Highlights in Restoration History . . .

THE DAY BROTHER AMEND SAID AMEN

I am writing these words on the morning of November 18, 1977, and I must make haste for in early afternoon I must drive to Stillwater, Oklahoma where I will join John Lacey in a ministry to some of the students of Oklahoma State University. Being of the Restoration heritage, the students want me to provide some insights into our history so that they can get a handle on where we ought to be today and what we ought to be doing. I am going to start with them tonight on the significance of this very day, November 18, 1977, for it happens to be, though almost completely ignored by our people, the sesquicentennial of “the gospel restored” through the preaching of Walter Scott. It was on November 18, 1827 that Walter Scott preached the gospel in New Lisbon, Ohio, with particular emphasis upon Acts 2:38 and baptism for the remission of sins. Following his discourse, one William Amend came forward, and that same day, which was a Sunday, he was baptized in a nearby stream by Scott “for the remission of sins,” becoming the first convert in our Movement who was baptized with the remission of sins in mind.

Anniversaries like this give me a thrill even when I have to celebrate them alone or almost alone. Back in 1966 when March 4 rolled around, I realized it was exactly one century since Alexander Campbell’s death. I wanted to talk about it with someone who shares my love for our history, so I called Louie Cochran in Nashville, the affable author of The Fool of God which is a historical novel about Campbell’s life. We reminisced about the old hero and agreed that he would be pleased that someone remembered the day, even though I may have been the only one on earth that thought about it. I was in Lowell, Indiana on a June 12 a few summers back, and I reminded my audience that if Protestants generally could have their Reformation Sunday each year on or about October 31, the day Luther nailed the theses to the cathedral door back in 1517, we could have our own Restoration Day, and I suggested it be June 12, for it was on that day in 1812 that the Campbells were immersed into Christ (though not yet aware of “baptism for remission of sins”), a suitable date for the beginning of the Movement in this country.

Scott himself did not realize he was making history on that November Sunday in 1827. It was years afterwards that he looked back to the New Lisbon experience as the place where it all began, and only then because someone asked him to give an account of the beginnings. Scott pointed to William Amend as the one who “first obeyed the faith as now preached in the Reformation,” and years afterward he wrote him a letter requesting information as to why he had taken the step he did. Scott remembered that his first convert came into the building near the close of the address, so he figured it unlikely that he had been converted by his preaching. Amend’s reply to Scott, which is given in the Life of Elder Walter Scott and in Richardson’s Memoirs of Alexander Campbell. is one of the most valuable documents in our history.

The letter reveals that for years before Scott came to town, Amend had resolved that he would obey the gospel if he ever heard anyone preach it like Peter did on Pentecost in Acts 2. Being a Presbyterian, he sought his pastor’s help, who discouraged him in his intention but reluctantly agreed to immerse him privately, lest it be upsetting to others. Amend did not want it this way, insisting that he should be baptized by someone who believed in what he was doing. So he waited—for years he waited. He wrote to Scott: “To this scripture [Acts 2:38] I often resorted. I saw how Peter had opened the kingdom, and the door into it, but, to my great disappointment, I saw no man to introduce me, though I prayed much and often for it.”

In the letter he tells Scott that he had grown so disappointed in preachers that he hesitated to listen to any more of them. But he had been invited to hear Scott, so on that Sunday morning he ventured toward the Baptist Church, only to find Scott’s audience overflowing into the yard. He listened from afar, but as Scott spoke of Pentecost he moved closer in and finally into the building, worming his way through the audience, and finally down front to take Scott’s hand.

In the letter he reminded Scott of his closing words that memorable day: “The Scriptures no longer shall be a sealed book. God means what he says. Is there any man present who will take God at his word, and be baptized for remission of sins?” When Amend heard that, he told Scott, “At that moment my feelings were such that I could have cried out, ‘Glory to God! I have found the man whom I have long sought for.’”

While Amend found his man, Scott had found his plan. From that moment on there was what the Movement’s historians have chosen to call “the new evangelism.” So it was Scott and not the Campbells who made a direct and practical application of the doctrine of baptism for remission of sins. Scott’s technique became known as “the five finger exercise,” a countdown of commands and promises that proved very effective. He eventually baptized more believers than anyone else in his generation, averaging 1,000 per year during 30 years of preaching.

