HE year 1827-28 proved to be a year of battle and of victory. Great success in one field was the harbinger of triumph in the next, and after the successful issue of the meeting at Warren, Scott was so well assured of the power of the primitive gospel to subdue the heart, that wherever he went he now preached without the least misgiving, and boldly called on his hearers to submit to the claims of Christ the Lord. He had by this time also several true and earnest fellow-laborers, who entered into the work with all the zeal of new converts, and wherever these preachers of the ancient faith appeared, the truth ran through the community like fire through dry stubble.

      From this period for some time to come, it will be impossible to preserve the strict order of time in consequence of the many changes in fields of labor, which were often as varied as the passing day. Morning often found the tireless Scott at one point, and evening at another, miles away. It was not uncommon for him to occupy the court-house or school-house in the morning at the county seat, address a large assembly in some great grove in the afternoon, and have the private dwelling, which gave him shelter, crowded with neighbors at night, to hear him before he sought his needed rest. Sometimes the interest would be continued until midnight; and in those stirring times it was not unusual for those who, on such occasions, felt the power of the truth, to be baptized before the morning dawned. For months together nearly every day witnessed new converts to the truth; several ministers of various denominations [62] fell in with the views which he presented with such force and clearness, and these in turn exerted their influence over their former flocks, and led them to embrace the views which had brought such comfort and peace to their own souls.

      While preaching at Hiram, Portage County, a Revolutionary colonel, eighty-four years of age, rose up in the midst of the congregation, and pointing with his finger to the parable of the laborers in the vineyard, said to Mr. Scott: "Sir, shall I receive a penny? it is the eleventh hour." "Yes," was the reply, "the Lord commands it, and you shall receive a penny." The audience was greatly affected, and the venerable soldier was forthwith enrolled in the army of the faith.^a

      Another gentleman says, that though a Bible-reader, he had sought in vain for a church that taught as his Bible read. But riding along the public road one day, he saw a number of horses tied in the woods, a great crowd gathered and some one addressing them. Without being aware of the character of the meeting, curiosity led him to turn aside and see; when he came nearer he found that it was a religious meeting, and that the preacher was setting forth the gospel just as it had ever seemed to him in his readings; and before the speaker, who was none other than Walter Scott, had closed, he determined that that people should be his people, and their God his God, and to that resolve he has been true more than forty years. [63]

[LWSA 62-63]