The Churches of God, as already stated, have no written creed but assume to accept the Word of God as their only rule of faith and practise. They hold the doctrine of the Trinity, believe in human depravity, the atonement of Christ, justification by faith, the resurrection, future punishment, and are, in general, orthodox. Through these articles of their faith, and the fact that they took the Scriptural name, Church of God, the followers of Winebrenner made their appeal to D. S. Warner. But they were lacking in some very important particulars, without which they could not possibly be, as was claimed, identical with the New Testament church. Winebrenner started out well, but on the subject of Holy Spirit organization and government he was not sufficiently illumined to avoid more or less of the human ecclesiastical authority which crept into the body of his followers and constituted them a sect. When holiness came they repudiated it, thereby revealing their position as outside the Holy Spirit control of believers. However, their teaching on the church question was correct as far as it went, and it took years of actual practise of obeying the lead of the Spirit to discover to Brother Warner and others the clash between the Holy Spirit rule and the rule of human authority. [Illustration: D. S. Warner and wife (Tamzen Kerr)] V FIRST YEARS IN MINISTRY Brother Warner had the right view of ministerial qualification. He realized that in order to succeed he must have the spiritual anointing, and that since it was God's work it was needful that he be in that divine relation by which it would be God in him accomplishing the result. He held education to be very useful and it was his endeavor throughout his life to add to his knowledge; but he regarded the spiritual qualification as paramount. He soon proved to be gifted as an evangelist and engaged much in evangelistic work. Before proceeding far in active ministerial work he was married, on the 5th of September, 1867, to Tamzen Ann Kerr. It is probable that he became acquainted with this young woman while he was teaching school in the vicinity of her home, which was near West Unity, Williams County. She lived to enjoy his companionship and to share his labors only about four and one half years. Early in 1872 she gave birth to triplets, which lived only a few hours. Nor did the mother long survive the ordeal, as she died on May 26, after a succession of spasms. A family record in an old Bible shows also the birth of a son, on Dec. 29, 1868, but fails to record his death. Brother Warner refers to this son once in his diary.