The Beginning of the by Dennis Loyd Seeing the Gospel Advocate’s beginnings in the framework of other events and circumstances gives the modern reader a clearer perspective of the climate that called for the publication’s being.

hen the first issue of the teachers and false doctrine. “With the along with announcements that other Gospel Advocate appeared hope of rendering some good service in departments were projected for future Win July 1855, its birth oc- the course of truth, we very respectful- addition including Conversations, curred in the midst of a troubled but ly submit to our brethren and the pub- Education, Correspondence, Obituar- productive decade. Threats of war, lic, the claim of ‘Gospel Advocate’ ” ies, Announcements, Queries and debates over states’ rights, challenges (1). The drive to accept missionary Book Reviews. to and defenses of all af- societies was making great claims on As for the name chosen for the fected the minds of north the churches, and that crisis needed to magazine, Fanning wrote: “We see and south. To add to those national be addressed in the new magazine. The peculiar fitness in employing a name and regional concerns, Nashville was majority of the articles in that inaugu- for our journal which offends no good particularly threatened by the power- ral issue were written by the co-editors, man and expresses a labor worthy of ful influence of Jesse B. Ferguson, Fanning and William Lipscomb, the the purest beings in existence” (3). He who had taken over the editorship older brother of . By continued to stress that an emphasis of the Christian Review succeeding my count, Fanning wrote 10 articles, would be on the presentation of the , who had started the and William Lipscomb wrote two gospel and fulfilling the role of an magazine in 1844. Ferguson assumed with the remaining articles by others. advocate “defending the sayings and control in 1847 and changed the name Beginning with the first issue, Fan- doings of Jesus Christ” (4). to The Christian Magazine. He used ning began a series of articles on “First its pages to promote his doctrine of Principles” in which he stressed the A Remarkable Decade spiritualism. Bible as the only authority in . What else was happening around In that first issue of the Gospel That first issue included several this time? In the same year, 1855, Advocate, Fanning’s opening sentence departments that would be recognized Massachusetts became the first state spelled out his concerns with false as parts of the GA over the years, to enforce integration of all races and

July 2010 • Gospel advocate 29 in public schools. In 1856, his great novels – Bleak House in 1853 modern reader a clearer perspec- Central Park in New York City was and Hard Times in 1854. tive of the climate that called for first laid out to preserve a large tract The year the GA began, 1855, was its being. Unfortunately the 1855 of land where citizens could enjoy notable for other literary produc- beginning was soon followed by the beauty of nature. In that same tions – Robert Browning’s Men and an abrupt ending. With the begin- year, New York and Chicago were Women, Tennyson’s Maud, Walt Whit- ning of the Civil War, the magazine linked by the first railroad to connect man’s Leaves of Grass and Henry was forced to cease publication. A these two major cities. In 1857, the Wadsworth Longfellow’s The Song of nation in the midst of war could not approaching Civil War was fueled by Hiawatha. The next year saw Eliza- continue with all the institutions and the Dred Scott Decision by the U.S. beth Barrett Browning’s Aurora Leigh services that preceded the conflict. Supreme Court. And in 1859, John and Ralph Waldo Emerson’s English James R. Wilburn in his biography of Brown led his raid on the arsenal at Traits. In 1857 another great magazine Tolbert Fanning, The Hazard of the Harpers Ferry, Va., was arrested by began – the Atlantic Monthly. Die, noted that the Confederacy was Robert E. Lee, and was hanged. The decade came to an end with formed on Feb. 7, 1860. The GA con- The decade of the 1850s was a The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table tinued for the remainder of the year, remarkable one for fine books, many by Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., and but in December, Fanning announced of them masterpieces. In 1850 the fol- The Courtship of Miles Standish by its termination. As Wilburn reported, lowing titles appeared: Sonnets from Longfellow in 1858, and The Idylls “His parting words were, ‘Brethren, the Portuguese by Elizabeth Barrett of the King by Tennyson, A Tale of we are one, and have but one work to Browning; In Memoriam by Alfred, Two Cities by Dickens, Adam Bede by perform’ ” (210). Lord Tennyson; and The Scarlet Letter George Eliot and Origin of the Species With the Gospel Advocate back by Nathaniel Hawthorne. The next by Charles Darwin – all in 1859. in publication in 1866, the editors year saw the publication of The House appealed to the nation as a whole to of the Seven Gables by Hawthorne The Return of GA return to the primary concern of all and Moby-Dick by Herman Melville. These facts and names may not Christians – the unity of the church. In 1852, The Blithedale Romance by seem apropos to the founding of They wrote, “We have no local or Hawthorne and Uncle Tom’s Cabin by the Gospel Advocate, but seeing its peculiar institutions to defend, and Harriet Beecher Stowe were published. beginnings in the framework of other nothing new to set forth.” Charles Dickens was writing some of events and circumstances gives the Ironically, the governor of Ten- nessee when the Gospel Advocate began was Andrew Johnson. When it resumed publication in 1866, the president of the was An- drew Johnson. The president when the magazine began was Franklin Pierce, and the governor when it Columbia Bible Institute began again was William Brownlow, a 13th Annual Preachers’ Retreat Methodist preacher. The year the Gospel Advocate started over, this time under William November 1-4, 2010 and David Lipscomb, was the year that Tennessee returned to the Union, Theme: The Glory of the Church Is a Glorious Church the first state to make that move. Fanning continued to write a few Graymere Church of Christ articles in 1866, but soon the mantle 1320 Trotwood Ave. shifted, and David Lipscomb began Columbia, TN 38401 his long tenure as the editor, a tenure that ended in 1917. o www.graymere.com Dennis Loyd is associate editor for the Directors: Tom Holland & William Woodson Gospel Advocate. He may be reached by e-mail at [email protected]. For more information contact John Vaughan (931) 223-8137 or [email protected]. Works Cited Fanning, Tolbert. Gospel Advocate 1 (1855): 1-4. Wilburn, James R. The Hazard of the Die. Austin, Texas: Sweet Publishing Co., 1969.

30 Gospel advocate • July 2010