Introduction
1. IT BEGAN IN SCOTLAND
   
2. THOMAS CAMPBELL WRITES HIS DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
   
3. THE SPIRIT OF THE "DECLARATION AND ADDRESS"
   
4. PRINCIPLES OF THE DOCUMENT
   
5. HISTORIC NOTES ON OUR FIRST CHURCH
   
6. "LET CHRISTIAN UNITY BE OUR POLAR STAR"
   
7. THE NOBLEST ACT IN BARTON STONE'S LIFE
   
8. LEARNING FROM A BACKWOODS PREACHER
   
9. CHRISTIANS IN BABYLON
   
10. WHAT IS THE GOSPEL?
    
11. THE ESSENCE OF THE CAMPBELL PLEA
    
12. THE DEATH OF A DREAM
    
13. THE SAND CREEK ADDRESS
    
14. A MUDDLED MOVEMENT
    
15. THE AUTHORITY TOTEM
    
16. THE PARTY SPIRIT
    
17. THE BED OF PROCRUSTES
    
18. OUR COSTLIEST SIN: EXCLUSIVISM
    
19. RESTORATION OR REFORMATION
    
20. A BOY LEARNS THE MEANING OF BROTHERHOOD
    
21. THE BUTTING BRETHREN
    
22. ANALYSIS OF LEGALISM
    
23. THE ESSENCE OF CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP
    
24. THOUGHTS ON FELLOWSHIP
    
25. ON THE ROCKS
    
26. WITHDRAWING FROM THE DISORDERLY
    
27. CAUSING DIVISIONS
    
28. TWO GREAT ERRORS
    
29. UNION IN TRUTH
    
30. ONE BODY IN CHRIST
    
31. UNITY AND IDENTITY
    
32. UNITY IN DIVERSITY
    
33. IS DOCTRINE IMPORTANT?
    
34. THE WEIGHTIER MATTERS
    
35. MUST WE GIVE UP OUR OPINIONS?
    
36. WHAT DIFFERENCES DO DIFFERENCES MAKE?
    
37. THE "ONE BAPTISM" AND FELLOWSHIP
    
38. ARE WE TO FELLOWSHIP THE UNIMMERSED?
    
39. OUR FATHERS ON "WHO IS A CHRISTIAN?"
    
40. "OUR BROTHERS IN THE DENOMINATIONS"
    
41. WHAT IS "OUR FELLOWSHIP"?
    
42. ARE WE TO FELLOWSHIP THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH?
    
43. I WOULD ABDICATE
    
44. A BASIC FALLACY TO OVERCOME
    
45. CAN WE BE UNITED AND NOT KNOW IT?
    
46. SEPARATED BUT NOT DIVIDED
    
47. THE ONE CHURCH INDIVISIBLE
    
48. UNITY WILL COME, BUT
    
49. IF NOT BROTHERHOOD, THEN CO-EXISTENCE
    
50. THIS IS OUR GLORY!
    
51. THE UNIFYING POWER OF THE CROSS
    

A BOY LEARNS THE MEANING OF BROTHERHOOD

I was not quite nine years old when I ran into my first real problem about brotherhood. And it all came about because of a gallon of coal oil-kerosene it is called in these days. If you have time, and are not too busy to listen, I would like to tell you about it.

At the time we lived in a little two­room miner's shack with a summer kitchen out back. It was typical of the houses in the sprawling village dominated by the mine tipple and the huge chat dump, that tailing pile left after the rock had been ground at the crushing mill and the ore extracted. There were three younger children besides me, and another on the way. Papa worked a thousand feet underground. Every day he went down on the cage, wearing his carbide lamp on his cap so he could see where to use his miner's pick to get to the vein of ore. Sometimes he worked the day shift, and at other times the evening or night shift. There was little time indeed to do things as a family since the work underground was ten hours per day and six days per week.

We children were thrust upon our own resources, and since the one next to me was a boy, we spent a good deal of time dreaming up games to play. When we got tired of playing we could always relieve the tedium and tension by fighting. Nothing else was quite as interesting as a good fight, and it was all the more fascinating because it was forbidden.

