Part 23

When the paper comes to you only half the old size we will call it but a half number, so we will not defraud our subscribers in the least. But we desire to send you eight pages every two weeks if we possibly can. When we can not, please bear with us until the kind providence of God and the liberality of the saints help us to get a paper-press.

The eight-page proposition did not then materialize. About this time was adopted the motto, which was carried for many years: "First pure, then valiant for the truth." The home of the Gospel Trumpet was not long at Cardington. Brother Warner was desirous of having a permanent home for the Trumpet, where he would not have to pay rent. When he moved to Cardington, he did not feel that that would be the permanent place for the paper. Kind brethren in Michigan made very liberal offers and asked him to come there; but a place was opening at Bucyrus, twenty miles distant, in Crawford County. While he was in prayer pleading earnestly for God's direction, three teams drove up. It was the brethren from Bucyrus, who had come to move the office to that place and also help it out of financial difficulties. There was great joy in Brother Warner's heart as he realized that God had answered prayer and sent help. One of these brethren, D. D. Johnston, assisted in the matter of finances. He purchased a lot and furnished material with which to erect a building. His name appeared as publisher in August, 1883.

Brother Warner proceeded to build a small office on the lot at Bucyrus. In the last number printed at Cardington he writes as follows:

While you read this paper, the editor will be personally at work erecting a house in which to carry on the work of the Lord. If we were building a house for ourself we should want to count the cost before commencing; but we are building this house unto the Lord, and the earth and the fulness thereof are his, hence, we need not stop to count since he says go forward. The undertaking is wholly by faith. While at work with our hands we shall pray without ceasing to our heavenly Father to send us the means.

* * * * *

We have had experience enough in our business to know that we never can carry on the paper and pay rent. It is claimed that a paper is not self-supporting with most any number of subscribers without receiving advertisements. Just yesterday in the office of a temperance paper we were told by an editor and publisher that we ought to take in one thousand dollars every year for advertisements, and he could not see how the paper could be carried otherwise. But, beloved, it must be carried otherwise or not at all. Neither do we wish to do any secular job-work if we can help it. We shall dispose of our job-press and material as soon as possible. Now, beloved, when we shall have obtained a good paper-press (and it is already bought, thank God) and a place free of rent, with much self-denial and care we shall be able to send you a paper 22 by 32 every two weeks.

Some of our dear brethren have in love censured us occasionally. We find generally these two points, sometimes in the same letter, namely, "Why do you not send your paper out more frequently and more regularly?" the other, "I think you have not been on your guard enough to keep out of debt." Well, there it is. We could have kept entirely out of debt if we had issued fewer papers, and we might have issued every two weeks had we gone more in debt. But no one of our experience could possibly have issued more frequently, with our income and slow facilities. Our dear brethren are without a knowledge of what they are talking about. But now, beloved, as we are in this desperate effort to get entirely out of debt and to get situated so as to cut off much of our past expense, we hope that all will send us the help they can.

The move to Bucyrus was made in May, 1883. About that time the first good press was purchased. It was a rebuilt Country Campbell, allowing either belt- or hand-power to be used, and costing perhaps six hundred dollars.

The trying times through which the Trumpet had to pass in its early years are known only to God. It was perhaps his design that it should be tried as gold is tried. There were always a few consecrated hearts who contributed of their means. Some put everything they had into the work. Thus the work was kept alive. Little did Brother Warner realize, when he was located at Bucyrus and the prospects looked good, that there he should go through the bitterest trial of his life. The light of the Trumpet came very near being snuffed out entirely. Bucyrus was the narrows in the Trumpet's voyage, through which it barely passed. This will be described in our next chapter.

The office of the Trumpet remained at Bucyrus nearly a year. Some brethren in Michigan were desirous of having it moved to their locality. Progress had been made at Bucyrus, but it was through the furnace of trial rather than any extension of influence. But doubtless all this experience was necessary as an equipment for greater usefulness.

