Like you and I, he naturally examined the question of leadership in these "new" churches, desiring neither to over-simplify things or to excessively complicate them. He believed in plural eldership and in this quotation below demonstrates how eldership is a relative thing.

"So long, then, as in every community there are some more advanced in knowledge, experience, and years than others, and so long as every Christian community has the living oracles - the writings and teachings of the apostles and prophets - there is not a case likely to happen, in which it will be lawful to forsake the assembling of themselves together for all the acts of social worship, because of the want [lack] of officers or persons to serve them in any capacity.

If they are all such perfect babes in Christ - infants unable to speak a single word of edification - let them READ, and sing and commemorate the Savior's death, with the book in their hands, under the presidency [guidance] of the oldest infants in the Lord among them. The senior infants, chosen and appointed to lead the way, are to them elders and overseers in the Lord... For if the church is composed of such very babes, she will not require learned men to instruct her (the church). One that is a few days in advance will be relatively a senior among them, and fit to assist them in the Lord.

submitted by David Anderson