R. SCOTT remained in Pittsburg teaching his academy and instructing the church until sometime in 1826, when he removed to Steubenville, Ohio. It was in the summer of this year also that he made his first appearance at the Mahoning Baptist Association, within the bounds of which he afterwards became so famous. The association met on the 25th of August. Mr. Scott was not a member of this body, but is mentioned in the Minutes simply as a teaching brother, but was by courtesy invited to partake in its deliberations; and probably from the fact of his being a stranger was, by a similar act of courtesy, invited to preach on Sunday, at 10 o'clock A. M., the hour usually occupied by the best talent. His sermon, based on the 11th chapter of Matthew, was a powerful one and made a deep impression. A. S. Hayden, then quite a youth, was present, and saw and heard Scott for the first time. He says that his fancy, imagination, eloquence, neatness, and finish as a preacher and a man attracted his attention, and fixed him forever on his memory. Alexander Campbell, whose reputation was already great, was present, and many who had been attracted to the meeting by his fame supposed that they were hearing him while listening to Scott, and when he closed left the place under that impression. The Association met the next year, 1827, at New Lisbon, Columbiana County, Ohio. Alexander Campbell had been appointed by the church of which he was a member, at Wellsburgh, Va., to attend as its messenger, and on his way he stopped [41] at Steubenville and invited Mr. Scott to go with him. He was somewhat disinclined to do so, as he was not a member of the body, or of any church represented in it; but being urged, he went. This seemingly unimportant event proved to be one of the most important steps of his life, as the sequel will show.

      In regard to the proceedings of the Association, Mr. Scott was again invited to a seat. This might have been expected; but is it not very remarkable that when a committee was appointed composed of preachers who were members of the Association, and also of those who were not, to choose an evangelist to travel among the churches, that one should be selected who was not a member of the body, and who neither agreed in his religious views with marry of those who selected him for so important a task, nor took any pains to conceal this difference? Nor could the choice have been made on the ground of peculiar fitness in consequence of great success in the evangelical field, or greatness of reputation; it was not a matter of necessity--a choice of a giant from among pigmies. Bentley was known and esteemed throughout the entire Association; Campbell's great and admirable talents were well known and acknowledged; Rigdon had the reputation of an orator; Jacob Osborn gave high promise of future usefulness; Secrest and Gaston were popular and successful evangelists; and yet by the voices of all these, and others of less note, Walter Scott was unanimously chosen for the most important work that the Association had ever taken in hand.

      He proved to be, however, as we shall see, the man of all others for the place and the work--a work [42] which neither he nor they who called him to it had the remotest idea that it would result, as it did, in the dissolution of the Association and the casting away of creeds and the unexampled spread of clearer and purer view of the gospel--nay, a return to it in its primitive beauty and simplicity. [43]

[LWSA 41-43]