CHAPTER XVI
THE FRIENDS TO HUMANITY
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The adopting of the title "Friends to Humanity," by a few Baptists in the territory of Illinois, in October, 1809, was the beginning of a movement worthy of a place in the moral history of the world. This is true even if the title was already in use in Kentucky or elsewhere, for it is in Illinois that it became one of the forces that make history. The intention plainly was to rally the antislavery sentiment on a platform broad enough for all to stand on it, and yet explicit enough to keep out the slaveholder and his sympathizer. The fact that the movement did not become popular at once may be easily explained. The average individual shrinks from unpopularity for that which involves sacrifice. He would rather hold his views in secret, and live in peace. There were friends to humanity in all the churches, but they were in the minority. They were awed too, and their opponents strengthened, by the traveling committee clothed with the authority of the Association.
Then there was the distrust usually felt towards a new thing. To what would it lead? Would it be the beginning of a new denomination? There was here indeed a fine opportunity for James Lemen to start a new sect. As fair an opportunity for him in Illinois in 1809 as for Benjamin Randall in New Hampshire to found the Free Baptists in 1780, or for Jacob Albright in Pennsylvania in 1800 to found the Evangelical Association, or for Alexander Campbell in Virginia in 1827 to found another sect of Disciples, or for John Winebrenner in Pennsylvania in 1830, of William Miller in Massachusetts in 1831, to lead out the Church of God, or accept the leadership of the Adventists. There was as fair an opportunity for the Friends of Humanity to become a separate, denomination in 1809 over the antislavery issue, as for the United Brethren, or the Cumbetland Presbyterian, over the issue of revival preaching, of the Methodist Protestant in 1830, or the Congregational Methodist in 1852, or the Free Methodist in 1860, on the question of church government.
But James Lemen had no intention of leaving the denomination, and he had the patience to wait. He waited ten years. In the meantime he was not idle. James Lemen Jr. was ordained by the New Design church in the spring of 1809, and on December 10, 1809, he
[p. 55]
and John Baugh aided in constituting the Lemen family an independent Baptist church, under the name of "The Cantine Creek Baptized Church of Christ, Friends to Humanity." "Cantine" is a corruption of Quentin, a city in the north of France after which the creek was named by the French settlers. In 1849 the name of the church was changed to Bethel, the first of the twenty Bethel Baptist churches in Illinois. The meeting house is on the edge of the famous Ridge Prairie, two miles southeast of Collinsville. It is now the oldest Baptist church in the state. If we passed by the dead and wrote only of existing churches we would begin here.
The constituent names on the roll on that second Sunday in December, 1809, were James Lemen Sr. and wife, Joseph Lemen and wife, Robert Lemen and wife, and Benjamin Ogle. To these can be added James Lemen Jr. and wife, for they joined in the evening of the same day. Mr. Lemen Sr. was in the prime of life, 49 years of age. Mr. Ogle was nine years younger. The Lemen boys were strong and able young men: Robert, 26; Joseph, 24, and James 22 years of age. Joseph and James were preachers. Their basis of church organization was expressed in the following covenant:
"We whose names are hereunto subscribed agree to unite and be constituted on the Bible of the Old and New Testaments, and to be known by the name of the Baptized Church of Christ, Friends to Humanity, denying union and communion with all persons holding the doctrine of perpetual, hereditary, involuntary slavery."
Long afterwards, in 1828, when the Friends to Humanity churches were flourishing, further explanation was given in a Circular Letrer written by James Lemen Jr.: "Being accused by some of not having been sufficiently explicit in our former addresses, relative to who and what we are as a religious society, we will therefore simply reply that we profess to be scripture advocates, or Bible christians, having adopted the word of God both as our constitution and book of discipline. In our church records, and in our circular publications, we subscribe our names, The Baptized Churches of Christ, Friends to Humanity. We say Baptized Churches instead of Baptist Churches because the word Baptized includes both preachers and private members, while the word Baptist includes the preachers only. We add Friends to Humanity because we believe it to be our duty to extend our friendship (that is justice and mercy), to human nature, let it appear in whatever dress or complexion God may see fit to order, whether white, yellow or black, and not when it appears in white only.
[p. 56]
We are not tenacious however about names, neither will we stickle for them, as they are only designed for temporary purposes. But as we wish to be plainly understood, we believe:
1. That the church of Christ consist of believers, and therefore we receive none into our societies but such as profess to have received a change of heatt and have faith in Jesus Christ. 2. That immersion is the only scriptural mode of baptism; therefore it ought to be administered only in that form, and that to believers only. 3. That the Lord's Supper belongs only to the household of faith, and ought not to be administered to any but such as have faith in Christ, having entered the church through the door of baptism by immersion, being opposed to slavery, intemperance, and every other violation of the holy law of God, walking humbly before him as becomes little children. 4. That washing the saint's feet is a scriptural command, and intended by Jesus to be perpetuated by the churches through succeeding generations. 5. That the church is the highest ecclesiastical authority; and that annual meetings, associations, conferences, synods, &c., ought to be under the control of the churches and not the churches under them. The following from the same letter will give an illustration of the manner in which they treated the question of slavery: If not in each, yet in the majority of our former addresses, your attention has been directed to the deplorable condition of the unpitied descendants of Africa; and this by some would be received as sufficient apology for silence on such a subject in the present publication. But how can we be silent while a number of human beings in our boasted land of liberty are groaning under the most bitter oppression, such as the pages of neither ancient nor modern history afford a parallel? . . . It may be argued by some that as slavery is a political evil, it is therefore a subject which should only concern political men. But it is a moral as well as a political evil, and therefore deeply concerns the christian part of the community. . . . Said President Jefferson: "The liberties of man are the gifts of God, and cannot be violated but with his displeasure. I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever, that -- considering the number, nature and natural means only, a revolution in the wheel of fortune, a change of situ,ation as among possible events, that it may become probable by supernatural interference -- the Almighty has no attribute that can take part with us in such a contest." Slavery has not only tarnished our political, but has stamped an indelible blot on our religious character, and justifies the following lines of an African:
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"Christians are our sore oppressors,
If it's right to call them so;
Fellow mortals our possessors,
And the cause of all our woe.
Christian tyrants buy and sell us,
Make us labor, starve and bleed;
Tear our wives and children from us,
Whom the God of heaven has freed."
Feetwashing, alluded to above, as a religious ordinance has never been common among Baptists, and has been gradually dropped. It is not now practiced except by some churches among Old School Baptists. It never could be an ordinance like baptism and the Lord's Supper, because it tells not of Christ but of social service. It is not burdened with a divine death, but with human duty. =============== [Edward P. Brand, Illinois Baptists -- A History, 1930, pp. 54-57. -- jrd]
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