I walked the mile or so out to the Campbell home and cemetery just to sit around and think and to talk to myself. I found myself lingering at the grave of Robert Richardson, appreciating once more the great and humble life he lived, a man who found strength in his frailties, the elegant doctor on horseback, the man who told the story of Campbell and who in the Memoirs left us our richest depository of information on our glorious movement. But my eyes rested uneasily on the tomb of Julian McGary Barclay, great grandson of Alexander Campbell, whom Ouida and I had in our home when we lived in Bethany in the early 1960's, it being the first time I'd seen it. What a tragic figure he was! And yet there was something fine and noble about him, shades of his great grandfather. Being psychotic as he was, he sat in my home and bore his palms to me, explaining that at certain times of the year the nail marks would show, the marks of crucifixion. Each year when the college chorus sang Handel's Messiah poor old Julian would remain seated in the balcony off to himself while all the rest of us stood, paying him homage as the Christ, as he saw it.

I remember quietly telling him about The Christs of Ypsilanti, a book that told of the psychological study of three men in the mental hospital who thought they were the Christ, and what happened when they were brought together. Julian responded to the effect that there are such deluded people and that they are to be pitied, and yet he seemed somewhat threatened by their existence, which is the way the others reacted.

Ouida was impressed by Julian's magnificence. A giant of a man with an elegant beard hack when it was the only one in the village, he made a foreboding sight, but always eminently courteous. He was a genius, well read on many subjects and brilliantly articulate. At Christmas he would send us a card, signed Jerusalem. President Gresham, in recounting the blessings of living in Bethany, would sometimes say, irreverently perhaps, "And where else but Bethany can you receive a Christmas card from the Lord himself?" But Perry's irreverence reached further. When Vice-President Nixon visited Bethany and saw Julian approaching in all his Abrahamic splendor, he whispered aloud, "Oh, my God!" Perry, walking at his side, replied, "You just don't realize how appropriate those words are!"

Luta told me how Julian died of a heart attack while riding on a bus, following the farm workers' route, and it was a long time before he could be identified. He died a pauper, unknown, unloved and unwanted, despite his great heritage. But it may be that Julian was no more ill than a lot of the rest of us, just in a different way, and that, after all, he was more like Jesus than the rest of us. Anyway, they brought him back to Bethany and buried him next to the Campbells, genius alongside genius.

I never stand alongside Alexander and Thomas Campbell's graves without thinking about all the flak they had to take, much of it cruel and uncalled for. But I ask, What does all that matter now? But this time when I visited the cemetery I spread out on the ground and read Rogers' Recollections of Men of Faith. It was just something I wanted to do.

A few weeks afterwards I was visiting with E. C. McKenzie in Canton, Texas, a beloved retired Church of Christ minister who keeps on preaching, and who loves Alexander Campbell. "I want to go to Bethany some day," he said wistfully, "and stand beside Campbell's grave and pray. I want to thank God for his life and for what he did for all of us." I understood; even though one can pray just as well in Canton, Texas, I understood.

As for the historical conference, it went well, considering that it was a gathering of historians. Take a tip and never try to listen to historians when they gather and read papers to each other, for they are as bad as philosophers when they get together like that. But I did get to meet Bill Tucker, Bethany's new president. Some of the chapters he did in Journey in Faith are among the very best stuff written on our history. I am pleased that Bethany again has a leader that prizes our history and heritage.

One exchange during the conference might interest you. Some of our recent historians, particularly Ed Harrell, have rejected the conclusion long accepted by our historians, and well posited by Garrison and DeGroot, that while other churches divided during the Civil War our people did not. Ed says we divided as much as the others did, pointing to the socio-economic factors related to the War and other tensions between North and South. Some of the rest of us have criticized this as deterministic, which makes division the result of the blind forces within a culture and not from the sinful pride and sectarianism of man. Well, Ed hung this on us once more, except that it was a retreat of sorts. He did not want to take a radical deterministic position. But we are still to understand that we were a divided people and that it was a North and South thing.