Scott would ride into a new community, and, attracting a group of children going home from school, he would engage them in conversation. Having a way with children, he would have them count the five steps off on their fingers: faith, repentance, baptism, remission of sins, and the gift of the Holy Spirit. He would then tell them to double their fist and put it into their pocket, and when they got home to take it out and show their parents what they had on their fingers. He would then ask them to urge their parents to come to the schoolhouse that night and hear a man talk about those points. It was one way an evangelist in those days had of getting the word out that he was in town. Since there wasn’t much else for people in those days to do in the evenings, it only took a word for them to have a crowd. On one occasion when Alexander Campbell arrived in Zanesville, Ohio, completely unannounced, he hired a lad to go from house to house and announce, “Alexander Campbell will speak tonight in the court house at candle lighting.” That night he had his crowd.

Well, Amend was ready to obey the gospel, a five-finger exercise or not, for he was already convinced by the words of Peter on Pentecost. Mr. Amend was ready to say Amen on November 18, 1827. When William Baxter, Scott’s biographer, checked on William Amend a quarter of a century later, he was still faithful to his initial commitment, still living in New Lisbon, and a member of the Disciples of Christ, the Movement by then being completely separated from the Baptists.

Scott was given credit for “restoring the ancient gospel” by Campbell himself and as early as 1831. At that time Campbell listed the same five items but added a sixth point, eternal life, making three things man does in obeying and three things that God does for him when he obeys. Scott never doubted but what he had restored the gospel preached by the apostles on Pentecost, and he went on to publish his book on The Gospel Restored.

We can appreciate the contribution that Scott made without going so far as to say he then and there, on Nov. 18, 1827, restored the gospel. This is to imply that the gospel was nowhere being preached, and perhaps had not been preached anywhere since Pentecost. It is interpretations of this sort that account for our exclusivism. Some of our pioneers came to suppose that they and they alone preached the gospel. It is probably true that Scott’s technique in presenting the gospel was both unique and effective for his day, and 1 like it even in the 1970’s, but 1 don’t believe that our folk “restored the gospel” just because Scott preached baptism for the remission of sins.

The most extravagant claim made for Scott’s work and for Nov. 18, 1827 is found in J. W. Chism’s The Cleansing of the Sanctuary, originally published as Campbellism, What Is It? To Chism, who was born in 1865, “Campbellism” is none other than the fulfillment of prophecies in Daniel and Revelation, and especially of Dan. 8:13-14 where it is said that the sanctuary will be cleansed after 2300 days. Starting with 473 B.C., at the time of the fourth king from Cyrus, and counting forward 2300 years (for the days of Daniel) one comes to 1827. Chism relates the story that I have just told about William Amend’s conversion in New Lisbon, Ohio under Scott’s preaching, and claims that on Nov. 18, 1827 God cleansed the sanctuary by overcoming sectarianism and restoring the gospel.

One would suppose that this would be a very lonely interpretation of both scripture and history, even among us, but it so happens that Chism’s book was republished by the Old Paths Book Club in 1962 and given a hearty commendation by John Allen Hudson, who wrote in the preface that Chism’s essential outline and summation are undoubtedly correct, even if he disagreed on minor points.

If Chism had lived to see the Movement that had restored the gospel divide into a dozen or more warring factions, he might have looked elsewhere for the fulfillment of the prophecies, and he did live to see some of the division. If God “cleansed the sanctuary” through a triumph over partyism in the Restoration Movement, it was surely short-lived. It appears that the cleansing is as much needed now, even in our own Movement, as it was 150 years ago. I can hardly see Daniel or any prophet getting excited over a mere expectation of renewal. Our pioneers dreamed and labored for a better day, and they served their generation well, passing the torch along to us. Perhaps we are in the process of cleansing the sanctuary, but the task remains incomplete.

Walter Scott himself, who was a romanticist as well as a man of action, came to realize that his dream of a united church through the “restored gospel” lacked reality. One of the saddest documents in our history is his letter to P. S. Fall in 1840, thirteen years after he had restored the gospel. “When you express your doubts of the matters connected with the recent Reformation,” he wrote to Fall, “I sympathize with you, for the thing has not been what 1 hoped it would be by a thousand miles. We are indeed ‘a sect’ differing but little, of anything that is good, from the parties around us. Alas! my soul is grieved every day.” (Fortune, The Disciples in Kentucky, p. 170).

Scott was grieved because his expectations were too high. Reform is a slow and tedious undertaking. If we can make some progress, and then pass on our unfinished task to the next generation, we do well and the Lord is glorified. The sin is in doing nothing, and still worse is not even to care. —the Editor