It was largely due to Isaac Errett and the _Christian Standard_ that the Disciples did not become a legalistic and exclusive sect. The paper was founded at Cleveland in 1866--its first issue carried the news of Alexander Campbell's death--and it was moved to Cincinnati in 1869. Errett was already a man of power and distinction. He had been pastor, author, co-editor of the _Millennial Harbinger_, corresponding secretary of the American Christian Missionary Society, and president of the convention. In starting the _Christian Standard_ he had the active support of General Garfield and three of the Phillips brothers of Newcastle, Pennsylvania. The new journal at once threw its influence boldly on the liberal side of all the controversial issues that have been mentioned. The _Gospel Advocate_ already was, and the _American Christian Review_ was soon to be, arrayed against all "innovations." To complicate the picture, the _Apostolic Times_ was established with an impressive list of editors--Lard, Graham, Hopson, Wilkes, and McGarvey--who aimed to heal the incipient division by taking what they considered a middle-of-the-road position, against the organ but for the missionary society.
The service of Isaac Errett would have been less significant than it was if it had been only the championing of the progressive side in certain controversies. What was more important was the breadth of his spirit, the depth of his religious life, and the power of his leadership away from a cramping legalism and toward a broader spiritual culture. In an article entitled "What Is Sectarianism?" in the _Christian Quarterly_, January, 1871, Mr. Errett restated the aim of the Disciples of Christ as union upon Christ, not upon our own interpretation of the Bible or on an exact pattern of the "ancient order of things." J. J. Haley later called this article "the Declaration and Address brought down to date."
After the dark ages of controversy and organizational stagnation--which were by no means so dark in other respects--came a renaissance in which the Disciples gained a clearer view of their central purpose and a better command of the resources for realizing it. They began to make more intimate contacts with the social and intellectual currents of the time and to escape from the cultural isolation into which they had fallen. Those who thought of this as apostasy from the true faith tended to withdraw, and ultimately did withdraw, into a separate and noncooperating group. The main body no longer took interest in what now seemed trivial disputes about organs, pastors, and the legitimacy of missionary organizations. The new issues which arose were such as were shared by the whole Christian world, so that even their dissensions related them to the main currents of religious thought.