While it was well known that there were many things received and practiced in common there had been no special effort to bring about a union between them. In 1824, at Georgetown, Ky., Mr. Stone and Mr. Campbell first met. When they compared views, it seemed that there were irreconcilable differences between them. Stone thought Campbell was heterodox on the Holy Spirit, and Campbell suspected Stone’s soundness on the divinity of Christ. But on a more careful investigation, they found these differences more imaginary than real, and they joined hearts and hands and God blessed them with the most important work since the apostolic age. With the kindly feelings towards each other, the work of union between their brethren was well on the way when it was begun. And so, after a number of friendly conferences, it was decided to have a meeting of representative men at Georgetown, Ky., to continue for days, including December 25, 1831. The results of this conference were so satisfactory that another was convened in Lexington, January 1, 1832. In these gatherings the spirit of the Master was supreme. At the Lexington meeting, at an early hour the house was crowded. Stone, John T. Johnson, Samuel Rogers, G. W. Elley, Jacob Creath, “Raccoon” John Smith, and many other worthy men were there, all guarded in thought and purpose against any compromise of truth, but all filled with the spirit of the Master: “That they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us: that the world may believe that thou didst send me.” It was decided that one man from each party should speak, setting forth clearly the grounds of union, and Smith and Stone were selected as the speakers. After this had been announced, the two brethren went aside, and conferred in private. Neither knew what the other would say in the critical hour which had now come upon the churches; nor did either, in the moment of solemn conference, ask the other to disclose his mind, touching their differences, more fully than he had already done. It was decided between them that Smith should speak first. The occasion was to Smith the most important and solemn that had occurred in the history of the reformation. “It was now to be seen whether all that had been written and said and done in behalf of the simple gospel of Christ and the union of Christians was really the work of the Lord, or whether the prayers of Stone and Johnson were but the idle longings of pious, yet deluded hearts; whether the toils and sacrifices of Smith were but the schismatic efforts of a bold enthusiast, and whether the teachings of Campbell were only the speculations of a graceless and sensuous philosophy. The denominations around mocked, and declared that a church without a constitution could not stand, and that a union without a creed was but the chimera of a dreamy and infatuated heresy.”