The Story of a Life

by J. Breckenridge Ellis

It was in 1819 that Walter Scott landed in New York, and began teaching Latin in Long Island—diverting himself with his flute at the close of the day. But he soon felt the call of the West, and obeyed it afoot. It brought him to Pittsburg, where he found himself drawn into school work again. He became an assistant in the Academy conducted by Mr. Forrester, a fellow-countryman. Scott had been reared in the Presbyterian faith, and his soul had been perfectly satisfied in those religious grounds staked off by his denomination's creed. He had not associated long with Forrester before he found to his amazement that the latter, though apparently of sincere piety, did not subscribe to all the articles; but, instead of seeking to attack the Confession with the Discipline or the Prayer Book, had recourse to the Bible. Not only so, but Forrester professed himself ready to give up any article of faith that did not appear fully warranted by the Scriptures; or, in other words, he had resolved to be guided in religious matters by the Bible alone.

It is difficult for one of the present day to realize how radical, unheard of, and unorthodox, such a determination as Forrester's appeared in the year 1819. It is true that men here and there, in places far removed from one another, were beginning to weary of the burden of the creeds; they were reaching out to grasp something that might pull their feet from the shackles of doubt or predetermined damnation, and in desperate blindness they seized upon the Word of God as likely to prove of most avail. It was, indeed, heresy; for if all had deserted creeds for the Bible, what would have become of the creeds? In Luther's day it had been heretical to decry Indulgences; if a Baptist, it was heretical not to believe "in the peculiar and eternal election of men and angels to glory," and "in a particular redemption of a definite number of persons to eternal life," and "the final perseverance of the saints in grace to the end."

Walter Scott felt no hesitation in joining Forrester in his studies of the New Testament, secure in the belief that nothing could be found there, inconsistent with his creed; henceforth, we find him sitting far into the night, no longer solacing himself with the music of his flute, but studying the Bible with ever greater and greater perplexity; studying it as diligently as ever he had studied the Confession; studying it with increasing uneasiness, as it seemed to lead him from the faith of his fathers.

There was, at that time, no body of associated men who had agreed to surrender all creeds, and take the Bible as their only guide. There were isolated examples of such men. Alexander Campbell, of whom Walter Scott had never heard, had been forced by his convictions from the Presbyterian church into the Baptist association. Not long after the beginning of Scott's explorations into this dimly-known field of original research, he and the celebrated scholar met; but neither had a thought of breaking away from the accepted religious bodies; the only question was to find the one nearest approximating the truth, and to seek reformation within that body.

The result of that effort to bring back the primitive church upon earth, is seen today in the church of the disciples of Christ. This is not the place to argue the feasibility of the plea, or to adduce arguments against it. But what that plea was, should be presented clearly and dispassionately. It is not the office of the biographer to point out the right or wrong of his subject's dominating ideas, so much as it is to show how the life was influenced by those motive-springs of thought.

Walter Scott, as an evangelist, pastor, author and editor, had come into contact with tens of thousands, and had influenced countless lives. His followers were called by the unsympathetic, "Scottites," just as those of Alexander Campbell were nicknamed "Campbellites." Thomas and Alexander Campbell and Walter Scott, the triumvirate of the dawning "Reformation," did not come, however, to found denominations, but, so far as they could, to do away with them.

They believed that it was possible for the church of New Testament days to exist in the modern world, just as it had existed then. They believed that the means of entering the church now, are what they were then; that Christ's conditions were in their very nature of divinity, unalterable. As Peter preached on the day of Pentecost, so Walter Scott preached in the Nineteenth Century. As Cornelius and the jailer and the eunuch and Lydia and all other recorded instances of sinners converted in olden times, so man today, in turning to God, must turn as they turned, come as they came, obey as they obeyed.

And if the old order should be restored, there would be but one order in the earth; but one Faith, one Lord and one Baptism. The saints would sit down to one table from which no saint would be excluded; they would join their hymns of undenominational ecstasy, and, if they did not see every subject exactly alike, they would at least agree in their contemplation of essentials. After all, the important matter seemed to be, to get safely into the church, and to stay in it; and if all entered in the same way, the way the apostles had taught, and then dwelt in harmony, not as Presbyterians and Baptists and Episcopals and Methodists, whose very names appeared to draw lines, whether the lines were definitely understood or not—this ideal body would be simply disciples of Christ, or Christians, as they had been eighteen hundred years ago. Then indeed would a shout of thanksgiving go up from the earth, that the prayer of Jesus had been answered; not only his apostles but all those who now believed on his name, had become one; one in thought and love and life; one as he and the Father were one, eternal, indivisible.

Whether or not the reader believes such a union possible, or desirable, it will surely call for no great task of the imagination upon his part, to enter somewhat into the thrilling rapture this picture presented to the hearts of the early "reformers." One feels his heart leap with a sympathetic throb when men who had dreamed of such a return to the old paths, but who had dreamed of it in solitude, not knowing it had found a voice in the earth—suddenly heard it pronounced from the pulpit. Men who had brooded in seclusion over their Bibles, finding there, as it appeared to them, sublime statements antagonistic to sectarianism, were suddenly transfixed by hearing the words of old, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved!" It seemed to them that the "Old Gospel" was once more sounding in the land. On a visit to Missouri, Walter Scott met an eminent preacher, Moses E. Lard.

"You do not know me," said Lard, as he threw his arm about the other; "but you are the man who first taught me the Gospel."