Pilgrimage of Joy…

MORE OF ENGLAND AND THEN HOME AGAIN
by W. Carl Ketcherside

Our stay in Yorkshire was memorable for many reasons. For one thing we were privileged to stay in the home of Fred and Hilda Hardy and their charming daughter Bessie. Bro. Hardy was a plumber and contractor and had created a lovely house called “Windyridge” out of an antique stone dwelling. I spoke five times at Morley with increasing crowds each night, and once at Ardsley and Dewsbury. The brethren seemed greatly uplifted and my own spirits soared. Bro. Hardy owned an automobile and resolved to show us as much of Yorkshire as possible, including the seven-hilled city of Morley, the home of great woolen mills.

Some areas still remain engraved in my memory. The great city of Leeds with its famous university, renowned modern hospital, the unique city hall, and the huge apartment building spread over several city blocks and erected in a perfect and unbroken circle. The quaint old city of York, looking like a throwback to the days of Charles Dickens. We visited York Minster with its crypts in the floor containing the dust of English nobility, and the famous museum with mummies and artifacts from the days of Roman occupation in the first century. The lovely city of Harrogate, famous spa and health resort, where the crystal clear mineral waters run through the bath houses, and along the valley by the promenade where the wealthy walk.

The age-old city of Knaresborough, clinging precariously to the slopes rising above the River Nidd, and looking like an illustration from a Mother Goose book. This was the traditional home of “Mother Shipton” who was credited with prophesying the advent of automobiles, planes and other modern developments centuries ago. One day, through the kindness of Bro. Fred Sugden, who worked in a woolen mill, we were permitted to go through and observe the processing from the time the wool was received until the cloth came off in huge rolls bound for export to the United States. The week sped by all too quickly and we had to depart for Warwickshire before we were ready to go. We will never forget the Hardy, McDonald, Sugden, Sykes and Baines families, nor shall I forget Geoffrey Lodge, the astute and capable young brother who later married Bessie Hardy.

When we arrived in Birmingham, Friday, April 18, the signs of the fearful devastation wrought by Nazi bombers was everywhere evident. The Summerlane meetinghouse had been blasted into fragments one Saturday night and the brethren with whom I was to labor were using an old mess hall purchased from the government and hauled to their site. We were given hospitality in the home of Br. Fred Day, one of the elders, and also one of the gentlest and humblest men I have ever met. Scholarly and informed, he was one of the most qualified Bible teachers with whom I have ever been associated.

On Saturday, the brethren had arranged a welcome meeting, preceded by a 4:00 o’clock tea, to which all of the congregations in the area were invited. Instead of one returning thanks when we were all seated, the brethren sang a thanksgiving hymn in unison. Bro. Earl Stuckenbruck and wife, who were enroute to Tuebingen, Germany, were in Birmingham, and came out to meet me. His father was a minister of the Disciples of Christ congregation in Topeka, Kansas, where I finished high school. The Stuckenbrucks were the first Americans we had met on our tour and the “Yankee twang” with its midwestern accent sounded good to our ears.

On Sunday afternoon I was taken to the home of John McCartney, who was to be 93 years old the following Wednesday. He lived contemporary with David King, the leader of the reform movement in England for forty years. He was a boy of twelve when news reached England of the death of Alexander Campbell. I had long read his writings and it seemed like a dream that I should be in the home of this renowned scholar. He was totally blind, but his mind was clear and lucid, and as he sat with the shawl about his shoulders, talking about the Book which had been his rod and staff, it was a little like being in the presence of one of the prophets.

From the home of Bro. McCartney we went to the cemetery where the body of David King lies buried. I had already read the large book titled “Memoir of David King” by his wife Louise, and knew that the Cause had been launched in Birmingham through his efforts coupled with those of J. B. Rotherham. From a congregation of eleven members which they planted, the community of saints grew to number hundreds. In some ways David King excelled Alexander Campbell and it is a tragedy that his work is so little known in the United States. Carved upon the simple stone erected over his resting-place are these words: “rejecting all human creeds, He pleaded that the Teaching of Christ and His Apostles is the only Divinely authorized and all-sufficient Way of Salvation and basis of Christian Union. He was a good man. Mighty in the Scriptures. Ask for the Old Paths and walk therein.”

