OR two years and a half after the birth of John, Walter and Sarah Scott continued to live in Pittsburgh, teaching school, ministering to the Church of Christ, and writing occasionally for the Christian Baptist.

      John was a year and ten months old when his sister Emily was born on September 24, 1825.¹ The fine balance of the family--one man, one woman, one boy, one girl--must have pleased the analytical mind of Scott as much as the presence of an infant daughter warmed his heart!

      For some reason the church which Walter had inherited from Robert Forrester did not grow. At length, its young minister became convinced that it would not grow and that he should turn his attention elsewhere. He talked it over with Sarah, and they decided to move to Steubenville, Ohio, and in the late spring or early summer of 1826, the transfer to the town on the Ohio River, forty miles south of Pittsburgh, was accomplished. It was probably not an accident that the distance between the new Scott residence and that of Alexander Campbell was only fourteen miles.

      A congregation and a school were soon gathered about the young preacher-teacher.

      John Quincy Adams had followed James Monroe as president in 1825. The Monroe Doctrine had been in effect nearly three years. A nation growing in all directions, north, west, and southwest, had now [45] expanded the roll call of states to include Louisiana, Indiana, Mississippi, Illinois, Alabama, Maine, and Missouri. Ohio itself had become a state in 1802, following Virginia's and Connecticut's cession of the Northwest Territory to the Federal government. From the Ohio to the Mississippi, America was bustling frontier.

      In 1825 the Erie Canal, which had been eight years in digging and which had cost $7,000,000, connected Albany with Buffalo, New York, over 363 miles of water. Trade and travel between East and West were greatly stimulated, and the nation grew westward at an accelerating pace.² In 1820, Congress had greatly stimulated the purchase of land claims by abolishing the credit system and reducing the rate to $1.25 per acre.³

      Walter Scott was making a new beginning as part of a nation which awoke every morning to the sense of adventurous newness.

      Into his hands at Steubenville came the July issue of the Christian Baptist, carrying an article on "The Millennium," which be had written while still in Pittsburgh. This and a succeeding article in the September number⁴ show the development of a new facet of "Philip's" thinking. Stirrings of millennial expectancy were yeasting in the nation at this time, and Scott shared with Campbell and many others an intense interest in the subject.

      "Mankind are [sic] certainly moving on the horizon of some great and eventful change, into the center of which all society must inevitably and speedily be carried," he wrote. Anticipating the end of the old social order and the inauguration of a new one, he [46] continued, "God has designs of high favor toward man and will vouchsafe him an age of happiness, in which the entire sum of physical, moral and intellectual good which can be enjoyed on earth, will be granted."

      The theme, added to his former preoccupation with the "Golden Oracle, " was one to which he would return.

      Late in August, 1826, Alexander Campbell and his father stopped at the Scott home to invite Walter to attend a meeting of the Mahoning Baptist Association at Canfield, Ohio, Friday through Sunday, August 25-27. The Wellsburg church, with which Campbell was then identified, had held membership in this association since 1824, and Campbell himself had first attended the ministers' meetings of this group in June of 1821 at Warren. The ministers were hospitable, and the churches were friendly. The Christian Baptist had enjoyed a good circulation among them from the beginning. Campbell promised that his friend would find much to cheer his heart in such a fellowship.

      Scott consented. While riding toward the meeting, about sixty miles to the north, he reflected that there were three parties then struggling to restore original Christianity: the first of these, calling themselves "churches of Christ," were independent Haldane and Sandemanian congregations having little or no fellowship among themselves; the second, calling themselves "Christians," had risen and spread out of the labors of Barton W. Stone of Kentucky, and their evangelists were busy in Ohio; the third, then lying uneasily within the bosom of the regular Baptist church, was composed of those associated with his present companions.⁵ [47]

      The section of Ohio into which they were riding was the Connecticut Western Reserve. This region, also called "New Connecticut" because it had been claimed by the state of Connecticut before the Revolutionary War, included about three million acres bounded on the north by Lake Erie, on the east by Pennsylvania, on the south by the 41st parallel, and on the west by Sandusky and Seneca counties. It embraced the counties of Ashtabula, Trumbull, Lake, Geauga, Portage, Cuyahoga, Summit, Medina, Lorain, Erie, Huron, and the northern part of Mahoning. The Reserve extended about 120 miles from east to west and averaged about fifty miles from north to south.⁶ Its settlers had come largely from New England and in matters of religion were predominantly Baptist and Methodist.⁷

