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 The Origin 
 and P rinciples of the 
 Christians 
 
 '! 1. r\ ■ 
 
 
 
 
 By 
 
 Rev. Martyn Summerbell, D. D., LI/. D. 
 
 1 . r' 
 
 Lakemont, N. Y. 
 
 Delivered before the New Jersey Chris¬ 
 tian Conference in the Church of the Evan¬ 
 gel, Brooklyn, N. Y., October 28, 1911. 
 
 DAYTON, OHIO 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN PUBLISHING ASSOCIATION 
 
 1912 
 
THE ORIGIN AND PRINCIPIiES OF THE 
 CHRISTIANS 
 
 The pleasant duty falls to my lot on this 
 occasion to speak on the Origin and Prin¬ 
 ciples of the Christians. By “the Chris¬ 
 tians,” for the purpose of this discourse, 
 is meant that religious denomination which 
 sprang into existence at the end of the 
 Eighteenth, and the beginning of the Nine¬ 
 teenth Centuries, and to which this local 
 church—the Christian Church of the Evan¬ 
 gel—belongs, and in whose fellowship its 
 work is carried forward. 
 
 For this denomination, the Christians, it 
 may be briefly said that it has been in ex¬ 
 istence a little over a century; that it 
 numbers now something more than a hun¬ 
 dred thousand communicants, some making 
 it a hundred and forty thousand; that it 
 has some twelve hundred ministers and fif¬ 
 teen hundred churches; that it owns and 
 administers some ten colleges in as many 
 States of the Union; that it carries on an 
 extensive mission work in Japan, and an 
 infant mission in Porto Rico; that it has 
 a theological seminary in Ohio and a suc¬ 
 cessful publishing bouse in the same State; 
 and that its denominational organ is The 
 Herald of Gospel Liberty, which it pub¬ 
 lishes weekly, and which enjoys the distinc¬ 
 tion of being the oldest regular religious 
 weekly in continuous publication in the 
 
world. It might be possible to take another 
 step and claim for this religious paper, the 
 oldest of all, that it is also the best; and 
 there are some who are saying that very 
 thing. But we are a modest folk, and we 
 recognize that there are a number of very 
 excellent religious publications issuing from 
 the several denominational presses, and ac¬ 
 cordingly, and to avoid any appearance of 
 invidious comparison, we will simply say of 
 our oldest religious paper that it is among 
 the best that are published, and that it is 
 positively the best of all for us. 
 
 How came this denomination—the Chris¬ 
 tians—to exist; for what does it particular¬ 
 ly stand, and what does it purpose to ac¬ 
 complish? These are the questions before 
 us for consideration. 
 
 Now there is a sense in which we might 
 think of the Christians as constituting the 
 American National Church. I am saying 
 that we might think of it in that manner, 
 though it would be hardly courteous to 
 others to speak of it so ; at least very strenu¬ 
 ously. I am saying that among ourselves 
 we may think of our denomination as meet¬ 
 ing the conditions of the National Church 
 of America. For it came into being in the 
 period when our nation was taking on its 
 present national form; the impulses which 
 led to its formation were similar in the 
 religious field to those in the political field 
 which led our fathers to cast off the yoke 
 of kings: it was indigenous to America, for 
 
 4 
 
unlike so many of the denominations about 
 us it was not imported from over the sea, 
 and never paid a cent of duty for admission 
 to these shores, but, on the contrary, it 
 grew and developed from our native soil. 
 And more than all that it is the only de¬ 
 nomination now in the public eye which 
 can ever hope to become completely national 
 in character, for it offers the only creed, the 
 Holy Bible, which all Christians can accept; 
 and Jesus, the only Head of the Church, 
 whom all Christians can accept; and the 
 name Christian, the only name which all 
 Christians everywhere can accept. In these 
 several particulars the Christians are unique. 
 All that they require of a man, who pre¬ 
 sents himself for fellowship in one of their 
 churches, can be agreed to by any member 
 of any truly Christian denomination; for 
 they ask only what the Bible requires, and 
 no more; just what every real Christian 
 in any denomination believes, and no more; 
 just what God asks of a man to permit him 
 to enter heaven—just that and no more. 
 
