THE EDITOR IN LUNENBURG.

We have been absent about twenty days during the last month in Lunenburg county, which is the reason of the late issue of the previous number. This section of Virginia has acquired considerable interest in connexion with the progress of the gospel in these United States. About a dozen or fifteen years ago it was literally in a state of heathenish darkness. Sectarianism in stolid imbecility reigned there in all the plenitude of infatuated ignorance of the Law and the Testimony; so that “religion” was but another name for the spiritless “piety” of a heartless formality. The incarnation of this unmental mysticism was pre-eminently discoverable in the Association which rejoiced in the leadership of the Rev’d. Silas Shelburn, and his colleagues of the night. The “pious” looked up to them as the very oracles of heaven, the droppings of whose ministrations made effectual by the concurrent work of the “Holy Ghost” upon the hearts of sinners, wore away the hardness of their impenitence, gave them a saving faith, a hope of pardon, and a “title clear to mansions in the skies!” This was truly the hour of darkness. Not even a farthing rushlight burned to irradiate a single soul. Shelburn and company were darkness manifest in the flesh, whose blackness assumed an intensity in the ratio of their presumption blindly to lead the blind. They had the scriptures among them it is true; but they read them, if they read at all, as one reads a book written in a language he does not understand. The key was lost, and there was none that could tell them where to find it. Thus the Kingdom was closed against them; for no man could tell them how to enter in.

Things might have continued in this deplorable condition till the advent of the King of Israel but for the benevolence of God. It would seem that he determined to cause the light to shine out of the darkness itself, by making the dark atoms of the system instrumental in its reflection. This, however, could not be accomplished all at once. Light was manifested on the first day, but the sun, moon, and stars did not appear until the fourth. The chaos was inveterate and almost unplastic, and required violence to be subdued; for it is a law of divine creation that the Spirit of God must “move,” before the “let be” of heaven’s will can be established. This movement commenced in the Pharaoh of the system being roused up that the truth of God might be manifested in his fall. The report of what was going on in other parts of Virginia between the Campbellites and the Baptists found its way to Lunenburg, where curiosity was excited, and a disposition to play with fire created. The consequence was that we received an invitation from Silas Shelburn to visit the Baptist churches there of which he was popeling, that they might by hearing us see if they could fellowship us. We accepted the invitation, stating that we would see if we could fellowship them. We went, and introduced the Campbellite gospel among them, that is, Baptism for the Remission of Sins to every one that confessed that Jesus is the Christ—this was the good news we preached to them from Acts 2: 38, in those “times of ignorance” when we affirmed what we had been taught—things, however, which neither we nor our teachers understood, which is the case with the latter until this day. Nevertheless, the commingled theory laid before them was a decided improvement upon the bare bones they had been picking for their spiritual sustenance with such patience and humble thankfulness for so many previous years. There was something tangible about it, for we could show that it was written “be baptised in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins.” If therefore a man believed in Jesus and was immersed, we jumped to the conclusion that he had remission, and had obeyed the gospel of Christ. This is at once true and not true. It is true if a man believes in Jesus in the scripture sense of the phrase; it is not true, however, in the Campbellite and Baptist acceptation of it; yet the Campbellite definition of faith in Jesus is more distinct and rational than the alter-sectarian notion. We may remark here in passing, that to believe in Jesus is defined in the scriptures as believing in the “exceeding great and precious promises of God” and in Jesus as his son and heir; —in other words, “the things concerning the Kingdom of God and the Name of Jesus Christ.” But in those days darkness overshadowed our minds in relation to that kingdom. A kingdom was indeed talked about, but it was about such a kingdom as God has nowhere promised in the Law and the Testimony. We preached the gospel of the kingdom set up on the day of Pentecost; and taught the reception of men into the kingdom by confession that Jesus was the Son and Christ of God, sorrow for sin, and immersion into the name. Such a gospel as this, sustained by collateral arguments in favor of the necessity of reading the scriptures for ourselves, of their sufficiency to make us wise to salvation, of the obligation to “prove all things and to hold fast that which is good”—was the hearth of fire kindled in the wilderness to consume the thorns and briars of sectarianism which had brought the ground well nigh to cursing.

