HE year 1829 was very fruitful in results; wherever Scott and Hayden went large crowds assembled, and hundreds yielded to the truth and were gathered into the fold. Among the places visited were Palmyra, Deerfield, Windham, Mantua, Braceville, Bazetta, and, indeed, nearly every place of importance on the Reserve. During this, the first year of the joint labors of himself and William Hayden, an incident of great interest to Bro. Scott, and one deeply and intimately associated with the interests and success of the work in which he was engaged, occurred.

      The report of Scott and Hayden to the Association of their labors during the year was highly encouraging; and, as the work was constantly growing, and demands for preaching far above their ability to meet, Adamson Bentley and Marcus Bosworth were appointed to aid in the work. The latter had been led into the truth by hearing Scott at Braceville in 1827 or 1828, and proved to be a very successful preacher. He was a man of true piety and deep feeling; the condition of lost sinners and the love of the Savior were themes that he could seldom touch without weeping, and, as a natural consequence, his unaffected tenderness would move his audience to tears. Of Elder Bentley we have already spoken at length as a pure man and an able minister, and certainly, in modern times, no four men ever produced such a revolution in public sentiment as did these in the field of their labors. [90]

      The year passed by and the Association met, as it proved, for the last time as an ecclesiastical body, at Austintown. Over one thousand converts were reported; a wide-spread and earnest religious interest had been awakened; many of the new converts, full of love and zeal, were present, and all were full of joy and hope. Several Associations, especially those of Redstone and Beaver, had pursued a very arbitrary course, with regard to churches and individuals who could not accept fully all that was required by the Creed and Articles of Faith; and the members of the Mahoning Association, fearing that such bodies might work much evil, brought up the question as to the scripturality of such organizations. Mr. Campbell thought such meetings under proper limitations might be useful, although opposed to them as church tribunals, and as the churches of which the Mahoning Association was composed had been enlightened so far as to lay aside all human standards of faith and practice, he thought they were in no such danger as those who still retained them. A large majority, however, were opposed to the continuance of the Association; so much tyranny had been exercised recently by bodies bearing that name, that it was felt necessary to have some decisive action on the matter. John Henry, who had been among the first to enter the ranks of reform, and was already quite influential, moved "that the Mahoning Association, as an advisory council, or an ecclesiastical tribunal, should cease to exist." This was in accordance with the general feeling, but Mr. Campbell thinking the course proposed too precipitate, was on the point of rising to oppose the motion, when Walter Scott, seeing the strong current in favor of it, went up to him, and, [91] placing a hand on each of his shoulders, begged him not to oppose the motion. He yielded; the motion passed unanimously; and it was then determined that, in the place of the Association, there should be an annual meeting for praise and worship, and to hear reports from laborers in the field of the progress of the good work. The first of these meetings was held at New Lisbon in the following year, and proved to be both pleasant and profitable, and they still continue with a like result.

      The action taken at Austintown may be regarded as the formal separation from the Baptists; up to this time the Association was a Baptist body, and the members of it Baptists, although many of their peculiarities had been abandoned in consequence of a better understanding of the Scriptures. Those Baptists who had embraced the new views, together with the new converts made, were called Campbellites, and by many Scottites; but after the dissolution of the Association which was really brought about by the efforts of Scott, they were called Disciples.

      The wisdom of the course pursued in this has been questioned by some since then; who thought, no doubt, that it would have been better to have remained with the Baptists, and leavened that body with their views; but Scott ever regarded it as the wisest course, and assumed whatever responsibility there might be in the matter, claiming that it was at his instance that John Henry introduced the motion, and that his own personal appeal to Alexander Campbell, prevented him from using his influence in opposition to the action, which really made those who had accepted the primitive gospel a new and distinct people. [92]

      This was one of the marked eras in Elder Scott's career. His first step was to fix upon the divinity of Christ as the central and controlling thought of the New Testament, and which he afterwards demonstrated and illustrated with a strength and felicity that has never been surpassed. Next, he arranged the elements of the gospel in the simple and natural order of Faith, Repentance, Baptism, Remission of Sins, and Gift of the Holy Spirit; then made Baptism the practical acceptance of the gospel on the part of the penitent believer, as well as the pledge or assurance of pardon on the part of its author; and in the course pursued at the last meeting of the Association at Austintown, freed the Disciples from the last vestige of human authority, and placed them under Christ, with his Word for their guide. In this we see one of the most remarkable traits of Elder Scott's character, namely, his inflexibility of purpose. In minor matters affecting only some passing interest he often seemed wavering and weak of purpose, but in matters involving the truth of God, the salvation of the sinner, or the perfection of the saint, he knew not what it was to yield his convictions, but pressed on to his purpose with a determination and perseverance that has seldom been equaled. One who knew him well--the amiable Challen--thus notices this peculiarity, to which the attention of the reader has been directed: "In some things he was a perfect child, and again there was a loftiness and grandeur about him that struck the beholder with awe. He had, with a high-strung nervous temperament, as much moral courage as any man I have ever known; and, therefore, he often did what other men would not dare to do, and was rarely defeated or successfully baffled in his purposes. He had [93] in him the spirit of the ancient prophets, and felt as if he had some great work to do in these latter times."

