For two years after he gave up his church connection he worked as a journeyman tanner. This is all the information obtainable about this part of his life. We next find him preaching at Bainbridge, Ohio, as an undenominational exhorter, but following the general views of the Campbells, advising his hearers to reject their creeds and rest their belief solely on the Bible. In June, 1826, Rigdon received a call to a Baptist church at Mentor, Ohio, whose congregation he had pleased when he preached the funeral sermon of his predecessor. His labors were not confined, however, to this congregation. We find him acting as the "stated" minister of a Disciples' church organized at Mantua, Ohio, in 1827, preaching with Thomas Campbell at Shalersville, Ohio, in 1828, and thus extending the influence he had acquired as early as 1820, when Alexander Campbell called him "the great orator of the Mahoning Association". In 1828 he visited his old associate Scott, was further confirmed in his faith in the Disciples' belief, and, taking his brother-in-law Bentley back with him, they began revival work at Mentor, which led to the conversion of more than fifty of their hearers. They held services at Kirtland, Ohio, with equal success, and the story of this awakening was the main subject of discussion in all the neighborhood round about. The sketch of Rigdon in Smith's autobiography closes with this tribute to his power as a preacher: "The churches where he preached were no longer large enough to contain the vast assemblies. No longer did he follow the old beaten track,... but dared to enter on new grounds,... threw new light on the sacred volume,... proved to a demonstration the literal fulfilment of prophecy...and the reign of Christ with his Saints on the earth in the Millennium." In tracing Rigdon's connection with Smith's enterprise, attention must be carefully paid both to Rigdon's personal characteristics, and to the resemblance between the doctrines he had taught in the pulpit and those that appear in the Mormon Bible. Rigdon's mental and religious temperament was just of the character to be attracted by a novelty in religious belief. He, with his brother-in-law, Adamson Bentley, visited Alexander Campbell in 1821, and spent a whole night in religious discussion. When they parted the next day, Rigdon declared that "if he had within the last year promulgated one error, he had a thousand," and Mr. Campbell, in his account of the interview, remarked, "I found it expedient to caution them not to begin to pull down anything they had builded until they had reviewed, again and again, what they had heard; not even then rashly and without much consideration."* * Millennial Harbinger, 1848, p. 523. A leading member of the church at Mantua has written, "Sidney Rigdon preached for us, and, notwithstanding his extravagantly wild freaks, he was held in high repute by many."*