The introduction of Campbellism into Lunenburg made the dry bones rattle. It caused the dissolution of the Association of Baptist churches, and started questions among them which shook them to their foundations of sand. “If,” said they, “the belief that baptism is for the remission of sins to those who confess that Jesus is the Son and Christ of God, be the gospel, we have not believed it, we cannot have obeyed it; therefore, although we have been immersed we must be still sinners, and unsaved from our past sins.” This view of the matter originated the question of “re-immersion” among them. The subject was much agitated, and warmly discussed. Their leaders, who were men of remarkably rude and uncultivated minds, the exact counterpart, indeed, of the dilapidations, and agricultural ruin and impoverishment in the midst of which they respired the breath of life, —these began to perceive that in introducing Campbellism into their region they had warmed a serpent into existence that if not scotched without delay would slay them like Israel in the wilderness. They saw no deliverance except in worshipping the serpent whom they feared. They lifted up their eyes to him; for they had divined, that though Campbellism suggested the question of “re-immersion,” its supervisor was opposed to it. They became fervid Campbellites. They offered incense to the image in the west, and under the inspiration of the deity that resided in it, became valiant for the leaven of the scribes. Their policy prolonged their existence for a time, during which they labored diligently in their vocation of producing strife and every evil work. But, in spite of all their chicanery and hypocrisy their opposition was defeated, and the conviction thoroughly established that the gospel they had been preaching was no gospel at all, and that an immersion predicated on the belief of it was neither the obedience of faith, nor christian baptism.

While this controversy was in progress, the immortality of the soul attracted public interest. A week’s debate upon this subject at the Fork Church in Lunenburg, between the editor and a Presbyterian clergyman, established the conviction in many minds that man has no inherent immortality of any kind. They perceived that immortality, or “life and incorruptibility,” were a matter of promise, and part and parcel of the inheritance of the righteous only. With the dethronement of immortal-soulism, Campbellism began to decline rapidly in their esteem. They saw no difference between it and sectarianism in the hope it set before the people. It was as visionary upon the important subject of immortality as the systems it denounced. Its place of departed spirits, and kingdom of glory beyond the skies, both fell to the ground when Hymenean-Campbellism was deposed. In those days the sectarian gospel and the sectarian heaven and immortality received a blow in Lunenburg from which they can never recover themselves in this generation. The leaders aforesaid became exceedingly mad against us in consequence. The subjects discussed were too high for them. They could not grasp or comprehend them. They declaimed, they denounced, they raved, and blasphemed, but could not reason; for reason and testimony were both against them. They had recourse to all sorts of meanness and intrigue; but in every effort they were foiled, defeated, and exposed. Campbellism had ruined Baptistism in their circuit, so that all that remained to them was to hold on to the former though itself in the article of death.

As it may be supposed, the discussion of these questions kept up an appearance of life in the religious community to which the non-professors themselves were not indifferent. In 1839, we removed to Illinois where we remained about four years. There was a lull in the controversial tempest, during which the leaders had an opportunity of obtaining aid and comfort from deserters and allies from abroad. They hired “evangelists” at several hundreds per annum to preach Campbellism, and union with the Baptists. One of the hirelings was quite successful for a time in his vocation. Being a sort of trumpet, or “sounding brass,” he made a great noise, which not a few mistook for gospel. While his blasts were echoing in their ears they had peculiar sensations, which they supposed were convictions of the truth. As getting people into the water was regarded as the triumph of the gospel, all efforts were directed to this end. ‘Water,’ therefore, was continually tinkling in their ears like the jingle of a cymbal; so that in going down into the water in all their ignorance, they imagined they were obeying the truth! The consequences of yielding to senseless sounds instead of calm conviction of the truth soon became apparent. Collapse succeeded excitement; and death, the fitful fever that plunged them in the cooling stream.

When we returned from Illinois these sounding brasses stirred up their proselytes against us, and tried their strength for our seclusion from the field of their hireling operations. But they were beaten on every point, and put to open shame. At this stage of affairs no principle was in debate. Re-immersion, and immortality the gift of God only to the righteous, had triumphed; but the tactics of the enemy were changed. Their energies were concentrated in a personal attack upon us, and in an endeavor to exclude from their churches all who would not countenance them in their iniquity. But even in this encounter they were put to the rout, and their intrigues circumvented at every point. They were baffled, confounded, mortified; and have found it more to their advantage to retire from the scene of action into that original and more congenial obscurity from which they ought never to have emerged.

It may easily be conceived that while all this controversy and party conflict was waging in their midst a great deal of interest would seem to be manifested in the truth. This was “life” and “heat” of a certain kind. “The meetings of the brethren” were well attended, and they sung and rejoiced together as though they were actually sitting down together enjoying “spiritual blessings in the heavenlies.” But how changed the appearances of things at the present time. Mr. Campbell represents them as a withered, scattered, and dying flock. If the churches under consideration be so it is the work of his spirit incarnate in the rude corpuscles which had been working mischief there for so long a time. Through them he destroyed Baptistism to some extent, and reacted upon his own system which he also wounded unto death. While the burning fuel consumed the victim it exhausted itself by its own fires. This is the relation of Baptistism and Campbellism in Lunenburg. There is no life or heat in either; they are merely the exhausted and dying embers of a desolating conflagration. They lie side by side like bleeding warriors, enfeebled, helpless, and expiring on the field. Their end is come, and this is their obituary. Their collisions have resulted in good; for the spirit of God has moved upon the face of the waters, and light has sprung forth.

