Background
Thomas Campbell was born on February 1, 1763.
Thomas Campbell was born on February 1, 1763.
A handsome young Irishman of Scotch descent, Thomas was religiously minded, and, after graduating from the University of Glasgow, became a minister of the Secession Church, which was a branch of the Scottish kirk that had broken away from the parent stock of Presbyterianism. The tendency to independency was strong in the seceding body, and controversy divided it. Campbell tried to bring about a reunion, and went as a delegate to the Scotch synod in an effort to make peace. This was unsuccessful, and a later attempt to free the Irish churches from Scotch control was unavailing. The experience made Campbell an enemy of sectarianism. Ill health compelled a sea voyage in 1807, and he sailed to America, hoping to find there a task to his liking. In western Pennsylvania he discovered friends and an opportunity to preach, and he sent for his family to join him. His liking for Christian unity made him invite persons of various religious professions to join in the Lord's Supper, but his Presbyterian synod censured him, thus causing him to withdraw from the Presbyterian Church. With his son Alexander Campbell he formed the Christian Association of Washington (Pennsylvania), out of which came later a fully organized independent church, with a declaration of principles written by Thomas Campbell. Before long it was apparent that a new denomination might grow out of the experiment. That was not the wish of the Campbells and it seemed best to join the Baptists with whom they were sympathetic on the subject of baptism. But the union did not work well, the connection was broken, and the Campbellites formed a merger with the Christians, a similar group that had been organized by Barton W. Stone. The Campbellites preferred to call themselves Disciples. Thomas Campbell was a popular preacher, sometimes lengthy in discourse, but enlivening his subject with homely illustrations. He was never strongly rooted in one locality. In 1813 he removed from Pennsylvania to a farm in Ohio, where he started a seminary. Two years later he moved to Pittsburgh with another school as his medium of usefulness. Tiring of this after another two years, he made a home at Burlington, Vermont, among the Baptists, and tried to show them how to make their emotional preaching more intellectual. Meanwhile he taught school for a living. His family was happy in these surroundings and the school was prospering when Campbell became displeased with the attitude of the community toward negroes, and he peremptorily summoned his family to return to the neighborhood of their old home in Pennsylvania. There he assisted his son Alexander in the conduct of a school near by. In his later life he itinerated as a preacher, until, becoming blind, he retired from active service. He lived to the age of ninety, dying peacefully at Bethany, West Virginia.
His liking for Christian unity made him invite persons of various religious professions to join in the Lord's Supper, but his Presbyterian synod censured him, thus causing him to withdraw from the Presbyterian Church.