The Methodists now number about 12 million in America, and are divided into twenty societies with the most bizarre names.

Chapter XXIV. Sects of the XIX-XX centuries

"Disciples of Christ", or Campbellites

Longing for the Truth, a sense of the loss of Its fullness, and a longing for life in Christ are characteristic features of Christians in the West, torn away from the living Trunk of the Body of Christ. Like Adam and his descendants, who, having fallen away from the Tree of Life, fell into error, began to wander in search of the Truth, resulting in the mosaic of so-called natural religions, so Protestantism, having fallen away from the True Vine, from the Church as the Body of Christ, the "Pillar and Ground of the Truth," began to wander in search of the lost fullness of the Truth, the fullness of life in Christ, and in wanderings, used by the enemies of Christ, was divided into many directions and interpretations. Of modern Protestantism, we can boldly and with good reason say: as many heads as there are minds, as many minds as there are "insights" in it.

An example of such a longing for the lost Truth is the sect of the "Disciples of Christ" or "Campbellites". A sect of purely American origin. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, in various parts of America and among various sects, preachers appeared who called for the establishment of religious life exclusively on the basis of the Bible, calling for the union of apostolic teaching, but – by virtue of their isolation from the Conciliar Mind of the Church – of course, with the rejection of Church Tradition and the Symbols of Faith of the ancient Church.

The Disciples of Christ is a movement that sought to unite all Christians on the basis of a return to the faith and to the life of the original Christianity. The beginning of this movement was laid by Thomas Campbell and his son Alexander. In 1812, they left the Presbyterian congregation and organized their congregation by joining the Baptist union. In 1823, in the journal "Christian Baptist", Alexander Campbell began to preach a sermon on a return to the Gospel teaching of apostolic times. He did not call for a new reformation, he called everyone for restoration, not for the organization of a new sect and not for the reform of existing ones, but for "a return to Jerusalem – for the restoration of apostolic Christianity." But, divorced from the Conciliar Mind of the Church, Alexander Campbell, guided by his personal conjecture, his own opinion, declared everything that in various confessions and sects was beyond the Holy Scriptures to be human wisdom. Excommunicated by the Baptist Union for his preaching, A. Campbell began to create his own community. From 1839 to the year of his death, A. Campbell published his own magazine, and throughout the nineteenth century this movement grew; its growth slowed down in the XX century with the emergence of new trends in the Protestant environment. In 1952, the Campbellites had 1.8 million members in America, divided into 8,000 communities.

The Campbellites accept in their entirety all the tenets of faith common to all Protestant denominations, but, unlike other sects, they recognize the pre-eminence of the New Testament for the Christian. They refrain from the use of theological systems of doctrine and terms that reject the understanding of the sacraments as sacraments, imparting special gifts of grace to the faithful, and they demand from those who enter into their movement only the confession of Christ as the God-man, repentance, obedience to evangelists, and a promise to renounce sin and do righteousness. They consider the day of Pentecost to be the beginning of Christianity and teach about the unity of the Church with one head – Christ, and since there are many Churches, the Campbellites consider all Churches to be illegal gatherings. Denying the priesthood as a sacrament, they also reject the baptism of infants, and those baptized in infancy are rebaptized. Not recognizing the Sacrament of the Eucharist, the Campbellites accept the Divine Supper as a remembrance, approaching it every Sunday.

Sunday is strictly observed as a day of meeting and prayer of the "people of God", as a day of communion with the "community of saints", a day of evangelism, i.e. preaching and exercises of families in fulfilling the commandments of the Lord.

Mormons who call themselves "Latter-day Saints"

This is an American sect of a semi-pagan character, founded around 1830 by Joseph Smith.