 AVhen that day comes, and come it will, 
 as certainly as that the sun continues to rise 
 and the world to move forward and upward; 
 when denominational rancors and jealousies 
 shall cease; when all Christians shall turn 
 from trying to surpass one another to real 
 fighting against sin and evil; when all Chris¬ 
 tian forces shall stand marshalled shoulder 
 to shoulder for the promotion of righteous¬ 
 ness and the spiritual life in Jesus, as de- 
 
 5 
 
nomination after denomination wheels into 
 line to take its place in that magnificent 
 Christian host under the standard of our 
 Prince Immanuel, the principles on which 
 they will come together, and the name under 
 which they all will serve, will be the very 
 same as those which our Christian churches 
 have advocated and proclaimed all these 
 years. Every day the churches generally are 
 approaching this position. Every day they 
 are deploring the evils of division. Every 
 day they are planning new enterprises in 
 which all who love the Lord can work to¬ 
 gether. And when they reach the point 
 that they really wish to stand side by side, 
 there will be this difference between the 
 Christians and the others, that they all 
 will have to surrender something or other 
 to enlist in the united army; while the Chris¬ 
 tians will have to surrender nothing, for 
 they have been camped on this Union 
 Ground from their earliest beginning. 
 
 But it is time for us to consider that 
 beginning. The close of the Eighteenth 
 Century, as is well known to every student 
 of affairs, was marked by a great upheaval 
 of the human mind. It was a period of 
 breaking up long-standing abuses, of the 
 application of great principles to conduct 
 both in the individual, and in the social 
 mass. French philosophers had preached 
 infidelity and the rights of man till they 
 brought about the overthrov/ of their mon¬ 
 archy ; the apparition of the red spectre of 
 
 0 
 
the guillotine and the elevation to Empire 
 of the First Napoleon. 
 
 Something in the same ferment which ef¬ 
 fected such changes on the map, and in 
 the social conditions of Europe, w^as stirring 
 in the American Colonies. Liberty was a 
 watchword in all our Colonial Assemblies. 
 Every North American freeholder resented 
 the encroachments of the British crown, and 
 when the king’s ministers would not give 
 way, America exclaimed, “Away with 
 kings!” 
 
 But when men stand in peril of the sword 
 to assert their civil rights, they will soon 
 probably be taking account of the rights 
 and duties in civil relations. Many of the 
 colonists had given much attention to the 
 problems of state, and they began to think 
 that some of the principles under which they 
 had attained civil liberty could well apply 
 to greater liberty in their service to God. 
 This was all the more true since America 
 had been thinking intently on matters of 
 religion, Wesley and Whitefield, in both 
 England and America, had kindled a flame, 
 which resulted in a renewal of practical 
 piety and the reform of men in their daily 
 living. You may remember that it was in 
 1766 that the First Methodist Society was 
 constituted in New York City, and that it 
 was in 1770 when Whitefield preached 
 through New England like a forest flame. 
 From this time forward to the end of the 
 century and beyond, all through the Revolu- 
 
 7 
 
tionary War, and during that after time, 
 while Jefferson and Hamilton were framing 
 the Constitution under which we live; and 
 all that while new settlers were pushing 
 over the Alleghanies and down the Ohio, 
 there was a wonderful searching of the 
 hearts of men. Rights and duties were war¬ 
 ring against privilege and pleasure, and all 
 the old traditions that had been holding 
 souls in bondage were crumbling, * both at 
 the throne and the altar. The whole tenor 
 of the time, when you come to observe it, 
 was that of formation and reformation. If 
 there was revolt against a king, there was 
 also revolt against overmuch lordship in re¬ 
 ligious assemblies. As has been well said 
 many times since, these men felt that noth¬ 
 ing esteemed settled was really settled until 
 it was settled right. When you draw this 
 picture of the close of the Eighteenth 
 Century; when you see the common man 
 packing his saddle bags and mounting his 
 horse to ride to Boston, or Charleston, or 
 Richmond to sit in the hall of legislation; 
 when you see all over the land the traveling 
 preacher holding his services in a farmer’s 
 kitchen, or expounding the Word to expec¬ 
 tant hundreds from a platform of slabs in 
 the shade of the forest; when you see whole 
 families in city, or hamlet, or wilderness, 
 from Salem, in New England, down south 
 to Savannah, in Georgia, bending at the 
 home altar in the fervor of their devotion 
 to God, you may begin to feel the atmos- 
 
