N THE early months of 1836 the Carthage editor turned author. Setting aside the regular monthly issues of his magazine, he engaged in writing a large book on Christianity, which would be offered as "the Evangelist for the current year." His overflowing rapture at the "discovery of the Ancient Gospel" in 1827 needed a larger vessel than the tiny twenty-four-page periodical and the cramped articles which it allowed. He would pour his ocean of thought into the ampler pages of a book. There, in ordered sequence and comprehensive perspective, he could state the whole of the matter within one compass.

      His task absorbed him and sustained his mind in an unbroken ecstasy. He wrote at his printing office, "in the midst of almost a dozen of men and boys,. . . with five or six compositors picking up type behind [him].¹

      His pen sped furiously over the paper, and page followed upon the heels of page at double time.

      "Brother W. SCOTT of Carthage, Ohio, informs me a week or two since," wrote Alexander Campbell for the current Millennial Harbinger, "that he is fast progressing with his book on the Gospel--full of the spirit of his subject, greatly entertained as he progresses with the enlarged conceptions that open to his vision, and with the high themes that offer themselves to his contemplation. He hopes to have it out of press about the end of May."²

      With the proof of two presses to correct and "the cares of other public business," he nevertheless [158] managed to write his volume of 200,000 words in little more than three months. It was a book of 576 pages, bearing on the cover the familiar words, The Gospel Restored, and on the title page this extended name: "The Gospel Restored. A Discourse of the True Gospel of Jesus Christ, in Which the Facts, Principles, Duties, and Privileges of Christianity Are Arranged, Defined, and Discussed, and the Gospel in Its Various Parts Shewn to Be Adapted to the Nature and Necessities of Man in His Present Condition." Two thousand copies were struck off, and these were all sold, with the exception of a few volumes, at $2.00 each.³

      The argument of the book runs like this: Mankind during its long history has passed through three major "states": a natural, a preternatural, and a state of respite. The natural state was that in which Adam was created--one of innocence, happiness, life, and direct perception of God. Adam "did not believe there was a God. . . . In his primitive state he was admitted to face-to-face intercourse and heard his voice."⁴ The preternatural state is the condition of evil, or that of fallen man, following Adam and Eve's disobedience.

      The scene is now to be changed from good to evil, from happiness to misery, from pleasure to pain; temptation is to take the place of trial, and sin of righteousness, guilt is to be substituted for innocence, and cowardice and shame for the courage and serenity of conscious worth. Satan now usurps the place of God, or rather opposes him; and ruin and dismay trample upon order and primitive security, till death enters and by a destruction unavoidable and irresistible reigns triumphant over a fallen world.⁵

      So sin enters. It is a sin with six attributes, the first three referring to the sinner, and the second three to [159] sin itself: the love of it, the practice of it, the state of it; the guilt of it, the power of it, and the punishment of it. Man's first sin was freely chosen, and "if it is found in our practice it is because it is first in our heart."⁶ The state of sin is one in which "knowledge yielded to faith, as happiness did to misery, innocence to guilt, and life to death."⁷ The guilt of sin is the cumulative force of habit, or the momentum of moral degradation. And the punishment of sin is death. One does not ask why God chose to punish man so severely; he merely asks what punishment God gives.

      But God need not enforce his penalties at once. He allows man to live in a state of respite, or suspended punishment.

      Perhaps the most surprising result of the Fall is that man loses his power of knowing God directly and is henceforth capable only of believing in him. "What man knew of the existence of the Deity in his natural state, was knowledge; in the present state of respite, it is faith."⁸

      A life of obedience to God derived from sight and sense, began and ended with Adam. . . . In regard to the great proposition of the Divinity he saw and heard and knew; we hear and reason and believe. . . . His obedience, therefore, was natural; our service, as the apostle says, is rational.⁹

      In this state of respite, man has two kinds of religion, one deriving from nature, and one from revelation. Natural religion is man's belief in one God on the evidence of his works. Revealed religion is God's direct communication to man--through a few select individuals--of the facts, duties, and promises which enable him to become what God wants him to be. [160] Natural religion is completed by revealed religion. One shows that God exists; the other that God has spoken. Revealed religion proceeds in a growing illumination by the stages of various dispensations until it comes to full light in Christ. And of all revelation, "testimony or the evidence of testimony" is the only proof. The revelation for all, which came by a few, and which is summed up and completed in Christ, is appropriated by faith; and faith is simply believing the evidence.

