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History of the Church of the United Brethren in Christ, Virginia Conference

by A. P. Funkhouser

CHAPTER XXIII

SKETCH OF ABRAM PAUL FUNKHOUSER

In our present sketch we find a life so varied and a character so full of the desire to help humanity that no mere statement of facts can convey properly the far-reaching influence of his life. Imbued with an intense interest in his fellow-men, he strove in every possible way to aid in their moral and mental uplift. Into the brief outline of his life which follows must be read the ambition of a far-seeing man to be a worth-while citizen.

Abram Paul Funkhouser was born December 10, 1853 near Dayton, Virginia. His mother was Elizabeth Paul; his father Samuel Funkhouser. In his youth he attended private schools and afterwards was graduated from Otterbein University, where he received his Bachelor's degree. Later he received the Master's degree from Lebanon College and Doctor of Divinity from York College.

Immediately following his graduation, he founded Shenandoah Institute at Dayton, Virginia, and for several years was president of this school. During four years he was superintendent of public schools in Rockingham and brought the educational interests of the county to a high state of efficiency. Later he was president of Leander Clark College of Iowa and of Lebanon Valley College at Annville, Pennsylvania. For two years he acted as assistance to President Forst of Berea College, Kentucky. Into this work he entered with the greatest enthusiasm, fulfilling as it did his own ideas in regard to vocational training. At the time of his death he was financing a student at Berea.

By nature Dr. Funkhouser was deeply religious and at an early age was converted and joined the United Brethren church. Shortly thereafter he became a member of the Virginia Conference. He was known as the "Boy Preacher" at the age of sixteen when he delivered his first sermon at Mt. Solon, Virginia in 1869. Subsequently he had charge

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of several circuits in the Virginia Conference, displaying efficiency and executive ability. He then became presiding elder of the South Branch District and was one of the most conspicuous delegates in the General Conference. For years he was a trustee of the United Brethren Publishing Board. In 1897 he was chosen associate editor of the "Religious Telescope."

The activities of Dr. Funkhouser found expression in political and civic interests as well as in the spheres of religion and education. In 1883 he moved to Harrisonburg, Virginia, and began issuing "The People," which name was later changed to "The State Republican." This journal was one of the leading state papers of Virginia, taking for its chief issues prohibition and clean politics. When the Readjuster party arose, he began taking a prominent part in the politics of his native state, allying himself with the Republican party. In 1887 when General Mahone was candidate for governor of Virginia he canvassed almost the entire state in his behalf and also did a great deal of editorial writing. In another campaign he made a race for a seat in the state senate and though the odds were greatly against him, he was defeated by fewer than ninety votes.

In 1896 Dr. Funkhouser originated the idea of a Confederate excursion to Canton, Ohio, the residence of William McKinley, then the Republican nominee for President. Though almost unaided in his plan, he chartered three trains and these carried two thousand veterans and their sons to the Republican Mecca. It was during this presidential campaign that Dr. Funkhouser was mentioned strongly for the position of Postmaster General in McKinley's cabinet. In 1897 he became postmaster of Harrisonburg, Virginia, and filled this position for eight years. In his term and because of his efforts Rockingham was the first county in the United States to be given a complete system of free rural mail delivery.

His civic spirit is shown in his purchase of the property that became the Assembly Park. Under his leadership a tabernacle and cottages were built and the first Chautauqua in this part of Virginia became a successful enterprise.

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His talent and ability qualified him for adventure in various forms of important enterprise, and with energy and enthusiasm he aspired to reach the limit. He considered no discouragement, paused at no obstacle, waited for no council, and listened for no applause. Under the lash of criticism he refused to wince and whine. He was a preacher, educator and organizer, with power to command recognition. His mind was brilliant, and it was a pleasure to hear him speak.

The wife of Dr. Funkhouser was Miss Minnie King, from Westerville, Ohio. Their children are Mrs. Jessie P. Roudabush, Samuel K. Funkhouser, Mrs. Mary W. Rogers, and Edward K. Funkhouser. He was a kind husband and father and the Funkhouser home was a happy one.

As specimens of Dr. Funkhouser's literary efforts, we present his address on "Our Church Centenary," delivered at Lebanon Valley College, December 10, 1873, while yet a college student, and his fraternal address to the General Conference of the Methodist Protestant Church, May 24, 1912.