 8 
 
pbere, and to secure some realization of the 
 conditions in which the denomination called 
 Christians came to be so strangely born. 
 
 For the first we wdll turn toward the 
 Methodist communities in the South. You 
 may remember that the first General Confer¬ 
 ence of the Methodists was held in Balti¬ 
 more in 1784. Another was held in the 
 same city eight years later, in 1792, at which 
 it was proposed to episcopalize the church, 
 and elect Francis Asbury a bishop. But 
 America was not partial to bishops. In 
 the popular mind they were associated with 
 the monarchial principle, which America had 
 discarded in the state, and all the bishops 
 it had known were known to be friendly 
 to the king, and unfriendly to the new Re¬ 
 public. So far, Methodism had gotten on 
 well without bishops, and a number of the 
 preachers did not take at all to the proposi¬ 
 tion for the new order. The leader of the 
 opposition was James O’Kelly, a man of 
 great ability and force of character. It 
 was commonly known that John Wesley him¬ 
 self was against the making of bishops, and 
 that he had written a letter to Brother 
 Francis Asbury in which he pungently said, 
 “Call me a thief, scoundrel, or anything 
 else, but for the cause’s sake, call me not 
 Bishop!” 
 
 Another measure before the conference 
 was the adoption of a series of Rules of 
 Government, drawn up by Francis Asbury, 
 and these O’Kelly did not approve of at all. 
 
 9 
 
He claimed that the Bible was the best Rule 
 that could be made, and that the formation 
 of any other would result in oppression of 
 the brethren. In the course of the debate 
 he held up a New Testament • in the sight 
 of the conference, and exclaimed, “Put away 
 all other books and forms, and let this be 
 the only criterion, and that will satisfy me!” 
 
 But the conference, under the lead oi 
 Francis Asbury, was bent on its course. It 
 proceeded to elect Asbury to the bishopric, 
 and it voted approval to the Rules which 
 O’Kelly and his supporters had opposed, and 
 in consequence James O’Kelly, Rice Hag 
 gard, and some fifteen or twenty others with 
 drew, and their churches went with them 
 The new body which they constituted earlj 
 in 1793 took for its name that of Republican 
 Methodists, in allusion to the fact that its 
 government was vested in the membership, 
 and not in a bishop. But the next year it 
 was recognized that the title of the body 
 did not consort with Mr. O’Kelly’s claim 
 of having all things in the church governed 
 by the New Testament, and so the title. 
 Republican Methodist, was dropped in favor 
 of the Bible name, Christian. At that time, 
 in 1794, there were in Virginia and North 
 Carolina about a thousand members in the 
 churches of the new body, and aboiit twenty 
 churches and ministers. 
 
 From the South we may now glance west¬ 
 ward to that “dark and bloody ground” of 
 