Warwickshire fairly crawls with literary greatness. On our way to Leicester to speak we visited Stratford-on-Avon. The home of William Shakespeare looked just as it had been pictured in my high school English Literature textbook. I read with interest the original manuscripts of some of his plays exhibited upstairs. In an adjoining room, where he was born, many of the world’s great have scratched their names in the glass of the old Tudor windowpanes. Easily identified were the autographs of William Makepeace Thackeray, Sir Walter Scott, and John Barrymore. Speaking of Scott reminds me that as we left Stratford we went to Kenilworth to visit the castle tower featured in his novel named after the town.

At Coventry we saw the frightful havoc wreaked by the German Luftwaffe. The city grew from a Benedictine monastery established in 1043 by the famous Lady Godiva and her husband. Hitler resolved to wipe it from the earth. In two months of insane bombing the center of the city was devastated and 70,000 homes were utterly destroyed or severely damaged. The 14th century St. Michael’s Cathedral was blasted into oblivion except for the 303-foot steeple which remained like a lone finger pointing toward the heavens.

The little body of brethren in Leicester met in a council schoolroom. They had recently left the large congregation affiliated with the British Cooperation for conscience’ sake. We had a good audience present and a grand spirit of fellowship was apparent. The following day we drove through Sherwood Forest, the one-time haunt of Robin Hood and his merry men on our way to Loughborough where I was to speak. We stayed with Basil and Elizabeth Jaynes who were tenants working on the great Sir Julian Hall estate, embracing several thousand acres. A great many German prisoners were under guard on the estate sorting and cleaning potatoes for the market. Many of them were young and looked like anything but Nazi supermen. They were forced to wear a diamond-shaped patch of another color on the back of their drab jackets and trousers to permit immediate identification and to provide against escape. They were hungry for news of what was transpiring in the world and eagerly snatched up every bit of stray newspaper, which some of them could read.

At East Kirkby, on Wednesday night, I encountered the first serious opposition I had experienced. The British brethren, with very few exceptions, are vigorously against the idea of bearing arms in time of war, under any circumstances. Some of the older ones endured imprisonment and even physical torture for their convictions during World War One. So pronounced was the feeling at East Kirkby during World War Two that it was made a test of fellowship. The brethren refused to pass the Lord’s Supper to those who were in uniform. American soldiers who attended were deliberately barred from the privilege of communing in the body and blood of the Lord.

Since I regarded war as an evil, and not necessarily a sin, I had written my book Fighting Christians a number of years before. In it I took up one by one the scriptural deductions affirmed by the brethren who were opposed to war and dealt with them. Thinking to prejudice the British brethren against me before my arrival certain ones in the United States had mailed several copies of my book to what they considered strategic areas. The brethren knew I was not a political pacifist. The question period following my message was without incident, but following dismissal several of the brethren gathered around and walled me in, demanding how I could be in the fellowship of those trained to kill. It reminded me of how things are done in the United States and turned out to be an interesting engagement with some of the most militant pacifists I have ever met. Since I made no test of fellowship out of their opinion it was not nearly so tense for me as for them. I could receive and love them without their changing. But the danger of making tests of fellowship out of personal deductions from the scriptures was borne home to me as I had never seen it before.

After a final meeting in Birmingham we returned to London to spend more than a week with the Scott family before embarking on the Queen Elizabeth for home. It was a time literally crammed with interest, but would require too much time and space to describe. On Sunday, April 27, there were 24 present for the breaking of bread in this great city of ten million souls. In the evening Bro. Scott asked me if I would be willing to engage in a question forum after the gospel meeting. Although I was surprised at the request, I agreed to do so. Later I learned that two or three in the congregation had raised objections to allowing me to speak because of my position as to bearing arms in international conflict. The forum was a good one and the contention quite sharp at times, although good order predominated. Some were more dogmatic than others and the questioners disagreed among themselves, but the session helped clear the air. I came away with a sense of deep appreciation for the brethren, even those who disagreed with me.