On the day I am going to tell about, Mama called me to the house and told me to take the coal oil can and go to the company store and get a gallon of coal oil with which to fill the lamps. She gave me a nickel with which to pay for it and cautioned me not to lose it. She also told me to take my brother along. I protested because he had a stone bruise on his heel at the time and walked on his toes on that foot because he could not bear to touch his heel to the ground. I complained that he would slow my progress and that he was too young to go to the store anyhow, seeing he had just turned seven. My arguments did not prevail and I took him along reluctantly, muttering to myself and threatening him as we went.

When we arrived at the store there were five or six men, miners from another shift, sitting on the front porch, mostly talking and whittling, and chewing Star cut­plug tobacco. Miners who were not at work gathered here every day. I recognize one of them. It was Cotton­eye Joe. I didn't know if he had another name. Miners were a rough lot and they nicknamed everyone without thought of compassion or feelings. Most of them didn't mind, I guess. Mr. Gorman, who had walked with a limp all his life, was always called "Crip," and Mr. Jameson, who had his back broken when a blast went off prematurely on a slope where they were tamping powder in a drill­hole, was called "Humpy" because he walked all bent over and couldn't straighten up.

One of Cotton­eye Joe's eyes was covered with a milky film and was sightless. As one miner said, "School was dismissed in his right eye because there was no pupil." But he was also called Cotton­eye to distinguish him from Deaf and Dumb Joe who lived down by the creek with his mother and scared all of us kids out of our hides because he made such funny faces and sounds trying to tell something.

Cotton­eye Joe was the village trouble­maker. Everyone knew that he kept things all stirred up. As we walked by him into the store he grabbed me by the ankle and growled like a dog. I jumped like I was shot and stubbed my big toe against the door jamb. I saw stars. But I went on in and put my nickel on the counter, and Mr. Watson took it and filled the can with oil and put a potato on the spout to keep me from sloshing it out as I walked.

When my brother and I went back outside, Cotton­eye Joe motioned to us and said, "Come here, you boys!" We walked over to where the men were sitting while dangling their feet off the porch.

Addressing himself to me, Cotton­eye Joe asked, "Are you boys brothers?"

"Yes, sir," I said, "he's my brother and I'm his brother"

"Are you sure?" he asked.

"Sure, I'm sure, Mr. Cotton­eye. We really are brothers."

"Well, I don't believe it," he replied. "You can't be. He's got brown eyes and yours are blue. How can you be brothers and have different colored eyes?"

"Oh, that doesn't count," I replied. "According to that your eyes wouldn't even be brothers, 'cause one of 'em is white and the other is kind of greenish."

When I said that the rest of the men slapped their legs, threw their heads back and started to laugh, so I moved over to one side. You quickly learned to do that when men were chewing tobacco and started to laugh and splutter. You got out of the direct line of fire.

Some of the men could put their fingers to their lips and make a "V" and spit through their front teeth and hit a tomcat's eye across a sixteen­foot room. They called that expectorating because they said when they did it you could expect the stream to go where you aimed. But when they laughed and spit, you didn't know what to expect. That's why I got out from in front of them. When I said what I did about Mr. Cotton­eye's eyes not being brothers, everybody but him laughed and took on a lot. One of them said, "That boy's smart enough he's liable to turn into a preacher if someone don't rescue him."

But Cotton­eye said, kind of grumpy­like, "He's a smart­aleck, and he'll be lucky if he keeps out of the pen until he's twenty­one."

Then he turned to me again and said, "Don't be too sure that kid there is your brother. Does he like the same things you like to eat?"

"Sure, he does," I said. "We only have about one thing at a meal and everybody likes it, except he doesn't like ketchup on his butter­beans and I do."

"See, what did I tell you? You like ketchup on your butter­beans and he doesn't. I'll bet he's not your brother at all. Somebody has just pulled the wool over your eyes."

