This incident brought the campmeeting to a sudden close. “A TIME OF DISTRESS” There were at this time several other preachers in the Presbyterian Church who coincided in religious views with Stone. These were Richard McNemar, John Thompson, John Dunlavy, Robert Marshall and David Purviance. The three former lived in Ohio, and the three latter lived in Kentucky. They all boldly preached the sufficiency of the Gospel to save men, and that the testimony of God was designed and able to produce faith, and that sinners were capable of understanding and believing this testimony, and of acting upon it by coming to the Savior and from him obtaining salvation and the Holy Spirit. When they first began to preach these things, “the people appeared as just awakened from the sleep of ages. They seemed to see for the first time that they were responsible beings, and that a refusal to use the means appointed was a damning sin.” This departure from the doctrine of the Westminster Confession of Faith soon occasioned a virulent opposition on the part of those who adhered to it. “At first they were pleased to see the Methodists and Baptists so cordially uniting with us in the worship; but as soon as they saw these sects drawing away disciples after them, they raised the tocsin of alarm—The Confession of Faith is in danger, ‘To your tents, O Israel!’” These partisans began to preach boldly the doctrines of their Confession of Faith and used the most potent arguments in their defense. “A fire was now kindled that threatened to ruin the great fervor among the people. It revived the dying spirit of partyism and gave strength to trembling infidels and lifeless professors. The sects were aroused. The Methodists and Baptists, who had so long lived in peace and harmony with the Presbyterians and with one another, now girded on their armor and marched into the deathly field of controversy and war. These were times of distress. The spirit of partyism soon expelled the spirit of love and union—peace fled before discord and strife and religion was stifled and banished in the unhallowed struggle for pre-eminence. Who shall be the greatest seemed to be the spirit of the contest. The salvation of the world was no longer the burden, and the spirit of mourning in prayer took its flight from the breasts of many preachers and people. Yet there were some of all the sects who deplored this unhappy state of things; but their entreating voice was drowned in the din of battle.”