      Never was man more thoroughly absorbed in his work than he at this period of his history; stimulated alike by wonderful success as well as by bitter and unrelenting opposition, he at times seemed almost transported to the heaven to which he was pointing his hearers. Not long since, the writer met an able and useful preacher, and asked him if he had ever seen and heard Walter Scott; with a shade of sadness in his manner, he said, "Yes." "What did you think of him?" I pursued. "Ah," said he, "for one hour and a half, I was nearer heaven than ever before or since."

      R. R. Sloan, who was present at the time, relates the following: "Walter Scott, about 1829 or 1830, paid a visit to Western Virginia, and on one occasion preached in the woods between Wellsburg and Wheeling; the audience was large, the preacher more than usually animated by his theme; near him sat Alexander Campbell, usually calm and self-contained, but in this case more fully under the influence of the preacher's eloquence than he had ever been of mortal man before; his eye flashed and his face glowed as he heard him unfold the glories of redemption, the dignity and compassion of its author, and the honors that awaited those who would submit to his reign, until so filled with rapture and an admiration, not of the speaker, but of him who was his theme, that he cried out, 'Glory to God in the highest,' as the only way to relieve the intensity of his joy." Mr. Campbell was naturally not very demonstrative, and this was perhaps the only case in which his feelings so completely carried him away. [94]

      Early in the next year, 1831, Elder Scott returned to Pittsburg, and, soon after his arrival there, death, for the first time, entered into his family and bore one of the little flock--now five in number--away. This was his fourth child, and second daughter, Sarah Jane, then in her fourth year; her loss was a great grief to her father, who was passionately fond of his children; but he was consoled by the thought that she was in the keeping of him who, when on earth, loved and blessed little children, and, though now seated on his throne of glory, loves them still.

      In May of the same year he visited Cincinnati for the first time, and remained there three months, preaching to the congregation which up to that time had enjoyed the labors of Elder James Challen, under whose ministry it had greatly prospered. Although at this time in the prime of life, Elder Scott, in consequence of his severe and unremitting labors for the previous four years, almost broke down, being greatly afflicted with dyspepsia and its attendant, great depression of spirits. His pulpit efforts during his stay were very unequal and generally far below those with which he had stirred the multitudes all over the Western Reserve; the fame of these efforts had preceded him, and he failed in a great measure to meet the expectations which had been awakened; he lacked, too, the inspiration of the presence and songs of the hundreds of converts that were often at his meetings on the Reserve, and audiences which often swelled to thousands, and more than all; the success which heretofore had attended his labors. Sometimes, when but few were present, he would give a discourse of startling and overwhelming power. This would lead those who were present to use such efforts as would bring [95] the elite of the city to hear him, but, on such occasions, greatly to the mortification of those who had exerted themselves to get such an audience together, he would disappoint expectation, or wholly fail to do justice to himself or subject. Strange, however, as it may seem, these failures did not seem greatly to affect him. On one occasion an Elder of the church said to him, "How is it, Bro. Scott, that when we don't expect any thing from you, you go beyond yourself, but when our hopes and wishes are the highest, you fall so low?" "Oh," said he, "I don't know how it happens, but I feel that if I can not get it out of me at times, it is in me nevertheless." And this perfect consciousness of power seemed to satisfy him.

      Being aware that the state of his health rendered his public ministrations quite variable, he determined to speak to the public through the medium of the press, knowing that in this way he could render permanently useful the great thoughts by which his heart was stirred, but which, when before an audience he could not always utter. Accordingly, he began the publication of his renowned monthly, the "Evangelist," in which was discussed and settled many of the religious questions of the day; many of the essays which appeared in its pages were republished, not only in this country, but also in the old world; and few writers have had the satisfaction of seeing their views so widely spread and so generally adopted as did he.

      Soon after the issue of his first number of the "Evangelist," the celebrated socialist, philosopher, and skeptic, Robert Dale Owen, visited Cincinnati, and delivered two lectures, both of which Mr. Scott attended, and though he had but a few hours in which to prepare a reply to the carefully prepared addresses [96] of Mr. Owen; he succeeded not only in rebuking his scoffs and sneers, but in a most masterly manner turned the tables upon him by directing his own arguments against himself. Mr. Campbell, but a short time before, had met Mr. Owen, Sen., in public debate, with signal success, and Mr. Scott now met the son, not, it is true, in a long-contested battle like that to which we have alluded, but it was, nevertheless, a short and brilliant passage at arms, in which the Knight of Unbelief and Unreason went down at the first onset under the well-directed lance of the Red Cross Knight.

[LWSA 90-97]