The move to Williamston, Ingham County, Mich., was made in April, 1884. A Mr. Horton, a business man of Williamston, in whom the Lord had planted a love for the truth, went to Bucyrus and had the office equipment shipped. The saints in Michigan had in the meantime obtained possession of a two-story building 28 x 84, and they had it partitioned, or remodeled, to suit the need, the upper story to be used for a hall or assembly-room, the rear of the lower floor to be used for living rooms and the front for an office. Brother Warner rejoiced with tears when the work got started in its new and enlarged quarters in Williamston. The first number of the paper published there was dated April 15. From its columns we quote the following greetings:

We are happy to greet your ears once more, beloved, with the sound of the trump of God. The devil has spent all his infernal powers in vain to crush this work of God. We have thoroughly learned his attitude toward us. In his hellish clamor about us for many days, saying, 'You must give up the Trumpet,' he has clearly committed himself against this cause, and all who are against this dissemination of the light of God we know are on the devil's side, either wilfully or ignorantly. Oh, how hell has poured forth upon us! Night after night we had to leave our bed at two, three, and four o'clock, and go to the office and cry unto God to drive away the hosts of hell that had encamped against us. And every time the power of God dispersed these infernal spirits of darkness, the Lord recommissioned us to blow the Trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm on his holy mountain, and we were made joyfully conscious of his approving smile for not having backed down before the legions of hell. But the devil having drawn to his side the best agents he could ever expect to use against us, was fierce and determined to hush the trumpet-sound of freedom from all sin and Babylon yokes. Oh, halleluiah!

During this terrible combat with the powers of darkness, we had to do more fighting than working, hence the work went on slowly. We were ready to print about the first of February, then the Lord called us by telegram to Kalamazoo, Mich. The next day our printer accidentally spoiled the rollers, so that he could not print. So the work lay until our return. After looking to the Lord until he assured us that the office would be cleared from the mortgage, we ordered new rollers, and went to work again in the name of the Lord. About the time we were ready to print, God sent Bro. Thomas Horton, from Williamston, Mich., who paid off the five hundred-dollar mortgage, some other debts, chartered a car, loaded us up, and moved office, household goods, Master Willie, and ourself to this place. Wife and child having remained behind to visit with friends. Moving just at the time caused a few days delay in this issue, but now we expect to greet you regularly. Praise the Lord! "The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away, blessed be the name of the Lord!" So said Job. If it was the devil that took it away, he had to get a permit from God before he could do it, therefore it was of the Lord, and "blessed be the name of the Lord"; for when he permits the devil to take anything away he has given to his children, he always returns fourfold. We have understood this principle long ago, and have thrown it in the face of the devil every time he has shown his teeth at us. Blessed be God forever and ever! And thus hath God done unto us again. We left an office where we were hampered up in 14 × 26 feet, and here has God furnished a building two stories high, 28 × 84 feet, all of which is dedicated to the Lord. It contains a large meeting-hall, and plenty of room for office and all families connected with it. It is, however, under repairs, and we have taken temporary quarters for a few weeks.

Every change that was made gave occasion for new hopes for the advancement of the publishing work. Accordingly we read in the first issue at Williamston: "After one more issue we expect steam-power, and there is no telling what God will yet do for the Trumpet if the devil doesn't quit his hellish opposition." An engine was purchased during the first year at Williamston. It was of three horse-power and cost two hundred dollars. Thus, after the trying times of the first four years of its life, the Trumpet work began to make substantial progress and the reformation cause to expand and become permanent.

The next move for the Gospel Trumpet was in the summer of 1886. Near Bangor, in Van Buren County, was a yearly camp-meeting. There were many saints in the vicinity and near Grand Junction, seven miles north. At the Bangor camp-meeting in June, 1886, the subject of moving the Trumpet Office to that part of the State was considered. It seemed to be the mind of the Spirit and of all the saints that the removal should be made. A commodious and substantial building in the town of Grand Junction was offered for eight hundred dollars, or about half its worth. The saints agreed to purchase the property, and money was raised to pay moving-expenses. An encumbrance of five hundred dollars on the machinery was also paid off. Accordingly it was decided to move. One freight-car held the entire outfit of office material, machinery, and household goods.

Grand Junction, "where two lightning tracks lay crossing," was a small town of a few hundred inhabitants, the junction of the Chicago and West Michigan (now the Pere Marquette) and a branch of the Michigan Central Railways, ten miles from South Haven on the lake and thirty miles west of Kalamazoo. This became the permanent home of the Gospel Trumpet during twelve years of its history.

Before the move to Grand Junction, Bro. S. Michels, of South Haven, assumed with his means a portion of the financial responsibility. Being thus directly connected with the publishing work, his name appeared as publisher, which position he held till relieved by N. H. Byrum, in 1895.

About a year after the publishing office was located at Grand Junction, the publishing work, and the church as well, suffered the defection of J. C. Fisher, who had been on the editorial staff and had been useful in the ministry.[11] He was succeeded as assistant editor by E. E. Byrum, who remained on the staff for many years, and after Brother Warner's death became editor.