      Christ is God's answer to the Fall, God's anodyne for man's sin. The whole Christian religion is summed up in one proposition, that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, to be accepted rationally on evidence. Obedience to Christ, which must logically follow if we accept him as God's Son, is based on authority. Thus the process of salvation from sin is made both rational and objective rather than emotional and subjective, as the Calvinists thought.

      The gospel . . . is comprehended ultimately in one external fact, that Jesus is the Son of God; and in one internal principle, namely, faith; to the truth of the first, therefore, all the other facts in our religion are for their authority to be referred; and into the operation of the last, all the righteousness of our religion is to be resolved.¹⁰

      In conformity with our nature, Christianity divides itself into knowledge and duty. This division extends itself even to the fundamental proposition itself, the first part of it being intellectual, "Behold my Son;" the second moral, "Hear you him."¹¹

      The gospel, or good news of Christ, is the definite plan which, step by step, erases sin and saves the [161] sin- sinner. There is a one-to-one correspondence between the six attributes of sin and the six steps of the gospel:

      In regard to sinners and sin, six things are to be considered: the love of it, the practice of it, the state of it, the guilt of it, the power of it, and the punishment of it. The first three relate to the sinner; the last three to sin. Now, faith, repentance, and baptism, refer to the first three--the love, the practice, and the state of sin; while remission, the Holy Spirit, and the resurrection, relate to the last three--the guilt, the power, and the punishment of sin; in other words, to make us see the beauty and perfection of the gospel theory, as devised by God: faith is to destroy the love of sin, repentance to destroy the practice of it; baptism, the state of it; remission, the guilt of it; the Spirit, the power of it; and the resurrection to destroy the punishment of sin; so that the last enemy, death, will be destroyed.¹²

      To place this gospel in its relation to Christianity as a whole, it must be said that to faith is added church order and Christian morals:

      The things of Christianity may be generalized and summed up under the three heads of "Faith," "Order," and "Morality." In such a division the first head, "The Faith," would include all the parts of our religion which are strictly evangelical. The second, namely, "The Order," would embrace whatever is ecclesiastical or belongs to the public order of the church. And the third, viz: "The Morality" of Christianity, would comprise the public and private morality and manners and customs enjoined upon its professors. The first part is intended to form or make men Christians; the second is to keep them such; and the third is intended to show what christians [sic] are, or must become, in morals and in their public and private customs, if they would honor their profession and please God.¹³ [162]

      This argument of the book, up to Christ as God's answer to sin, requires only 120 pages. The Messiahship and the six steps of salvation which compose "the Gospel" take nearly 450 pages.

      Scott's theology, as revealed by The Gospel Restored, may be characterized as a "chastened Calvinism," for although it rejects the Calvinistic view of the Holy Spirit and conversion, it still holds, in perfectly orthodox fashion, that "in Adam's fall, we sinned all." The modification was one suggested by the philosophy of John Locke; that is to say, fallen man is Lockian man, capable only of sensual knowledge and of religious faith based on evidence--because sensual knowledge cannot aspire to see God. It is also a rather legalistic and mechanical theology, but it was so luminous to the mind of Scott that he was certain that it was a discovery rather than an invention, the one true gospel rather than one possible arrangement of the gospel. It never entered his mind that his categories might not be absolute. He could not see that what to him had been a firsthand, thought-intoxicating discovery might in the hands of lesser men easily degenerate into a secondhand, thought-stifling dogmatism or an authoritarian tradition. He could not know that there would follow him thousands of ministers who would not go radically to the Scriptures as he had done but, succumbing to a deadly inertia, would accept without question his view of the Scriptures.

