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Register for 1833 is thirty-four and the total mem-
bership 1,416. The number of churches reported in
1842 is twenty-eight, and the total membership
1,174. Money is collected at the meeting of the
Association for minutes and for correspondence; at
one session $16.48 is given for the former and $17.37
for the latter. The largest membership in any
church is at Rushville--119. The minutes for 1842
contain a circular letter written by Elder Wilson
Thompson; it concludes with an earnest exhortation
against helping any of the "schemes of the sons of
the mystery of Babylon, for they are spending their
strength and thousands of treasure to preach salva-
tion by that faith which is the act of the creature,
the result of rational testimony, the duty of all men
to perform, or originate--which at best is only sal-
vation by works...."
The minutes for 1844 give the number of
churches as twenty-eight, with a total membership
of 1,288; Big Cedar Grove reports 118 members;
Lick Creek 114; Rushville 113; and East Fork of
Flat Rock 107. It appears from the correspondence
that friendly relations exist between White Water
Association and West River, Lebanon, Conn's
Creek, in Indiana, and Miami and Greenville, in
Ohio.
The following brief note from Elder Ezra Ferris,
of Lawrenceburg, Indiana, to Elder John M. Peck,
bearing date of September, 1845, is sufficient ground
for the statement that about this time in the history
of the White Water Association there was a radical
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shaking up and consequent division: "The White
Water Association is no longer an anti-effort body.
At their meeting last month they tested the ques-
tion-the antis, about one-fourth, withdrew." This
general conclusion is confirmed by the additional
fact that the Convention minutes for 1847, in the
list of Associations, give White Water means, and
also White Water anti-means. In the Convention
minutes for 1850 the White Water means reported
nineteen churches with 810 members; while the
anti-means part reported twelve churches with 384
members. Two of the most prominent ministers
connected with the old White Water Association
were Elders Wilson Thompson and Minor Thomas,
brief sketches of whose lives and labors here follow.
Probably no minister ever exerted a wider in-
fluence in the Association than did Elder Wilson
Thompson. He was a man of strong powers--men-
tal and physical. His mastery of logical processes
of thought, after he came to his maturity, was far
beyond the average; and he delighted in worrying
his antagonist in debate, for after the Socratic
method he would drive him to commit himself to
some proposition without seeing the inferences that
could easily be drawn; and then formulate these in-
ferences, to the dismay and defeat of his opponent.
He scarce ever let a challenge, expressed or im-
plied, from a representative of another denomination
than his own, pass by. His power of reasoning be-
came so well known that men were slow to antag-
onize his statements, whether made in the pulpit