F 
 
 Kentucky, which had been wrested from the 
 savage tribes at untold cost of privation and 
 peril. Here, in the year 1800, was found 
 a devoted band of young ministers of the 
 Presbyterian faith. They were zealous in 
 the Master’s service and preached the Gospel 
 with great power. One of their'number. 
 Barton W. Stone, was pastor at Cane Ridge, 
 He had started a revival close by his chapel 
 at Cane Ridge, and this meeting grew into 
 a great camp-meeting, which lasted r. year, 
 and at which converts professed religion 
 by the hundreds and thousands. After a 
 time there rose the question as to what 
 church these converts should join. But they 
 knew nothing of this church or that. They 
 had surrendered to Christ and His Gospel, 
 and had been living in that profession, and 
 it seemed to them enough. Asked of what 
 sect they were, they answered, “None.” 
 What denomination would they join? 
 “None.” What denominational name would 
 they prefer? And again they said, “None.” 
 How, then, would they live? And to that 
 they said, “We will continue to live as we 
 have begun: we will be Christians.” And 
 the young Presbyterian ministers under 
 whom they had begun the religious life cast 
 in their lot with them and became simply 
 Christians. Their names were well worthy 
 of our remembrance. They are Barton W. 
 Stone, John Dunlavy, John Thompson, Rob¬ 
 ert Marshall, and David Purviance. Their 
 faith was as pure as the Gospel, and as 
 
 11 
 
all-embracing as the whole Church of Christ. 
 
 And now we may go to the hillsides of 
 historic New England. There the cradle of 
 liberty had been rocked, and religious liberty 
 was to have a new awakening. 
 
 In the year of 179G, Abner Jones, a young 
 physician^ settled in Lyndon, Vt, where he 
 became successful in his calling. But he 
 was a profoundly religious man, and he felt 
 that God had called him to preach. He 
 was a member of the Baptist church. But 
 the more he read his New Testament, the 
 more he disagreed with the sentiments which 
 then prevailed among the Baptists. He held 
 the conviction that the whole Church of 
 Christ was greater than any branch of it, 
 and, beside, he could not find any church 
 in the Bible that was called Baptist. The 
 Bible tells about John the Baptist, but he 
 was not a church, and he never established 
 a church. Hear Mr. Jones on this subject: 
 “I drew up a determination to believe and 
 practice just what I find required in the 
 Bible, and no more.” 
 
 When he realized that there was no Bap¬ 
 tist church mentioned in the Bible, and that 
 the disciples were first called Christians at 
 Antioch, he ceased to call himself a Baptist, 
 and was known simpiy as a Christian. He 
 was ordained to the ministry by the Free 
 Baptists, and organized the First Christian 
 Church in New England, in Lyndon, Vt., in 
 1802. From this point he traveled far 
 and wide, preaching the gospel and found- 
 
 12 
 
ing churches. In Massachusetts he came in¬ 
 to touch with Daniel Hix and Elias Smith, 
 both Baptist ministers, but who now joined 
 with him in the broader field. They, and 
 those who heard them, gladly united on the 
 Bible as a sufficient creed for Christians; 
 on Christian as a sufficient name, and on 
 Christian character as the sufficient test of 
 fellowship. 
 
 Thus we observe, in the good Providence 
 of God, in three widely-separated portions 
 of the country. South, West, and East, and 
 from three dilferent denominations, Method¬ 
 ist, Presbyterian, and Baptist, these breth¬ 
 ren, faithful preachers all, all having a 
 vision of Christ’s Church as larger than any 
 denomination in existence, and broader than 
 what the broadest creed in existence could 
 cover, all reaching practically the same be¬ 
 lief, and all standing practically on the 
 same platform, and without any previous 
 knowledge of each other. It was some years 
 before they ever heard of the existence of 
 the others at all. But, in 1808, when Elias 
 Smith, in Portsmouth, N. H., published The 
 Herald of Gospel Liberty, by help of its 
 columns they came into acquaintance, and 
 at once joined forces in one body. 
 
 It has been said sometimes that the Chris¬ 
 tian Church was born in a revival. This 
 was true of the Mother Church in Jerusalem, 
 which gathered its three thousand converts 
 after Peter’s sermon on the Day of Pente¬ 
 cost, the first public effort of the new church. 
 