The history of the emergence of this sect is as follows. A former preacher of one of the Protestant sects, Salomon Spaulding, wrote about 1812 a fantastic novel called "The Found Manuscript", which told the fictitious story of two Jewish colonies, allegedly founded in America in ancient times and leaving degenerate offspring in the form of red-skinned tribes. The novel was not published, but it was well known to the author's relatives and friends; after the author's death, a copy of this novel fell into the hands of the Baptist preacher Sidney Rigdon (in Ohio), who was close to Joseph Smith, who lived in the neighborhood, born about 1800 in Vermont, the uneducated son of a craftsman, known for his bad life and many fraudulent tricks. Soon after (Rigdon) became acquainted with Spaulding's novel, Smith, who had long pretended to be a sorcerer and treasure discoverer, announced that he had a revelation from above: that in a cave on Mount Cumora (New York) there was an ancient sacred chronicle of American Israelites, written by one of the leaders, Mormon. Going to the indicated place, upon his return, he assured that after a fierce struggle with the devil, the higher beings had handed him a book consisting of gold plates striated with unknown writings in a special New Egyptian language. The book allegedly contained an optical instrument in which he recognized the Urim and Thummim (the divinatory apparatus of the ancient Jewish high priests). Reading the golden book with this projectile, he understood its meaning and, sitting behind a curtain, dictated its English translation, published in Palmyra (New York) in 1830. Many people familiar with Salmon Spaulding's novel stated that Smith's Book of Mormon was nothing more than a reproduction of Spaulding's novel The Found Manuscript, i.e., plagiarism. Since Sidney Rigdon, who had a copy of the novel, turned out to be a personal friend and adherent of Smith, the matter was simply explained. Moreover, the original manuscript was stolen from Spaulding's heirs who claimed plagiarism and exterminated by the Mormons. The "Golden Book", allegedly discovered by Smith, remained invisible, and, according to Smith, was completely hidden by angels, remaining an object of religious faith for Smith's adherents. The criminal antecedents of the "prophet", for which he was tried and for which he himself repented, make deception more than likely. Nevertheless, hundreds, and soon thousands, of people believed in Smith as a messenger of God, called to gather a new American Israel and prepare it for the millennium that would soon be revealed in America. The movement that began among the people soon took on ugly forms; the crowds of people became extremely religious in the midst of frenzied men and women grimacing and shouting in unknown tongues, so that Smith himself decided to moderate his followers. He announced that John the Baptist had appeared to him, ordered him to be baptized by immersion, ordained him to the priesthood according to the order of Aaron, and then according to the order of Melchizedek, and ordered both titles to be communicated to other worthy persons. With the help of the hierarchy thus established (which later became much more complicated), Smith introduced order and discipline into his sect. Most of his followers concentrated in Independence, Missouri, while he himself remained with a few in Curtland, Ohio, where he engaged in banking operations, but, having gone bankrupt, fled to Independence. Here the surrounding population was stirred up with hostility by the arrogance of the Mormons, who recognized themselves as the only saints, and saw only pernicious errors in all other confessions and sects; Mormons were also accused of crimes against the common law and, after many abuses, were forced to leave Missouri (1838). Settling in Illinois, they turned the insignificant town of Commerce into a flourishing city, which they called Nova, with a vast and original temple. From here they sent numerous missionaries to Europe and Australia. At first, the population reacted favorably to them. But a reaction soon began when it was discovered that Mormons had introduced polygamy as a religious law. In 1843, Smith informed his friends of a revelation he had received from above, permitting the "saints," following the example of the Old Testament patriarchs and kings, to have several wives. Although it was allowed to marry only between maidens or widows, in fact Smith and his chosen disciples encroached on the honor of married women as well. Smith himself had 30 wives. Several offended men rebelled against this abuse and began to publish a denunciation. Smith and a crowd of adherents destroyed and burned the printing house of this newspaper. The people appealed to the judiciary; after an unsuccessful attempt to escape, Smith and his brother, the "patriarch" Girem, were arrested. An anti-Mormon mob surrounded the prison, and the two brothers were shot dead on June 27, 1844.