OUR CHURCH CENTENARY

One hundred years ago, the blessings of civil and religious liberty did not crown our country as they do to-day. Washington,—the greatness of whose character every one knows,—had not yet led the American army to victory. The galling yoke of oppression bore heavily upon our ancestors. The republic had not yet been established. Everywhere, the people were rising against tyranny, and our political horizon was dark. Nor was this darkness confined alone to the political aspects of the country. In a great measure, the Church had lost her original purity; form had taken the place of power. Experimental religion was unknown even to many leading members of the Church. Yet there were some worthy exceptions. Noble men and women, in different parts of the land, were

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endeavoring to arouse and awaken the Church from her lethargy.

Prominent among these illustrious workers were found William Otterbein, Martin Boehm, George Geeting, and others, who by their zeal in good works and their untiring energy brought many souls to Christ and thus laid the foundation of the Church of the United Brethren in Christ. And now we are about to be called upon to celebrate properly the one hundredth year of her existence.

Let us take a glance at her history up to the present time. For years Otterbein and his co-laborers directed their efforts alone to the conversion of souls. Consequently most of the converts were gathered into other churches. But from the time Otterbein clasped Boehm in his arms and exclaimed, "We are brethren," they looked forward to organic union. But this was not attempted until years after. At the great meeting at Isaac Long's, God poured out his spirit upon the vast assembly, composed of members of many churches and of as many different opinions. From this meeting the revival influence spread in many directions. A few preachers were raised up, who carried the gospel into the states of Maryland and Virginia. Some of their earnest workers emigrated to Ohio and soon raised the gospel banner in the then Far West. Large meetings were held in many places, and hundreds, yea, thousands, were converted to God, and scores were received into the Church. The efforts were thus far confined to the German language and entirely to the rural districts. Our fathers avoided large towns and cities.

But the country was filling up with English-speaking people, and thus arose a demand for an English ministry which the Church was slow to supply. However, when the ministry was partially supplied with English preachers, the progress of the Church was rapid. While some were zealously laboring here in the East, others moved with the tide of emigration, and were soon preaching to the inhabitants of the woods and prairies of the West. Thus the borders of the Church were enlarged, and by the efforts

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of earnest men she has continued to advance until to-day she extends from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from Canada to Tennessee.

But progress for the first century was slow. Indeed, viewing it from a human standpoint, it was remarkably slow. Near the close of this period her labor is still confined to German settlements, without a printed discipline, a printing establishment, newspaper, college, missionary society, or well organized itinerancy. Two annual conference districts embrace the entire work, without a house of worship west of the Alleghany Mountains and but few east of them. In a tribute paid to the Church in 1813 by the venerable Bishop Asbury, he estimates the whole membership to be 20,000, and the number of ministers, 100. By a series of calamitous events between 1810 and 1820, the membership was so primed down that by 1820 it numbered only about 9,000.

Thus we see the Church, after a struggle of forty-six years, with less than 10,000 members and possessing nothing to make these permanent. Indeed, in the decade mentioned, despite all the work done, there had been a total loss of more than 1,000.

But at this time God was raising up an English ministry, and of its success we may judge by examining and comparing statistics for the years following.

The denominational interest of the Church now began to receive attention. The first discipline was printed in 1815. In the last month of 1835 the first issue of the "Religious Telescope" appeared, although in 1845 its circulation was only 3,000. Mount Pleasant College and Otterbein University were founded in 1847. In 1853 our efficient Home, Frontier, and Foreign Missionary Society was organized. In 1850 the membership of the United Brethren Church was about 40,000. Ten years later it was 94,000, showing an increase in the decade of 54,000.

What is the condition of the Church to-day? Her boundary is limited by no state lines, nor is she confined to one country only. Her membership is almost 150,000,

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and she is represented in almost all the states of the Union, Her territory is divided into more than forty conference districts, these having a force of 2,000 ministers. She is making her mark. Her printing house, besides carrying on a large book trade, publishes six periodicals, whose joint circulation is more than 300,000 copies. Besides the "Sabbath School," and "Benevolent Fund," and "Church Erection" societies, she has a well organized missionary society with many missionaries in frontier fields, and two foreign missions manned with almost a dozen earnest workers. Her educational institutions are beginning to be a power. Besides half a dozen high schools and academies, she has as many regular colleges.

