John Thomas: Early Years

Most readers of The Testimony will agree that Dr John Thomas’ deserves a high place in the list of men who have helped our under­standing of Scripture. He was not trained in any theological school: in later years opponents sometimes taunted him with being MD and not DD,² but this absence of training was perhaps an advantage in giving him an open mind when extraordinary circumstances moved him to devote his life to the study of religion.

A biography of Dr Thomas a work of over three hundred pages is available for those who wish to study the details of his career, and there are one or two other sources of informa­tion open to the student.’ The present effort will be to give a brief sketch of his most important activities, trusting to the incidents recorded to bring out both character and work, and leaving to the end the possibility of reviewing those remarkable expositions of prophecy which have been proved true by recent events.

John Thomas was born in the year 1805. His father was evidently a man of considerable ability, but of rather restless temperament. He had been in the Civil Service, he was a Nonconformist preacher, he started a private college for the training of preachers and made a success of it. Then he decided to forsake this work and go back to preaching. Shortly after this he responded to the lure of the New World, allowing his son to prospect but following so closely that he arrived in New York only three days later.

John Thomas apparently did not take much notice of his father’s preaching or of the Theological School. He was trained as a medical man and to medicine he devoted his early studies. When qualified he began to practise, and the only spare-time activity of which we are aware was the occasional writing of articles for medical papers. He was a conventional Christian, accepting the ministra­tions of those appointed for the work without troubling to inquire as to their credentials.

When Dr Thomas was about twenty-seven years old the decision was made to tempt fortune in the new world of America. In the tremendous activity of those days, in a new and rich land there appeared to be opportunities for both preacher and doctor. Father and son decided to make the experiment, and it was decided that the son should go first and report. Thus Dr Thomas, in his twenty-eighth year, became surgeon for the voyage on board a five­hundred-ton sailing ship bound for New York.

Intent on finding new fields for his medical activities, and with little thought of religion, the young surgeon embarked on a voyage which was to change the whole course of his life. The ship encountered such severe storms that passengers were afraid and asked the captain to read prayers. They ran some hundreds of miles out of their course without being aware of the fact. Then when danger seemed past, they ran into shallow water and struck the bottom in twelve successive blows, the last of which seemed like the call of death. No wireless in those days to sound the SOS. No steam to urge them on. Hundreds of miles out of their proper course, and with water pouring into the ship’s hold, the position for a time seemed hopeless.

It was in this crisis that the young doctor realised with a painful shock that he had devoted all his energies to the affairs of this little life which seemed now about to terminate, and had hardly given a thought to the eternity beyond. He made a resolution that if his life was spared at this time he would repair the error of the past and make a genuine study of religion. No doubt many similar resolutions have been made in such times of danger. This one was kept.

The crippled ship crept into New York harbour many weeks late, and Dr Thomas had hardly time to look round before his impatient father joined him, having made a much better and quicker passage.

Father and son were now alike in feeling the greatest interest in the American churches, the father wondering where he could find a good place for his preaching, and the son raising the old question, “What is truth?”. They were drawn toward the West, from whence came reports of great religious activity.

Life seems to have been free and easy in those days. Perhaps America had not lost the sociability of the early pioneers who would naturally welcome the advent of any strangers of their own racial stock. No doubt, too, there was better opening for doctors and surgeons than would be found in the same districts now. The young doctor did indeed complain that he found too many of his profession already in the field; but, in view of the fact that he came as a stranger from another country, it is rather extraordinary that he found work so easily as it appears to have come to him.

Dr Thomas desired to hear the views of the most zealous of religious reformers, and this brought him into touch with some of the followers of Alexander Campbell. One of these zealous advocates of true baptism tackled the young doctor, and at one and the same time proved his sincerity and exposed his ignorance of Scripture. Had Dr Thomas been baptized? He had presumably been baptized when he was an infant, nothing more. Did he not know that the true and apostolic baptism was by the immersion of an adult believer? Dr Thomas replied that he did not attach much importance to this matter, but if his mentor could point to a passage of Scripture in which a man submitted to immersion in water on believing the gospel he would follow the example. Dr Thomas at that time had no intention of being immersed, and he actually thought he was safe in making this promise! The other promptly turned to the record of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8). Dr Thomas was honest enough to admit that he was cornered. He tried to escape for the moment by raising the difficulty that he had made no preparation for such a ceremony. This objection was quickly swept aside, for the preacher of apostolic baptism had all things ready for a convert: gown, water and baptist. Thereupon the young seeker for truth yielded and was duly immersed, although he felt that the step was precipitate, seeming to form a definite alliance with a particular body before finding time for the thorough investigation he had promised.

