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."

"How so!" the other inquired.

"It was reading your book—'The Gospel Restored,'" was the answer.

That is how this movement appeared to those who came under its influence,—the Gospel must be restored. The preachers proclaimed and debated from the rostrum, and pulpit, and on horseback. The laymen talked about it on the street, and in the field, ready at any moment to draw the Bible from their pockets to show just what the "Old Jerusalem Gospel" had to say for itself. The women discussed regeneration and baptism over their sewing and knitting. The children taunted each other at school and at play, and the swaggering bully might say to the despised "Campbellite," "We believe in a change of heart!" or "You believe water will save you!"

Such taunts, however, did not assail the young Carrs, for their parents belonged to no church, and their grandparents and numerous relations were Presbyterians and Methodists. Oliver's teacher, L. P. Streator, was a disciple of Christ; his life, as well as that of Walter Scott, were arguments, in their way, for the "new religion"; but after all, Oliver had thought little of religion during his first years at the Academy. Martin Streator, his teacher's son, persuaded him to attend the Sunday-school at the Christian church; he went once or twice, and then tried the Baptist Sunday-school to find out what "they did over there". The teacher of the Baptist class devoted his hour to an explanation of the Holy Ghost, which proved so baffling to the young mathematician, that for some time thereafter he discharged no religious duties.

Across the street from Carr's Hotel, was a blacksmith shop. The smith was an Englishman, Eneas Myall. Fifteen years before William Carr drove from Lewis County in the old barouche, Myall had come over from England, and had stood on dry dock with only twenty-five cents in his pocket. He walked twelve miles to find work; needless to say, he found it. He earned the passage-money from England for his father, two brothers, and cousin. All worked together; the cousin was a wagon-maker, and under the newly made wagon-wheels, as they rested upon their trestles, were the shavings that had curled up at the making. In the cold dark mornings, when young Oliver came down stairs to make his fires, the flames leaped up from these very shavings, which he had carried over the evening before. They liked him at the shop, and Eneas, in particular, believed he read an expression in