the ministry, particularly through the practice of itinerancy. When leaders ignored O'Kelly's protests, he and some sympathizers withdrew from the Methodist Church to form a body originally known as the "Republican Methodist Church." Upon extensive discussion and prayer, O'Kelly began to hold that the name implied a sectarianism that was quite at odds with what he felt were prescriptions from the New Testament prohibiting churches from identifying with mere human opinions. Thus, he and others arrived at the notion that their churches should bear simply the name of "Christian." Several hundred miles to the north in Vermont, a Baptist preacher by the name of Abner Jones began to refute the then-prevalent Calvinist dogmas within his fellowship. He led some of his followers out of his congregation into a new fellowship founded upon a platform similar to O'Kelly's, with a strong emphasis upon open communion and freedom of conscience. Later in the first decade of the 19th century, he and a New Hampshire pastor began publishing a newspaper for the movement, Herald of Gospel Liberty, reputed by some historians to have been the first general-interest religious periodical in the U.S. The movement progressed throughout New England, especially within those two states, as well as Maine and Massachusetts. Adherents of the Congregational "Standing Order" treated the new churches in a generally hostile fashion. Both movements were restorationist in outlook, and influenced the later Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement. That later movement produced several larger groups that continue to operate today: the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), the Christian churches and churches of Christ, and the Churches of Christ. The geographically disparate Northern and Southern wings of the Christian movement did eventually discover each other, and they formed a convention in 1820. At that time, they agreed on a general list of five (some scholars have claimed six) principles unifying the otherwise diverse congregations. The unity did not survive engrossing controversies over slavery and the ensuing Civil War. The "Christian Connection," as was also the case with American Protestant groups such as the Methodists, Presbyterians, and Baptists, split once again into Northern and Southern factions. The Northern group catalyzed the split, as many of its leaders, much like those of the Congregationalists, strongly denounced slavery. The Northerners used the schism as an occasion to legally take denominational form, in 1850. Despite the bitterness of the split, Christians in both sections reunited much sooner than did