      The year 1836 was distinguished for the launching of the first Disciple institution of higher learning, Bacon College. Walter Scott, as its executive head, became the first college president of the brotherhood. Association of Scott's name with college [163] administration, however, was not without precedent, as the state legislature of Ohio had appointed him a trustee of Miami University, at Oxford, Ohio, in 1834.¹⁴We have already noticed that his name was associated with the incorporation of Christian College, in New Albany, Indiana; although he repudiated his appointment and denounced the venture, the incident is a tribute, of sorts, to his educational stature. Moreover, he was himself a teacher. Seldom at any time during his long career was he without his own academy. He began as an educator, and as an educator he continued to the end of his days.

      Bacon College was organized at Georgetown, Kentucky, November 10, 1836, began classes November 14, and secured its charter from the Kentucky legislature February 23, 1837. It was a split from Georgetown College, forced by the Baptists' exclusion of Thornton Johnson, professor of mathematics and civil engineering. The name, Bacon College, was a conscious tribute to the scientific method of Lord Francis Bacon.¹⁵

      It was at first proposed to call it the "Collegiate Institute and School for Civil Engineers," an indication of the demand for surveyors on the frontier, and of the preponderance of science in the curriculum.

      Walter Scott was invited, by unanimous vote, to become the first president of Bacon College. Within four months, more than 130 students had been enrolled, and the following faculty set to work:

      Walter Scott, president and professor of Hebrew Literature; Dr. S. Knight, professor of moral and mental sciences, belles lettres, etc.; T. F. Johnson, professor of mathematics and civil engineering; S. G. Mullins, professor of ancient languages; C. R. Prczriminski, professor of modern languages and topographical drawing; [164] T. Fanning, professor of natural philosophy, chemistry, geology and mineralogy; J. Crenshaw, teacher in preparatory department.^*

      To indicate, briefly, the subsequent course of this college, let it be said that in 1839 it was moved to Harrodsburgh, discontinued in 1850, revived as "Kentucky University" in 1858, moved to Lexington in 1865, where, as heir to the property of Transylvania University, it now lives as Transylvania College.¹⁶

      Walter Scott consented to be president of Bacon College only on a pro tempore basis.¹⁷ He was willing to lend his influence to putting it on its feet, and he consented to hold office until a permanent president could be found. He served for a year, being replaced in December, 1837, by D. S. Burnett.¹⁸ During these months he and J. T. Johnson traveled together, raising funds and enrolling students.¹⁹ They were successful in both; by the end of the term the student body numbered 203.²⁰

      Meantime the president and vice-president of the college were coeditors of a magazine, the Christian, which was issued from Georgetown.²¹ It really took the place of the Evangelist for 1837, but it became more and more exclusively a propaganda agency for Bacon College, so much so that one Kentucky evangelist, John Allen Gano, complained that the cause of Bacon College was becoming more prominent in its pages than the Reformation as a whole!²² Scott's year with Bacon College was vigorous and successful.

      Scott's inaugural address, a carefully wrought philosophy of education, was on the topic, "United [165] States System.²³ It must have been delivered late in February, 1837, after the college was chartered.

      After stating that his hearers were living in a new age, unlocked by the key of Bacon's scientific method, and after an extended review of Bacon's chief work, the Novum Organum, he took his stand on what he regarded as a Baconian induction that the separate subjects of a curriculum in any school should be organized under four heads: nature, religion, art, and society. He argued that a school course ought not to be a mere collection of studies but a coherent whole. "Detached and isolated discourses . . . must fail to be appreciated so long as we are compelled to read them apart from that national system to which they belong."

      With this basis, a four-part curriculum, graded to the three levels of primary, secondary, and college education was proposed. Here it is in outline:

      I. Nature: (a) The sensible qualities of things. (b) The natural history of things. (c) The effect of bodies on one another (physics and chemistry).

      II. Art: (a) Useful art (agriculture, mechanics, manufacturing, trade, engineering, building). (b) Ornamental art (writing, drawing, etching, music). (c) Fine arts (painting, sculpture, engraving, architecture).

