decisions. The author spells out some of this drama. My favorite is the account of Campbell, while but a youth back in Glasgow, refusing the leaden token from the Seceder officials which would have enabled him to take the Lord’s Supper to the exclusion of those who had no token.

W. E. Garrison’s article describes Campbell as a pioneer in broadcloth, a term he is careful to define, meaning that Campbell was “a man who had characteristics of mind and personality that were in contrast with the frontier environment in which he did his pioneering work.” His is a historian’s approach, carefully depicting the frontier life of early America. Garrison shows that the usual descriptions of the crudity of pioneer life are inadequate in that they supposed that such conditions were long-lasting. The cutting edge of the frontier kept moving westward, leaving centers of culture here and there. Campbell was a pioneer, but he was much unlike the “coonskin-cap” type in that he was a gentleman of culture who became a wealthy farmer, editor, publisher, world traveler, and. college president. There was that duality about Campbell as both pioneer and aristocrat that pur him in contact with the amalgam of early American life.

Roland Bainton of Yale treats Campbell in respect co the social order. He sees him as sharing the romanticism of his day that viewed America as the free environment in which man can recover his dignity before God and the natural order as relucent with God. Yet Bainton points to Campbell’s conviction that nature does not reveal God, for it is the Bible that does this. God illuminates nature, but without the Bible we cannot so much as know of the existence of God. Bainton shows a relevance between America utopianism and Christian millenarianism, suggesting a blend of these phenomena in Campbell’s description of the millennium―“one protracted series of revivals, mild seasons, salubrious climate, vigorous health, less labor, fertile lands, animal creation more prolific.” Campbell disapproved of societies, Bainton says, due to his conviction that the church is the center of Christian activity. The Yale professor likewise discusses the problems of war and slavery in Campbell’s life.

Other essays deal with Campbell’s views on baptism, unity and his political activity. The last essay considers Campbell and the judgment of history.

President Gresham has passed some good stuff along to us. The inexpensive paperback edition places it within the reach of all. A final generalization I would make is that it appears that the more we study Campbell the more complex he seems to be. It is good that professors from Yale and Harvard have joined in the task of understanding Campbell. While this is useful, I wonder if they do not understand the age that produced the man better than the man himself. After all, perhaps Disciples are the best interpreters of Alexander Campbell.

―LEROY GARRETT

(Order all books from Restoration Review)

I am inviolably attached to the essential rights of mankind, and the true interests of society. I consider liberty in a genuine unadulterated sense, as the greatest of terrestrial blessings. I am convinced that the whole human race is entitled to it, and that it can be wrested from no part of them, without the blackest and most aggravated guilt.―Alexander Hamilton

*********

I believe in the equality of man; and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow creatures happy.―Thomas Paine.

*********

The summum bonum with me is now truly epicurean, ease of body and tranquility of mind; and to these I wish to consign my remaining days.―Thomas Jefferson

*********

As I understand the Christian religion, it was, and is, a revelation. But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends, have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed? How has it happened that all the fine arts, architecture, painting, sculpture, statuary, music, poetry, and oratory, have been prostituted, from the creation of the world, to the sordid and detestable purposes of superstition and fraud?―John Adams