OR several years after Scott came before the people with his plea for the restoration of the primitive gospel, public discussions were frequent. Wherever he or his fellow-laborers came, the whole community was thrown into a ferment, which was but the natural result of views so long unquestioned being assailed and brought into doubt, and others, new and strange, presented and enforced with rare ability. But this was not all, the new views were readily adopted by many who had long rejected the orthodox views as contradictory; and even many of those who had previously accepted them fell in with the teaching of the men whom they regarded at first as turning the world upside down.

      This, more than all things else, aroused the leaders of the various religious parties to the defense of their long-cherished doctrines, and caused them to forget, for a season, their old rivalries, and unite against the Disciples whom they regarded as a common foe.

      Prior to this time, the contest had been between the partisans of the different and conflicting creeds--Calvinism against its opposite, Arminianism; Universalism against Partialism, or universal redemption against particular redemption; sovereign and irresistible grace on one side, and free will on the other. Faith alone, against faith and works, and numberless other points of difference, exercised the skill and zeal of the various religious teachers, each of which was like a faithful watchman on the walls of his own little Zion, quick to perceive, and ready to repel any danger that might threaten, and equally ready to assail the weak points of the foe. [172]

      Possessed, as Elder Scott was, of great learning, as well as of great and various talents, it is somewhat remarkable that he took but little part in the numerous discussions of the day which grew out of the plea which he was the first to advocate with such marked ability and success. He was not fond of controversy, although his preaching did much to provoke it, as it was in direct conflict with the prevalent religious teaching of the times; but he was so guarded and careful in his public addresses that those who differed from him were under the necessity of opposing, not a new theory or system of the preacher's differing from and subversive of their own, but were compelled to deny what the Scriptures expressly affirmed. He was often interrupted and rudely assailed during his public ministrations; and at such times his answers were so ready, so much to the purpose, and, withal, in such a meek and gentle spirit, that he scarcely ever failed to leave a good impression on those who were present; and, during his long editorial career, whenever his views were called in question, he was always able to thrust or parry, as he was on the offensive or defensive, with a skill and temper truly admirable--and yet he was not a controversialist.

      This peculiarity, for such it doubtless was, when the spirit of investigation, which was everywhere aroused by his preaching, is considered, arose not from any want of the logical and critical faculty, for few men of modern times have given better evidence of the possession of such power than he; but the personalities, and the desire for victory, apart from the interests of truth, were distasteful in the highest degree to his truthful and sensitive nature. He loved [173] to preach the glad tidings, as found in the gospel message, more than disputation; to call sinners to repentance, more than to triumph over an adversary; he was willing to leave his views to the fate they deserved, well knowing that if true they could not be overthrown, and without a wish for their success if they were otherwise than true.

      Discussion, however, in those times was not only needful and beneficial, but unavoidable; rendered so by the revolutionary nature of his plea for an abandonment of all that was modern, new, and of human device in religion, and a return to that which was ancient, old, and divine. The times demanded men of war, and such were many of his fellow-laborers; and, indeed, nearly all the preachers in the early period of this movement, like the Jews who came from captivity to restore the temple, were obliged to defend from the violence of their enemies the walls they were striving to uprear. [174]

[LWSA 172-174]