N the letter that Alexander Campbell had written on Dec. 28, 1815, to his uncle in Newry, occurs the sentence, "My father still resembles one of our planets in emigrating from place to place." He cites the three places--Washington, Cambridge and Pittsburgh. But it was too early to include the next place where his father sought to labor. The motive does not seem clear--Richardson suggests age and hope of service--but whatever it was, it carried Thomas Campbell down into Kentucky. In the early fall of 1817 he took his family to Newport, and spent some time looking into the lives of the people bordering on the Ohio. Ultimately he chose Burlington, county seat of Boone County, as his next home. it appeared a fine location for an English Classical Seminary. The residents were cordial, desired such an institution, and set about erecting the necessary building. The town was not provided with a church edifice, and therefore the Academy began to be used, on its completion, as a place for religious gatherings. Mr. Campbell was the preacher and used the method that had become common to him since his renunciation of the credal and scholastic method. The school prospered and began to attract pupils from a distance. The [141] Kentuckians took the principal and his family to their hearts, and it began to appear that the peregrinations of the advocate of Christian union were at an end. There was not the highest satisfaction with the religious outlook, but regular meetings were maintained.

      All classes of people attended. The majority were Baptists and of Baptist leaning. The message and methods of Thomas Campbell rather surprised the hearers, and the fruitage was small, even though large numbers heard (Richardson'sMemoirs, Vol. I., p. 494ff.). In his new home Mr. Campbell had an opportunity of seeing slavery in its operations. He was stirred in heart to do something for the slaves. After having witnessed the way in which they spent Sunday afternoons he, on one occasion, invited them to come to his schoolroom and hear the reading of the Scriptures. They came with enthusiasm, heard earnestly, joined heartily in singing, and were promised on dismissal another such meeting soon. It was never repeated. The next day he was informed by one of his friends, of a state law that forbade any address to Negroes except in the presence of one or more white witnesses. He had broken the law but his friend assured him that no steps would be taken to prosecute him as he had been ignorant of the law. It was further urged that he have no more such meetings. Thomas Campbell was, astonished, dumbfounded and well-nigh heartbroken. Quite speedily he resolved not to live where it was a crime to preach the gospel freely to any one; [142] where his family might be contaminated by the thoughts of those who approved the state's law and attitude. In a reply to a letter to his son Alexander, in which he had stated his dissatisfaction with the life in Kentucky and his intentions to remove therefrom, the father ascertained that there would be a place for him in Buffaloe Seminary. This school had been established two or three years before and was thriving. So back to Washington County, Pennsylvania, after about seven years of wandering, came Thomas Campbell; back where, in 1809, ten years before, he had given to the world a plea and plan for Christian union; back to renew fellowship with friends of former years; back to the region where he had suffered ostracism, misrepresentation, petty persecution and annoyance as he had gone about the business of teaching, preaching, visiting parishioners and baptizing converts (Richardson's Memoirs, Vol. I., p. 431); back to join his son in the growing work which was to see them co-operating happily until age and death claimed the father.

      Locating his family on a farm about two miles from West Middletown, Pa., Thomas Campbell resumed pastoral care of the Brush Run Church, and assumed some of the instructing at Buffaloe Seminary, near the village of Bethany. These school duties necessitated his presence almost daily in the home of his son, where the school was quartered. The teaching abilities of both men were required in the prospering institution, but the call to travel more widely and preach, also to write, [143] was heard by the son. He was beginning to suffer from overwork, and concluded to close the seminary in 1823. It had not fulfilled the desire of its founder in furnishing young men for the ministry (Richardson's Memoirs, Vol. II., p. 48).

      In 1820 there seemed to be a departure from the plans of Thomas Campbell for the reformation, for an oral debate was held by his son with Rev. John Walker, at Mt. Pleasant, O., on the subject of baptism. He had hoped there would be no open controversy. He was not averse to written controversy. The two, father and son, had frequently exchanged letters as to their beliefs. The son had used the public press on several occasions to set forth his views, and to answer what were deemed false charges. Into that first debate Alexander Campbell was pushed with some reluctance. His father attended, possibly with some misgivings, and was called upon to dismiss the final session with prayer. The result was pleasing to both, because the hearing was large and the debate, for the most part, was orderly. From that time it was felt by the two that orderly discussion upon clearly stated propositions was a way by which the truth might be advanced. Thomas Campbell himself never engaged in an oral debate, but he was always interested in the debates of his son.

      In 1820 occurred an event of great significance for the two churches of Christ interested in reform in religion--Brush Run and Bethany.^{8} In the month of August, 1820, some of the more liberal [144] Baptist churches of the Western Reserve of Ohio formed the Mahoning Baptist Association. The leader seemed to be Adamson Bentley. He had heard something about the novel teachings of the Campbells, had read the published record of the Campbell-Walker debate, which contained a very liberal appendix that sought to set people right as to certain false reports and slanders. In the summer of 1821 Mr. Bentley, together with Sidney Rigdon, visited Alexander Campbell at Bethany, and came away with the utmost confidence in his integrity and the correctness of his views (Millennial Harbinger, 1848, p. 523). More and more calls came for the father or son, or both, to visit various places in Ohio. They made it a practice to attend an annual meeting of the ministers of the Mahoning Association. But things were not moving in the Campbell's favor in the Redstone Association. A plan was concocted to disfellowship the two men and their fellows at the meeting in September, 1823. Special efforts had been made to have the churches appoint messengers who were unfriendly, especially to Alexander Campbell, whose famous "Sermon on the Law" was thought replete with heresy. Having been asked again and again to transfer their fellowship to the newer Association in Ohio, it was felt that rather than be ousted from the Redstone Association, Alexander Campbell would go out voluntarily. Because there seemed to be good reason for establishing a church of Christ at Wellsburg, on August 31, 1823, Alexander [145] Campbell and thirty-one others were dismissed from Brush Run in good standing to form such a church, and the letter of dismissal was signed by Thomas Campbell (Richardson's Memoirs, Vol. II., pp. 68, 69). The younger Campbell was present at the Association meeting, but to the surprise of the heresy hunters he was not an appointed messenger. The meeting that had been packed to denounce and expel a heretic found itself without its big task. This turned the eyes and sympathies of the "reformers," as some began to call them, away from western Pennsylvania to Ohio as a better and more responsive field. In 1824, the, Mahoning Association met at Hubbard and the church of Wellsburg sent three messengers with a request that their organization be admitted to membership. The clerk of the meeting wrote the following sixth item in his minutes: "At the request of the church of Christ at Wellsburg it was received into this Association." At that time the church which had been formed to thwart the scheme of Redstone Association leaders had grown to have forty members. [146]

      ^{8} Possibly this was just a meeting group. [144]

[TCSCUA 141-146]