      The Mahoning Association was the Baptist organization of the Western Reserve. It had been organized in 1820 by Adamson Bentley, who was minister of the church at Warren for twenty years (1811-31). Originally composed of ten churches, with a total membership of 375, it had in 1826 sixteen churches reporting 578 members.⁸ Two churches were not represented that year--the ones at Hartford and Youngstown. With these in attendance the previous year, the membership was listed at 623.⁹

      The Association itself had a confession of faith or a creed, and each of the member churches was required to present an acceptable creedal statement before it could be voted into membership. These creeds were thoroughly Calvinistic, having developed from the Philadelphia Confession of Faith, which was the work of the Baptist Association meeting in that city, September 25, 1742. The special flavor of [48] Baptist theology at that time is shown by a few extracts from the creeds of various churches within the fellowship:

      "We believe man to be a fallen creature and in a fallen state and in his Present estate he is not able in and of himself to Recover himself to a State of happiness."¹⁰

      "We believe that before the world began, God did elect a certain number of men unto Everlasting Salvation, whom he did Predestinate to the Adoption of Children by Jesus Christ.

      "We believe that the work of Regeneration, Conversion, Sanctification and Faith: is not an act of Man's free will and Power, but of the Mighty, Efficacious and Irresistible Grace of God."¹¹

      "Faith and repentance are not terms or conditions of Salvation. They are the fruits of Regeneration, the exercises of a New heart, and evidences of our adoption, and although they are commanded of God, are Nevertheless wrought By the Special influence of his Spirit, and Graciously Promised to all his Elect."¹²

      Resulting from this belief in the total depravity of human nature, election, predestination, and special operation of the Holy Spirit in conversion, stress was laid upon feelings associated with the converting experience. Membership in a church was gained only after such a satisfactory supernatural experience had been related. For those who could not achieve or produce such feelings, there were long agonizing periods of "seeking." The effect upon sensitive members of such a community was to strain sanity almost to the breaking point, and the reaction upon the evangelistic and missionary spirit of a church was deadening. [49]

      The first honor of the annual meeting of the Association was accorded to the minister asked to deliver the opening sermon. He was chosen one year in advance. Alexander Campbell had been named to do this for the forthcoming meeting. The Bethany editor had risen to this position of eminence in the Mahoning Association largely through his magazine and also through his published debates. The Walker debate had been published in 1821, and the McCalla debate had been issued in book form in 1824. Adamson Bentley, upon reading the Walker debate in 1821, was so impressed by it that he took Sidney Rigdon with him and the two of them visited the successful debater in his home. Here they remained for two days, during which time they became thoroughly imbued with Campbell's views. By 1825 the Mahoning Association was so thoroughly sown with the writings and so thickly populated with the students and converts of Campbell that it was more "Campbellite" than regular Baptist.¹³

      Evidence of Campbell's influence is abundant in the minutes of the Association. The Bethesda church at Nelson divided over his views as early as 1823, and both groups were received by the Association of 1825!¹⁴ In the August meeting, 1823, one of the two churches at Palmyra asked, "Is the Law of God given to Moses or any part of it binding on the unregenerate at this day?" This question concealed a conflict between the orthodox Baptist position of a "level" Bible and Campbell's view, expressed in his 1816 "Sermon on the Law" and elsewhere, that the Christian dispensation had annulled the Law of Moses. The Association dodged between the horns of the dilemma by answering, "All the Law given by [50] God to Moses is obligatory upon the unregenerate so far as it is promulgated by Christ."¹⁵

      The affronted church at Nelson was licking at the wounds of her recent domestic struggles when she asked in the same meeting:

      "Is it apostolic practice for churches to have confessions of faith, constitutions, or anything of like nature?"¹⁶ This, being too "hot" to answer, was postponed to the following year, when the Nelson church restated its question, phrasing it in three parts:

      First, will this Association hold in its connection a church which acknowledges no other rule of faith and practice than the Scriptures? Second, in what manner were members received into the Churches that were set in order by the Apostles? Third, how were members excluded from the same churches?¹⁷

      These questions also were postponed for another year! In 1825, the following replies were given: "One: Yes. On satisfactory evidence that they walk according to this rule. Two: Those who believed and were baptized were added to the church. Three: By a vote of the Brethren."

      In these questions and answers and their treatment by the Association from 1823 to 1825 can be discerned a growing influence of the principles of the Reformation.

