N THE spring of 1860, when Scott was over three-score, he was, however, still active, still planning deeds of toil and usefulness, and gave every indication that he intended the last enemy should find him at his post with his armor on. His power in the pulpit seemed to be scarcely abated, and the productions of his pen possessed much of the freshness and vigor of his early days.

      During the thirty years that had passed since he first went before the public with his plea for a return to the simplicity of the primitive gospel, the Disciples from a handful had become a multitude, and the principles for which he had battled so long and well were widely spread and firmly established. Everywhere through the West the results of his labors were apparent; and the churches he had established on the Western Reserve were exercising a commanding influence in the respective communities in which they were located, and no reformer of modern times ever saw so rich a harvest as did he, from the seed which was sown in tears. Many of his converts had become able and successful preachers, and though one by one his old companions in toil were gathered to their rest, there was every prospect that the work which was left to younger hands would be well done. Honor and glad welcome now greeted him where persecution and misrepresentation had formerly been encountered, and his heart was gladdened by seeing his spiritual children walking and rejoicing in the truth. When he met with his surviving fellow-laborers, it was pleasant to talk of trials past and battles won, [203] and almost inspired the wish that youth might be renewed, to pass again through the trials it was so sweet to remember. An instance of this is related by his life-long friend and fellow-laborer Elder James Challen. He says: "I met Bro. Scott on Main Street, Cincinnati; he was in quite a meditative mood, and was evidently thinking of approaching old age and the decay of his powers and the feebleness it would bring. I roused him from his reverie by referring to the trials and triumphs of the past; when, with tears in his eyes, and with touching pathos and sublimity, he said: 'Oh, brother Challen, I wish that I were young again; I would fight my way onward and upward from the river to the hills.'"

      But he was not destined to feel the decay of his powers, which at such moments he seemed to fear, for the end came before his energies gave evidence of any great and sad decline, and had that end come but a few months sooner he would have escaped one of the greatest sorrows that his heart ever felt. This great trouble was the sad state of the country which soon culminated in disunion and a civil war.

      As already intimated, he was a great lover of American institutions; under them the human mind had freer scope than it had ever enjoyed before; there were no alliances or entanglements between the church and State, no religion established by law; and hence he deemed that Christianity, had never enjoyed such an opportunity to prove her sovereignty, and he cherished the hope that under such favorable circumstances she would do more than ever in subduing mankind to God. These hopes were suddenly and rudely dissipated by the rupture between the States which followed the election of Abraham Lincoln to [204] the Presidency in the fall of 1860, and no one felt more keenly or deplored more deeply the state of things which then prevailed than Elder Scott.

      His sorrow, however, did not unman him, but, on the contrary, aroused him to do all in his power, as a man and a Christian, to avert the dangers which threatened. He wrote and spoke much with regard to the state of the country, with great force and eloquence; and while he was the unswerving friend of the Government, he never permitted the Christian to be lost in the politician--never gave utterance to an unseemly or blood-thirsty expression; his views of the nature of the contest so near at hand were far clearer than those of most men of his time; he loved not strife, but he saw that it was inevitable; he neither sought nor desired to be neutral, and he left behind him a record that will ever stamp him as a Christian patriot. His friends North and South were numbered by tens of thousands, and to them he addressed a well considered and carefully written expression of his views on the great questions of the hour. This essay, called the "Crisis," was publicly read on several occasions, and was warmly approved, but, by a policy which was unjust to Scott, it was denied a place on the pages of a periodical which would have brought it before thousands of those who knew him best, and who would have been most likely to have been benefited by his earnest and truthful words. It is extremely doubtful whether the matters at issue at that time were ever more ably or eloquently set forth than in the essay under consideration, and it is very certain that those questions were never discussed in a better temper and spirit. Nothing of the partisan or demagogue appears in it, but a clear head [205] and a kind heart are everywhere discoverable. The document is too long for insertion entire, yet his life would be imperfect without some notice of his views on a subject of such grave importance, and we therefore give a few of the introductory pages from which to judge the whole:

