33y

"loving husband, tender father, faithful friend, zealous leader of Primitive Christianity"

"[Walter] Scott and Joseph Gaston became greatly devoted to each other, traveling and laboring much together. They were as David and Jonathan. Gaston was charmed and instructed by the manly, intellectual eloquence of Scott, who, in turn, equally admired and loved the piety, simplicity, and pathos of Gaston. This brother hath a history—brief, sad, and lovely. He was the son of James and Mary Gaston, born on Peter's Creek, Washington County, Pa., March 25, 1801. When he was twenty years of age, his mother, then a widow, moved to Augusta, Carroll County, Ohio. Attending a prayer meeting, and showing some levity inconsistent in such a place, a Miss Walton, a member of the family where the meeting was held, fell upon her knees, and so earnestly commended his soul to Jesus, as to plant impressions there never to be effaced. Soon after, at a meeting held in Minerva by John Secrest, he confessed the Lord and was baptized. In the exercises of prayer and of exhortation, public and private, his heart and mouth were immediately opened. Many felt the power of religion under his earnest and impassioned appeals. Falling in with Bro. Scott, and learning more perfectly of "this way," he was carried up to new heights of wonder at the perfection of the knowledge of God, and of enthusiasm in pleading for sinners to be reconciled to God. The oil of Joseph's lamp burned brightly, but it was destined soon to burn out. Her was afflicted with hemorrhage of the lungs. The violence of his labors brought on a crisis; and on the 6th of December, 1834, closed his most triumphant course. For twenty minutes immediately before his death, he exhorted those about him with great strength of voice, and almost angelic fervor; then he fell asleep as peacefully as when an infant is hushed to its gentle slumbers. 

He was led to clearer views of the gospel in the following manner, as related by Bro. Scott: 

"I had appointed a certain day in which to break bread with the Baptist Church at Salem. Bro. Gaston was a resident of Columbiana County, and was at that time in the vicinity of Salem. The Baptist brethren regarded him as a good man and a true disciple; but he was a Christian or new Light, and contended for open communion—things which they greatly disliked. Before meeting, the principal brethren requested me to converse with him on the subject, saying they were sure I could convert him. 

"Accordingly I took him out in presence of them all; but he gave me no time, being as impatient and undoubting on open communion as they were on close communion. I told him, however, that the brethren had commissioned me to convert him to their opinions, and smiled. He said he had come to convert me to his. 

"I then set before him the terms of the ancient gospel as I had arranged them, and told him that their dispute about communion was silly and unprofitable. He heard me with delight. I appealed to the Scriptures,.and he smiled; and soon, with a laugh, he exclaimed, 'It is all true! and I believe every word of it, and I will take you to a Christian brother who will receive it in a moment.' 

"After meeting, I accompanied him to the house of said brother, living a mile and a half from the village; and the man and his wife hearing it, and examining the Scriptures, received it with all readiness that same night, so that on that day were brought over to the side of the gospel two excellent men, both laborers among the 'Christians.'" 

-EARLY HISTORY OF THE DISCIPLES IN THE WESTERN RESERVE, OHIO; WITH Biographical Sketches of the Principal Agents in their Religious Movement, by A. S. HAYDEN, pages 80-83.