They began early in the nineteenth century with the union of two separate movements, one of which had close kinship with two others. All four were alike in aiming to simplify the complexities of Christian faith and in going back of the creeds and the traditional practices of existing churches to the plain teaching of the New Testament. They believed that this was easy to understand, and that the divisions of Christendom would disappear if Christians would only agree to speak as the apostles spoke and to do as they did. They believed that man was sinful and needed God’s salvation; but they did not believe him to be so depraved by “original sin” that he could not, by the act of his own intelligence and by his own free will, accept the means of grace that have been provided. They wanted all the churches to unite on the basis of the simple and clear requirements of discipleship as given in the New Testament, leaving all doubtful and inferential matters in the field of “opinion,” in which every Christian should exercise liberty, and scrap the machinery of synods and bishops, for which they found no warrant in Scripture. Of the two main movements, the name of Barton W. Stone was most prominent in one; the names of Thomas and Alexander Campbell in the other. Stone’s movement (1804) began earlier than that of the Campbells (1809), but later than two others practically identical with it. But the Campbells’ was the more dynamic, especially after it gained the advocacy of Walter Scott, who set the pattern for its evangelism. These are the four great names in the early history of the Disciples—Stone, Thomas Campbell, Alexander Campbell, and Scott. All four had been Presbyterians. A Preview Stone was a native American of old colonial stock, born in Maryland, educated in North Carolina after spending most of his boyhood in Virginia. He did his most important work in Kentucky. Thomas and Alexander Campbell, father and son, were born in North Ireland, were educated at Glasgow University, and came to America only a short time before the launching of their reformatory movement. The influences seen in their work are those of a British background and an American environment. The center of their activity was the southwest corner of Pennsylvania, eastern Ohio, and the narrow strip of Virginia (now West Virginia) that lies between them. Walter Scott, born in Scotland and educated in the University of Edinburgh, came to America as a young man and was a teacher in Pittsburgh when he received the impulse which led him into the Campbell movement while it was still in its initial stage.