The Apostolic Advocate was the earliest of the magazines which Dr. Thomas edited and it first saw the light of day in 1834 only two years after he had emigrated to America and embraced the beliefs of the Disciples of Christ, or Campbellites. Thirteen further years were to pass before a more adequate comprehension of the Truth in its fullness impelled him to be reimmersed. The Advocate was therefore essentially a Campbellite magazine and the issues which dominated its early pages were those closest to the Campbellite heart—the condemnation of sectarianism, the call for reformation and a return to a Scripturally-based Christianity, the denunciation of the churches of the Apostacy and the insistence on total immersion as the true mode of baptism.
None the less, from the outset, the robustness of outlook and independence of thought of Dr. Thomas were manifest in his writings, and the pursuit of Truth on which he had embarked with such singleness of purpose could only lead to friction and ultimate rupture with the Campbellite body. Readers of the Life of Dr. Thomas by Brother Roberts or the less well-known biography by Brother J. W. Lea will be familiar with some of the stages by which this developed. It was in the sixth number of The Apostolic Advocate, that for October 1834, that an article on “Anabaptism” sparked off the beginnings of a rift with Alexander Campbell and a controversy between the two men.
The article stated clearly the need for a valid baptism to be preceded by an adequate knowledge of the first principles of Truth, with the obvious corollary that re-immersion was necessary for those who might have entered the baptismal waters without this measure of enlightenment. This touched very closely those converts from the Baptist Church who had received a form of baptism by total immersion but had not been required to make a further submission to the Scriptural injunction on coming over to the Disciples of Christ.
At a slightly later stage, in the December 1835 issue, the publication of thirty-four questions under the heading “Information Wanted” raised the basic issues of the nature of man, the mortality or immortality of the soul, the ultimate destiny of the righteous and the wicked, and the purpose and process of resurrection, in which we see the seeds of the Truth beginning to blossom forth. The Doctor was to protest that these points were set forth as questions for consideration and not as propositions, but the wrath of Campbell and his adherents fell upon him with such fury that one is surprised that so many years elapsed before the final breach came.
In detailing these matters, the readily available biographies include lengthy extracts from The Apostolic Advocate in so far as the relevant articles are concerned. With the publication now of a complete reprint of all issues of the magazine during the first two years of its existence, we are enabled to follow the controversy in all its stages. It is fascinating to enter into the mind of the Doctor at this early period in his career and to see his appreciation of the Truth growing.
We also see his character reflected in the things he writes. Much is taken up with local controversies which agitated the religious scene in and around Richmond, Virginia, but even these are questions of fundamental significance when stripped of the personalities and the trappings of time and place in which they are set. The Doctor was always a hard hitter where matters of the Truth were concerned. In the years of his maturity, the tone of his polemical writings is startlingly strong on occasion. In these early years, it is even more so. Let us, however, reflect that pioneering is no vocation for weaklings and give thanks to our Heavenly Father for the robustness of character of those who paved the way for the relatively easier task we have inherited from them.
There is some account of the Doctor’s preaching tours and the vicissitudes which accompanied them, and this serves to underline the Doctor’s role as a man of action as well as words.
Also of special interest to students of his life are the occasional letters to him from his father in London which are printed in the magazine, with their comments not only on the religious climate this side of the Atlantic but also on the condition of the poor in London and similar matters. Something of his father’s life and character will already be known to readers of the biographies and one cannot doubt that the Doctor owed much to him. It is an interesting and perhaps not widely known fact that, shortly after the period covered by these issues of The Apostolic Advocate, the Doctor’s brother (with whom he was to stay during his visit to Britain in 1848-50) was to become secretary to the Society (later the Royal Society) for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and to play some part in the campaigns against cockfighting in Middlesex and bull-baiting at the annual fairs at Stamford. Family influences doubtless help to shape character to some extent, and one is pleased to encounter John Thomas, senior, in the magazine.
The reprint has been made from plates prepared from microfilms of the originals and the reproduction is of very good quality when allowance is made for this. To make the volume of manageable size and format, two pages of the magazine are printed side by side on each page. This enables the whole to be contained in one book, with semi-stiff covers.
The Herald Press is to be complimented on the service it has rendered to the brotherhood in producing it and overcoming the various obstacles which we understand have beset the enterprise. There is the possibility that the remaining three volumes of The Apostolic Advocate (1836 to 1839) may be similarly reprinted at a later date and one hopes that sufficient support may be forthcoming to enable this to be done.
Review of “The Early Earth” by John Whitcomb (1972)