      In 1824 New Lisbon had asked, "Is it Scriptural to licence a Brother to administer the word and not the ordinances," thus reflecting Christian Baptist support of a lay ministry. Randolph had inquired, "Can Associations in their present modifications find their model in the New Testament?"¹⁸ These, together with the query from Nelson, were tabled until the [51] following year, when New Lisbon received this answer, "We have no such custom taught in the Scriptures"; and Randolph had this reply, "Not exactly."

      The Youngstown church in 1825 had asked, "Was the practice of the primitive church an exact pattern to succeeding ages, and is every practice for good to be receded from which was not the practice of the primitive saints in their peculiar circumstances?" The Association answered: "It is the duty and high privilege of every Christian church to aim at an exact conformity to the example of the churches set in order by the Apostles and endeavor to imitate them in all things imitable to them."¹⁹

      The Hiram church in August of 1824 had renounced its covenant, articles of faith, and constitution.²⁰

      At New Lisbon, articles of faith were read in one of their monthly meetings, in accordance with long-established practice. One of the members, bored with the long-repeated reading and also rebellious against the whole paraphernalia of creeds, asked to have the third article read again. The clerk complied with his request: "We believe the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God, and the only infallible rule of faith and practice in religious things."

      "Brethren, do we believe that article?" he asked.

      "Certainly, most certainly," several replied.

      "What, then, is the use of the rest?" he insisted. The creed had been read in that church for the last time!²¹

      Yes, Campbell was confident that to one like Scott, intent upon the restoring of the New Testament church, the Western Reserve would appear a field ripe to harvest. [52]

      When Scott arrived at Canfield and heard the statistical reports of the churches, he could see that the harvest was ripe in still another way. It had not been growing in numbers. Sixteen churches reported a total of eighteen baptisms and six additions by letter, while during the same period thirteen had been dismissed, twelve had been "excluded," and eleven had died. Numerically the churches were going backwards!

      Plainly, the restoration of the "Ancient Order" in the church was not enough. Principles of reform were abroad, but these churches suffered from the common defect of Scott's church in Pittsburgh and of all the churches he had visited in the east--"not growing they were suffocated."²² Something more was needed. What could it be? For a long time Scott's mind had been on the trail of that lacking element which if added would resurrect "the aggressive element of the Gospel." He felt close upon the answer, but as yet be could not quite grasp it.

      If Campbell had been honored as the first preacher of the convention, Scott was the second, for he was asked to preach at ten o'clock on Sunday morning, August 27. He preached from Matthew, chapter 11, speaking with such eloquence that many who had never seen either man went from the meeting supposing that they had heard Campbell.²³ That Scott should have been accorded this honor is singular in view of the fact that he was not a member of the Association, and not even a Baptist! Among those who heard this sermon was A. S. Hayden, who said that Scott's "fancy, imagination, eloquence, neatness, and finish as a preacher and a man attracted his attention, and fixed him forever on his memory."²⁴ [53]

      Scott returned to Steubenville and to a family which on December 6, 1826, was increased by the birth of a third child, a second son, William Adolphus.

      While the children of his body were being born, brain children were also coming to birth. In the Christian Baptist,²⁵ under date of February 5, 1827, and again on June 4, there appeared two articles over the name of "Philip" on "Experimental Religion." In these he undertook to show that religious "experience," of which Calvinists had always made so much, was not a matter of mystical conversion but of moral fruitage following conversion. "We are born of the Holy Spirit when our spirits are holy."

      Whereas Calvinism had turned the gospel wrong end foremost, insisting, "Unless ye receive the Spirit ye cannot believe," the scriptural position was that Christian experience begins after hearing, believing, and obeying the gospel.

      During the next six months the surface of his mind was engaged with the two ideas of the Messiahship and the millennium, while the depths of his thought grappled with the missing element in the Reformation. The former came to a head in the decision to begin publication of a magazine called the Millennial Herald.

      The editor of the Christian Baptist wrote, in the issue of June 4, 1827:

      Mr. Walter Scott, now of Steubenville, Ohio, has issued proposals for publishing a monthly paper, at one dollar per annum, to be entitled The Millennium [sic] Herald. The best recommendation we can give of the probable ability with which this work may be edited and of its public utility if suitably encouraged, is, that brother Scott is the author of those essays signed "Philip" in the Christian Baptist. The first number to appear in July next, if suitably encouraged. A. C.²⁶ [54]

      Things had gone so far that the budding editor had published a prospectus of the periodical and had even gathered a goodly number of subscribers. He had intended to discuss the two subjects of "The Ancient Gospel," which was centered in the Messiahship, and "The Millennium."