      "Brethren and fellow-citizens: Fraternal ties are being sundered, and sundered, I fear, forever. The Northern and Southern sections of our illustrious Republic, hitherto nurtured, like twin sisters, at the breast of the same magna mater virum,^a purpose to discard the fraternal relation, and, as distinct nations, stand in future to each other in the relations of peace or war, blood or gain. Some good-natured but not far-seeing men imagine that our Federal difficulties will disappear as certainly and suddenly as they were suddenly and unexpectedly developed. God grant they may; but brothers' quarrels are not lovers' quarrels, and it requires but little logic to foresee that, unless the black cloud that at present overhangs the great Republic is speedily buried in the deep bosom of the ocean, it will finally rain down war, bloodshed, and death on these hitherto peaceful and delightful lands.

      "Brethren, I thought it might shed a salutary influence on your bleeding hearts to submit to you, in the tranquillity of a written and read oration, an exhibit of our public affairs as they have, at this distracted crisis, impressed themselves on my own understanding and heart. I say 'my heart,' for God is witness to the floods of bitter tears I have shed over the disruption of our Federal Government.

      "I thought that, your fears being soothed by the consideration that 'all is not lost that is in danger,' I might intercede with you to continue your prayer to God in behalf of the Republic; that he would have this great nation in his holy keeping; that he would preserve the Union in its integrity; that he would impart wisdom to our conservative statesmen; defeat the counsels of our Ahithophels, and cause this magnificent and unparalleled government to remain 'one and indivisible, now and forever!'"^b [206]

      At the time the preceding sentiments were penned, while the worst was to be feared from the great agitation both at the North and the South, the worst had not yet come. Mr. Scott, however, was far-sighted enough to see that the threatened disruption would not be a bloodless one, and the prospect overwhelmed him with grief. His letters at this period reveal fully the state of his mind. In one of them, addressed to his eldest son, he writes:

      "I thank God that I have a son who fears the Most High, and who loves 'his own, his native land.' Your sentiments and feelings touching the Federal Government and the Union of all the States are so perfectly identical with my own, that I need not rehearse them. You say: 'I am so disheartened and cast down, so overwhelmed with the general gloom that overspreads my dear, my native land, that I can scarcely think of any thing else.' These words, my son, precisely describe my state of mind. I can think of nothing but the sorrows and dangers of my most beloved adopted country. God is witness to my tears and grief. I am cast down, I am afflicted, I am all broken to pieces. My confidence in man is gone. May the Father of mercies show us mercy! Mine eye runneth down with grief. In the Revolution, God gave us a man equal to the occasion; but at this gloomy crisis such a man is wanting; let us look to God, then. There was a time in ancient Israel's misfortunes when God looked for such a man, a man equal to the crisis, but there was none. 'I looked,' he says, 'and there was none to save, and I wondered there were none to uphold, therefore mine own arm brought salvation to me, and my fury it upheld me.' Let us pray unceasingly, and trust it will be so now--trust that his own arm will bring salvation. Oh, that it might; that all the glory may be his!

      "You ask if I think the Lord will interfere in our behalf? I answer, that unless he has decided to destroy us as a nation, he will interfere and rescue us from the impending vengeance. Let us, my son, be as Moses in the case, and cease not to invoke his interference in our behalf. Let us [207] be earnest for our dear country. I had thought that in my prayers none could insinuate themselves between me and my dear children, but believe me, my son, even my own dear flesh and blood has given way to my patriotism--my country. Hence, you will infer what earnest grief inspires my supplications for the Republic. On Friday, let us go before the Lord fasting, and, humbling ourselves before the blessed God, confess, in behalf both of ourselves and our dear country, all our sins, and determine, with his help, to reform in all things. Let us say, with that great servant of the Lord, Moses, 'If thou wilt slay all this people, blot me out of thy book of life.' For all the nations will hear and say that it was because the Lord wanted to destroy them that he gave them their great inheritance. Oh, that the Lord would forgive the nation and heal the dreadful and ghastly wound that has been inflicted on the body of the Republic."

      Such were the feelings which overflowed from his pious and patriotic hart abut the close of the year 1860, when only one State had seceded, when as yet no blow had been struck, when no blood had been shed.

[LWSA 203-208]