I turned away. I didn't want to be sassy with older folks. It wasn't right to stand up and argue with them in public in front of other people. A boy of nine ought to be polite at all times around grown folks, else they would think he had no raising by his Papa and Mama.

But I didn't realize how much I had taken to heart what was said until evening. I was sitting by myself on the back steps and it was kind of dusky gray­like all over. The evening star was shining, and the crickets were chirping, while a dry­weather fly was making that whirring sound that always adds to lonesome feelings. Otherwise, it was all still and quiet, the kind of time when you think deep thoughts away down inside yourself, and wish that you were bigger and knew more things for sure like grownup folks do. It is a pretty ghostly time to be by yourself.

I began to wonder if I really did belong to Papa and Mama. Maybe they had just found me and took me in out of pity. Maybe I was left in a basket on the porch by the front door and I might never know my real folks. Maybe I was a wood's colt. I didn't really know what a wood's colt was, but I knew their mothers had them and no one knew who their fathers were. When folks talked about them they generally spoke real low. Men talked about 'em with a hand in front of their mouths, and women put their fans up and whispered behind them. If I was one, or an orphan either, chances are nobody would ever tell me the truth. Maybe Cotton­eye Joe knew something about me that I didn't know, else why would he have brought up about us being brothers? If that kid had stayed home and not gone limping along the road beside me, all this wouldn't have come up. I was happy before and now I wasn't and it was all his fault. He was so sure of everything and I couldn't be at my age. I promised myself I would provoke a fight with him tomorrow and pay him back.

When Mama called and said it was time to go to bed, I didn't want to go. I was angry and frustrated and I didn't know why. I thought I'd stay awake in bed and think about things some more. But the smell of the fresh straw in the straw­tick, coupled with the cool breeze blowing through the window and rustling the curtains, making them stand straight out, was too much for me. The screech­owl that lived under the eaves of the barn flew to the maple tree just outside the window and let out a noise that would make goose­pimples rise on you arms. But I just heard him once and then I was gone.

"I Kicked Him"

When I awakened the next morning, the one I had always thought was my brother, but about whom I was not so sure now, was still sleeping, kind of wadded up like in bed. I kicked him a good one before I got out of bed and then jumped out, grabbed my clothes and ran. All morning I looked for a chance to hurt him and get back at him without really knowing why. I caught him once sitting in the swing under the cherry tree. He was eating a ripe tomato out of the garden, holding it in his right hand and trickling salt into it out of his left hand each time he took a bite. I picked up a bean­pole to try and knock it out of his hand into the dirt, but he stood up and threw it smack into my face, getting seeds all over my hickory blouse and salt in my eye. He ran for the house and I was so blinded I could not chase him.

Each day I became more upset and mean. Mama called me in one afternoon and asked me what had come over me or gotten into me. All I could do was sulk and look at her. I could not tell her that I was worried that I was not her boy and didn't know if I even rightly belonged there. I put my face in my hands and cried so hard that I shook all over. Mama was scared and tried to tell me everything would be all right. But it wasn't, and it got worse. I thought I might be dying, and I hoped that I would. I wanted to die.

Then one day I heard Mama say to Papa, "You're going to have to talk with him. He keeps telling his brother he hates him and doesn't want to see him any more. I am afraid if he keeps on he will do something to himself."

It was the next afternoon when Papa got off early from the day shift that he said to me, "Son, let's you and I take a little walk down by the creek." We started down the road that led to Deaf and Dumb Joe's house, but we turned off on a path the cows had made when they came in off the open range in the evening. And we walked down to the overhang, the flat rock which extended out over the creek at the paw­paw thicket. We sat down together, just the two of us.

It was the first time Papa had ever talked to me by myself like one man talks to another man. He began by saying, "Son, I have been wanting to talk to you for a long time. Mama is worried about you and the way you have been treating the other children. You've changed, and we don't know why."

I was trying not to cry because I knew men did not bawl when they were talking. Finally, I said, "I just don't know who I am. I'm not sure about things, not even anything. I'm not sure I even belong in our family."

