From One Who Was There, "That Henderson Meeting Of 1910"
In the cause of accuracy and in behalf of the church at Henderson, Tennessee, I think something should be published relative to charges that have been made by Brother G. C. Brewer about the "meeting" that was held with the church at Henderson in 1910.
In the Gospel Advocate of August 6, 1953, Brother Brewer published a letter to Brother C. E. W. Dorris, in which he made reference to the Henderson meeting. He gave out the information in said letter that he was at Lexington, Tennessee, a month before the said Henderson meeting, and therefore he was within forty miles of Henderson, where the meeting was held! Of course, being that near to Henderson, and that close to the time of the meeting, Brother Brewer would, with his wonderful memory, naturally be qualified to testify as to what was done "by the meeting"!!! He wrote to Brother Dorris, in the Advocate of August 6, as follows:
"This 'meeting' then was not a congregation's selecting a missionary and asking other congregations to help in his support, but this was a 'meeting' that selected a missionary for West Tennessee, and the missionary was J. W. Dunn. The group assembled in the 'meeting' selected and appointed the church at Henderson to receive the funds, and they themselves agreed and promised to stir up the brethren and see that the funds were sent in. The work that they proposed to do never did go into operation, and it was not the work nor the method of doing the work that Brother Lipscomb criticized."
I wrote a review of Brother Brewer's answer to Brother Joseph Cannon's problem and questions, which appeared in the Gospel Advocate, in a July issue of the paper, (my article appeared in the Gospel Guardian recently) and I sent my article, directly to Brother Brewer for publication in the Advocate. (It was not printed in that paper.) I wrote Brother Brewer when I sent the article to him that I had read his letter to Brother Dorris in the Advocate of August 6. After quoting to him from his letter the excerpt quoted above, I wrote him as follows:
"Brother Brewer, I was at the Henderson meeting in 1910. I attended every service. I know what was not done. I know your statements about what the 'meeting' did are entirely incorrect. The "meeting" did not one thing that you charge it with doing. The 'meeting' did not select the missionary. Nor did the 'meeting' select and appoint the Henderson church to receive the funds of other churches. The 'meeting' did not propose to do any work.
"It is true that one brother proposed that the 'meeting' go on record as indorsing the meeting, since Brother Lipscomb had criticized it in advance as an 'unscriptural meeting.' Brother J. D. Tant arose and made a speech about two minutes long. He said the meeting as a body, as an entity, can not indorse anything. Nor can it approve or disapprove. It cannot resolve. It has no standing whatever. That is the very thing Lipscomb warned against. Then Tant said he had written to David Lipscomb, indorsing his note of warning.
"After that not one thing was proposed by any one for the meeting to do. Not one resolution was proposed, not one single solitary proposition was even suggested for the 'meeting' to act upon; not one action was taken by the meeting.
"Moreover, nothing was said in any of the reports that were sent to the papers that would remotely indicate that anything was done by the 'meeting' as a body. Brother Freed repeatedly insisted that it was no different from 'meetings' that were held in Nashville about the same time.
"Some of the preachers who were present at the Henderson meeting are dead, and they can't speak now. A. G. Freed, J. D. Tant, A. O. Colley, G. Dallas Smith, J. S. Haskins, and T. B. Thompson, and perhaps others are among that number. But, N. B. Hardeman, J. W. Dunn, D. N. Barrett, John T. Smith, W. Halladay Trice, and I are among the number who were there, and can still testify that the 'meeting' as such did nothing. Not one in the list will agree with what you have said about the 'meeting.'
"Of course, I cannot know what was in Brother Lipscomb's mind except by taking what he said. And he severely criticized the idea of one church receiving and expending the funds of other churches. Even though it might be possible that he was misinformed about the Henderson meeting, and disbelieved what Brother Freed said about it, the fact that Lipscomb criticized was that the Henderson church proposed to send out an evangelist, receive funds from other churches, and expend those funds in supporting the evangelist."
On the 14th day of August Brother Brewer acknowledged receipt of my letter of the 12th, and thanked me for the letter and for the article enclosed. In that letter, he wrote as follows:
"Yes, I know you were in the Henderson meeting, and the things you report about the meeting have been reported to me before by several of those who were present. I believe the one with whom I had the longest talk about the whole affair was G. Dallas Smith, though J. W. Dunn is another I remember talked with me. Also T. B. Thompson.
"What I reported as having been done in the meeting is drawn from what they announced the meeting was held to do. Brother. Lipscomb's criticism, no doubt, kept them from doing all they had called the meeting to accomplish. Furthermore, what the meeting did was drawn also from Brother G. Dallas Smith's report and from reply that McQuiddy made to the report."
Thus it is seen, that Brother Brewer had been in formed by "several of those who were present" at the Henderson meeting that what he wrote in the "Letter to Brother Dorris" of August 6, was not so; he wrote it and published it anyway. Moreover, Dallas Smith's report of the meeting and which McQuiddy criticized said emphatically, that the Henderson church agreed to "select an evangelist" Brewer says what he wrote about it was drawn from Smith's report and McQuiddy's reply!!! Looks like he couldn't read Smith's report!!!
Of course, this article could never obtain space in the Gospel Advocate, in which journal Brewer has misrepresented and slandered the list of preachers, living and dead, who had part in that meeting; also the Henderson church. The policy of that paper now is to never correct any error it makes.