DISCIPLES OF CHRIST. The Disciples of Christ are a religious body which was founded in the United States by Thomas Campbell. Campbell was originally a minister of the Seceder Presbyterian Church in Ireland, who went to America in 1807. There his eagerness to re unite different bodies of Presbyterians brought him into conflict with the Presbytery. He left his own Church. and founded what he called the " Christian Association of Washington." His son, Alexander Campbell, after being educated at the University of Glasgow, became assistant to his father. In 1812 he and his father were baptized by immersion. " I have set out to follow the apostles of Christ, and their Master," said Alexander Campbell, "and I will be baptized only into the primitive Christian faith." In 1823 he been to publish a periodical, " The Christian Baptist," in which he pleaded for the restoration of the primitive gospel and practice. A complete union with the Baptist Churches seemed to be In sight, but in 1827 the Baptist Churches withdrew fellowship, and the Disciples became a separate body. " The special plea of the Disciples is the restoration of original apostolic Christianity, and the union of all Christians. They insist, that as, in the beginning there was one spiritual brotherhood—one body with one Lord, one faith, and one baptism—there should be but one to-day; that all party names, creeds, and organisations should be abandoned, and the Church have no creed but the Bible, no law but the Lord's, no name but the Master's; and that, as the basis of that primitive union was the common teaching of Christ and the Apostles.
nothing is now essential to the conversion of the world but the union and co-operation of Christians with the apostles' teaching or testimony " (Schaff-Herzog). The Disciples have made great progress. They uow have many representatives in England and Australia, and dis play missionary activity in China, India, Japan, Africa. the Philippines, Mexico, and the West Indies. " The creation of new educational foundations, the maintenance of an aggressive journalism, the organization of mis sionary and philanthropic agencies, and the encourage ment of an effective evangelism in the churches have increased the numbers, intelligence, and consecration of the Disciples, until at the present time they are fifth among the great evangelical bodies of America " (Hastings' Encyclopaedia). See Schaff-Herzog; Blunt: Hastings' E.R.E.