If such be the United Brethren Church, every member should esteem himself happy that he lives to celebrate the centennial anniversary of the denomination. But will we accept the responsibility of our position? The responsibility is upon us and we must accept it. We must not prove recreant. "As all rejoiced in bringing their gifts to King Solomon, so every one, young or old, man or woman, should contribute, as God has prospered him, in erecting monuments to the Lord that shall bless through coming ages all within their influence. Yes, this should be a year of rich harvest to the treasuries of the Church, and especially to her colleges. This year her friends should place Lebanon Valley College in the front rank. To her, donations should be made until they reach hundreds of thousands of dollars. Her halls should be filled with students. All this may be accomplished this year by united effort. There are, at least, five hundred young men and women in these four cooperating conferences who should be in some department of college work to-day. The first thing needful is to make our college worthy in every respect for fitting this large number for the responsible duties of life, and the second is, to send them here.

We as students have resolved to do our part, and we, and the world, and God, expect the Church to do hers.

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Mr. President, Fathers and Brethren*:

Commissioned by our Board of Bishops, it is a great pleasure to my colleague, Dr. Washinger, and to myself to bring to you the sincere and cordial greetings of the United Brethren Church, and to reciprocate most heartily the splendid and touching expressions of fraternity of your distinguished representative, President Lewis, in his able address to our General Conference three years ago at Canton, Ohio. We have followed your proceedings in this body with increased interest and rejoice over all the victories you have won for Christ, especially during the last quadrennium.

For six quadrenniums, it has been my privilege as a member of the General Conference to hear and greet the brethren you have sent to us with messages of warmest sympathy and co-operation; messages in the more recent past, big with the conviction that God has one kingdom on earth; urging more than co-operation and fraternal sympathy—even the unity of organic union, responding in the fullest sense to every advance made by our most enthusiastic leaders.

It was my fortune to be a member of the Tri-Council which met six years ago in Dayton, Ohio, and to share in the spiritual exaltation of the whole Council described by another as "almost a modern Pentecost," after the unexpected but unanimous adoption of the resolution offered by your representative, Dr. Lewis, that "our first and chief business is to provide for the organic union of these three bodies;" and later, as a member of the Committee on

*The following address by Dr. Funkhouser was in response to the resolution below, which was adopted by a unanimous vote.

We believe that a union of the Methodist Protestant Church and Church of the United Brethren in Christ, is both possible and practical, and therefore we authorize our commission on church union to enter upon negotiation with the commission of the Church of the United Brethren in Christ, just so soon as that commission is full authorized to enter upon said negotiations.

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Polity, both at Pittsburgh and at Chicago, to share in a small way in the adoption of the Plan of Union, in a very large measure, your plan of union, which was presented to the churches interested with so much promise for good to our common Zion. So that having met with these your representatives and having learned to know your spirit, and having familiarized myself with your people and church life, I am not among strangers; for indeed I feel like repeating the words of our church founders almost a century and a half ago—when though strangers, after a heart-searching sermon full of the unction of the Holy Spirit by the Mennonite preacher, Martin Boehm, a man of small stature and plain garb, the stalwart and scholarly German Reformed Otterbein with brimming heart and tear-filled eyes, put his arms about the speaker and exclaimed "We are brethren."

All of these efforts and plans for closer relationship between our churches have had, from the beginning, our heartiest approval, and our hopes have been high for realization of this forward step in the meaning of God's forces for the overthrow of sin and wickedness in high places. And my conviction to-day is that the discontinuance of these efforts for union is most foolish, if not criminal.

And in this, without a single exception, to the best of my knowledge, on every occasion when the question has been voted on, in Annual or General Conference, these sentiments echo the expressed will of our people.

But Christian people do foolish things. We maintain schools and colleges, build churches and employ pastors, conduct Sunday schools and Young People's Societies to train, culture and save our children and make of them good men and women, and then we authorize others by law to destroy our work, degrade and ruin our children; and we build jails and penitentiaries and hire officers to harvest this crop of destruction, the result of legislation winked at and supported by Christians.

