This has been a puzzling question. It is hard to find out precisely what it is. Not a man yet, of all who have been engaged in fighting this monster, has defined it, explained it, or told what it is. It has been called a dangerous _heresy_, and so many hideous warnings have been given against it, that the hair would almost stand upon a man’s head to hear about it, and yet no one has told what it is. The reason no one has defined _Campbellism_, is, simply, that _there is no such thing in existence_, except in the imaginations of some misguided doctors. As near as any man can now come, at what they mean by Campbellism, it is _Christianity itself_, unmixed, unadulterated, and without any other name. This is evident, for, when they hear a man preach, who preaches nothing but Christianity, nothing but Christ, simply aiming to convert men to him, and induce them to receive him as their only Leader, they call it _Campbellism_. It is nothing but a nick-name they have given the gospel, to keep men from hearing it. In the same way, they call the preacher a _Campbellite_, who will preach nothing but the gospel, nothing but Christianity, to raise prejudice against him and prevent people from hearing him. In precisely the same spirit, here comes Rev. N. L. Rice, of heresy-hunting memory, in a tract of forty pages against Campbellism, which the reader may think as he pleases about, but which is as much against the religion of Christ, and those trying to receive it, practice it, and maintain it, and it _alone_, as was in the power of Dr. Rice to make it, without, in so many words, saying so. No man in this country, at this time, can preach simply the gospel of Christ in the name of the Lord, under any other name, and maintain the law of God, as the only rule of faith, without being called a Campbellite, and branded with preaching Campbellism.
The young man who would become a preacher, while he is receiving knowledge, or obtaining the theory, must ply himself to the work, making a practical use of what he learns. A man may study for years and acquire an immense amount of knowledge, but having no practical use of it, he is as helpless as an infant. In precisely this predicament are thousands who have gone through the manufacturing process of making preachers, without any practical use of all they have learned. Indeed, many of them have learned nothing of consequence, of one of the most important chapters in a real preacher’s learning, viz: “The ways of the world.” The knowledge of the Bible—general “book-learning,” is all right. It is indispensable. But to _know man_, is equally important. Man must be studied to be known. We must converse with him face to face. We must know the world by actual contact with it. We must know the church by actual observation. We must know the obstructions in the way of truth and righteousness by actual contact with them, with actual and personal efforts to remove them.