We sailed from Southampton on Saturday, May 3, and arrived back in St. Louis on May 10, my thirty-ninth birthday. Our eager hearts were filled to overflowing to see the children well and hearty and doing well in school. In the ensuing weeks scores of letters came from those whom we had met and as we replied to them our hearts drifted back across the ocean and in memory we lived again with those who were so dear unto us. As I write this thirty years have passed into history since we first set foot in Great Britain, but we still hear from several of those whom we met. We would like to hear from all of them.

Almost at once my services were in demand by congregations which wanted to hear of our trip and see the amateur movies we had made of the entire time. I resumed my weekly radio broadcast which had been temporarily placed in the efficient hands of Hershel Ottwell after my 171st consecutive message. Too, we had to begin distribution of the first volume of the Bible Commentary by Brother Zerr which we had published under our imprint. It sold for $4.00 per copy, bound in cloth and stamped in gold.

Our paper Mission Messenger, now almost ten years old, was full of reports of congregations being planted, new meetinghouses being erected, and people being immersed into Christ. Every issue contained letters from abroad and it seemed as if God was smiling upon the efforts of “the brotherhood.” It never entered our minds that we were exclusivists forming a divisive party. We were the one body for which Jesus had died. It was a propitious season for resuming the debates with Brother Brewer who had suggested that we hold an open discussion upon every Christian college campus. Inasmuch as he was on the staff of Harding College at Searcy, Arkansas, he suggested it as the best place for our third encounter.

On October 20, 1947, I wrote this genial “brother in error” and asked him to select a date. I was ready when he was. In his reply he said: “I suppose you keep up with the papers and, if you do, you realize that there is a considerable interest now aroused over a question among ourselves. This is the old question of whether or not a church should contribute to a school. You know my position, and this is the position held by the vast majority of my brethren. However, the Bible Banner group has been seeking to destroy me for some years and they thought they would get me committed to an issue on which none of the schools or orphan homes or papers would agree with me, and then they would have me branded as a disloyal, unfair man. They have failed in this and it is about to turn the other way. The Bible Banner is about to find itself standing alone on this point except for the sympathy they get from the Sommers. They are inconsistent or they would go on over to the Sommers or else drop the point they are making an ado about. Right now we have a challenge out to them and it is possible that Roy Cogdill will finally be urged to meet me in debate. If that happens, I’ll have him as an opponent instead of you; and when the debate is over, you can probably take his arguments and debate with me or some other man on our side.

“At any rate, this is the status of the case now and I am not prepared to tell you that you and I can have a debate soon. If this other debate fails to develop, then we may get Harding to invite our debate and we can move it to Memphis where we will have a big auditorium. We shall have to wait, however, for a while before we pursue this matter any further. With all good wishes, I am faithfully yours, —G. C. Brewer.”

I never debated Bro. Brewer again. The trouble which was fomenting in the ranks of those with whom he was directly affiliated continued to grow until eventually another major cleavage occurred and the restoration movement was disgraced by another unnecessary division. Today in some cities there are representatives of both sides meeting and challenging one another for debate. One side refers to the other as “liberals” while they think of themselves as “conservatives.” The fact is that neither group is the body of Christ in its fulness and both are simply factions which cannot get along with each other.

In January of 1948 we had 85 students from ten states enrolled in the study of the Word in Saint Louis. It was a great learning experience and we explored the Bible with a keen sense of desire for knowing more about the divine revelation. For six weeks we studied every day and held three night sessions of two hours each. We drew so close together that we wept when the time came to bid one another farewell.

Young preachers of the gospel, capable and eager, were rising up from every direction. Congregations which had always opposed us were switching their allegiance. In many older places record crowds were being registered. If I were to select the period in the twentieth century when the party with which I was allied reached its peak, it would be that time approaching the year 1950. We were confident, united, aggressive and fearless. On October 11, 12, 13, I debated Burton Barber at the Midwestern School of Evangelism, in Ottumwa, Iowa, on the subject of instrumental music. The fact is, we were ready and anxious to debate anyone who differed with us on any question.