      III. Society: (a) Language, reading, arithmetic. (b) Logic, rhetoric, grammar, history, composition, etc. (c) Mental philosophy (psychology), government, economics, eloquence, etc.

      IV. Religion: (a) History. (b) Doctrine and morals. (c) Evidence ("The Whole").

      He even suggested a division of subjects according to the days of the week: [166]

      It would doubtless greatly facilitate the unfolding of the mind from its native state . . . to attend to the things of nature on Monday; those of art on Tuesday; those of society on Wednesday; those of religion on Thursday; and reserve Friday for recitation and for a review of all these together as they have been attended to on the preceding days. Saturday would be a day for perfect freedom of exercise, and for the socialities and civilities of life among the students and teachers. And the first day should be the Lord's.

      The aim of such a system was the perfect development of human nature in all its physical, intellectual, and moral powers. From the study of nature would be learned the love of truth. The study of the arts would develop a taste for the useful, beautiful, and sublime. From the study of society would be acquired "the love of man, resolved into a sense of human right, into the sense of justice, etc." And from the study of religion would arise the love of God and obedience to his commandments.

      The fatal errors in the education of the present and all preceding ages have been either subjective or objective; that is, they have been deficient either in matter or purpose. . . . Morality has been divorced from intelligence and religion from both; and while we have busied ourselves about means we have lost sight of ends.

      The whole system, in content and purpose, should be made a United States system by nationalizing it through teaching United States geography, natural history, national institutions, and religion; and, above all, by the provision of a national system of schools with well-trained teachers.

      The first step is to obtain primary schools. . . . It will doubtless be a long time before this nation has its [167] academies and national colleges; but we are able, abundantly able, at this very moment to establish, and extend to all the people, the most perfect primary education on earth.

      Walter Scott lent his influence to the mighty leaven working in America in the 1830's to create an American system of free schools. In 1830 there were only a few isolated "district schools" and "pauper schools" supported by taxes, and these were so poorly supported that public schools were despicable in the eyes of rich and poor alike. Then arose propaganda societies for the promotion of education, the American Lyceum movement, and mighty crusaders like Horace Mann and Thaddeus Stephens. Pennsylvania led the states with its Act of 1834; and Ohio, in 1837, was considering its own system. On September 15, 1836, McGuffey issued his first and second readers from Cincinnati; in the same city in 1829, Calvin Stowe and Albert Picket had formed a propaganda society, known as the Western Academic Institute and Board of Education, later to become the College of Teachers and Western Literary Institute.²⁴

      Professor Calvin E. Stowe, of Lane Seminary in Cincinnati, was married in 1836 to Harriet Beecher and went abroad the next year to study the methods of Pestalozzi in Prussian education. He was scheduled to report to the College of Teachers in the fall of 1837. His report, later published by the legislatures of Ohio, Michigan, Massachusetts, North Carolina, and Virginia, was the chief event of the meeting. Walter Scott was also honored by an invitation to address this meeting. Those in attendance included Joseph Ray, of arithmetic fame, Samuel Lewis, Daniel Drake, and Professor McGuffey. Alexander Campbell, Bishop Purcell, A. Kinmont, an eminent critic [166] and author, and Dr. Lyman Beecher were also there. After Professor Stowe read his paper on "Elementary Education in Europe" to an approving and applauding audience, Scott had the temerity to arise and take exception to the views expressed by the advocate of the Prussian system. He averred that the system was artificial, an attempt to crowd nature into an alien mold. His remarks were, for the mood of the audience, "out of season," and it was feared by Professor Ray, who excited a greater fear in Alexander Campbell, that Scott had hopelessly prejudiced the audience against his own address to be delivered later. Campbell communicated his fears to his friend Walter, with almost disastrous results, for when Scott got up to fill his appointment as the last speaker at a late hour, he was visibly hesitant and stumbling. Then he seemed to take hold of himself and come into his stride as he delivered a masterful address. In content it was much like his inaugural speech at Bacon College.

