W. B. Godbey - Enter His Rest

on, the Lord has continued to broaden my field of labor, three times permitting me to preach in Europe, Asia and
Africa. If I could live on, oh, how it would be the glory of my soul to superscribe on my banner, like John
Wesley, as you see on his memorial sepulcher in Westminster Abbey, “The world is my parish.”
5 APOLOGY TO MY BRETHREN OF THE CAMPBELLITE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
Dear Brethren: –
This book is a surprise to me, having been precipitated on me by multitudes of people, who through speech and
pen in many different countries have become acquainted with me, and so importuned me to write my
autobiography before I pass out of the world, that I actually feel that it is God's will for me to do it. I hereby
assure you, as we shall meet at the judgment bar, that I love you with that unspeakable, perfect love which God
has given me not only for Himself, but for all the people of His worldwide creation. Therefore you must excuse
me not only for the mention I make of your Church, but the phraseology I use. I was born and reared in the
midst of your people, constantly associated with them and heard them preach perhaps ten times as much as all
other denominations together, as we were poor and I was a hard worker on the farm off in the hills and did not
have opportunity to go away from home, and your people did the preaching in that country. I promise you one
thing, and that is, to stick close to the facts involved, constantly keeping my eyes on the judgment bar, where I
shall soon meet you all. As I am seventy-three years old and have been preaching fifty-three years, with me the
battle is over I would rather drop dead this moment than to misrepresent you, your church, or anything else. The
events which I shall have occasion to mention in my biography in connection with your people all transpired.
Your people have undergone a radical change since that time; in fact, they have abandoned the belligerent policy
which uniformly characterized them, throughout the circle of my acquaintance, which gradually broadened out
till it took in all of the eastern part of the state lying south of Cincinnati, and largely extended over the
Louisville Conference in the western portion of the state.
I deeply regret my absolute necessity, in a faithful submission of my biography, of freely using the descriptive
word, “Campbellite,” from the simple fact that you people discard it as a name for your church and even reject it
as reproachful. Let me here certify before God and all the people who, in His providence, shall ever read this
book, that I do not use it in that sense, but simply as a matter, not of choice, but of necessity. There is no other
term in the vast vocabulary of the English language with which I can possibly communicate the facts involved,
as you know in the history of my life like this, it will not do to burden it with circumlocutions. This book will be
read not only throughout America, but in Europe, Asia, Africa and Oceania, as I have traveled in all these lands
and am well known to the Lord's people in all the earth. You know that if I were to use another term except
Campbellite they would be utterly confused and not understand the facts of this biography. The truth of it is that
you make a mistake in rejecting that adjective, which refers to one of the greatest intellectualists and most
profound scholars who ever lived on the earth. Like all others since the Apostles went to Heaven, he did not
claim inspiration nor infallibility, and was not free from mistakes, to which we are all liable. I do not think you
ought to reflect on me for the free use of words which historic veracity and fidelity force me to utilize in my
autobiography. When you read it just remember that I was in the war which swept over the territory of the
Kentucky Conference from my earliest recollection, which runs back about seventy years. That war wound up
twenty years ago, and you are not in it. I am glad your people have discontinued that belligerent policy, which
characterized them for the first fifty years of their history in Kentucky.
I assure you I am not to blame for the eighteen debates in which I was a contestant, because your preachers
forced me into them. I was preaching the Word faithfully, as I understood it, and God was wonderfully blessing
His precious truth in the salvation of souls, when one of your old debaters wrote to me challenge after challenge,
to meet him in public discussion and give him a chance with an open Bible to show the people I was wrong. At
that time, though some of my Methodist brethren, e. g., Drs. Miller, Fitch and Ditzler, had held debates with
your brethren, I had neither attended them nor sympathized with the course they were pursuing. I thought the
thing for us to do was to go ahead and faithfully preach the Word of God instead of stopping to hold debates.
But this man (Elder William Corn), who had already held a number of debates and had notoriety in that way,