PART V WHO WERE THE BIBLE CHRISTIANS? 
     
    
   
   
    
     Bible Christians or Bryanites were names popularly applied to a sect of 
     
     Christians whose official name was the “Bible Christian Connection”. The term 
     
     “Bryanites” originated from their founder, Rev. William O’Bryan, while the 
     
     designation “Bible Christians” resulted from the characteristic use of the Bible in 
     
     their private worship and public services at a time when the Bible was a scarce ar- 
     
     ticle for many worshippers. Bible Christians were also well-known for the 
     
     emphasis that they placed on the teachings of the Bible in the daily conduct of 
     
     their lives. Today, Bible Christians are usually associated historically with the 
     
     Methodists since they had left the Methodist Church due to internal disputes con- 
     
     cerning doctrine and organization, but later rejoined the Methodist Church after 
     
     their differences had been reconciled. 
     
    
   
   
    
     Had the great Methodist leader, Rev. John Wesley, devoted more missionary 
     
     efforts to the people of Devonshire, England, there probably would have been no 
     
     Bible Christians. It was Rev. John Wesley’s custom upon leaving Taunton, 
     
     England to travel to Cornwall, England without stopping in North Devon, a 
     
     large district deplorable in moral and spiritual conditions in the nineteen 
     
     hundreds as all of England had been previously in the eighteenth century. If Rev. 
     
     John Wesley had visited North Devon half as often as he had Cornwall, the 
     
     farmers, laborers, and tradesmen of Devon who later reached out to the Bible 
     
     Christians to satisfy their religious needs would never have felt the urge to gather 
     
     themselves together to form a new religious group in which the Bible would be 
     
     the center of their daily devotions and a model for their every day living. 
     
    
   
   
    
          
     
    
   
   
    
     me 
     
     Bourne C 0/1. 
     
    
   
   
    
         
     
    
   
   
    
     Bourne Coll. 
     
    
   
   
    
     Rev. William 0 ’Bryan 
     
    
   
   
    
     l. REV. WILLIAM O’BRYAN: HIS EARLY LIFE 
     
    
   
   
    
     Rev. William O’Bryan, the founder of the Bible Christians, was born in 
     
     Gunwen, Cornwall, (near Lostwithiel, twenty—three miles west of Plymouth, 
     
     England) on February 6, 1778. He was the son of a yeoman, endowed with an 
     
     excellent mind, superior memory, and upon acquiring a good elementary educa- 
     
     tion was, intellectually, a great deal above his class. 
     
    
   
   
    
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