 13 
 
And, as we have seen, these early Christian 
 churches in the South, West, and East, were 
 all born in revivals. Their ministers were 
 pioneers. They felt called to preach in the 
 waste places. They went out, often two by 
 two, after the manner of the Master’s dis¬ 
 ciples, and journeyed from State to State, 
 and from town to town. Often they held 
 services every day in the week and twice, 
 or three times, on the Sabbath. And wher 
 ever they went they preached the gospel; 
 and because they preached just that, men 
 were converted, and churches were establish¬ 
 ed. They knew no m.aster but Christ, and 
 all whom they received into the church they 
 taught to be Christians. They were prac¬ 
 ticing Christian union, and they offered the 
 only ground on which Christian union 
 can be accomplished, and so were blazing 
 the path for succeeding generations to fol¬ 
 low. There is a hymn which they used to 
 sing in their early days—one whose poetic 
 fire may not be brilliant, but which indicates 
 their spirit. It began with this stanza: 
 
 “'More than ten years have rolled away. 
 Since I did testify and say, 
 
 Aside all party names I’ll lay. 
 
 And make the name of Christ my stay. 
 
 And join in Christian union.” 
 
 The stress laid upon the joy of, and the 
 obligation for Christian union, as shown by 
 this stanza, was characteristic of the Chris¬ 
 tians from the rise of their government. 
 
 14 
 
One of their favorite texts was that expres¬ 
 sion of our Lord, in John, where He prays, 
 that His disciples may be one, “so that 
 the world may believe that thou hast sent 
 me.” It was their constant claim that de¬ 
 nominational divisions were the bane of the 
 Church; that the creeds of the churches 
 were provocative of division, and so were 
 worse than needless, and, in fact, were 
 positivel 3 ^ mischievous; that the apostolic- 
 churches flourished when they had no creed 
 at all, other than the simple belief in Jesus 
 as the Son of God, and that the more closely 
 the Church of the day models itself after 
 the pattern of the apostolic Church, the 
 more readily will the world listen to its 
 plea, and the more triumphant will be its 
 progress. 
 
 ITow some of the Christian ministers have 
 spoken on Christian union I will show from 
 their own "words. Matthew Gardner was a 
 prominent minister of southern Ohio, and 
 an associate for many years of Barton W. 
 Stone, of Kentucky. He relates his attend- 
 ance at the Kentucky Conference, in 1815,. 
 and says, “The object of the Christian min¬ 
 isters then seemed to be to travel and preach 
 Christian union, upon the Bible, as the only- 
 rule of faith, and to induce all denomina¬ 
 tions to unite in one brotherhood.” Auto¬ 
 biography, p. 33. 
 
 Dr. Austin Craig, who was the first Presi¬ 
 dent of the Theological Seminary of the 
 Christians, says of their position: “If any 
 
 15 
 
man gives us evidence that he has the Spirit 
 of Christ, we do not trouble ourselves—at 
 any rate we do not trouble him—about his 
 theological opinions. He may be Trinita¬ 
 rian or Unitarian, Calvinist, Arminian, or 
 Universalist; yet, if he has the Spirit of 
 Christ, that is all that we require in order 
 to onr fellowship This, as I have always 
 ■supposed, is the position of the Christian 
 Connexion.” Life, p. 300. 
 
 Dr. Henry Y. Rush, who was for ten years 
 the editor of the denominational paper, 
 speaks thus of the Christian position: “I 
 ■shall stand to the end upon the platform of 
 our fathers as to Christian character being 
 the only test of fellowship and denomina¬ 
 tional co-operation. I could find in no other 
 pale a nobler brotherhood or more helpful 
 fellowship. The trend of our fairly and 
 ably-edited paper, and of its correspondence 
 is all in the line of less tenacity for 
 what Gallio termed ‘words and names,* 
 and for what Paul preached and died—the 
 union of Jew and Gentile into one faith 
 and fellowship—and this in a Person, and 
 not in a title—in charity, in love, and 
 not in form and show that are as tinkling 
 ■cymbals.” Life, p. 275. 
 
 I offer one more testimony to the hun¬ 
 dreds that are available, and that from the 
 pen of Dr. N Summerbell, than whom no 
 man was better qualified to speak for the 
 ■denomination. He says of the Christians: 
 “They receive Christ as their only leader, 
 
 16 
 
Christian as their only name, the Bible as 
 their only creed, and all Christians as their 
 brethren. Their principles are in harmony 
 with the Church as Christ founded it, and 
 the embodiment of those principles is the 
 only means by which all Christians can come 
 together as one body in Christ in Christian 
 union.” Life, p. 307. 
 
