Sunday, November 30, 2014

A. Campbell on the Glories of the Written Word

Excerpt from an unpublished 1828 letter to John Abbot of Macon, Georgia, by Alexander Campbell during the revision of the 1826 first edition of the Sacred Oracles:

How happy are we who by these cold and lifeless characters upon paper can talk with our friends on spiritual and eternal things living on any part of the earth! This is the most useful of arts; and how much does it contribute to the enjoyments of Christians. That God’s love should be written on paper is also a wonderful thing, but so it is. And that the whole scheme of things reaching forth unto eternity should be laid open to our view by these marks on paper is one of the proofs of God’s wisdom and goodness which we ought always to bear in mind. We do a great deal for the good of mankind by endeavouring to put into the hands of men plain and intelligible copies of the Gospel and of the institutions of the Lord and Savior. One copy may descend to remote posterity, and may awake some genius who will arise and dispense the blessing to millions. Fired by these views I feel desirous of multiplying the oracles of God to a considerable extent in the way proposed. 

(Transcribed from the original letter held in the Center for Restoration Studies by Carisse Mickey Berryhill.)

No comments: