A Quiet Debut in Australia - 1846
Adelaide, 1846, by George French Angas [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
Introduction
The Campbell-Stone movement, a group of Christians who wanted to restore New Testament practices, originated in the United States in the first half of the nineteenth century (see Christian History 106) and soon spread to Australia. The Adelaide Register of January 7, 1846 reported the opening of a new Church of Christ fellowship hall in South Australia.
Quote
“The body of Christians . . . who, eschewing all denominational badges of distinction, call themselves merely the Church of Christ, and whose retiring and unostentatious habits occasioned the absence of even the ordinary publicity which is expected upon such an event as the opening of a new place of worship. . . . opened their new place of worship for the first time on Sunday. . . . After the breaking of bread, for which purpose they meet every Lord’s Day morning, Captain Scott delivered an interesting discourse from 1 Sam. 7:12, “Hitherto hath the Lord helped us.” . . . The afternoon service was conducted by Mr. Neale. . . . And as there was no evening service, this closed for the day the simple but interesting public worship of this quiet body of professing Christians. The building, which is substantial but plain, is capable of holding about 100 hearers, and cost £65, and being paid for previous to the opening (a circumstance almost unprecedented in the annals of church building in this colony…) there was no collection.”
Taylor, H.R. The History of Churches of Christ in South Australia 1846-1959. South Australia: The Churches of Christ Evangelistic Union, Inc., c. 1958.