VOLUME FOR 1972
We
will continue with the theme The Restoration Mind throughout
1972, which will then, along with the issues for 1971, be
bound in a hardback edition matching the five previously bound
volumes. There will be but 500 of these, so you should place your
order with us now, though you should send no money since we are not
sure of the exact price.
Though
the theme remains the same the subjects treated will be different. We
plan a series of articles on “The Travel Letters of Alexander
Campbell,” for it is in these letters that we have some of the
most important thinking of the Sage of Bethany. These are his
correspondence en route, written from Richmond or Augusta or New
Orleans or New York, to be published in his publication for general
reading or to his loved ones back home. In these he comments on
everything from the weather and architecture to slavery and politics,
along with accounts of the people he meets and the many novel
experiences he has. One of the most travelled men of his time, he
writes of his experience on horseback, stage coach, steam boat, and
railroad. He was a gentleman in broadcloth, moving across frontier
America, respected and feared wherever he journeyed.
His
letters while traveling tell of a Campbell that is different from the
one who wrote weighty theological and educational essays. Here he
reveals his preferences and prejudices about many facets of life,
giving his views on everything from how to build a meetinghouse to
how to handle the slavery problem. Wined and dined as he was by the
most substantial families of north, south and west, his letters about
the people, their homes and their way of life makes for interesting
reading from the point of view of Americana if for no other. But the
vital resource of these letters that we shall consider most of all is
what they reveal about Campbell’s restoration mind. It is while
“out amongst them” where practice gained ascendency over
theory that Campbell comes up with his liveliest ideas. Too, he
seldom wrote his sermons, so we know little about the thousands of
messages he delivered during his lifetime of travels. But in these
letters he comments upon what he said at various places, revealing
some of his innermost thoughts about the pressing issues of the day,
which are relevant to our own problems.
You
will be amazed at his stamina and fortitude amidst the perils of
travel in the American wilderness. Gone from home months at a time,
he is often ill, frequently shut out of church buildings and left to
preach in the open air nearby, and usually vilified by the clergy
before his arrival in a given locality, and all this at his own
expense. One is left not only to marvel at his experiences, but also
to wonder what motivation drove him to such sacrifices.
We
believe these travel letters will reveal to you the real Alexander
Campbell, the man at his best, out where he did his greatest work —
among the people that had read his writings or had heard of his
strange teachings.
Another
series in the new volume will be “Highlights in the History of
the Restoration Movement,” which should also give us a more
enlightened Restoration mind. We will start by showing that
Restoration has been an ideal almost from the beginning of Christian
history and that there have been numerous Restoration efforts
antecedents to the Stone-Campbell movement in this country. The
European influences on young Alexander Campbell will also be
considered. But mostly we shall be concerned with what happened here
in our own country in terms of men and events. We want you to know
more about what happened in America before the Campbells immigrated,
as well as the significance of Barton Stone, Walter Scott, and Isaac
Errett. Then there is Cane Ridge, Brush Run, and Lexington, places
pregnant with significance in our great history.
This
will take much of our allotted space for the next ten issues, but we
still hope to share with you some of our own travel experiences in
terms of what is happening among some of the concerned ones. We have
numerous essays submitted to us by others, many of them with merit,
and we hope to find space for some of these as well.
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We are a nation of differences, and the values and principles that protect those differences are the sources of a unity far more lasting and stronger than any contrived harmony could be. — Lyndon B. Johnson