The Protestant Church in the United States to whom is committed now, as in the past, the salvation of our peo-

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ple and the making of the greatest nation on the earth, and, through this nation, to reach every other people on the globe, has divided, according to Dr. Carroll, our religious census enumerator, into 141 denominations or sects, each more or less against the other, and this too in the face of the united hosts of darkness. If the Apostle Paul who begs us to "have the mind which was in Christ Jesus, were writing us now, would he not say, "Oh! foolish brethren, who hath bewitched you?" Should we not pray, and that right earnestly, like the fellow falling from the high bridge: "Lord, have mercy, and have it quick!"

What wasted strength, what a weakening of our forces, what a dissipation of our vital resources!

The tendency of the age is toward organization and consolidation. The trend towards centralization is universal. These are the days of integration. The day of individual initiative and effort and great achievement is past. We are in the era of world-wide movement. The world has become a great community, from all parts of which we may hear daily, and every man has become our brother. The problems to be solved and the tasks to be done are so large that it takes great agencies to accomplish them,—not in commercial life only,—but also in the social, educational, political and religious worlds, the watch words are "Organization" and "Combination!" And is it not the whole aim of the gospel and will it not be a glorious achievement to put one spirit, the spirit of our Christ into the whole human family?

Who is urging this union? Jesus, the head of the Church. His last prayer on earth was that "they might be one." The Holy Spirit is our inspiration and our guide. His first coming was to the disciples who were in one place and with one accord, and his perpetual ministry is to build us up together. Common sense and good judgment appeal to us to be as wise in religious affairs as the children of the world are in business matters; to mass our forces and push the conquest of Satan's kingdom, never so aggressive and defiant as now.

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Our laymen are eager to see the methods of practical efficiency applied to the work of the churches. The logic of facts is that of such a proposal. They want the comrade touch of shoulder to shoulder in company rank, the force of the regiment, the strategic power of the well placed battalion. For a half million members of our two churches to be organically related is in itself a stimulus of no mean order.

Who is against us? Satan, the arch enemy. The devil is a strategist. If he can keep the forces of truth divided into sections or sects, he will conquer in detail and the rule of his authority will be undiminished. The open, active advocates and agents of Satan decry church union, while pride in what our fathers wrought or left us, prejudice of birth or training, denominational greed and selfishness in all its ramifications, with some good people who live in the past and question the propriety of a change; these are the reactionaries clogging the chariot wheels of progress.

A growing sentiment of union is felt among all Christian people. All churches now have their committees on church union and a great national federation is endeavoring to bring all the churches nearer together. Men outside of the church, as well as those within, deplore ecclesiastical division and look upon sectarianism as a reproach. Unity does not mean uniformity; but it does mean such a spirit of loyalty to the master and such a love for the brethren as will tolerate individual differences and permit individual variety under a common form.

Subordinate beliefs raised to the rank of essentials block the way of unity. There is no proprietary right in matters of faith. The basis of real union must always be found in a common spiritual impulse and life; and it will be effective, not along lines of history and ancestry, but in spiritual affinity; not in a common origin but in a common life—The Union must be vital, not simply formal.

There is so much in common between the Methodist Protestant Church and the Church of the United Brethren

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in Christ, that the wonder is not how to get them together, but that they have been so long apart. Each has a supreme regard for the facts of religious experience; each stands for the right of private judgment in matters of religion, the freedom of the local church, and supreme loyalty to Jesus as Lord and King. In doctrine, they are both Arminian; and in organization, thoroughly American, and they do not differ, in any important particulars, in form, sacraments and ordinances.

Neither of us number our adherents by the million but our crowning glory has been the regenerated heart as the key to the saved life; and we continue to hold, and God grant that it may never be otherwise, that our first duty is to provide for the maintenance of God's invisible Church in the hearts of his children. God's communications with the soul are personal and individual and the cry of the ages is: "O that I knew where I might find him!"

The more consecrated and enthusiastic our people and the more efficient and developed our organization, the more successfully can we respond to this yearning appeal in helpful Christian service.

The marshalling of our columns under one banner and one leadership and as one host with a single purpose would be an object lesson in the recovery of Christianity towards the unity that alone is the Master's plea and a forerunner of similar movements that may characterize our age.

With our principles affirmed and our prejudices denied in this the day of His power, we stand willing to be led. willing to act, willing to move out, if it may be into a wider fellowship and a more abounding service. Mr. President, "If thy heart be as my heart, give me thy hand."



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