The Gospel Trumpet was a mighty factor in the reformation work, a very effectual means of spreading the truth. At Grand Junction the Office grew to a substantial printing-plant, sending out tons of literature. Books were printed, a children's paper was started, and the Trumpet became a weekly. It was here that Brother Warner's death occurred, in 1895. We close this chapter with the publishing work located at Grand Junction. Brief reference to its present status will be made in another chapter. [Illustration: Office and Home of the Gospel Trumpet. Grand Junction, Mich., 1889]

FOOTNOTES:

[9] It seems the idea prevailed within the Eldership that "every member should be under the control of Christ alone in the performance of work appointed him." They said, "We believe that the Lord wishes not his church burthened and perplexed with financial cares. Therefore, Resolved That it is not good that she should own and control a printing-office." They said further, "We are willing to assist and support these two brethren in the joint publication of the Gospel Trumpet provided they are permitted to have full control of the same and so long as they keep themselves and the paper wholly in the Lord's hands and to his glory."

They, of course, did not understand that by means of a corporation, board of trustees, or other legalized body, the church could control its printing business and yet not be "burthened and perplexed with financial cares."

[10] See next chapter.

[11] See Chapter XV for further mention of this.

XV

THE CRISIS[12]

True to prophetic fulfilment, the time was at hand for the restoration of the church to her normal state of unity and holiness. The scattered condition of God's people in the various sectarian denominations was not always to continue, for such could not be the ideal state of the church; it could not be her final state in which Christ could expect to receive her as his bride. For her there was a better day at hand. From Romish night to the light of justification by faith, possessed among Protestant sects generally since the sixteenth century reformation, had been a great step upward. Also the Wesleyan reformation, bringing in the light of perfect holiness as a Christian attainment subsequent to regeneration, marked an advance for the truth in its progress by stages unto the end of time. There needed to be yet another step, another reformation, which should bring the church to her fulness of glory, and visualize her unity and solidarity.

It would seem that the holiness movement that arose in the sixties and seventies should have accomplished this, but it served only as an approach to it. True holiness indeed destroys the elements of sectarianism, and forbids a continued state of division among Christians. But the holiness movement, as such, came to have holiness only nominally for its object. It undertook no antagonism to sectarian divisions, though it deplored them. It stood for nothing more than holiness as a subject to be taught and experienced, and satisfied itself as best it could to remain within the denominations. It drew back when the real issue came, and in consequence it has long been dissipated in the sects, having for forty years accomplished little or nothing toward bringing God's people into unity.

Christian unity can never be brought about within the sects nor in connection with any recognition of allegiance to them. It absolutely can be effected only out of and away from the sects, by obedience to God and a severance of sectarian ties. Since true Christian unity is incompatible with sects, and since coming out of sects is opposed by the sect spirit and invites persecution by the sects, the only course for the people of God to take who have received the light on the true church is to cut loose from human institutions and abide in Christ alone, even though it places them in a relation hostile to the so-called churches. For those first leaving the sects there was no body of saints already called out to which they could be added. What could it mean to them but a crisis? And what would it constitute in the progress of events but a reformation? But the Spirit of the Lord was thus leading. Since sects are hostile to the movement out of sects, the Spirit of the Lord becomes necessarily hostile to them; for he indeed leads his people out of sects. But the time had come. God's spiritual ones were looking and longing for some development or other by which they would cease to be divided in sectarian bodies. No one had put it into their minds; their anticipation of it was prompted by the Spirit of God, which was in them. There needed some one to sound the trumpet of the Lord, some one to take the lead and make a positive declaration against the sin of division, some one through whom God could voice the call, "Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues" (Rev. 18:4).

God had in Brother Warner prepared just such an instrument. His was the spirit of a reformer. He shunned not to declare God's judgments. His ministry had a definite message, and represented the burden of God for the purity and unity of his church. Looking back upon Brother Warner's career it would seem, as the writer has already intimated, that his connection with the Church of God (Winebrennerian), which assumed to have no creed but the Bible and to be indeed the true church of God, had doubtless served to emphasize to him the true church ideal and to shape his course along right lines. And his rejection by the Ohio Eldership for the preaching of holiness awakened him to see that that body was not what it claimed to be, but was, after all, only a humanly ruled institution, only one sect among the many. The light he already had on the church was sufficient to forbid his reuniting with them. Thus the so-called Church of God had contributed to him the right idea of the church, and the holiness movement had brought to his understanding the line on which God would bring out a pure church, namely, the line of holiness; and thus was the divine Hand leading him and fitting him for the work to which he was called.