Soon after his baptism Dr Thomas moved toward the East with letters of recommendation from his new-found friends. He met Alexander Campbell and was received at once as a brother and helper. All that we hear of Alexander Campbell in this connection is creditable to him as a man.

In our days hardly any student would venture to deny that the apostolic practice of baptism was by the complete immersion of adult believers as a symbol of the death and burial of Christ. A scholar may claim the right of the church to alter the ordinance or he may be indifferent to apostolic teaching, but he will freely admit that the immersion of believers was the original form of baptism. A hundred years ago in America religious people desired to have the apostles on their side far more perhaps than now, but it was no easier to persuade them to submit to apostolic authority in the matter of this ancient rite.

We are informed that Alexander Campbell looked like a farm labourer dressed appropri­ately for rough work. No doubt he was a farmer, for he owned a large area of land in Virginia. He was a rich man and yet he lived with Spartan simplicity, devoting his energies to the work of religious reformation.

John Thomas, the young English doctor, was a welcome convert, able as he was to write and speak in a manner that was rare in the States at that time. He was pressed into service as a speaker, and was rather surprised to find his efforts acceptable. Years later he discovered that his mature expositions of Scripture were not appreciated nearly as well. In early days, with very little knowledge of the Scriptures, he was able to please the ear without giving any cause for offence. A little theology, most of it wrong, with plenty of padding and a few stories by way of illustration, produced a mental pabulum more attractive than either the “milk of the word” (1 Pet. 2:2), or the “strong meat” (Neb. 5:12) which should come later.

The doctor, finding that it was not easy to get medical work, and that he was being pressed into preaching for which he did not feel properly equipped, decided to go to Phila­delphia. He accepted letters to two of the well-known Campbellite’ brethren of that city, apparently holding offices in the church described as that of President and Deacon.

Dr Thomas was mistaken in supposing that he would escape from the work of preaching in Philadelphia. He was apparently welcomed on the ground that, young as he was, he “could not possibly be worse than Brother B.”: and it was hoped that he would provide a pleasant change from the deadly dullness of that old worthy.

While he was in Philadelphia the Doctor was led to become an editor. It seems that there were not too many religious magazines in those days, and there was an opening fora man who could write well. Those readers who are acquainted with Elpis Israel and Eureka—to say nothing of the racy editorials of earlier days—will admit that Dr Thomas possessed literary ability. His style may have been too diffuse to suit our hasty times, but for a generation which could read Butler’s Analogy, and take a novel of Scott’s as the very lightest of their literary diversions, his writings would have great attraction. It is probable that his articles, even when he began the work, were greatly superior to the majority of religious efforts in the States a hundred years ago.

There was an element of humour in the birth of the new paper. Its origin was through the enterprise of a certain member of the reformed church, who was anxious to aid his fellows and at the same time line his own pockets by advertising a certain pill of which he was the manufacturer. What better combination of activities than for the preacher to bring out a magazine with writing to cure the souls of readers, while the enterprising business man secured a free advertisement of pills to cure their bodies? The author of this ingenious scheme made the mistake of being too anxious to see developments. Keeping the pills well in the background, he approached Brother B. as the elder of the church and put forward his suggestion for a religious periodical. Perhaps finding the elder ‘slow in the uptake’, he then put the matter before the young and vigorous medical man. Dr Thomas, quite unaware that Brother B. had been first approached, jumped at the idea, and with his ready pen soon produced a prospectus for the proposed venture.

When this came to light, the elder, who had apparently been thinking over the suggestion. was furious to find that he had been thus slighted. He sought the author of the scheme and inflicted upon him such a verbal castigation that the pills disappear from the history. The project. however, remained ; Brother B. in­tended to bring out a magazine on the lines suggested, and some preliminary steps were taken. Illness and the infirmity of age prevented him from following the matter, and so by general consent Dr Thomas took up the work on the lines of his prospectus.

Thus began a work which with many changes of circumstances has continued down to the days in which we live.