In a word, then, the individual adherents of the religion were allowed to hold opinions contrary to what the adherents as a whole, were supposed to believe; while, at the same time, not one adherent of the religion could be found who professed to hold the views that the opponents of the religion ascribed to all the brotherhood! This was not from a willful determination to misrepresent, but rather from a sense of generous good-will. It was the only way to rescue one's kindred and friends from the inevitable hell that awaits the adherents of heretical doctrines.
"Tom is a good man," said a devout adherent of the established order of things, referring to minister Thomas Arnold of the Kentucky disciples, "but he preaches a lie and will be damned for it!" And the way to save one's beloved from this damnation was to believe that they did not really hold the views of these Ishmaelites of the "new religion," but were "Baptists at heart"—or Pedobaptists, according to one's point of view.
Thomas Campbell's "Declaration and Address" appeared in 1809; but it was not until September, 1832 that the first general meeting of the disciples of Christ was held, in Lexington, Kentucky. Everyone understood that such an assemblage had no authority over local organizations. Christian soldiers came together to talk over their victories and defeats, and to plan for fresh campaigns. As time passed by, such men as John T. Johnson and John I. Rogers were appointed state evangelists; but they were supported by several churches combining to furnish the funds.
At the time Mattie Carr was boarding at her brother's school, there was no general board behind missionary enterprises. But later a convention met at Harrodsburg and employed four evangelists; that was in 1857. The next year sixteen were employed, and in a year they won 1,936 converts to the church. The year following, twenty evangelists added to the faith 2,020. The "new religion" was growing at an unheard of rate, and the more it grew the hotter raged the noise of battle and the clash of arms.
It is in such circumstances as these that one learns to weigh one's own opinion, to use it, if need be, as a battering-ram against the opinions of other folk; that one learns to realize the importance of self-reliance, self-defense, self-assertion. Before Mattie Myers was twelve years old, the leading purposes of her after-life were already crystalized in thought and determination. It will be interesting to watch how she adhered to these principles, and whither they brought her at last. As we have said, they were three in number, more or less commingled in her girlhood's plans of life; an unwavering devotion to the South; a fixed resolve to become a teacher of girls; and a conviction that the plea of the disciples of Christ was the need of the world.
CHAPTER III.
A KENTUCKY BOY.
It was while the black nurse was doubtfully shaking her head over the prospect of a long life for Mattie Myers, that two boys presented themselves at the village schoolhouse of May's Lick, Kentucky. They were two brothers who resembled each other so closely, and were so inseparable, that they were often thought to be twins. Oliver Carr, however, was two years younger than Owen[2]. They had come up from the country in the old family barouche, and the fact that they were from the country, was shown in their movements and their dress.