Till 1847 the previous controversies had been preparing the way for the Gospel of the Kingdom. Hitherto the lightning and the thunder, the tempest and the earthquake had awakened the minds of many, and predisposed them to give ear to “the still small voice of truth.” The study of the scriptures necessitated by the position we had found ourselves in during previous years had opened up to us “the things of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ.” We discovered that these things as a whole constituted the Gospel and its Mystery, or the glad tidings and conditions upon which “the joy of the Lord” might be entered upon. We saw clearly that the popular or Gentile sense of the saying that “Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the living God,” was not the gospel; that repentance was not sorrow for sin, nor reformation; but a faithful and hopeful, a humble, childlike, and obedient disposition, such as Abraham exhibited when he believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness; that remission of sins was not promised to the Gentiles on a simple confession that Jesus was what he claimed to be; but upon a repentant belief in the things of the Covenant, and in Jesus as “the Messenger of the Covenant;” that baptism in the Campbellite sense was not for the remission of sins; but for the union of a repentant believer in the whole gospel to the name of Jesus, in which uniting action his disposition was granted to him for repentance, and his faith counted to him for remission, in that exalted and omnipotent name. We saw that the Gentile hope of a heaven beyond the skies for immortal souls was not the hope of the gospel, but no hope at all, because it was false, being nowhere taught in the word of God. These things being apparent, we saw that Campbellism was a mere pioneer of truth, and not the truth itself. We therefore renounced it as a thing which had answered its appointed end, and destined thenceforth to fall into the rear, and to be numbered among its antagonists as a thing of nought. Like all other sects, exhausted and dead, its work being fully accomplishes, it exists only as a monument of the past to point a moral and adorn a tale. Having put off this legend and embraced the faith, we introduced the gospel of the kingdom to Lunenburg. Its light shone into the hearts of several, while others were staggered by the announcement. Its effects have been characteristic of the truth. It began the work of separating the wheat from the chaff. Where it found “an honest and good heart,” a soil congenial to the good seed, the word of the kingdom put forth its radicles and shot upwards above the ground; but where the soil was stony, thin, and thorny, the hearing of the word was attended with withering, choking, and death. Churches were dissolved, “the meetings of the brethren” suspended, and numbers scattered themselves to their tents, as if they had no further interest in the Son of Jesse, or in his kingdom and throne. To them who walk by sight and not by faith this state of things had the appearance of desolation and ruin. But in this they err, not discerning the true nature of things. The former things were corrupt before God and needed to be abolished, before a wholesome and scriptural system could be established. The dispersion that came upon them will afford scope for the manifestation of the approved; who, we trust, will shine brighter and brighter to the perfect day. The enlightening and exaltation of the human mind is a long and tedious process. It is like the growth of trees, gradual and perceptible only after a lapse of years, as in the case before us. That process has been made in Lunenburg during the past fourteen or fifteen years is visible to every one who is acquainted with things as they are and as they were when we first visited the county. Then there were none that knew the truth; but now there are many, though even these are but in the infancy of spiritual life.

Since our departure to England, with the exception of one or two visits from our friend and brother in the faith, Albert Anderson of Caroline, no culture has been bestowed upon them. They have been left to their own resources, which they have not availed themselves of as abundantly as they might. They promise amendment in this respect; and we do earnestly hope that as the time allotted to them is short they will awake from their slumber, and gird themselves to meet the King in power and great glory. As we have said, we visited them during the past month, and talked to the people about twenty-four hours altogether on the kingdom and name of Christ. At Ledbetter and Good Hope the houses were unable to hold the numbers assembled, though there were meetings around us on every side. At Concord and Lunenburg Court House the assemblies were small; also at Forest Hill, a meeting house belonging to the Presbyterians, which they very readily and politely granted to us for the occasion. We confess that things appeared flat and lukewarm among our old friends, which, however, may be more apparent than real. The contrast to us is very great after the scenes we have passed through during our sojourn in Britain. The spirit of partyism is happily laid and extinguished; but this is no reason why the friends of the truth should become lukewarm. Of all persons under the sun they have the greatest reason to be warm-hearted, alive and vigorous. If on examination they have found that they are not in the faith, let them be up and doing, and obtain the answer of a good conscience towards God. Let them think of and devote themselves less to the present evil world; let them gird up the loins of their mind, and be men; and let them go to work in earnest, labouring and striving to enter into that rest which remains for the people of God. Our patience is greatly exercised. We have labored many years for the illumination and improvement of the people of Lunenburg. To what extent our endeavors have been effective we cannot yet see; we do hope, however, that those who say they see, will respond to the sentiment that He whom they profess to serve expects that every man will do his duty.

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