Among the converts made to the new organization by the Rice-Campbell Debate were members of all churches, including Archibald Campbell, an uncle of the second debater and an elder of the Presbyterian Church in Newry, Ireland." This result should have been foreseen, because during the discussion, when Campbell preached, a number came forward for baptism, among them an intelligent Lutheran minister by the name of William McChesney. This minister afterwards gave Campbell the following account:

"I could have sprinkled a child the day before the debate commenced with a good conscience. All my early education and associations were placed on a scale with Pædobaptism during the debate. I went there willing to ascertain the truth. I was a little prejudiced against you and more than a little against the Reformation. I listened with candor and attention. After the whole ground had been gone over, I was satisfied that nothing but immersion would do and that infant baptism could not be maintained from the Scriptures. I felt deeply interested in the whole matter. If Mr. Rice could have met all your arguments satisfactorily to my mind, he would have received my warmest thanks. He failed, however, in my estimation-completely failed in both.","

There has been and probably always will be a difference of opinion with regard to the effectiveness of debates in spreading the "Reformation" plea. One of the greatest historians among the Disciples, W. T. Moore, said that the general influence of the

Richardson, R. Memoirs of Alexander Campbell, II., 525-527. "Ibid., II., 525.

Rice-Campbell Debate, as well as of others held during the period, was to draw the lines more clearly between the Reformers, and the members of other churches. Moore listed the following evils of the debating period:

1. Debates were often about things not made conditions of fellowship.

2. They had the tendency of creating a spirit of legalism by emphasizing the "letter" and detracting from the "spirit.'

3. They usually magnified the system of Christianity rather than the author of the system.

4. Although the debates were intended to help bring about Christian union, they often had the opposite effect by emphasizing a party spirit.

5. The debates also frequently had a harmful effect upon the peace and unity of neighborhoods.

6. They were usually contests for party victory in a greater degree than they were for the triumph of the truth.

7. They usually ended with a victory proclaimed for each side, rather than with a victory proclaimed for the truth.

83

In spite, however, of questionable results which must be admitted to a certain extent, the good outweighed the evil. After the Owen-Campbell Debate, in which the latter was acknowledged champion of Christianity, and the Purcell-Campbell Debate, in which he was the champion of Protestantism, per

3 Comprehensive History of the Disciples, 406-409.

secution and opposition began to diminish. The Presbyterians of Kentucky had desired Dr. R. J. Breckenridge, who for twenty-five years had been one of the outstanding figures in the Presbyterian Church, to debate with Campbell and had asked him to do so, but he replied: "No, sir, I will never be Alexander Campbell's opponent. A man who has done what he has to defend Christianity against infidelity, and to defend Protestantism against the delusions and usurpations of Catholicism, I will never oppose in public debate. I esteem him too highly.

Although the early debates were too bitter, they nevertheless made converts to the Reformers in the delivery and also when printed. Samuel Rogers wrote of a school teacher named Wentworth Roberts, who, without making any impression upon his mind, had demanded and obtained from him in 1821, baptism for the remission of sins. During a preaching tour, in the spring of 1826, however, while visiting a Mr. Guess, on Line Creek, near the border of Tennessee and Kentucky, Rogers happened to pick up a copy of the MacCalla-Campbell Debate. He told the result thus:

"Turning the leaves slowly over, my eye caught Mr. Campbell's speech on the design of baptism. I read it carefully from beginning to end; and I had scarcely concluded his masterly argument on that subject when I sprang to my feet, dropped the book on the floor, clapped my hands re

34 Millennial Harbinger, II., 450, 451.

Autobiography of Elder Samuel Rogers, 55. See page 105.

peatedly together, and exclaimed 'Eureka! Eureka! I have found it! I have found it!' And, thanks be to God, I had found it! I had found the keystone of the arch. It had been lost a long time. I had never seen it beforestrange that I had not. But I had seen the vacant space in the arch a hundred times, and I had some idea of the size and shape of it; and when I saw baptism as Mr. Campbell had presented it, I knew it would exactly fit and fill the vacant space. I was converted over; and was one of the happiest young converts you ever saw; happier than when I was converted the first time, and a great deal more certain that I was right. Hitherto, I had been walking in the mud, or on the sand, and withal, groping in the dark. Now, all was light around me, and I felt that I was standing on a rock; and I have felt the same ever since. From that day to this, I have never doubted that baptism is for the remission of sins. Not even a stray doubt has ever flitted across my mind.

Campbell himself always thought that the victory rested on his side in these debates. Thus, when the Presbyterians were boasting about their success in the Rice-Campbell Debate, he published the following:

"An occurrence in Nashville sets this argument in a fair light. I once had a public talk there with the late Obadiah Jennings, D.D., which Presbyterians manufactured into a great debate-in which, of course, I was as usual, gloriously defeated. The city rang with Presbyterian acclamation for some ten days; when an aged citizen accosted one of the boasters in the following style: 'You Presbyterians have gained, you say, a glorious victory. How do you know when you gain a victory? I do not understand how you ascertin a victory. Do tell me how you know when

Autobiography of Elder Samuel Rogers, 59.

you beat. I will tell you how in old times we counted victories when I was engaged in the Indian wars. After the battle was over we counted the scalps. Those were said to have conquered who could count the largest number of scalps taken from the enemy. Now since Mr. Campbell has been here, he has immersed some thirty, amongst whom were the most intelligent citizens of Nashville. How many have you added to your church by this debate?' 'I have not heard of any,' said his Presbyterian friend. 'Pray, then, my dear sir, tell me how you know when you have gained a great victory.'

Colonel Thomas H. Nelson, a former United States minister to Mexico and afterwards to Chile, declared at Terre Haute, in 1888:

"I was a young lawyer at Lexington, Ky., and attended the Campbell-Rice debate. I was a Presbyterian. When I heard the debate I thought Mr. Rice got the better of Mr. Campbell; I purchased the debate when published, and have long since decided that Mr. Campbell was a giant beside the ordinary Mr. Rice. Even now, whenever I want an intellectual stimulus, I take down 'The Campbell-Rice Debate,' and read Mr. Campbell's masterful arguments.›› »

Unrecorded influences, moreover, must have been exercised, for the debates were attended by ministers of all denominations and by people from all over the country." The effect on Campbell's oppo

87 Millennial Harbinger, II., 447.

88 Ibid., II., 451.

89 Henry Clay, it has been often said, was immersed after the Rice-Campbell Debate, but the better opinion seems to be otherwise. According to T. H. Clay, grandson of the great statesman, Clay was baptized into the Episcopal Church in his parlor at Ashland, June 22, 1847, with water applied by hand out of a large cut glass urn (see Clay, T. H., Henry Clay, 413, and also Colton, Calvin, Last Seven Years of the Life of Henry Olay, 52-54).