 From what has been so far said it may 
 be considered that the Christians are a 
 peculiar people; peculiar in managing to 
 exist for over a century without a written 
 creed, when everybody else maintained that 
 it was impossible to hold a church together 
 without a creed, and the longer and stiffer 
 it was, so much the better; peculiar in that 
 they rejected any distinctively denomina¬ 
 tional name, but everybody else was taking 
 special pride in his own denominational 
 name; peculiar in welcoming to their fel¬ 
 lowship men of the most adverse theological 
 opinions, when everybody else regarded 
 unanimity of opinion as positively essential 
 to the existence of a church; peculiar in 
 being as ready to attend the services of an¬ 
 other denomination, as those of their own, 
 when their own was not available; peculiar 
 in listening attentively to the minister of 
 any denomination, because they recognized 
 him as a brother, and not as a foeman. 
 In other words, the Christians have been 
 peculiar in cultivating the traits that are 
 common to all Christians, and in discourag¬ 
 ing the traits that would divide them from 
 
 17 
 
•the others; by which in the final analysis 
 you will easily perceive that they are pecul¬ 
 iar only in not being peculiar at all. For 
 in their preaching and teaching they hold 
 to, and impress the great fundamental 
 truths, which, as Augustine so well put it, 
 are believed “by all, always, and every¬ 
 where.” There are themes enough of that 
 kind, and ways enough of teaching them, 
 to keep any minister busy all the days of 
 his life. There is enough to say about 
 •God and Christ and Heaven; about man’s 
 •duty to God, and the Church, and his fellow- 
 men ; about his soul culture and his eternal 
 destiny to fill every Sunday in the year, 
 and without saying a single word to which 
 any real Christian can take honest excep¬ 
 tion. Sermons can be built on these, and 
 kindred themes, that the Methodist can ap¬ 
 prove, that the Baptist can approve, that 
 the Episcopalian can approve, that all Chris¬ 
 tians can approve, and that each and all 
 'Of them might imagine had been written 
 for his own denomination. And this is pos¬ 
 sible, for it is only the non-essentials which 
 divide men and set them apart from each 
 other; while it is the function of the funda¬ 
 mentals to unite them, and inspire them to 
 work collectively for the promotion of the 
 gospel. 
 
 As a rule, the instruction of our Christian 
 ministers has been everywhere acceptable. 
 Members of all denominations quickly find 
 themselves at home in their congregations. 
 
 18 
 
When our ministers have preached occasion¬ 
 ally in the pulpit of some other denomina¬ 
 tion, it has been seldom that they have 
 failed of receiving a sympathetic hearing. 
 Time and again after such a service our 
 ministers have been assured that no one 
 would have imagined them as coming from 
 another denomination, if not so advised. 
 And this result occurred, not because they 
 had twisted their sermons to suit the oc¬ 
 casion, but simply and only because the 
 truth they presented was fundamental truth, 
 the basic truth of the gospel, the truths 
 that held everywhere, and that will prove 
 true to all eternity. 
 
 And I can freely say that I believe in 
 that kind of preaching. I may go further 
 and say that that is the kind of preaching 
 that is coming more and more to be heard 
 in the pulpits of all denominations. 
 
 We are to-day on the eve of a vast for¬ 
 ward movement, under the auspices of the 
 laymen of the churches, to promote evan¬ 
 gelism. Manhood is to be enlisted, as never 
 before since the days of the apostles, to 
 awaken boys and men to the joys and glory 
 of the Christian faith. In this movement 
 there will be a concerted neglect of the 
 questions that men quarrel about; a con¬ 
 certed neglect of the questions that create 
 confusion and strife, and strong emphasis 
 will be laid upon the sublime truths of the 
 gospel. This teaching will follow closely 
 the lines of the Christian ministers who 
 
 19 
 
went into the wilderness, two by two, a 
 century ago. And, believe me, this laymen’s 
 movement, if it follows those lines, will meet 
 with the like successful results. 
 
