In the year 1833 Mr. Scott received an invitation to become the resident Divinity Tutor of the College at Airedale, near Bradford, Yorkshire, with which he at length considered it his duty to comply. When it was first presented to him, "he laid it before the Church, desiring their advice and prayer. They unanimously expressed their desire that he would remain with them; and some of them did so in the strongest terms, stating it as their conviction that he ought not by any means to leave. After serious consideration, prayer to the Divine Being, and asking the advice of several ministers, he however came to the conclusion that it was his duty to leave. The Church in general were brought to say, "the will of the Lord be done."
Some idea may be formed of Mr. Scott's habits while at Rowell, from a passage in an address delivered to the students at Airedale, and published in the year 1835. Recommending them in one part of it carefully to attend to the preservation of their health, he says,—
I would, in a special manner, recommend to you to take regular, abundant, and systematic exercise. On this subject I can speak with confidence, not only from observation, but from experience of both the most painful and the most pleasant kind. I assure you, that by neglecting exercise, by untimely late hours, and immoderate study, I injured most seriously my health. By systematic, determined, vigorous exercise, I have banished disease, regained my health, and even increased the vigour of both mind and body. Had it not been for exercise and attention to diet, as the means in the hand of God, it is my firm persuasion, rather it is with me matter of absolute certainty, that, instead of being able in the possession of good health to address you on this occasion, I should have been the helpless victim of more diseases than one which had begun to invade my frame; or rather, I should have been numbered with the dead. I have observed several running the same course which I had partly run, without having been arrested in it as I was; and the consequence has been, that though they were younger than I was, and at one time quite as healthy, they have years ago been consigned to the tomb.... I am very much disposed to believe, or rather I have no doubt, that, had the history of students and ministers in general been accurately written, the way in which they have neglected their health, entailed diseases on their frame, and shortened their lives, would furnish some of the most striking instances on record in the pages of history, of imprudence in those who ought to be eminent for prudence, and of folly in those whose office it is to teach wisdom to others. I have no doubt that some early and apparently premature removals of eminent ministers from this world, which have been thought to be most mysterious and unaccountable dispensations of divine providence, would be found to be the necessary result of their own conduct, in neglecting some of the most obvious rules of prudence for the preservation of their health. To have prevented that removal, God must have wrought a miracle.
Mr. Scott is also the author of one of the volumes of Congregational Lectures on 'The Existence and Agency of Evil Spirits.'
After the removal of Mr. Scott, the Church at Rowell was supplied by several ministers, for some time remaining unsettled. On the 5th of October, 1836, Mr. Gallsworthy, a student at Airedale, visited Rowell, and preached for seven Sabbaths, when the Church unanimously agreed to invite him to become their pastor. This invitation he accepted; the ordination service being held October 4th, 1837, when Messrs. Toller, of Kettering, Hobson, of Welford, Scott, late of Rowell, and Green, of Uppingham, were engaged in the principal services of the day. The ministry of Mr. Gallsworthy only continued until December 24th, 1841, when he left Rowell, and became minister to a Church at Pinchbeck, in Lincolnshire. During his ministry 60 members were added to the Church.
Some months after Mr. Gallsworthy had left Rowell, the present minister, the Rev. Richard Jessop, from Oldham, in Lancashire, accepted an invitation to the pastoral office, and commenced his stated labours at Rowell the 9th of October, 1842. Since that time more than 60 members have been added to the Church. A new school has been erected for the Infant Sabbath-school; and at the present time considerable alterations are about to be made in the Meeting House—re-pewing, new roofing, and enlarging—at an expense of from £700 to £800. The number of scholars in the Sabbath-schools is 320. Six villages are supplied with Sabbath evening services by the members of the Church. Present number of communicants is 130.
In reviewing the history of a Church that has been in existence now for nearly 200 years, what abundant reason is there for full satisfaction with the great principles on which it was founded, as agreeable to the word of God, and the means of sustaining, under God, the faithful ministry of the word of life, and the administration of the ordinances of the Gospel in their purity! Attached to the same principles, and exhibiting their happy and holy influence, this Church of Christ we trust will still go on and prosper—the great Head of the Church attending it with his constant presence and blessing.