I asked Ed about the church in my hometown of Dallas, Texas. It began in 1856. For 20 years it flourished and erected the first church building ever to be built in Dallas. These two decades moved them through the pre-War crisis and the post-War tensions, still united. Knowles Shaw held a revival in 1872 and brought in an organ for his own purposes, for he was "the singing evangelist." From that point on they could not agree on whether to keep the organ or not. For five years they carped and fussed, forgetting the love they had at first, and finally divided in 1877. Why did they divide? Ed would have to say that the Yankee-Rebel tensions were at work. But the Dallas church was all Southern, one of its leaders being a former Confederate general. I say they divided because they forsook the principle of love and forbearance taught them by their pioneers, and they let Satan beguile them and cause them to become sectarian. Forgetting the Lord's prayer for unity, they yielded to their pride and became carnal. It was not dictated by socio-economic forces but by their own self-will. And Dallas was no isolated case, for it happened all across the South, Southerners dividing from Southerners. If we can blame our first great division on social forces and the War, then we don't have to worry about sin anymore. But Ed Harrell has his statistics, and who can argue with statistics? It is like challenging a computer.

Some of the Church of Christ historians at the meeting were uneasy lest they "fellowship" the Disciples and Christian Church fellows. They attended only as historians, and the affair was to be academic and not "religious." But the Bethany people thought there should be occasional devotionals, and this is what they asked me to do. I spoke on the great passages favored by our pioneers. When I got up to speak, one or more of these historians excused themselves, walking out as unobtrusively and courteously as they could. It was not because it was I, but because it was "religious." They were there as historians, not as "worshippers," for that would compromise their position on "fellowshipping those in error." They can "do Campbell" with the Bethanians but they can't "do church." [his kind of spiritual schizophrenia amazed some of the Disciples from Lexington and Indianapolis, and they wanted to know from me if it was for real. But among the most highly esteemed as Christian scholars and gentlemen at the conference were Church of Christ fellows, particularly from Pepperdine, but from elsewhere as well.

Prof. Hiram Lester of Bethany has been putting these together, and he deserves the applause of us all. Such gatherings must continue, embracing all of our people at all levels.

Ouida went with me to Arkansas City, Kansas to help celebrate Random Road congregation's 20 years of freedom. They really had a bash, with many old friends gathered, including Carl Ketcherside. He dropped by our motel room each of the mornings and we had some good visits. This was great since we don't often have the pleasure of being at the same place at the same time, especially under circumstances where we can visit. We found him trim, vigorous, alert, happy, and hopeful, and his presentations were as powerful as ever. Virginia Foster, whom we all love so dearly, said Carl's lesson on Ephesians was the best sermon she'd ever heard. But that was of course before I spoke. And yet as I recall she was still saying that after I spoke. Random Road has gained its footnote in our history. Even though small they have proved that people do not have to go on and on being oppressed. They were among the first to walk out, or he run out, and they have demonstrated that if a group will keep its eye on Jesus they can carve out an effective ministry for themselves. Through the years that band of saints, which I sometimes call "the dirty dozen," has given a higher percentage of its resources to needy causes beyond its own walls than any congregation I know. They've gained a freedom to, not just a freedom from.

Ouida was also with me—she's like Coke in that things always go better when she's around—at the Beacon Church of Christ, near Cedar Creek Lake and Mabank, Texas. They asked me to preside over their service for the ordination of their elders. Already the congregation had selected Afton Flowers and Dalton Porter to be their shepherds. Now they were to be ordained. This is significant in that our elders, while selected, albeit often by other elders, are almost never ordained. I addressed the congregation briefly on Ezek. 34, setting forth the responsibility of elders, including a charge to the congregation as to its obligations. A brother spoke in behalf of the church, recognizing Afton and Dalton as elders and accepting the responsibilities of the congregation toward them. The two elders-to-be then spoke briefly, accepting the office from the congregation. I asked the men a few formal questions, such as whether they had any private misgivings about what they were doing, or whether there was any reason why they could not work together. I then took them by the hand, one at a time, and said, "As an agent of this congregation I hereby ordain you to the office that this church has bestowed upon you." We all prayed fervently together and then broke bread in the name of Him who is the Great Shepherd of our souls.

The effect of this was most gratifying. Some oldtime Church of Christ folk, long conditioned by our traditions, told me that it was the most beautiful thing they had ever seen in the Church of Christ. They all thought that it gave dignity and meaning to the eldership. One said it was quite different from an elder getting up and reading off the names of the new elders that the eldership itself had selected behind closed doors, and declaring them then and there elders! I emphasized in my remarks that according to the scriptures the elders were selected by the congregation (since the office is really theirs to bestow) and then appointed or ordained by an evangelist, who serves as their agent. When so many were uplifted by the service, I explained that it is always edifying to honor the scriptures and to dignify the work that God has ordained for his people.  — the Editor