 There is one binding element in this world, 
 which breaks down partition walls, which 
 overcomes selfish partisanship, which melts 
 all hearts into a common purpose; and that 
 is the Spirit of Jesus. This Spirit is roused 
 by the preaching of the gospel—the simple 
 gospel of Jesus. 
 
 Whenever Mr. Moody, or Mr. Chapman, 
 or any of the great evangelists of recent 
 years, have held their meetings, they have 
 insisted that all the Christians of any town 
 to which they have come should unite to¬ 
 gether, and work together as one for the 
 salvation of men. Mr. Moody and the others, 
 on such occasions, preached the gospel; the 
 plain truths and promises of the New Testa¬ 
 ment, and kept quite clear from any man’s 
 fads or fancies. All the denominational shib¬ 
 boleths and differences which divide the 
 Church were not alluded to, and those truths 
 were proclaimed which all Christians agree 
 on, and that all sinners in their hearts be¬ 
 lieve, no matter how much they try to for¬ 
 get them.* And whenever meetings are con¬ 
 ducted in this manner, sinners are converted, 
 backsliders are reclaimed, and the whole 
 church rejoices. It is only when the 
 churches drop back from that high ground, 
 and begin to press their particular claims 
 aggressively and selfishly, that coldness and 
 
 20 
 
apathy creep in to drive out Christian fervor 
 and love. 
 
 We, th.e Christians, believe in having that 
 Christian atmosphere all the time. For our¬ 
 selves, we are determined to cherish, nothing 
 that tends to chill the spirit of Christian 
 love. If differences of form, or of belief, 
 separate other Christians from others, they 
 are nothing to us. We do not care for such 
 differences; we do not even see them. Deep¬ 
 er than the form, past the dogma, we look 
 for the faith and the life. Wherever we 
 meet a Christian, be he Baptist, Methodist, 
 Episcopalian, or Quaker—so long as he is 
 Christ’s mail—we suffer not his denomina¬ 
 tional peculiarities to part him from our 
 affection, but gladly recognize him as a 
 brother in Christ. When he comes to one 
 of our Christian churches, so long as he 
 believes the Bible and lives as a Christian, 
 that is all we want to know; we receive 
 him as a brother. And w^e welcome to our 
 pulpits the minister of any Christian body, 
 not because he is a member of that body, 
 but simply because he is a Christian. And 
 when he preaches to us we listen; but we 
 are always most pleased when he preaches 
 those fundamental truths, which all of us 
 believe, and which are sure to make good 
 Christians, and to make good Christians 
 better Christians. 
 
 And, my brother, when all the preachers 
 get to doing just that; when they get to 
 preaching the fundamental truths of the 
 
 21 
 
gospel, there will not be any timber left 
 for building up partitions between Chris¬ 
 tians ; and the world will be increasingly 
 converted, and the Church will sing her 
 pean of triumph, and move forward for 
 the conquest of all the world for Christ, 
 
 This pamphlet can be obtained for distribution, by 
 sending to The Christian Publishing Association, Day- 
 ton, Ohio, and inclosing S5 cents per hundred. 
 
 22 
 
THE ORIGIN 
 
 - and - 
 
 PRINCIPLES 
 
 - of the - 
 
 CHRISTIANS 
 
 By 
 
 J. F. BURNETT, D. D. 
 
 Revised Edition 
 
 Size SYz X 7 inches 
 
 64 pages and cover. Con¬ 
 tains the result of years of 
 searching the oldest reliable 
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 consultations with best author¬ 
 ities known to the author. 
 
 Price: single copy, 5c; fifty 
 copies, $2.40; one hundred 
 copies, $4.00. Sent postpaid at 
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 ASSOCIATION 
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The Herald of Gospel 
 Liberty 
 
 Founded September First, 1808 
 
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