Without waiting for himself to be singled out, Smith arose and said, “I plead guilty to them all.” After bitter debating and wrangling over the charges it was finally voted that they be laid over for another year. The meeting of 1828 was the time when these charges should be brought up. Smith had been unceasingly engaged in preaching, and marvelously successful in winning men to Christ during the years. Still, when the Association met, he was in doubt at first as to which side had the majority of messengers. In the registration of messengers, it was soon found that the majority were favorable to him. The messengers, from the five new churches he had established turned the scale in his favor. The charges were not mentioned on the floor of the Association. In 1830 this Association divided, ten churches voluntarily withdrawing and forming a new association on Baptist principles. The North District Association met for the last time as an advisory council in 1831, and was dissolved one year later. Fourteen churches and four parts of churches were enrolled on the occasion of the dissolution. On the same day the churches that had withdrawn from the Association two years before met and formed a new association under the same name. The Bracken Association was the next to meet, in 1828. Licking Association, rigidly Calvinistic and devoted to the Philadelphia Confession of Faith, desired to enter into mutual correspondence with Bracken, but had determined as a condition of it to require from Bracken a pledge to support the Philadelphia Confession of Faith, which no doubt would have been given in 1827; but in the meantime Smith had gone into that district, and preached among the churches; and such men as Walter Warden and Jesse Holton, already moved by the plea of Alexander Campbell, and encouraged by the boldness and success of Smith, were already favoring the return to the “ancient order of things.” The letter came from Licking requiring the pledge and was read before the Association. After a prolonged discussion by various members, during which Smith sat in silence, he finally saw his opportunity to speak. This opportunity was given when James Arnold, a messenger from the North Bend Association, moved that the terms proposed by Licking be rejected, and that all further correspondence with that body be dropped. Smith supported the proposition, and as he rose to do so took from his saddle bags a copy of the Confession of Faith, and said. Brethren, Licking requires of Bracken an utter impossibility. No one can maintain inviolate the doctrine of grace as revealed in the Scriptures, and at the same time, defend that which is taught in the Philadelphia Confession of Faith; for the doctrine of the creed is not the doctrine of the Bible. No two books in the world differ more than these; and in no point do they differ more widely than on the doctrine of salvation by grace.