Alexander Campbell

CAMPBELL, ALEXANDER American re ligious leader, was born near Ballymena, County Antrim, Ireland, on Sept. 12, 1788, and was the son of Thomas Campbell (1763 1854), a schoolmaster and clergyman of the Presbyterian "Seced ers." Alexander in 1809 after a year at Glasgow university joined his father in Washington (Pa.) where the father had just formed an association "for the sole purpose of promoting simple evangelical Christianity" as a way to the union of the Church.

With his father's desire for Church unity the son agreed. He began to preach in 181o, refusing any salary. In 1811 he settled in what is now Bethany (W.Va.) and was licensed by the Brush Run church.

On adopting baptism by immersion in

1812, his father, mother, wife, sister and others following him, he became the leader of the new society called Disciples of Christ or Christians, sometimes nicknamed Campbellites. The purpose of the society was to restore primitive Christianity as the way to the union of all Chris tians, which they contended was essential to the conversion of the world. He edited The Christian Baptist, later The Millennial Harbinger, and 6o volumes bear his name on their title pages. He held for days public debates with the Roman Catholic Archbishop J. B. Purcell, of Cincinnati, Robert Owen, Secularist, of Scotland, and others. Campbell was a member of the constitutional con vention of Virginia in 1829. He founded Bethany College (W.Va.), being its president until his death, on March 4, 1866.

See R. Richardson, Memoirs of Alexander Campbell ( r868) ; T. W. Grafton, Alexander Campbell (1897) ; W. E. Garrison, The Sources of Alexander Campbell's Theology (1900) ; Archibald McLean, Alexander Campbell as a Preacher (1908) ; W. T. Moore, Comprehensive History of the Disciples of Christ (1909) ; Peter Ainslie, Yale Lectures: The Message of the Disciples of Christ for the Union of the Church (i913).