For a moment Papa did not say anything. I was afraid he would laugh, but he didn't. He picked up a little rock and tossed it up and caught it. I saw the callouses on his hand which was so rough from using the pick and shovel underground. He started talking very slowly and softly.

"When I met your mother and asked her to marry me in spite of the fact that I was only a poor miner, I thought the time might come when I could have a boy like you. That is why, after we had been married a few months, I was glad that she told me we were going to have a baby. When the time came, Grandma came to the house to help the doctor, and it was she who brought you in, all red and wrinkled, and I saw you for the first time. You were ours, the first one resulting from our love."

I was crying now, but Papa didn't mention it. He went on. "Later on, your brother came, and then the girls, and now Mama is going to have another baby. I want you to be good to Mama and help her and not worry her. You see, we love all of you alike. All of us belong to one another. But Mama had a real hard time when you were born because you were the first. She almost gave her life for you. And now, if your father loves you all so much, you ought to love one another."

We sat a little while after that, neither of us saying anything. I knew that Papa was waiting for me to break the silence. I picked up a little stick and raked a large ant off my shoe. Then I said, "I will love my brothers and sisters, and I'll tell them so. I'm not worried now and I'm not afraid. It was being afraid that caused me not to love them."

A Beautiful World

We got up and started toward home. I noticed things that I had not seen before. The clumps of wild violets were richer purple. The wing feathers of a jaybird were bluer than I remembered. Something was gone from inside me, something that had felt like a knot in my chest. It was a beautiful world and it was wonderful to be a boy, alive and filled with hope. The terrible thing which had been gnawing at my insides wasn't there anymore.

When dusk came and we had to go to bed, I took my things off and hung them on the brass knob on my side of the foot of the iron bedstead. My brother hung his things on the knob on his side. We crawled into bed and wriggled around until each of us had a place hollowed out in the straw tick to suit us. It was dark and kind of ghostly quiet. I could hear the swish of the owl's wings as he swooped by and then I heard a mouse squeak when he pounced upon it. The faint bark of Deaf and Dumb Joe's possum hound was carried on the night breeze.

I spoke to my brother lying beside me. "I'm not going to hate you anymore. I'm not going to fight you and I'm not even going to quarrel with you."

A long time went by. Maybe it seemed like it was longer than it was, but I was gripped by fear that he might ignore me. Then came the one word, "Why?"

"Today Papa and I had a talk, just the two of us." I said it rather proudly. "He told me that brothers ought to love one another because their father loves them all. When they hate one another and will not work together it only messes everything up and breaks the hearts of their father and mother."

"Yeah, but you don't want to do things like I want to do 'em. What about that?"

"That's easy. You do 'em like you want to unless Papa tells you not to, and I'll do 'em the way I want to unless he tells me not to. We'll let Papa be the judge, and I won't judge you and don't you judge me. Maybe both ways are all right, yours and mine, as long as Papa and Mama love us both."

"Are you not going to throw clods at me anymore when I don't hoe the beans like you want me to? What about that?"

"Do you throw clods at people you really love? No, you don't. I won't even hit you if you don't help get the potato bugs off the vines. From now on, I am not afraid or worried and I just don't have to hit anyone who doesn't do things like I do. I'll just let you be you, and I'll be me, and we'll belong to each other because Papa and Mama loved us and wanted us. Is it a deal?"

"It's a deal!"

"Let's shake on it." Our two hands met in the darkness. I took the hand of my brother in my hand and we shook on it. And inner peace brought sleep, a calm and undisturbed repose.

It was years later that I learned that what we had done was to make a covenant, a child­like covenant to receive one another as we had been received, in love. It was then the words came back to me, spoken when disciples were jealous of one another and seeking special favor and recognition, and a little child was set in their midst. "Except you repent and become as a little child, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven." And when I think of that I still reach out my hand, even though it is in the dark, groping for the hand of my brother and ready to say, "It's a deal, I love you!" You see, I'm not afraid anymore!

(Delivered at the Tulsa Unity Forum, July 5­7, 1973. Copied from The Christian Appeal, Vol. 39, No. 8; Feb. 1991)