      "I had vacated my school for the purpose of having the first of these numbers printed, when an interview with Brother Campbell carried me to the Western Reserve, August, 1827."²⁷

      John Secrest and Joseph Gaston, two preachers of Stone's "Christians," were having much success as evangelists in Ohio. This had stirred Campbell, and he intended to see that it stirred the Mahoning Association. If events took the happy turn which he anticipated, Campbell knew that Scott would soon be installed as evangelist of the Association and that this turn of events would also, rather obligingly, dispose of a potential rival in the publishing field!

      Uprooting him from his editorial desk, Alexander carried off his friend Walter to the 1827 meeting of the Mahoning Association at New Lisbon, August 23-25. There surprising things transpired.

      Saturday morning the Braceville church, through its minister, Jacob Osborne, presented the following proposal to the convention:

      We wish that this association may take into serious consideration the peculiar situation of the churches of the association, and if it would be a possible thing for an evangelical preacher to be employed to travel and teach among the churches, we think that a blessing would follow.²⁸ [55]

      Whereupon the meeting voted: "That all the teachers of Christianity present, be a committee to nominate a person to travel and labor among the churches, and to suggest a plan for the support of the person so appointed."²⁹

      When the committee met, the voice of Alexander Campbell was heard to suggest the name of Walter Scott. The members turned to him to ask whether he would accept. Taken by surprise as he had been, he was startled to see that he could find no objection. In fact, an inner wisdom whispered that this was the pointing finger of Providence. He consented.

      The result of the meeting is recorded in the minutes:

      The committee, to which was referred the nomination of a person to labor among the churches, and to recommend a plan for his support, reported as follows:

      1. That Bro. Walter Scott is a suitable person for the task, and that he is willing, provided the association concur in his appointment, to devote his whole energies to the work.

      2. That voluntary and liberal contributions be recommended to the churches for creating a fund for his support.

      3. That at the discretion of Bro. Scott, as far as respects time and place, four quarterly meetings for public worship, be held in the bounds of the association this year; and at these meetings such contributions as have been made, in the churches in those vicinities, be handed over to Bro. Scott, and an account be kept of the same to be produced at the next association; also, that at any time and in any church, when and where Bro. Scott may be laboring, any contributions made to him shall be accounted for to the next association.³⁰

      The response of the association was immediate: "Voted, That the above report, in all its items, be adopted.³¹ [56]

      Up to this time, there had been an "almost entire neglect of evangelization on the part of the few [i. e., Mahoning] churches which were originally connected with Mr. Campbell in his reformatory efforts." In fact, these churches "had not a single itinerant preacher, and, although they made great progress in biblical knowledge, they gained comparatively few converts."³²

      The corresponding letter to other associations, written that year by Alexander Campbell, informed other Baptists of the move on the Mahoning River, "We have found that too much indifference to the use of the means for the conversion of our fellowmen and contemporaries has hitherto prevailed amongst us, and by the favor of God, are determined to be more attentive to this grand object than before."³³

      Walter Scott, when he left Sarah, had been pouring all his energies into the projected Millennial Herald and was prosperously settled in a school and a church. The tight little family group was cozy and happy. Walter returned from the Association to break the news. It would mean abandoning the periodical, resigning the church, breaking up housekeeping, and moving to the Western Reserve, where, at best, the future was uncertain and the absence of husband from wife and father from fond children would be long and painful.

      There was never a doubt in the mind of either as to what he should do. They saw it as Providence and viewed the appointment with a mixture of awe and sadness.

      Walter at this time was thirty-one. John, the eldest child, was not quite four; Emily was just two; and William was nine months. His going would leave a [57] heavy burden upon Sarah! Besides, it would subject them both to the loneliness of those greatly in love. He tore himself away like a soldier who bids farewell before the battle. In his own words--

      I immediately cut all other connections, abandoned my projected Editorship, dissolved my academy; left my church, left my family, dropt the bitterest tear over my infant household that ever escaped from my eyes, and set out under the simple conduct of Jesus Christ to make an experiment of what is now styled the Ancient Gospel.³⁴ [58]

[WSVGO 45-58]