We can only imagine what it meant to step out on God alone and preach the divine judgments against the apostate religions of the day, to decry the evils of denominationalism, and to undertake on that same line the publication of a paper. That his work was despised and that Satan undertook to crush it in its very beginning can not be wondered at. Its humbleness and apparent insignificance looked uninviting to the worldly-minded; but the deep spirituality and divine manifestations that characterized it were a sufficient vindication to those who were capable of spiritually discerning the truth. There was something that said, "This work is of God." There was a sense of spiritual freedom and of love and Christian fellowship that bore convincing testimony to those who would but listen to the dictation of the Spirit that this is indeed the truth.

But Brother Warner was not alone. God had reserved his thousands who no longer were bowing the knee to Baal. From them he received encouragement and support, though for a few years it seemed his work had to go through the crucible of trial. Accordingly we trace his difficulties and sorrows, as well as his victories, until the cause becomes fully established in the earth.

From what we learn of Brother Warner's earlier views and attitude, he never had a party spirit; he never was a sectarian. Even from his early ministry the love and fellowship that exists among the people of God he recognized as the paramount bond of Christian union. After his conversion, when dealing with the question of what church he should join, he is found casting about to determine which one represented the real church of God. As the followers of Winebrenner had the right name, and seemed to him to be correct in doctrine, he was led into that denomination. With the insufficient light he then possessed he probably failed to see the man rule that prevailed, instead of the Holy Spirit rule that characterizes the divine, theocratic government in the true church of God. He discovered, of course, the clash of this man rule with the free, independent inclination of the Holy Spirit, by which he preferred to be led. But he bore with it patiently, believing that he was in the true church; and it took years to discover to him that the body to which he belonged was but a sect.

It was through the attainment of the Bible standard of holiness that he was gradually led into the truth respecting the church and sects. Early in 1878 he wrote: "The Lord showed me that holiness could never prosper upon sectarian soil encumbered by human creeds and party names, and he gave me a new commission to join holiness and all truth together and build up the apostolic church of the living God." He soon began to receive light on the Scriptures, which revealed to him that the church was to be restored to her primitive glory in the evening of the dispensation. The chapter on a Spiritual Shaking, taken from his book, clearly shows that when the chapter was written (1879) he understood that God was going to bring out a pure church. He published this in 1880, which became the date from which the present epoch of the church may be reckoned.

It should be remembered that during this time he was connected with the Northern Indiana Eldership; but as this was a body already separated from the old Eldership because of their purpose to keep on the Scriptural basis, he really believed that this body was the true church, for that was its claim. Thus he was really out of sectism in heart and was associated with a body claiming to be the church of God. During the last year (1880) of the Herald of Gospel Freedom, when it was fully under his editorial charge, its columns, while teaching holiness, breathed the principles of the one true church. One of its stated objects was "the union of all true believers in the Spirit of God and upon the inspired Word." Because of insufficient light on the governmental aspect of the true church, he was slow to discover that even the new Eldership was only a body ruled by men. As light came on the Holy Spirit government, he looked upon the man rule elements in the Eldership as inconsistencies that needed removal. It was human machinery that he thought needed to be dispensed with. We must concede, therefore, that in the meantime he was, to all intents and purposes, out of sects.

We speak of this period as the crisis because he took such a bold, uncompromising stand against sects and taught holiness and the principles of the church with such thoroughness that it seemed to awaken every satanic element that had been slumbering under the guise of false profession. People had either to accept the truth or go into darkness. To him it meant the break-up of old relations, the drawing of new lines of fellowship, exposure to persecution, and everything that might befall the career of a reformer. As the teaching of the resurrection and the repudiation of circumcision constituted the offence of the cross in Paul's day, so the preaching of the Bible standard of holiness and the renouncement of all sects became the offence of the cross at this time. We shall give several selections from the earlier issues of the Trumpet that are representative of its teaching. In the issue of Mar. 1, 1881, we have the following:

BRANCHES

Where in the Bible do we find the idea of sects being branches, as people talk about? "What branch of the church do you belong to?" is a common expression in these times of antiscriptural language and practise. Why do not people read their Bibles better and learn that every individual believer is a branch in Christ--John 15?

If a whole sect is a branch, then the individual must be a sub-branch; but this would make each one dependent upon the sect for his union with, and life from, Christ. This would be second-hand salvation. We should not like to risk the coupling--I prefer a direct union with Christ.