Songs of the Saints: Barton W. Stone and Alexander Campbell
by Wayne S. Walker
Anyone who has studied and is familiar with the history of the call for religious reformation and restoration in the early 1800s of this nation will certainly recognize these two names. Barton Warren Stone was born on December 24, 1772, near Port Tobacco in Charles County, Maryland. The preaching of James McGready converted him, received a license from the Presbyterians to preach in 1796, moved to Kentucky, married in 1801, participated in the great Cane Ridge revival, and then withdrew from the Presbyterians in 1804 with the others who signed the well-known Last Will and Testament of the Springfield Presbytery. After that, his life was dedicated to preaching only a return to the apostolic order of things revealed in the scriptures until he died in Hannibal, Missouri, on November 9, 1844.
Alexander Campbell was born, most likely on September 12, 1788, near Ballymena in Country Antrim, Northern Ireland. His Presbyterian minister father, Thomas, emigrated to the United States in 1807, making his home near Washington, Pennsylvania, and Alexander and the rest of the family followed a couple of years later, eventually settling in Virginia near what is now Bethany, West Virginia, where he died on March 4, 1866. He and his father also withdrew from the Presbyterian and began preaching only non-denominational, New Testament Christianity. These facts are well-known and have briefly been introduced here for background. However, it is likely not as well-known that Stone and Campbell were very interested in the church's singing, edited songbooks for use in local congregations, and even wrote hymns themselves.
In May of 1828, Campbell brought out his Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs adapted to the Christian Religion, containing 125 hymns. A second edition appeared in 1829, and a third in 1832. Meanwhile, Stone, assisted by Thomas Adams, had published The Christian Hymn-Book, Compiled and Published at the Request of the Miami Christian Conference in 1829, with 340 hymns. After Adams's death, he joined John Telemachus Johnson for a new edition in 1832. However, in 1832, after Campbell and Stone had determined that they were both preaching the same thing, they achieved a union in their efforts, and in 1834, also combined their hymnbooks into Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs, Original and Selected--Compiled by A. Campbell, W. Scott, B. W. Stone, and J. T. Johnson--Bethany, Va. 1834, having 240 hymns. All these books had no music but contained words only.
At that time, almost all hymnbooks contained words only with no music. Within ten years, hymnbooks with music became increasingly common, but Campbell vehemently opposed the use of music in hymnbooks, claiming that printed music was a distraction during the song service, and he never wavered from this opposition. Most hymn poems were written in certain meters, and various tunes were composed to fit those meters. People usually memorized as many tunes as possible, and in a worship service, the song leader chose one that fit a particular hymn. It was common for a hymn to be sung in several different tunes. Campbell never allowed any of his hymns to be set to music, and no historical data indicates what tunes were used with his hymns.
In 1986, Max D. Wheeler was preparing some material for a series of lectures on church music in the early days of the "restoration movement" and compiled a collection of hymns by some leaders, including Alexander Campbell and Barton W. Stone. One evening, he decided to devise a musical arrangement for Campbell's hymn, "Upon the Banks of Jordan Stood," taken from the 1834 edition of Campbell's Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs. The poem was written as a narrative, beginning with the proclamation of John the Baptist that Jesus is the Lamb of God, writing about the steps of salvation, and discussing the establishment of Christ's church, which is described as the "reign of God." After trying one thing and then another, Wheeler finally memorized the basic tune that sounded the best.
About a month later, he was recording with Ray Walker at a Dallas studio and scratched out a quick manuscript copy of the music, asking Ray to review it. By the next night, Ray had recorded it. The producer, Bill Shockley, liked it so much that he decided to include it in one of his production tapes and market it. A few months later, Bill Humble asked to use the song as the theme music for a video he was producing on the life of Alexander Campbell. It was first published in a new edition of V. E. Howard's Church Gospel Songs and Hymns and has since appeared in several hymnbooks used among churches of Christ and Christian Churches, including the 1992 Praise for the Lord, edited by John P. Wiegand. Also, Church Gospel Songs and Hymns includes a hymn by Barton W. Stone, "The Lord Is the Fountain," from The Christian Hymn Book of 1829, with a musical setting by Max Wheeler's cousin, Tommy Wheeler.
