With preachers from the farms, shops, stores, law offices, doctors’
offices, with a little learning, and many almost without it, we carried
this cause forward, and in defiance of all opposition have triumphantly
planted it in all directions in this and in many other countries. The
power was not _in the men_ but in the truth of God; the clear and
unquestionable truth, that could be made plain and reliable to all men,
and that, too, with very little learning or talent. The ground taken
was invulnerable, manifestly right. The Bible is from God, divine, and
admitted by all to be right, and there is not a reason in the world for
not taking and going by it. We have struck down all human authorities,
human names, and humanism of every sort, and restored to the people
of this generation to a wonderful degree the divine, the supreme and
absolute authority of the Bible, and are now commanding respect in a
remarkable degree, not as a _new denomination_, but as the people of
God, called out from the world and from Babylon, and planted upon the
Rock of God.
The man that runs against this cause and opposes it is not simply
running against men and opposing them, but against God, and must come
to nothing. The cause is simply right, infallibly right, and nothing
opposed to it is right. In this view we started in it, and have never
had a doubt about its correctness and supreme authority over everything
else in the name of religion. In our incipient movements every member
was a _preacher_, if not _publicly_, _privately_, and every preacher
was at work, as opportunity opened the way, in private, the social
circle, the prayer-meeting, the established and regular meeting on the
Lord’s day for the commemoration of the suffering of Jesus, anywhere
and everywhere, as a sense of propriety dictated on all occasions.
There were additions at almost every meeting, whether for prayer, or on
the Lord’s day, and frequently when there were no meetings. All were
_missionaries_, and missionaries _all the time_. Great numbers were
almost daily added to the church, of both men and women. Indeed, many
of the sectarian priests became obedient to the faith.
We had _discipline_ in the church—order, and the members were looked
after; not only the popular and rich, but the afflicted and the poor.
All were enlisted in the work, and had time to give attention to it.
The evangelists were self-sacrificing men, seeking the salvation of the
people, and preached in private dwellings, school houses, in barns,
mills, groves, anywhere and everywhere that a few people could be
found, who would hear the word of the Lord. The people crowded out to
hear, and, hearing, believed to the salvation of their souls. They were
of one heart and of one soul. The Bible was their book. “Thus saith
the Lord” was their watchword, and a man that would sneer at it would
have been regarded as a skeptic. “It is written” would be heard in the
preaching and conversations. “The chapter and verse” were demanded. It
was not the _novelty_ of the cause that gave it the victory, but the
certainty that it was right—that it was from God and of supreme
authority—that carried it to the hearts of the people. It was not
unsupportable human schemes and devices that gave it power among the
people, but the invulnerable nature of the cause itself. It was not
the polish of classical and plausible men that carried it through the
country, but the manifest authority of God in it.
Jesuits can only excel in being Jesuits; schemers can only excel in
scheming; but “the excellency of the power” that pushed this cause
through this country was not of Jesuits nor schemers, but of God; the
preaching of the cross, the wisdom of God and the power of God. We knew
nothing but Christ and him crucified, and went ahead with our plain and
unvarnished story of Calvary. God was with us.