      The speaker was all that could be desired. He was grand. He was sublime. All drooping heads were lifted, all fears removed. When he closed, one of the best thinkers in the convention, A. Kinmont, rose and moved a vote of thanks to the speaker "for the only profoundly philosophical discourse that had been delivered during the convention."²⁵

      The Evangelist for 1838 carried a series of six letters on education, written by the editor to Joseph Vance, Governor of Ohio. He had now advanced to the place where he was confident that he had discovered the system derived from nature and intended for human nature. He called it, like his gospel, "A True Theory of Education." [169]

      Other evidences of his interest in public education at this period are numerous. In March of 1838 he lent his editorial influence to the raising of $500 subscriptions to Bacon College and to the organization at Carthage of "a school of the higher grade in which would be taught the best course of English, and so much of the learned languages as would enable the scholar to enter any of our colleges with ease and pleasure to himself and honor to the Academy."²⁶ In October of the same year he argued in favor of higher education for women; if ignoramuses must be made of either man or woman, "let it not be of her whom the Apostle Paul beautifully and justly calls our glory."²⁷

      He argued for practical knowledge, on the Baconian assumption that "knowledge is power" and that it is "too frequently imparted for its own sake." In a letter to Governor Vance, he pleaded for the relating of the real with the ideal and for laboratory methods:

      We sometimes mistake words for things, and substitute the one for the other, the former for the latter, readings of things for the study of the things themselves. I argue further, therefore, that the very things themselves, as far as it is possible, be made the subject of primary study; that in drawing upon Nature we draw in fact, and not in word only; in reality and not merely by ideality.

      That these things should, as far as possible, be introduced into our school houses by collecting the natural history of each district first; afterwards that of the county; the State; the Union, etc.; by making collections in the arts; by making books of Natural History and Biography, and textbooks of constitutional law, and by introducing the Bible.²⁸

      The end of 1837, from October 20 to December 20, found Scott steaming up the Ohio for a visit to [170] Pittsburgh and his first return to the Western Reserve. On his way he stopped at Bethany, where he was joined by Alexander Campbell and W. K. Pendleton. At Pittsburgh he renewed acquaintance with his old friend Samuel Church, their only contact having been an exchange of letters in August of 1835 and the contact afforded through the Evangelist. A meeting in the Allegheny church, with Scott and Campbell preaching, having resulted in eleven baptisms, they pressed on for Canfield, where they were entertained in the home of Myron Sackett. Thence the party went on to Warren, where the "School of Preachers," an annual affair on the Reserve, was to assemble.

      On approaching Warren, memory and homesickness mingled to plunge Scott into a dark mood: "Our apprehensions had thrown us into a melancholy which had lasted the entire day, and we had felt as if the righteous were all dead; we had watered the land with our tears."

      When they arrived at Warren, everywhere Scott saw his old yokefellows: Atwater, Clapp, Rudolph, Hayden, Henry, Bosworth, Hartsel, Bentley; they were all there! He saw also the Disciples, a vast number of whom he had introduced into the kingdom with his own hands! He was filled with indescribable joy and wonder, mingled with sorrow over those who were absent. "Such was the excitement on all sides, that two days had fully passed before I was able to command my feelings."²⁹

      It is of interest to note that one of these associates of Scott on the Western Reserve, John Rudolph, Sr., was the grandfather of Lucretia Rudolph, who became Mrs. James A. Garfield. Lucretia's father, Zeb [171] Rudolph, like his father and brother, John, Jr., also did some preaching on the Reserve and was one of the founders of Hiram College.

      On his way home Scott tarried at Pittsburgh in the home of Samuel Church, where he was much impressed with his friend's catechetical method of teaching the Bible in the family circle, and stored up advice for his readers and examples to be emulated in his own Carthage home.

      Back in Carthage just in time for Christmas, he was so cheered and rested by his trip to the Reserve that he resolved to return the following year. In fact, thereafter for many years he returned to the scene of his first victories, to walk in the green pastures of memory and beside the still waters of friendship to the restoring of his soul. [172]

[WSVGO 158-172]